tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77858144045246670772024-03-21T07:21:05.049-07:00Hercolano3ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΑΔΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09229186936689072946noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-9278326113415994222020-04-02T22:31:00.005-07:002020-04-02T22:49:14.450-07:00Herman H. Somers : «Jesus of Nazareth : his personality»<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/jesus.htm">http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/jesus.htm</a></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Dr. Herman H. Somers</span></span></b></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus
of Nazareth : his personality</span></span></h2>
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<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Introduction </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Method </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the voices Jesus heard </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Enoch, the Son of Man </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Paraphreny as an hermeneutic hypothesis </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The psychopathological criticism </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the resurrection of Jesus </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the chronology of the Apocalypse </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The authorship of the Apocalypse: who is
John ? </span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Reconstruction </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This study was published in
Dutch as: Jezus de Messias. </span>Was het christendom een vergissing ?
Antwerpen, EPO, and as:Toen God sliep schreef de mens de Bijbel. De bijbel
belicht door een psycholoog. <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Antwerpen,
Facet. </span></span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Summary</span></span></h2>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This psychopathological
study of the Gospel resulted in a revolutionary view on the personality of
Jesus and his life, the sources of his spirituality and ideas. The hypothesis
of paraphreny was able to explain a number of otherwise unexplained events. Did
Jesus survive the crucifixion ? Is the Apocalypse the first Christian document,
earlier than the letters of Paul ? Was the resurrection a myth? These questions
find an answer in this study. </span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Introduction</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">During about 2000 years the
story of Jesus has been told to generations of humans in the terms and with the
same words as those written in the Gospel. From the beginning however the story
and especially the personality of Jesus was also a subject to discussion first
by philosophers and theologians then by philologists and later by a number of
scientists. Nevertheless the personality of Jesus remained almost a complete
mystery. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About 1910 three competent
psychiatrists: Ch. Binet-Sangle, G.L.De Loosten (G. Lomer) and W. Hirsch
concluded after thorough examination of the texts, that Jesus was mentally ill
and suffered from paranoia. They were criticised by A. Schweitzer who alleged
that from an historical point of view most texts were dubious or certainly not
historic, e.g. the quotations from the Gospel of St. John, and from a medical
point of view that the alleged symptoms of paranoia or another mental disease
were misunderstood. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Three objections seemed
essential: first: there is no certainty about the historical truth of the
texts, secondly: what seems to us like a symptom was possibly a normal trait, a
cultural feature in that civilisation, thirdly: there are not enough sure
elements in order to found on them a safe judgment. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">From that time the debate
seemed closed. Only W. Lange-Eichbaum in his book: Genie, Irrsin und Ruhm
(Munchen, 1956) remembered that such problems once existed. Nobody seemed to
care about the question. </span></span><br />
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<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Method</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our study
proceeded from the following reasoning: If witnesses describe in a text
correctly (according to modern psychopathology) a number of elements (symptoms)
and if these symptoms are coherent and can be identified with a known syndrome,
while these witnesses ignored completely psychopathology and moreover intended
to prove a very different interpretation of the facts (a faulty one), there can
be no more doubt about the authenticity of the described facts. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The decision consequently
about the historicity of the facts will no more depend upon mere philological
criteria, but also upon psychopathological ones. Schweitzer supposes
incorrectly, that the philological criteria are the only ones that can decide
about historicity; in fact: the psychopathological control is more efficient
and safe. So the first objection of Schweitzer is eliminated. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The second objection of
Schweitzer, that symptoms may be misunderstood cultural features, is at least
superficial. It is very clear that the true pathological nature of the observed
symptoms is culture-independent, although they may be coloured by the cultural
background. Unadapted and strange behaviour as it is seen by extraneous
observers, is on account of this fact itself matched against the own cultural
background of the observers, but if this background is identical with the
background of the subject no cultural interference exists any more. Therefore
it is important to study the reaction of the own cultural milieu of the
subject. The pathological character however of the observed behaviour is in the
most cases a transcultural feature. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Unreasonable autistic
behaviour e.g. will never be considered to be normal in any culture. The
content of a delusion may be entirely the mirror of the background of a
subject, but the inflation of the Ego is not bound by that culture. Even if a
number of features of the behaviour of a subject may seem more or less normal,
they may become symptomatic, if they complete coherently the image and
structure of a known syndrome. So the second objection of Schweitzer is shown
to be not pertinent. If he contends that in the Gospel no sufficient symptoms
can be discovered in order to found on then a valid diagnosis, -- for Jesus
possibly the hallucination at the baptism in the Jordan and his self-conscience
according to Schweitzer himself (Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu. Tubingen,
1913, p. 44) could be discussed, but are not sufficient,- he forgets that
precisely an hallucinatory state and a pathological Ego-delusion are decisive
and sufficient symptoms, and that certainly, if they can be identified as a
known syndrome, and moreover are accompanied by a number of coherent typical
behavioural features. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Most objections against the
psychopathological analysis of the Bible are a-priori-objections: it is
contended e.g. that symptoms cannot be recognised after 2000 years or more,
that this is undue induction, etc. However such conclusions are eventually only
prudently to be drawn a posteriori after due examination of each case. Some
cases may be more favourable than others. As a general conclusion these
objections are certainly false. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A good example is the story
of the possessed child in the Gospel of Mark (9).</span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"> </span></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The possessed
child</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the Gospel of Mark a
child is described, possessed by the devil. The features, found in the text,
are all coherent with the syndrome of epilepsy and especially with an infantile
type: perinatal infection of the ear with inflammatory complications, causing
thrombo-phlebitis in the brain with the consequence of epileptic seizures and
deaf-muteness. In the text of Mark all symptoms are precisely described: the
child is mute, falls in the water and the fire (loss of conscience), utters a
cry and is agitated, has foam on his mouth, becomes like dead and after a while
is "cured". </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2000 years ago nobody was
aware of the true nature of epilepsy and the typical features in young
children. (Hippocrates described the epilepsy as a disease, but we can consider
that this was largely ignored in Judaea.) If a witness describes so correctly
the phenomena of an epileptic seizure in a child with all concomitant
circumstances, this fact has precedence upon all philological arguments and
proves authenticity and historicity. If moreover the witness mentions all these
features in order to prove his incorrect view of the facts, it is clear that
the testimony is beyond suspicion. If something depends on culture, it is the
faulty interpretation, in this case, that the devil causes the seizure. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">From this example a method
can be derived, which is no more subject to the objections of Schweitzer: the
search in the text for certain symptoms should precede any other consideration;
if a well-known syndrome can be identified, all other elements should be
coherent with this syndrome, finally the fact that the witness is unaware of
the scientific signification of the elements he mentions, will be considered as
decisive. Therefore this psychopathological control of old texts can decide the
questions about the historicity of the facts almost with certainty. If this
method is applied to the Gospel, it will be possible to settle the questions
about the personality of Jesus. If these texts unanimously mention certain
symptoms and if these symptoms are structured coherently as a well-known
syndrome, and that notwithstanding the contrary intentions of the authors, it
can no more be denied that the observed syndrome is culture-free and
independent, all textual and philological criticism has to submit to that fact.
- </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">(Some methods of judicial
expertise can subsidiarily be applied, such as the criteria of U. Undeutsch
(Court-room evaluation of eyewitness testimony. Internat. Rev. Applied
Psychology, 33/1 (1984), p. 51-67) in order to decide about the truthfulness of
a testimony according to internal criteria). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As a consequence of this
methodological solution some former philological conclusions are to be re-examined.
It can be shown that a number of hypotheses about Jesus intended to solve
ununderstood texts of the Gospel and the Apocalypse. If one reads e.g. (P.
Benoit & M.E. Boismard, Synopse des quatre evangiles, II, Paris, 1972) that
in the story of the epileptic child two devils were mentioned: a mute one and
an epileptic one, and that therefore one can suspect that two different stories
were joined, it is clear that this interpretation is the effect of ignorance of
the infantile epileptic syndrome. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another example is the
usual interpretation of the possessed of Gerasa (Mark 5), who called himself a
legion of devils and wanted them freed in a herd of pigs. Many philologists see
this story as a concoction of two or three others, mixed with folklore (cf. Van
Iersel, etc.). The psychopathological examination of this text reveals a quite
different picture: the possessed of Gerasa shows all symptoms of a
schizophrenia with catatonic agitation. The story is quite realistic, inclusive
the delusion that he was possessed by a legion of devils. The text of Mark is
rather precise. The man suffered from a grandiose delusion: he was agitated especially
during the night, nude and crying he erred amidst the graves and mortified
himself with stones. Nobody could master him, he broke all chains. It is not
very strange, that such a lunatic persecutes crying a herd of pigs; they can be
accidented on the rocks. All these elements confirm the diagnosis of
schizophrenia. So there cannot be any more doubt about the historicity of the
facts. There is only one story, no folklore, nothing but a rather precise
report of a real encounter of Jesus with a schizophrenic patient, written with
the intention to show how Jesus had power over the devils. The witness intended
to prove a very different thesis than what he actually did. Indeed, in our two
examples: the epileptic child and the schizophrenic of Gerasa Mark has shown,
that Jesus did not have power over the devils because there were no devils, but
he thought there were and that he had special powers. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">From these two examples it
is clear how the psychopathological examination of these texts is capable to
explain them and to show directly their historical truth. </span></span><br />
<h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the
voices Jesus heard</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In the Bible numerous texts
mention the hearing of voices, especially the voice of God. Current exegesis
(Kittel, Theologisches Woerterbuch des Neuen Testaments, s.v.
"Phone") interbreeds these texts as metaphorical: hearing the voice
of God is simply the expression for a vocation by God. However in
psychopathology "hear a voice" is a current expression for an
auditive (sensory) hallucination. Often the voice heard is identified as the
voice of God. So the question is, if the voices heard by Jesus ( Baptism,
desert, Thabor) were hallucinatory ones as even Schweitzer suggests. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The narrative of the
baptism of Jesus shows a text-evolution. In the Gospel: as Mark says that Jesus
<i>saw</i> the Heaven opened, Matthew says that the heaven opened and that
Jesus <i>saw</i> a bird... Luke lays a heavy accent on the physical appearance
of a dove and eliminates any allusion to a vision, John adds the testimony of
John the Baptist, the latter saw the ghost... The text-evolution seems to
intend to change a subjective vision into an objective happening. Of course
Mark has always the most original version: Jesus saw the heaven opened, he saw
a bird, he heard a voice. This is the evidence, if one considers the complete
narrative of Jesus baptism and his stay in the desert. Psychopathological
investigation discovers in Mark, Luke and Matthew, regardless of the fact that
especially Luke adapted the original version, a number of well-known symptoms
of an hallucinatory state: hearing the voices of God and the devil, seeing wild
beasts (zoopsie), having the impression to fly (vestibular hallucination),
having visions of the <i>whole world</i>, suffering from anorexia (fasting). In
that light the vision of the Baptism also is certainly another manifestation of
this hallucinatory state: a well-localised (heavenly) vision, seeing a light
(opening of heaven) , of a bird, the hearing of a voice, communicating a
grandiose genetic message (you are my beloved son), a voice speaking in the
second person as hallucinatory voices often do. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The whole picture is
coherent with regard to the psychopathological symptoms: in the text one finds
a correct description of a delusional hallucinatory state. Moreover the Gospel
mentions also circumstances, which are coherent with this pathology; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">1ø the problematic origin
of Jesus: he was the child of an unknown father. According to the Jewish
tradition Mary was a hoar and Jesus' father was Panthera, a roman soldier. According
to the Christian tradition, there was no human father, Jesus was directly
conceived as a Son of God. According to less mystical interprets he is simply
the son of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Examining the testimonies none of them
is very probable. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The first one was never
confirmed and of such banality, that it hardly could have made problems. How
many girls in Jerusalem had intercourse with Roman soldiers ? How could it have
been concealed so well to Joseph ? The second one is clearly a mythical one,
intended to conceal the truth and imagined in order to show for the primitive
Church that Jesus was born as a future Messiah. The third one is also improbable:
the testimonies are too precise about the events at the conception. Why imagine
an angel, the hesitations of Joseph, the visit to and stay with Elizabeth
(concealing for the normal neighbourhood that Mary was pregnant). The fact is
that Mary according to the Protevangelium Jacobi denied absolutely that she had
intercourse with somebody. She kept that secret. Also for Jesus. Jesus therefore
was a child begotten by an uncertain father. According to normal psychology his
stepfather never accepted him as his true son. Jesus was left with the painful
problem: Who is my father ? How can I find him ? How can I communicate with him
? His mother told him that God directly begot him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In search of his identity
he had only the hints of his mother to search in the Bible. The problem is a
genetic one and well known in this syndrome: the genetic delusion is common. A
lot of patients are convinced that their father is not their natural father;
they think or pretend that they are the son or daughter of a king, a prince or
another famous person. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2° the prodrome of the
crisis is mentioned in the Gospel. The twelve-year old Jesus remains in the
Temple questioning the scribes (of course about the Son of God), indicating how
he is yet obsessed by this problem. His response, ice-cold, to his mother
signifies: how could you ignore that I should be in the house of my father ? This
response reveals quite clearly the revolt of an intelligent boy and his
fundamental incertitude. Could it be that he was really directly the Son of God
? At this moment he wants clarity, although there is still doubt, the delusion
is growing. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">3° the emotion at the
baptism. It is common that the eruption of a crisis happens in an emotional
turmoil. All witnesses mention a discussion about the Baptism between John the
Baptist and Jesus. According to the Gospel of the Hebrews, wherein a fragment
mentions another version of this discussion: Jesus refused to be baptized,
although his family urged him, finally he gave in. This latter version is more
probable: why should Jesus want to be baptised ? He did not feel he had sinned.
How could the Son of God be a sinner ? Jesus was upset when he came to the
Baptism, according to both versions. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">4° the later identification
with the Son of Man (Enoch and Daniel) and the Servant of Yahweh (Isaiah). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is also common in this
syndrome that the delusion evolves according to a logical process: from the Son
of God to Son of Man, servant of Yahweh and King of Israel (Messiah). The
integration of all these elements is an effect of the <i>loose</i>, but
nevertheless almost logical thinking process. In a normal mind the concept of
Son of God is distinguished from that of Son of Man and Servant of Yahweh, or
King of the Jews. For the abnormal mind the basic fact or delusion to be
begotten by God himself and therefore to be the Son of God implies that this
has to be realised somehow and somewhere. The Son of Man is also a son and
receives power and fantastic attributes from God, directly, so he can only be
the Son of God, who receives such power. The <i>loose</i> conclusion is
evident: Jesus is also the Son of Man (although also Enoch proclaimed himself
the Son of Man). Such loose and more or less illogical thinking feeds the
evolution of the delusional system. Nobody can deny that it is impossible to
give an acceptable explanation for all these extravagant features outside the
pathological domain, because all these mentioned symptoms are quite common in
hallucinatory crises. It would be naive to ascribe each of them to a special supernatural
intervention of God. Contemporary theology (e.g. E. Schillebeeckx) ascribes
these stories to the imagination of the primitive church, which wanted to
glorify Jesus. Why should however the Church invent a number of stories, which
caused nothing but difficulties ? E.g. why should the Son of God be baptized ? Why
should he be tempted by the devil, and especially with such extravagant
temptations ? Why should he fast during 40 days ? Why should he see wild beasts
? It is quite inconceivable that the primitive church invented such strange
stories for the glorification of Jesus. On the contrary the primitive Church
tried to interpret and to adapt the primitive story in order to demonstrate the
divine origin of these phenomena. From a hallucinatory visionary state she made
objective supernatural events; but she was sufficiently ignorant so that she
could not mask the pathological background of the events she told. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The pathological
interpretation of the Baptism of Jesus is confirmed by the presence of an other
misunderstood story: the transfiguration on the mount Thabor. Theologians ask
why the Gospel tells a glorification of Jesus before his resurrection. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This seems illogical. However,
if one accepts the psychopathological interpretation of the story of the
Baptism, there is no mystery about his transfiguration. Then it is very clear
that Jesus had another hallucinatory crisis. He heard the voices of Eliah,
Moses and his Father. He had a vision. In the testimony of Mark (9, 2-10) there
is some contradiction: while it is contended that Eliah and Moses appeared,
only Jesus is described and it is said that finally the apostles saw nothing
but Jesus. Of course the sleeping apostles wake up hearing Jesus speak with the
voices he heard; he was pale and in an ecstatic state. The apostles did not
know what to say to him. The story ends as a hypnotic session: they are
searching to hear or to see something, they saw nothing, but Jesus alone. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This interpretation is
corroborated by a third crisis, only related by John (12,28) . Jesus sitting on
an ass made his royal entrance in Jerusalem. He heard the voice of his Father
saying: I have glorified and I shall glorify my Name. There are only two
possible interpretations for these texts: or it are true historical reports
about pathological symptoms with an interpretation due to the faith of the
primitive Church, or these texts are mythical stories, invented by the
Primitive Church without any historical foundation. The second interpretation
has become common in the Bible-courses as an effect of the Bultmann-doctrine,
which insists on the mythical character of the Gospel and the necessity to demythologise
in order to discover its true message. This second interpretation disregards
the fundamental problem: who was Jesus really, not mythically. The first
interpretation is left as the only one, which is able to discover the true
personality of the historical Jesus, because it is issued from a method of
scientific control of the text.</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter 1: The
Gospel of infancy</span></span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is important to see the
essential difference between the Gospel of Infancy and the baptism-Thabor
episode. Most biblical students see the Gospel of Infancy as a mythical corpus
in the New Testament and they mention numerous reasons. First there are the chronological
contradictory data. According to Matthew Jesus should be born (between 6 and 4
B.C.) during the reign of the great Herod, who died in 4 B.C.; the census which
according to Luke, obliged the parents to travel to Bethlehem, was executed by
Quirinius, who according to the precise indications of Flavius Josephus, the
Jewish historian, became procurator of Syria in 7 A.D.., i.e. 11 to 12 years
later. Furthermore the beginning of Jesus public life, when he was about thirty
years, is situated by Luke (3,1) in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius (1
October 27-30 September 28). According to that indication Jesus should be born
in 4-3 B.C . The historians never solved these difficulties. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Secondly: the divergence
between Matthew and Luke is striking. For Luke an angel appears to Mary and to
Elizabeth. For Matthew each event is predicted in the Old Testament; for Luke
the quotations of the O.T. are replaced by occasional prophecies by Hannah and
Simeon. For Matthew a star appears, magicians come, there is a flight to Egypt
and a killing of innocents by the great Herod. For Luke there are only
shepherds, angels and music, the circumcision in the Temple and a simple return
to Nazareth. He does not mention Egypt, or the Innocents. In the Protevangelium
Jacobi another series of divergent elements can be found. Herod kills Zechariah,
while John is sought for; there is no star, no magicians, no prophecies, only
the angels and their message to Mary and to Elizabeth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Thirdly: the only elements,
which all witnesses have in common are: 1° the exceptional pregnancy of Mary,
2° the hesitation of Joseph, 3° the birth of Jesus, 4° the exceptional sphere
of wonders. Each witness surrounds these historical events with a scenery of
marvellous elements of his own. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Fourthly: whatever the
witness, the given details are typically feminine notwithstanding the masculine
elaboration. Typically feminine are: the attention to what people say, for
gifts, for visits, for the emotional reactions of the fiancé, the niece. Typical
masculine e.g. is the elaboration of Matthew: the narration of each event is rigorously
closed with a quotation of the Bible. Typical is also the elaboration of Luke:
he omits a number of marvellous elements (the star, Herod, the visit of the
magicians, the appearance of the angel to Joseph); he replaces them by the more
credible visit of the shepherds; he omits the quotations of the Bible, but
replaces them with the occasional prophecies of Hannah and Simeon. Typical for
both is the sphere of wonders (signs in the heaven versus heavenly music,
angels), a great historical context( (a roman census versus Herod and a flight
to Egypt) and the glorious role for the mother to give birth to a future king
of Israel. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Now three positions are
possible: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">1° assert that all these
elements are literally true, even when contradictory; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2° assert that all those
elements are purely mythical without any reference to reality. In that case the
whole Gospel of Infancy is an entirely pseudologic construction; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">3° or submit to a
psychopathological examination the different texts and establish the facts that
there is a common source for all stories and particularly a feminine one,
secondly that the majority of elements are due to imaginative <i>loose</i>
construction (mythic), e.g. the <i>prophecies</i> are not even exact allusions.
It is common opinion among exegetes that this mythic scenery can be dated after
the Resurrection of Christ, when in the primitive Church questions arised about
his origin. As it was due, all signs had to be present that Jesus was the
future Messiah. As there was a Hellenistic church and a Jewish church, so there
was a Jewish version (Matthew) and a Hellenistic version (Luke). For the Jews
Jesus had to be predicted by the prophets, for the Hellenistic people the credibility
had to be ensured by a more common course of events. Even in this mythical
context some fundamental data may occur, which are based on real facts. As the
indications about the census of Quirinius, about Herod, about the descent from
David, about the journey to Bethlehem (according to the Protevangelium Jacobi
Joseph and Mary dwelled in Jerusalem) may be false, it is not impossible that
Jesus was born in the period that Herod Archelaos succeeded to his father in 4
B.C. This was a period of revolutionary agitation in Jerusalem. Is it
unthinkable that the murder of the Innocents goes back to this period, and that
Joseph and Mary, as probably a lot of people, escaped from Jerusalem to safer
surroundings as Bethlehem. In that context and in accordance with the most
probable chronology Jesus was born during the flight from Jerusalem. That there
were also later some cruelties by Roman soldiers in Bethlehem is also probable.
</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">According to the Jewish
tradition Mary was a hoar and the father of Jesus was Panthera, a Roman
soldier. There are however some unresolved questions: how is it possible that
from the beginning there is a supposition that Jesus could become a king in
Israel ? This seems quite unrealistic, if Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier.
Things may change if one hypothesizes that actually his father was a prince,
named Herod Archelaos, a name which evokes the word Archangelos, who became in
4 B.C. successor of the great Herod and who was known for his unrestrained
sexual behaviour. Is it unthinkable that a prince said to a girl, that her son
could become a king ? We will never know. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As it had to be shown to
the many new adepts of the primitive church, who became curious about the
origin of Jesus, that he really was born as the Messiah, the inferior
conditions of his birth had to be overcompensated: loose virginity outside
marriage to give birth to an illegitimate child in very bad conditions (flight
to Bethlehem) had to be changed in a direct divine intervention, a virginal
conception, a birth of a future king with the presence of royal magicians,
shepherds, angels, heavenly signs and prophecies. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">About the mythical
character of this Gospel of Infancy there is a consensus of exegetes: a
fantastic scenery was elaborated in order to mask the inferior conditions of
birth. It is impossible to understand truly these fantastic stories, if one
does not reduce them to their historical origin: a woman, the mother of Jesus
who had to play her glorious role as the mother of the Messiah.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pentecost</span></span></h2>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One finds also Mary in
another happening: Pentecost. Also this story is full of original commonplaces.
There was a great wind, tongues appeared and the apostles spoke several
languages. In the text it is said that the people thought, that it was the
language of drunken men. But Luke adds that all understood in their own
language, which seems rather contradictory. This contradiction together with
the character of commonplace of several features (the wind is a popular
representation of the Ghost; the tongues of light and fire: one should know
that the roofs of the houses were almost never entirely closed, so that rays of
the sun came through, and the phenomenon of excited and unclear speech
(therefore foreign language) throws doubt upon the authenticity of the
happening. It appears as a show, which had to overcompensate the subjective
uncertainty of the apostles. Of course they were anxious: would the people
believe that Jesus was resuscitated ? Could that project become a success ? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The story of the Ascension
is even worse. The evangelists who mention it ( not all even do !) relate the
whole event in only one sentence and they are not unanimous about the precise
location. Luke mentions two different ones: Bethany and Jerusalem. Nobody
describes clearly the place, the event, and the circumstances. Is it credible
that a witness of such a wonderful and glorious event could say nothing more
than <i>he disappeared</i>? It sounds as a very simple Good Bye. Why did they
not invite a number of witnesses ? Even the High Priest ? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Let us recapitulate the
arguments: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">1° the Evangelists are
witnesses who try to defend the thesis that Jesus returned to heaven; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">2° according to the
criteria of courtroom evaluation of witnesses (U. Undeutsch, Courtroom
evaluation of eyewitness testimony. Intern. Rev. Applied Psychology, 33/1
(1984), p. 51-67), these are clearly false with regard to the way of
disappearance of Jesus. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">3° the only historical fact
is that about Jesus nothing is said any more: he disappeared definitively as a
living person. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But if this testimony is
false, the question arises: if Jesus lived, whereto did he disappear ? Because
the Ascension took place before Pentecost, this last event has to be
interpreted in the light of the former: if Ascension is mythic, Pentecost was
also. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It should be noted that
angels appear at all difficult moments: the conception, the birth of Jesus, the
resurrection, the Ascension. The Holy Ghost explains the conception of Jesus
and the conception of the Church. The structural analysis reveals a systematic
trend: a thematic thinking: when there is a difficult situation a myth with
angels or Holy Ghost is masking the truth. So there is a constant mythological
activity, why not say <i>mythomanic</i>, not in a true pathological sense, but
in a larger one. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Exegetes use the term <i>post
paschal glorification</i>, indicating by that terminology that all these
mythical stories were <i>invented</i> by the Church and are to be classified as
devoid of historical foundation as purely literary products, only intended to
promote the faith in Jesus. This theory is unable to specify which were the
true historical events, masked by this mythology. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So the distinction should
be made between two aspects of the Gospel: the first one is the mythological: a
myth is build, a fantastic scenery, in order to show the divine nature of
Jesus, the second aspect is the transparency of the pathological trend, which
could not be masked because of ignorance (Baptism, Tabor, etc). The first has
been adequately recognised by the exegetes, the latter has been ignored.</span></span><br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter II: Enoch, the Son of Man</span></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus calls himself the Son
of Man. According to the voices he hears: he was also the Son of God. In order
to understand this complex psychological situation, one has to be familiar with
the cultural background, as well as with the psychopathological one. The Book
of Enoch written about 150-100 B.C. by a Pharisee has been a fundamental
contribution to the messianic conception of Jesus and his disciples. The Book
of Enoch (F. Martin, Le livre d 'Henoch, traduit de l'Ethiopien. Paris, 1975)
contains several parts, which at first sight seem quite disparate. The central
and most important one is where Enoch tells his visions about the Son of Man,
who will come to destroy all bad people. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Enoch contends to have
received the revelation of all mysteries of Earth and Heaven, to have visited
the universe, accompanied by angels, and most important, that he himself is the
Son of Man. Therefore it is not doubtful that the Book of Enoch contains the
visions of a paranoid schizophrenic (with all typical features of schizophrenia
as Karl Jaspers described them (K.J. Jaspers, Algemeine Psychopathologie,
Berlin, 1848/5th ed.). It are these visions, which are at the base of the
concepts of Jesus and his disciples. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Not only is Enoch explicitly
mentioned (Jud.) in the New Testament, but also a number of expressions are
simply borrowed from him. And not only the expressions, but also the whole
essential concept of the coming Son of Man with whom Jesus identifies himself,
although the authentic Son of Man is Enoch. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">However the voice did not
say to Jesus: you are the Son of Man, but: you are the Son of God. he thematic
Son of God is essential in the story of the conception, of the birth, of the
temple-episodes (12year old Jesus and the merchants), in the baptismal and the Tabor-vision.
As some kings were sometimes called Son of God, never they pretended to be the
physical sons of God, as Jesus did. The son-of-God theme is clearly the
fundamental one: the voices confirm that title. The concrete content of such
condition is the problem, which preoccupies Jesus in the desert: could he
become a Roman Emperor ? Could he transform stones in bread ? Could he
precipitate himself in the air ? Jesus of course had to consult the Bible about
his condition. There he found the King, the Messiah and the Son of Man. Ever it
was predicted that the Son of God would come, so if he himself was the Son of
God, he was predicted as the Son of Man. And this Son of Man was clearly
described by Enoch. Once he was convinced, it became clear to him that now his
reign was coming, because soon he would come on the clouds of Heaven. And then
he announced the Reign of God, implicitly his own. He keeps this secret,
because it was impossible to declare to the people that soon he would be the
Master of the whole world for eternity. After a while it became a problem to
him how he should enter in his glory. At the mount Tabor he heard the voices
that convinced him, that he was also the Servant of Yahweh, who had to suffer
and to die before entering in his glory. With Moses and Eliah Jesus talked
about his dead in Jerusalem because that was the way. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus is convinced, that
all texts of the Bible point to him because he is the Son of God. In Jerusalem
he has to make his entrance on an ass <i>as Zechariah predicted</i>. Before his
judges Jesus was silent, he had to be the Lamb of Isaiah, except when he was
asked who he was: he affirmed that he was the son of God, the Son of Man, the
King of Jews, the Messiah. One sees clearly the loose logical evolution of a
genetic delusion (to be the son of God), accompanied by a hallucinatory state. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It cannot escape from the
attention that the father-incertitude in Jesus was the fundamental problem,
that provoked the genetic content of his delusion: finally to be the Son of
God. The genetic content of a delusion is quite typical, as has been said, as a
symptom of paraphrenia, when accompanied by some rare hallucinations. Also
typical are the rational elaboration of a system and the absolute character of
the voices: there cannot be doubt about them and about what they say to him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The purely pathological
elements are the progressive inflation of the Ego, the specific elaboration of
the delusion, the interpretative delirium (all texts point to him) and the
hallucinatory state. So, against Schweitzer it has been shown that although the
content of the delusion is due to the cultural background the specific
pathological elements are culture-free. </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter III: Paraphrenia as an hermeneutical
hypothesis</span></span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If paraphrenia is accepted
as a hypothesis, then this hypothetical solution can be used for the
interpretation of a number of texts, which at the first view may appear
strange, but not clearly symptomatic. It can be used also in order to find the
true sense of texts, which are not understood up to this day. If most of these'
texts manifest themselves as coherent with the hypothesis, while otherwise they
remain problematic, one can safely adopt the hypothesis. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The paraphrenic patient has
some marked characteristics, other than the rare hallucinations and the
delusional state, e.g. : </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">he shows a great hostility
against those who contradict him; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">one finds also a familial
rage, as the family contradicts him; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">sometimes he shows autistic
behaviour, autistic in the sense that the rule for judgment and action is not
reality, but his subjective will; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">he is subject to an
interpretative delirium, he interprets a number of events and utterances as
pointing to him and to his delusion; </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">often he conceals his
conviction, keeps his delusion secret and temporises. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All these typical features
can be found in the Gospel. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A. Jesus threatens
Bethsaida, Capernaum, Jerusalem, because they did not believe him. When the Son
of Man comes with his heavenly powers, all those will be killed, who did not
believe, and even all kings and mighty men; anything will be destroyed. Jesus
insults the Pharisees, because they criticize him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">B. Jesus specially is angry
with his family, which tried to impede his predication. A number of logia are
directed against the family. One cannot find one friendly word especially for
his mother. <i>These are my mother and my brothers, who accomplish the will of
God</i> (Mc 3,35). The disciples of Jesus should hate their father and their
mother (Lc. 14,26), because the true enemies of man are his family (Mt 10, 35).
(Cf. also: Mc 11.30; Mt 10,35, Mc 13,11, Mt 13,11). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">C. The episode of the
fig-tree (Mc 16,20-25; Mt 21,18-22) is especially revealing. It is completely
illogical to want fruits outside the season; the aggression against the
merchants in the temple (Mc 11,15-17; Mt 21,12-13; Lc 19,45-46), where Jesus
objected to the transportation of any object is also a very strange event. Merchants
had a function in the religious practice of that time. The animals, which they
provided, were essential for the sacrifices. And, moreover, the transportation
of any object seems a quite neutral activity. So it is unreasonable to expect a
total absence of merchants and their activities in the Temple, where sacrifices
had to be held. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">D. Jesus tries to realize
some utterances of the Old Testament, which he calls prophecies and thinks that
they point to him, so is the Zechariah-prophecy: <i>The king comes sitting on
an ass...</i>. Therefore he makes his entrance in Jerusalem, sitting on an ass.
He tries also to realize the Servant of Prophecy-prophecy (Is. 53). He thinks
about himself as the Son of Man, <i>predicted</i> by Daniel and Enoch. This
interpretative delirium rules the activities of Jesus and his total behaviour:
he preaches the coming reign of God (implicitly his own); he is eager to enter
in his Glory and to come with power. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">E. It has not been very
well understood by exegetes, why Jesus keeps secret his identity and imposes
the secret to his apostles. For the people he remains a Prophet, announcing the
coming reign of God; for the disciples he is the coming Son of Man, the Son of
God. Officially he reveals that secret only before the High Priest, when
explicitly asked about. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This behaviour is typical. As
Jesus cannot realize immediately his delusion, he temporises: the Son of God
will come soon, but later. In Cana he temporises: his hour had not yet come; in
the storm in the boat he sleeps, probably waiting till the storm quiets down. The
conclusion of this short review is that one can find a number of typical traits
of the paraphrenic mental disease in the Gospel. It can be shown that
paraphrenia is a good hermeneutic hypothesis, as it can shed light on a number
of texts. </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter IV: The psychopathological criticism</span></span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Historical criticism of
texts up to this day has been almost exclusively founded on literary criteria. Nobody
seemed to think about cases, where psychopathology could help. As it can be
seen from the preceding examples, psychopathology is a science, which can be
invoked with success if strange, incomprehensible behaviour is described in the
texts. The question has to be raised however: how sure are the results of such
an investigation ? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As has been said, if all
symptoms coherently are in accordance with a well-known syndrome, there can be
no more doubt about the historical truth of the described facts because it was
impossible in Hebrew antiquity to describe accurately and correctly what twenty
centuries later became known as a mental disease without having observed it. The
fact that can be shown is that in the Gospel an image is found of Jesus, which
is entirely coherent with the syndrome of paraphrenia, and that it is quite
sure that this was not the intention of the authors of the Gospel. Nothing
specifically divine or even superior is noted. Paraphrenia has to be understood
as a mental disease sometimes also classified in the category of paranoia and
opposed to schizophrenia. In opposition to the schizophrenic the paraphrenic
remains adapted to his milieu, has a coherent thinking and a well-organised
behaviour. Generally hallucinations are rare, but initiate a delusional state,
often with a grandiose genetic theme. The paraphrenic is very sensitive to the
opposition against his ideas: he is often full of resentment and hate. This is
exactly the image the Gospel has painted of Jesus. If miracles are the only
argument for the supposed divinity of Jesus, one must take into account that a
number of these are certainly pseudo-miracles (cf. the epileptic child '(Mc. 9)
or the possessed of Gerasa (Mc. 5)). The others are very suspect, if one does
not consider the fact that nor Jesus, nor the disciples were able to see the
difference between the end of a crisis and the end of a disease. With regard to
the exorcisms it is very clear that Jesus, as the Gospel attests, cannot impede
that the devil comes back (Mt 12,43-45). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Also the cases are to be
studied where Jesus refuses to do a miracle. In Nazareth e.g., for the
Syro-phenician woman, when Pharisees ask for. One should understand the
difficult position of somebody who has to do miracles and to heal the sick in a
village where everybody knows everybody. If there are true recoveries anybody
will know. Pseudo-recoveries have little chance. So Jesus refuses. Man could
also wonder why the Pharisees had to ask for a sign, if it was true that so many
miracles happened. One can suppose that some miracles were simply declarations
of Jesus that somebody was healed. From the ten lepra-patients only one came
back. The nine others were not declared healed by the priests of course. So the
miracles of Jesus cannot seriously be considered as a proof for divinity. Suppose
the Son of God really appearing on earth, would he need miracles of disputable
quality to prove his identity ? The whole story of the miracles supports the
hypothesis of paraphrenia and shows the magical spirit of these patients.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter V: About the Resurrection of Jesus</span></span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If one tries to conclude
logically, the hypothesis that Jesus was a paraphrenic excludes a resurrection
as understood traditionally. Meanwhile four witnesses relate this resurrection
and even quite vividly. So one has the choice: to deny any historical value to
these stories and to consider them as mythical just as the Gospel of Infancy or
to find out what happened exactly. And this is not possible by the method of
psychopathological criticism: there are no symptoms mentioned in the text;
however strange, all elements seem normal. Other methods are to be applied such
as the criteria of Undeutsch (cf. supra). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">According to Undeutsch the
clearest sign of falsity of a testimony is the presence of commonplaces. A true
witness mentions particular details, which caught his attention; he mentions
his emotions, even his faulty reactions. These criteria can help a lot in the
study of our witnesses: Mark tells that the Apostles did not believe the story
of Magdalene, who announced them that the grave was empty. John mentions the
fact that he arrived first at the grave, because he had run faster, but let
Peter enter first. These are vivid details. On the contrary Matthew and partly
Luke have an impressive collection of commonplaces: an angel appears, there is
light and thunder, or suddenly two men are present.... </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The conclusion therefore is
: Matthew and partly Luke falsified the true story; Mark, John and partly Luke
tell true events. So the grave was empty at the great astonishment of the
disciples. It is also true that Jesus afterwards met his apostles at Jerusalem
and in Galilee. Jesus survived crucifixion. If the hypothesis of paraphrenia is
accepted, this is the only possible conclusion, given the part of truthfulness
of the testimonies. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In that perspective some
details in the Gospel may become more important: 1° the attitude of Pilate, who
was not a friend of the Jews and was fond of ridiculing them; 2° the contacts
between Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea; 3° the <i>good</i> centurion who spared
Jesus; 4° the hasty end of the crucifixion and the restitution of the body to
Jesus' mother and to Joseph of Arimathea; 5° the new grave and the presence of
a young person (a servant). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One can suppose that Pilate
ordered to spare Jesus, so that he should not die and so that he could
resuscitate. Joseph of Arimathea could let a servant in the grave in order to
take care of Jesus. After three days Jesus was sufficiently healed in order to
appear and to visit some days later at night his disciples in Jerusalem. But he
had to escape to safer regions as Galilee, and from there to disappear
definitively. A new logical reasoning seems to imply that Jesus disappeared to
the desert or to Ephesus e.g. taking another name such as John. If the Apostles
wanted indeed to announce his resurrection, they had to tell were Jesus was. The
simplest way to get rid of that problem was the story of the Ascension. And
this story according to the criteria of Undeutsch is false. So there remains a
problem: if Jesus lived somewhere is, it probable that he did not leave some
trace ? Not at all. If he is a paraphrenic, it is highly improbable that he
would remain entirely quiet. If we want to discover Jesus, we have to look for
traces of paraphrenia. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And this is the remarkable
result. There exists a mysterious document, which is a pure expression of
paraphrenia: the Apocalypse of John. This mysterious text could reveal the
truth about Jesus.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter VI: About the chronology of the Apocalypse</span></span></h2>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Most exegetes date the
Apocalypse of John as a text written about 80 A.D. or even much later. The
arguments are the following: in the text are mentioned seven or eight kings of
Rome (emperors), there is an allusion to a great fire in Rome, probably in 64
under Nero (vaticinium ex eventu) and the number of the beast is 666, probably
the number of Nero (QSAR NRWN in Hebrew letters). Counting and beginning with
August, not taken into account Galba (68-69), Otho (69) and Vitellius (69) one
arrives at Domitianus (81-96). These arguments do not particularly shed light
on this mysterious text. Moreover they are in contradiction with this text. It
is said that five kings are fallen and that the seventh is not yet there, but
will not remain a long time. It follows that the Apocalypse has to be dated
during the reign of the sixth and that the cryptogram 666 reveals his name. According
to the former opinion Nero should be the sixth, but that is impossible because
in the list of the emperors he is the fifth. According to the text the
destruction of Rome should happen during the reign of the seventh, who cannot
be Nero. The solution that Domitianus is the seventh, or the eight is quite
unsatisfying, because he reigned not precisely a short period. One has also to
skip arbitrary Galba, Otho and Vitellius. The reason for this hermeneutic chaos
is the fact that a number of details were not understood very well, e.g. the
eight king who was one of the seven. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The method, which is
applied here, is centred upon these details, taking into account the typical
special mental processes, the <i>loose</i> construction, the symbolic, hermetic
and idiosyncratic style, the contamination of mental concepts and
representations. Notwithstanding these particular traits, some details may be
exact allusions, metaphors that should be identified. This identification
should proceed from an exact representation of the cultural background at the
time the Apocalypse was conceived. In the previous interpretation this exact
representation is lacking. It was forgotten that the name Caesar was not a
title of a function, but a proper name, it was forgotten that the list of
emperors we have now does not coincide with the succession of Caesars, that the
description of the fire of Rome (borrowed from Ezekiel) is entirely different
from the description of the real fire (Tacitus: an indescribable chaos in the
city) and an expression as : <i>the eight king who was one of the seven</i>
remained completely ununderstood. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Octavius, the eight, was
the original name of Octavianus Caesar Augustus, who was adopted by Julius
Caesar. Julius Caesar was murdered because he was suspected that he wanted to
become a king. And there existed also the legend of the seven kings of Rome. The
legend of these seven kings at the beginning of Rome is here projected to the
end. Rome will disappear during the reign of the seventh. (who will not reign a
long time). As the seventh has not yet arrived, the Apocalypse has to be dated
during the reign of the sixth, because five have fallen yet. As Octavius is the
eight, the seven are Caesars. The first one is Julius Caesar ( first king); the
second is also the eight: Octavius Augustus; the third Tiberius; the fourth,
often forgotten, Germanicus; who died poisoned and who possessed the <i>imperium
maius</i>; the fifth Gaius Caligula, the sixth Claudius and the seventh Nero. The
Apocalypse can be dated in 45-47 and not 90 or later. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There is a drake and two
beasts: The first beast has seven heads and ten horns, the second has only two
horns. Of course the first beast symbolized by these heads the seven kings of
Rome, one of them deadly wounded (Julius Caesar). The ten horns are the
governors of the ten provinces of the Roman Empire (the drake). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The drake gave power to
this beast (the imperial power) . The beast reigns 42 months : this is exactly
the period of the reign of Caligula who reigned from the 1st July 37 till the 21st
January 41 and who wanted to be worshipped as a god (<i>Zeus Epiphanes Neos
Gaios</i>, even in the temple of Jerusalem. The second beast has only two
horns, it decrees the worship of the emperors and the taxes; it reigns under
the supervision of the first beast, the emperor. This is clearly the senate of
Rome with the two consuls at the head. But the beast is also a man and this man
has the number 666. Written in Greek characters 666 = Chi Ksi, Digamma. Digamma
signifies 6, Ksi signifies 60 and Chi signifies 600. For digamma the
signification is clear: five kings felt, the sixth Caesar is there: so digamma
signifies the sixth; Ksi is the abbreviation of Kaisar, the Greek pronunciation
of Caesar; for Chi one has to remember that the emperors were Roman emperors:
600 = DC in Latin and that is Divus Claudius, as divus was the mode the emperor
was addressed. Divus was a title, which was object of mockery for Jews and also
for Romans (cf. L. Seneca, Divi Claudii Apocolocyntosis). This Claudius was
ugly like a beast, as said his own mother (Suetonius). One sees that this is a
mixture of allusions: the dead of Caesar, the reign of Gaius, and the reign of
Claudius. Probably the beast comes from the sea, because the battle of Actium
was at the origin of the power of the beast (August). By opposition the second
beast had to come from the earth. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The term beast takes probably
his origin in the physical appearance of Claudius. Seneca says that the gods
created his body when they were angry (Sen. Apoc. 11). It was completed by the
traits of the beast in Ezekiel ( with the face of a lion, etc. ). It is
situated in the Jewish-Roman conflict (taxes and worship), the symbolic short
period of the reign of Gaius, the symbolic cipher of Claudius. So one can
deduce the procedure of composition: the text is an agglomerate of historical
details, loosely unified by symbolic figures. The Apocalypse can therefore be
dated in the year 45, because this date is also concordant with the other
historical sources. In 49 Claudius banished the Jews from Rome, because they
were restless under the instigation of a certain Chrestos (Suetonius). If the
Apocalypse was known in Rome in 47, it is quite understandable, that the Jews
were in a revolutionary mood, not only because of the taxes and the worship of
the emperor Gaius, but also because they were instigated to set fire to Rome
and to refuse to pay taxes. It was a campaign of civil disobedience and
terrorism, severely repressed by Claudius. So Suetonius is right when he calls
the instigator Chrestos. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">According to Suetonius a
senator said to Nero that he wished that Rome would not be destroyed during his
reign. Nero answered that he wished that, because he hated the small streets of
ancient Rome and wanted to reconstruct it. So one can suspect that at that time
the prophecy was known. Afterwards Nero did not hesitate to arrest the
Christians as guilty for the fire of Rome (he let them burn themselves and for
the insult to the emperor they had to fight clothed with furs of wild animals,
because the apocalypse of course calls the emperors beasts. Anybody should
understand that. For the hypothesis that the Apocalypse has been written before
47 the strongest argument is the harmony of all historical sources and the fact
that they make sense. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The fact that Claudius is
described unanimously as a beast, as a monster by Suetonius, by Seneca and by
the apocalypse was also due to the fact that he suffered from a vigorous
head-and-hand-tremor, that he had an abnormal gait and a raw voice (Sen. Apoc.
5). Seneca is very explicit; he writes that Hercules had seen several monsters,
but not all ! His voice is said that of a sea-monster. Seneca accuses Claudius
that he condemned numerous people and one can understand the allusions in the
apocalypse to the decapitation of a great number of Christian Jews, ordered by
Claudius (Apoc. 20,4; 6,9; 18,6; 13,9 & 15; 16,6; 17,6; 18,24; 19,2; 20,4).
Those who obey to the laws of Rome are threatened to be condemned by Jesus and
to be tortured by fire (Apoc. 14,10) and by tumours (Apoc. 16,2). The saints
should persevere and refuse to pay taxes (take the mark of his name (the
emperor)) (cf. 13,17 : nobody can sell or buy, if he is not marked by the name
of the beast (who was on the coins) and die (14,12). There can be no doubt that
the Apocalypse instigated the Christians to civil disobedience, even when they
were sentenced to dead. The Christ is the instigator of the troubles at Rome,
as Suetonius wrote, and Claudius was radical in the repression. By capital
punishment and by banishment (49) he tried to dominate the troubles, which
found their origin in the hate of Jesus against the emperor who impeded him to
come with glory and reign over the whole world. (2 Tess. 2, 1-12). The Jews,
and especially the Christian ones, had not the sense of humour that
characterises the Roman spirit with regard to the deification of the Roman Emperors.
If one reads Seneca, one sees how Romans were full of mockery about these
deifications. Claudius is ridiculed as he wants to become a god, and finally is
condemned to be a slave, and the fundamental reason is that : <i>tam facile
homines occidebat quam canis adsidit</i> (Seneca, Apoc. 10,10) (he killed so
easy men, as a dog urinates). The real killer of Jews was Claudius. He was the
beast. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is remarkable that Paul
in its letter to the Romans (Rom. 13) tries to obtain submission to the
authorities and payment of the taxes (13,6). This letter should have been
written in 56, just after the dead of Claudius (54). As Seneca suggests, the
young Nero inspired some hope in Rome, also for the Jews who returned there. In
the main time Paul was in Rome as a prisoner. Probably Peter came also in Rome
and was there during the fire. If the Christian Jews set the fire to Rome, this
had to be prepared by Paul and Peter in great secret. Paul in Thess. 2, 1-12,
alludes to the thesis of the Apocalypse that Jesus cannot come back because he
is impeded by the antichrist: the Roman imperium. But the end will come soon,
even during the life of Paul (1 Thess. </span>4-13). <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The changed strategy : to pay taxes, to honour
Cesar, did not change the fundamental attitude and the hostility against Rome,
which was to be destroyed. The contradiction between the Apocalypse (not to pay
taxes, to die instead) and the doctrine of Paul and Peter can be understood as
an evolution, in the hypothesis that the principal author of the former
position was dead, and completely neutralised. If the hypothesis is accepted
that Nero and some senators knew that the destruction of Rome was predicted, as
Suetonius suggests, then of course during the ten years of Nero's reign there
was some rumour. Meanwhile everywhere the Christians were persecuted. The 1st
Epistle of Peter (1 Petr, 3, 13-17; 4,11-19; 5,9) mentions these difficulties
between 60 and 64. Peter also tries to obtain obedience to the emperor (1 Petr,
13; 4, 17). It is easy to distinguish two periods after 45, the presumed
publication of the Apocalypse: the first one a period of troubles at Rome and
else till 49, the banishment of the Jews; and a second period (45-64) where
Peter and Paul preach the submission to the Law, warning that the end is coming
soon. In the mean time Christians have difficulties and are criticised, they
have to behave prudently, they should not provoke reactions: that is the
doctrine of Peter and Paul and that is in contradiction to the doctrine of the
Apocalypse. This is a normal evolution, when there is sufficient repression:
outward behaviour normalises, but the inner rage remains. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The question can be raised:
If we suppose that Jesus' survival ended in 54, this fanatic revenge against
the emperor, who impeded Jesus to come in glory, ended also. It was possible
that Peter and Paul took over, and, because it would not be a long time before
Jesus would come back (<i>the times are now decisive</i> Paul writes to Timothy
(2 Tim., 3.1), it was not very useful to sacrifice a number of lives for the
taxes and to resist openly to the new Emperor. So they preferred the secret
subversion. Rome had to be destroyed, because it impeded the coming of Jesus. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The first Christians were
true anarchists; that has been completely forgotten. The period of ten years
before the fire is one of caution. But even after the fire the opposition to
Rome of the entire Jewish community was at its apogee. In 66 there was the
revolution in Jerusalem, and in Alexandria thousands were killed. From 67 till
135 several revolutions took place. Given the opposition between the doctrine
of Peter and Paul and the doctrine of the Apocalypse it would be extremely
improbable that the Apocalypse came later than the letters of Paul and Peter. In
the year 90 the taxes were yet more than 50 years old, the worship of the
emperor was an old tradition; the indignation could not be so fresh as when
Gaius prepared his statue for the temple of Jerusalem and when the commercial
taxes were new. The real sequence is: indignation, troubles, revolution,
repression, outwards submission, inner rage, secret subversion, revolution. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Apocalypse is therefore
the first document of Christianity: the oldest. In the light of these problems
one can ask if e.g. a logion of Christ: <i>Give Caesar...</i> has not been added
lately as a part of the strategy of the Church in order to obtain that the
Christians pay taxes. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The consequence of the
change in perspective is important. The Apocalypse is the bridge between the
real public life of Jesus and the letters of Paul, and later the Gospel as
texts. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">That the cited logion is
probably a later addition is strongly supported by the fact that (Lc. 22,2) in
the trial of Jesus before Pilate the accusation against Jesus is, that he
preaches revolution against Caesar, that he forbids to pay taxes and that he
pretends to be the Messiah, the King.. And this is confirmed by the
Apocalypse., which incites to revolution against Rome and Caesar in order to
burn Rome, and which forbids paying taxes (to take the mark of the beast). Luke
mentions simply the accusations without being conscious of course that the
Apocalypse contained exactly the confirmation of them. When the Gospels are
published Jesus is presented as a taxpayer and a loyal subject of Caesar, and
this is in accordance with the official strategy of the church. So we have to
admit that the historical Jesus indeed preached the revolution against Rome and
forbade to pay taxes, if not publicly, certainly to his disciples. In the
Gospel discussions about the subject are mentioned (Mc., 12. 13-17). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Apocalypse is certainly
the most primitive document. Is it also a paraphrenic document ? The general
opinion of the exegetes about the Apocalypse is that it is a literary work of
the genre of the apocalyptic literature (Ezekiel, Daniel, Enoch, etc.) , which
contains prophecies about the end of times, predicting catastrophes, with
visions, angels and cryptic, symbolic expressions, not always well understood
today. </span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">( M.J. Lagrange, Le judaïsme
avant Jesus-Christ, Paris, 1931 et id. , Le messianisme chez les juifs, Paris,
1909; E. Schillebeeckx, Jezus het verhaal van een levende, Brugge, 1975). the
psychopathological examination of the texts produces different results. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Ezekiel, Daniel and Enoch were
mental patients, schizophrenics and paraphrenics, showing all typical symptoms
of these diseases: receiving revelations, seeing visions, being the elected
ones, predicting catastrophes (Cf. K. Jaspers, l.c.). The Apocalypse is not an
exception. Characteristic for the Apocalypse is the megalomaniacal sphere, the
horrible aggressivity and the narcissism. Symptomatic are the loud voices,
crying, the symbolic, idiosyncratic, pedantic expression, the zoopsy (seeing
monsters and beasts), the hallucinatory state, the catastrophic predictions,
the typical systematic elaboration (Enoch, Ezekiel and Daniel were
assimilated). The abnormality of the mental processes can easily be shown: a
number of expressions are inspired by a great inflation of the Ego: glory and
power to him, omnipotence, anybody will see his power, he will destroy the
earth and all peoples, he is the son of Man. The narcissism is enormous: all
will adore him, anybody has to proclaim his glory because he alone has power
and wisdom (5,12) , he alone is worth to receive the glory, alone the Lamb is
worth to open the book with the seven seals, he is the king of the kings, the
Lord of the Lords. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All events are cosmic:
stars fall, angels occupy the four corners of the earth, thunder and lightning
and earthquakes accompany events; all voices are loud crying, some with the
voice of the thunder. All punishments are terrible: blood streams abundantly;
Rome will be destroyed in one hour or one day (18, 8-9), all kings, all
soldiers, all their horses will be eaten by the birds. The beast will be burned
living (that is why Nero burned the Christians living), all others will be
killed by the Christ himself (19, 17-21), all living beings in the sea will die
(16, 3), etc., etc. All these catastrophes are the effect of the anger of God;
Rome is described as the Great Hoar and the Roman Empire is identified with the
Satan himself. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">All this anger, all these
catastrophes are due to the fact that all others are supposed to be the enemies
of Jesus (the majority of the humanity did not even know who Jesus was) and
therefore all are guilty and should be destroyed. Only those who are the
elected ones will reign with the Christ for 1000 years. Those who died will
resuscitate, when Jesus comes back and reign also during 1000 years. (Cf. also
the predication of Paul: 1 Thess, 4, 13-19; cf. 2 Tess., 2, 1-12). This immense
irrational aggressivity is a consequence of the enormous inflation of the Ego. The
pathological character of these mental processes is, as had been said, well
known. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The hypothesis that the
source of this text is a megalomaniacal paraphrenic is the only plausible, if
one considers the original part of the content, opposed to the assimilated part
(the part borrowed from Ezekiel and others). N.B. that it is probable, as the
text suggests, that it has been written by a disciple, who is responsible for a
number of details and stylistic elements (it was certainly a Jew, because the
style is typical: a great number of conjunctions, much less particles) . One
could characterize the Apocalypse as the hymn of the wrath, of the anger and
the hate, exactly the contrary of the (later) doctrine of Jesus in the Gospel. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If our hypothesis is exact,
the Apocalypse reflects better the true mentality of Jesus than the Gospels,
which were written later. But even in the Gospels traces remain: the threats
against Chorozain, Bethsaida, Capernaum, Jerusalem reflect the same mentality. They
reflect the same rage of Jesus against those who do not believe him. And that
is the essential element : it contains the proof that Jesus was a paraphrenic,
who contended to be the Son of God. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The inhuman characteristic
of the Apocalypse, its bestial brutality, the irrational rage are a sufficient
proof of his origin: a pathological mind. Nothing in the Apocalypse is love,
mercy, all is self-glory, revenge, wrath, power, cruelty. The Apocalypse is in
strong contradiction with the doctrine of Paul and John and even with some
logia of Jesus in the Gospel. In the Gospel Jesus has been humanised in order
to make him more acceptable to the faithful. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As the studies of Bultmann
have shown, the primitive Church has modified, adapted a number of logia; a
clear example is the logion about the children and the reign of God. In the
Gospel of Thomas (R.H. Grant & D.N. Freedman, Het Thomasevangelie,
Antwerpen, 1960) some logia have been preserved which explain the pericopes of
the Gospel: to be as a child is to be asexual and free of sexual shame (log.
21-22). (Cf. also log 37 & 114: if you make masculine and feminine one). In
the canonical Gospels it is said also that in the heaven there is no marriage,
virginity is exalted just as in the Apocalypse. The theme is constant:
virginity, inhibition of sexual activity.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The authorship
of the Apocalypse: who is John?</span></span></h3>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A precise examination of
the style of the Apocalypse reveals: 1° as has been said, a typical Jewish,
not-Greek style such as an excessive use of conjunctions (kai) and a scarce use
of particles, 2° a non-Johanneic style as compared with the Gospel of John and
the Letters of John. </span><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;">(Cf. H.H.
Somers, Analyse statistique du style, Paris, 1962). </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As the content reflects authentic Jewish
feelings against the contributions and the cult of the emperor, the writer was
without doubt a Jew, who feels as all Jews at the time of Gaius and Claudius. Taken
into consideration that the text reflects also a paraphrenic symptomatology in
a later stage of the illness, the author had to be over thirty and more
probably over fourthly under the reign of Gaius. This Gaius was a contemporary
of Jesus. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is typical that an angel
has been sent to communicate the message to the servant named John (Apoc. 1,1)
But in 1, 9 this John had a vision and hears a voice and then he sees the Son
of Man, just as Daniel and Ezekiel saw him. In the vision there is a direct
communication. According to our criteria the angel is only there in order to
hide the truth. It is Jesus who speaks and orders to write to the churches in a
typical authoritative style: <i>He spoke with authority</i>, with the same
"I"style as in the Gospels and with the same expressions : <i>Those
who have ears to hear...</i>, developing the same themes: <i>Those who believe
in me</i> and <i>I shall come</i>. The other visions are attributed to John,
but at the end the angel comes back, and while the angel is speaking Jesus
speaks again: <i>I Jesus, I have sent my angel</i>. There is a constant osmosis
of the angel and Jesus. These inconsistencies together with the constant
observation that the angel is just there in order to conceal the truth, leads
to the hypothesis, that a secretary just noted the visions of Jesus and gave a
literary form to them. This scribe could have been John, but that is not
certain. These names are sometimes pseudonyms, just as in the Protevangelium
Jacobi. Given all these elements we can formulate the hypothesis that the inspiring
author of the Apocalypse was the surviving Jesus himself in a later stage of
his illness. With this hypothesis in mind the Apocalypse, formerly a poorly
understood text becomes a quite clear manifest of early Christianism. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">If somebody has numerous
pieces of an unknown puzzle, he sees when all pieces fit together and make
sense, what the image means: he is certain that the solution is correct. In the
case of the Apocalypse also, all pieces fit together. As we see the first part
of the life of Jesus as the beginning stage of the disease (the first crises),
the second part (the Apocalypse) as the later stage, we find a full-blown
hallucinatory state, a systematically evolved delusion and a narcissistic
vindictive Ego. It would be excessively marvellous that another person than
Jesus could have simulated so well a coherent image of a paraphrenic disease
with the same fundamental delusion, the same style of expression and the
perfect continuity of the Ego. The text itself is very explicit: It is the
Apocalypse of Jesus, written by John. According to the Gospel Jesus was in the
Heaven, therefore an angel had to come in order to communicate the message, but
this angel is soon obscured by the direct vision of Jesus. This inconsistency
means that the angel is only there in order to hide the real situation and to
give a literary form to the text. It is quite astonishing that the style of
expression of Jesus in the Gospels corresponds with the style of the
expressions of Jesus in the Apocalypse. As has been said the style of the
predication was characterised <i>as somebody who spoke with authority</i>, <i>I
say to you</i>. The same I-style can be found in the Apocalypse: <i>I shall
give you... I know...,I shall come.. , I shall confess..</i> (passim). There
are some other typical expressions, which are common: <i>These who have ears to
hear</i> (Mt. 13,9; 13,43; Mc 4,11), <i>I shall come as a thief</i> (Mt.
24,42-44; Mc 13,33), <i>I shall confess their name</i> (Mc 8, 38; Mt. 10, 32;
Lk. 9, 26), <i>I knock at the door</i> and <i>we will eat together</i>(Lk.
12,36; 22, 29-30; Jh. 14,23). Identical is also the egocentric point of view:
in the Gospel:<i>Those who remain faithful to me</i> ( Jh. 8, 31, 12, 44); in
the Apocalypse: <i>those who remained faithful to me</i> (Apoc. 2,3;2,13;3,8). The
same doctrine with regard to suffering and dead for the faith of Jesus: <i>he
who looses his life because of me</i> (Mc. 8, 35), in the Apoc. : <i>be
faithful till dead</i> (2,10; cf. 6,11; 13,9). The character of the
similarities is rather convincing: all these idiosyncratic features underline
the egocentric authoritative style, insisting on faith in Jesus till dead. It
is difficult to imagine that an independent author would have so well crystallised
the idiosyncrasies of Jesus in the Gospel and used them so naturally. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The expression <i>Those who
have ears to hear</i> is not so frequent in the Gospel (Mt. 13,9:13,43;Mc.
4,12), in the Apoc. this expression is used quasi-systematically. We cannot
suppose that this expression was so striking, that an independent author would
have imitated that expression so systematically. A number of letters of the
Apostles are known, there is none that is like the seven letters to the
churches, none of them is so extraordinarily filled with allusions to the
Gospel and the Old Testament, none of them is so extravagantly characterised by
an ego-inflated style. The suspicion therefore is that as well the Gospel as
the Apocalypse belong to only one inspiration. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The so-called literary
genre hypothesis does not hold: the Apocalypse is not a book that propagates a
view of the end of the times, with prophecies of catastrophes, etc. It is a
very personal account of the imaginary life of a paraphrenic. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Schizophrenics as Enoch,
Ezekiel, both authors of apocalyptic writings, have the revelation to be
elected by God; they understand suddenly all mysteries of the world, they
travel from one end of the world to the other, they are always at the centre of
an immense revolution or happening, they predict catastrophes. The delusions of
paraphrenics are generally more systematically evolved, but share often the
same cosmic dimensions. It is seldom understood by philologists that the
so-called literary apocalyptic genre is more a symptomatic process, typical for
mental disease. As most of these delusions are religious and genetic, it is
clear that their content was ready to be believed as the word of God. Mysterious,
grandiose, futuristic, these revelations seemed to contain higher divine truth
and so became holy books. In fact they were reports of the schizophrenic and
paraphrenic delusions of mental patients.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<h2 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Chapter VII: Reconstruction</span></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It is
tempting to try a reconstruction of Jesus'life after what has been found by
means of the psychopathological method. Some elements of course remain
hypothetical, but they are the best hypotheses, which remain after a thorough
investigation. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Herod, the Great, reigned
in Jerusalem. Zechariah was a priest, married to Elizabeth. Priests had easy
entry to the court of Herod. Zechariah and Elizabeth were well known at the
court. They had no children. Herod Archelaos, a young son of Herod, was sent to
Rome in order to achieve higher studies. When he came back Herod indicated him
as his successor just before he died. Meanwhile the young Archelaos had learned
to enjoy life and had a very busy sex life in Jerusalem. Mary was a young girl,
who dwelled at Jerusalem and was engaged to Joseph. One day she was pregnant,
just as her niece Elizabeth. The latter had to confess to Zechariah that the
child was not his. For the neighbourhood and the family of course no scandal
could be admitted. In order to make the birth of the child credible they had to
construct a scenery. Zechariah should have had a vision of an angel and become
mute; he should recover when the child was born. Nevertheless he did not give
the child his own name, not let him succeed as a priest to him. Mary meanwhile
knew that she was pregnant and she too had to render credible the fact that she
did not know whose child it was (Prot. Jac. 13,3). As the story of Elizabeth
worked so well, she had to invent a similar story and tell it to her fiancé,
who was not really convinced, but finally accepted her with her child. Herod
the Great died and Archelaos succeeded him. But he was rather young and the
Romans had to knock down one revolution after the other. Jerusalem was
continually a battlefield. It was just the moment that the pregnancy of Mary
was at his term. A lot of people sought safer surroundings in the neighbourhood
of Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph also were fugitives and they went to Bethlehem. There
in a stable Jesus was born. Exactly as John, he did not receive the name of his
legal father. As the troubles were going on, Joseph and Mary decided to settle
in Nazareth, a quiet town. In Nazareth Jesus grew up. He knew that he was not
the son of Joseph and his mother told him the story of the angel and the Holy
Ghost. As all young boys he was eager to understand who he was, who his father
was. As it was said to him that it was the Ghost of God, Prophecy himself, who
was his only father his curiosity grew and the Bible, which was read in the
synagogue, became the centre of his intellectual questioning. And then came the
day that Joseph and Mary decided to travel to Jerusalem. Jesus was twelve years
old. The Temple was the house of his father. He would see it now. The Temple
made an immense impression on him. There he found the Pharisees and the
Scribes: he could ask them questions. All questions of course were centred upon
the theme of the Son of God and related expressions. Joseph and Mary had no
special attention for him. How could it be explained that it lasted almost two
days before they began to miss him ? He himself was completely insensitive for
the possible pain he caused to his parents, while remaining in Jerusalem. How
did he live these three days ? He had to eat and to sleep... After three days
Joseph and Mary found him in the Temple. His response to his mother was
ice-cold: <i>You could know that I had to be in the house of my father</i>. With
this answer he rejects his mother and especially his foster-father. <i>They did
not understand</i> says naively the Gospel. Of course Jesus was in search of
his identity; he knew that Joseph was not his father; from now on this
identification problem becomes the fundamental theme of a growing delusion. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus became an adolescent
with an immense interest for the Bible, especially the prophetical books. He
was in search for confirmation and clarification. More and more he became
convinced that the Son of God was also the coming Messiah, the coming Son of
Man and that it could be himself. Sometimes he told about his ideas to his
family. They became anxious. At that time John the Baptist began his
predication. As somebody who was particular was clearly a sinner, Jesus' family
wanted him to be baptised by John in remission of his sins, so that the devil
could be driven out. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus did not want to be
baptised. He was not conscious of sin. And his growing conviction to be the Son
of God could not be seen by him as a sin. After a discussion with John the
Baptist, who was aware of the problem and in an emotional turmoil Jesus acceded
to Baptism. At the moment, that he, nude, came out the Jordan, he had a vision,
a true hallucinatory vision: he saw a light in the heaven, he saw a bird, and
he heard a voice. The voice confirmed to him: <i>You are my beloved son,</i> He
was not a sinner, he was the beloved Son of God. He had seen himself the Ghost
of God coming to him. In this crisis he was conducted in the desert by the
relatives and they nursed him during a period of one to two months. One crisis
after the other came: he heard the voice of the devil, he saw wild beasts, he
did not recognize his relatives: he saw them as angels, he had the impression
to fly and to see the whole world, while the devil was tempting him. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Convinced that he was the
son of God, he wanted to change stones in bread, he wanted to be the master of
the whole world, the emperor of Rome, he wanted to fly in the air, he wanted to
inform the whole people of Israel. He had to play his role, and that was not
simple. The problem was: how ? As he identified himself with the coming son of
Man, as Enoch described him, he had to temporise and to wait till the times
were ripe. Meanwhile he could announce the good news: the reign of God had come
(because he thought: I am the coming Son of Man and I am here now). He did not
communicate that part of the message to the people. He holds that secret for
himself in a mood of shame and caution. Then he became calm, and he was
certain, he came to Galilee and began to preach. The family was frightened. They
wanted him home and they tried to warn people for him. The priests considered
him as a mentally ill person and said that he had a devil. But Jesus, living
with some fishermen who found their food in the Lake of Genesareth, renied his
family and had some success as a prophet. He found some disciples who followed
him. He had to do miracles, to drive out devils. Of course each event, which
was wonderful, was sufficient to be considered as a miracle, even
pseudomiracles as the end of a crisis (epileptic child). One can suspect that
some were simply a mise en scene by Jesus himself or his entourage. Meanwhile
he had financial difficulties: he could not feed his disciples. He had to
remain round the Lake of Genesareth, he wanted invitations; sometimes the
disciples were hungry and they found in the fields or in the orchard what they
needed (the fig-tree). Financial aid came from women. He preached the
renunciation of all possessions in order to obtain sufficient means for him and
his disciples. But he himself was eager to enter in his glory. The question was
how. He prayed alone in the mountains, and finally he found the solution: the
servant of Prophecy of Isaiah had to suffer and to die before to enter in his
glory. Clearly this was the way. This idea was confirmed by the voices at the
mount Tabor, where a new hallucinatory crisis happened. He spoke with Eliah and
Moses, and the voice of his Father confirmed: he had to go to Jerusalem in
order to suffer and to die. He would provoke this end by entering Jerusalem as
a king, just as Zechariah predicted, sitting on an ass. He knew that he would
be arrested and he prepared himself and his disciples for that event. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The resuscitation of
Lazarus had to confirm his power. Anew he had a hallucinatory crisis. While
entering Jerusalem, he heard the voice of his Father, while he was crying that
now the great moment was there, and the voice of his Father confirmed. For the
High Priest and Pilate he wanted to realize the Isaiah prediction: <i>he has
been silent as a lamb</i>. So he did say nothing, except when directly the
critical question was posed: are you the Son of God , and he adds: <i>I am the
son of Man, coming on the clouds of heaven</i>. Also before Pilate he affirms
that he is the King of the Jews, a heavenly king. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Pilate was convinced that
Jesus was not harmful. Probably he heard from his wife and also from Joseph of
Arimathea, Jesus' council and lawyer at the request of the mother, and from
others more details. He was also ready to tease the Jews. On the cross he let
write: the King of the Jews. But he did more, he ordered the centurion to spare
Jesus and to end the crucifixion early. He ordered to give the body immediately
to the mother and to Joseph of Arimathea. He wanted that Jesus could
resuscitate, as he had said. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus was taken from the
cross and immediately transported to a new grave, where he could receive the
care he needed so badly. A servant of Joseph was let there and the grave was
closed. After three days Jesus was sufficiently healed, that he could walk. Mary
of Magdala and the other women were the first to find the grave empty. They ran
to the apostles, but they could not believe her. Than Peter and John ran to the
grave. Two disciples came with the news that they recognised him. And finally
Jesus came himself during the night. He was meagre and pale and had a ghostlike
appearance, but he ate fish and spoke to them. He communicated them that he
would return to Galilee and that he would encounter them at the Lake of
Tiberias. He had to hide himself, because of the danger that he would have been
recognised by the Jews. He could not remain in Jerusalem. He went to Galilee
and found at the border of the Lake his disciples. For them it was true that he
would resuscitate after three days. In Galilee he could not remain a long
period. His departure had to be managed. He spoke to them and disappeared,
first to the desert, later to a foreign country. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The apostles returned to
Jerusalem. This was a too beautiful occasion to confound the Pharisees. With
Mary, Jesus' mother, they planned the action. They were witnesses that Jesus
died and resuscitated: so he was the son of Man, who would come back with
power. But if they said that he was resuscitated , they had to say where he
was. He should be in the heaven, so nobody would search him or suspect his
presence in the desert. They found Ascension a good solution. They were
enthusiastic, but equally anxious. Would the people believe that ? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">They had to invent a
scenery, they would preach to the people. They wanted a show: the Holy Ghost,
the wind and the tongues of fire and languages. And they spoke to the people,
some said they were drunk, others listened and Peter went to the Temple and
preached, he wanted also a reputation of doing miracles... In order to live
they obliged anybody to give all their money to them; who did not, was killed
(Annas and Saphira). </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Jesus remained one or two
years in the desert, there Mary and John, who went later to Ephesus, joined him.
In a great town he could live unidentified. Nevertheless the belief to be the
Son of Man was always present and he remained in a hallucinatory state. He had
to imagine how he could come back in power. Anew the Bible had the solution:
there was the prophet Ezekiel who had an apocalyptic view of the future. Just
as all Jews in that time Jesus was upset against the Romans, and he thought
that it was the Roman Empire, which impeded that he could come and reign over
the whole world. The emperor was the direct concurrent of Jesus, because he
wanted also to be worshipped as a divinity. So that beast had to be killed and
Rome had to be annihilated. That was the content of the Apocalypse. After the
destruction of Rome the reign of Jesus would come. All enemies and all peoples
would be cruelly killed. Alone the disciples of Jesus would reign with him
during 1000 years. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">In 47 the Apocalypse was
known in Rome. In 49 Claudius banished the Jews because they were restless, they
refused to pay taxes and fomented a revolution. About 54 Jesus died. Peter and
Paul thought that Jesus would now come back soon, but adapted the strategy of
the church: diplomatically they exhorted the Christians to pay taxes. They let
that insert in the gospel. Secretly they prepared the great fire of Rome. Roman
authority was aware of the subversion. Peter and Paul were condemned. The great
fire of Rome caused the open conflict and the spectacular persecution of
Christians. They wanted the emperor to be burned living, now they were burned
themselves.</span></span><br />
<h3 style="text-align: left;">
<br /><span style="color: #45818e;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">D</span>iscussion</span></span></span></span></h3>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">One can ask at this moment
of the discussion: what is the real value of this hypothetical reconstruction ?
In fact one has the choice between two different images of Jesus: or a mythical
one as a mysterious Son of Man, who in fact did not come back up to now, or a
human Jesus, with no mysteries at all. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The reconstruction provides
an acceptable explanation, founded on what is scientifically known about such
psychopathological cases. The alternative is naivety, ignorance or fanatism. The
choice is however not evident for everyone. Of course there is a systematic
ignorance about the psychopathological aspect of these questions. Some biblical
scholars tend to deny the importance of these questions or allege their
incompetence, but neglect to consider the consequences of such declaration of
incompetence. sometimes they present solutions, which at first sight have some
credibility, but remain without strict proofs. A reconstruction cannot be
proven in all its details, but provided that no better arguments are presented,
it can withstand superficial objections or general criticism. In a puzzle
nobody asks for the proof that the correct solution is found. That is
self-evident. </span></span><br />
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ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-77756557158432562302020-04-02T22:24:00.000-07:002020-04-02T22:24:24.956-07:00PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.1. Nietzsche on Jesus</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The first to take on Jesus as a psychologist, though not as a medically
trained psychopathologist, was the German scholar and philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the greatest critics of Christianity (who
ended up suffering an irreversible mental breakdown himself).1 Like many
Christians, he thought that the historical Christ was a very different
man from the Christ of theology. Thus, Christ had renounced the law and
chosen a life of childlike innocence, whereas the Churches had built an
elaborate system of morality on top of his teachings.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
However, unlike some softhearted poetic Christians who felt unhappy with
dogmatic Christianity and attracted to the “experiential” Christianity
of Christ himself, Nietzsche rejected this original religion of Christ.
For him, Christ was a décadent. This somewhat technical term in
Nietzsche’s philosophy means: someone who has given up worldly
ambitions, who is tired of the world with its passion and struggle, who
wants to retire to some kind of paradisiacal sphere. Such a prophet may
be good for people who are tired of this world, weak and unhappy
people, losers.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In Nietzsche’s assessment, Jesus was anti-world, anti-mighty,
anti-order, anti-hierarchy, anti-labour, anti-struggle, anti-difference.
Total non-struggle, surrender, softness, love. That is the Jesus who
is still somewhat popular among those few young dreamers attracted to
Christianity. Tolstoy thought this was the real Christ, sharply
different from the Church’s Christ created by Saint Paul. For instance,
obedience to the worldly authorities is a duty for Church Christians,
not for the original Christ. Nietzsche, while agreeing with Tolstoy on
the contrast between Jesus and the Church teachings, does not follow him
in choosing for the original Jesus. He merely sees two forms of
decadence at work, both to be rejected. But he will agree that Jesus’
attitude was his own problem, whereas Saint Paul’s attitude (and
theology) has sickened an entire civilization.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
While Jesus preached a spontaneous and unconcerned life, his posthumous
disciple Paul, “the first Christian”, would build a full-fledged
theology out of a few elements of Jesus’ career and teaching, an
ideological system that has very little to do with the actual Jesus.
For Jesus, the concepts of Sin and of Law had lost all meaning. He
believed in sinlessness, no need to tread any specific path of morality
to avoid sin. But in Christianity, sin becomes the raison d’être of
religion: Christ has come, suffered and risen in order to save humanity
from sin.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
And yet, somehow this Salvation is not complete, because on top of it,
man must also go under the yoke of a system of morality, adapted with
strong simplification (deritualization) from the Mosaic Law, in order to
earn his place in Heaven. It is this emphasis on dry morality that has
made Pauline Christianity so unpopular among the pleasure-seeking
section of humanity. A lot of modern Western literature is about people
outgrowing their tense submission to Christian morality. Some
Protestant sects have decided that morality is not instrumental in our
Salvation (though for the sake of public order they support morality and
explain that one’s degree of morality is a sign, but not a factor, of
one’s predestination for either Heaven or Hell), but they too stick to
the notion of sin as fundamental to the human condition until Jesus
saves us.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The question of “salvation” through one’s own “works” or through mere
“faith” in Jesus’ autonomous act of Salvation is a much-debated one
among Christian thinkers including Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther,
Calvin etc. The controversy exists, mutatis mutandis, in some other
traditions too, e.g. Shaiva Siddhanta. Borrowing a Shaiva metaphor, we
might say that Christianity too has advocates of “the way of the
kitten”, which is grabbed by its mother and “saved” without effort, and
of “the way of the baby monkey”, which clings on to its mother and is
“saved” through its own effort. But in Christianity, unlike Shaivism,
one is saved not from ignorance about one’s own ever-divine Self (i.e.
restored to one’s own intrinsic divinity), but from one’s own
ever-sinful self. No one is a Christian if he does not accept that we
human beings are all intrinsically sinful, and that Jesus has come to
save us from sin. But, all according to Nietzsche, Jesus never cared
about sin. Contrary to Jesus, Christianity feeds us an obsession of
being profoundly evil and God-alienated.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
At this point we must comment that Nietzsche has taken the traditional
image of Jesus too much for granted, an image built on those Bible
stories that are the most likely to be inserted borrowings from other
sects, such as the Sermon on the Mount. In the more reliable Gospel
passages, we find that the historical Jesus was not the exalted,
ever-innocent pacifist and passivist he is often made out to be.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One thing that Nietzsche has against the Christianity of the Church
still dominant in his time, is that it is not religious enough.
Religion for Jesus was a revolutionary thing, an extreme thing. And
while Jesus’ religiosity was bizarre and unintegrated in the world (it
was an anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven expected soon), it has a
certain kind of uncomplicatedness and cheerfulness about it which is
proper in a healthy religion. But Pauline moralistic Christianity is
drab, unhealthy, worrisome, negatively limiting without offering
anything positive and great in return. Nietzsche’s own religiosity is a
longing for the superhuman which transcends human smallness. It is the
antithesis of Pauline Christianity, which to him seems to have nothing
great and mentally uplifting to it.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
While Christ’s religion is centred on love and surrender, Paul’s
Christianity becomes, in Nietzsche’s analysis, the religion of hatred
and revenge. Paul was obsessed with the Law, the central topic for the
Pharisees. He was painfully aware of man’s (esp. his own) incapability
to live up to the letter of the Law. Fortunately, Christ has delivered
us from the Law, and replaced it with the “law of love”: a revolution.
So far, Paul is in tune with the spirit of Christ, as Nietzsche
understood it. But in Paul’s vision, this revolution comes hand in hand
with another revolution, in one movement: the abrogation of the Law is
the ideological starting-point of Christianity’s mission among the
Gentiles. Paul’s life, and with it that of many others, will no longer
be burdened with the Law, but will now burden itself with a new task,
unprecedented in history. Paul breaks with Judaism and its oppressive
Law observance, and starts to win the rest of humanity for Christ. His
own frustrated desire to live up to the demands of the Law, now gets
transformed into a tremendous ambition to spread his new-found religion
of Salvation through Christ.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Nietzsche draws the parallel with Luther, who had aspired so earnestly
to live an ascetic life and fulfill the commandments imposed by Church
teaching, but had ended up hating the Church and the pope and the
monastic rules so bitterly that he became their declared enemy,
crusading to spread an alternative. Paul is so tired of the Law, that
he turns into a follower of its declared enemy, Jesus, once a
psycho-physiological crisis had broken through his resistance. As Dr.
Somers has shown, this crisis, befalling Paul on the road to Damascus,
was a sunstroke, of which the effects and sensations were afterwards
interpreted as a divine revelation. Once this liberating decision to
break with the Law has its exalting effect on him, he feels that this
solution for him, is also the solution for mankind. He will now become
the apostle of the destruction of the Law, which has been replaced by
faith in Christ.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Saint Paul was not a prophet, but he was a political genius. He saw the
potential of his new doctrine and of the situation in the Roman empire,
especially the provincial towns. Away from the worldly turmoil of Rome
and from the extremist zealotry of Palestine (two places where the
Christians would encounter plenty of martyrdom), Paul found the optimum
terrain for the onward march of his new religion. In these towns (in
Greece and Asia Minor), he would set up communities that would imitate
the social ways of the Jewish communities spread across the Empire, with
their honourable inconspicuous lives as craftsmen and traders, with
their mutual support and communal solidarity, and with their quiet sense
of superiority as the Chosen People. Instead of the unbearable burden
of the Mosaic law, he would give them some petty bourgeois morality, but
all the same he would promote among them this communal superiority
feeling of being the Saved ones in Christ.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The contrast between Jesus and Pauline Christianity, is treated by
Nietzsche as a contrast between two doctrines. Nietzsche does not
really analyse Jesus’ personality, self-perception or public image. He
mistrusts the historicity of the Gospels. At the time, the critical
method of investigating the historicity of pieces and layers of text was
not as refined, and especially the psychological analysis which 20th
century psychologists tried out on Jesus, was not yet at his disposal.
So, his psychological evaluation of Jesus, and of Saint Paul, the
creator of Christianity, concerns more the ideology they represent than
their historical personalities. Nietzsche puts their personalities
between brackets, and concentrates on the ideologies that their
(doubtlessly distorted) Biblical biographies represent.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One might say that Nietzsche’s view of Jesus was very one-sided. The
peaceful apostle of love is a popular image of Jesus based on only a few
gospel texts: the Sermon on the Mount; “when you get slapped, offer the
other cheek also”; “he who lives by the sword shall perish by the
sword”; “the lilies of the field don’t toil, yet Solomon in his
splendour was not as good-looking as any of them”; “do not judge lest
you yourself by judged”. These passages are of disputed historicity,
while many reliably historical passages show us a very different Christ.
short-tempered, defiant, and a Doomsday prophet. The gentle Jesus, who
was in Nietzsche’s view the original Jesus whose teaching and example
were later deformed by Pauline Christianity, was himself just as much a
creation of his second-generation disciples.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
While Nietzsche’s evaluation of Christ is somewhat marred by the
immaturity of the historical research on Christ, his understanding of
the Old Testament already had the benefit of a Biblical scholarship that
has, in great outline, been confirmed by the more recent scholarship.
The chronology of the Old Testament had more or less been established,
and the political context of the successive stages of editing were
already understood.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
According to Nietzsche, Yahweh’s support for his people came to be seen
as “conditional” and dependent upon the Hebrews’ own behaviour, when
they had become losers on the international scene. God was no longer
seen to be giving them victory, so they tried to regain control over
their destiny by assuming God’s support to be dependent upon their own
moral behaviour (observance of the Law). Nietzsche considered the
Bible’s emphasis on morality as a revenge operation of a defeated
people: winners are not burdened with morality, which is the weapon of
the losers.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Nietzsche has paid little attention to the next stage in Israel’s
religion. During the period of the exile, prophets like Jeremiah,
Ezekiel and deutero-Isaiah had again disconnected God’s sovereign
decision from man’s degree of obedience to God’s will. Man’s morality
and law-abidingness no longer make a difference: God’s judgment has
already been determined, his final intervention will come anyway, and
our Salvation will be brought about not by our own goodness but by the
Messiah. The apocalyptic stage in the doctrinal development in Hebrew
religion, which will culminate in the Jewish rebellions of the first and
early second centuries AD, was already appearing on the horizon at the
time of the exile, when the classical doctrine of the Covenant, the
mutual contract between Yahweh and His chosen people, was still being
formulated and imposed upon Israel’s history through the final Bible
editing.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
While Nietzsche’s analysis concerns ideologies or collective mind-sets
rather than persons, and while some of his insights have simply become
outdated by the newest Bible research, he has the merit of being one of
the first to apply human psychology to the supposedly divine revelation
embodied in the Bible. He was instrumental in breaking the spell that
had been shielding the Bible from critical inquiry. Moreover, unlike
the radical atheists and skeptics who simply disregarded the Bible or
dismissed it as fable, Nietzsche took the more balanced position of
“honouring” it as a highly interesting and psychologically revealing
human document.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.2. Psycho-analyzing Jesus</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Shortly after Nietzsche made his psychological analysis of what he
understood as Christian doctrine, rightly or wrongly attributed to the
historical Jesus by the Gospel editors, professional psychologists tried
to get at the historical personality of Jesus. In the beginning and
more even at the end of this twentieth century AD, psychology has thrown
a mighty new light upon the development of the Abrahamic or
prophetic-monotheist lineage of religions.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Since the dawn of modem Western psychology, the Bible has interested
psychologists. Freud, the Austrian-Jewish father of psychoanalysis,
gave a lot of attention to the character of Moses.2 For example, in
Freudian theory, Moses’ lack of a normal father relation (according to
the Bible, he was a foundling brought up in the Egyptian court) made him
an excellent object of study: this circumstance could have accounted
for his sternly authoritarian and patriarchal conception of God. Even
more unorthodoxly, Freud claimed that Moses had not been a Jew but a
high-placed Egyptian: fearing trouble after committing a murder, he had
joined the impending Exodus of the beleaguered Jewish immigrant
community.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Freud was very hesitant to publish his work on Moses, because he
expected it to shock the Jewish community, and that at a time when Nazi
Germany was taking one anti-Jewish measure after another. Freud’s work
is in many ways outdated, but remains of great importance in this
context because he did, even while expressing his great scruples and
hesitation, what many believing Jews and Christians could not
intellectually tolerate: he looked at the founder of his religion
through the inexorable eyes of scientific analysis. Some other older
psychological studies of Bible characters include C.G. Jung’s study of
job and K. Jaspers’ study of Ezekiel.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Probably the first attempt to analyze Jesus was made in the late 19th
century by the French neurologist Jules Soury, also known as the
secretary of Ernest Renan. Inspired by remarks by David Friedrich
Strauss, who had called Jesus a rabid fanatic, Soury wanted to go beyond
scornful rhetoric and apply the budding science of neurology to the
case of Jesus. However, it was the heyday of materialism in the human
sciences, and with the conceptual instruments at his disposal, he could
hardly do justice to psychic phenomena. In his diagnosis, he settled
for a highly disputable verdict which we would consider more
physiological than psychological: “progressive paralysis”.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The first truly psychopathological diagnosis of Jesus was made
separately by three psychiatrists, W. Hirsch, Ch. Binet-Sanglé, and
G.L. de Loosten. After thorough examination of the Gospel narratives,
they independently reached the same conclusion: Jesus was mentally ill
and suffered from paranoia.3 In E. Kraepelin’s classification of mental
diseases, paranoia is defined as “the sneaking development of a
persistent and unassailable delusion system, in which clarity of
thought, volition and action are nonetheless preserved”.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In his reply, the Christian theologian and famous medical doctor, Albert
Schweitzer, admitted: “if it were really to turn out that to a doctor,
Jesus’ world-view must in some way count as morbid, then this must not -
regardless of any implications or the shock to many - remain unspoken,
because one must put respect for the truth above all else.” But he
rejected the psychiatrists’ conclusions.4</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Schweitzer alleged that from a historical point of view, most texts were
dubious or certainly not historical, e.g. the quotations from the
Gospel of St John, the most theologically polished and least historical
of the four Gospels; and that from a medical point of view, the alleged
symptoms were misunderstood. Three objections seemed essential:</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
1. there is no certainty about the historical truth of the texts;<br />
2.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> what seems to us to be a symptom, was possibly a normal trait, a cultural feature in that civilization;<br />
3.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> there are not enough fully reliable elements in order to base a
safe judgment on them; even the pathological symptoms claimed, viz.
pathological Ego-delusion and hallucinations, are insufficient to
conclude a definite diagnosis. </span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
These objections can be met, as we shall see in subsequent chapters.
The last of the three can be met right away: if a psychiatrist notices
both hallucinatory crises and an Ego-delusion in a patient, he will most
certainly conclude that these are symptoms of a mental affliction, and
this all the more certainly if they can be identified as a known
syndrome, and are accompanied by a number of coherent typical behavioral
features.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Dr. Schweitzer was not a psychiatrist, but his Doctor’s title was
already enough to put all doubts to rest. After his reply the Churches
felt reassured, and few outsiders made new attempts to psycho-analyze
Jesus.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
An exception is Wilhelm Lange-Eichbaum, with the chapter “The problem of
Jesus” in his book Genie, Irrsinn und Ruhm (German: “Genius, Madness
and Fame”), of which we have excerpts from the third edition at our
disposal: it was still prepared by the author himself in 1942, while the
fourth edition of 1956 has been seriously tampered with by outsiders,
esp. in this chapter.5</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Dr. Lange-Eichbaum writes: “The personality during the psychosis (we
only know Jesus during this life stage) is characterized by
quick-tempered soreness and a remarkable egocentrism. What is not with
him, is cursed. He loves everything that is below him and does not
diminish his Ego: the simple followers, the children, the weak, the poor
in spirit, the sick, the publicans and sinners, the murderers and the
prostitutes. By contrast, he utters threats against everyone who is
established, powerful and rich, which points to a condition of
resentment. In this, all is puerile-autistic, naive, dreamy. In this
basic picture of his personality, there is one more trait that is
clearly distinguishable: Jesus was a sexually abnormal man. Apart from
his entire life-story, what speaks for this is the quotations of Mt.
19:12 (the eunuch ideal), Mk. 12:25 (no sex in heaven, asexuality as
ideal) and also Mt. 5:29 (removing the body parts that cause sin:
intended are certainly not hand and eye). The cause may have been a
certain weakness of libido, as is common among paranoia sufferers…</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
“There is a lack of joy in reality, extreme seriousness, lack of humour,
a predominantly depressed, disturbed, tense condition; coldness towards
others insofar as they don’t flatter his ego, towards his mother and
siblings, lack of balance: now weak and fearful, now with violent
outbursts of anger and affective lack of proportion… According to both
modern and ancient standards, he was intellectually undeveloped, as
Binet has extensively proven; but he had a good memory and was, as is
apparent from the parables, a visual type. Binet also emphasizes the
lack of creativity. A certain giftedness in imagination, eloquence and
imaginative-symbolic thought and expression cannot be denied. He was
certainly not a ‘genius’ in the strict modem sense. The later psychosis
is however in no way in contradiction with his original giftedness
which was above average: in paranoia this is quite common…</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
“The entry in Jerusalem is doubtlessly the result of increased
excitement: psychically, Jesus is on fire. For laymen as well as for
theologians, there is something painful and absurd about this entry.
Isn’t the psychotic streak all too obvious here? Hirsch calls the
parade on the donkey ‘absurd and ridiculous’ and Schweitzer too finds it
painful. It is only enacted to fulfill the Messiah prophecy,
secretively and for the eye of his followers. It may be sad or
tragic-comical that the buffoon-king is making his entry this way.
Nowhere is the purposeless nature of psychotic activity more in evidence
than in the entry in Jerusalem: his acts lack any logic. What does
Jesus want? He is tossed this way and then that way. Worldly power?
Yes and no. Messiah claim? Yes and no. Defiance and death wish? Yes
and no…</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
“The exact diagnosis is not that important for us. A paranoid
psychosis: that may be enough. Maybe real paranoia, maybe schizophrenia
but without irreversible decay, in the form of a paraphrenia. Or a
paranoia based on an earlier slightly schizophrenic shift. Anyone
checking with the extant scientific literature is struck by the
remarkable similarity of the symptoms.”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Dr. Lange-Eichbaum’s diagnosis belongs to an earlier stage in the
development of psychopathology, when all kinds of explanations were read
into symptoms, without using strict criteria. Freud’s psycho-analysis
is so notoriously full of unfalsifiable statements (i.e. impossible to
prove wrong, escaping every cold test) that Karl Popper classifies it
among the pseudo-sciences along with astrology. Dr. Lange-Eichbaum
stays closer to factual reality in his description of symptoms, but is
hazy in the formulation of a final diagnosis. Moreover, his knowledge
of the Biblical backgrounds and the Roman-Hellenistic cultural milieu
are limited, so that many possibly pertinent facts escape his attention.
We would have to wait for Dr. Somers’ multidisciplinary competence to
formulate a truly comprehensive diagnosis.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
There is an element of modem man’s triumphalism, so typical of the
Enlightenment, in Lange-Eichbaum’s conclusions: “Can an intelligent and
critically disposed person, who has abandoned childish beliefs and
childish prejudice, seriously doubt that this is a case of psychosis?
For an educated mind this psychosis is so clearly discernible that he
would expect even the layman to notice it. Jesus’ destiny cannot
possibly be understood without the aid of psychopathology. The dark
misgiving which historical theology has had for the past 100 years, was
on the right track. Anyone who surveys the extant literature, can see
it with shocking clarity. The notion that Jesus was a mentally ill
person, cannot be removed anymore from the scientific investigation.
This notion is triumphant. First, science has brought Jesus down from
his divine throne and declared him human; now it will also recognize him
as a sick man.”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A confirmation that the dispassionate study of Jesus as a human person
leads irrevocably to a psychopathological diagnosis, is given by a
Protestant preacher, Hermann Werner. Objecting to “liberal” theology
with its historicization and humanization of the divine person Jesus (in
the theological line of research known as the Leben Jesu-Forschung,
“investigation of Jesus’ life”), he shows what becomes of Jesus when he
is measured with human standards: “The image of Jesus as [the liberal
theologians] want to describe it in ever greater detail, got equipped
with traits which made it ever less commendable. This Jesus is, no
matter how much one would want to ward off this conclusion, mentally not
healthy but sick. Although man’s - and certainly Jesus’ - deepest
life, is a mystery which we cannot unveil down to its deepest roots, yet
certain limits can be agreed upon within which one’s self-consciousness
must remain if it is to be sane and human. There are, after all,
unassailable standards which are valid for all times, for the ancient
oriental as well as for the modem western. Except in completely
uncivilized times and nations, no one has ever been declared entirely
sane and normal who held himself to be a supernatural being, God or a
deity, or who made claims to divine qualities and privileges. A later
legend may ascribe such things to this or that revered person, but when
someone claims it for himself, his audience has always consisted
exclusively of inferior minds incapable of proper judgment…”6</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Perhaps Rev. Hermann underestimates the belief of the ancient civilized
Pagans in the possibility of divine incarnation, of having a divine
person in their midst, in which the meaning of the word “divine” can be
stretched a bit; but then he is right in assuming that this divine
status is normally only ascribed to the revered person after his death.
That the modem skepsis towards claims of being a divine person were
shared by Jesus’ contemporaries, can be seen from the Gospel itself. The
Jews (for whom this skepsis became indignation for reasons of exclusive
monotheism) wanted to kill Jesus “because he not only broke the Sabbath
but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (John
5:18), and “because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33).7
Either Jesus was really God’s only-born son (and by accepting that, you
become a believing Christian), or his claim to divine status was absurd
and abnormal by the standards of both ancients and moderns. A liberal
theology which humanizes Jesus and yet remains Christian, is impossible:
it is either the “fundamentalist” belief in Jesus’ divinity, or no
belief in Jesus Christ at all.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Rev. Hermann concludes: “Everyone knows that the sources on Jesus’ life
are insufficient for writing his biography. But they are sufficient to
reach the conclusion that he was a pathological personality. At any
rate, these are the conclusions which liberal theology has reached by
thinking and taking into account the findings of modern psychiatry.”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.3. Jesus the magician</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
From the Gospel it is amply clear that Jesus was first of all known to
his contemporaries and to the audiences of later Christian preachers as a
miracle-worker, a magician. He must have had an aura of intensity
about him. He impressed the ordinary people with his charismatic airs,
and he believed in his own miracle-working act. The role he fulfilled in
the eyes of his followers, was that of the exorcist, a well-known type
in those days (though the characters filling this role must have been of
diverse kinds and dispositions).8</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The softness and harmlessness which peaceniks have sought in Jesus, was
an image possibly based on some historical events in Jesus’ life, but
certainly not the dominant traits of his character or public image. He
would never have become such a public and controversial figure had he
been such a simple dove.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In popular preaching and counter-polemic, miracles were the most
important topic. As late as the third century, the Pagan polemist
Porphyry tried to counter Jesus with the story of Apollonius of Tyana,
who was also depicted as a miracle-worker. Jesus was accused by
audiences and rival preachers of having an evil spirit himself, thought
to be the cause of all kinds of ailments with which people came to
miracle-workers. Much in the miracle reports in the Gospels is polemic
against such allegations.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
While some miracle stories are simply unbelievable, there is a
historical core in quite a few of them. Thus, the procedure of
demanding that the evil spirit declare its name accurately fits the
exorcism procedures then in use.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Moreover, some of the miracle stories convey information which was not
useful to the early preachers, much less to the later theologians. For
instance, Jesus chasing the evil spirits of the possessed man of Gerasa
into the swine, is, in spite of what theologians may say, not very
edifying. Those swine who lost their lives had done no harm to anyone;
their owner, who lost a source of income, had not done any wrong to
anyone. Certainly this story cannot be meant as a symbol for “Jesus
defeating the forces of evil”, as some theologians claim. In fact it is
quite an authentic report of what was believed to be a miracle (which
interested the common people a lot more than the defeat of Evil). But
as we have seen in ch.2.2, its details suggest precisely that both Jesus
and his followers deluded themselves, mistaking the end of the acute
crisis for the end of the chronic disease, and mistaking an ordinary
symptom for a miraculous cure. Like the crowds, Jesus saw Jesus as a
man of miracles. Like many Pagans, he believed that a divine being
could walk on the earth; but unlike them, he (and Paul and the
theologians after him) also gave this an interpretation of a unique and
exclusive divine status.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If miracles are the only argument for the supposed divinity of Jesus,
one must take into account that a number of these are certainly
pseudo-miracles. The other miracles, which are unverifiable either way,
become equally suspect, if one considers the fact that not Jesus, nor
the disciples were able to see the difference between the end of a
crisis and the end of a disease. With regard to the exorcisms it is
very dear that Jesus, as the Gospel attests, cannot prevent the devil
from coming back (Mt 12: 43-45).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
We should also study the cases where Jesus refuses to do a miracle: e.g.
in Nazareth (where everybody knows him); before the Syro-Phoenician
woman; when the Pharisees ask for one. One should understand the
difficult position of somebody who has to do miracles and to heal the
sick in a village where everybody knows everybody. If there are true
recoveries, anybody will know; but pseudo-recoveries will soon be seen
for what they are. So Jesus refuses to do miracles before his home
community. One could also wonder why the Pharisees had to ask for a
sign, if it was true that so many miracles were taking place already.
Further, one can suppose that some miracles were simply declarations of
Jesus that somebody was healed. Thus, from the ten leper-patients
declared cured, only one came back. The nine others, sent to the
priests for verification, had obviously not been declared cured. So,
the miracles of Jesus cannot seriously be considered as a proof of
divinity.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Suppose the Son of God really appeared on earth, would he need miracles
of disputable quality to prove his identity? Surely he could do
something unmistakably supernatural like, say, actually moving a
mountain (which he declares possible for those who have faith)? The
whole story of these shaky miracles supports the hypothesis of an
ego-delusion which made Jesus really believe in his supernatural powers,
combined with a willingness on the part of a gullible and uneducated
community of fishermen to be over-awed by the divine airs which Jesus
gave himself.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.4. Sifting out the real Jesus</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
We know by now that the Gospel is not a 100% authentic report about
Jesus’ doings and sayings. But it is possible to more or less sift out
the authentic core from the theological additions. Some of the
recognizable additions are the following.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
According to the Gospels, Jesus is tried and sentenced by the Jews, with
Pilate a mild and innocent bystander. In reality, Pilate was a cruel
governor, and even the central rulers in Rome ended up removing him from
office for causing too much trouble by his harshness. As for the
“Jews”, it was the priests who tried Jesus, but the crowds (at least in
the province) who supported him. But after the defeat of the Jewish
rebels at the hands of Titus in 70 AD, it became more rewarding for the
Christian missionary strategy to move closer to the Romans and emphasize
their separateness from the Jews. These could now be blamed for
everything, while an early sympathy for Christ on the part of the Roman
governor was also suggested.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
That is why Pilate is made to say: “I see no guilt in this man… I wash
my hands in innocence.” On the other hand, the Jewish crowd is reported
in the Gospel as clamouring for Jesus’ death: “His blood may come over
us and our descendents”, so that they become morally guilty of
“deicide”, god-murder. On the basis of this Gospel story, the Church
has considered the Jews as the murderers of Jesus, a stigma it has only
removed (and that only on condition that they dis-identify with the
Jewish generation contemporary with Jesus) in 1962.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is possible that Pilate had sympathy for everyone who was a
troublemaker to the Jews, whom he hated, but the depiction of his
personality is certainly the product of missionary editing. The
allotment of guilt in the story of Jesus’ trial is in very large measure
responsible for centuries of Christian anti-semitism, culminating in
Auschwitz. This allotment of guilt, with its far-reaching consequences,
was the product of conscious history distortion by the early Christian
missionaries, who considered it opportune to identify with the Romans
and blame the Jews.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A similar political turn is probably the key to the story of Jesus
saying: “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.”
At first the Christians were very uncompromising and they refused to
pay taxes: they expected the Second Coming and the destruction of the
Empire. When that changed (around 55, probably because at first the new
emperor Nero had raised high expectations among the Christians, or
because Claudius’ persecutions had forced them into compromise), they
justified this change to some of their more radical followers, and at
the same time assured Roman or pro-Roman listeners about the genuineness
of this new policy by invoking Jesus’ own authority. So, possibly this
well-known episode is not historical, but a motivated insertion.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A lot of the parables and sermons attributed to Jesus may well be common
proverbs and insights of the contemporary religio-cultural scene. For
instance, the dictum: “To him who hath, shall be given, but from him who
doeth not have, even what he hath shall be taken”, may well have been a
commonly known observation on life. Most people will feel compelled to
give bigger presents to rich friends than to poor friends on a similar
occasion: it is the kind of common knowledge that ends up crystallizing
into a proverb. Jesus himself may have applied this dictum to a
religious topic (the Kingdom of Heaven), but even in its application to a
religious context, it may have been borrowed from the Pharisees or from
one of the proliferating sects of the time.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is very common that the miracles of one saint are attributed to
another saint by the latter’s followers. In Communist books, I have
found Voltaire’s witticisms being attributed to Karl Marx. The pranks
attributed to the Turkic wit Mollah Nasruddin (now popular in the
People’s Republic as A-fan-ti, i.e. Effendi) have been appropriated in
Indian sources for the Indian wit Birbal, and vice versa. So, it is
only normal that wise and saintly statements that carried an aura of
respected profundity, were put in Jesus’ mouth by followers.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
An important statement of Christian doctrine that was probably borrowed
from sectarian sources, either by Jesus or by the Gospel editors, is the
Sermon on the Mount. Another Christian classic, the injunction to
“love thy neighbour as thyself”, is typically pharisaic, and in tune
with traditional morality expressed here and there in the Old Testament.
It can readily be linked with pharisee Hillel’s famous statement that
the Jewish law can essentially be summed up as: “What ye do not want
done unto you, do not do that unto others”,- the Golden Rule which
Hillel had in common with Confucius, among others.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A different type of addition by the Gospel editors is the hardening of
miracle stories into fully attested reports. In the Gospel of John,
written as the last of the four, we read that the apostle Thomas refused
to believe that the man before him was the resurrected Jesus, so he
asked to touch his wounds. And yes, they were real, it was the
crucified and resurrected Jesus. This detail of the checking of Jesus’
wounds is not present in the other Gospels. What happened was that
Christian preachers used to relate the story of the resurrected Jesus’
meeting with the apostles, and people in the audience would ask: “Did it
really happen? Do you know this for sure-?” And so, to anticipate
these questions, John fabricated a certificate of empirical proof.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Similarly, in the successive Gospels, the report on the baptism of Jesus
in the river Jordan becomes ever more “realistic”. Mark reports it as a
subjective impression: “Jesus saw the heavens open and a dove descend
on Him”. In Matthew this becomes: “And lo! The heavens opened and He
saw God’s Spirit descend on Him in the shape of a dove.” The seeing of
the dove is still a matter of Jesus’ own subjective perception, but the
interpretation that it was God’s Spirit has been added. According to
Luke, “it happened that the Heavens opened and the Holy Spirit, in the
physical shape of a dove, descended on Him”. Now, the whole episode has
become an objective fact. Finally, John goes another step further:
“And John [the Baptist] gave testimony and said: ‘I have seen that the
Spirit descended as a dove from heaven… I have seen it myself and
attested: this is the son of the Lord.’” This time, there is even a
witness willing to testify.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
What has started as a report of Jesus’ subjective experience, recorded
from Jesus’ own report, has become an objective and even a well-attested
fact. A theology as well as a polemical fortification is increasingly
being imposed on the original innocent report. Now, all such
insertions, suspected omissions, and reworked versions, can more or less
be traced and mapped. After that, a solidly historical core remains.
Among the reliably historical elements are those which go against the
intentions of the Christian preachers, or those which are beyond their
capacity of invention.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Therefore, a solidly historical element in the Gospel narrative is the
psychopathological syndrome which is clearly present in Jesus’
personality. The Gospel writers could not have invented such a coherent
description of a well-defined syndrome even if they had wanted to, and
secondly they certainly didn’t want to pass on such information about
their Saviour. The syndrome so well illustrated in the Gospel is called
paraphrenia.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.5. Jesus the paraphrenic</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Paraphrenia is a fairly rare mental affliction in which the patient
develops a delusion (mostly genetic, i.e. concerning his parents or
ancestry), which is triggered and fed by only rarely occurring
hallucinatory crises. Starting from this delusion, he builds up an
entire system complete with interpretative delusions (misreading events
to make them fit, rather than disturb, the basic delusion). Otherwise
he remains well-integrated in his environment.9 Paraphernia is sometimes
classified in the larger category of “paranoia” and opposed to
schizophrenia. In contrast to the schizophrenic, the paraphrenic
remains adapted to his milieu, has a coherent thinking and a
well-organized behaviour. Generally hallucinations are rare, but
initiate a delusional state, often with a grandiose genetic theme. The
paraphrenic is very sensitive to opposition to his ideas; he is
therefore somewhat secretive, and often full of resentment and hate.
This is exactly the image the Gospel has painted of Jesus.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If we assume this diagnosis, which is suggested by several striking
events in Jesus’ life, and extend it to understand his whole life story,
the Gospel narrative becomes coherent. One hypothesis will suffice to
explain diverse elements for which the exegetes now need a whole string
of hypotheses: methodologically, that is a very strong point.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Today, the theologians have caught themselves in a construction of
difficult and contradictory hypotheses that is convincing no one. The
fundamentalists who refuse to think and therefore just take the whole
Bible as God’s own word, ridicule the theologians with all their
difficult terminology invented to create a conceptual framework in which
the diverse and contradictory Bible narratives might make sense. The
real scientist is equally unimpressed by the patchwork of hypotheses to
which the theologians resort in order to make sense of the Gospel
narrative. The paraphrenia hypothesis takes care of the entire Gospel
narrative at once.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus had, on all hands, a problem with the identity of his father. In
the apocrypha, he is called “son of a *****”. According to the Jewish
tradition, he was the son of the Roman soldier Pandera and the local
girl Miriam (Mary), the hairdresser. The existence of a Roman soldier
with that name has actually been verified. A few years after the start
of the Christian Era, he was transferred to the legion in Germany, where
a grave bearing his name has been found: perhaps the only left-over of
the Holy Family. At any rate, the Gospel narrative is explicit enough
that Jesus’ conception was a matter of scandal: his social father Joseph
wanted to break off his engagement with Mary when he found she was
pregnant. In a village, such a circumstance could not possibly be kept
secret from the child Jesus. In the playground he must have been
reminded often enough of being an illegitimate child.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The first sign that Jesus is trying to work out his inner problem with
his parentage, and at the same time that people think there is mentally
something wrong with him, is his visit to the temple at age 12. For
lack of a physical father, the only father that was left to him was the
Creator, Yahweh. Like many boys of his age, he wanted to know more
about his origins, and he looked for information in the Scriptures.
When he went to the temple, he went to the house of his Father. There,
he expected to learn more from the Scribes. The questions he asked them
must have sounded strange to them. Jesus was hanging around for three
days, without telling his parents anything. And when he returned home
and his family got angry for his causing them so much worry, he replied:
“Don’t you know I belong in my Father’s house?” He claimed the right to
solve his own identity problem, even if that implied insensitivity to
others’ feelings. At that age, this behaviour is not abnormal, except
that few youngsters would have taken Scriptural imagery so literally as
to believe that their personal fatherhood problems could be solved by
identifying God as the missing father.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The little bit of information about this childhood episode indicates a
prodrome of the later crisis. By itself, the temple episode need not be
pathological, it could have been a fairly ordinary event in the
difficult puberty process of self-discovery. But it does betray a
psychological setting in which a deeper mental disease can develop.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The first real crisis we hear of, is the baptism in the river Jordan.
There, Jesus sees a bird coming from the opened sky, and hears a voice
bringing an enormous message: “You are my son, in whom I take pleasure.”
Seeing light, perceiving a bird (zooscopy), hearing a voice with a
short message in the second person and which is absolute and takes away
all doubts: that is the description of a typical sensorial
hallucination.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The famous Flemish theologian Edward Schillebeeckx sees in the baptism
episode “Jesus’ vocation meaningfully surrounded by interpretative
visions”. This implies that the visions were literary embellishment,
meaningful but nonetheless unhistorical and invented by human beings.
Progressive theologians like Schillebeeckx abhor the traditionalist more
literal interpretation. They dislike supernatural things like
“visions” and voices from the sky. But with that, they fail to give a
coherent explanation of why this imagery is being created (and why, as
we have seen, John tries to make his audience believe that the events
were very real). In this case, the literal interpretation is the more
scientific one: the bird did appear, the voice did speak from the sky -
but only as a subjective experience of the mental patient Jesus, rather
than as an objective cosmic revelation directly from God the Creator.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In the Bible numerous texts mention the hearing of voices, especially
the voice of God. Current exegesis interprets these texts as
metaphorical: “hearing the voice of God” is simply the expression for a
vocation by God. Sometimes, this metaphorical interpretation is
justified: to take an example from outside the Biblical tradition, when
the Greek philosopher Parmenides says that “a god has revealed” his
philosophy of Being to him, it is just a manner of speaking, not an
actual auditory hallucination. In psychopathology however, “hearing a
voice” is a common expression for an auditory hallucination, often
accompanied by other sensorial hallucinations, esp. visions (other
phenomena include feeling of heat or of being pierced by needles). That
the voices heard by Jesus were hallucinatory, is even admitted by
Albert Schweitzer.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Important supportive information for the paraphrenia thesis is furnished
by the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews. It relates that Jesus’ family
thinks he is possessed by a demon, and that they want him to try this
baptism as a possible way of exorcising the demon; he is at first
unwilling (all accounts mention a preliminary discussion between Jesus
and John the Baptist). It seems that Jesus’ behaviour had been strange
for some time already, and now that there is an exorcist in the
neighbourhood, the remedy should be tried: if it doesn’t help, it
doesn’t harm either. But the emotionally charged baptism experience
triggers a “revelation” that will plunge Jesus completely into a
distorted self-image.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Typical for the delusion that gets articulated in such a sensorial
hallucination, is the absolute certainty with which the patient believes
in it. Jesus will doubt no more: he is the son of the heavenly Father.
Later, when a Church theology was developed, this notion of God as the
personal Father was made into a central theme in Christianity, setting
it apart from the Mosaic ‘Old Covenant’. In the latter, God was a
vengeful ruler, who only stood by His chosen people on condition of its
total obedience. Now, God became a loving Father. What this
interpretation of the baptism revelation overlooked, is that the
vengefulness of Yahweh was now transferred to His Son. Jesus did not
have an army, like Mohammed, but he was very intolerant of skepsis and
full of hatred against the indifferent world. In his own
hallucinations, he himself would be the avenger on the Day of Judgment.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
After the baptism crisis, Jesus retires to the desert, where he doesn’t
eat for forty days, and gets visions of angels serving him and the devil
tempting him. This period of extreme introversion after the shocking
hallucination, as if to digest his new self-understanding, is again very
typical. He is offered nothing less than the power over the whole
world, but he turns down the offer. This is a typical rationalized
delusion, with a reasoning which we can imagine along these lines: “To
me the power over the world has been given. Then why do I not
effectively have the power? Because I spurned it, though it is
rightfully mine and I could have taken it.” Still, the subsequent
episodes show that he has started ascribing extra-ordinary powers to
himself. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Dr. Somers makes the diagnosis: “Psychopathological investigation
discovers in Mark, Luke and Matthew, regardless of the fact that Luke
especially adapted the original version, a number of well-known symptoms
of a hallucinatory state: hearing the voice of the devil, seeing wild
beasts (zoopsy), having the desire to fly (vestibular hallucinations,
having visions of the ‘whole world’, suffering from anorexia (fasting).
In this light, the vision of the baptism episode is also certainly
another manifestation of this hallucinatory state: a well-localized
(heavenly) vision, the seeing of light (opening of heaven), of a bird,
the hearing of a voice speaking in the second person and communicating a
grandiose genetic message (‘you are my beloved son’). The whole
picture is coherent with regard to the psychopathological symptoms. In
the text therefore, one finds the correct description of a delusional
hallucinatory state. Moreover, the Gospel also mentions circumstances
which are coherent with this pathology.”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
After this bewildering revelation, Jesus starts to live up to his new
self-image. He becomes a wandering god-man, doing miracles.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The next hallucinatory crisis is on Mount Tabor. He goes up on the
mountain with his disciples Peter, James and John. There, in a sea of
white light, he meets with Elijah and Moses. Again, a voice from the
clouds speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to Him.” According
to Luke (9:28-36), Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah about ‘his
going-out which he would perform in Jerusalem. Then, the scene stops
and Jesus is alone with his disciples, who have not seen Moses and
Elijah: they merely wake up when they hear Jesus talk to somebody. In
the testimony of Mark (9:2-10) there is the same revealing
contradiction: while it is contended that Elijah and Moses appeared,
only Jesus is described and it is said that finally the apostles saw
nobody but Jesus.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This crisis marks the beginning of the predictions of Jesus’ suffering
and death, which had been the topic of his conversation with Moses and
Elijah. Taking inspiration from a description of the “Servant of
Yahweh” in Isaiah (53:7), he understands he will be led unto his
slaughter like a lamb. He reads into Scripture the indication that the
Son of Man will go into his glory through suffering and meek submission
to this expiatory sacrifice. According to the logic of the delusion, he
must now go to Jerusalem and provoke his death by entering as king. He
predicts he will rise on the third day and thus enter his Kingdom.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A third report of a hallucinatory crisis is only given by John
(12:20-36). During the entry in Jerusalem he hears the voice of the
Father saying: “I have glorified him and will glorify him again.” The
people said it had thundered, some said an angel had spoken to him, i.e.
to Jesus. So it was only Jesus who had heard the words.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Contemporary theologians like E. Schillebeeckx ascribe these stories to
the imagination of the primitive Church, which wanted to glorify Jesus.
But, asks Dr. Somers: “Why should the Church invent a number of stories
which caused nothing but difficulties? Why should the son of God be
baptized? Why should he be tempted by the devil, and that with such
extravagant temptations? Why should he fast during 40 days? Why should
he see wild beasts? It is quite inconceivable that the primitive
Church invented these strange stories for the glorification of Jesus.
On the contrary, the primitive Church leaders tried to interpret and to
adapt the existing story in order to demonstrate the divine origin of
these phenomena. Of a hallucinatory visionary state, they made
objective supernatural events. But they were sufficiently ignorant so
that they could not mask the pathological background of the events they
recounted.”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
These hallucinations, few in number but elaborating the same theme,
together with the testimonies of people thinking he is “possessed” or
mentally disturbed, point to the paraphrenia syndrome. What confirms
this tentative diagnosis and makes it into the first coherent
explanation of the entire Jesus narrative, is Jesus’ behaviour.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The paraphrenic patient has some marked characteristics, other than the
rare hallucinations and the delusional state, e.g.: a great hostility
against those who contradict him, often also a familial rage, as the
family usually contradicts him; autistic behaviour, in the sense that
the criterion for judgment and action is not reality, but his subjective
will; an interpretative delirium, i.e. interpreting events and
utterances as pointing to him and to his delusion; concealing his
conviction and temporizing as long as circumstances seem unfriendly.
All these typical features can be found in the Gospel.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus threatens Bethsaida, Kapharnaum, Jerusalem, because they did not
believe him. If the Son of Man comes with heavenly power, all those who
did not believe will be killed, along with all kings and mighty men.
Jesus insults the Pharisees, because they disbelieve and criticize him.
Jesus is especially angry with his family which tried to prevent his
preaching. A number of logia (= sayings of Jesus) are directed against
the family, and in the Gospel one cannot find any friendly word to the
family and especially to his mother. Spurning his mother and brothers
who are waiting at the door, he points to his disciples: “These are my
mother and my brothers, who accomplish the will of God” (Mk 3:35). The
disciples of Jesus should hate their fathers and their mothers (Lk
14:26) because the true enemies of man are his family members (Mt 10:35;
see also Mk 11:30; Mt 10:35; Mk 13:11).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A highly irrational act is Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree when, out of
season, it is not bearing fruit (Mk 16:20-25; Mt 21:18-22). The tree is
behaving normally, but Jesus punishes it: never again will it bear
fruit.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus is also violently sensitive to things relating to his supposed
Father. The violent scene he makes against the traders in the temple
(Mk 11:15-17; Mt 21:12-13; Lk 19:45-46), where he objects against the
transportation of any object, is motivated by what he perceives as their
dishonouring his Father’s house. Modem preachers say that Jesus was
protesting against materialism, that he was making an important ethical
and religious statement. But in fact, Jesus’ behaviour vis-a-vis the
traders in the temple premises was highly unadapted to reality. Those
traders were not doing anything unethical or irreligious. They had an
important function in temple life, where sacrifices were the normal and
statutory practice. Even if their activities had been misplaced, so was
Jesus’ tirade that they were making “his Father’s house” into a
“robbers’ den”: traders are not necessarily robbers, theirs is an
honourable profession, and eventhough God may be our Father, we
shouldn’t take disrespect for God’s house so personally.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Another, more specific detail is that he attempts to keep his status as
Son of Man secret: “Do not talk about this with anyone”, he says several
times. Only when his disciples, and later the priests during his
trial, ask him straight if he is God’s son, he consents, saying that
they have said it. But to theologians, it has always remained a riddle
why Jesus should be so secretive about his glorious mission.
Paraphrenia patients are very aware of the attitude (and possible lack
of understanding) of their fellow men. That is why Jesus temporizes, in
expectation of more auspicious circumstances.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A final symptom is the anti-sexual attitude. As the studies of Bultmann
have shown, the primitive church has cleansed, adapted a number of
logia. A relevant example is provided by the logia about the children
and the reign of God: unless you become like children, you cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God. In the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, some
logia have been preserved which explain the periscopes of the Gospels:
to be a child is to be asexual and free of sexual shame (log. 12, 21;
cfr. also log. 37, 114: if you make masculine and feminine one). In the
canonical Gospels it is also said that in heaven there is no marriage,
and virginity is exalted, as it is in the Apocalypse. The theme is
constant: virginity, inhibition of sexual activity, as well in the
canonical Gospels and the Gospel of Thomas as in the Apocalypse.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus’ behaviour during his trial is in conformity with the diagnosis.
We should keep in mind that from the vision on Mount Tabor onwards,
Jesus has been mentally preparing himself for death. The priests accuse
him of blasphemy: he has insulted Yahweh by calling himself His son.
Normally, they have to produce witnesses to prove this extremely serious
allegation. But Jesus saves them the trouble: he commits an even
greater sacrilege right on the spot, by pronouncing God’s name aloud.
Strictly following the prescribed procedure, the high priest tears his
mantle into two. Jesus stands convicted of sacrilege. The Gospels make
no secret about Jesus’ guilt of this sacrilege, which was well known to
be a capital offence.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
He commits what is blasphemy before the priests, with a straight face,
because he is fully prepared to die. For months he has been mentally
readying himself for it, announcing that this would be the road to his
glorification. When you think death is the end, the prospect of dying
may be a bit horrifying. But when you think it is the way to the glory,
it is alright: “Death, where is thy sting?” His frankness in the face
of a certain death penalty must certainly have added to his superhuman
aura.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.6. Some fantastic stories</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Gospel of Infancy, i.e. the Gospel narrative of Jesus’ conception,
birth and early childhood, is not so much a source of
psychopathologically relevant information. It is less reliable and more
open to speculative interpretations. Yet, it also provides material
for some interesting psychological observations. In this respect it is
important to see the essential difference between the Gospel of Infancy
and the visions during the Baptism and Tabor episodes. Most Bible
students see the Gospel of Infancy as a entirely mythical corpus in the
New Testament and they mention numerous reasons.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
1. The chronological indications are contradictory. According to
Matthew, Jesus should be born between 6 and 4 BC, during the reign of
the great Herod, who died in 4 BC; but the census which according to
Luke, obliged the parents of Jesus to travel to Bethlehem, was organized
by Quirinius, who according to the precise indications of Flavius
Josephus, the Jewish historian, became procurator of Syria in 6-7 AD,
i.e. 11 to 12 years later. Furthermore, the beginning of Jesus’ public
life, when he was about 30 years old, is traced by Luke (3:1) to the
15th year of the reign of Tiberius (27 AD). According to that
indication, Jesus should have been born in 4-3 BC. These difficulties
were never solved by the historians. </span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
2. The divergence between Matthew and Luke is striking. According to
Matthew, an angel appears to Joseph, not to Mary; but for Luke an angel
appears to Mary and to Zachariah. According to Matthew, each event is
predicted in the Old Testament; but Luke replaces the quotations of the
Old Testament with occasional prophecies by Hannah and Simeon. Matthew
writes that a star appears, Magi come, there is a flight to Egypt and a
slaughter of innocents by the Great Herod. For Luke there are only
shepherds, angels and music, the circumcision in the Temple, and a
simple return to Nazareth. He does not mention Egypt, nor the slaughter
of the innocents.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In the Protevangelium of James another series of divergent elements can
be found. Herod kills Zachariah, while John is sought for; there is no
star, no Magi, no prophecies, only the angels and their message to Mary
and Elisabeth.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3. The only elements which all witnesses have in common are: 1) the
exceptional pregnancy of Mary; 2) the hesitation of Joseph; 3) the birth
of Jesus; 4) the exceptional atmosphere of wonders. Each witness
surrounds these historical events with a scenery of marvellous elements
of his own.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
4. Whoever the witness, the given details are typically feminine
notwithstanding a masculine elaboration. Typically feminine are: the
attention to what people say, to gifts, visits, the emotional reactions
of the fiancé and the niece. Typically masculine is Matthew’s
elaboration: the narration of each event is rigorously closed with a
quotation from the Old Testament. Typically masculine is also Luke’s
elaboration: he omits a number of marvellous elements (the star, Herod,
the visit of the Magi, the appearance of the angel to Joseph); he
replaces them by the more credible visit of shepherds; while he omits
the Biblical quotation, he replaces it with the occasional prophecies of
Hannah and Simeon. Typical for both is the atmosphere of wonders
(signs in heaven versus heavenly music, angels), a great historical
context (a Roman census versus Herod and a flight to Egypt) and the
glorious role for the mother to give birth to a future king of Israel.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If we submit the texts to a psychological examination, to get at its
historical core, we find that there is a common source for all stories
and particularly a feminine one, and secondly that the majority of
events are due to imaginative ‘loose’ construction (e.g. the
“prophecies” are not even exact allusions).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is common opinion among exegetes that this mythic scenery can be
dated to after Jesus’ Resurrection, when in the primitive Church
questions arose about Jesus’ origin. As it was due, all signs had to be
present that Jesus was the future Messiah. As there was a Hellenistic
Church (Paul) and a Jewish Church dames), so there was a Jewish version
(Matthew) and a Hellenistic version (Luke). For the Jews, Jesus had to
be predicted by the prophets; for the Hellenistic people the credibility
was to be ensured by a more common course of events.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Even in this mythical context some fundamental data may appear which are
based on real facts. As the indications about the census of Quirinius,
about Herod, about the descent from David, about the journey to
Bethlehem (according to James’ Protevangelium, Joseph and Mary live in
Jerusalem, not Nazareth) may be false, it is not impossible that Jesus
was born in the period that Herodes Archelaos succeeded his father in 4
BC. Ibis was a period of revolutionary agitation and consequent
repression in Jerusalem. Is it unthinkable that the murder of the
innocents goes back to this period, and that Joseph and Mary, like
probably a lot of people, escaped from Jerusalem to safer surroundings,
such as Bethlehem? In that context and in accordance with the most
probable chronology, Jesus was born in 3 BC during the flight from
Jerusalem. But that he was born in Bethlehem, is certainly not more
than an invention of the Gospel editors, to declare the apparent
prophecy about the birthplace of the Messiah fulfilled in Jesus.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
According to the Jewish tradition Mary was a ***** and Jesus’ father was
the Roman soldier Panthera. There are, however, some unsolved
questions: how is it possible that from the beginning there is the
supposition that Jesus could become king in Israel? This seems quite
unrealistic, if Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier. Things may change
if on hypothesizes that actually his father was a prince, named Herodes
Archelaos (a name which evokes the word Archangelos), who in 4 BC
became the successor of the great Herod, and who was known for his
unrestrained sexual behaviour. Is it unthinkable that a prince said to a
girl that her son could become a king?</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
As it had to be shown to the many new adepts of the primitive Church,
who became curious about Jesus’ origins, that he was really born as the
Messiah, the inferior conditions of his birth had to be overcompensated.
The scenario of conceiving outside marriage and giving birth to an
illegitimate child in bad conditions (flight to Bethlehem) had to be
changed to a direct divine intervention, a virginal conception, the
birth of a future king with the presence of royal Magi, shepherds,
angels, heavenly signs and prophecies.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
About the mythical character of this Gospel of Infancy, there is a
consensus among exegetes: a fantastic scenery was elaborated in order to
mask the inferior conditions of Jesus birth. It is impossible to
understand these fantastic stories, if one does not reduce them to their
historical origin: a woman, the mother of Jesus, who had to play her
glorious role as the mother of the Messiah to the community of disciples
that had gathered around her son. It is a fair guess that after Jesus’
resurrection and departure, Mary was questioned about the circumstances
of Jesus’ birth, and told the apostles the story that became the Gospel
of Infancy. Some of the miracle-mongering may have been her own doing,
as may the variations: she must have told the story on more than one
occasion, with less concern for consistency than regular preachers would
have.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
We find Jesus’ mother back in another episode: the Pentecost (Acts 2).
This story is also full of commonplaces. There was a great wind, sounds
from heaven, tongues of fire appeared, and the apostles spoke several
languages. In the text it is said quite realistically that the people
thought it was the language of drunkards. But Luke adds that they all
understood the preaching in their own language, which seems rather
contradictory.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This contradiction, together with the commonplace nature of several
features and the phenomenon of excited and unclear speech (therefore
described as “foreign language”), casts doubt upon the authenticity of
the event. It appears as a show which had to overcompensate the
subjective uncertainty of the apostles. Of course they were anxious:
would the people believe that Jesus was resurrected? Could it become a
success?</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The story of the Ascension is even worse. The Gospel editors who
mention it (not all even do) relate the whole event in only one sentence
and they are not unanimous about the precise location. Luke mentions
two different ones: Bethany and Jerusalem. Nobody describes clearly the
place, the event, the circumstances.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Is it credible that a witness of such a wonderful and glorious event
could say nothing more than “he disappeared”? It sounds like a very
simple goodbye. Why did they not invite a number of witnesses to this
ultimate glorification? Even the high priest? For this instance let us
recapitulate the arguments:</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
1.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> The Apostles are witnesses who try to defend the thesis that Jesus now returned to heaven.<br />
2.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> According to the criteria of courtroom evaluation of witnesses
these are clearly false with regard to the way of disappearance of
Jesus.<br />
3.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> The only historical fact is that about Jesus nothing is said any
more: he disappears definitively from among the Apostles in Jerusalem. </span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It should be noted that angels appear at all difficult moments: the
conception, the birth of Jesus, the resurrection, the ascension. The
Holy Ghost explains both the conception of Jesus and the conception of
the Church. The structural analysis reveals a systematic trend, a
thematic thinking: when there is a difficult situation, a myth with
angels or Holy Ghost is masking the truth. So there is a constant
“mythologic” activity, why not say “mythomanic” (not in a truly
pathological, but in a larger sense).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Exegetes use the term: “post-Paschal glorification”, indicating by that
terminology that all these mythical stories were “invented” by the
Church and are to be classified as devoid of historical foundation, as
purely literary products, only intended to promote the faith in Jesus.
But this theory is unable to specify which were the true historical
events, masked by this mythology.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
So the distinction should be made between two aspects of the Gospel.
The first one is the mythological: a myth is built, a fantastic scenery
in order to show the divine nature of Jesus. The second aspect is the
transparency of the factual pathological trend, which could not be
masked because of ignorance of psychopathology (baptism, Tabor, etc.).
The first has been adequately recognized by the exegetes, the second has
been ignored.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.7. Son of Man</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus calls himself the Son of Man. But according to the voices he
heard, he was the Son of God; they never called him Son of Man. In
order to understand this complex psychological situation, one has to be
familiar with the cultural background, as well as with the
psychopathological one.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The theme of the “Son of God” is essential in the story of his
conception, of his birth, of the temple-episodes (as a 12-year-old, and
with the merchants), in the baptismal and the Tabor visions. While some
kings in divergent cultures have been called Son of God (or Son of
Heaven, etc.), they never pretended to be the physical Sons of God,
conceived without a human father’s intervention, as Jesus did. Where
followers have ascribed magical non-human conception to their leader
(e.g. the Buddha conceived on his mother by an elephant), at least the
leader or prophet himself did not call himself Son of God.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The “Son of God” theme is clearly the fundamental one: the voices
confirm that tide. The contents of this status is the problem which
preoccupies Jesus in the desert. Could he become a Roman Emperor?
Could he transform stones into bread? Could he precipitate himself in
the air? Jesus of course had to consult the Bible about his condition.
There he found the roles of the King, the Messiah and the Son of Man.
Never was it predicted that the Son of God would come, so if he himself
was the Son of God, he had to appropriate to himself the tide of the Son
of Man as well. And this Son of Man was dearly described by Henoch.
Once he was convinced, it became clear to him that now his reign was
coming, because soon he would come on the clouds of Heaven.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
And then he announced the reign of God, implicitly his own. He kept his
secret, because it was impossible to declare to the people that soon he
would be the Master of the whole world for eternity. After a while it
became a problem to him how he should attain his glory. On Mount Tabor
he heard the voices that convinced him that he was also the Servant of
Yahweh, who had to suffer and die before attaining his glory. Moses and
Elijah clarified to Jesus that he was going to die in Jerusalem.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus is convinced that all texts of the Bible point to him, because he
is the Son of God. In Jerusalem he has to make his entrance on an ***
“as Zechariah predicted”. Before his judges Jesus was silent because he
enacted the Lamb of Isaiah, except when he was asked who he was: then
he affirmed that he was the Son of God, the Son of Man, the King of the
Jews, the Messiah.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The starting-point of this development was the genetic theme: who is my
father? The purely pathological elements are the progressive
Ego-inflation, the specific elaboration of the delusion, the
interpretative delirium (all texts point to him) and the hallucinatory
state. So, against Schweitzer, it has been shown that although the
content of the delusion is partly indebted to the cultural background
(Jewish Scripture), the specific pathological elements are
culture-neutral.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.8 The resurrection</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus is sentenced to crucifixion. This was a Roman, not a Jewish
punishment, and Bible scholars have debated a lot about this seemingly
unnecessary hand-over of Jesus by the Jewish authorities to the Roman
governor Pilate, who proceeded to implement the death penalty which
Jesus had deserved according to the Jewish law.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Crucified convicts were tied (not nailed) to a cross, and their death
was brought about by torture and by breaking their bones.
Interestingly, the Roman soldiers refrained from breaking Jesus’ bones,
no doubt because they had orders to do so. Having heard of the
prediction that Jesus would rise on the third day, Pilate must have
thought it quite an interesting practical joke to arrange for the
effective re-appearance of this weird godman. So, he ordered a servant
to look after Jesus after he had been taken down from the cross, and to
get him back on his feet by the third day.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Postulating, as many modernist theologians do, that Jesus died on the
cross and that his re-appearance, which the four Gospels unanimously
report, was a mere fable, is hardly tenable. The rather sensational
tradition that Jesus came back alive after being crucified, can much
better be explained by assuming that he did indeed come back. The
belief that he had come back was crucial to the Christians’ faith, and
only a few years after the fact, Saint Paul declared that without the
“resurrection”, the Christian faith would make no sense. This belief is
best explained by the hypothesis that Jesus did indeed come back: to
everyone’s surprise, he had survived the crucifixion. They still could
not believe that one could survive it, so they accepted that this was
Jesus’ ultimate miracle: he had died and returned to life.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
To find out with reasonable certainty which versions of the resurrection
story are reliable, there are methods of internal psychological
criticism, esp. the criteria of U. Undeutsch. According to Undeutsch,
the clearest sign of falsity of a testimony is the presence of
commonplaces. A true witness mentions particular details which caught
his attention; he mentions his emotions; even his faulty reactions.
These criteria can help a lot in the study of our witnesses.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is clear from the vivid and contingent details that Mark and John
relate some true events: Mark recalls how the Apostles did not believe
the story of Magdalen, when she told them that the grave was empty.
John mentions the fact that he arrived first at the grave, because he
had run faster, but let Peter enter first. By contrast, Matthew and
partly Luke give a collection of commonplaces: an angel appears, there
is light and thunder, suddenly two men are present. The conclusion
therefore is: Matthew and partly Luke falsified the true story; Mark,
John and partly Luke relate true events. So, to the great astonishment
of the disciples, the grave was empty.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
On similar grounds, it is also true that afterwards, Jesus met his
apostles at Jerusalem and in Galilea. Jesus survived crucifixion. Some
details in the Gospel may become more important in this perspective: 1)
the attitude of Pilate, who was not a friend of the Jews and liked to
ridicule them; 2) the contacts between Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea;
3) the “good” centurion who spared Jesus; 4) the hasty end to the
crucifixion and the restitution of the body to Joseph of Arimathea; 5)
the new grave and the presence of a young person (a servant).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One can suppose that Pilate ordered the centurion to spare Jesus, so
that he would not die but “resurrect”. After three days, Jesus was
sufficiently healed, and a few days later he paid a nightly visit to his
disciples in Jerusalem. But he had to be careful, because if he was
caught, he would have been stoned or decapitated. After the sobering
experience of torture and convalescence, he had the presence of mind to
escape to safer regions like Galilea, and from there to disappear
forever from Palestine.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
When the Apostles wanted to announce his resurrection, they had to say
where Jesus was. The simplest way to get rid of this problem was the
story of the Ascension. The criteria of Undeutsch stamp the Ascension
story as obviously false. It is also possible that the question of
Jesus’ whereabouts was initially not very important, as long as Jesus’
Second Coming was expected; and that only when the expectation was
abandoned after decades of vain hope, the Church chose to lodge Jesus
safely in heaven whence he shall return “at the end of time”. Either
way, whether it was the apostles themselves or the later editors of the
New Testament, those who have reported the Ascension have left us a
stereotypical glorification story, immediately recognizable as
unhistorical.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The ascension story is one of the most vulnerable points in Christian
theology, because it makes a mockery of that one cornerstone of the
Christian faith: Jesus’ victory over death in the resurrection. After
all, if he has disappeared from among us by ascending to heaven, he is
not different from us mortals, who also disappear after death. If
vanquishing death means remaining in your physical body, as the
resurrection story implies, then Jesus has not vanquished death but
merely postponed it for a few weeks, something which doctors routinely
do with cancer patients. On the other hand, if he ascended to heaven
physically, with body and all, then he is still physically roaming
somewhere, in a physical heaven, like the astronauts. This dilemma, the
Church can only solve by statements like: “Hallowed be those who
believe without having seen”, or: “I believe because it is absurd”, or:
“It is a mystery, and we should be humble enough not to try and reduce
it to our intellectual comprehension”.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
We will let the theologians sort it out, and direct our attention back
to the historical situation after Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus did indeed
reappear, shocked at his own unexpected survival, but only briefly.
Shortly after, he left from among the apostles, probably from fear of
the priests as well as of the Romans, who must have found it a good
practical joke, but not one that should last too long. This survival
scenario is far better able to explain why people effectively believed
that Jesus had resurrected, than the modernist interpretation that he
just died and that later his disciples merely “claimed” to have seen him
again.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
There are indeed traces of Jesus’ survival in the New Testament. Saint
Paul relates how, immediately after his conversion, he went to Arabia,
and returned to Damascus invested with the authority to lead the Church
among the Gentiles; and how he went and joined the apostles in Jerusalem
only after three years (Gal. 1:17). This is only seemingly in
contradiction with the version of Acts 9:26, which makes him go from
Damascus to Jerusalem. It is indeed from Damascus that he arrived in
Jerusalem, but the information that he had to be smuggled out of
Damascus indicates that he had already been a controversial preacher for
some time, which again presupposes that he had been invested with some
authority. Only after preaching for three years did he visit the
Christians in Jerusalem, including the original apostles who must have
been the highest authority in the Church after Jesus. What did Saint
Paul go to Arabia for? Could it be that that is where Jesus was
staying, safely just outside the Roman Empire?</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Secondly, the first line of the book Apocalypse says quite clearly that
the book was a revelation from God to Jesus. The next line says that it
was then passed on to John through his angelos, a term which has come
to mean “angel” but literally means “messenger”. The last verses of the
Book repeat this information, and assure: “He who testifies to these
things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen.” To which a later editor
has added: “Come Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all
the saints. Amen.” The Apocalypse is a vision “revealed” to Jesus and
subsequently communicated to a disciple who calls himself John.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Jesus claims to have received a Revelation, and relates it, through a
messenger, to John and his other followers: this clear-cut information
given in the book itself has never been satisfactorily explained by any
theologian. The theory that Jesus himself was the author, does explain
it in the most straightforward way. This obviously presupposes that
Jesus survived the crucifixion and “ascension” for some years.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If he went to live at some other place and survived for some more years,
by what could we recognize his traces if ever we come across any? If we
want to find Jesus’ traces, we have to look for traces of paraphrenia.
The Apocalypse of John is a striking expression of a developed
paraphrenic condition. This mysterious text could reveal the truth
about the later Jesus.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.9. The date of the Apocalypse</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One of the least understood books of the Bible is no doubt its very last
book, the Apocalypse or Book of Revelation, ascribed to Saint John the
apostle, also called the “Seer of Patmos”. No theologian knows really
what to do with it, and a coherent explanation of it is simply not
extant. The book is very popular among crackpots and people who expect
the end of the world, like the Jehovah’s witnesses.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Charles Manson, who killed the actress Sharon Tate and some of her
friends in 1969, was an adept of the Apocalypse. He had taken the
Beatles song “Revolution #9” (correctly) as a pun on “Revelation #9”,
and interpreted this as a message to himself, connected with the
fire-and-brimstone 9th chapter of the Book of Revelation. Like so many
madmen, he related everything (in this case, both the Apocalypse and the
songs of the Beatles) to himself. he was the leader of the select
humanity that would survive the catastrophe God was about to inflict on
the world, as well as an instrument in God’s destruction of doomed
‘piggies’ such as the decadent god-forgetting actors.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This use of the Apocalypse in crank millenarist movements is not
abnormal: the Apocalypse is a manifesto of the expectation of Judgment
Day, and it is definitely the product of a sick mind.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A first problem with this book is its date. The prevalent opinion still
is that it was written only in the nineties AD, making it the latest
Bible book. Dr. Somers has, however, convincingly demonstrated that it
must have been written in the mid-forties, some two decades before the
Gospels. Among the clues he discovered, one certainly deserves mention,
because an end should be put to all the nonsense read into it so far:
the mysterious number 666, which is said to be the number of the Beast.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The arguments for the prevalent dating are the following: in the text,
seven or eight kings of Rome (emperors) are mentioned; there is a
predictive allusion to a great fire in Rome, probably in 64 AD under
Nero10 (taken to be a reference inserted as a vaticinium ex eventu, a
prophecy after the fact); and the number of the beast, 666, is probably
the number of Nero (gematria value of QSAR NRWN, the approximate Hebrew
transcription of the Greek pronunciation of the Roman name Caesar Nero).
Counting the Roman emperors from the beginning with August, and not
taking into account the short-lived reigns of Galba (68-69), Otho (69)
and Vitellius (69), one arrives at Domitianus (81-96) as the seventh.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
But this construction does not exactly shed light on this mysterious
text. On the contrary, it is in contradiction with other information
given in the text. It is said that five kings are fallen and that the
seventh is not yet there, and that he will not remain for a long time.
It follows that the Apocalypse has to be dated during the reign of the
sixth emperor, and that the cryptogram 666 indicates his name. In that
case Nero should be the sixth, but this is impossible because in the
list of the emperors, he is the fifth. And according to the text the
destruction of Rome should happen during the reign of the seventh, which
cannot be Nero, because he is the sixth or the fifth. The solution
that Domitianus is the seventh, or the eighth, is also unsatisfying for
this reason, that he did not reign for a short period. It is also
rather arbitrary to exclude Galba, Otho and Vitellius from the list
because of their short reigns.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The reason for this hermeneutic chaos is the fact that a number of
details are not understood very well, e.g. the indication: “the eighth
king who was one of the seven.” What is needed here is an interpreter
who is not merely a psychologist but also a Classical philologist,
thoroughly familiar with the details of Greco-Roman culture.
Notwithstanding the particular traits of loose mental association
operative in the Apocalypse writer, some details may be exact allusions
to the political reality, metaphors which should be identified.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This identification should proceed from an exact representation of the
cultural background at the time the Apocalypse was conceived. In the
previously mentioned interpretation this exact representation is
lacking. Thus, it was forgotten that the name Caesar was not a title of
a function, but a proper name; that the list of emperors we have does
not coincide with the succession of Caesares; that the description of
the fire of Rome (borrowed from Ezekiel) is entirely different from the
description of the real fire (Tacitus relates an indescribable chaos
inside the city), and looks more like a genuine prediction based on the
Scriptural model of Ezekiel rather than a fake prophecy based on a
description of the actual event.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
To start with an easy one: “the eighth who is one of the seven” is
simply Octavianus (from Octavus, “the eighth”), the personal name of
Caesar Augustus. Julius Caesar was the first in the list of the
Caesares, though he was not an emperor: he was murdered precisely
because he was suspected of scheming to become king. That the list is
projected to end with the seventh emperor is a reference to a list of
seven who ruled in the beginning: the seven kings of Rome. As the
seventh is not yet there, the Apocalypse has to be dated during the
reign of the sixth, because five have already fallen.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This then is the list: 1) Julius Caesar; 2) Octavianus Augustus, “who is
also the eighth”; 3) Tiberius; 4) often forgotten, Germanicus, who was
poisoned (fallen) before assuming power but had formally been invested
with the imperium maius, 5) Gaius Caligula; 6) Claudius; 7) Nero, whose
reign lay in the future when the Apocalypse was written, according to
the Apocalypse text itself. The Apocalypse can then be dated in 45-47
AD, rather than in 90 AD or later.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The text of the Apocalypse makes unmistakable reference to the political
situation of the day. There is a dragon and two beasts, the first
beast with seven heads and ten horns, the second beast with only two
horns: the first beast’s seven heads symbolize the seven kings of Rome
(the seven Caesars), one of them fatally wounded (Julius Caesar). The
ten horns are the governors of the ten Provinces of the Roman Empire
(the dragon). The dragon gave power to this beast (the imperial power).
The beast reigns 42 months, which is exactly the period of the reign
of Caligula who reigned from the 1st July, 37 AD till the 21st January
41 AD and who wanted to be worshipped as a God (Zeus Epiphanes neos
Gaios), even in the temple of Jerusalem: the absolute horror for
iconoclastic monotheists. The second beast has only two horns, it
decrees the worship of the emperors and the taxes; it reigns under the
supervision of the first beast. This is clearly the senate of Rome with
the two consuls at its head. The elaborate symbolism of the horns
signifying rulers is an imitation of the imagery employed by Daniel in
his allusions to the Hellenistic rulers.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
But the reference to the emperor as “the Beast” does not merely express
hatred against the institution of the Roman imperium, which is conceived
as the new Babylon that holds the Chosen People in exile. It is
directed against the then emperor Claudius personally. It is written
that the Beast is also a man and this man has the number 666. Written
in Greek characters 666 = Kh.Ks.W, as follows: W or digamma signifies 6;
Ks or ksi signifies 60; Kh or khi signifies 600. For 6/Digamma the
meaning is clear: five kings are fallen, the seventh is not yet there,
so it is the sixth. For 60/Ksi, the associating mind may think of
Kaisar, abbreviated KS: 66 signifies then the 6th Caesar (this is
plausible but not convincing by itself). For Khi or 600, the meaning
becomes clear when we turn to the Roman number system, where 600 - DC,
is also used as shorthand for Divus Caius as well as for Divus Claudius,
“the divine Claudius”. The number 666 signifies emperor Claudius.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This informed guess is confirmed when we realize that in his time,
Claudius was routinely compared with a monster, because he was indeed
ugly like a beast: according to Suetonius, even his own mother said so.
Divus was a title, which was an object of mockery for Romans, and all
the more in the case of Claudius because of his un-divine appearance.
Seneca writes that Claudius’ body was created by the gods when they were
angry. The fact that Claudius is described unanimously as a beast and a
monster by Suetonius, by Seneca and by the Apocalypse, was also due to
the fact that he suffered from a vigorous head and hand tremor, and that
he had an abnormal gait and a raw voice, “like that of a sea-monster”.
Seneca describes these defects and adds that Hercules had seen several
monsters, but not all. Finally, the comparison with a monster may also
refer to Claudius’ readiness to have people killed. Seneca accuses
Claudius of sentencing to death numerous people and one can understand
the allusions in the Apocalypse to the decapitation of a great number of
Christian Jews, ordered by Claudius (Apoc. 6:9; 13:9,15; 16:6; 17:6;
18:6,24; 19:2; 20:4).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One sees that the Apocalypse imagery is a mixture of allusions to the
reigns and persons of the successive Caesars: the violent death of
Julius Caesar, the short reign of Gaius, the appearance and the symbolic
cypher of Claudius. The evocation of his ugliness is completed with
the traits of the beast in Ezekiel (with the face of a lion, etc.). The
aversion for the emperor is situated in the Jewish-Roman conflict:
emperor-worship and the taxes (paid in coins bearing the name or picture
of the emperor: the “mark of the Beast”). So one can deduce the
procedure of composition: the text is an agglomerate of historical
details, loosely unified by symbolic figures, all woven into a
catastrophic vision of the impending Doomsday.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Apocalyps can safely be dated to the year 45 AD, because this date
is corroborated by other historical Information. In 49 Claudius
banished the Jews from Rome, because they were restless under the
instigation of a certain Chrestos (as reported by Suetonius). If the
Apocalypse was known in Rome in 47, it is quite understandable that some
of the Jews were in a revolutionary mood, not only because of the taxes
and the worship of the emperor instituted by Gaius, but also because
they were instigated to set fire to Rome and to refuse to pay the taxes.
Those who obey the laws of Rome are threatened with being condemned by
Jesus and being tortured with fire (Apoc. 14:10) and with tumors
(16:2). There was a campaign of civil disobedience and terrorism
severely repressed by Claudius. This repression created more fervour
for rebellion, because the rebels had to avenge the death of some of
them, condemned to decapitation by Claudius. It appears that Suetonius
is right when he calls the instigator Chrestos.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
There is a satirical play by Seneca about Claudius titled Divi Claudii
Apokolokyntosis, “Claudius’ transformation into a pumpkin”. No
transformation into any pumpkin figures in the play and the title is
probably alluding to Claudius’ helpless attempt at pronouncing the word
Apokalypsis. The Christian pamphlet Apocalypse with its prophecies of
doom against Rome and the emperor was the talk of the town, and in the
ensuing persecutions of the Christians, the Romans will give proof of a
remarkable familiarity with the Apocalypse’s threats and predictions.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
According to Suetonius, a senator said to Nero that he wished that Rome
would not be destroyed during his reign. Nero answered that he would
welcome its destruction, because he hated the small streets of ancient
Rome and wanted to reconstruct the city. So one can suspect that talk
of “the destruction of Rome” was in the air at that time, and that the
prophecy was known and talked about. Afterwards Nero did not hesitate
to arrest the Christians as guilty for the fire of Rome.11 The way he
tortured them was an obvious allusion to the treatment which the
Apocalypse had in store for the emperor: he let them bum like living
torches, and let them face the lions while themselves sewn into animals’
skins. Anybody could understand the allusion. That the Romans were
capable of such cruel practical pun on the rebels’ own Apocalyptic
predictions, was demonstrated a few years later when rebellious
Jerusalem was conquered by Titus: then also, the rebel leader was given
exactly the same treatment which Jewish Apocalyptic literature had
promised the Roman commander.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
A very important indication is the reference to the hated taxes. The
saints should persevere and die (14:12), and refuse to pay taxes: they
should not take the mark of the emperor’s name, which is on the coins
(cf. 13:17: nobody can sell or buy, if he does not carry the name of the
beast). There can be no doubt that the Apocalypse instigates the
Christian Jews to civil disobedience, even when they are sentenced to
death. As Suetonius writes, Christ is the instigator of the troubles in
Rome; the reason is his hatred for him who stands in the way of his
coming in glory to rule over the whole world (2 Thess. 2:1-12). Claudius
was radical in the repression. By capital sentence and by banishment
(49 AD) he tried to keep the troubles under control.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Jews, especially the Christian ones, did not have the sense of
humour that characterized the Roman attitude regarding the deification
of the Roman Emperors. If one reads Seneca, one sees how Romans were
full of mockery about these deifications. Claudius is ridiculed as he
wants to become a god, and finally condemned to be a slave, and the
fundamental reason is that “tam facile homines occidebat quam canis
adsidit” (Seneca: “he killed as easily as a dog urinates”). This
seriousness in their opposition to the Emperor’s deification makes them
susceptible to calls for rebellion, like the one launched by Chrestos.
But they get killed or exiled by Claudius, the Beast.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is remarkable that Paul in his letter to the Romans (Ro. 13) tries to
convince them to be submissive to the authorities and to pay the taxes
(13:6). This letter should have been written in 56 AD, shortly after
Claudius’ death (54 AD). As Seneca suggests, the young Nero inspired a
new hope in Rome, also for the Jews, who started returning there. This
does not mean that the plans for the final confrontation had been
abandoned: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
wickedness…” (Ro. 1:18). in the meantime Paul was in Rome as a
(well-treated) prisoner. Probably Peter also came to Rome and was there
during the fire.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If the Christian Jews set the fire to Rome, this had to be prepared by
Paul and Peter in great secret. In Thess. 2:1-12, Paul alludes to the
thesis of the Apocalypse that Jesus cannot come back because he is
impeded by the Antichrist, viz. the Roman Empire; and that his coming
must be preceded by rebellion. But the end will come soon, during
Paul’s own lifetime. The strategy had been changed: they would pay
taxes and honour Caesar; but this did not change the fundamental
attitude and the hostility against Rome, which was still to be
destroyed.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
If the hypothesis is accepted that Nero and some senators knew that the
destruction of Rome was predicted, as Suetonius suggests, then of course
during the ten years of Nero’s reign, there was some rumour against the
Christians, who were persecuted. The 1st Letter of Peter (1 Petr.
3:13-17; 4:11-19; 5:9) mentions these difficulties between 60 and 64 AD.
Peter too tries to obtain obedience to the emperor (1 Petr., 2:13;
4:17). It is easy to distinguish two periods after 45 AD, the presumed
date of publication of the Apocalyps: the first one a period of troubles
in Rome and elsewhere till the banishment of the Jews in 49 AD; a
second period (54-64 AD) when Peter and Paul preach submission to the
Law, announcing that the end is coming soon. In the meantime the
Christians have difficulties and are criticized, they have to behave
prudently, they should not provoke reactions: that is the doctrine of
Peter and Paul, in contradiction with the doctrine of the Apocalyps.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The contradiction between the Apocalypse (not to pay taxes, to die
instead) and the directives of Paul and Peter is a normal evolution:
when there is sufficient repression, the outward behaviour normalizes,
though the inner rage remains. If we suppose that Jesus’ (active) life
ended around 54 AD, along with his fanatic revenge against the emperor,
who impeded his coming in glory, it is possible that Peter and Paul took
charge of the Christian community and gave it a new direction. And
because it could not be a long time before Jesus would come back (“the
times are now decisive”, Paul writes to Timothy (2 Tim. 3:1)), it was
not very useful to sacrifice a number of lives by objecting to the taxes
and resisting the new emperor openly. So they preferred the secret
subversion: Rome had to be destroyed, because it impeded the second
coming of Jesus. It has been forgotten for too long that the first
Christians were true anarchists.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The period of ten years before the fire was one of caution. After the
fire, the opposition to Rome of the entire Jewish community was at its
apogee: in 66 AD there was a revolution in Jerusalem, and in Alexandria
thousands were killed. Until 135 AD, the revolutionary fire would rage
in Jerusalem. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Given the opposition between the doctrine of Peter and Paul and the
doctrine of the Apocalyps, it would be extremely improbable that the
Apocalyps came later than the letters of Paul and Peter. In the year 90
AD the taxes were more than 50 years old, the worship of the emperor
was an old tradition; the indignation could not be so fresh as when
Gaius prepared his statue for the temple in Jerusalem and when the
commercial taxes were newly imposed. The real sequence is: indignation,
troubles, revolution, repression, outward submission, inner rage,
secret subversion. It fits the developments between 40 and 64 AD.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Apocalypse is therefore the first document of Christianity. In the
light of these problems one can ask if the logion of Jesus: “Give unto
Caesar what is Caesar’s”, has not been added later as a part of the
Church’s strategy to convince the Christians to pay taxes, or to
convince Rome that they were no longer subversive.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The consequences of this change in perspective are important. The
Apocalypse is the bridge between the real public life of Jesus and the
letters of Paul, and later the Gospels as texts. That the cited logion
is probably a later addition is strongly supported by the fact that in
the trial of Jesus before Pilate the accusation against Jesus is: that
he preaches revolution against Caesar, that he forbids to pay taxes and
that he pretends to be the Messiah, the King. And this is confirmed by
the Apocalypse, which incites to revolution against Rome and Caesar in
order to burn Rome, and which forbids to pay taxes (to take the mark of
the beast). Luke (22:2) simply mentions the accusations, but not the
acts of Jesus that might have led to them. When the Gospels are
published, Jesus is presented as a taxpayer and a loyal subject of
Caesar, and this is in accordance with the official strategy of the
Church (Rom., 1 Petr.).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Given the evidence of the Apocalypse and of the allegation during Jesus’
trial, we have to admit that the historical Jesus did indeed preach the
revolution against Rome and forbade at least his own disciples to pay
taxes. In the Gospel discussions about the subject are mentioned (Mk.
12:13-17). While the anti-Roman thrust may have been secondary as long
as Jesus lived in the Jewish milieu in Palestine, it came centre-stage
when he fled his homeland after the resurrection and found himself
constantly exposed to the Pagan culture that was so repulsive to his
Jewish sensibilities.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3.10. The author of the Apocalypse</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Apocalyps is certainly the most primitive document. Is it also a paraphrenic document?</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The general opinion of the exegetes about the Apocalyps is that it is a
literary work of the genre of the apocalyptic literature (Ezekiel,
Daniel, Henoch, etc.), which contains prophecies about the end of time,
predicting catastrophes, with visions, angels and cryptic symbolic
expressions, not always well understood today.12</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
We may at once remark that this is an improper use of the term “literary
genre”. One could call the poem, or the novel, or the comedy,
“literary genre”. But “Apocalypse” does not belong in a formal
classification of literature, and refers to the contents. In different
genres, you could have an apocalyptic play, an apocalyptic poem, etc.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The psychopathological examination of the texts leads to conclusions far
removed from current theological opinions. Ezekiel, Daniel and Henoch
were mental patients, schizophrenics and paraphrenics, showing all
typical symptoms of these diseases: receiving revelations, seeing
visions, believing they are the elected ones, predicting catastrophes.
The apocalypse is not an exception. Characteristic of the Apocalypse is
the megalomaniac atmosphere, the horrible aggressiveness and the
boundless narcissism. Symptomatic are the loud voices, crying;
symbolic, idiosyncratic, pedantic expressions; zoopsy (seeing monsters
and beasts); the hallucinatory state; the sense of impending
catastrophe, the typical systematic elaboration of assimilated earlier
predictions (Henoch, Ezekiel and Daniel had. been “digested” into the
delusion).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The abnormality of the mental processes can easily be shown. A number
of expressions are inspired by an enormous Ego-inflation: glory and
power to him, omnipotence, everybody will see his power, he will destroy
the earth and all peoples, he is the Son of Man. This is coupled with
an enormous narcissism: all will adore him, everybody has to sing his
glory because he alone has power and wisdom (5:12), he alone is worthy
to receive the glory, only the Lamb is worthy to open the book with the
seven seals, he is the king of kings, the Lord of Lords.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
All events are cosmic: stars fall, angels occupy the four corners of the
earth, events are accompanied by thunder and lightning and earthquakes;
all voices are loudly crying, some with the voice of the thunder.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
All punishments are terrible: blood streams abundantly, Rome will be
destroyed in one hour or one day (18:8-9), all kings, all soldiers, all
their horses will be eaten by the birds, the beast will be burnt alive
(that is why Nero burnt the Christians alive), all others will be killed
by Christ himself (19:17-21), all living beings in the sea will die
(16:3), etc.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
All these catastrophes are the effect of God’s anger. Rome is described
as the great ***** and the Roman Empire is identified with Satan
himself. All this anger, all these catastrophes are due to the fact
that all others are supposed to be the enemies of Jesus (the majority of
humanity did not even know who Jesus was), and are therefore guilty and
worthy to be destroyed. Only those who are the elected ones will reign
with the Christ for 1000 years. Those who died, will resurrect when
Jesus comes back to reign for 1000 years (cfr. also the prediction of
Paul: 1 Thess. 4:13-19).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
This immense, irrational aggressiveness is a consequence of the enormous
inflation of the Ego. The pathological character of these mental
processes is well-known. The hypothesis that the source of this text is
a megalomania cal paraphrenic is highly plausible, if one considers the
original part of the content, as distinct from the assimilated part.
The latter consists of a few borrowed notions, esp. the notion of the
resurrection: according to Ezekiel (37:1-14), the bones of the slain
warriors of Israel shall be raised from the grave, and covered with
sinews and muscle and skin, and quickened with breath. As the Jehovah’s
witnesses correctly maintain, the Bible does not teach an afterlife but
a physical resurrection; the Apocalypse specifies that it will take
place at the time of Jesus’ second coming, and will only concern the
saved ones.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It deserves repetition that among religious believers, there are a great
many takers for the prophetic pretences of such revelations.
Schizophrenics such as Henoch and Ezekiel, both authors of apocalyptic
writings, have the revelation to be elected by God, they understand
suddenly all mysteries of the world, they travel from one end of the
world to the other, they are always at the centre of immense events,
they predict catastrophes. The delusions of paraphrenics are generally
more systematically evolved, but share often the same cosmic dimensions.
As most of these delusions are religious and genetic, it is clear that
their content was ready to be believed as the word of God. Mysterious,
grandiose, futuristic, these revelations seemed to contain higher
divine truth and so became the stuff of Sacred Scripture. In fact they
were reports of the schizophrenic or praphrenic delusions of mental
patients.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Let us now take a closer look at the condition of the author of the
Apocalypse. A precise examination of the style of the Apocalyps
reveals: 1) a typical Jewish, non-Greek, style, including an excessive
use of conjunctions and a scarce use of particles; 2) a non-Johanneic
style, as compared with the Gospel and the Epistles of John. The author
is definitely non-Greek, probably Jewish, and definitely not John the
Evangelist.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
In Apo.1:9, John has a vision and hears a voice and then he sees an
angel, who dictates to him what was earlier called the “revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon
take place” (Apo. 1:1). In john’s narrative, there is a direct
communication of the visions. According to our criteria, and going by
the factual validity of the angels appearing in other New Testament
stories, the angel is only there in order to hide or to embellish the
truth. It is Jesus who speaks and orders to write to the Churches in a
typical authoritative style as in the Gospels (“He spoke with
authority”, say Mt. 7:29, Mk. 1:22, Lk. 4:32), and with the same
expressions: “those who have ears to hear…”, developing the same themes:
“Those who believe in me…”, “I shall come…”</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The other visions are attributed to John, but at the end the angel comes
back, and while the angel is speaking Jesus speaks again (Apoc. 21:12)
“I Jesus, I have sent my angel”. There is a constant osmosis of the
angel and Jesus. These inconsistencies together with the recurring
observation that the angel is merely there in order to conceal the
truth, lead to the hypothesis, that a secretary just noted the visions
of Jesus and gave a literary form to them. This scribe could have been
John, but that is not certain. These names are sometimes pseudonyms,
just, as in the Proto-Gospel “of James”. Given all these elements, we
can formulate the hypothesis that the real inspiring author of the
Apocalypse was the surviving Jesus himself in a later stage of his
illness. With this hypothesis in mind, the Apocalypse, formerly a
poorly understood text, becomes a dear manifesto of early Christianity.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
It is quite astonishing that the style of expression of Jesus in the
Gospels corresponds precisely with the style of the expressions of Jesus
in the Apocalyps. In the Gospel, he posits himself as authority: “I
say to you…” The same “I” - style can be found in the Apocalypse: “I
shall give you…I know…I shall come… I shall confess their names… I knock
at the door”. Other expressions, like: “I shall confess their names
before my father and the angel” (Apo. 3:5); “We shall eat together”
(Apoc. 3,20); “I shall come as a thief” (Apo. 3:3), are common to the
Apocalypse and the Gospels (Mk. 8:38; Mt. 10:32; Lk. 9:26; Lk. 12:36;
22:29-30; Jn. 14:23; Mk. 8:38; Mt. 24:42-44; Mk. 13:33).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Identical is also the egocentric point of view, e.g. in the Gospel:
“those who remain faithful to me (Jn. 8:31, 12:44); in the Apocalypse:
“those who remained faithful to me” (Apoc. 2:3, 2:13, 3:8). The same
doctrine with regard to suffering and death for the faith in Jesus: “He
who loses his life because of me” (Mk. 8:35); “Do not fear what you are
about to suffer… be faithful till death” (Apo .2:10; cfr. also 6,11).</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The character of the similarities is rather convincing: they are all
idiosyncratic features (the egocentric authoritative style, the
insistence on faith to Jesus till death), not stereotypes or vague
generalities. It is difficult to imagine that an independent author
would have so well crystallized the idiosyncracies of Jesus in the
Gospel and used them so naturally. Thus, the expression: “those who
have ears to hear” is not that frequent in the Gospel (Mt. 13:9; 13:43;
Mk. 4:12), but here this expression is used quasi-systematically. We
cannot suppose that the expression was so striking, that an independent
author would have imitated that expression so systematically.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
Another idiosyncratic feature is the insistence that the faithful should
lose their lives for Jesus, because the only important thing is the
faith in Jesus. A number of letters of apostles are known; there is not
one that is so extraordinarily filled with allusions to the Gospels and
the Old Testament, and none of them is so extravagantly characterized
by an ego-inflated style. The suspicion that the Gospel and the
Apocalyps belong to the same inspiration is therefore well-founded. One
can see clearly that the so-called literary genre hypothesis does not
hold: the Apocalypse is not merely one in a series of books that
propagate a view of the end of time, with prophecies of catastrophes,
etc. It is a very personal account of the imaginary life of a
paraphrenic.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The “intertextual” elements in the Apocalypse, i.e. the references to
other literary sources, equally provide an indication that Jesus and the
seer of the Apocalypse are one and the same person. The source of
inspiration, apart from the personal visions, is still the prophetic
tradition; but while in the Gospel it was more Henoch and Isaiah, here
it is more Daniel and Ezekiel. The theme remains the Son of Man who
shall return to avenge himself because of unbelief and because the
people had slaughtered him like a lamb.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The Apocalypse seer is already an old hand at hearing voices: “Then I
had a vision. I saw a door in heaven standing open, and the voice, loud
as a trumpet, which I had heard speak to me before, called: ‘Come up
there, then I shall show you what must happen after this.’” (Apo. 4:1)</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The central images of the Apocalypse signify the visionary himself (a
self-centredness through diverse personae, which is a feature even of
ordinary dreams), in his self-pity and vengefulness, in his frustrated
and hurt narcissism: the slaughtered Lamb which will be glorified into
an object of universal adoration, and the woman in labour pains, who is
about to give birth to the Son of Man.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The enemy of the woman in labour is the Beast, i.e. all worldly rulers
who usurp the Son of Man’s God-given rights, and esp. the Roman Empire,
which divine intervention is about to destroy under the rule of the next
emperor. In these pages of fire and brimstone, the paraphrenic
delusion has been cosmically elaborated with unbridled visions of
catastrophe, full of horrible revenge and hatred. The fact that the
seer’s own enemy, the Beast, is the enemy of the woman in labour pains,
gives a clue to the identity of the woman, viz. the seer himself. This
trans-gender self-image can be compared with Freud’s famous case of
Justice Schreber, who thought he would be turned into a woman, get
impregnated by a god, and become the mother of a new human race.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The woman in labour pains is one motif that is not represented in the
Gospel, but of which the appearance in the Apocalypse fits a logical
development. The full confidence of being the Son of Man, soon to be
covered with glory, has, after the shock of surviving his glorious
execution, and after years of impotent anger against the world’s
skepsis, evolved into a vision of the near future, when he will become
the Son of Man, after the ongoing painful stage of expectation,
described as labour pains. After he survives the crucifixion, his
Kingdom does not start. Instead of shattering his delusion, this gets
explained, and the Kingdom is put off to a later date. We see this in
all the predictions of the end of the world: for every failed
prediction, there is an explanation that prevents utter disillusionment,
and the believers persist in their slightly amended expectation, in
spite of all the refutations of their belief by reality. In people
afflicted with a delusion, this capacity of rationalizing experiences
that are logically disturbing to the delusion, is virtually
unassailable. </span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
One could characterize the Apocalyps as the hymn of the wrath, of the
anger and the hate, exactly the contrary of the (later) doctrine of
Jesus in the Gospels. Nothing in the Apocalyps is love or mercy, all is
self-glory, revenge, wrath, power, cruelty. The Apocalypse is in stark
contradiction with the more theologically elaborated books of the New
Testament, esp. John and Paul. In those books, Jesus has been
humanized in order to make him more acceptable to the faithful.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
The hypothesis that the Apocalypse is Jesus’ own swan song, is based on
psycho-pathological parallelism, taking into account the time factor:
further development of the delusion into a form at once more extreme and
yet incorporating a compromise with unresponsive reality, viz. the fact
that his glorification as the Son of Man has so far failed to come
about. This hypothesis has the immense advantage that it requires only
one theory to explain both the Gospel and the Apocalypse, not the string
of dozens of little separate explanations which the theologians offer.
In fact, it is the first-ever coherent explanation of the Apocalypse, a
text with which the theologians have never come to terms. </span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
Footnotes:</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
1For an assessment of Nietzsche’s view of Christianity, in the light of
recent Bible scholarship, see Henk Van Gelre: Friedrich Nietzsche en de
Bronnen van de Westerse Beschaving (Dutch: “Friedrich Nietzsche and the
Sources of Western Civilization”), vol. 1, Ambo, Baarn 1990.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
2Sigmund Freud: Der Mann Moses und die Monotheistische Religion: Drei
Abhandlungen (1939), republished in vol. 13 of The Penguin Freud
Library.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
3Ch. Binet-Sanglé: La Folie de Jésus (French: “Jesus’ Madness”), Paris
1908-12; W. Hirsch: Religion und Civilisation, Munchen 1910., G.L. de
Loosten: Jesus Christus vom Standpunkt des Psychiaters (German: “Jesus
Christ from the Psychiatrist’s Viewpoint”), Bamberg 1905.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
4A. Schweitzer: Die psychiatrische Beurteilung Jesu, Tubingen, 1913.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
5Excerpts in Elke Schlinck-Lazarraga: “De vraag naar de
psychischgeestelijke gezondheidstoestand van Jesus” (Dutch: “The
question of Jesus’ psycho-mental health condition”), in Teksten
Kommentaren en Studies, December 1981.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
6Hermann Werner: “Der historische Jesus der liberalen Theologie - ein
Geisteskranker?”, in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift 22 (1911), p.347-390,
quoted in Elke Schlinck-Lazarraga: op.cit.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
7With these quotes from John’s Gospel, it should be kept in mind that
they are part of the most “theological” Gospel, the one most
unscrupulously tailoring stories to fit the emerging Christian theology
and also the Church’s missionary programme, which rejected
Christianity’s Jewish roots and therefore exaggerated the opposition
between Jesus and “the Jews” Nonetheless, even if John concocted these
incidents, this proves that he expected his audience to accept them as
realistic.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
8The classic on the magician’s role which Jesus played or was considered
playing, and at the same time a very informative work on the role of
the missionary/polemical context in which the Gospels were written, is
Morton Smith: Jesus the Magician, Victor Gollancz Ltd., London 1978.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
9In Anglo-Saxon textbooks of psychopathology, paraphrenia will be
subsumed-under the larger category paranoia. This should, according to
Dr. Somers, be considered a recrudescence and loss of an essential
distinction.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
10The number 666 has also some numerical properties, e.g. it is the
triangular number of 36 (= sum of all numbers from 1 to 36); but then,
many numbers have remarkable properties, so this is not sufficiently
distinctive. Incidentally, Jesus’ name in Greek, Iesoys, has the
numerical value 888; and 8 was a sacred number for early Christians,
signifying the “eighth day”, the completion of the 7-day Creation, viz.
the Resurrection. See C.F. Dumermuth: “Number Symbolism: a Biblical
Key”, in Asia Journal of The Theology, 1/1990.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
11Suetonius mentions the measures against the Christians among Nero’s
praiseworthy reforms, and calls this sect “a new superstition involving
the practice of magic”.</span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
12E.g. M.J. Lagrange: Le Messianisme chez les Juifs, Paris 1909; id.: Le
Judaisme avant Jésus-Christ, Paris, 1931; and E. Schillebeeckx: Jesus,
het verhaal van een levende, Brugge 1975.
</span></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<a class="login-popup like_link" href="https://forums.ubisoft.com/#">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">SOURCE : <a href="https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthread.php/518402-Pschoanalyzing-Jebus-Forums?s=eeb59c4ae5ccdf4e2f92ac8f6800ce76">https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthread.php/518402-Pschoanalyzing-Jebus-Forums?s=eeb59c4ae5ccdf4e2f92ac8f6800ce76</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">----------------------------------------------------</span></div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-33166232447127722892017-03-22T01:34:00.000-07:002017-03-22T01:48:08.377-07:00Tim Widowfield : How Did Paul Remember Jesus?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
How Did Paul Remember Jesus?</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Tim Widowfield </h4>
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<b></b><br /></div>
<div class="entry-content">
We have covered the subject of <a href="http://vridar.org/?s=paul+silence" target="_blank" title="The Silence of Paul">the apostle Paul’s silence on Jesus’ life many times on Vridar</a>.
But for quite a while now, I’ve been thinking we keep asking the same,
misdirected questions. NT scholars have kept us focused on the narrow
confines of the debate <i>they</i> want to have. But there are other questions that we need to ask.<br />
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<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>Pretty apocalyptic prophets, all in a row</i></span></h3>
<br />
For example, Bart Ehrman, defending his claim that Jesus was an
apocalyptic prophet, has habitually argued that we can draw a sort of
“line of succession” from John the Baptist, through Jesus, to Paul. In <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/12352101/book/84714777" target="_blank" title="Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth"><i>Did Jesus Exist?</i></a> he explains it all in an apocalyptic nutshell:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #333300;">At the beginning of Jesus’s ministry he associated with an <b>apocalyptic prophet</b>, John; in the aftermath of his ministry there sprang up <b>apocalyptic communities</b>.
What connects this beginning and this end? Or put otherwise, what is
the link between John the Baptist and Paul? It is the historical Jesus.
Jesus’s public ministry occurs between the beginning and the end. <b>Now if the beginning is apocalyptic and the end is apocalyptic, what about the middle?</b> <b>It almost certainly had to be apocalyptic as well.</b>
To explain this beginning and this end, we have to think that Jesus
himself was an apocalypticist. (Ehrman, 2012, p. 304, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
Dr. Ehrman sees the evidence at the ends as “keys to the middle.” For him, it’s a decisive argument.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #333300;">The <b>only plausible explanation</b>
for the connection between an apocalyptic beginning and an apocalyptic
end is an apocalyptic middle. Jesus, during his public ministry, <b>must have proclaimed an apocalyptic message. </b></span><br />
<span style="color: #333300;">I think this is a powerful argument for
Jesus being an apocalypticist. It is especially persuasive in
combination with the fact, which we have already seen, that apocalyptic
teachings of Jesus are found throughout our earliest sources, multiply
attested by independent witnesses. (Ehrman, 2012, p. 304, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
You’ve probably heard Ehrman make this argument elsewhere. He’s
nothing if not a conscientious recycler. Here, he follows up by
summarizing Jesus’ supposed apocalyptic proclamation. Jesus heralds the
coming <b>kingdom of God</b>; he refers to himself as the <b>Son of Man</b>; he warns of the imminent <b>day of judgment</b>. And how should people prepare for the wrath that is to come?<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003300;">We saw in Jesus’s earliest
recorded words that his followers were to “repent” in light of the
coming kingdom. This meant that, in particular, they were to change
their ways and begin doing what God wanted them to do. As a good Jewish
teacher, Jesus was completely unambiguous about how one knows what God
wants people to do. It is spelled out in the Torah. (Ehrman, 2012, p.
309)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>Unasked questions</i></span></h3>
<br />
However, Ehrman’s argument works only if we continue to read the
texts with appropriate tunnel vision and maintain discipline by not
asking uncomfortable questions. Ehrman wants us to ask, “Was Paul an
apocalypticist?” To which we must answer, “Yes,” and be done with it.<br />
But I have more questions.<span id="more-57711"></span><br />
<ul>
<li>Why does Paul argue <i>inferentially</i> that Christ’s resurrection indicates the end of the age, when he could have fallen back on Jesus’ basic teaching?</li>
<li>Why is Paul’s gospel so different from Jesus’ gospel as presented in the synoptic gospels?</li>
<li>It seems obvious that Paul thought of himself as an apocalyptic prophet. But did Paul think that <i>Jesus</i> was an apocalyptic prophet? What role or roles did Paul think Jesus played?<i><br />
</i></li>
<li>If Jesus’ core message was about the coming kingdom of God, the Son
of Man, the coming judgment, the need for repentance, and God’s
forgiveness, why are these themes largely missing from Paul’s message?</li>
</ul>
These questions become all the more vexing when we pause to consider
that if Paul had referred to Jesus’ gospel, it would likely have
strengthened his message. He need not have quoted Jesus verbatim. He
could simply have noted that Jesus proclaimed the coming kingdom, that
he prophesied his own death and resurrection, that he predicted the
coming judgment, and that he urged sinners to repent and be forgiven.
But he didn’t, and we’re left to wonder why.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>How did Paul remember Jesus?</i></span></h3>
<br />
Georgia Masters Keightley, in her essay entitled “Christian Collective Memory and Paul’s Knowledge of Jesus” (in <i><a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/311067/book/111776736" target="_blank" title="Memory, Tradition, And Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity">Memory, Tradition, And Text</a></i>), seeks
to discover what Paul knew about Jesus and how he knew it. The emphasis
on “how” is important for Keightley, because she wants to de-emphasize
the factual, text-centric knowledge of the written gospels and focus
instead on the personal knowledge believers in Christ receive via
rituals and commemoration.<br />
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</div>
Keightley praises John Knox (the 20th century scholar, not the 16th
century Scottish minister), who talked about Paul’s “knowing” Jesus on a
personal level. She writes:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Despite the fact
that absent factual data the remembrance of Jesus would be poorer, it is
not to be concluded that memory is merely an aggregate of scattered
oral traditions. To the contrary, memory conveys how the community felt
about Jesus, how it experienced him. It is a knowing of Jesus that goes
beyond the picture of him that derives from documentary sources.
According to Knox, memory has to do with the apprehension of the quality
and character of Jesus’ person, the quality and character of his
relation to his friends and followers. . . .</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">Without developing his insight further, Knox concludes that <b>Christian
worship practices are a likely means by which the collective memory of
Jesus has been mediated throughout the generations</b>. </span><span style="color: #003366;">(Keightley, 2005, p. 131, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
Knox believed that Paul and other early Christians knew and
remembered Jesus on an emotional, visceral level, and Keightley claims
that modern social theory supports his contention. She argues “<i>that collective memory is literally embodied in human bodies and is preserved, mediated in and through ritual performance.</i>” Her larger goal is to expand the discussion, showing “<i>that
a broader, more interdisciplinary approach to study of the New
Testament presents the possibility of rich new understandings of this
material</i>.” (Keightley, 2005, p. 132)<br />
Unfortunately, Keightley helps perpetuate the myth that Maurice
Halbwachs understood social memory as depending on actual places in time
and space when she writes:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">While we situate our personal reminiscences within what appears to be the conceptual/abstract past, the truth is <b>this past always has as its reference the actual material space(s) the group occupies</b>. (Keightley, 2005, p. 133, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
I refer you back to <a href="http://vridar.org/2015/03/22/the-memory-mavens-part-5-rituals-and-remembrance-2/" target="_blank" title="The Memory Mavens, Part 5: Rituals and Remembrance (2)">the previous post on Rituals and Remembrance</a>, in which we explained that Halbwachs’s broader concept of localization has two fundamental components: (1) the <b>placement</b> of individuals within the perspective of a group and (2) the <b>placement</b> of individual memories within the larger framework of group memories.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>A Freudian detour</i></span></h3>
<br />
Keightley tells us that Halbwachs demonstrated how early Christians
superimposed their memories of the Holy Land over existing Jewish
locations. But she also points out that the dimension of time also plays
a role in fixing memories within known frameworks.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">In respect to
time, personal reminiscence too must be fitted to the group’s
schema. For the Christian, time is appropriated on the basis of the
yearly celebration of those events leading up to—and subsequent to—Holy
Week. Thus, <b>as Halbwachs argues</b>, memory is not just the
simple recall of facts; to the contrary, it involves the construction
of an appropriate narrative scheme in which to locate our personal data [<b>Connerton: 26</b>] (Keightley, 2005, p. 134, emphasis mine).</span></blockquote>
I have no idea why Keightley appears to be quoting Halbwachs, but
then cites Paul Connerton. She seems to be referring to this observation
from Connerton’s landmark work, <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/299109/book/115300365" target="_blank" title="How Societies Remember"><i>How Societies Remember</i></a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;"><b>To remember, then,
is precisely not to recall events as isolated; it is to become capable
of forming meaningful narrative sequences.</b> In the name of a
particular narrative commitment, an attempt is being made to integrate
isolated or alien phenomena into a single unified process. This is the
sense in which psychoanalysis sets itself the task of reconstituting
individual life histories. (Connerton, 1989, p. 26, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
In this context, Connerton is discussing Freud’s recommendation that
analysts “direct attention to the past when the analysand insists upon
the present, and to look for present material when the analysand dwells
on the past.” (Connerton, 1989, p. 26) The analyst attempts to break
through the patient’s bubble, to dismantle the unhealthy construct that
depends upon a “particular kind of narrative discontinuity.”<br />
This discussion has only the merest tangential relationship to the
normal process of fitting one’s personal narrative into a group schema.
It focuses on <i>dysfunctional</i> behavior, and strategies for
rebuilding a person’s true narrative history, as we can see from the
title of Freud’s essay, “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through.”
The key is to work through the narrative discontinuity the analysand has
constructed.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">The point of this narrative
discontinuity is to block out parts of a personal past and, thereby,
not only of a personal past, but also of significant features of present
actions. In order to discard this radical discontinuity, psychoanalysis
works in a temporal circle: <b>analyst and analysand work
backwards from what is told about the autobiographical present in order
to reconstruct a coherent account of the past; while, at the same time,
they work forwards from various tellings about the autobiographical past
in order to reconstitute that account of the present which it is sought
to understand and explain.</b> (Connerton, 1989, p. 26, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #333399;">Distortion arising from mental sets</span></i></span></h3>
<div class="pullquote">
<br />
We form connections where none existed. We try
make it relevant to current circumstances. And we’re so accustomed to
these frames (our “mental set”), that we struggle to recognize them as
external to the memory itself.</div>
Speaking of narrative frameworks, Connerton raises some significant
issues with respect to the way we perceive, re-package, re-categorize,
and re-structure our memories. The very act of retelling a memory <i>as a story</i>
imposes an artificial structure, one shaped by the expectations of our
society and informed by our culture and family group. Oral historians,
unless they take great care, will inadvertently mold the stories of the
people they interview.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">For some time now a
generation of mainly socialist historians have seen in the practice of
oral history the possibility of rescuing from silence the history and
culture of subordinate groups. Oral histories seek to give voice to what
would otherwise remain voiceless even if not traceless, by
reconstituting the life histories of individuals. <b>But to think
the concept of a life history is already to come to the matter with a
mental set, and so it sometimes happens that the line of questioning
adopted by oral historians impedes the realisation of their intentions.</b> (Connerton, 1989, p. 18-19, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
Our mental sets invite embellishment, a situation further aggravated
by our desire to please an audience. When we choose to recall a memory
and share it with someone else, we package it, consciously or not, into a
beginning, a middle, and an end. We form connections where none
existed. We try make it relevant to current circumstances. And we’re so
accustomed to these frames (our “mental set”), that we struggle to
recognize them as external to the memory itself.<br />
Connerton notes that during conversations with oral historians,
interviewees will sometimes pause and say they have nothing more to
tell, and he warns:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">The historian will only
exacerbate the difficulty if the interviewee is encouraged to embark on a
form of chronological narrative. <b>For this imports into the
material a type of narrative shape, and with that a pattern of
remembering, that is alien to that material.</b> In suggesting this
the interviewer is unconsciously adjusting the life history of the
interviewee to a preconceived and alien model. That model has its origin
in the culture of the ruling group; it derives from the practice of
more or less famous citizens who write memoirs towards the end of their
lives. (Connerton, 1989, p. 19, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
I have no serious objection with Keightley’s observations that,
following Halbwachs and Connerton, memory depends on social frames in
order for us to make sense of them. In fact in this section she makes
three important and related points:<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="color: navy;">“[M]emory’s framework provides the community’s <b>overarching view of reality</b>; it sets forth reality’s fundamental order, character, and significance.” </span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">Our individual memories “are in reality but <b>one limited point of view on the collective experience</b>.
Furthermore, these points of view change as we change social locations
or shift social locations within the different groups to which we
belong.”</span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">Our combined collective memories create groups. “<b>Groups come into existence precisely because their members hold shared experiences.</b>
Because certain of these are deemed significant, they are held to be
both formative and normative and give rise to a unique set of meanings
and values.” (Keightley, 2005, p. 134, emphasis and numbering mine)</span></li>
</ol>
But we must not lose sight of the fact that the frameworks we depend
on to provide meaning and coherence also, by their very nature, distort
reality. In some cases, they induce forgetfulness in that some
recollections simply do not fit within the permitted limits of our
frameworks. Keightley, again following Halbwachs, describes a kind of
forgetting that happens when “we lose touch with the group to
whom certain memories belong and for whom such remembrances
matter.” (Keightley, 2005, p. 134)<br />
I would, however, ask you to consider another kind of abrupt
forgetfulness or at the very least, radical reinterpretation, that
occurs when individuals face cognitive dissonance. In these cases, our
original recollections may be replaced by fictitious memories —
inventions that fit better with our expectations, desires, and needs.
Hence, social memory’s constraints more than just “refract” individual
memory (to use Anthony Le Donne’s term); they may erase it entirely and
put something more palatable in its place. As an example, see part 2 in
this series, “<a href="http://vridar.org/2014/11/30/the-memory-mavens-part-2-a-case-study-at-ellis-island/" target="_blank" title="The Memory Mavens, Part 2: A Case Study at Ellis Island">A Case Study at Ellis Island</a>.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #333399;">“This do in remembrance of me”</span></i></span></h3>
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We have strayed from Keightley’s main point, which is to champion
Knox’s position that the Apostle Paul remembered Jesus through rituals
and what Connerton called “bodily practices.” Nor is Knox the only
scholar to have suggested as much. She quotes extensively from Margaret
MacDonald’s “Ritual in the Pauline Churches” (found in <i>Social Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation </i>by David G. Horrell, available now at Amazon for only $675).<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">If Hengel is correct that
Paul’s basic insights about Jesus Christ were formed early on, Margaret
MacDonald finds their source in Paul’s participation in Christian
worship. She argues that “the Pauline correspondence itself grows out of
and is rooted in, what is experienced in the midst of ritual” (237;
also Hurtado: 42). Ritual was so crucial for the first Christians, she
says, because it was here “that individuals discovered for the first
time, or renewed their acceptance of, the authority that transformed
their experience” (237). <b>In other words, it was
preeminently during ritual performance that Pauline Christians
met firsthand—and came to know personally, existentially—the
veritable meaning of the lordship of Christ.</b> (Keightley, 2005, p. 134, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
This understanding of the mindset of believers during the spread of
Christianity in its formative decades would explain Paul’s apparent
ignorance of what Jesus said and did during his time on earth. Early
Christian converts, <i>including Paul himself</i>, were far more
interested in knowing Christ through the rites of baptism, the
Eucharist, and other rituals of worship. Keightley tells us that Knox
first expounded this idea decades before the memory boom in modern NT
studies.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">To the end of his life,
John Knox continued to express dismay that his biblical scholar
colleagues were unable to see what his careful scrutiny of the New
Testament literature brought him to see so clearly: that the
Christian community bears at its heart a living and abiding memory of
Jesus the Christ. In retrospect, Knox’s inability here can be attributed
to the lack of theoretical tools he had at his disposal to explain how
or why the Christian community has the power of memory—how memory comes
to be transmitted through the generations. (Keightley, 2005, p. 150)</span></blockquote>
We should take Knox’s thesis seriously, while realizing that is
raises as many questions as it claims to answer. For example, it would
appear that Paul knew Christ in almost the same way that a Christian of
400 CE, 1500 CE, or even of today would know him — namely through the
repetition of rituals and religious bodily practices such as the singing
of hymns, the recitation of a creed, or by saying the Lord’s Prayer. If
he was correct, then what are the implications for the quest of the
historical Jesus?<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>The stark differences between Paul’s and Jesus’ gospels</i></span></h3>
<br />
We should also note that John Knox recognized Paul’s apparent
ignorance of Jesus’ teaching, which ran more deeply than most modern
scholars would care to admit. He marveled at Paul’s “<i>disregard of what is undoubtedly the most characteristic, constant and pervasive feature of Jesus’ own teaching.</i>” (Knox, 2000, p. 119) Specifically, Mark tells us that Jesus started his ministry, calling to people to <b>repent</b>, be <b>forgiven</b>,
and ready themselves for the coming Kingdom of God. Yet Paul avoids the
words forgiveness and repentance throughout his letters.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">It may at first seem
strange and arbitrary to ascribe such great importance to forgiveness in
the experience of Paul, in view of the fact that he so seldom uses the
term. Indeed, it is not altogether clear or sure that he uses the noun
at all. It occurs once in Ephesians (1:7), which Paul almost certainly
did not write, once in Colossians (1:14), which is the most dubious of
the other letters, and nowhere else in the Pauline epistles. (Knox,
2000, p. 118)</span></blockquote>
It’s rather clear, then, that Paul never used the noun “forgiveness.”
Why would he would avoid one of the central features of Jesus’ gospel?<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">As for the verb <i>forgive</i>,
Paul employs it several times in 2 Corinthians and in Col. 3:13
(χαρίζεσθαί [charizesthai]) in discussing how we shall deal with others.
But <b>only twice in all his letters</b> does he speak of God
as “forgiving” us; and of these, one instance occurs in Colossians
(2:13 — again (χαρίζεσθαί [charizesthai] [1]) and the other in a
quotation from the Old Testament in Rom. 4:7 (ἀφεῖναι (apheinai)
[2]). (Knox, 2000, p. 118, bold emphasis mine)</span><br />
<span style="color: #330033;">[1] actually: χαρισάμενος (charisamenos)</span><br />
<span style="color: #330033;">[2] actually: ἀφέθησαν (aphethēsan)</span></blockquote>
We have every right to be surprised at these omissions.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">The absence of any emphasis
whatever in Paul’s letters upon these two concepts is much more than
interesting or even curious — it is <b>nothing short of astounding</b>. (Knox, 2000, p. 118, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
Knox eventually argues for the importance of repentance and
forgiveness in Paul’s theology even though Paul does not use the terms.
He focuses instead on Paul’s soteriological emphasis on “grace,” which
Knox thinks leads to an implied tradition of forgiveness. Yet these are
not the only missing features from Jesus’ gospel as we find it in the
Synoptics. Where, for instance, is the <i>coming</i> Kingdom? As Knox understood it, for Paul that kingdom was already here on earth.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">To be “in Christ” was to be
an organic part of the new creation, of which the risen Christ was the
supreme manifestation and the effective symbol; it was, indeed, <b>to belong to the eschatological kingdom of God that had already appeared within history as the church</b>. (Knox, 2000, p. 115, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
Knox realized that such an assertion conflicts with the notion that
the Kingdom would arrive along with the final judgment and the end of
this age.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">Paul does not discuss the
question, later to be debated, of the relation of the church to the
kingdom of God, but he might have said something like this: In complete
actuality the church is most certainly not the kingdom of God; it
belongs to history, suffers from all the vicissitudes of historical
existence, and shares in all the limitations and sins that are our
natural lot: but <b>in inner principle it <i>is</i> the kingdom</b>,
for the source of its distinctive character is its actual participation
in the event toward which all creation has been moving. The church is
the church because it belongs, not to this age, but to the age that is
to come and in Christ has already begun to be. <b>The church, in the truest and most authentic sense, <i>is</i> the kingdom of God insofar as that kingdom has been able to find room within the present world.</b> (Knox, 2000, p. 115, bold emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399; font-size: large;"><i>Knox’s apologetics</i></span></h3>
<br />
In the end, Knox must explain away these problems with Paul’s gospel.
He ties together threads of the doctrine of grace to the concepts of
forgiveness, repentance, and reconciliation with strained arguments that
meander for page after page. What he cannot prove with reason, he
asserts with passion:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">Paul, who without ever having listened to his words was yet his greatest disciple, <b>is wanting to say just what Jesus was constantly saying</b>
— that any peace with God we can have must consist not in the awareness
of being deserving, but in the assurance of being forgiven; not in the
consciousness of being good enough to be loved, but in the knowledge
that Another is good enough to love us. (Knox, 2000, p. 124-125,
emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
But he goes too far. He not only explains Paul’s theology, but argues for its correctness, its <i>truth</i>.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #330033;">As apostle he carried the
gospel across half the ancient world and, almost single-handed, laid the
foundations of Gentile Christianity; as interpreter he set the lines
Christian theology was to follow, through Mark, to John, and beyond; and
at many points he spoke himself what has proved to be the final word.
The marks of human frailty can be discerned in his work, but <b>to
the really discerning they serve only to make more clear the supreme
greatness of his achievement — or rather the supreme greatness of what
God wrought through him.</b> (Knox, 2000, p. 131, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
The unsuspecting reader might find Knox’s preaching at the end of <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/417372/117813845" target="_blank" title="Chapters in a Life of Paul"><i>Chapters in a Life of Paul</i></a>
somewhat disconcerting. Still, the work has much to recommend it. I
think he’s absolutely correct in distrusting the chronology of Acts not
only when it conflicts with Paul’s epistles, but in nearly every case
wherein it purports to depict Paul’s life. Attempts to harmonize Paul’s
first-person letters with Luke’s later, secondhand accounts will prove
fruitless.<br />
However, his slow change from learned scholar to unwelcome
proselytizer reminds me of an acquaintance who seems cheerful and
friendly at first, until it slowly dawns on you that he’s trying to get
you involved in selling Amway.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="color: #333399;">Conclusion</span></i></span></h3>
<div class="pullquote">
<br />
Even if Paul was sharing in a social memory of Jesus, it was not a memory of what he <span style="text-decoration: underline;">said</span> but a memory of who he <span style="text-decoration: underline;">was</span> (and is!) and how his atoning death saved believers from sin and damnation.</div>
John the Baptist’s message and Jesus’ gospel in the first three
canonical gospels are distinctly similar. John demanded the crowd come
forth and be baptized in the Jordan, a bodily practice that signified a
person’s repentance, a deliberate act intended to bring about the
forgiveness of sins. Similarly, Jesus followed on where John had left
off:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Now after John had been
taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of
God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at
hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #003366;">(Mark 1:14-15, NASB)</span></div>
</blockquote>
On the other hand, while we may well call Paul an apocalypticist, we
have to tie ourselves into rhetorical knots in order to explain how his
message could have diverged so greatly from Jesus’ gospel in such a
short time. Why would Paul reject or ignore the teachings of the
disciples who supposedly knew and learned from the greatest teacher who
ever lived?<br />
Further, if Knox is correct about Paul’s knowledge of Jesus coming by
way of religious rituals, essentially the same rituals all Christians
have participated in and continue to take part in today, then he adds
nothing to our understanding of the historical Jesus. For Paul and his
churches, Jesus’ only memorable acts were his institution of the
Eucharist (unless the tradition in 1 Corinthians 11 is an
interpolation), his death, and his resurrection. Even if Paul was
sharing in a social memory of Jesus, it was not a memory of what he <i>said</i> but a memory of who he <i>was</i> (and is!) and how his atoning death saved believers from sin and damnation.<br />
Keightley concludes “this new methodology opens exciting new
possibilities for knowing, apprehending the Christ that Paul knew so
intimately and so well!” [exclamation point hers] On the contrary, with
respect to the historical Jesus, I think it pulls the curtain over the
Pauline era. It says Paul knew the <i>risen</i> Christ intimately, and almost nothing else. In fact, it reinforces what Paul already wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: #003366;">(1 Cor. 2.2, KJV)</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2015/04/20/the-memory-mavens-part-6-how-did-paul-remember-jesus/">http://vridar.org/2015/04/20/the-memory-mavens-part-6-how-did-paul-remember-jesus/</a><br />
===================== </div>
</div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-36303084621370527332017-03-22T01:13:00.001-07:002017-03-22T01:13:21.107-07:00Neil Godfrey : Paul: a recycled Peter and Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Paul: a recycled Peter and Jesus</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<br />This post cannot explore all the ways in which the life of Paul in
Acts has been shown to be borrowed from the narratives about Jesus and
Peter, but I will touch the surface of the general idea for now. I am
relying on two works (I’m sure they’re not the only ones) that argue
that the details in Acts (<i>not</i> the epistles) of Paul’s miracles,
speeches and even some of his travels and adventures are literary
borrowings from the lives Jesus and Peter:<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1591145/book/7634631">Literary Patterns, Theological Themes and the Genre of Luke-Acts</a> by Charles H. Talbert<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/6516179/book/15154875">Parallel Lives: The Relation of Paul to the Apostles in the Lucan Perspective</a> by Andrew C. Clark.<br />
<br />
Beginning with Clark’s book, we read:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">[E]very miracle performed by
Peter has its parallel in one wrought by Paul. . . . In addition to the
miracles performed by Peter and Paul, Acts records other miraculous or
supernatural events which they experienced, and in these too many
parallels between the two may be observed. </span>(p. 209)</blockquote>
Andrew Clark explores these parallels in minute detail according to six specific criteria (outlined in <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/clarks-criteria-for-valid-parallels-continuing-tyson-on-marcion-and-luke-acts/">an earlier post here</a>).
I don’t have the time to give examples in this post, but would like to
discuss a few of the cases in depth when free to do so. Here I will list
the parallels that he lists before undertaking his detailed study of
each. If one reads around the particular passages one will also note a
broader contextual set of parallels. <span id="more-18823"></span><br />
<ol>
<li>Both heal by means other than laying on of hands (one by shadow 5:15-16; one by handkerchiefs 19:11-12)</li>
<li>Both heal men crippled from birth (3:1-10; 14:8-10)</li>
<li>Both heal the bedridden (Aeneas 9:32-35; Publius’ father 28:7-8)</li>
<li>Both resurrect the dead (9:36-43; 20:9-12)</li>
<li>Both experience miracles of liberation from prison (5:17-21 and
12:3-17, resulting in death of guards; 16:25-34, resulting in life of
the guard)</li>
<li>Both perform miracles of punishment (5:1-11; 13:8-12)</li>
<li>Both fall into a trance while praying (10:10, 11:5, 22:17)</li>
<li>Both have heavenly visions that they relate three times, and that lead to preaching to gentiles</li>
<li>Both are spoken to by angels (12:7-8, 5:19-20; 27:23-24).</li>
</ol>
Clark also argues that the parallels between the two with respect to
their speeches and preaching ministries are “much more extensive than is
usually recognized.” (p. 259) Again, I will have to save the details
for a future post for anyone interested yet without access to the book.<br />
Talbert in his book lists many detailed parallels between the last
days of Jesus (in Luke) and the last days of Paul. I only touch on these
in broad brush strokes, omitting details:<br />
<ol>
<li>The missions of the seventy (10:1-12)/missions to the Gentiles (ch.13-20)</li>
<li>Both Jesus and Paul determined to go to Jerusalem</li>
<li>Jesus goes to die, and others tell Paul he will die</li>
<li>Both Jesus and Paul receive warm receptions on entering Jerusalem</li>
<li>Both Jesus and Paul go to the Temple in a positive spirit</li>
<li>In disputes over the resurrection the Sadducees support Jesus and Paul while the scribes oppose them</li>
<li>Both Jesus and Paul have a special meal</li>
<li>Mobs respectively seize Jesus and Paul</li>
<li>Both Jesus and Paul are slapped at the command of the high priest</li>
<li>Each has four trials (Jesus: Sanhedrin, Pilate, Herod, Pilate; Paul: Sanhedrin, Felix, Festus, Herod Agrippa)</li>
<li>Each is declared innocent three times (Jesus by Pilate 3 times; Paul by Lysias, Festus and Agrippa)</li>
<li>Herod hears Jesus sent by Pilate; Herod hears Paul sent by Festus</li>
<li>Herod offers to release Jesus; Agrippa says Paul could have been set free</li>
<li>The Jews cry out “Away with this man/him” re both Jesus and Paul</li>
<li>A centurion has a positive opinion of Jesus, as does a centurion of Paul</li>
<li>The ministries of both Jesus and Paul conclude with notes of fulfilment of scripture</li>
</ol>
The above suggests to me that the author of the canonical story of
Paul in Acts created some of his material out of his own imagination as
it mulled over the stories of Jesus and Peter that had gone before. I
don’t think this was entirely because he lacked imagination. The
parallels with Peter were surely to further cement one of the primary
themes of Acts, and that was to demonstrate the theological unity of
Peter and Paul, the Jewish and Gentiles missions and churches.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2011/04/11/paul-a-recycled-peter-and-jesus/">http://vridar.org/2011/04/11/paul-a-recycled-peter-and-jesus/</a><br />
================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-7901325826575698842017-03-22T01:01:00.002-07:002017-03-22T01:01:23.296-07:00Tim Widowfield : Paul and Eschatalogical Morality<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Paul and Eschatalogical Morality</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Tim Widowfield </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
In a recent post (<a href="http://vridar.org/2016/12/31/what-a-bizarre-profession/" target="_blank">What a Bizarre Profession</a>), Neil cited James McGrath over at <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/religionprof" target="_blank">The Pigeon Trough</a>, discussing Paul’s admonition to the Romans not to resist the powers that be.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">13:1 Every person is to be
in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and those which exist are established by God. </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">13:2 Therefore whoever resists authority
has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive
condemnation upon themselves. (NASB)</span></blockquote>
<div class="wp-caption alignright zemanta-img" style="width: 360px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
Naturally, McGrath mainly wished to take a few fizzling fusillades at
mythicists, and that’s no surprise. What did surprise me was the number
of respected scholars who actually take the scripture so seriously (if
not literally), they feel obliged to tie themselves into rhetorical
knots over whether and when to refuse to submit to governing
authorities.<br />
As Neil rightly said:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">This human universal owes
precious little to a few words written from a vaguely understood context
and provenance in a civilization far removed from ours.</span></blockquote>
But even if he had written more clearly, and we fully understood the
context of Romans 13, would we have any reason to consider Paul a
trustworthy advocate for ethical behavior?<br />
The question intrigues me, so I thought I’d compile a little list of reasons we might not want to trust Paul’s advice.<br />
<br />
<h4>
♦ Imminent Eschatology</h4>
<br />
Paul was clearly a believer in the imminent eschaton. He seems to
have arrived at this belief by analyzing recent events, especially the
resurrection, in light of scriptural reinterpretation. We might find his
method somewhat odd, since he could have cited the teachings of his
Christ instead. However, Paul either chose not to mention Jesus’
predictions concerning the coming of the Son of Man and the destruction
of the Temple, or else he was unaware of them.<span id="more-68578"></span><br />
How soon will Jesus come? He believed “we” who are living will be
caught up in the air. So the Parousia, he thought, would happen within
his lifetime. That belief may have fueled his desire to get the message
out, which could explain why his letters were preserved, copied, passed
along, and read in other churches in other cities. His written words
could reach much father than his spoken words.<br />
<br />
<h4>
♦ Social Philosophy: Stay Put</h4>
<br />
Because he thought God was about to turn the entire universe upside
down, Paul advised his followers to remain in their station. In 1
Corinthians 7, Paul gives a list of situations in life you might want to
leave, but he says to stay put. He even says if you can, stay single.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called. (1 Cor. 7:20, NASB)</span></blockquote>
I take his position on “staying put” as evidence that Paul’s advice
not to worry about terrestrial rulers has more to do with not making
waves and focusing on important matters before the Parousia than with
some deep-seated belief that people should not seek better conditions.<br />
<br />
<h4>
♦ Paul’s Ancient Mind</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Paul didn’t know squat about science.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” </span><span style="color: #003366;">You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. (1 Cor. 15:35-36)</span><span class="p"><br />
</span></blockquote>
Seeds don’t die. Paul was wrong about how seeds work, but he wasn’t
alone. It doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything, but it’s a tap on
the shoulder, a gentle reminder, if you will. “Psst. This guy lived
2,000 years ago.” You could argue that we should cut him some slack.
Why, you may ask, should we expect Paul to know anything about science?<br />
I agree with you. But then I would ask, “Why should we expect him to
know anything about anything?” He was entirely wrong about the schedule
of the Parousia. So why should we expect him to be correct about any
feature of the eschaton? If he had known two millennia would pass, and
still no Jesus — how could that not have affected his thinking?<br />
Let me put it a different way. We understand the world today almost
entirely through experimental science and mathematics. Paul understood
the world through philosophy, received wisdom (scripture), and direct
revelation. But it turns out that much of Paul’s understanding of the
physical world and his knowledge of upcoming events was wrong. His tools
— including a supposed direct conduit to his Lord — failed him.<br />
If that’s the case, then why should we take seriously his views on justice and morality?<br />
<br />
<h4>
♦ Paul’s Morality as a Relic</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Paul’s stance on ethics is a relic from a bygone era, and it should be treated that way. By their very definition, they are <i>situational ethics</i>.
If Paul had not believed in the imminent arrival of Christ, his ethics
would not have been the same. His justification for extreme chastity and
staying put would vanish. In other words, if Paul hadn’t been wrong
about his fundamental understanding about where he and his congregation
stood, he could not have argued the way he did.<br />
We know he was wrong about the timing of the Parousia. He was dead
wrong. He is dead and he is wrong. Therefore we’re justified in asking
how much of Paul’s moral and ethical advice arose from those erroneous
beliefs.<br />
But more to the point, why should people living in the modern world
take Paul’s writings seriously? And I don’t mean believing that what he
wrote had divine inspiration and has the status of “God’s Word.” That’s
embarrassing enough. No, I mean to say, “Why should we take it seriously
<i>at all</i>, other than to study it as a fly trapped in amber?”<br />
<br />
<h4>
♦ Are Paul’s Ethics Coherent?</h4>
<h4>
</h4>
Paul says Jesus was killed by the “archons” who didn’t know what they
were doing. If the common understanding is correct, then why does Paul
say later that earthly rulers have power only because God permits it? Is
it because “worldly things just don’t matter”? Or is it because God is
pulling the strings in a world that is little more than puppet theater?<br />
I submit that Paul’s teachings on this matter and others only seem
coherent because legions of theologians and apologists have ruminated
over them for centuries, pounding them into submission.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Conclusion</b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
How can any serious person who poses as a “historian” ruminate over
the words of a man who thought he was about to be snatched up into the
sky by his resurrected savior? Paul may help us understand early
Christianity, but he is extremely unlikely to give us any useful
information about how we should live our own lives. His intellect is
nowhere near Plato’s or Aristotle’s, and we take those great thinkers
with a grain of salt. We might use them to spur further discussion, but
if a professor of ancient history treated the works of those
philosophers as venerated, received truths we’d have to wonder if he’s
got a screw loose.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2017/03/01/paul-and-eschatalogical-morality/">http://vridar.org/2017/03/01/paul-and-eschatalogical-morality/</a><br />
====================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-55094759724637804172017-03-21T04:28:00.002-07:002017-03-21T04:28:56.449-07:00Tim Widowfield : Drowning the Gerasene Swine: A Mock Sacrifice?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Drowning the Gerasene Swine: A Mock Sacrifice?</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Tim Widowfield </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mithridates VI of Pontus</b></span><br />
</div>
</div>
In Appian of Alexandria’s <a href="http://www.livius.org/ap-ark/appian/appian_mithridatic_14.html" target="_blank" title="Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars -- 66-70"><i>The Mithridatic Wars</i></a>, we read that in preparation for the third war against Rome, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithridates_VI_of_Pontus" target="_blank" title="Mithridates VI of Pontus">Mithridates VI of Pontus</a> performed sacrifices to Zeus Stratius “in the usual manner.” Then he propitiated the god of the sea by sacrificing “<i>to Poseidon by plunging a chariot with white horses into the sea</i>.”<br />
<br />
Adrienne Mayor, author of <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/2543167/book/115578492" target="_blank" title="The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy"><i>The Poison King</i></a>,
embellishes upon Appian’s laconic narrative. [Note: Both spellings,
Mithradates and Mithridates, are commonly found in the literature. The
first is more common in Greek inscriptions, while the Romans preferred
the latter.]<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Four snow-white horses
pulled the golden chariot, encrusted with gems flashing in the sun’s
first rays. There was no driver. The beautiful horses galloped at full
speed across the windswept cliff and plunged into the sparkling sea
below.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">Mayor, Adrienne (2009-09-28). <i>The Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy</i> (Kindle Locations 4605-4607). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition.</span></blockquote>
Mayor recounts how this startling image captivated peoples’ imaginations over the centuries.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Some five hundred years
later, for example, the early Christian writer Sidonis Apollinaris
described a splendid castle in Gaul adorned by a dramatic painting of
Mithradates’ sacrifice. In 1678, the English playwright Nathaniel Lee
pictured Mithradates sending “a chariot, all with emeralds set, and
filled with coral tridents, [and] a hundred horses, wild as wind” over
the precipice.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">Mayor, Adrienne (2009-09-28). The
Poison King: The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy
(Kindle Locations 4610-4612). Princeton University Press. Kindle
Edition.</span></blockquote>
While reading Mayor’s book over two years ago, I immediately began to
wonder whether this act of Mithridates might have been on Mark’s mind
when he wrote the story of the Gerasene demoniac. Off and on since then,
I’ve half-heartedly searched for scholarly articles that might link the
two stories, but so far to no avail. <span id="more-56435"></span><br />
The ancient Greeks associated Poseidon with the sea, horses, and
earthquakes. In one variation of the myth of the naming of Athens,
Poseidon gave its citizens a horse, so perhaps the act of drowning them
in the sea was thought to be an appropriate return of the favor. We can
probably safely assume that Mithridates was imitating Alexander in this
case, as he did in other ways, frequently invoking his ancestor’s image.<br />
<br />
Robin Lane Fox writes in <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/44713/book/115579371" target="_blank" title="Alexander the Great"><i>Alexander the Great</i></a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #660000;">After dark the rest of the
army turned about and headed for the Syrian-Cilician border which they
duly reached at midnight. Pickets guarded the camp, with the
Mediterranean seashore below them to their left, and the troops took a
cold but well-earned rest on the hillside around the Gates. By the light
of torches, <span style="background-color: yellow;">Alexander is said to have conducted certain sacrifices and
in one late narrative history, of which only a few short sentences
survive on papyrus, these sacrifices are specified: ‘In great anxiety.
Alexander resorted to prayers, calling on Thetis, Nereus and the
Nereids, nymphs of the sea and <b>invoking Poseidon the sea-god, for whom he ordered a four-horsed chariot to be cast into the waves</b>; he also sacrificed to Night.’</span> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #660000;">(Fox, 1974/2004, p. 212, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
In chapter 5 of Mark’s gospel, we read that the many demons inside
the poor chap from the country of the Gerasenes begged Jesus not to send
them out of the country.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">11. Now there was a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountain. </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">12. The demons implored Him, saying, “Send us into the swine so that we may enter them.” </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">13. Jesus gave them permission. And coming
out, the unclean spirits entered the swine; and the herd rushed down
the steep bank into the sea, about two thousand of them; and they were
drowned in the sea. (NASB)</span></blockquote>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 360px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
Recall that in the previous pericope (Mark 4:35-41 — The Stilling of
the Storm), Jesus rebuked the wind and said directly to the sea: “<b>Silence! Be muzzled!</b>”<br />
The chapter ends with the disciples wondering among themselves.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">4:41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” (NASB)</span></blockquote>
I suggest that it is no accident that Mark put the story of Jesus’
mastery of nature just before an inappropriate sacrifice to Poseidon.
Recall as well that the horror of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiochus_IV_Epiphanes#Sacking_of_Jerusalem_and_persecution_of_Jews" target="_blank" title="Antiochus Epiphanes -- Sacking of Jerusalem">Anitiochus IV Epiphanes’ abominable sacrifices</a> (167 BCE) still loomed large in Jewish memory.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #333300;">4. For the temple was
filled with debauchery and reveling by the Gentiles, who dallied with
harlots and had intercourse with women within the sacred precincts, and
besides brought in things for sacrifice that were unfit. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333300;">5. The altar was covered with abominable offerings which were forbidden by the laws. </span><br />
<span style="color: #333300;">6. A man could neither keep the sabbath,
nor observe the feasts of his fathers, nor so much as confess himself to
be a Jew. (2 Maccabees 6:4-6, RSV)</span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: yellow;">According to Josephus, Antiochus defiled the Temple by sacrificing a pig on the Altar of the Lord.</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">Now Antiochus was not
satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city, or with its
pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being
overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered
during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their
country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, <b>and to sacrifice swine’s flesh upon the altar</b>; against which they all opposed themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death. (<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29434/29434-h/files/2850/2850-h/book1.htm" target="_blank" title="The Wars of the Jews (Gutenberg)"><i>The Wars of the Jews</i></a>, Book 1, 1:2, emphasis mine)</span></blockquote>
While Antiochus offered a single pig to Yahweh, Mark’s Jesus offered
2,000 demon-infested swine to Poseidon. The message is clear: <span style="background-color: yellow;">To Jesus,
the sea is nothing more than a beast to be muzzled, and its false god is
worthy only of abominable offerings.</span><br />
<br />
At any rate, that’s my working theory. What do you think?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2015/01/18/drowning-the-gerasene-swine-a-mock-sacrifice/">http://vridar.org/2015/01/18/drowning-the-gerasene-swine-a-mock-sacrifice/</a><br />
===================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-61631171844118076022017-03-21T02:39:00.001-07:002017-03-21T02:42:43.465-07:00Neil Godfrey : That Mysterious Young Man in the Gospel of Mark: fleeing naked and sitting in the tomb<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
That Mysterious Young Man in the Gospel of Mark: fleeing naked and sitting in the tomb</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<br />
An <a href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/3263122">old (1973) article</a> in the <i>Journal of Biblical Literature</i>
by Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff make a case that the young man who
fled naked from the scene of Jesus’ arrest in Gethsemane and the young
man (reappearing?) in the tomb to announce Jesus’ resurrection were
originally created as symbols of the baptism ritual for new converts to
Christianity.<br />
The young man having his linen cloak (σινδόν / sindon) snatched from
him is substituted by Jesus who is entering into his “baptism” of
suffering, death and burial — as depicted by Jesus himself being wrapped
in a σινδόν/sindon for burial. The young man then reappears in the
tomb, sitting on the right side, clothed in white like Jesus at the
transfiguration. These narrative scenes find their meaning in the
baptism ritual of early Christians: the initiate first removed his
garment and entered the baptism naked and was then given a new robe to
symbolize a new life in the resurrected Christ. <span id="more-21796"></span><br />
Scroggs and Groff dismiss the likelihood that the detail of the young
man fleeing naked from Jesus’ arrest is a genuine historical report or
an autobiographical detail by the author:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">What is described makes no sense as an actual incident. </span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="color: navy;">Why were not others seized as well? </span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">Would it be likely that on an early spring night one would have on only one article of clothing? </span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">In and of itself it is a trivial scene, and the Marcan author clearly is not interested in reporting trivial scenes. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">It is incredible that the moment
signaled by the narrative itself as most important, the loss of the
garment, would have been considered an important historical fact by the
framers of the tradition. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: navy;">No one today can take seriously the suggestion that the author of the Gospel was an eyewitness.</span></li>
</ol>
(p. 532, my formatting)</blockquote>
Nor do Scroggs and Groff see the interest in devising a scene to
fulfil a scripture in this instance as a sufficient explanation:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">The possibility that Amos
2:16 and/or Gen 39:12 have contributed to Mark 14:51-52 cannot be
denied. Even so, those passages cannot serve as sufficient explanations
for the creation of the story. When Scripture is incorporated into the
Marcan narrative, it usually serves to interpret an act of or about
Jesus, on occasion the twelve disciples, but never an isolated instance
about an unnamed person. In this interpretation, the pericope remains a
trivial interruption of the Marcan narrative.</span> (p. 532)</blockquote>
Scroggs and Groff begin their explanation of the young man fleeing
naked with a study of the young man in the tomb at the end of the
Gospel. Their intention is to demonstrate that the Gethsemane event is
not so isolated from anything else in the narrative as is often thought.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Youth (Νεανίσκος) as a representative of Christ</span></h3>
<br />
Though many readers assume the young man appearing in the tomb to
announce Jesus’ resurrection to the women is an angel there is nothing
in the Gospel to confirm this. Mark is quite capable of using the word
“angel” when he speaks of angels. The authors of the article discuss
other uses of νεανίσκος and conclude that it is never used to mean
“angel” without some other explicitly clarifying statement.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">Thus despite the nearly
unanimous judgment of scholarship, there is absolutely nothing in the
description of the one who announces the resurrection that compels the
conclusion: he is an angelic being. Mark has, in effect, been
interpreted out of Matthew and Luke.</span> (p. 534)</blockquote>
So if the young man in white sitting in the tomb to greet the women is not an angel who else could he be?<br />
The most obvious answer is Jesus himself.<br />
The only other white garments are those glorifying Jesus at his
transfiguration (Mark 9:3). Was this transfiguration scene originally a
depiction of the resurrection as many scholars have thought? (If so,
that would explain the otherwise strange remark that the crowds who saw
Jesus descending from that transfiguration mountain were “greatly
amazed” (Mark 9:15).<br />
It may be significant that the resurrected or heavenly Christ in
other literature was sometimes imagined as a young man. E. Peterson’s
has shown how frequent this youthful image of the exalted Jesus was:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/actsjohn.html">Acts of John</a> 73, 76, 87, 88</li>
<li><a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/actsthomas.html">Acts of Thomas</a> 27</li>
<li>Acts of Andrew and Matthew 18, 33</li>
<li>Acts of Paul 3:13, 28; 4:2</li>
</ul>
(I have been unable to locate translations — print or online — of the last two cited references to Jesus as a youth.)<br />
Many no doubt will be surprised to find such late texts being used to
interpret the Gospel of Mark. The authors of the article explain in a
footnote:<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: navy;">The apocryphal acts are
currently dated in the late second or early third century C.E. . . .
Obviously great caution must be used in adducing evidence from these
texts for first century materials. Nevertheless, in some instances,
especially those connected with baptism, they may reflect much earlier
tradition. In the present instance they at least show it was possible
for Christians to use these words of the resurrected Jesus without
embarrassment or any feeling that they did not show adequate respect for
the Son of God.</span></i> (p. 535)</blockquote>
Scroggs and Groff are using the above to soften up readers for their main argument, however.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">What most directly suggests
that the νεανίσκος has something to do with the resurrected Jesus,
however, is the apparently most superfluous detail in the story. They
young man is seen “sitting on the right side” . . . . As a topographical
detail <span style="color: black;">[and I would add body-posture detail]</span>
this is either meaningless or irrelevant. As a christological symbol,
it would carry great significance, for it is the exalted Christ who is
seated at the right side — in heaven before the Father.</span> (p. 535)</blockquote>
Early Christianity was well acquainted with the opening line of <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+110&version=KJV">Psalm 110</a>
as a prophecy of Christ sitting at the right hand of God. More
pertinently, the Gospel of Mark twice before this final scene depicts
Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2012:36&version=NIV">Mark 12:36</a> quotes the Psalm and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2014:62&version=YLT">Mark 14:62</a> portrays Jesus declaring that he will be the one sitting at the right hand of power.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">This is very close to what
the women in ch. 16 see. “They saw a young man sitting on the right
side.” It is now widely held that many early Christians understood the
resurrection of Jesus not in terms of appearance on earth, but rather as
exaltation to heaven and enthronement there as the eschatological and
cosmic ruler.</span></blockquote>
The authors of the article argue that the final scene is better
described as a resurrection announcement scene than as an empty tomb
scene. The resurrection meant the raising and exaltation of Jesus into
heaven. Therefore,<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">If Mark is to portray the resurrection of Jesus, he must do it symbolically.</span> (p. 536)</blockquote>
At the same time the young man is clearly not Jesus himself. He
announces the resurrection of Jesus. There is no reason to think he is
an angel, either.<br />
To explain this ambiguity surrounding the young man in the tomb
Scroggs and Groff explain early Christian baptismal imagery and
practices.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Early Christian baptismal imagery and practices</span></h3>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>A. Baptism as dying and rising with Christ.</b></span><br />
<br />
Paul in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%206&version=YLT">Romans 6</a>
shows us that there were early Christians who understood baptism’s
immersion into water as symbolic of participating in the death of Jesus,
and the emergence from the water as symbolic of participation (now or
in the future) in the resurrected life of Christ.<br />
The same symbolism is found in later epistles also: <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%202:11-12&version=YLT">Colossians 2:11-12</a>; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202:5-6&version=YLT">Ephesians 2:5-6</a>; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%203:18-22&version=YLT">1 Peter 3:18-22</a>. Only once does the same symbolism appear in the Synoptic Gospels and that is in Mark 10:38-39:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">and Jesus said to them, `Ye
have not known what ye ask; are ye able to drink of the cup that I drink
of, and with the baptism that I am baptized with — to be baptized?’</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;"> And they said to him, `We are able;’
and Jesus said to them, `Of the cup indeed that I drink of, ye shall
drink, and with the baptism that I am baptized with, ye shall be
baptized</span></blockquote>
In Mark’s gospel it is clear that the “cup and baptism” that the
disciples of Jesus must share with him is his suffering and death. (Cup
is a well-recognized Old Testament symbol of suffering.)<br />
<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2020:20-28&version=ASV">Matthew 20:20-28</a> has significantly omitted Mark’s reference to baptism in the words of Jesus in this same episode. “<i>Matthew seems to be opposed to this interpretation of baptism, perhaps as reflecting too much a pagan influence.</i>” — footnote p. 537.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">Thus there can scarcely be
any doubt that Mark 10:38-39 makes oblique reference to the sacraments
and that, furthermore, the baptism is seen as a dying in relation to the
dying of Christ.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>B. Baptism as a change of garments</b></span><br />
<br />
The authors next argue that the composer of the Gospel of Mark knew
of and was alluding to a practice of entering the baptismal water naked
and being reclothed with new garments on rising out of the water.<br />
For evidence of the early Christian practice of stripping off clothes
to become ritually naked for baptism, and being reclothed afterwards,
readers are directed to Jonathan Smith’s article “The Garments of Shame”
(<i>History of Religions</i> 5, 1966, 217-38). Smith cites literary
and artistic evidence for this practice in pagan mystery religions, such
as the Eleusinian mysteries and its early adoption by Christians.<br />
Again Scroggs and Groff must refer to later patristic texts as
evidence for the practice in early Christianity, but argue that these
texts “all seem to assume the praxis as known and accepted by the
church.” Early Christian texts that mention the removal of clothes are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Gospel of Philip 123. 21-25</li>
<li>Gospel of Thomas 37</li>
<li>Acts of Thomas 121, 133, 157</li>
<li>Hippolytus, <i>Apostolic Tradition</i>, 21.3, 20</li>
<li>Acts of Xanthippe 21</li>
<li>Didascalia Apostolorum 16</li>
<li>Testamentum Domini nostri, 2.8</li>
<li>Egyptian Church Order 46</li>
<li>(Possibly Tertullian in <i>De res. carnis</i>, 8)</li>
<li>Odes of Solomon 11:9-10; 15:8; 21:2</li>
<li>Testament of Levi 8:4-5 (said to be a Christian interpolation)</li>
</ul>
Early Christian paintings and reliefs of baptism also always show the initiate nude.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">The conclusion to be drawn
first is that we just have no way of demonstrating that the praxis was
in effect in the first century; but, secondly, the widespread and
non-controversial character of the references, plus the very common
sense of the matter, suggest that one should hold as completely open the
possibility that the practice dates back to the early decades of the
church’s existence. It would seem that similar rites were practiced in
some of the hellenistic cults of this period, and Smith argues that in
Jewish proselyte baptism the candidate was nude.</span> (p. 538)</blockquote>
Scroggs and Groff conclude that whatever the practice among earliest
Christians the imagery of disrobing and re-dressing in connection with
baptism “<i>is</i> primitive.”<br />
<blockquote>
Galatians 3:27 <span style="color: maroon;">For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on [ἐνδύω usually <a href="http://concordances.org/greek/1746.htm"><span style="color: maroon;">meaning “clothe”</span></a>] Christ. </span><br />
Colossians 3:9-10<span style="color: maroon;"> lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off [ἀπεκδυσάμενοι <a href="http://concordances.org/greek/554.htm"><span style="color: maroon;">= stripped off</span></a>] the old man with his doings, and have put on [ἐνδυσάμενοι <a href="http://concordances.org/greek/1746.htm"><span style="color: maroon;">= clothed</span></a>] the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:</span><br />
Colossians 2:11-13 <span style="color: maroon;">in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off [ἀπεκδύσει <a href="http://concordances.org/greek/555.htm"><span style="color: maroon;">= putting off as of a garment</span></a>]
of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been
buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through
faith</span></blockquote>
Scroggs and Groff ask:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">Which comes first, the act or the metaphor? </span></blockquote>
And answer:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">The fact that the act of
undressing is a practical necessity in any baptism by immersion, coupled
with the rather unusual, if not awkward nature of the metaphor (there
are surely easier linguistic ways of talking about new existence),
suggests that the metaphor is probably derived from the praxis. . . . </span></blockquote>
And conclude for the author of Mark that:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">Thus, despite the absence of
explicit evidence, it must be considered possible, indeed probable,
that the author of Mark was well aware of the change of garments both as
actual event and as metaphor of baptism.</span> (p. 539)</blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>C. Relation of the baptized to the resurrected Christ</b></span><br />
<br />
The idea that “being raised with Christ and “putting on Christ”
implied the believer was in some sense now or destined to be living a
new life identified with the exalted Christ himself was common across
Christian sects. Baptism led to a new existence — a Christ-existence —
for the believer.<br />
Smith’s article mentioned above notes that ritual naked bathing was a
feature of pre-Christian pagan mystery cults. Pagan mysteries were also
considered to involve initiations into a divine world or existence. In
the <a href="http://www.naderlibrary.com/goldenass.11.htm">11th book of <i>The Golden Ass</i></a>
by Apuleius we read how the initiate, Lucius, is ritually bathed,
descends to Hades, returns and is gloriously clothed in linen as the
personification of the sun-god upon whom all onlookers gaze in wonder.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">The Neaniskos as a symbol of the Christian initiate</span></h3>
<h3>
</h3>
Against the above ideas Scroggs and Groff argue that the youth
fleeing naked in Mark 14:51-52 was composed to symbolize the baptismal
initiate dying with Christ, and the young man in the tomb in Mark 16:5
to represent rising with Christ.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: maroon;">51 And a certain young man followed [συνηκολούθει] with him, </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
[This is an unnecessary and meaningless
detail if meant literally; obviously he has followed Jesus to this
point. But when “following” is taken in its usual symbolic sense as we
find elsewhere in Mark, it highlights the youth being a disciple of
Jesus. “<span style="color: navy;">He is the initiate.</span>“]</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: maroon;">having a linen cloth cast about [περιβεβλημένος] him, </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: black;">[περιβεβλημένος
= clothed, wrapped in. It is the same word and form used to describe
the clothing of the young man in the tomb in 16:5. The reference to this
garment and its fate “<span style="color: navy;">is the central moment of the story.</span>”
Here the garment is said to be linen (σινδών). Some scholars have
interpreted this as a pointer to the young man’s wealth because of the
expensiveness of linen in the ancient world. “<span style="color: navy;">But
again it must be stressed that the synoptic tradition is not interested
in such historical details. The meaning must rather be symbolic.</span>” </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
To be noted is that at the burial of Jesus Joseph buys linen and wraps Jesus in it before burying him in the tomb. “<span style="color: navy;">Within
the baptismal theology the meaning of this relationship is clear. The
death facing the young man is taken up by Jesus himself. Jesus dies for
him, i.e., in his stead, and the young man is rescued — he escapes —
from his own death.</span>“]</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: maroon;">over his naked body: and they lay hold on him;</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
[The emphasis on the young man’s nakedness indicates the baptismal candidate stripped of his garments.]</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: maroon;">52 but he left the linen cloth, and fled naked.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: black;">[In the
narrative context the flight of the young man is part of the flight of
the disciples. But more specifically, just as the garment and other
features appear to have symbol</span>ic currents, we see here an indication of the image meaning that only Jesus can die the required death. “<span style="color: navy;">What
is impossible for man, Jesus does for him. As a result the believer
escapes the fate of death. . . . Only Christ really dies so that the
believer may escape and be freed from death.</span>” <span style="color: black;">This
interpretation of S&G is consistent with other ambiguous ironies in
Mark: James and John seeking to be at the right and left of Jesus in
his glory and being substituted by the two bandits; Peter promising to
take up his cross and follow Jesus but being substituted by Simon of
Cyrene.</span>]</div>
It is just possible, though the evidence is extremely tenuous as the authors note, that <i>neaniskos</i> (young man) is “a quasi-technical term denoting the class of initiates” — compare <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20John%202:12-14&version=ASV">1 John 2:12-14</a>.
Here this class of Christians are said to have overcome the evil one or
Satan. Scroggs and Groff in a footnote remind us of Jesus’ own baptism
being associated with the overcoming of Satan. Baptism elsewhere was
also associated with the exorcism of the devil. S & G then ask in
fine print:<br />
<blockquote>
<i><span style="color: navy;">Is the baptism of Jesus a prototype of that of the believer?</span></i> (p. 542)</blockquote>
This deserves a fuller exploration in a follow-up article. Did the baptism of Jesus itself originate as a symbolic narrative?<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;"><i>Summary.</i> At the
last moment that it is possible within the structure of the passion
narrative, Mark portrays the near arrest and escape of the follower.
Through this means he points to the participation of the believer in the
death of Jesus. The coherence of the story is strained to the limit
because of the presence of the many symbols needed to communicate the
significance of the story to his readers. The initiate is stripped of
his garment and is now ready for baptism. He is baptized into the death,
but only Jesus actually dies, and the substitution is symbolized by the
linen which the young man leaves but with which Jesus is actually
shrouded in burial.</span> (p. 542)</blockquote>
Mark 16:5<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">And entering into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, arrayed in a white robe; and they were amazed.</span></blockquote>
The language closely parallels the language of the first appearance
of the young man, as noted above. Though S & G do not explicitly
point it out, there is also inclusio structure of the two young man
appearances: at the beginning of Jesus being “handed over to the hands
of men” and his final victory over the suffering and death they have
inflicted upon him. This, I believe, also is meant to underscore the
symbolic message and points to the way the reader is expected to
interpret the central story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection.
Compare other inclusio structures such as the fig-tree cursed either
side of the temple cleansing and the raising of Jairus’ daughter either
side of the healing of the bleeding woman.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">We can now see how these various threads are to be woven together. The <i>neaniskos</i> is a representation of the exalted Christ<i> because he symbolizes the believer who, now baptized, participates in the resurrection of Christ. </i></span>(p. 543)</blockquote>
The garment and sitting at the right apply equally well to both the newly baptized and the exalted Christ Jesus.<br />
(Again according to late evidence — Theodore of Mopsuestia, Jerome,
John the Deacon, Zeno of Verona –) the white robe is the traditional
garment worn by the person newly baptized.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;">It symbolizes the new existence of the believer, in effect, his resurrection.</span></blockquote>
Compare Revelation <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%207:9,%2013&version=ASV">7:9, 13</a> (and also <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%203:4-5,%2018,%206:11&version=ASV">3:4-5, 18, 6:11</a>) where white garments represent the faithful in Christ who have finally overcome and are now with the heavenly Christ.<br />
Also in the <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/shepherd.html">Shepherd of Hermas (Vision 8:2, 3</a>)
all those entering the tower (=heaven) are wearing white garments. Men
in heaven are dressed like the angels. (cf. 2 Enoch 22:8-10; 2 Apoc
Baruch 51:10; Mark 12:25)<br />
As for the heavenly exaltation of the believer this, too, is a very early Christian concept, as we read in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%203:1-3&version=ASV">Colossians 3:1-3</a> and <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%202:4-6&version=ASV">Ephesians 2:4-6</a> — virtual commentaries on Mark 16:5 as S&C say.<br />
<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%206&version=ASV">Romans 6</a> shows Paul knew of these ideas. He is also found criticizing them in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%204:8-9&version=ASV">1 Corinthians 4:8-9</a>.<br />
Some scholars (Lutger Schenke, G. Schille, W. Nauck) have also
suggested that the reference to the early morning hour (at the rising of
the sun) in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2016:1-8&version=ASV">Mark 16:1-8</a>
derives from a dawn worship cult at a tomb in Jerusalem. Apocryphal
acts literature also indicates that baptism ceremonies took place at
night or sunrise. If the narrative does echo some cultic practice then
the idea that the young man is an angel is almost certainly ruled out.
He would have to be a person who declares the resurrection of Jesus
after his baptism.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: navy;"><i>Summary.</i> The
cumulative evidence presented satisfactorily and coherently explains the
details in both stories that have so long baffled scholars. In a
cryptic yet clear fashion (to the readers of Mark who would have been
familiar with such practices), the dying and rising of the believer is
woven into a narrative which is ostensibly only about the dying and
rising of Jesus. The initiate is stripped of his garments at the death
of Jesus, and he appears in his white baptismal robe at the resurrection
of Jesus. Thus robed he appropriately represents Jesus to the women.
Jesus himself cannot appear, for he is already exalted to heaven and is
already sitting at the right hand of God.</span> (pp. 544-45)</blockquote>
It is interesting to compare Mark’s Gospel with Matthew’s here.
Matthew avoids relating baptism to the metaphor of dying and rising with
Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel also changes the young man at the tomb into an
angel coming down from heaven. Matthew’s Jesus also promises his
disciples power till the end of the age. Mark’s gospel on the other hand
offers little in the way of power to the believer in this present age.
All hope if to be found in the disciple’s ability to imitate and enter
into the sufferings of the Son of Man now in order to receive the
promise of exalted life in the future.<br />
The implications of this article deserve to be thought through and
studied along with other clearly symbolic details in the Gospel of Mark —
such as the mysteries of the numbers of the left-over baskets of food
that so befuddled the disciples when Jesus <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%208:14-21&version=NIV">reminded them</a>
of these events, the symbolic ambiguities of James and John seeing
bandits crucified in their place either side of Jesus, the puns on the
names like Peter and Capernaum and Bethsaida (and on Jesus/Jason the
healer himself), John the Baptist representing Elijah, etc. Is the
entire Gospel itself a symbolic narrative?<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2011/10/02/that-mysterious-young-man-in-the-gospel-of-mark/#more-21796">http://vridar.org/2011/10/02/that-mysterious-young-man-in-the-gospel-of-mark/#more-21796</a><br />
=========================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-87831898404952319562017-03-21T02:22:00.002-07:002017-03-21T02:24:43.802-07:00Neil Godfrey : Sifting a historical Paul from a nonhistorical Jesus: Doherty’s position<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sifting a historical Paul from a nonhistorical Jesus: Doherty’s position</h2>
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<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
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<blockquote>
<i>In response to the Earl Doherty interview posted here two days ago, <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/interview-with-earl-doherty/#comment-15691">Evan asked</a>
what evidence convinces Doherty that the Apostle Paul of Tarsus was a
genuine historical figure, and in what way it is different from the
evidence for the historical Jesus of Nazareth. </i><br />
<i>Earl Doherty responded at some length in listing factors that
need consideration. I have taken the liberty of turning his reply into a
post here, with slightly modified formatting and added subheadings, to
make any follow up discussion easier to access. </i></blockquote>
<br />
<b><i>Earl Doherty’s response:</i></b><br />
<br />
Boy, nothing like a simple question to start things off. To answer it
would take a book in itself. It’s really a topic for a proper
discussion board, which I am not too sure is what Neil envisions his
blog as being, or wants it to be. So let me just itemize a few points,
rather than argue them in any detail.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The documentary record in relation to a first century Christianity and authentic Paul</h3>
<br />
Acts may be thoroughly unreliable as providing an actual history of
the early Christian movement, but given an authentic Paul and a first
century Christianity, the documentary record and its content as a whole
has always struck me as much more coherent than what I would call
ultra-radical alternatives which discard Paul and essentially shove
everything into the second century.<br />
There are just too many problems created, too many jerry-built
measures which have to be undertaken, to try to make those alternatives
work. It’s a lot like the no-Q position, the Luke used Matthew proposal.
In my estimation, the latter runs up against too many problems that
have to be ‘solved’ in ways I don’t regard as legitimate that it becomes
a far less acceptable and workable theory than Q. <span id="more-18727"></span><br />
The same principle holds true for the question of Paul and the entire
epistolary (and extra-canonical) picture of a first century movement.
Especially within the context of a movement which began with a mythical
Christ operating entirely in heaven, that early picture is thoroughly
coherent, and I see no compelling reason to remove Paul from it. Trying
to push the epistolary/extra-canonical record into the 2nd century when
orthodoxy is already well under way creates distortions which in my view
cannot be resolved.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Problems with a second century Pauline forgery theory</h3>
<br />
A second century Pauline forgery theory also has, for me, a couple of
insurmountable problems. One is the absence of orthodoxy in the sense
of belief in an historical Jesus, based on the Gospels, or even what
might be seen as early forms of them. If a forgery is to be undertaken
on that scale, there has to be an agenda behind it.<br />
A second century orthodox forgery of Paul would reflect orthodox
beliefs, including some sort of Gospel ethos. Specific proposals for a
Marcionite origin fail because there is virtually nothing of Marcionism
perceivable in the Paulines. (Claims of such are extremely weak and
vague.)<br />
Nor is there much in the way of anti-Marcionite elements. Little bits
that might be interpreted as such are better explainable as
uncoordinated orthodox editing, rather than a wholesale from-scratch
forgery of the Paulines specifically to counter Marcion; anything like
the latter would convey a much more focused picture of such an agenda.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Character of the Pauline epistles</h3>
<br />
Yes, some of the Paulines can seem a little jumbled, inconsistent,
including when they are compared one with another. But I don’t find that
particularly problematic in an uncoordinated set of mostly occasional
writings spanning years and different situations. And I don’t doubt that
in orthodox circles around the middle of the second century, there was
some editing and splicing going on.<br />
What we also have within the Paulines, which I think is a strong
indication of some degree of authenticity, is the personality of a
writer who is engaged in the type of apostolic work being presented. The
strong and emotional personality that emerges in the genuine Paulines
is not conceivable as the product of a deliberate forger living in a
later time and slaving over a writing desk to create a fictional
character of a century earlier.<br />
I know this answer barely scratches the surface, but it will give
some indication of why I don’t subscribe to some of the more radical
views of early Christian development.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Comparing the evidence for Jesus</h3>
<br />
As for the difference between the evidence for Paul and the evidence
for Jesus, one major difference is that we have writings purported to be
by Paul but none by Jesus. Paul portrays himself as a very human
individual on earth. No such portrayal is provided for Jesus in the
pre-Gospel record. Even the Gospel Jesus is a two-dimensional mouthpiece
character, indicating that he is indeed a writing-desk creation. The
same cannot be said for the Paul of the epistles, who is very much
three-dimensional. (Note that there is less of that three-dimensional
character in the epistles which are acknowledged to be later forgeries,
such as Ephesians.)<br />
Earl Doherty<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2011/04/04/sifting-a-historical-paul-from-a-nonhistorical-jesus-dohertys-position/">http://vridar.org/2011/04/04/sifting-a-historical-paul-from-a-nonhistorical-jesus-dohertys-position/</a><br />
=================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-55474626431358633212017-03-20T01:57:00.001-07:002017-03-20T02:00:28.872-07:00EARL DOHERTY : Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers at the Turn of the Second Century<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
EARL DOHERTY<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF HISTORY</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers at the Turn of the
Second Century</b></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Part One: 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas</b></span><br />
<br />
<b><i>Introduction</i></b>
<br />
<br />
In other Supplementary Articles,
I have examined the documents of the New Testament outside the Gospels
and Acts, attempting to demonstrate that they make no identifiable link
between the Christ Jesus they worship and preach, and the human figure
Jesus of Nazareth known to us through the Gospels. Paul and other epistle
writers seem to speak of a divine being very similar to aspects of Jewish
personified Wisdom and the Son and Logos in Greek philosophy (as in 1 Corinthians
8:6 and Hebrews 1:2-3), without linking such a being to the Gospel figure
or events. These earliest Christians believe <i>in</i> a Son of God, not
that anyone in the recent past <i>was</i> the Son of God. This Son is a
spiritual entity with whom believers enter upon a mystical relationship.
He is an intermediary between heaven and earth, between God and humanity,
between the spiritual and the material realms of the universe. And he is
for most early Christian sects a savior deity who has undergone a sacrifice
for the forgiveness of sins and humanity’s redemption. All these features
are common elements of contemporary religious philosophy and salvation
religions.
<br />
Only three passages in the epistles
give the appearance of linking to an earthly, Gospel-like setting. First,
1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 speaks of “the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus,”
but this is part of a passage which makes a clear allusion to the destruction
of Jerusalem, an event which happened after Paul’s death, and many critical
scholars have long regarded it as an interpolation. (See Supplementary
Article No. 3: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm">Who Crucified Jesus?</a>)
<br />
Second, 1 Timothy 6:13 makes
a passing reference to Pilate, but critical scholars in general regard
the Pastorals as the product of the 2nd century, and thus this reference
could reflect an early development of belief in an historical Gospel Jesus.
Also, some scholars see problems in the fit of this reference within its
context, and although none of them opt for interpolation, there are good
arguments to be made for assuming this possibility. (See the Appendix to
Article No. 3: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm">Who Crucified Jesus?</a>)
<br />
Third, the so-called Lord’s Supper
scene in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 bears a resemblance to the Last Supper
of the Synoptic Gospels. Yet Paul declares (verse 23) that he has received
this information directly “from the Lord” which conflicts with the standard
reading that this is an item of historical tradition about a Eucharist
established by Jesus, a tradition missing in all other first-century documents
outside the Synoptics. This type of sacred meal is very similar to the
sacred meals of the mystery cults, and thus Paul’s Supper may be relegated
to the realm of myth, something he has come up with himself under the influence
of perceived revelation. (See the “Sacred Meal” section of Article No.
6: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp06.htm">The Source of Paul’s Gospel</a>.)
<br />
To address two other, minor,
references. The phrase “brother of the Lord” which Paul uses of James in
Galatians 1:19 cannot be demonstrated to mean “sibling of Jesus” and other
considerations argue against it. Finally, Paul’s two little directives
in 1 Corinthians (7:10 and 9:14) which he says he has received “from the
Lord” again suggest personal revelation. Their subject matter is paltry
compared to the vast silence on Jesus’ ethical teachings found throughout
the epistles. (On these and other references see <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/sil20arg.htm">The
Sound of Silence: Appendix</a>.)
<br />
Thus, in the absence of a ministry
of preaching, miracles, apocalyptic prophecy or the events of the Passion
story, nothing in the New Testament epistles can be reliably linked to
the Gospel picture. When this pervasive silence is set alongside the positive
statements the epistle writers <i>do</i> make, that Christ is a newly revealed
“secret/mystery” of God hitherto hidden for a long period of time, and
that knowledge about him comes from scripture and revelation (e.g., Romans
16:25-26, Colossians 1:26 and 2:2, Ephesians 3:5), that the critical events
and God’s actions in the present age are solely this process of revelation
through the Spirit (e.g., 2 Corinthians 1:22 and 5:5), when it is God who
is spoken of as providing the gospel and appointing apostles (e.g., Romans
1:1, 1 Corinthians 12:28), when it is God who is said to have instituted
the love command and other ethical teachings (e.g., 1 Thessalonians 4:9,
2 John 6 and several times in 1 John), when Paul says that it is he, not
Jesus, who has been given the task of establishing the new covenant (2
Corinthians 3:5), when all the epistle writers speak of Christ being “revealed”
and “manifested” in these final days (e.g, 1 Peter 1:20, Hebrews 9:26),
or of their expectation of Christ’s future appearance on earth, giving
no suggestion that he had already appeared here in the recent past (e.g.,
Hebrews 10:37, 1 Peter 1:7)—then we have a clear picture of a faith movement
that was not started by any figure in living memory, but one based on revelation
and a new interpretation of scripture, all of it governed by the dominant
philosophical and religious ideas of the age.
<br />
Finally, in regard to those handful
of human-sounding references to Christ’s “body,” his sacrifice of “blood”
or his activities in the realm of “flesh,” even his characterization as
“man” (as in 1 Corinthians 15 or Romans 5:15), two observations must be
made. First, not one of them makes a link with a recent historical person
or includes a context of historical time and place. Two, these features
can be interpreted in a Platonic manner, in that elements in the material
world had their corresponding higher counterparts (such as Philo’s Heavenly
Man) in the supernatural dimension, the ascending layers of ever purer
spiritual forms and activities in the heavenly realm. Indeed, the salvation
thinking of the day was centered on a system whereby those two portions
of the universe, the spiritual and the material, interacted with one another.
A savior deity could operate entirely in that upper dimension, descending
through its layers to take on an ever-increasing “likeness” to material
forms and thereby undergo death and resurrection, acts which guaranteed
salvation and other benefits for their devotees in the material world.
(See Article No. 3: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm">Who Crucified Jesus?</a>) The
activities of the Hellenistic savior gods, such as Attis, Adonis and Mithras,
are every bit as human and earthly sounding as those of Paul’s Christ (even
more so, since they have more developed stories), yet they were in this
period placed in the realm of myth in a Platonic upper-world setting, having
evolved out of a more primitive primordial-time conception. There is nothing
to prevent us from viewing Paul’s Christ in just such a setting. (For a
full discussion of this Platonic picture in early Christianity, see Article
No. 8: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp08.htm">Christ As “Man”: Does Paul Speak of Jesus as
an Historical Person?</a> and Article No. 9: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp09.htm">A Sacrifice
in Heaven: The Son in the Epistle to the Hebrews</a>.)
<br />
Other features of the Pauline
spiritual Christ were no doubt concluded from scripture, such as the fact
that he was “of David’s stock” in Romans 1:3 (Paul points to the prophets
as his source), or that he was “born of woman” in Galatians 4:4 (probably
from Isaiah 7:14). This was in keeping with the general view, as evidenced
in documents like Hebrews and 1 Clement, that Christ and his activities
were to be found in the sacred writings and that many passages therein
were to be regarded as his “voice.” Scripture was God’s window onto the
unseen, true reality, and the agencies and workings of salvation.
<br />
Even some documents extending
into the second century (some of them <i>well</i> into it) can be shown
not to contain the concept of an historical Jesus, such as 2 Peter (often
dated a decade or two beyond the year 100 CE), and the Pastoral epistles.
(For the former, see Article No. 7: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp07.htm">Transfigured on
the Holy Mountain: The Beginnings of Christianity</a>. On the Pastorals,
see <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/silthess.htm">The Sound of Silence: 1 & 2 Thessalonians,
1 & 2 Timothy and Titus</a>. (See the Sound of Silence files for detailed
discussion of the silences in all the New Testament documents.) Many of
the major apologists writing throughout the second century do not present
an historical Jesus as part of their picture of the faith, and one, Minucius
Felix, goes so far as to scoff at the claim that Christians worship a crucified
man and his cross. (See Main Article No. 6: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/century2.htm">The
Second Century Apologists</a>.) Finally, to round out the picture, the
lack of an historical Jesus in the final book of the New Testament, Revelation,
is presented in Supplementary Article No. 11: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp11.htm">The
Gospel According to the Prophet John</a>.
<br />
<center>
<b>*</b></center>
Hopefully, the reader has indulged
me this brief overview in preparation for the present article. If so much
of the evidence points to the lack of an historical Jesus in the thinking
of the earliest Christians and an only gradual and piecemeal adoption of
the historicity of the Gospel picture through the course of the second
century, can we follow the evolution of this adoption through some of the
surviving non-canonical documents that covered the critical crossover period
beginning around the turn of the second century? Four of these I regard
as lying on the antecedent side of that ‘threshold of history.’ Two have
been dealt with at some length in other articles and will not be repeated
here: The Odes of Solomon in Article No. 4: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp04.htm">The Odes
of Solomon</a>, and the Didache, whose lack of an historical Jesus I have
argued in my book review of John Dominic Crossan’s <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/crossbr.htm">The
Birth of Christianity</a>.
<br />
That leaves the epistle 1 Clement
and The Shepherd of Hermas. On the threshold itself lies the Epistle of
Barnabas. And just beyond it, a few steps into the new Christian world
of a Jesus born of Mary and crucified by Pilate, we find the letters of
Ignatius of Antioch. (This does not mean that these documents were necessarily
written in that order.)
<br />
Close dating of these documents
is not critical to the argument, nor is the ‘authenticity’ of their authorship.
Nevertheless, these questions will be addressed, particularly in regard
to the dating of 1 Clement. Many radical scholars over more than a century
have called into question the basic authenticity of 1 Clement and the letters
of Ignatius, often relegating them to much later periods, as late as around
160. We know, of course, that the so-called “Longer Recension” of the Ignatian
letters is a later forgery, in which a host of Gospel features have been
inserted (a prime example of the blatant Christian forgery and doctoring
of writings which infests the overall documentary period). But what of
the “Shorter Recension” which has a less detailed and more primitive character?
I’ll address these points without making a firm decision on precisely where
to locate such documents. The main purpose will be to survey the evolution
of certain strands in the picture of the early Christian Son throughout
a period of, say, up to thirty years, probably spanning the last years
of the first century and the first part of the second.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>— I —</b>
<br /><b>The Epistle 1 Clement</b></span></center>
<br />
<b><i>Considerations of Dating</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Traditional mainstream scholarship
has for more than a hundred years tended to date 1 Clement to the 90s of
the first century, sometimes even pinpointing it to the year following
Domitian’s death in 96. This is chiefly on the basis of the somewhat enigmatic
reference in the first sentence to “the sudden and repeated calamities
which have befallen us,” something that has delayed the writer’s attention
to his letter. The assumption has been that this refers to the reputed
persecution of Christians under Domitian in the latter years of his reign.
But the evidence for such a persecution is scant and uncertain, as some
commentators admit. Kirsopp Lake, for example, in the Loeb <i>Apostolic
Fathers</i> (vol.1, p.5), allows that “we know very little about the alleged
persecution in the time of Domitian, and it would not be prudent to decide
that the epistle cannot be another ten or fifteen years later.” R. M. Grant
(<i>The Apostolic Fathers</i>, vol.2, p.16, n.1) notes that “little is
known about such persecutions,” while William R. Schoedel in his chapter
“The Apostolic Fathers” (in <i>The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters</i>,
p.461), refers to “an important study” by Gerbert Brunner who denies that
1 Clement 1:1 must refer to a persecution. If that is the case,
“a wide range of possible dates for 1 Clement is thus opened up.”
<br />
Schoedel suggests, however, that
a date as early as around 69 (put forward by a few commentators, including
recently Alvar Ellegard in his <i>Jesus—One Hundred Years Before Christ</i>)
is based on “strained” evidence. (I discuss this question in my website
review of Ellegard’s book.) If 1:1 does refer to a persecution, the letter
of Pliny to Trajan around 112 shows that persecution, even if local and
spottily carried out, must have been fairly frequent during the period,
as Pliny asks for advice of an emperor who was expected to have some familiarity
with a general policy on the matter.
<br />
Other indications within the
epistle seem to push the date to a point no earlier than the late years
of the century. At least a generation has passed since the time of the
apostles (44:2-3); those who carry the letter to Corinth “have been with
us from youth to old age” (63:3); and the Corinthian church is “ancient”
(47:6). References to Peter and Paul in chapter 5 apparently place them
at some distance from the writer’s time. Thus it is probably a safe compromise
to date 1 Clement sometime in the period 90 to 110. For the purposes of
this article, a more specific date is not necessary. (The position that
the epistle is a much later “forgery” and not what it purports to be, namely
a letter from a Roman congregation to one in Corinth in response to difficulties
being experienced by the latter community, but is instead a mid-second
century product designed to further a later agenda, will be looked at in
the final part of this section.)
<br />
On the matter of authorship,
its assignation by late second century commentators like Irenaeus to the
purported third “bishop of Rome” (in line from the apostle Peter), one
Clement of Rome, is today not generally accepted as having much reliability,
but as this question is irrelevant to the present article, I will not spend
space discussing it here. In any case, the picture of the authority structure
in the epistle’s community seems primitive, lacking a strong, monarchical
head. “Bishops” and “presbyters” are almost on the same footing. This,
together with the implication (as in chapter 44) of a not-too-distant link
to the age of the original “apostles” who began the principle of apostolic
succession—if this is not simply a device within the ‘later forgery’ scenario—would
recommend limiting the date of the epistle to a point not too far into
the second century.
<br />
Note: I will primarily use the
translation of Maxwell Staniforth in the Penguin Classics edition (though
I have dropped his capital H’s), because he captures a more natural sense
for modern readers than does Kirsopp Lake’s greater formality in the Loeb
edition. But I will occasionally dip into the latter for a more literal
rendition and to make specific points, identifying it as such.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Nature of Christ in 1 Clement</i></b>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Whoever the author was, he is
steeped in Jewish traditions and a knowledge of scripture, though this
is of the Greek Septuagint. This no doubt reflects the character of the
Christian community in Rome of which he was a part, although it does not
require that the community was composed primarily of Jews. As R. M. Grant
points out (<i>The Apostolic Fathers</i>, p.37), much of the tone of the
epistle is Greek, even Stoic, and at the very least it would have to be
styled as belonging to Hellenistic Judaism. But is the author steeped as
well in a knowledge of the historical Jesus? Assuming, quite naturally,
that the community in Corinth could not have been too different in this
respect from the writer’s own, what picture of Jesus do we find in the
key centers of Rome and Corinth around the turn of the second century?
<br />
This overlong, rambling letter
is generally regarded as the earliest surviving Christian document which
is not part of the New Testament, although core parts (if not all) of the
Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas may be roughly as old or older. If we
accept the letter at face value, the Corinthian church was experiencing
a dispute over leadership, a younger group rebelling against the authority
of the appointed elders, so someone from the church at Rome wrote a letter
attempting to mediate and restore tranquility. That the circles which 1
Clement represents are approaching the moment when an historical Jesus
was to crystallize in their thought seems evident, even though they have
not quite reached that point. If a 90s dating for the epistle is accurate,
Ignatius’ arrival in Rome to be martyred in the arena lay only a decade
or two in the future. Whether the Roman community itself was in the process
of adopting an historical Jesus by that time we cannot be sure from the
Ignatian epistle to the Romans. (Perhaps Ignatius himself was to bring
them that conviction!)
<br />
The claim that the writer of 1 Clement
possessed the concept of a recent historical Jesus may have some grounds
in the letter, but this impression is compromised by other passages which
suggest a different interpretation. Like much early Christian expression,
the main focus by Clement (I will refer to the author by that name) is
on God the Father, his goodness and mercy, his wishes and commandments
(e.g., 29:1, 38:4). In 35:5, the writer fixes his mind “trustfully on God”;
he finds out “what is pleasing and acceptable to him”; he does “whatever
agrees with his perfect will.” Clement’s emotions, his love and respect,
are almost entirely given to God, not to the figure of Christ. The name
“Jesus” is never used by itself, but only in conjunction with “Christ”
or “Lord” and usually as part of the phrase “Our Lord Jesus Christ” or
a variant. When a single name is used, it is always “Christ.” When Clement
focuses on this Christ, he says things like (7:4), “Let us fix our gaze
on the Blood of Christ, and let us know that it is precious to his Father,
because it was poured out for our salvation and brought the grace of repentance
to all the world.” The closest he comes to expressing a feeling toward
him is 21:6: “Let us reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given
for us.” The largely abstract, even formal, way that the writer deals with
the figure of Jesus, taken together with the vast silence on almost every
aspect of an earthly career, does not speak to the memory of a vital historical
figure in their recent past to whom believers feel a close personal and
human bond.
<br />
This is not to say that Christ
is not a prominent entity in the epistle. But the relationship between
the Father and Son sounds like an echo of Paul, with his concept of “in
Christ” and “through Christ,” phrases which Clement also uses frequently.
“[We] have fled for refuge to his [God’s] mercies through our Lord Jesus
Christ…” (22.11). Employing other echoes of Paul and Hebrews, Clement says
(36): “…even Jesus Christ, the High Priest by whom our gifts are offered,
and the Protector by whom our feebleness is aided…through him we can look
up to the highest heaven and see, as in a glass, the peerless perfection
of the face of God…through him the Lord permits us to taste the wisdom
of eternity.” Such passages suggest that Clement sees Christ as a spiritual
entity, an intermediary between God and humanity, one who serves as the
revealer of God and his agent of redemption.
<br />
Like Paul, too, Christ is joined
to Clement’s community in a mystical way, closely in parallel with God
himself. “Have we not all the same God, and the same Christ? Is not the
same Spirit of grace shed upon us all? Have we not all the same calling
in Christ? Then why are we rending and tearing asunder the limbs of Christ,
and fomenting discord against our own body?” (46:6-7) That all inhabit
the same celestial and spiritual sphere, and share the same nature, seems
evident from 58:2: “As surely as God lives, as Jesus Christ lives, and
the Holy Ghost (on whom are [presumably plural, the Greek is unspecific]
set the faith and hope of God’s elect)…” As with Paul, there is never any
question about having faith that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the Christ,
or that he rose from the dead in flesh in the Gospel context, or that such
an historical act was indeed an act of redemption. The process of God revealing
himself through Jesus, saving humanity through Jesus’ blood, or even the
“teaching” of Our Lord Jesus Christ himself (which we shall examine presently),
is never related to an earthly, historical setting or human character.
Christ is a present power, not a past personality.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Speaking Through Scripture</i></b>
<br />
<br />
How does this Christ communicate
with Christians? Clement seems to give us two different kinds of answer.
One is reminiscent of Hebrews, where the Son was conceived as speaking
through scripture. (See Article No. 9: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp09.htm">The Son in
the Epistle to the Hebrews</a>.) Clement presents the identical view. It
is most clear in chapter 22:
<br />
<blockquote>
“All these promises [by God] find their confirmation
when we believe in Christ, for it is he himself [i.e., Christ] who summons
us through the Holy Spirit, with the words: ‘Come, children, listen to
me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord…’ ”</blockquote>
Scripture, as always, is regarded
as “the authentic voice of the Holy Spirit” (45:2), and here the Spirit
speaks a passage from Psalm 34 (11-17). Clement regards these words as
a personal summons from Christ himself. Christ, in the medium of the Spirit,
speaks through the sacred writings, and because of the way Psalm 39 is
phrased, Clement presents the lines as though Christ is telling Christian
readers that he will teach them the fear of the Lord (i.e., God). Christ
is a spiritual entity who communicates with the world through scripture,
and one of his roles is to reveal God. This is in the same vein as the
somewhat more abstract Logos in thought like that of Philo of Alexandria,
a force which serves as the medium to present to the mind of humanity an
otherwise unknowable Deity who dwells in the highest, purely spiritual
realm of heaven. It is similar to the Son and Word in the Odes of Solomon,
a Revealer entity with no sacrificial dimension, also not linked to an
historical figure on earth. And it is close to the “Son of God” in the
Shepherd, as we shall see.
Following the passage in chapter
36 quoted above, in which Jesus Christ provides (in the present time, an
intermediary function) the “glass” through which one can “look up to the
highest heaven and see the peerless perfection of the face of God,” Clement
goes on to say:
<br />
<blockquote>
“For it is written, ‘He makes his angels into
winds…’ but of the Son the Lord declares, ‘You are my Son, this very day
have I fathered you…’ Again, God says to him, ‘Sit down at my right hand
until I make your enemies a cushion for your feet.’ ”</blockquote>
Like the writer of Hebrews, Clement sees God speaking of
and to the Son in the writings. Scripture is a window onto the heavenly
realm where Father and Son are seen to converse. Like Hebrews, Clement
shows no knowledge of any tradition that some of these words had been spoken
out of heaven to the human Jesus at the time of his baptism at the Jordan.
If Clement regards Christ as
a revealer of God, of his wishes and intentions toward the world, why is
the vast tradition on these subjects attached to the teaching Jesus in
the Gospels never put forward in the epistle? In the two or three passages
in which Clement suggests a teaching Jesus, are these essentially different
from those implying spiritual communication? Defenders of Jesus’ historicity,
of course, claim that they are. Chapter 13 contains the most significant.
(I have slightly altered Staniforth’s translation of the first sentence
to make it closer to the literal Greek.)
<br />
<blockquote>
“Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus
which he spoke (<i>elalêsen</i>) when teaching gentleness and longsuffering.
For he said this: ‘Be merciful, that you may obtain mercy. Forgive, that
you may be forgiven. What you do yourself, will be done to you; what you
give will be given to you; as you judge, so will you be judged; as you
show kindness, so it will be shown to you. Your portion will be weighed
out for you in your own scales.’ ”</blockquote>
There is no denying the close similarity
of these sentiments to parts of the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere,
but neither the words nor their sequence are anywhere near identical to
a Gospel passage. Clement’s phrasing, in fact, is pretty basic and smacks
of the field of popular maxims. We know that this type of moral directive
belonged among the ethical commonplaces of the day. (Both the Didache and
Epistle of Barnabas, not to mention Paul and the epistle of James, quote
maxims similar to Jesus’ Gospel teachings which are never attributed to
him.) It is quite possible that such maxims were now regarded by communities
like Clement’s as having been revealed by a heavenly Christ through prophets.
Wherever such directives may have come from, scholars such as R. M. Grant
(<i>The Apostolic Fathers</i>, vol.1:<i> An Introduction</i>, p.40) acknowledge
that Clement’s source is probably oral, rather than any written version
of a Gospel. (Grant appeals to Helmut Koester, who is generally regarded
as the leading authority on the subject of the Fathers’ dependence on oral
tradition rather than on written Gospels: see his <i>Ancient Christian
Gospels</i>, p.14-20.)
That Clement knew any of the
Gospels has never been satisfactorily demonstrated. This in itself is an
indicator that the Gospel of Mark was not likely written as early as 65-70,
or intended as an historical account. For how could one explain why the
prominent Christian community in the capital of the Empire would not have
received a copy of it, or that one of its leaders would not be familiar
with key parts of its text, even after the passage of some three decades?
If Matthew and Luke were both written before 90, this should indicate that
interest and knowledge of the Gospels was spreading throughout Christian
communities. And yet Rome, apparently, has yet to hear of them.
<br />
Too much in this epistle indicates
that Clement has no knowledge of important Gospel traditions, even in oral
form. A few verses later, in 14:4, he says: “It is written, ‘the kind-hearted
will inhabit the earth, and the innocent will remain upon it, but the transgressors
will be rooted out of it.’ ” Who does not hear in that first phrase the
ringing opening verses from the Sermon itself, one of those Beatitudes
which surely impressed themselves on all who knew anything of Jesus’ teachings?
Yet Clement introduces these words with “It is written,” referring to scripture;
and in fact he is quoting two verses from Proverbs (2:21-22) to which he
goes on to add several more quotations from the Old Testament.
<br />
We read other passages in the
epistle: on giving versus receiving (2:1), on repentance (8:1), on the
promise of resurrection (26:2); yet Clement shows no sign of being aware
that Jesus had said anything on these topics. On repentance, Clement goes
so far as to offer a number of lengthy quotes from God himself found in
scripture, but not a word from Jesus’ own catalogue, as in Mark 1:15 or
Luke 13:3-5. Similarly, Clement appeals to scripture and the ‘sayings’
of God as guarantee of the resurrection, while remaining silent on such
Gospel teachings as Luke 14:14 or Matthew 22:31. He can make direct quotation
of the “promises” of resurrection in 26:2, but they are only God’s words,
not those of Jesus. Clement can offer his own parable of a sower (24:5)
without reminding his readers that Jesus had spoken one, too. In his great
panegyric on Christian love in chapters 48 to 50, he has neither room nor
interest, it seems, to quote Jesus’ own inspiring sayings on the subject.
<br />
When Clement urges his readers
to believe that God’s purpose to establish his Kingdom will be accomplished
swiftly, he appeals solely to Old Testament prophecies about the Day of
the Lord, ignoring all of Jesus’ Gospel pronouncements about the coming
End and his own Parousia (arrival at the End time). Indeed, the latter
seems unknown to this writer, despite all the Gospel predictions (as well
as Q’s) about the Son of Man and his imminent coming, for in several passages
(23:5, 34:3, 35:4) Clement speaks only in terms of the more traditional
Jewish expectation of the coming of God himself. Could this writer have
any knowledge of the Gospels and its prominent feature of Jesus’ predicted
return? Could the entire tradition on the Son of Man in Q and the Gospels
have any authenticity in regard to Clement’s Jesus, and Clement be ignorant
of it? How could he be ignorant of oral traditions about Jesus’ imminent
coming or return, if this was a widespread and prominent feature of Christian
expectation, as it surely should have been? In 23:5, Clement addresses
himself to “scripture’s own testimony” that the Day of the Lord is imminent:
“He will surely come quickly; he will not delay,” and “With no warning
the Lord, the Holy One you are expecting, will come to his temple.” Clearly
the expected arrival is that of God, not of Jesus.
<br />
In chapter 53, after a long dissertation
on forgiveness, Clement searches for words to sum up his case. They are
not words of Jesus on the cross, but the plea of Moses to God that he forgive
the disobedient Israelites. Clement extols Moses’ benevolence: “What immeasurable
love…a minister speaking up boldly to his Lord and demanding pardon for
the multitude!” Would he have chosen words from the Old Testament had he
known of Luke’s saying?
<br />
Now, it has been suggested that
some of these objections on Clement’s silence amount to “straw men.” Jesus’
words on the cross, “Father forgive them…” are found only in Luke, whose
invention they may certainly be. The Beatitude popularly known as “Blessed
are the meek,” to which I have compared Clement’s appeal to Proverbs, appears
only in the Sermon on the Mount, and may be an enlargement by Matthew over
the version appearing in Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. We should not, they
say, expect elements in the Gospels now regarded as unhistorical to be
known to early Christian commentators.
<br />
Even if Matthew’s specific beatitude
is confined to him, the general sentiment that the lowly and disenfranchised
will prove to be the inheritors when the Kingdom arrives, that the humble
shall be exalted and the mighty humbled, is a central feature of Jesus’
preaching in the Gospels. Any sentiment in such a direction should have
attracted an attribution to him. In general, however, there is a further
consideration that is consistently overlooked.
<br />
If a sectarian movement were
begun, or even regarded as begun, by a famous teacher, it is clear that
teachings on important matters that later arose would be put in his mouth;
that practices later adopted by the sect would be regarded as established
by him; that warnings, predictions of the future, promises to send a Spirit
which authenticates later views, and so on, would be imputed to him. This
can be said to be “clear” because the entire Christian record from Q and
the Gospels onward witnesses to this universal phenomenon of sectarian
behavior. All sorts of sayings and deeds were attributed to Jesus which
critical scholarship now regards as inauthentic.
<br />
Clement <i>should</i> have possessed
some word of Jesus to support key issues like repentance and forgiveness,
the promise of resurrection, the coming of the Kingdom and his own return,
whether in fact a real historical Jesus had said anything about them or
not. Any movement following teachings of an historical figure, and certainly
of the historical Jesus supposedly behind Q and the Gospels, should have
possessed a much richer body of tradition associated with such a figure
than Clement displays. Indeed, his catalogue is threadbare.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Other Silences in the Epistle</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Nor does Clement possess traditions
about Jesus raising the dead, which would have been a powerful argument
in urging his readers to believe in the feasibility of resurrection. Q
apparently had such traditions (note Luke/Q 7:22), decades earlier and
they are prolific in the Gospels. How much more powerful would Lazarus
have been than the rather strained example of the phoenix (25) as proof
of God’s intent to resurrect humans? Clement should also have had traditions
about Jesus’ healings. And yet in chapter 59, he makes this appeal to <i>God</i>:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Save those of us who are in affliction, have
mercy on the lowly, raise the fallen, show thyself to those in need, heal
the sick, turn again the wanderers of thy people, feed the hungry, ransom
our prisoners, raise up the weak, comfort the faint-hearted.”</blockquote>
If Clement is in the same line as
Q and the Gospels, if he was exposed to those oral traditions we would
regard as mainstream in the early Christian movement, how could he not
know that Jesus had reputedly done many of these very things, and at least
make some passing mention of them? Such mention would be absolutely natural,
even if his readers were familiar with them. Why, indeed, not appeal to
Jesus himself to effect these things in the community now?
Q and the Gospels are also centered
on John the Baptist. Was the latter figure not a part of mainstream Christian
tradition? We would have to think not, to judge by the total body of the
New Testament epistles which never mentions him, nor the baptism of Jesus
himself by John. Clement makes that silence more resounding when he focuses
on those who “went about in sheepskins and goatskins heralding the Messiah’s
coming” (17:1) but leaves out John the Baptist, mentioning only Old Testament
figures like Elijah, Elisha and Ezekiel. His “other famous names” are limited
to Abraham, Moses and David.
<br />
Another missing figure is Judas,
when we might expect that treacherous apostle to be offered as an example
of how envy and jealousy had adverse effects on famous figures, this one
Jesus himself. In chapters 4 and 5, Clement itemizes many Old Testament
luminaries who suffered at the hands of betrayers, and follows that up
with the more contemporary examples of Peter and Paul who were “assailed
by envy and jealousy.” On Judas he is silent, as also in 45:7 when telling
of “iniquitous men…who delivered over to torments” the pious and the innocent.
And if martyrdom is in view in chapter 5, why is there no mention of Acts’
Stephen who was stoned for his championing of Jesus by the envious Jews?
<br />
But there is a void even more
dramatic in Clement’s apparent knowledge of Jesus’ life. Even without a
written Gospel, his community should have possessed traditions about the
historical event of the crucifixion, about Jesus’ trial and sufferings.
In chapter 16 he presents Christ as a pattern for humility: “The coming
of our Lord Jesus Christ…was in no pomp of pride or haughtiness…but in
self-abasement.” Does he go on to provide his readers with an account of
Jesus’ silence and humility during his trial and crucifixion? This is the
context he wants to present (to judge by the content of the material he
does offer), but he seems to have no details about the historical event
itself, for he simply quotes the entire Suffering Servant song of Isaiah
53 from start to finish, with its references to the servant “who carries
the burden of our sins and suffers pain on our behalf,” who “through all
his ill-treatment…never opened his mouth,” who “was led away like a sheep
to be slaughtered.”
<br />
This ‘song’ contains much that
relates to suffering and perhaps even death, and it was the source (in
other circles) of many of the details of the passion story, but it hardly
makes a good substitute for the real thing. Clearly, this was the only
type of repository available to Clement for information about Christ’s
crucifixion. Jesus’ blood sacrifice was known only through scripture. For
how could a Christian center of the stature of Rome, even if it had no
written Gospel, not possess <i>some</i> traditions, some details about
the historical crucifixion, accurate or not. How could Clement not have
wanted to make use of such details, if only as a supplement to the passage
in Isaiah, which would then have served as a prophecy of the event? Indeed,
we would expect him to call attention to this fact—as the evangelists and
many later Christian writers were to do—that the events had fulfilled the
prophecies, the passages in the sacred writings. No such idea is even hinted
at.
<br />
Clement supplements Isaiah 53
with verses from Psalm 22 (7-9), another source for the Gospel scene on
Calvary. Once again he introduces them as Christ himself speaking through
scripture:
<br />
<blockquote>
“And elsewhere, he himself says: ‘I am…an object
of contempt to the people. All who saw me derided me, they spoke with their
lips, nodding their heads and saying, He set his hopes on the Lord; let
him deliver him…’ ”</blockquote>
These words from the Psalm are presented as Christ telling
of his experiences through scripture. But again, where is the comparison
with history? Did the fixation on comparing the “historical record” found
in tradition and the Gospels with the “prophecies” in the Old Testament
begin only after Clement? (It will be found in a very primitive form in
the epistle of Barnabas.) Would one of the heads of the church at Rome,
by the end of the first century, not have been aware of any tradition,
such as in Matthew 27:39-43, that people witnessing Jesus’ crucifixion
had, in fulfillment of prophecy, acted and spoken exactly like the words
of the Psalm?
The long passage from Isaiah
53 is introduced with these words: “…as the Holy Spirit spoke (<i>elalêsen</i>)
concerning him, saying…” As in Hebrews, the significance of this is evident.
Clement knows Jesus was humble because the Holy Spirit, in scripture, tells
him so. (Barnabas, we shall see, still shares this attitude.) The sacred
writings are not the prophecy of an historical Christ’s life; history does
not fulfill scripture. The quotations Clement offers are not used as “proof-texts,”
confirming or illuminating historical events. History is never interpreted
in the light of the scriptures, a practice later commentators such as Justin
were to revel in. Rather, for Clement, scripture is itself the embodiment
of the Christ event. Christ inhabits the higher spiritual world and scripture
provides a window onto it. When Clement sums up in chapter 16 by saying,
“See what an example we have been given” (of the Lord’s humility), he is
pointing squarely to Christ’s activities in this spiritual realm as seen
through the sacred writings, not to any events in Palestine some three-quarters
of a century earlier, events to which he never casts a glance. The example
is in scripture itself, and this Suffering Servant is equated with Christ,
not a prophecy of him.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Teaching and Remembering</i></b>
<br />
<br />
It should be noted that the Holy
Spirit in chapter 16 “spoke” (<i>elalêsen</i>) using the same verb
with which Christ was said to speak when “teaching” in chapter 13, to which
we can now return. In view of the extremely limited nature of any such
teaching by Jesus known to Clement, and his preponderant reliance on scripture,
we are entitled to see the passage as a string of maxims which are viewed
as coming from the spiritual Christ, somewhat as Paul’s “words of the Lord”
(1 Corinthians 7:10 and 9:14) are regarded by one stream of scholarship
as perceived communications from Christ in heaven. (For example, Werner
Kelber, <i>The Oral and the Written Gospel</i>, p.206; Rudolf Bultmann,
<i>History
of the Synoptic Tradition</i>, p.127. Such scholars, of course, acknowledge
these ‘dominical sayings’ of early Christian prophetic practice, but style
it as communication from the “Risen Christ” after his departure from the
world. But it is never presented in those terms by any epistle writer.)
<br />
A similar situation would fit
the other passage (46:8) in which words are given to Jesus:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he
said: ‘Woe to that man, it would have been a good thing for him if he had
never been born, instead of upsetting one of my chosen ones. It would be
better for him to be pitched into the sea with a millstone hung round him,
than to lead a single one of my chosen astray.’ ”</blockquote>
This quote, similar to a conflation of Synoptic sayings (e.g.,
Matthew 18:6, Mark 9:42), has all the ring of an admonition thundered out
by some early Christian prophet, claiming to speak in the name of Christ,
or perhaps simply of God. Clement may know it from some body of inspired
pronouncements, passed on as “words of the Lord Jesus.”
The idea that gods “teach” is
a universal phenomenon in the world’s religions. Clement’s use of the term
“when teaching” need imply no more than this. Other Christian epistles
reflect this idea. In 1 Thessalonians 4:9, Paul says (astonishingly) that
“You are taught <i>by God</i> to love one another” (my italics). In 1 John
2—possibly written around the same time as 1 Clement—the writer declares
that “all knowledge” has come from the sect’s ‘anointing’ ceremony, which
is the gift of “the Holy One” (God). In the Roman community, some body
of teaching is now being imputed to the heavenly Christ, as reflected in
Clement’s reference to “the precepts of Christ” in 49:1. We should note
that in chapter 22 (quoted above) the writer presents, through the words
of Psalm 34, Christ as offering to “teach”—using the same verb as in chapter
13—the fear of the Lord, and this is presented as a teaching in and through
scripture. In other words, through spiritual channels from a spiritual
source.
<br />
The use of the word “remember”
in Clement’s introduction to these two passages is commonly claimed to
be an indication of the practice of remembering and passing on the words
spoken by Jesus in his ministry, and so it can be used in other literature.
But such tradition and terminology could exist within any context of adhering
to a body of teaching, and there seems no reason to exclude teaching proceeding
from a revelatory or prophetic source. Compare two other epistle passages.
In Hebrews 2:1-4, the author speaks of the revelatory experience in the
sect’s past—probably marking its beginning. (That it is a revelation he
is referring to and not the ministry of Jesus, I have argued in Article
No 7: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp07.htm">Transfigured on the Holy Mountain</a>). He urges
his readers to “pay heed” to what they have learned. In the 1 John passage,
the readers’ knowledge, which they acquired “at the start” from the Father,
is to be “kept in their hearts,” just as Clement reminds the Corinthians
that Christ’s word has been “stored in their hearts.” In any case, the
point may be moot. How else was Clement to express himself in these passages?
In speaking of “remembering,” he is simply urging his readers to recall
to mind certain teachings attributed to “the Lord Jesus” which are pertinent
to the arguments he is making. There is no context of discussion about
passing on tradition here, and too much is read into a simple word used
in a simple manner.
<br />
It has also been noted that in
those passages reputed to be the words of Christ on earth the past tense
is used, whereas in other cases it is the present tense. But this overlooks
the governing distinction. All other instances of “saying” by God or Christ
are taken from the bible. Scripture is an ever-existing, concrete repository
of ongoing revelation. The voice of Christ speaks every time they are read.
Not so with ethical maxims regarded as proceeding from or revealed by Christ.
They exist only in oral form, coming out of the past, presumably through
supposed revelations made to someone connected with the movement, and thus
the use of the past tense would be natural.
<br />
One final point in this connection.
The distinction has been noted that only in the case of the two quoted
words of a teaching Jesus, together with 32:2’s reference to “<i>kata sarka</i>”
(to be examined later), does the identification “the Lord Jesus” appear.
These are the only instances in which the word “Christ” is not used in
conjunction with “Jesus.” It may be difficult to say why this particular
combination of terms appears only in these cases, but two suggestions do
not commend themselves. One is that it represents a lower or more primitive
christology derived from oral tradition. Yet any use of the title “Lord”
cannot be spoken of as low or primitive. “Lord” is one of the titles previously
given to God alone, and as such is more exalted even than “Christ” which
simply means an anointed one, traditionally applied to a human figure.
(This is not to say that in early Christian thought it has not been pressed
into service as a name for the faith’s divine salvation figure or aspect
of God.)
<br />
The second is the claim that
the similarity of the maxims in chapter 13 to those of the preaching movement
which produced Q (and the related earlier stratum of the Gospel of Thomas)
should tie Clement’s tradition to that milieu, where the likelihood of
an historical teaching Jesus is allegedly strong. But this fails to work
as well. The Q tradition never speaks of its Jesus as “Lord” or “Christ.”
These terms appear in neither document. Nor does that tradition speak of
a salvific role for the Jesus we can see in the final stages of Q, let
alone of his death and resurrection. All those elements found in 1 Clement
are notably missing from the Q tradition. On the other hand, Clement lacks
the prominent Q element of the Son of Man expectation, and he never expresses
any of the more distinctive ethics of the Sermon on the Mount derived from
Q, such as “love your enemies.”
<br />
Thus it is <i>less</i> likely
that Clement stands in the line of the Q tradition. And when one considers
that the maxims which appear in chapter 13 are little more than expansions
on the Golden Rule, an ancient and widespread idea, such similarity to
the Q dimension ceases to be either surprising or significant. Preaching
of the imminent Kingdom of God was also widespread at this time.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Chain of Apostolic Authority</i></b>
<br />
<br />
But there is one important passage
in 1 Clement which allegedly supports the case for the writer’s belief
in an historical Jesus. It comprises an appeal to the idea of apostolic
tradition, a chain of authority that began at the onset of the movement
and now culminates in those leaders whom the rebels in Corinth have challenged.
Clement uses this apostolic chain to argue for the illegitimacy of the
rebels’ actions. Yet even in this passage there are anomalies and silences
which are almost universally overlooked.
<br />
Here is the first part of chapter
42, as translated by Kirsopp Lake:
<br />
<blockquote>
“The Apostles received the Gospel for us from
the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ was sent from God. The Christ therefore
is from God and the Apostles from the Christ. In both ways, then, they
were in accordance with the appointed order of God’s will. Having therefore
received their commands, and being fully assured by the resurrection of
our Lord Jesus Christ, and with faith confirmed by the word of God, they
went forth in the assurance of the Holy Spirit preaching the good news
that the Kingdom of God is coming.”</blockquote>
1 Clement 42 is probably the earliest
example in Christian correspondence of the idea of tracing authority and/or
doctrine back to earlier periods in an authoritative chain. This is something
that even Ignatius lacks, as do the Johannine epistles. But what is it
that the writer is tracing back to?
It would be instructive to compare
this passage with Revelation 1:1-3:
<br />
<blockquote>
“This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which
God gave to him to show his servants what must soon take place, and he
[Christ] sent it through his angel to his servant John who, telling everything
he saw, has borne witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus
Christ.” [Conflating parts of the NIV and the NEB]</blockquote>
God makes a revelation to Jesus,
who in turn communicates it through an angel to the prophet John. John,
in setting it all down in writing, is passing on Christ’s revelation to
him. The figure of Christ communicates entirely through spiritual, revelatory
channels. For John, Christ is an exclusively heavenly figure, a portrayal
consistent throughout Revelation. (See Article No. 11: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp11.htm">Revelation:
The Gospel According to the Prophet John</a>.)
If John is an apostle of the
Christ, he would claim to have derived his preaching authority and message
from Christ—through an angel—while Christ in his turn has received <i>his</i>
message from God, both spiritual channels. I suggest that this is precisely
the pattern we see in 1 Clement (a work, by the way, probably close in
time to the writing of Revelation, which is most often dated in the 90s.)
<br />
Verse 42:1 says that Jesus the
Christ was sent from God. The root verb “sent” is used many times throughout
Christian epistles in contexts which imply a spiritual sending. It is the
same verb used—including by Clement—to talk of the sending of the Holy
Spirit. There is nothing in this epistle which says that Jesus preached
the Kingdom of God while on earth. In fact, it is notably lacking. Verse
1 says that the apostles received their gospel from the Lord Jesus Christ
in a chain clearly stated: the message passed from God to Christ, then
from Christ to the apostles. The apostles go out preaching the good news
as though they are the first to carry the message. There is a notable silence
on any idea that such a message had previously been preached by Christ
himself, to a much wider audience than the apostles themselves. God tells
Christ, Christ tells the apostles, the apostles tell the world. It is the
same narrow sequence as in Revelation.
<br />
And in Paul. In Galatians 1:12
Paul speaks of receiving his gospel—the gospel of God, as he and other
epistle writers style it—through a revelation of Jesus Christ (which could
mean “from” or “about” Christ). The Son has been revealed ‘in and through’
himself (Gal. 1:16), and he is passing it on through his preaching message.
Nothing prevents us from interpreting Clement’s meaning in the same revelatory
way, especially as at the beginning of the next chapter he proceeds to
eradicate any sense of a physical commissioning of the apostles by Jesus
in his ministry: “And what wonder is it if those who were in Christ, and
were entrusted by God with such a duty, established those who have been
mentioned?”
<br />
First of all, the phrase “in
Christ” is suspiciously like the Pauline motif “in/through Christ” which
(regardless of whether one believes he knew an historical Jesus or not)
meant the spiritual presence of the heavenly Christ within people or situations.
It is very suggestive of the mystical cult atmosphere found in Paul, which
I maintain is devoid of an historical Jesus. More importantly, if the writer
of 1 Clement just had in mind Jesus’ commissioning of the apostles, either
during his ministry or following the resurrection in flesh, it is hardly
likely he would have reverted to saying that the apostles were “entrusted
by God” with their mission. If, however, Christ were simply a spiritual
force acting as God’s channel, and not the object of human memory, expressing
things this way would be understandable.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Christ’s Resurrection</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Before pursuing Clement’s chain
of authority argument further, let’s go back to the idea of the resurrection,
as alluded to in 42:3. Most translations, of course, assume the Gospel
background and imply that the apostles went out to preach full of encouragement
having just witnessed Jesus’ return from the grave. But is this overlooking
a more natural meaning in the text itself? The verb for “fully assured”
(<i>plêrophoreô</i>) implies “filled with confidence, faith,
determination, etc.” (colloquially, “pumped up”), but it is followed by
the preposition “<i>dia</i>” which means “on account of, by reason of”).
This is general enough to make possible the meaning that the apostles were
filled with confidence at the thought of the resurrection, in the sense
of an article of faith. In fact, this is the sense in which Ignatius uses
this verb and idea in the opening of his epistle to the Philadelphians,
where he says that his readers “have sure and certain conviction in the
resurrection of our Lord”; and it is used in the same sense in the enumeration
of Jesus’ biographical elements in Magnesians 11.
<br />
But there is more to support
the meaning of ‘convinced by faith.’ Following on the statement that the
apostles are “fully assured by/on account of the resurrection,” the writer
adds that they are “filled with faith in the word of God.” What is it that
they feel an assured belief in, if not the resurrection just referred to?
That such a thing is designated “the word of God” would indicate that this
is in fact an article of faith, the product of revelation, and not something
known through eyewitness. (This second phrase has been curiously dropped
from Staniforth’s Penguin translation.)
<br />
Paul, too, confesses his and
others’ conviction of Jesus’ resurrection in terms suggesting faith, not
historical eyewitness, as in Romans 10:9 and 1 Thessalonians 4:14. And
in 1 Corinthians 15:12-15, in urging the assurance of resurrection on his
readers, Paul declares that if there is no general resurrection, then Christ
himself cannot have been raised, and he and other apostles have been lying
about what God has said. This implies that the source of what Paul preaches
about the resurrection of Jesus has come from God, not from history and
tradition. In other words, it is an article of faith, revealed from divine
sources.
<br />
The whole passage in 1 Clement
42:1-3 seems to be saying this: the apostles, having received the gospel,
by (spiritual) revelation from God through Christ, and pumped up by the
thought of the resurrection of Christ and fully believing God’s word (through
revelation or scripture) that it was true, set out to preach to the world
(which hears it for the first time) the coming Kingdom of God.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Appointment of Apostles</i></b>
<br />
<br />
After saying that the apostles
had gone out, having been “entrusted by God” to preach the Kingdom, Clement
goes on to provide further evidence that he intended no picture of Christ
commissioning apostles during an earthly ministry. The main purpose of
Clement’s letter is to impress upon the rebel Corinthians that they must
accept the authority of their appointed elders, and he marshals all manner
of evidence, mostly drawn from scripture, to support the principle of this
authority. While there may be some distinction of roles between appointed
apostles and appointed bishops and deacons, this passage (chapters 42-44)
is one in which Clement is addressing the concept of delegation—from God
through Christ to the apostles. The flow of thought, right up to 44:3,
indicates that the God-Christ-apostles chain is being extended through
the apostles’ appointment of bishops and deacons in the communities they
converted. Clement goes on to search for a sacred foundation for the legitimacy
of these appointments. He finds a foundation and precedent in the books
of Moses and the prophets, where those figures under divine guidance set
down instructions for such proceedings. For proof that appointment of church
ministers is inviolable, Clement has recourse to Moses’ appointment of
Aaron and a prophecy in Isaiah.
<br />
But a missing precedent should
be evident: the record of Jesus’ personal appointment of the Twelve (or
however many) and their authority to do everything in his name. Where are
the words he would have spoken on such an occasion—even if developed in
later church imagination? Where is Matthew’s directive to Peter himself—supposedly
the first bishop of Clement’s own community, which would have seized on
any such tradition—that here was the rock upon which the church was to
be built, giving Peter powers to bind and loose? If the Roman community
possessed no tradition of the dramatic appointment of Peter (because it
was an invention of the Matthean evangelist and his community somewhere
in Syria, and perhaps at this time not yet set down on paper), I have argued
earlier that the Roman church should not have failed to preserve or develop
specific traditions concerning Jesus’ teachings and directives, and this
would include an appointment of apostles. The very occurrence of situations
which this epistle addresses would guarantee such a thing.
<br />
Even given the technical distinctions
between apostles and community leaders, one would think that such precedents
as these, such foundations of authority, would have struck Clement as pertinent
and would have accompanied his scriptural arguments. The bare reference
in chapter 42 will not do, as we have already seen; further, because there
are none of the particulars we would expect if this represented a tradition
of appointment on earth by Jesus. Look at the details Clement supplies
in the matter of Moses in the next chapter.
<br />
Finally, Clement rounds off his
discussion here (chapter 44) with this statement: “Our apostles also knew,
through (<i>dia</i>) our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be dissensions
over the title of bishop.” This would be an odd way of expressing the idea
that Jesus during his ministry or resurrection appearances had given the
apostles this forecast, but perfectly natural if the meaning is of a revelation
gained from the spiritual Christ. As Lightfoot points out (<i>The Apostolic
Fathers</i>, vol.1, p.398), “<i>dia</i>” is frequently used by Clement
to denote the mediatorial channel which Christ in heaven represents; “<i>dia
toutou</i>” (through him) occurs five times in chapter 36 alone with precisely
this meaning. The plain sense of the statement quoted above in 44:1 is
one of communication from the heavenly Jesus. If so, since it ties itself
(through the word <i>kai</i>) to what has come previously, this casts the
same meaning back upon the entire discussion about the apostles and their
commission from God through Christ. We may say that given such a meaning,
no thought of an historical Jesus can be present in the writer’s mind,
for the first apostles of Christ were not likely to have been characterized
as being appointed in any other way than by the earthly Jesus himself.
<br />
A century ago, bishop Lightfoot,
a British clerical scholar, made this perceptive comment (<i>op.cit.</i>,
p.398): “To Clement Jesus is not a dead man whose memory is reverently
cherished or whose precepts are carefully observed, but an ever living,
ever active Presence, who enters into all the vicissitudes of Clement’s
being.” What Lightfoot is saying, inadvertently, is that there is no sign
in Clement’s mind of the historical Jesus who said and did things in the
past, no sign of a now-dead human being who was supposedly the foundation
of his present faith. For Clement and his predecessors, Jesus was no historical
person but an ever-living spiritual being who provides a channel to God
and the means for salvation. Deities in heaven have ever filled this role,
and until the Gospels came along, this Son of the Jewish God in the spiritual
realm was all anyone believed in or needed.
<br />
That said, one should reemphasize
the observation made earlier, that Clement’s thoughts and emotions are
mainly theocentric, and that Lightfoot may be exaggerating the role Jesus
plays for the writer of this epistle. After outlining all the promises
and indicators that the Creator has supplied to give us assurance of resurrection
(26), Clement’s devotion and love remain on God, and are expressed for
him alone: “Seeing then that we have this hope, let us knit fast our souls
to him who is ever true to his word and righteous in his judgements…let
us rekindle the ardour of our belief in him…” And only a few verses later
(29), it is God “we must approach…in holiness of spirit, lifting up pure
and undefiled hands to him in love for the gracious and compassionate Father
who has chosen us to be his own.” Even in the little ‘ode’ to love in chapter
49, which echoes 1 Corinthians 13, the writer speaks only of “love for
God,” and that “love binds us fast to God,” while the passage at the end
of this chapter, the only seeming reference in the epistle to Christ’s
love for us, is in fact grammatically ambiguous, and may be saying, “…because
of the love <i>he</i> [God, as God is the only one hitherto referred to]
bore us, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the will of God, gave his blood for
us, flesh [<i>sarx</i>] for our flesh, his life [<i>psychê</i>, literally,
soul] for our lives.”<br />
<br />
<b><i>“Kata Sarka”</i></b>
<br />
<br />
This reference to “flesh” will
lead us to consider one further passage in 1 Clement. Those who maintain
that the writer does indeed envision an historical Jesus say it constitutes
a fly in the ointment. Verse 32:2 refers back to the reference to Jacob
in the preceding chapter:
<br />
<blockquote>
“For it is from him [Jacob] that all the priests
and Levites who minister at God’s altar have since descended. From him,
too, according to the flesh, has come the Lord Jesus. From him there have
issued kings and princes and rulers, in the line of descent from Judah.”</blockquote>
Actually, none of the English words of descent or coming
appear in the Greek, which is literally “From him, the priests/Lord Jesus/kings
and princes…” The reference to Jesus is a bare one: “From him, according
to the flesh [<i>kata sarka</i>], the Lord Jesus.” Again, let’s consider
the nature of this statement. It makes no perceivable connection to the
Gospel figure, and its context is scriptural. And once again, it uses that
curiously stereotyped and cryptic phrase found throughout early Christian
correspondence: <i>kata sarka</i> or <i>en sarki</i>, or sometimes just
the dative <i>sarki</i>: “in, according to, in relation to,” perhaps even
“in the realm of, the flesh.” (See the discussion on this terminology and
its appearances in the epistles in <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/sil20arg.htm">The Sound of
Silence: Appendix</a>.)
Beginning in Ignatius and coming
to full flower in Justin and just about everyone beyond, discussion of
Jesus and his life is put in unmistakably human, historical terms, based
on the Gospels. The phrase “<i>kata sarka</i>” is no longer pressed into
service. What force, what mode of thinking, led every earlier letter writer
to speak of Jesus, a more vivid and recent figure in their past than he
was to men like Justin, in such an obscure and non-committal way, devoid
of all sense of circulating historical tradition? We might accept it as
a quirk of expression if such a thing stood beside other, more natural
expressions of a recent human figure and his life story. But this is all
we get, from Paul and the christological hymns, to 1 Clement at the end
of the century, and even beyond.
<br />
In Romans 1:3, the Son is “<i>kata
sarka</i>” of David’s stock, which Paul identifies as part of the gospel
of God about his Son found in the prophets. In Romans 9:5, the reference
is almost identical to that in 1 Clement: “and from whom [the patriarchs]
the Christ, according to the flesh [<i>kata sarka</i>].” In the hymn of
1 Timothy 3:16 (which may be earlier than the rest of the epistle), the
“mystery” of the faith is that Christ Jesus was “manifested/ revealed in
flesh [<i>en sarki</i>]” with no other activities on earth stated. Even
in referring to “the days of his flesh” in Hebrews 5:7, Christ’s activities
are based on scripture. 1 Peter 3:18 has Christ “put to death in the flesh
[<i>sarki</i>]”—and raised “in the spirit,” as does the 1 Timothy hymn.
(1 Peter, as in 1 Clement 16, describes Christ’s sufferings (2:22) by paraphrasing
Isaiah 53, silent on any historical traditions found in the Gospels.)
<br />
This strange and universal pattern
of expression in almost the first hundred years of Christian letter writing
(and more formal treatises like Hebrews) cannot be dismissed out of hand.
It is part of a clearly perceptible evolution throughout the documentary
record from silence on a human, Gospel figure to the gradual integration
of such a figure and story into Christian thinking. In the earliest period,
the use of a phrase like “<i>kata sarka</i>” represented a philosophical
concept. It refers to the theoretical state which divinities inhabited
or entered when they performed their work of redemption, when they lived
out the elements of their myths. “Flesh” and “spirit” were the great opposites
within the view of the universe held during the centuries dominated by
Platonism and other mystical philosophies. The former was the world of
humanity, the latter the realm of Deity. The whole tradition of myth said
that certain gods and supernatural beings in their dealings with humanity
took on human form—sometimes it is explicitly stated that it is only a
“likeness” to that form—and underwent human-like activities. In any system
where the saving deity suffered, he had to leave the more spiritual layers
of heaven and do so within a human setting. For the early Christians, “flesh”
was the commonest designation for that setting, but this encompassed a
number of the universe’s levels, including the lowest spirit layer of the
air, which possessed characteristics very like the level of matter and
were inhabited by evil spirits with corporeal type ‘bodies.’ (These matters
are discussed at length, with references, in Articles No. 3 and No. 8.)
<br />
In early Christian circles, a
further element was introduced and this was the Jewish scriptures. The
concept of a divine “Messiah” had evolved out of this body of writing and
tradition, and aspects of such a figure in scripture had to be applied
to the new savior god Christ Jesus: thus, all these “descents” from David
or the patriarchs or the line of Judah, or even from the “woman” of Isaiah
7:14. In the early literature, when Christ comes to the “sphere of flesh”
he does only what scripture tells of him. To convey the idea, the stock
formula “<i>kata sarka</i>” and its variants was apparently developed,
woolly at best because it had no historical foundation on which to base
itself. But it conformed to that flesh/spirit dichotomy of prevailing thought
about the workings of the universe. And the phrase itself is ambiguous
enough that it could encompass the connotation of referring to acts that
have an <i>effect</i> on the human dimension, so that in some instances
it may entail only the thought of being or acting “in relation to the flesh.”
This more general application is seen in Paul’s use of kata sarka in 2
Corinthians 5:16 (in the NEB translation): “With us, therefore, <i>worldly
standards</i> have ceased to count in our estimation of any man…” As well
as of Christ, whose “flesh” here is not in view.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Postscript: Could 1 Clement Be a Mid-Second Century
‘Forgery’?</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Since the days of the Dutch Radicals
(such as W. C. Van Manen), the ‘authenticity’ of 1 Clement has been called
into question, much more than in regard to its author or specific occasion.
While the letter purports to be a reaction by a Roman community to vicissitudes
in Corinth, such alternate interpretations regard it as something written
at a later date, 140 to 160 perhaps, using the scenario of discord at Corinth
to provide a homily with a different, broader agenda. That agenda is seen
as relating to the issue of authority, and is most often characterized
as reflecting the Roman Church’s developing ambition to exercise some form
of authority over the wider Christian community.
<br />
In the convoluted world of early
Christianity and its complex documentary record, one has to admit that
almost anything is possible. Cases have been made for the mid-second century
provenance of 1 Clement, and it would be foolhardy to say that they have
no merit. Thus, I am not going to argue at length over the issue here,
but simply offer observations that lead me to believe it is unlikely.
<br />
First, if the letter is not what
is presented on the surface, an “agenda” must be in mind. Whatever that
agenda is thought to be, there must be fairly obvious indicators in the
text which throw a spotlight on it. If the ‘forger’ intends his creation
as support for a claim of authority by some body such as the Roman church,
the elements in the letter which argue this cannot be so subtle as to be
virtually undistinguishable. And we know from experience that Christian
forgers and interpolators are rarely subtle, which is why their handiwork
is usually so easily identifiable. The issues and agendas they are addressing
are right there in plain view (as, for example, in the Pastorals). In 1
Clement, the issue of some centralized authority beyond the appointed elders
of any individual community is nowhere in evidence.
<br />
No mention is made of the rebels
in Corinth submitting to an outside group; guidance is all that is being
offered by the writer. He focuses on the “rivalry and dissension” (63)
within the Corinthian community, not on any failure to render obedience
to some larger network. The epistle never implies that Corinth owes fidelity
to Rome. In 56:1, the writer urges that the rebels “surrender themselves,
not to us but to the will of God.” In chapter 65, the writer is praying
for “news of the truce and unity” in Corinth, nothing else. He has certainly
made his epistle one of unconscionable length and repetition of its main
themes, but there is no compelling reason to see this as any more than
an expression of his own volubility, along with perhaps a measure of vanity
in demonstrating his knowledge of scripture.
<br />
If even the subtlest agenda advancing
Roman authority were in the mind of the writer, we would surely not encounter
the situation we see in chapter 5. Later Roman claims were heavily based
on Peter and Paul’s precedent in having come to Rome, both of them to be
martyred there, the former to become its first bishop and establish a chain
of authority that would culminate in the Papacy. But Clement, in discussing
Peter and Paul’s activities, is maddeningly vague, if not completely silent,
on such later traditions. He does not even state clearly that either of
these apostles ended their lives in martyrdom, and certainly there is no
mention of Rome as the place of such events. In fact, his statement that
“after reaching the furthest limits of the West, and bearing his testimony
before kings and rulers, he passed out of this world…” might even imply
that the legend of Paul as it then stood was that he had died in the distant
west of the empire. There is no sense that Clement is familiar with the
last days of Paul as portrayed in Acts.
<br />
As for Peter, the writer’s failure
to play up any martyrdom in Rome, and his complete silence on any connection
of the apostle to that city, let alone that he had been its first bishop,
not only belies later Petrine tradition on such things, it makes it impossible
to believe that this writer has any concept of Roman hegemony, since Peter’s
role in support of this would be something he could not have passed up.
In this connection, we should note Ignatius’ silence on any linkage of
Peter and Paul to Rome in his epistle to the Romans (4:3), even when he
refers to them by name while discussing his impending martyrdom. In fact,
the contrast he draws between himself and those illustrious figures virtually
rules out the later traditions about their martyrdom. “They were apostles,
and I am a condemned criminal,” is not something he would likely have said
if both Peter and Paul met the same kind of fate (execution) in Rome which
Ignatius is on his way to. “They were free men, and I am still a slave,”
(the latter not meant literally) makes no sense if both men were no freer
than Ignatius in the concluding stages of their lives.
<br />
Second, the lack of reference—indeed,
knowledge, as I have argued—concerning an historical Jesus in the epistle
of Clement, makes it difficult to place it in the mid-second century, especially
in a community such as Rome. Even though the record of the second century,
from Apostolic Fathers to apologists, indicates that acceptance of an historical
Jesus progressed gradually and unevenly, if any community was at the forefront
of that development, it was Rome. Justin testifies to that, and so does
everything we think we know about Marcion. He came to Rome sometime around
140, adopted a gnostic view of Jesus and formed what was probably the first
canon of documents (ten epistles of Paul and an Ur-Luke) to make his case
about Jesus’ preaching of the true God. And since the Roman scene, as the
mid-second century arrived, was characterized by the Marcion-orthodoxy
conflict, any letter written at that time with a ‘hidden’ agenda would
surely have wanted to focus on the burning issue of the day, perhaps purporting
to find ammunition from the earlier period to counter Marcion’s gnostic
threat. Of the latter, there is not a hint in 1 Clement.
<br />
One of the issues in the struggle
with Marcion and gnosticism was that between the principle of ecclesiastical
authority and the less-structured attitudes of gnostic spirituality and
individual self-reliance, but even of this no sign can be detected in Clement.
The rebel community is not one that resists authority structures in principle,
since the community was previously in harmony; there is no sign that any
faction come out of a different background, and the writer does not argue
from the perspective of conflict with gnostic standards (as Paul might
be said to do in parts of his Corinthian epistles). To observe that 1 Clement’s
advocacy of appointed authority in the community is general enough to apply
to a range of situations, and that it was indeed used in the later second
century to support orthodox positions, does not demonstrate that it was
designed to do so, especially when the specifics of those situations are
conspicuously absent.
<br />
There is no particular reason
to believe that the epistle was later written in some more distant Christian
community, one that was far from these issues and from the knowledge of
an historical Jesus, with the letter being cast in the Rome to Corinth
scenario simply as a vehicle. But even if this were so, it would still
mean that the only ‘agenda’ in view would be the one the letter puts forward:
obey the elders in your community who have been appointed over you. Since
this would involve no issue of centralized authority beyond the community
itself, and since the picture of that communal hierarchy is a primitive
one, nowhere near the “monarchical bishop” model we find later (or even
the one advocated by Ignatius), there would be no compelling reason to
date such a ‘forgery’ to the mid-second century. Such an epistle could
as easily come from the end of the preceding century, even if we are not
in a position to prove it.
<br />
Thus, whether the epistle is
what it purports to be, or is simply someone else’s homily on community
harmony and government cast in a Rome-to-Corinth setting, nothing changes
in our analysis of the epistle and its knowledge of an historical Jesus.
Since the more primitive nature of its environment and thought would tend
to mitigate against a later provenance, there seems little justification
in rejecting it as providing a window onto the period under examination.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>— II —</b>
<br /><b>The Shepherd of Hermas</b></span></center>
<br />
<br />
The Shepherd of Hermas is the
longest and probably least familiar surviving Christian document before
Justin. It seems to have taken shape over a few decades in the early second
century, involving perhaps three different authors. Editing is evident
and ideas are not always consistent throughout. Later tradition identified
the author as “Hermas” (the name given to the recipient of the visions),
who was regarded as the brother of Pius, bishop of Rome around 148 CE.
But most if not all of the work was likely written before that time. Some
scholars have even placed it in the late first century, which would fit
its primitive theology and predominantly Jewish character.
<br />
F. L. Cross, for example (<i>The
Early Church Fathers</i>, p.24), dates the Shepherd to the end of the first
century, due to its crude theology, undeveloped church organization and
the overall primitiveness of the work. R. M. Grant (<i>The Apostolic Fathers:
An Introduction</i>, p.85) notes that the Muratorian list’s assignment
of the work to the bishopric of Pius after 140 “does not explain how Pius
could be bishop of Rome if presbyters and bishops were practically identical
and those called presbyters governed the church.” He subscribes to the
view that the Shepherd is a composite work, with earlier parts coming soon
after the accession of Trajan (97 CE). Simon Tugwell (<i>The Apostolic
Fathers</i>, p.63) agrees that the post-140 dating is problematic and opts
for the 60s or 70s of the first century. All of them accept a Roman provenance.
<br />
The work is a series of revelations
to Hermas by angelic and other celestial figures. One of these is “the
shepherd,” angel of repentance, which gives the writing its name. The book
is divided into three large sections: 5 Visions, 12 Commandments, and 10
Parables. The genre is apocalyptic. The author’s central concern is the
question of sin after baptism: is forgiveness available to Christians for
sins committed following their conversion? Hermas argues that repentance
is still possible—though only once.
<br />
This is indeed a strange Christian
document. For all its length, the names of Jesus and Christ are never used.
(The sole appearance of “Christ” in one manuscript of the second Vision,
in 2:8, is thought to be a later emendation of “Lord”—meaning God—which
appears in other manuscripts of the passage.) Instead, the writer refers
to the “Son of God.” He is by no means the central figure, however; once
again, this is a thoroughly theocentric piece of writing. “Lord” is always
God. The author speaks of glorifying the name of God (Vision 3, 4:3); those
who suffer persecution do so for the name of God (Vision 3, 5:2). It is
the ordinances of God which must be kept (Vision 1, 1:6).
<br />
It is difficult to believe that
this author could have possessed any sense of a Jesus on earth who began
the Christian movement. Hermas treats the “church,” the body of believers,
as a mystical entity. It is God himself who has created the church (Vision
1, 1:6), including its pre-existent prototype in heaven. There is constant
reference to the “elect of God,” with no tradition in sight of a church
established by Jesus. Nothing which could fit the Gospel ministry is referred
to. The central section, the Commandments (or Mandates), discusses a great
number of moral rules, some resembling the teachings of the Gospels, but
to Jesus no attribution is ever made. The writer can speak of “apostles,”
but never associate them with an historical figure who appointed them;
there is no tradition of anything going back to such a figure. Instead,
“apostles and teachers preach the name of the Son of God” (Parable 9, 16:5),
in the same way that Paul and other Christian prophets preached the divine
Christ.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Son in the Shepherd</i></b>
<br />
<br />
And who or what is the Son? The
writer describes him in highly mystical language. He is older than all
creation, the Father’s counselor (Parable 9, 12:1). He “supports the whole
world” (14:5). Parable 9 tells of the building of a heavenly tower representing
the church. The Son is the foundation rock and the gate; one cannot enter
this tower, this Kingdom of God, except through his Son. All this is a
reflection of that underlying concept encountered at every turn throughout
the early Christian period: that God is known and accessible only through
his emanations, through the intermediary Son. Salvation comes to those
who are “called through his Son” (Parable 8, 11:1). Of a death and resurrection
there is not a whisper in the entire document.
<br />
This Son, Parable 9 goes on to
tell, “was made manifest” in the last days of the world: “<i>phaneros egeneto</i>,”
he became known. Once again we meet the universal language of the earliest
Christian writers: not a coming to earth to live a life as a human being
in recent history, but a revelation by God today, in these last times before
the End.
<br />
Hermas equates the Son with the
Holy Spirit (Parable 9, 1:1, and in Parable 5 which we shall examine in
detail below). This is the more traditional Jewish manner of speaking of
the communicating aspect of God. Elsewhere (Parable 8, 3:2), it is the
Jewish Law that is God’s Son. This writer has no sense of a Son with a
distinct personality, biography or role separate from longstanding ways
of thinking about God’s dealings with the world. He is part of the paraphernalia
of heaven, the way Wisdom is in other circles of Jewish expression.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Parable of the Son</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Let’s take a closer look at the
fifth Parable. Commentators claim to see an account both of the incarnation
and of the ministry of Jesus. An angel has told Hermas a parable in which
the servant of a rich landowner is given charge to tend a field. As the
angel explains it, the field is the world, the landowner God, and the servant
is the Son of God who labored in this field for the benefit of its plantings,
the people of God. In chapter 6 the angel goes on to further elucidate
the parable this way (K. Lake, in the Loeb <i>Apostolic Fathers</i>, volume
2):
<br />
<blockquote>
“2God
planted the vineyard, that is, created the people, and gave it over to
his Son. And the Son…cleansed their sins, laboring much and undergoing
much toil… 3When, therefore,
he had cleansed the sins of the people, he showed them the ways of life
and gave them the law which he received from his Father… 4But
listen why the Lord took his Son and the glorious angels as counselors
concerning the heritage [or heirs: see below] of the Servant. 5The
Holy Spirit…did God make to dwell in the flesh which he willed [or chose].
This flesh in which the Holy Spirit dwelled served the Spirit well, walking
in holiness and purity, and did not in any way defile the Spirit. 6When,
therefore, it had lived nobly and purely, and had labored with the Spirit…he
[God] chose it as companion with the Holy Spirit; for the conduct of this
flesh pleased him, because it was not defiled while it was bearing the
Holy Spirit on earth. 7Therefore
he took the Son and the glorious angels as counselors, that this flesh,
having served the Spirit blamelessly, should have some place of sojourn
and not lose the reward of its service. For all flesh in which the Holy
Spirit has dwelt shall receive a reward if it be found undefiled and spotless.”</blockquote>
F. L. Cross (<i>op.cit.</i>, p.26)
has called the author of the Shepherd “a man of no great intelligence,”
and all who have studied this work speak of its “confusion.” The writing
is often unclear, to say the least, and in this particular Parable there
is a striking inconsistency between the parable itself and the explanation
of it, which we need not go into. Even in the above passage there are obscurities
between the Son, the Servant and the Holy Spirit which make analysis difficult.
But let’s focus on some key points.
If the author is familiar with
even a general concept of Jesus’ historical life and death, why in verse
3 does the Son’s “cleansing of the sins of the people” <i>precede</i> his
“showing them the ways of life and giving them the Law”? The “cleansing”
is through the labor and toil spoken of in verse 2, but neither here nor
anywhere else is this put in terms of suffering and atonement, let alone
a death and resurrection. As for “giving them the Law,” this is clearly
through spiritual channels, for a later Parable states that the angel Michael
(who in Parable 9 is equated with the Son of God) has “put the Law into
the hearts of those who believe.” There is no preaching by an historical
Son in evidence anywhere in this work, and in the above Parable such things
as vineyards and toil are best seen as a symbolic description of the workings
of God through his intermediaries.
<br />
To find a reference to the incarnation
in verses 5 to 7 is to draw water from a stone. First of all, despite an
identification of the Son with the Holy Spirit in Parable 9 (which is often
regarded as a later layer of this work by a different writer), there is
in Parable 5 no obvious link between the Son and the Spirit; in fact, verses
4 and 7a make them distinct. It seems, therefore, that it was not the Son
who was sent to dwell in flesh. Verse 7 further fails to link the Son with
the “flesh” under discussion. In any event, the manner in which this flesh
is spoken of cannot fit an incarnate Christ’s human side, unless it be
given a peculiarly gnostic interpretation which is nowhere in evidence
in this book. Instead, it has a decidedly ‘human’ character, in the sense
that the writer is speaking here of ordinary human beings.
<br />
Thus, there is no thought of
incarnation in this passage. The writer is speaking of the Holy Spirit
being sent by God to dwell in certain humans. Such men and women are those
who stay pure and holy, who do not defile the Spirit while it dwells in
them; they will be given a place of sojourn as a reward. The “all flesh”
of verse 7b shows that the writer does not have the specific flesh of an
incarnate Christ in mind. Besides, Christ’s human side hardly enjoys a
continued existence after his incarnation so that it can be given a reward.
<br />
Such an interpretation requires
one simple adjustment. In verse 4, Lake and others give the word “<i>klêronomia</i>”
the usual translation of “heritage” or “inheritance” as though the writer
is about to detail the fate of the servant who in the parable is identified
as the Son. But as Bauer’s Lexicon points out, a word like this can be
given an abstract translation, so that here it may signify those who receive
the inheritance. In other words, the writer is about to describe the rewards
received by the <i>heirs</i> of the servant/Son, namely the believers in
whom God has sent the Holy Spirit to dwell.
<br />
This interpretation is hardly
a leap of faith or wishful thinking. For the writer in the next chapter
(7) goes on to spell it out for us. I need only quote part of the first
three verses:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Listen, now,” (the angel) said. “Guard this
flesh of yours, pure and undefiled, that the Spirit which dwells in it
may bear it witness, and your flesh may be justified… For if you defile
your flesh you defile also the Holy Spirit, and if you defile the flesh
you shall not live.”</blockquote>
Only the need to find some trace
of Christian orthodoxy somewhere in this book would lead to a failure to
make the obvious connection between these verses and the meaning of those
which have immediately preceded them. Nor does the writer give us any indication
that he is drawing some kind of parallel between the believers and the
incarnated Christ. The “flesh” spoken of in chapter 6 is not that of Christ
on earth, but of the believers whom the writer is addressing. In sum, the
longest early Christian document in existence presents us with a divine
Son who is never referred to by the names Jesus or Christ, is never said
to have died or risen, and who never shows sign of having been to earth.
The “confusion” the scholars
speak of in Hermas is not that of the author but rather is a product of
the attempt to impose the Gospel background on him. This writer is rooted
in Hellenistic-Jewish mythology with its picture of a heaven in which different
forces form part of the workings of divinity. The Son is one figure in
the class photo which includes the Holy Spirit and angels of several ranks,
and these are occasionally allowed to merge into one another. The Son sometimes
seems identified with other figures, and angels such as Michael are at
times involved in the work of redemption. As Charles Talbert puts it (“The
Myth of a Descending-Ascending Redeemer in Mediterranean Antiquity,” <i>New
Testament Studies</i> 1975, p.432), “the Savior is described basically
in terms of an angelology which has coalesced with the categories of Son
and Spirit.” Talbert’s choice of the word “category” is perceptive, for
Hermas is dealing with philosophical concepts here, not a historical figure
who was God’s incarnation. Had he possessed any idea of the Son as a human
personality who had walked the earth in recent memory, suffered and died
and resurrected to redeem humanity, he could never have buried him in this
densely obscure heavenly construct and allowed the entire picture ‘recorded’
in the Gospels to evaporate into the mystical wind.<br />
<br />
<b><i>At the Threshold</i></b>
<br />
<br />
As we stand on the threshold
of historical awareness of a human Jesus, we can look back over a consistent
picture. Amid much variation, the early Christian documents lying outside
the Gospels and Q display a common denominator: a spiritual divine Son
who acts as God’s intermediary in the work of saving humankind or an elect
portion of it. They are consistent in their view of the medium through
which this work is done: an ongoing realm of the spirit which inspires
apostles and teachers to impart the divine truth. The Shepherd of Hermas
is perhaps the best example to show that this was an age saturated with
mystical thinking and heavenly imaginings. This is how religious minds
saw the world around them. To ignore that consistency, that common picture,
to fail to account for universally missing elements like apostolic tradition
going back to Jesus, or an historical ministry which served as the ultimate
source of Christian teaching and prophecy, to seek to paper over the widespread
absence of any concept of death and resurrection and so much else, is simply
a burying of the head in sand.
<br />
Our picture of early Christian
diversity, when looked at with eyes unobscured by orthodox lenses, provides
a fascinating view onto the religious world of the first and early second
centuries, an amalgam of a Judaism which has stepped adventurously beyond
its mainstream paths, and a Hellenism which has brought its established
philosophy into a Jewish embrace. (It matters not whether these adventurers
were Jew or Greek.) Such syncretism still inhabits a rich spiritual realm.
The Shepherd is not the only Christian or Jewish writing to lay before
us a world of angels, heavenly churches, celestial figures representing
forces between God’s heaven and man’s earth, a universe where vibrations
from the unseen spiritual side of reality can be felt by the mystic, absorbed
by the believer, sought and discovered in the sacred writings from whose
pages God, his emanations and his messengers speak. Until we can allow
ourselves an unbiased reading of what lies plainly in view in the early
Christian documents, we will deny ourselves a proper knowledge of that
important transitional period in the religious evolution of the western
world which led to the modern era of faith in an incarnated Son who trod
the land of Palestine.
<br />
The Son’s journey to earth was
inevitable, perhaps, for western society is the human branch most responsible
for developing science, beginning with the Greeks, and science requires
substance in matter, things observable in a tangible universe. Western
philosophy and religion could not long subsist on a diet of pure spirit,
on myth which never touched real ground. That offspring of Judaism and
Hellenism needed to embrace a Son in flesh, to touch his wounds and see
the love and sacrifice in his eyes. Ignatius craved his violent end in
the arena because he saw it as a parallel to the real suffering of a human
Christ under Pontius Pilate, and his fury at those who denied a genuine
suffering Christ in the flesh came from the fear that without such a thing,
his own fate would be meaningless and “for nothing.” That view, that need,
is still with us today. And so in the space of a few critical decades around
the turn of the second century the human Jesus crystallized out of his
spiritual predecessor, though it would take the better part of a century
before all Christian circles were converted. By the time of Irenaeus, Tertullian
and Clement of Alexandria, our hybrid western religion had completed its
creation and for the next eighteen centuries the new church was to preserve
the “memory” of the Son who had lived and worked among us.<br />
<br />
=================<br />
<br />
<b>Part Two: The Epistles of Barnabas and Ignatius</b><br />
<b> </b>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>— III —</b></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Epistle of Barnabas</b></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<b><i>An Emerging Jesus of History</i></b>
<br />
<br />
For the document known as the
Epistle of Barnabas, most scholars prefer a date between 115 and 132, though
some have placed it before the end of the first century. Kirsopp Lake summarizes
the two positions (Loeb <i>Apostolic Fathers</i>, vol.1., p.337), that
the ten kings in chapter 6 may refer to emperors, which would place the
epistle within the first century, though at a date uncertain since “there
is no unanimity as to the exact manner in which the number of the ten Emperors
is to be reached.” The later choice of date, often specified as close to
130, is based on the reference to an expected—apparently imminent—rebuilding
of the Temple (16:3-4). While such a hope may have flared up at various
times during this period, it was at its height on the eve of the Second
Jewish War. While the writer mentions the first War (making the document
no earlier than 70), he fails to refer to the second, which should place
the upper limit at 132.
<br />
The traditional ascription of
the epistle in ancient times to Paul’s companion Barnabas is rejected today.
Where it was written is uncertain, though Rome is not likely. It seems
to be the product of “a learned Jew” (Staniforth’s phrase), quite possibly
in Alexandria, since its earliest attestation is by Clement and Origen
in that city. If so, this Jew has disowned his ancestral religion and claimed
the sacred writings of the Jewish heritage for Christianity. Others have
suggested that he is a gentile writing to other gentiles who have thoroughly
absorbed Judaism and who see themselves as the inheritors of a new covenant
which the Jews have forfeited.
<br />
It would perhaps be easy to characterize
this epistle as one which reflects a primitive knowledge of the historical
Jesus of the Gospels, something which would not be surprising of a document
that may have been written as late as the second or third decade of the
second century. But closer examination calls this into question, and it
will be fascinating to look at this epistle to see just how far the picture
of a Christ derived from the sacred writings could develop before it ruptured
its scriptural skin and spilled into actual history. The impression created
by the epistle of Barnabas suggests one of those moments in movies and
television where one scene starts to fade out and simultaneously a new
scene fades in. The clash of worlds is at times almost bizarre.
<br />
Viewing the Old Testament books
as prophecy, the writer of this epistle has progressed to the point where
he envisions Christ as having lived on earth at some time in the past.
But as to exactly when that was, or even about the few details offered
by Ignatius, he gives us no information. His sole source for an account
of that newly-conceived Incarnation in historical flesh still seems to
be scripture.
<br />
In this polemic against all things
Jewish, “Barnabas” accuses the Jews of failing to understand their own
writings. (They were misled by an evil angel.) They were guilty of making
a literal interpretation of scripture instead of an allegorical one. The
latter made it clear that the Old Testament, the rites and regulations
of the Jewish Law, were entirely God’s coded prophecy about Christ and
his cross. This epistle is an attempt to demonstrate this contention, employing
a range of exegesis which is both imaginative and occasionally ludicrous.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Picture of Christ’s Passion</i></b>
<br />
<br />
The crucifixion and its significance
lies at the very center of the author’s theology. What does he tell us
about it? He touches on some details that could be said to be related to
the Gospel story, but in every case he points to scripture as the source
of his information. Not only does he not possess a written Gospel (very
telling if we are to date Barnabas a fair distance into the second century),
he shows no sign of any access to oral traditions which supply an account
of Jesus’ historical experiences.
<br />
Consider the opening verse of
chapter 5. (My translations are based on Staniforth in the Penguin edition,
but with occasional changes in the direction of the literal Greek.)
<br />
<blockquote>
“Now, when the Lord [i.e., Jesus] resigned himself
to deliver his body to destruction, the aim he had in view was to sanctify
us by the remission of our sins…For what scripture says of him is: ‘he
was wounded on account of our transgressions, and bruised because of our
sins, and by his scars we were healed. He was led to the slaughter like
a sheep, and like a lamb that is dumb before its shearers.’ ”</blockquote>
This idea of dying to remit sins
could have been illustrated by Mark 10:45, that “the Son of Man…(came)
to surrender his life as a ransom for many,” surely a representative tradition
in any interpretation of Jesus’ death. It is difficult to believe that
any Christian community would not by now have possessed <i>some</i> tradition,
some saying of Jesus himself, which related to the significance of his
sacrifice on the cross.
Other references to the passion
suggest a very imperfect picture of its outline, often at odds with the
Gospel story. In a ‘description’ of Jesus’ sufferings, Barnabas appeals
to the prophets of the Old Testament, quoting ten examples in all, beginning
at 5:13:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Even the actual form of his Passion he willingly
embraced, since the word of prophecy had doomed him to meet his death on
a tree. ‘Spare my life from the sword,’ it said; and then, ‘Pierce my body
with nails, for the congregation of the wicked have risen up against me.’
And again he says, ‘See, I have tendered my back to scourgings and my cheeks
to blows, and I have set my face as firm as a rock.’ ” (Quotations are
from Psalms 22 and 119 and Isaiah 50.)</blockquote>
Barnabas then goes on:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Moreover, after he had done as it was commanded
him, what does he say then? ‘Who presumes to accuse me? Let him stand up
to face me…’ ”</blockquote>
In Barnabas’ sequence, the false
accusations, which we would associate with the trial portion of the passion
story, follow after the biblical passages representing the crucifixion
itself. After this further quote from Isaiah 50, he goes on to offer other
passages which in the Gospel tradition are not associated with the passion,
focusing for example on the reference in Isaiah 28 to the foundation stone
that becomes a cornerstone. Following this, he dips back into Psalm 22:
<br />
<blockquote>
“A gathering of wicked men surrounded me; they
came about me like bees round a honeycomb,’ and also, ‘they cast lots for
my garments.’ ”</blockquote>
This chain of biblical prophetic
passages creates a hodge-podge impression, completely out of sequence with
the Gospel story, and indeed conveying no sequential picture at all, certainly
not one which the writer might be associating in his mind with an historical
scene. Rather, his mind is focused on the ‘story line’ in the Psalms and
prophets. And like Clement he hears the voice of Jesus in the first person
words of the prophets and Psalmists. Barnabas’ ‘account’ of an historical
crucifixion seems to be determined solely by scripture. We wait in vain
for any spelling out of the corresponding event in history, events of the
time of Herod and Pontius Pilate. No such historical time or figures are
ever provided.
This silence is repeated all
through the epistle. Barnabas never supplements his scriptural quotations
with a corresponding historical version of things. This creates a curious
effect. Though he regards scripture as “prophecy,” we are never given a
concrete equivalent in history which constitutes the fulfillment of the
prophecy. The actual experiences of Jesus on earth seem to be theoretical.
That is, the writer is deducing their existence from scripture and then
labeling scripture as a prophecy of them; his eye rests solely on the latter.
The prophecies are given no independent support or illustration, let alone
reference to a Gospel.
<br />
To make a brief comparison with
Justin. In chapter 104 of the <i>Dialogue with the Jew Trypho</i> Justin
quotes lines from Psalm 22, including: “They parted my garments among them
and cast lots for my vestments.” He then goes on to say, “And this is recorded
to have happened in the memoirs of his Apostles. I have shown that after
his crucifixion they who crucified him parted his garments among them.”
In other words, Justin has drawn two sides of a clear parallel or equation:
Psalm 22 prophesies an event, and here is the event itself, independently
presented from a different source. Justin’s source was a written one, which
Barnabas may have lacked, but there should have been nothing to prevent
Barnabas from offering his own independent source in the form of oral traditions,
in a description of the events of history derived independently of scripture.
His Christian world should have been full of such things, traditions and
ways of speaking about Jesus’ passion and the events of his life which
did not rely entirely on the words of scripture, as though scripture were
the only concrete source available.
<br />
For this author, such a silence
is glaring. Elsewhere, Barnabas’ concern is repeatedly to draw a clear
parallel between a biblical prototype and a present-day equivalent. He
is at pains to show how ancient Hebrew institutions prefigured counterparts
in current Christian belief and practice. This is one of the chief aims
of his letter, the purpose of his allegorical interpretation of scripture:
to show that the scriptural “past” is fulfilled in the Christian “present.”
But when he turns to describing Christ’s passion in scripture, the corresponding
fulfillment in the experiences of Christ “on earth” go undetailed, unidentified
in terms of specific historical content.
<br />
Perhaps the most bizarre example
of this is the passage immediately preceding the ‘story line’ of the passion
in chapter 5.
<br />
<blockquote>
“For God tells us that the bruising of [the Son’s]
flesh is from them [the Jewish people], for he says: ‘When they strike
the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered.’ ”</blockquote>
To show that the Jews are guilty of killing Jesus, he points
to a scriptural passage (Zechariah 13:7) in which God is seen to declare
this. He does not say, “God prophesied that the Jews would kill his Son
and history shows its fulfillment.” Rather, he seems to be implying that
the knowledge of ‘history’ itself comes from the scriptural passage. It
is God, not historical memory, which has identified the Jews as those who
killed his Son.
This view of the history of Barnabas’
Jesus figure is more than implied. It is spelled out by the writer himself.
Following the quote in 5:3 of Isaiah 53 (above), he tells his readers:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Therefore we ought to give great thanks to the
Lord that he has given us [i.e., through the scriptures he has just quoted]
knowledge of the past, and wisdom for the present, and that we are not
without understanding of the future.” (From the Lake translation)</blockquote>
In other words, Barnabas is stating that we know of Christ’s
experiences on earth through the scriptures, through passages like Isaiah
53. Near the start of the letter (1:7) he has declared the same principle:
“For the Lord made known to us through the prophets things past and things
present and has given us the firstfruits of the taste of things to come.”
It would seem that there is no recent history, no oral tradition, in Barnabas’
mind which also tells of Christ’s experiences. Knowledge of the past comes
through scripture and scripture alone. (Staniforth’s translation in 5:3
that the writings “give us an insight into the past” looks to be fanciful;
I can find no evidence that the verb “<i>gnôridzô</i>” is so
accommodating.)<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Void on the Gospels</i></b>
<br />
<br />
In light of all this, we can
look at the passage which seems most ‘historical’ and help resolve the
question of whether Barnabas could have known any written Gospel, or even
corresponding oral traditions. 5:7-9 reads in part:
<br />
<blockquote>
“[By allowing himself to suffer] he was able
to fulfill the promise made to our ancestors… and to show…while he was
on earth, that he will raise mankind from the dead and judge them. Moreover,
by teaching the people of Israel and performing miracles and wonders, he
made known his message and his love. But when he chose the apostles who
were to preach his gospel, men who were sinners of the worst kind, he showed…that
he came not to call saints, but sinners.”</blockquote>
The view that Christ had taught
and performed miracles (Barnabas never itemizes any of these miracles)
conformed to a universal expectation about the Messiah based on scripture.
Here, the writer may simply be assuming that such things had happened.
Another possibility is that this view of teaching and miracle-working grew
out of precedents in the mythical phase of the faith: out of the belief—on
the part of men like Paul—that the spiritual Christ communicated with Christian
prophets, “teaching” them through the Spirit; out of the fact that miracles
had been performed by such prophets in Christ’s name. For such things to
be attached to a new historical Jesus would have been natural. This is
a pointer to the likely derivation of Barnabas’ next idea, that Christ
had appointed apostles, for in the earlier phase he had done so: an appointment,
through spiritual channels, of apostles (like Paul and Peter) who believed
they had been called by Christ himself.
(In 8:3 Barnabas declares that
these apostles were twelve in number. But he never gives us any names,
and he supplies the origin of his own reasoning: because the tribes of
Israel were twelve. There is no need to see historical tradition as the
source of this information.)
<br />
That Barnabas is not in touch
with actual history—at least, the history as portrayed in the Gospels—is
shown by his description of these “apostles.” No one who possessed the
later traditions about Peter and Paul would have been likely to call them
“sinners of the worst kind.” Who, then, does he have in mind? Though he
never states it, it is possible that Barnabas had some sense of when the
Christian movement started, which means that he may have placed such “apostles”—and
consequently Jesus himself—around the time of Peter and Paul. Indeed, he
may even have these men in mind, and perhaps the traditions about such
early preachers of the Christ were, in Barnabas’ circles, less than flattering.
<br />
But something else may be operating
here as well. In the text, the phrase, “He came not to call saints but
sinners” is not set out as a quote; Barnabas does not identify it as coming
from any writing, though it does have that flavor. Scholars are quick to
focus on it as something taken from Mark 2:17, or the equivalent oral preservation
of such a saying by Jesus. It is true that we know of no other location
for this saying, but elsewhere Barnabas quotes other things whose source
cannot be identified, so this could be from some writing now lost. In any
case, those who would claim it to be the saying by Jesus would have to
acknowledge that Barnabas’ application of it is an anomaly. In the Gospel,
Jesus is speaking about the people at large to whom he is appealing in
his ministry, “not the righteous, but sinners.” He is not referring to
the apostles he has called, which is the way Barnabas applies it. It looks
as though the expression itself, wherever he derived it, has influenced
Barnabas’ picture of the apostles to which he thinks it applies. If Barnabas
believes this quotation (if it is that) refers to men like Peter and Paul,
then it would indicate to him that those apostles were in fact sinners.
<br />
Thus, it is difficult to maintain,
as many do, that the line is a quotation from a Gospel, for such a Gospel
should have conveyed a different picture of the apostles than the one which
Barnabas presents. Even identifying it as an oral tradition of Jesus’ words
faces objection, for in that case Barnabas would more likely have labeled
it Jesus’ own saying.
<br />
The same problems apply to the
claim that another Gospel quotation appears in 4:14. After pointing out
that the people of Israel were rejected by God, Barnabas cautions his readers
not to be among such people “…of whom it is written that many are called,
but few are chosen.” This saying appears in the mouth of Jesus in Matthew
22:16, attached to the parable of the wedding guests. Perhaps it comes
from a version of the parable unattached to Jesus, set down in writing
elsewhere. Or it may have been an established Jewish apocalyptic pronouncement.
<br />
But to claim that a Gospel is
Barnabas’ source for the saying is virtually unsupportable. Again, Barnabas
is more likely to have identified it as the words of Jesus, rather than
to say simply, “it is written,” which is the traditional formula used for
holy scripture. At this early date, a primitive Gospel account of Jesus’
life would hardly be regarded this way, and there is no evidence for such
a reverent attitude toward such accounts until considerably later. Moreover,
if this were a Gospel, Barnabas would have before him a wealth of material
on Jesus’ life. Not only would he then be unlikely to portray the “apostles”
the way he does in 5:9, he would possess a detailed historical record to
which he could point as the fulfillment of those Old Testament “prophecies”
he uses to illustrate Jesus’ passion, as Justin does.
<br />
Furthermore, he would not show
the astonishing ignorance he does on the teachings of Jesus relating to
numerous subjects which he discusses throughout the epistle. The question,
for example, of whether the Jewish dietary laws are valid is an issue Barnabas
expounds on at length (10), without considering any of Jesus’ Gospel pronouncements
on the subject. What will happen at the End time is a topic of immediate
interest to Barnabas, yet nowhere does he introduce any apocalyptic sayings
by Jesus, let alone the identification of Jesus as the Son of Man. In a
letter whose central concern is “hearing” the word of God that bestows
moral direction and correct understanding of the past, present and future,
no contribution from Jesus himself is put forward. Barnabas refers to “the
new Law of Jesus Christ” (2:6) but never gives us a word of it.
<br />
Once again, the point should
be made that even if Barnabas had no written record of teachings by Jesus,
they should have been present in oral tradition; and even if there were
no authentic teachings by Jesus on these issues, at least some of the latter
should by now have prompted the invention of such teachings with an attribution
to Jesus.
<br />
Thus, it is possible to conclude
that Barnabas’ concept of Jesus as a teacher of Israel in 5:7 is simply
a hypothetical one, of fairly recent development and not grounded in actual
historical memory. We should note further that the “Two Ways” section appended
to the epistle, forming chapters 18-21, is a compendium of Jewish-Christian
moral directives, somewhat similar to the opening section of the Didache.
In neither document is there any attribution of such teachings to Jesus.
It concludes (21:1) with the statement that “All this shows what a good
thing it is to have learned the precepts of the Lord [God], as they are
set forth in scripture.” And in 21:6 the writer (who in these closing chapters
may have been a later editor who added this material) advises his readers
to “take God for your teacher.”
<br />
A few other silences in the epistle
are worth noting. Barnabas supports (2:4) Isaiah’s condemnation of animal
sacrifices, but fails to offer the fact that Jesus had made a similar disparagement
while pointing to this very passage of Isaiah: “Go and learn what that
text means, ‘I require mercy, not sacrifice’ ” (Matthew 9:13). He scoffs
at physical circumcision (9) and declares that Abraham’s circumcision served
only to prefigure the name of Christ and the cross, ignoring any question
of Jesus’ undergoing of the rite at birth. In discussing the Jews’ loss
of their Covenant (4:6-8), there is no mention of a new Covenant established
by Jesus. He even seeks to discredit the term “son of David” for Christ
(12:10-11), appealing to the same argument Jesus himself makes in Matthew
22:43-5, though he shows no sign of being aware of this. As for the Gospel
post-resurrection appearances, the writer makes only this brief, cryptic
statement (15:9): “We celebrate with gladness the eighth day in which Jesus
rose from the dead, and was made manifest, and ascended into heaven.” (Lake’s
quite literal translation.) Not only does this contradict Acts, “was made
manifest” (that ubiquitous verb <i>phaneroô</i>) hardly seems to
do justice to the full range of Gospel traditions about Jesus’ post-resurrection
appearances.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Scripture Vs. History</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Two passages will further illustrate
that this writer is not deriving his statements about Jesus “on earth”
from his sense of history—or familiarity with a Gospel story—but from scripture.
In both cases, Barnabas compares “past” and “present” without ever leaving
the pages of the Old Testament. In 7:3, he asks his readers if they know
“why he [Christ] was given vinegar and gall to drink at his crucifixion.”
Is this the historical side of the equation I have earlier said was missing?
Barnabas goes on to detail two prefigurings of this ‘event,’ one in scripture
and another of unknown provenance, both relating to priestly practice.
He then enlarges on the idea of the drink at the crucifixion which he says
those practices ‘foretold’ (using his characteristically strained exegesis).
In these remarks (7:5), there is an allusion to Psalm 69:21—No. 68 in the
Septuagint, which is the version of the bible the writer is using. The
Septuagint passage reads:
<br />
<blockquote>
“They gave me also gall [<i>xolê</i>] for
my food, and made me drink vinegar [<i>oksos</i>] for my thirst.”</blockquote>
In all four Gospels, Jesus on the cross is offered only vinegar
[oksos: Mk.15:36, Mt.27:48, Lk.23:36, Jn. 19:29]. Mark, whom all the others
are likely copying, probably read the Septuagint passage but took only
the vinegar reference as applying to a drink. However, “<i>xolê</i>”
can also be used of a bitter tasting liquid, and Matthew apparently decided
to use the first phrase of the Psalm passage as well, rendering it as a
drink. But he does so in a separate incident, having the soldiers offer
Jesus a drink of gall mixed with wine (not vinegar) before nailing him
to the cross (27:34). In none of the canonical Gospels is Jesus at any
point offered a drink which is a <i>mix</i> of both vinegar and gall. Only
in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter (5:16), is the drink offered to Jesus
such a mix. (This is another argument against Crossan’s view that his “Cross
Gospel” stratum of the Gospel of Peter was the first passion story penned,
serving as the source for at least the Synoptics, for it is not likely
that all three evangelists would reject the mixed-drink feature and substitute
a single ingredient.)
Thus, Barnabas’ “drink of vinegar
and gall at his crucifixion” is more likely to be based on the Septuagint
passage than on Gospel or oral tradition. This is rendered virtually certain
by the way he enlarges on the ‘event’ in 7:5. He says that the priestly
practices served as a prefiguring of Christ’s crucifixion,
<br />
<blockquote>
“Because ‘when I am about to offer My Body for
the sins of this new People of Mine, you will be giving Me gall and vinegar
to drink. That is why you shall be the only ones to eat, while the people
of Israel are fasting and lamenting in sackcloth and ashes.’ In this way
he indicated his predestined sufferings at their hands.”</blockquote>
The inner quotes are Staniforth’s, but they serve to make
it clear that Barnabas is presenting this as Christ himself speaking and
explaining the prophetic meaning of the priests’ actions. And the reason
for doing this may well have been the nature of the Septuagint passage
itself, which speaks in the first person: they gave <i>me </i>gall and
vinegar. Not only does the same form of expression indicate that this is
Barnabas’ source, it is a direct confirmation of the principle that early
Christian writers up to this time are finding Christ, his words and his
activities, in scripture itself and not in historical tradition. Thus,
as stated earlier, Barnabas exhibits the peculiar and fallacious paradox
of declaring scripture to be a prophecy of the Christ, and then extracting
the ‘historical’ part of the equation from scripture as well.
As the final sentence quoted
above puts it, “In this way [that is, ‘words’ of Christ in based on Psalm
69], he indicated his predestined [in scriptural priestly practice] sufferings
at their hands.” One doesn’t quickly recover from the dizzying effects
of that kind of circularity.
<br />
Barnabas goes on immediately
(7:6) to detail another example of the same fallacious practice. He describes
the ritual of the Day of Atonement as recorded in Leviticus 16. The treatment
of the two sacrificial goats is declared to be, in its various details,
a prefiguring of the experience of Jesus in his passion. How does Barnabas
describe that experience (7:9)?
<br />
<blockquote>
“Now what does that signify? Notice that the
first goat is for the altar, and the other is accursed; and that it is
the accursed one [which he is comparing to Jesus] that wears the wreath.
That is because they shall see him on That Day clad to the ankles in his
red woolen robe and will say, ‘Is not this he whom we once crucified, and
mocked and pierced and spat upon? Yes, this is the man who told us that
he was the Son of God.’ ”</blockquote>
The resemblance of these details to the Gospel scene of the
crucifixion is undeniable, of course—because the Gospel picture is derived
from scripture—but there are several telltale anomalies. First, Barnabas
is not pointing directly to the passion but to a Parousia scene (“That
Day”) when Christ will arrive at the end of the world; the passion is only
looked at in a kind of flashback at that time. And the details (possibly
with one exception) are presented in conformity with their scriptural derivation,
not in historical or Gospel terms. Thus, the long robe is based on the
eschatalogical scene of a robed Joshua in Zechariah 3:1-5, not on the Gospel
detail of Jesus in a mock kingly mantle at his scourging. The question
asked in the above quotation is based, not on a Gospel account or historical
tradition, but on the words of Zechariah 12:10 (“They shall look upon him
whom they have pierced”), with other scriptural references to mocking or
rejecting (Isaiah 53) and spitting (Isaiah 50) thrown in.
Once again, Barnabas points to
scripture (the ritual of the goat) as a prefiguring of Jesus, but the event
that such things prefigure is entirely taken from scripture (Zechariah
and Isaiah).
<br />
The last phrase, “the man who
told us that he was the son of God,” is harder to pin down, but since the
preceding references are derived from scripture, there is no reason to
think that this one is not as well. The writer of this epistle is notorious
for his bizarre stretches of interpretation, and perhaps this idea has
even been wrung out of the concluding phrase of Zechariah 12:10 which speaks
of a “first-born son,” something Christians at that time took as referring
to the Messiah. It has been pointed out, of course, that the line about
the man who said he was the son of God is very similar to Matthew’s description
(27:43) of the taunts by the crowd at Jesus’ crucifixion. This is true,
but Barnabas fails to point this out, and any claim that a Gospel or even
a corresponding oral tradition was the source of this idea founders on
the rest of the passage.
<br />
If Barnabas knew a fine detail
such as this about the crucifixion scene (one recorded only in Matthew,
though Luke says something similar), then he must have had access to a
fairly thorough account of the passion. Why then does he show clearly that
he knows of no crown of thorns (Matthew 27:29 and parallels)? He is detailing
the ritual handling of the two goats, pointing out that the accursed one—to
be driven into the desert—has a wreath of scarlet wool wound about its
head. He is at pains to draw a correspondence in Christian faith with every
feature of the ritual. He continually speaks of “types” of Jesus—things
in scripture that symbolize and prefigure Jesus’ own features.
<br />
So what does the red wreath of
wool around the goat’s head signify? Barnabas can know nothing of a tradition,
or a Gospel account, that Jesus wore a crown of thorns during his passion,
for he offers no such parallel. Instead he points to the practice of removing
the wool wreath once the goat has reached the desert and placing it on
a bramble bush. This, he declares, is to signify that the Christian in
reaching for the wool (a symbol of something precious, namely the faith)
risks pain and anguish from the bramble thorns on which wool has been placed,
a symbol of the suffering and persecution which is the lot of the believer.
Even the reference to the “thorns” in the bushes does not prompt the writer
to refer to the Gospels’ crown of thorns on Jesus’ head.
<br />
We look in vain, then, for anything
pointing to history, written or oral, to be found in the Epistle of Barnabas.
Scripture may be bursting its seams, but this writer’s picture of an historical
Christ is still bounded by the sacred pages of the ancient writings.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Savior in Flesh</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Barnabas’ language, especially
the phrase “when he was on earth”—something no epistle writer before him
states so explicitly—shows that his idea of Jesus “in flesh” (<i>en sarki</i>)
has progressed beyond that of his predecessors. He no longer limits Christ’s
“incarnation” to the lower spirit layers of heaven and mythological contexts.
In 5:10 we are given an insight into the reasoning behind the development
of this idea, that the Son had of necessity to enter the material world:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Furthermore, supposing that he had not come
in the flesh, how could it then have been possible for men ever to ‘look
upon him and be saved’?” (Inner quotes are by Staniforth.)</blockquote>
That last phrase, if meant as a quote, might be from an unknown
piece of writing, or it may represent a current philosophical debate. Barnabas
is saying that salvation by beholding God is only possible if his Son assumes
flesh. Earlier he had declared that Christ’s suffering in human flesh was
needed in order to prove that the dead can rise (5:6). The point is, belief
that the divine Son came into the world was a product of philosophical
necessity and religious need, not an interpretation of an historical figure
or event.
We can see in 1 John 4 that this
need was not universal. In fact, some in the Johannine circle are <i>denying
</i>that
Jesus “has come in the flesh,” and the writer opposing them labels them
“antichrist.” Barnabas’ use of the phrase “come in flesh” (<i>êlthen
en sarki</i>) is almost identical to the phrase in 1 John 4:3, that Jesus
Christ “has come in the flesh” (<i>en sarki elêluthota</i>), and
is thus a pointer to its meaning in the other epistle, that the Johannine
dispute was over whether Christ had incarnated to the earthly world, and
not over some docetic question. (Neither epistle makes or addresses any
arguments relating to docetism.) Barnabas’ argument, as we shall see, is
very similar to that of Ignatius who maintained that Christ had to have
come in material flesh, else humanity’s sufferings had no meaning and no
assurance of salvation was possible.
<br />
Grant makes the observation (<i>The
Apostolic Fathers</i>, vol.3, p.35) that “Barnabas shows little interest
in or awareness of Jesus’ earthly life.” We have come scarcely any way
at all from the similar situation in regard to Paul, over half a century
earlier. Grant makes another telling observation (<i>Ibid</i>., p.36) that,
while “Lord” is used for Jesus in connection with his sufferings, the title
is also “freely used for God,” a fact which “makes precise interpretation
difficult in many passages.” That is, it is often unclear just who Barnabas
is referring to, and as Grant puts it, “Jesus’ functions often seem to
overlap with those of God,” and “Jesus’ acts were God’s acts.” This merging
of the two figures is best explained as a continuing vestige of the phase
of the faith which Barnabas’ world is just emerging from, the view that
Jesus was a spiritual entity only, an aspect of God in heaven. His is a
world that is only starting to develop the sense of the Son as a distinct
historical personage, though all that can be known of him is still dependent
on scripture.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Sin of the Jews</i></b>
<br />
<br />
While Barnabas now postulates
a Christ on earth, his starting point remains of the old variety: Jesus
Christ is the divine Son in heaven—who then came to earth. He does not
start from the historical Jesus of Nazareth and declare him to have been
the Son of God. In fact, this is an issue, a question of faith, which nowhere
appears in the epistle, despite the writer’s focus on a multitude of debated
questions. Even more tellingly, the Jews are never accused of or condemned
for not believing that Jesus was the Messiah, which is the way someone
like Justin was to put it, as were the Gospels. Rather, the Jews’ “sin”
was that they had done the same thing to the Son as they (allegedly) had
done to all the prophets sent from God: they had persecuted and slain him
(5:11). Nowhere does Barnabas say that this was because they had not believed
in his identity and divinity.
<br />
This is a subtle but crucial
observation. The rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah would have
been a piece of information based on historical record, whereas there would
be nothing in scripture to point to a feature like this. (And Barnabas
does not try to give us such a thing.) Even Paul in Romans 10, scouring
the sacred writings for passages foretelling a lack of response on the
part of the Jews, fails to offer anything which could fit the idea of rejecting
someone who claimed to be God’s Son. Rather, Paul applies his findings
only to the rejection of messengers like himself, of apostles who declare
the word of God, as the ancient prophets had done. Barnabas, too, casts
the Jews’ rejection of Jesus solely as the killing of the messenger, though
he goes a step further in equating that messenger with the Son himself.
The point is, such a rejection is something which need not be dependent
on historical record but rather would be derived from scripture.
<br />
In fact, this is precisely what
Barnabas tells us. Throughout chapters 5 and 6 he quotes Old Testament
passages which he interprets as pointing to the Jews’ killing and rejection
of the Son. But there is a critical difference between Barnabas’ picture
of the Jews’ rejection and killing of Jesus, and that of the Gospels. For
Barnabas is lacking the central feature of the Gospel Jews, the essential
failing they were accused of by generations of subsequent Christians: that
they had closed their minds to his true identity, to his fulfillment of
the prophecies; they had rejected his claims to be the Son of God and Messiah.
In fact, Barnabas seems to do the opposite. He wraps up (6:7) with a quotation
from the Wisdom of Solomon:
<br />
<blockquote>
“And the prophet says of the Jews, ‘Woe to their
souls, they have planned a wicked scheme to their own hurt, saying, Let
us bind the Just One in fetters, for he is a vexation to us.’ ” (2:12)</blockquote>
In other words, Barnabas assumes from this passage that the
Jews knew Jesus was the Son of God but killed him because they did not
like his message. He tells his readers (5:11) that all this had been intended
by God in order to consummate the Jews’ long and sinful history of rejection
and to sweep the stage for the new inheritors of his promise.
If behind Barnabas had lain a
near-century of condemnation of the Jews on the grounds that they had rejected
the man Jesus of Nazareth as being the Messiah and Son of God (the picture
created by the Gospels and held to this day), he is hardly likely to have
presented things in his own peculiar way.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Missing Link</i></b>
<br />
<br />
“Barnabas” is typical of a certain
class of early Christian writer. He is not an intellectual giant and not
particularly inspiring, and some of his pieces of interpretation strike
us today as ridiculous and embarrassing. Still, he is a knowledgeable student
of the scriptures, which makes his lack of a written Gospel and his equally
empty stock of oral tradition about Jesus something which cannot simply
be ignored, especially as he was probably writing in a major center like
Alexandria, in the early decades of the second century or perhaps late
in the first.
<br />
Though he still draws his script
from God’s coded word in the ancient books, Barnabas has moved the scene
of Christ’s salvation activities onto the stage of history. As such, he
is a “missing link” in the evolution of Jesus of Nazareth. The impulse
to place the spiritual Christ in a material past resulted from a combination
of psychological need and a study of scripture. As the sacred writings
were plumbed ever deeper for more information about the Christ who had
entered flesh, the words themselves would have created an increasingly
immediate and vivid picture. After all, the writings of the prophets were
not about the spiritual realm; most of them were too early to possess a
concept of the later Platonic-style creations. The ancient writers had
spoken of material events and people, in the context of their own times.
What later ages were to make of their words would have flabbergasted them.
But their down-to-earth language eventually reasserted itself and pulled
the spiritual Christ in that very direction, onto the land of Israel and
into the time of the early empire. It told interpreters like Barnabas that
he had actually taught and performed miracles, that he had chosen followers,
that the Jewish leaders had conspired against him and killed him. It had
probably told other preachers whose names are now lost many other things
about him which were imparted to their audiences and slowly entered Christian
consciousness.
<br />
In Part Three of the Main Articles
(“The Evolution of Jesus of Nazareth”), I suggested that the impulse to
the historicization of the spiritual Christ was not confined to the Gospels,
that such an impulse may also have been developing independently of them.
Since Barnabas shows none of the biographical detail we see in Ignatius,
which can reasonably be put down to the spread of basic Gospel ideas in
the northern Levant region two or three decades after Mark was written,
it may make better sense to see the trend in Barnabas’ community as something
that was not, thus far, impelled directly by Mark or the later evangelists.
<br />
Could Mark have been influenced
in part by the beginnings of a wider trend toward historicization? Or were
they two parallel developments which only began interacting with each other
after both were under way? While the internal evidence within Mark itself
would indicate that his tale was an allegory employing midrash on scripture,
I have said that to the extent that he was part of a Q-type milieu, Mark
could have imagined the existence of a founding figure such as evolved
in the later Q document, and his Gospel may have been designed as a fictional
expansion on such a figure, perhaps for instructive purposes and symbolic
of much that was going on in his own community. How much the later evangelists
believed that Mark’s story was based on history is not possible to say.
If, at the same time, Mark had come in contact with circles of the Christ
cult who were beginning to think historically about their Son of God, such
as we see in the Epistle of Barnabas (even if this particular document
was likely written later than Mark), this may have influenced the first
evangelist’s ‘biographical’ creation.
<br />
Of course, this is essentially
speculation. But deductive speculation is what one has recourse to after
all the evidence has been examined, and one seeks to formulate a scenario
which best explains the features of that evidence. It is a legitimate exercise,
even if certain elements of the scenario have no specific illustration
in the documents themselves. This goes on all the time in historical research,
and especially in New Testament research. For the first hundred years after
the time of the reputed life of Jesus, we have a miniscule number of documents
compared to the amount that must have been written by these various apocalyptic
sects, religious cults and reform movements, Jewish and Hellenistic, operating
across the empire. The few we have are like narrow windows onto an obscure
landscape, and none of them are concerned with presenting scientific, unbiased,
or historically accurate pictures of the world around them. For too long
we have allowed our own picture of the period to be determined by the faith
traditions and interpretations of the Christian Church, and that includes
the bulk of the scholars who for centuries have been engaged in biblical
research. It is time to offer new scenarios, new paradigms, to attempt
to achieve a better understanding of how Christianity began and unfolded,
now that the old paradigms have crumbled with the arrival, in critical
New Testament study, of more rational standards by which to judge the documentary
evidence.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>— IV —</b>
<br /><b>The Letters of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch</b></span></center>
<br />
<br />
Of the fifteen ancient letters
that bear Ignatius’ name, eight have long been rejected as spurious, including
ones addressed to the Virgin Mary and the apostle John, as well as the
cities of Antioch, Philippi and Tarsus. The remaining seven, to the Ephesians,
Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrneans, and to Polycarp,
bishop of Smyrna, exist in shorter and longer forms (“Recensions”), with
the shorter almost universally judged for the past two centuries to be
the genuine version. The longer Recensions have been heavily interpolated
with Gospel references and other polemical and devotional material.
<br />
Traditional dating of these letters,
along with many biographical elements about Ignatius himself, is dependent
on the document known as The Martyrdom of Ignatius. Its reliability remains
in question, as do most ‘biographical’ accounts of early Christian figures
set down at later times. Accepting a certain degree of reliability leads
to dates of either 107 or 116 CE as the year of Ignatius’ death in the
arena at Rome, with the added, perhaps fanciful, detail that the sentence
was imposed at Antioch by the emperor Trajan himself on his way to a campaign
in the east.
<br />
Whether all the circumstances
of Ignatius’ condemnation and martyrdom are historical or not, the question
of the authenticity of the letters themselves is a separate issue. Traditional
scholarship by and large accepts them; radical scholarship since the late
19th century has tended to date them later, perhaps as late as 160. Again,
it is not crucial for the purposes of this article to arrive at a firm
decision as to authenticity. My own inclination would be to lean away from
authenticity but to date them no more than a decade or two after Ignatius’
passing. The main reason for finding a date after the middle of the century
unconvincing is the absence in the shorter recension of all but the most
basic Gospel data along with elements like apostolic tradition and succession,
and the conclusion that the writer was familiar with no written Gospels.
These features will be discussed at length below.
<br />
The reasons arguing against authenticity
of authorship are the alleged circumstances of the letters themselves.
It is difficult to believe that under the situation of arrest and transport
by military guard, Ignatius would have had the freedom to receive delegations
from several Christian churches along the way. At Smyrna he was also visited
by clerical representatives from three other cities of western Asia Minor,
and one wonders at the logistical difficulty which would have been attendant
on coordinating such a visit. One also wonders at the willingness of all
these bishops and church people to place themselves in danger of being
arrested and charged with similar offences. That Ignatius would have the
opportunity and materials to write at such length to so many, and find
ways to dispatch all these letters, also raises doubt. Finally, the letters
themselves are suspiciously well crafted, and go on often repetitively
and unnecessarily long to make their points, more like little treatises
than pieces written under difficulty and duress. None of these objections
is decisive, but they are enough to give one pause in accepting the letters
at face value. Perhaps a later author designed them as a tribute to the
martyred bishop and as vehicles for the issues they address, but we have
no way of knowing how genuine is the scenario in which the letters are
cast, and it may be that the Martyrdom has been based on the circumstances
portrayed in the letters.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Does Ignatius know any of the Gospels?</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Apart from Ignatius’ fixation
on martyrdom, which often approaches the unsavory, there are two issues
which he repeatedly addresses, and we can assume that if the letters are
not authentic, these constituted the ‘agenda’ of the later writer—as indeed
they would have been of Ignatius himself. One is the authority of the clergy
in Christian communities. Obey your bishops and presbyters is a constant
exhortation. The picture of clerical government seems a little further
advanced here than in 1 Clement, for there is a greater implication of
hierarchy, a pyramid with the bishop at the head (e.g., Trallians 3:1,
Magnesians 13:2). One thing still missing, however, is any sense of a centralized
authority, even an advocated one, across the wider Christian world. The
Inscription of the epistle to the Romans designates that church as “holding
chief place in the territories in the district of Rome,” but whether this
implies an authority over the others cannot be said, and Ignatius never
urges deference to any outside church upon the congregations he writes
to.
<br />
Perhaps the chief reason Ignatius
is concerned with obedience to eccesiastical authority concerns the other,
more important issue he addresses in all the letters but Romans. He is
concerned with unity, for there seems to be a widespread contention, a
troubling heresy or heresies, in the Asia Minor communities, from Antioch
itself to Smyrna and Ephesus on the Aegean. The exact nature of this heresy,
or whether Ignatius is attacking two separate and distinct groups—usually
styled Judaizers and docetists—is still unsettled. I will offer my own
view of the situation, but first the question of whether Ignatius knew
any written Gospel needs to be addressed.
<br />
Two general observations. At
no time does Ignatius point directly to a written Gospel in support of
his claims about Jesus against his opponents. His occasional reference
to “the gospel” is always singular, with no name of a reputed author attached
to it, nor any sense that there are more than one of these entities, requiring
differentiation. As in the case of the other Apostolic Fathers, scholars
tend to judge that Ignatius draws on no written Gospel but only on oral
tradition. (See William R. Schoedel: <i>Ignatius of Antioch</i>, p.108,
115. Schoedel judges that all the uses of the term “sound much more like
references to a message than to a document.”) Thus the term “gospel” denotes,
as in Paul, the preached kerygma. And if this is the case, it implies that
Ignatius cannot be familiar with a written “Gospel,” else he would have
to make a distinction between the two categories. In Philadelphians 5,
he refers to the gospel message he “clings to” and in the next sentence
says that the Prophets also preached this “gospel.” The latter cannot be
referring to any product of the evangelists.
<br />
This is not to say that
some have not suggested a knowledge on Ignatius’ part of Matthew or John
(rarely Luke and never Mark). It is true that expressions in the epistles
often have a particular affinity to passages in Matthew. The problem is—as
in 1 Clement—knowledge of a Gospel implies that a whole range of material,
supplying arguments and precedents, should have been available to the writer
in regard to issues that are clearly important to him, and there would
have been no feasible reason for him not to appeal to it. In defense of
his claims for the veracity of such historical details as Jesus’ birth
from Mary, his baptism by John, his crucifixion by Pilate, it is difficult
to believe that Ignatius would not have pointed directly to a written document
that contained an account of such things. Many episodes in the Gospel story
could have demonstrated the ‘humanity’ of Jesus. If Ignatius wants his
readers “to be convinced” of this or that aspect of his human Christ, he
should have been quoting Matthew on these occasions, and clearly identifying
his source at least some of the time.
<br />
Some of the glaring silences
include the idea of apostolic succession. Unlike 1 Clement, which contains
a primitive form of the idea, in that the first apostles appointed leaders
to govern each new community and thus the appointed elders in Corinth derive
their authority from such a precedent, Ignatius expresses no such concept.
As Schoedel puts it (<i>Ibid</i>., p.201), “There is no apostolic succession
in Ignatius,” and appointment of authorities is only “in terms of a divine
power which continually realizes itself in the institutions of the church.”
Had Ignatius a Gospel like Matthew, he would surely have found precedents
in Jesus’ own appointment of apostles and the powers with which he invested
them. Indeed, the practice of Christian communities should have been universally
based on such traditions—and by extension, on the chain of succeeding appointments
going back to the first apostles.
<br />
There is very little if anything
in Ignatius about apocalyptic expectation. Ephesians 11:1 has a bare reference
to these being “the last times.” But nowhere does Ignatius intimate that
Jesus will be returning as those last times come to an end, something that
is a major focus of Matthew, with his Parousia of Jesus as the Son of Man.
Could Ignatius’ community possess a Gospel like Matthew and ignore its—and
Jesus’—eschatological predictions? (The first element of the declaration
that Jesus is “son of man and Son of God, in Ephesians 20:2, is simply
referring to his dual nature.) Ignatius even uses the word Parousia to
signify the Incarnation itself (Phil. 9:2), the birth of Jesus into the
world, not his promised return to judge it, which is the centerpiece of
Matthew’s apocalyptic picture. Schoedel calls this a “shift” of the Parousia
terminology to a “first coming”—a shift of usage which, tellingly, no earlier
documents display. But it is more likely that Ignatius has no tradition
of a Parousia of Christ, just as other circles apparently lacked it (such
as those of 1 Clement and 1 John).
<br />
The other curiosity about Ignatius’
references to “the gospel” is that his description of its content (written
or orally preached) is entirely limited to the birth, baptism, passion
and resurrection. Nothing in Ignatius’ catalogue speaks to the ministry
in Galilee, to miracle-working, to any prophecy by Jesus. No word or deed
of Jesus on earth is ever appealed to, beyond the fact of his dying and
rising, and his birth is simply stated. This, and two passages which scholars
like to relate to Gospel incidents, will be looked at later.
<br />
No less dubious is the assumed
presence of oral tradition in Ignatius’ thinking, and by extension in his
community. He never appeals to the idea that certain things have been passed
along from earlier generations of apostles, that sayings or traditions
go back to Jesus himself. While he several times refers to Jesus in a teaching
role (e.g., Ephesians 9:2: “the commandments of Jesus Christ” or Magnesians
9:1: “Jesus Christ our sole teacher”), no actual saying is ever identified.
<br />
Not even on the subject so dear
to Ignatius’ heart, martyrdom, is a saying of Jesus put forward. In Romans
6:1 he says: “The ends of the earth and the kingdoms of this world shall
profit me nothing. It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be
king over the ends of the earth.” In such a fervent declaration, one might
have expected him to appeal to the saying in Matthew 16:26, “What will
it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul,” or
the dramatic Temptation scene in which the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms
of the world. R. M. Grant (<i>The Apostolic Fathers</i>, p.91) confidently
declares that Ignatius’ words are based on Gospel sayings about self-denial,
and commentators as a rule always seem secure in their knowledge of what
is present in the writer’s mind, but no such mental connection is ever
evident in the text itself. In Ephesians 14, in recommending a certain
moral outlook to his readers, Ignatius appeals to the same thought which
Jesus expresses in Matthew 12:33, that “a tree is known by its fruits.”
The instinct of the preacher ought to have led to a mention of this parallel,
the impetus provided by Jesus’ own words, which is a phenomenon we see
expressed in preachers of all ages since.
<br />
In fact, the impression is consistently
conveyed that in these ‘echoes’ of the Gospel, Ignatius has no awareness
that he is quoting Jesus. In his letter to Polycarp, he admonishes the
bishop of Smyrna to “in all circumstances be wise as the serpent though
always harmless as the dove.” In this sort of context, the urging of some
attitude or behavior, the most natural thing would have been to say something
like, “as Jesus told us.” These very words are found in Matthew 10:16.
(So close are they to the Gospel saying that Staniforth puts them in italics
as though signifying a quote.) Ignatius makes no such attribution. In fact,
an example like this suggests the likely source of many of the Gospel-like
sayings Ignatius uses, namely commonplace maxims, culled from the expression
of the time, both Jewish and Hellenistic, some of them age-old, some reflecting
contemporary innovative thinking. Scholars who discount knowledge of a
written Gospel on Ignatius’ part suggest that both he and Matthew are drawing
on oral traditions, creating a commonality of wording and sentiment. But
the fact that no attribution to Jesus is ever offered by Ignatius suggests
rather (as does an epistle like James) that these ideas were simply in
the air of the time and were only placed in Jesus’ mouth by the evangelists,
some of them earlier in Q.
<br />
Claims are also made that Ignatius
may know the Gospel of John, pointing especially to Philadelphians 7:1.
Here the writer speaks of the Spirit, which “knows whence it comes and
whither it goes, and tests secret things.” The first part of the quote
is almost identical to part of John 3:8, also speaking of the Spirit. But
the phrase has the ring of an established saying about the Spirit which
could have been known to many. A similar idea is expressed in 1 Corinthians
2:10, though not with common wording. The point is, in the absence of any
clear identification with a Gospel on the part of a writer, the possibility
that both are drawing on common stores of expression from the background
culture of the time is by far the more sensible interpretation.
<br />
To mention a related silence,
Ignatius is also fixated in Christ’s own sufferings and their “true” nature,
yet he never once offers any details of those sufferings such as are recounted
so vividly in the Gospels. That traditions about gory details of the crucifixion,
authentic or not, would not have been circulating at least orally, is difficult
if not impossible to believe, and yet Ignatius is silent on the whole subject—as
is Paul.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Rising in Flesh</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Here we can look at one of the
Gospel-like anecdotes the letters contain. In Smyrneans 3 we read the following
(in the Lake translation):
<br />
<blockquote>
“For I know and believe that he was in the flesh
even after the Resurrection. And when he came to those with Peter he said
to them: ‘Take, handle me and see that I am not a phantom without a body.’
And they immediately touched him and believed, being mingled both with
his flesh and spirit.”</blockquote>
If there is any place in the Ignatian
letters where we would expect the writer to appeal to all the resources
at his command, oral and written, this is it. Is he quoting a Gospel here,
however loosely? Here is the passage in Luke which bears some resemblance
to Ignatius:
<br />
<blockquote>
“And he said to them, ‘Why are you troubled,
and why do questionings rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet,
that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and
bones as you see that I have.’ ” (24:38-40 RSV)</blockquote>
Grant (<i>op.cit</i>., p.115) suggests
that Ignatius is not likely to be quoting Luke so freely and that he is
relying on oral tradition. One phrase, “<i>psêlaphêsate me
kai idete</i>,” “handle me and see,” is identical between the two, but
the thought is so basic it is difficult to conclude that one borrows from
the other. Schoedel (<i>op.cit</i>., p.225) also suggests that he is not
loosely quoting Luke, if only because “further evidence for dependence
on Luke is virtually absent in Ignatius.” One might add that if Ignatius
was consciously presenting a passage from a written document (even if he
didn’t have it before him), he would have said so, for pointing to such
a document would have been a natural impulse as a way of giving his declaration
authority and support.
The same argument applies in
regard to the “doubting Thomas” episode in John. Those who suggest that
Ignatius knows the Fourth Gospel need to acknowledge that such a claim
founders on this passage, for Ignatius would surely have referred to the
Thomas incident to make his point much more vividly, and again, he would
have spotlighted his source. But we can go further. The “doubting Thomas”
episode can hardly have been circulating in oral tradition, for Ignatius’
silence on it is a clear indicator that he knows of no such incident.
<br />
The Gospel of Matthew has no
equivalent scene where Jesus directs his followers to touch him (Matthew’s
post-resurrection scenes are more primitive and less detailed, being only
the first rung on the evangelists’ ladder of invention following Mark’s
bare empty tomb ending), although he has the women take hold of Jesus’
feet when they meet him on the road. But if Ignatius knew Matthew, one
might expect he would appeal at least in a general way to the post-resurrection
scenes in that Gospel to bolster his contention of Jesus’ true resurrection.
<br />
How, then, do we interpret the
anecdote in Smyrneans 3? All commentators make the assumption that there
has to be a source—however garbled in the transmission—going back to Easter
or the early apostolic preaching. But this is unfounded, especially in
the absence of any indication that Ignatius ever appeals to traditions,
oral or written, going back before his own time. (I’ll enlarge on that
when considering Ignatius’ faith declarations against his opponents.) How
do such sayings or anecdotes materialize? The simplest explanation is that
they are invented: by preachers and writers, by figures like Ignatius,
seeking to illustrate a newly developed belief about Jesus. Paul himself
offers more than one directive, incident or prophetic scene which he states
or implies has come to him ‘from the Lord,’ by perceived revelation. When
a preacher is in front of an audience (or readers), making some theological
declaration, describing some act or experience of Jesus, if something comes
into his mind which would effectively add to his exposition, he is not
likely to pass it up. Later he may regard it as a revelation. He may be
expanding on an earlier statement or scenario known in the community, equally
invented. (Who has not seen modern evangelists employ similar techniques,
even making claims that God or Jesus had spoken to them personally?) We
must keep in mind that the early Christian preaching movement was based
on the idea of revelation from the Lord, both in the study of scripture
and in Christian meetings where prophets prophesied and others interpreted
glossolalia (see 1 Corinthians 12 and 14). Once the principle is established
that the Lord communicates information about himself, about commandments,
about the ‘gospel,’ then anything appearing in any piece of writing can
conceivably be imputed to such an origin, if there is no clear declaration
or evidence to the contrary.
<br />
Besides, if the evangelists can
simply make things up, why not Ignatius? Critical scholars often judge
that Gospel figures like Judas, incidents like Gethsemane, or many of the
post-resurrection scenes, are likely the evangelists’ invention. Luke,
in order to demonstrate the reliability of the physical resurrection, invented
a ‘reliable’ scene in which the apostles touch the physical Jesus. The
fact that no other writing before the Gospel of John arrives ever mentions
the dramatic “doubting Thomas” episode—something that should have been
a prime candidate for preservation and transmission by oral tradition—can
only lead us to conclude that the fourth evangelist simply made it up.
<br />
Besides, what does Ignatius’
anecdote actually say? It’s pretty basic. Speaking to Peter and the disciples,
Jesus said, touch me and see that I am not a phantom without a body. Ignatius
is having to deal with heretics who declare that Jesus was a phantom without
a true physical body. Ignatius’ counter to this in the Smyrneans passage
is little more than the basic denial, No he was not. There is no necessity
to see it as derived from some circulating tradition. Ignatius “knows and
believes” that Jesus was in flesh after his resurrection. The anecdote
is his way of stating such a principle, something he does not attribute
to any source, oral or written, lying outside or prior to himself.
<br />
When he goes on to say that “after
his resurrection he ate and drank with them as being in flesh,” this, too,
need not be tied to tradition but could well be a statement based on the
assumption that if Jesus had been resurrected in the flesh and spent time
with the apostles, he would likely have shared meals with them, if only
because it would have been an obvious way to prove himself.
<br />
If it is a virtual certainty
that Ignatius had no written Gospel, and never identifies oral or apostolic
traditions about Jesus’ ministry and passion circulating in that part of
the empire, we face an astonishing situation. The bishop of Antioch, living
in the foremost Christian center in the eastern Mediterranean, almost on
the outskirts of Galilee and Judea, seemingly has no access to knowledge
about Jesus’ life and death beyond the basic biographical data he puts
forward. He does not identify a single saying or moral dictum attributed
to Jesus; he seems to know nothing about miracles; he mentions two incidents
which bear an uncertain and superficial resemblance to Gospel events. He
never alludes to features of early Christian history surrounding the apostles,
save the bare names of Peter and Paul (Romans 4:3)—not even making a reference
to their martyrdom, a key issue for Ignatius. This silence, as in 1 Clement
5, would tend to show that at this time the legends about such a fate concerning
the two apostles had not yet developed. Of earlier documents, Ignatius
shows a familiarity with 1 Corinthians and possibly one or two other Pauline
epistles and Hebrews. Almost a century after the reputed crucifixion, perhaps
a full hundred years if the letters are somewhat later creations, this
is the state of knowledge about the seminal figure and events of the Christian
movement. It certainly casts serious doubt on the almost universal consensus
(based on no concrete evidence) that Mark had been written by 70, and the
rest of the Gospels—and Acts—by the year 100. Rather, the picture created
by Ignatius fits consistently with the slow-developing, fragmented condition
we see in earliest Christianity, the limited contacts between communities,
the lack of doctrinal agreement among them, the puzzling anomalies, the
perplexing variety of ideas, and the vast silence on the Gospel story,
which the murky first hundred years presents.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Nature of the Heresy in Ignatius</i></b>
<br />
<br />
In railing against those who
disagree with his own position, Ignatius throughout five of the seven letters
makes a handful of basic biographical statements about his historical Jesus.
The principal ones are these (in the Staniforth translation):
<br />
Ephesians 18:2
<br />
<blockquote>
“Under the divine dispensation, Jesus Christ
our God was conceived by Mary of the seed of David and of the Spirit of
God; he was born, and he submitted to baptism so that by his passion he
might sanctify water.”</blockquote>
Magnesians 11
<br />
<blockquote>
“I want you to be unshakably convinced of the
birth, passion, and the resurrection which were the true and indisputable
experiences of Jesus Christ, our hope, in the days of Pontius Pilate’s
governorship.”</blockquote>
Trallians 9:1
<br />
<blockquote>
“Close your ears, then, if anyone preaches to
you without speaking of Jesus Christ. Christ was of David’s line. He was
the son of Mary; he was verily [<i>alêthôs</i>] and indeed
born, and ate and drank; he was verily persecuted in the days of Pontius
Pilate, and verily and indeed crucified, and gave up the ghost in the sight
of all heaven and earth and the powers of the nether world.”</blockquote>
Smyrneans 1:1-2
<br />
<blockquote>
“You hold the firmest convictions about our Lord;
believing him to be truly of David’s line in his manhood, yet Son of God
by the divine will and power; truly born of a virgin; baptized by John
for his fulfilling of all righteousness; and in the days of Pontius Pilate
and Herod the Tetrarch truly pierced by nails in his human flesh…”</blockquote>
In a few other places, Ignatius
makes statements that more clearly refer to docetism and his rejection
of it as unacceptable:
Trallians 10
<br />
<blockquote>
“It is asserted by some who deny God—in other
words, who have no faith—that his sufferings were not genuine…In that case,
I am giving away my life for nothing, and all the things I have ever said
about the Lord are untruths.”</blockquote>
Smyrneans 2-3
<br />
<blockquote>
“And suffer he did, verily and indeed; just as
he did verily and indeed raise himself again. His passion was no unreal
illusion, as some skeptics aver…” This is followed by his declaration that
“I know and believe that he was in actual human flesh, even after his resurrection,”
and the anecdote discussed above about appearing to his disciples, who
touch him and verify his physicality.</blockquote>
Smyrneans 4:2
<br />
<blockquote>
“After all, if everything our Lord did was only
illusion, then these chains of mine must be illusory too.”</blockquote>
Smyrneans 5:2
<br />
<blockquote>
“So what is the point of my standing well in
the opinion of a man who blasphemes my Lord by denying that he ever bore
a real human body?”</blockquote>
There is no question that in this
latter group of passages, Ignatius is combating a position known as docetism.
But a clarification is required here. It is recognized that the earliest
form of this kind of outlook was significantly different from the one Ignatius
witnesses to. Associated with Cerinthus (about whom knowledge is scanty)
around the beginning of the second century, this doctrine claimed that
Jesus was a mere man, into whom the spirit of the divine Christ entered
only at the former’s baptism, to depart from that man before the crucifixion.
Consequently, the passion was not undergone by Christ himself. (A corollary,
we must assume, is that for such as Cerinthus, the suffering and death
of Jesus was not the source of salvation, and that there was no real resurrection.)
This, strictly speaking, is not docetism. Rather, the true docetic doctrine,
of which we have no other evidence before we get further into the second
century, stated that Christ was born, lived his life, suffered, died and
resurrected only in the artificial <i>semblance</i> of a material body
(<i>dokein</i>=to seem), but that he was really spirit all the time, a
“phantom.” This avoided the distasteful (to some) idea that a divine being,
especially one who was part of God, would have entered flesh and suffered
from its pain and frailties. The latter, however, was an absolute necessity
to minds like Ignatius. If all that Christ suffered was an illusion, not
genuine, then “I am giving away my life for nothing” (Tral. 10) and “our
resurrection is jeopardized” (Sm. 5:3).
One point to note in passing
is that if we have reason to doubt that at the time of Ignatius’ death
as tradition sees it, the later form of docetism had fully materialized,
the picture of Ignatius’ opponents in the letters becomes suspect, leading
us to give greater credence to dating them perhaps a decade or two later.
<br />
Before examining the first group
of passages, a further question needs to be addressed. Scholars are still
divided as to how to interpret the opponents in Ignatius’ letters. Do they
represent one ‘heresy’ or two? Is there a distinction between those who
are advocating a docetic view of Jesus and those who advocate an adherence
to Judaism, or are they essentially the same people who combine both positions?
Beyond that, I would ask, is there an element which denies the historicity
of any Jesus in the recent past, docetic or not, Judaizing or not?
<br />
The docetists are addressed in
the second group of passages listed above. The Judaizing faction is represented
in a few passages like Magnesians 8-10:
<br />
<blockquote>
“Never allow yourselves to be led astray by the
teachings and the time-worn fables of another people…If we are still living
in the practice of Judaism, it is an admission that we have failed to receive
the gift of grace…so lay aside the old good-for-nothing leaven, now grown
stale and sour, and change to the new, which is Jesus Christ…To profess
Jesus Christ while continuing to follow Jewish customs is an absurdity.”</blockquote>
As Staniforth points out, most scholars
tend to assume two different groups of opponents, although a few like Lightfoot
and Bauer postulated a single ‘Judaeo-Docetic’ heresy. (None, of course,
recognize a full-blown denial of the very historicity of Jesus.) But Ignatius
never makes it clear that he is speaking of distinct groups of opponents.
While he talks of “some” here and “some” there, they all seem to blur together,
only with different emphases voiced in different places. Let’s start by
looking at those passages in the first group quoted above, which seem to
be focusing on the veracity of basic historical elements.<br />
<br />
<b><i>In the Days of Pontius Pilate</i></b>
<br />
<br />
When Ignatius declares in Magnesians
11 that he wants his readers to be convinced of the birth, passion and
resurrection which took place at the time of Pontius Pilate, and that these
things “were truly and certainly done by Jesus Christ” (Lake), or when
in Trallians 9 he declares that Christ was truly born of Mary in the family
of David, truly persecuted by Pilate and truly crucified in the sight of
all, the language goes beyond a counter to docetism, if indeed it addresses
it at all. As Schoedel says in regard to Magnesians (<i>op.cit.</i>, p.125),
this is “relatively anemic as an anti-docetic statement.” Ignatius conveys
nothing so much as a declaration that these events had actually happened,
that they are historically true, implying that others were denying such
a historicity. If, for example, he only meant that when Christ was born
of Mary it was in an actual physical body, not a phantom one, we might
have expected him to be thus specific. In the several passages where he
is stating historical facts like this, he never gives us that specific
docetic orientation or language.
<br />
The word <i>dokein</i> is used
only in passages that clearly address docetism, such as Trallians 10 and
Smyrneans 4:2. Schoedel claims that using the phrase “ate and drank” in
Trallians 9 betrays an interest in docetism. Possibly, but it could also
be a handy phrase representing the idea that Jesus had ‘lived’—coming between
being born and being persecuted by Pilate. It meant he did the normal things
real men do.
<br />
While maintaining that Ignatius’
historical arguments are “designed to answer docetism” (<i>Ibid</i>., p.153),
Schoedel nevertheless admits (p.124) that a passage like Magnesians 9 “also
suggests that Ignatius had in mind a denial of the passion more thoroughgoing
than our argument has so far indicated. What ‘some deny’ in Sm. 5.1 is
the very reality of Christ’s death.” Schoedel pulls back from this abyss
by going on to judge that the Ignatian comment in Magnesians 9:1—“though
some deny him”—is an “exaggeration” (<i>Ibid</i>., p.125, n.9), a kind
of throwaway link made between the Judaizers he is criticizing and the
docetists.
<br />
Schoedel, as do others, calls
attention to the frequent use of the word “<i>alêthôs</i>”
(truly) as an anti-docetic indicator in Trallians 9 and Smyrneans 1. But
this adverb can also entail the meaning of “in actuality,” in reference
to historical veracity or any other perceived truth. Its use here is ambiguous,
and it is used both in reference to the “true” sufferings of Jesus and
his “true” birth from Mary and crucifixion by Pilate. (In Romans 8:2 it
is used in a general sense, when Ignatius claims that he is “speaking truly.”)
<br />
Does the presence of genuinely
anti-docetic statements, such as the second group listed above, force us
to regard all of Ignatius’ arguments as having solely a docetic context
(as unspecific as they might be), and that he cannot be arguing for a purely
historical factuality as well? Let’s consider a couple of other passages.
<br />
The passage in Magnesians (8-10)
quoted above deals undeniably with “Judaizers,” either converted Jews who
want to retain some of their heritage, or gentiles who are urging that
Jewish customs be adopted or maintained. “If we are still living in the
practice of Judaism,” we are without grace, says Ignatius. Drop the “old
leaven” for the “new.” “It is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to
practice Judaism” (Lake). And yet in the midst of these admonitions, Ignatius
says this:
<br />
<blockquote>
“That death [of Jesus], though some deny it,
is the very mystery which has moved us to become believers, and endure
tribulation to prove ourselves pupils of Jesus Christ, our sole teacher.
In view of this, <i>how can it be possible for us</i> <i>to give him no
place in our lives</i>…” (my emphasis; literally, “how shall we be able
to live without him”)</blockquote>
Apparently these Judaizers hold
viewpoints which go beyond the simple advocacy of Jewish traditions. But
is it docetism or something more? If they simply hold a docetic doctrine,
would this have to mean that they are denying the death of Jesus, or that
they are entirely doing without him, as Ignatius charges? Staniforth’s
explanation (Mag., notes 4 and 5), that these people are indeed docetists
and this is simply a denial of “the reality of the Passion,” and that living
without him or giving him no place in our lives is “by the docetic rejection
of his death and resurrection,” seems strained, an attempt to force the
writer’s words into a preconceived mold. It is not impossible that Ignatius
sees things this way, but there is no denying that the language he uses
is much more sweeping.
It is similarly more sweeping
in the Trallians 9 passage: “Close your ears, then, if anyone preaches
to you without speaking of Jesus Christ.” In Philadelphians 6, Ignatius
condemns those who “fail to preach Jesus Christ,” the latter also in the
context of those who advocate Judaism. As in Magnesians 9, no docetic language
is in view here; rather, the thought seems to be that there are Christians
who go about failing to preach the Jesus that Ignatius believes in, and
which he defines in historical terms, not in anti-docetic ones. Because
the language <i>could</i> be ambiguous, with docetic implications read
into it, the issue cannot be definitively resolved, but we are still faced
with the implications which the texts themselves more openly convey: that
this is a denial of the historical fact of birth by Mary, baptism by John,
and crucifixion by Pilate. Can we formulate a picture of the conditions
at the time of Ignatius which would see the various positions given to
Ignatius’ opponents as part of a conglomerate yet coherent situation?<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Cauldron of Ideas</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Here we need to step back and
consider the broader picture. If everyone Ignatius is opposing is simply
a docetist, including those who also advocate Judaism, we have to ask how
such a position arose. Everything that Ignatius says indicates that these
opponents lived and operated <i>within</i> the wider Christian community.
Like the opponents in 1 and 2 John, they are being received and listened
to by Christians, which is why Ignatius adjures them not to do so (Eph.
7:1, Phil. 6:1). In the orthodox scenario, this would mean that the movement
toward denying the physical reality of everything Christ underwent, probably
denying the role of the resurrection itself since such a thing was only
that of a phantom, would have to have been a staggering about-face in regard
to the central kerygma of the faith, a complete rejection of some 80 years
or more of belief presumably held by Christians of all stripes in all places.
Why would there be a widespread enough acceptance of such new preaching—or
at least a willingness to consider it—that Ignatius must regard it as of
the greatest danger to contemporary communities and preach so virulently
against it? How could we understand such a development? If based on philosophical
considerations (which the docetic stance was), why did it develop only
in Ignatius’ time; why not earlier in the time of Paul?
<br />
Moreover, docetism as generally
envisioned is essentially a negative movement. If we follow the usual interpretation
of commentators like Schoedel, a great number of Christian preachers have
coalesced all across Asia Minor (at least) to preach a doctrine of denial,
that Jesus Christ was <i>not</i> real, that he had not undergone suffering,
death and resurrection in true bodily form. Could this idea have motivated
so great a number of Christian believers to become apostles and propagate
such denials? Missionaries are rather driven by <i>positive</i> convictions,
by new ideas they perceive as advantageous. Ignatius’ opponents would be
in the unenviable position of approaching people who had long believed
in their faith and telling them that they were mistaken, deceived and defrauded
by three-quarters of a century of teaching. At the same time, they would
be trying to substitute a much less appealing view, almost an insulting
one, of the Jesus of Nazareth Christians had hitherto embraced. How did
such preachers get past the first encounter at the prospect’s doorway,
much less avoid having a chamber pot thrown at their heads?
<br />
This standard view of docetism
makes little sense. We need to look for a new alignment of the movement
within early Christianity. It seems natural to regard it as part and parcel
of the growing gnostic phenomenon, that the world and matter was evil,
that separation from it and a return to one’s divine nature in unity with
God in heaven was the goal of salvation, and that if a Savior figure had
entered the material world to impart the knowledge of those truths, he
had not done so in material form. Current scholarship on the wider spectrum
of the gnostic movement has concluded that it began and existed independently
of Christianity, though links were eventually made by some gnostic sects
to the Christian Jesus; and that it had its own range of Savior figures
that were independent of Jesus and were mythological in nature (such as
the Third Illuminator in the <i>Apocalypse of Adam</i>, or Derdekeas in
<i>The
Paraphrase of Shem</i>).
<br />
It looks as though some of these
ideas had developed within the circle of Christian communities of which
Ignatius was a part. A passage like Smyrneans 5 strongly suggests that
this ‘heresy’ had arisen <i>inside</i> the community. But instead of regarding
it as coming up against a long-established way of viewing Jesus, rooted
firmly in an historical base and traditions no one prior to this time had
questioned, we need to see the two tendencies as competing on a level playing
field. They emerged more or less at the same time. (Here we can appeal
to Walter Bauer’s seminal <i>Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity</i>
for its picture of a widespread Christian landscape during the first and
second centuries—including in Ignatius’ Syria—which was as much ‘heretical’
as ‘orthodox.’) In other words, Ignatius’ historical Jesus who had been
born of Mary and crucified by Pilate was no more entrenched than the docetic/gnostic
one. The apostles of the latter movement were going about “not speaking
of Jesus Christ” the recent human man, they were gaining a hearing and
undoubtedly some converts, because the historical Jesus was an equally
newly-developed idea, advocated by such as Ignatius in language aimed at
establishing, first and foremost, his historical veracity. The docetists
were not bucking a tradition of decades, or butting their heads against
longstanding views of Jesus the man and an historical, physical resurrection.
<br />
The clash of these two outlooks
produced two effects, two central arguments. One was centered on the docetic
question. As long as Christians, like Paul, had propagated a divine Christ
in heaven, one who had not yet set foot on earth, the issue of his corporeal
form and nature did not arise. Once he was claimed to be historical, acting
on earth, the docetists had to resist, to advocate that, even if so, he
was only <i>seemingly</i> a physical man. (Or, a non-physical Jesus may
already have been a part of their message, and not a direct reaction to
the historicizing trend.) One can envision that there were also those who
resisted placing him on earth at all, denying that he had been here in
any form. Thus, we see the dispute in 1 John against those who deny that
he had “come in the flesh” (4:3), and a little later, Ignatius’ adamant
claims to a fleshly historicity with basic biographical details.
<br />
These claims, it has to be stressed,
cannot be backed up by appeals to documents or oral traditions, or by any
sense that they are longstanding views held in the community. Not even
the bishops and other clergy hold the correct view because of links to
past teaching or past orthodoxy. Ignatius never makes the argument that
‘we have believed these things about Jesus for generations,’ much less
that they were written down. He doesn’t say that ‘the apostles knew Jesus
in the flesh and have passed on undeniable traditions about him.’ The docetists
are never accused of ‘overturning’ established tradition, of trying to
shove the Christian train into reverse. (Rather, they are simply “mad dogs”
[Eph. 7:1], “false-hearted wolves” [Phil. 2:2], and “beasts in the form
of men” [Sm. 4:1].) Ignatius’ truth is not time-honored, it is one of necessity.
His argument is that the historical position must be so because it <i>needs</i>
to be so. Without a Jesus in flesh, our sufferings are pointless. That
is the extent of his pleading for historical veracity, and the legitimacy
of his position over that of his opponents.
<br />
The second effect relates to
those who are Jews or subscribe to Jewish tenets. It is one thing to compromise
monotheism by postulating a separate divine person, a Son, in heaven, as
Paul did. It is another to place him on earth and give him human flesh
and blood. When elements of the Christian movement started to develop the
latter idea, the Jewish-minded among them must have felt compelled to say,
Stop, that’s too much! You can’t associate a human with God. And so in
Ignatius’ circles, the “Judaizers” could also be found guilty of resisting
the historical Jesus and “denying him,” as we see in Magnesians 9 and perhaps
Smyrneans 5. They could be accused of “giving Jesus no place in our lives”
and “failing to preach Jesus Christ” (Phil. 6). Some of them may have joined
in the docetic chorus and compromised by adopting the ‘phantom body’ position.
<br />
The confusion about opposing
groups, the mix of motifs found in Ignatius’ admonitions, the sense of
a level playing-field: this picture is most easily explained by adopting
the view that at the beginning of the second century, the wide and varied
‘Son and Savior’ salvation movement was a cauldron of different ideas,
a competing variety in a state of flux. Some of it was moving toward a
coalescing orthodoxy in bringing the spiritual Christ to earth and appropriating
the Jewish heritage, other parts were moving toward a full-fledged gnosticism
that rejected the world of flesh and regarded the Jewish Deity as a subordinate,
evil God who was responsible for the hated world of matter. None of it
was grounded in a genuine historical figure or set of events in the recent
past. In Ignatius’ own world, which seems to have extended across Asia
Minor, many voices were raised with different ideas and ways of looking
at saviors and salvation. Ignatius was simply trying to shout louder than
the rest.
<br />
Finally, where did Ignatius get
his biographical data? I have postulated elsewhere that it may ultimately
proceed from Mark, that a Gospel written two or three decades earlier in
a community not too far distant in Syria or Galilee, a Gospel not originally
intended to reflect history, may have produced a gradual ‘leakage’ of ideas
that Ignatius and other Christians of the region were exposed to. Some
ideas could have come from the milieu that produced the later stages of
Q. Many people could have found them appealing, adopting them with an increasing
conviction. Perhaps this adoption was further encouraged by a wider trend
toward the historicization of the spiritual Christ, as discussed above
in regard to the epistle of Barnabas. I have tended to discount the suggestion
(in my book review of Alvar Ellegard’s <i>Jesus—One Hundred Years Before
Christ</i>) that it was Ignatius himself, or perhaps his circle, who came
up with these biographical features, and this in turn influenced the first
evangelist who set them within his Gospel. Such a scenario is not impossible,
though it would require that all the Gospels be placed in a post-110 or
so time frame. There are radical scholars and mythicists who advocate such
a dating scheme, though I have reservations. But it cannot be ruled out.<br />
<br />
<b><i>The Nature of Jesus in Ignatius</i></b>
<br />
<br />
From our earliest record to the
early second century (outside the Gospels), one of the central threads
is an attempt to define the nature of Jesus the spiritual Son. Those who
made docetic claims were continuing in that tradition, in the face of the
snowballing trend to bring him into matter and onto earth itself. They
were defining his human nature when he came to earth in different terms
than those of Ignatius. That alternate nature was hardly bizarre or unprecedented.
Angels had long been looked on as having taken on the semblance of bodily
form to appear to humans, and Satan and his evil brood in the lower realms
of the heavens were believed to possess some kind of corporeal form. But
it was not matter itself. It could be said that the ‘docetist’ position
was more orthodox than that of Ignatius, for Paul and the early cultists
had kept Christ in a spiritual realm, and this was all that the gnostic-leaning
docetists were intent on doing. Their movement toward a stark dualism,
however, the separation of spirit and matter into good and evil, was more
radical.
<br />
What does the Son in Ignatius’
picture tell us?
<br />
The first thing we encounter
in Ignatius’ view of Jesus Christ, in the inscription to the epistle to
the Ephesians, is the phrase “Jesus Christ our God.” Jesus is declared
to be a fully divine entity, inseparably joined to God himself. Paul never
went quite this far, though he could speak of his Christ Jesus as an integral
part of the heavenly Godhead, fulfilling divine functions similar to those
of Wisdom and the Logos, as in 1 Corinthians 8:6. Ignatius calls Jesus
“God” at a few other points in the epistles.
<br />
In Magnesians 6:1, Ignatius says
that Christ was “with the Father from all eternity,” that is, he is pre-existent,
again as Wisdom and the Logos were regarded, although it is not clear whether
Ignatius sees the Son as subordinate, being an emanation of God. Probably
so. The days of elevating the Jesus figure to absolute equality with the
Father, as in the Trinity, seem not to have arrived until later, perhaps
not until the Councils. Both the pre-existence and the blatant identification
of Jesus <i>as God</i> go considerably beyond the portrayal of Jesus in
the Synoptic Gospels. Rather than see this as an evolution beyond the Gospel
picture, it actually reflects the earlier Pauline Christ, who was seen
as a transcendent divine entity. The Gospel Jesus, though syncretized with
the cultic Christ, was essentially derived from the Q milieu, from the
perception of a teaching prophet and wisdom sage, and the apocalyptic Son
of Man. Ignatius’ roots lie with the former, onto which he has grafted
the human conception, perhaps from echoes of Mark. The Gospels, coming
from the other direction, have not yet caught up to Ignatius’ own world
of a pre-existent Christ as full God.
<br />
In a few very revealing passages,
Ignatius betrays an inseparability of God and Christ which does not properly
fit his idea of Jesus as a recent man, a distinct personality on earth
who had given rise to the faith. For Ignatius, Jesus could be said to be
‘theocentric.” God himself is present and acting—and experiencing—in and
through Jesus. This is one way of describing an ‘emanation’ of God, and
it is an earlier, more primitive way of viewing the Son. It is ultimately
grounded in the Logos, which (as in Philo) is virtually an abstract force
given off by God: his thought, power, image. This force becomes the agency
by which God reveals himself, contacts and saves humanity. In Ephesians
18:3, “God was now appearing in human form” defines Jesus as God himself
taking on human nature. In Magnesians 8:2, God has “manifested himself
through Jesus Christ his son, who is his Word proceeding from silence.”
It is even more strongly expressed in Polycarp 3:2. (Staniforth presents
it in its seemingly metrical form, which may indicate an existing liturgical
poem, or possibly one of Ignatius’ own. The terms used indicate that the
thought is applied to God himself.)
<br />
<blockquote>
“…but also keep your eyes on Him who has no need
of opportunities, being outside all time.
<br />
Whom no senses can reveal
<br />
Was for us made manifest;
<br />
Who no ache or pain can feel
<br />
Was for us by pain opprest;
<br />
Willing all things to endure,
<br />
Our salvation to procure.”</blockquote>
Schoedel (<i>op.cit.</i>, p.20)
acknowledges that Ignatius’ reference to the “blood of God” (Eph. 1:1,
which Staniforth softens to “divine blood”) and the “passion/suffering
of my God” (Rom. 6:3), indicate Ignatius’ “undifferentiated…sense of the
divinity of Christ.” In other words, he lacks the sense of Christ as a
fully distinct entity, or he is reflecting an earlier (and probably not
too much earlier) form of expression which lacked that sense.
This close identification of
Jesus with God, a degree of integration which sees God as manifesting himself
and undergoing suffering through Jesus, is an indicator that the faith
began, not with a man who created a belief that he was a part of God, but
with a Godhead that came to be seen, through philosophical meditation,
as containing a subordinate element, serving as an intermediary, revelatory
and salvific agency. This heavenly Son became increasingly regarded as
having entered the world of flesh, eventually to take on full human nature
and live an earthly life. But the highly elevated nature of this Son, compared
to the paucity of information and historical connection in regard to his
perceived incarnation, strongly suggests that he began as the former and
not the latter. We are brought back to Paul’s mode of expression, his starting
point in a Jesus who is a transcendent heavenly being never linked to a
specific historical man. Ignatius betrays the same way of thinking, the
same starting point, only a new dimension, still opaque and with few details
attached, has been introduced.
<br />
Schoedel also remarks that “there
is as yet no critical reflection in Ignatius on how the divine and the
human can be joined in Christ.” Indeed, before Ignatius, no one ever raises
the point. Paul is unconcerned with understanding how God could become
human and take on two natures, and we must conclude by many of his statements
(as in 1 Corinthians 15:44-49) that this is because he had no concept of
his Jesus <i>possessing</i> two natures. Ignatius raises the subject in
Ephesians 7:2:
<br />
<blockquote>
“…there is one Physician, who is both flesh and
spirit, born and yet not born, who is God in man, true life in death, both
of Mary and of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our
Lord.” (Lake’s translation)</blockquote>
But as Schoedel says (see above),
there is nothing in this passage suggesting that current Christian thinkers
had to grapple with the concept of the divine-human duality in Jesus, nor
does Ignatius engage his opponents on such an issue. The above verse (possibly
a hymn, due to its rhythmic nature) shows for the first time that Christians
are expressing that duality, but the idea has not been around long enough
to generate critical examination.
Ignatius also expresses the idea
of mystical union of believer with Christ. In Ephesians 4:2, the readers
“are indeed members of his [God’s] Son’s Body,” and “parts of [Christ’s]
own Body” in Trallians 11. None of the Gospels contain this idea of the
believer being united with the savior god and being a part of a common
“body” (a feature of mystery cult thinking), which places Ignatius in the
line of Pauline mystical thought, not that of a Jesus of Galilean ministry.<br />
<br />
<b><i>In the Deep Silence of God</i></b>
<br />
<br />
There is one passage in Ignatius’
letters which is overtly mythical, opening a window onto a previous phase
of the faith before an historical Jesus was introduced. This is Ephesians
19, which I will quote in its entirety in the Staniforth translation.
<br />
<blockquote>
“Mary’s virginity was hidden from the prince
of this world; so was her child-bearing, and so was the death of the Lord.
All these three trumpet-tongued secrets [literally, ‘three mysteries of
a cry’: Bauer translates ‘cry’ as “(to be) loudly proclaimed”; the ANF
as “of renown”] were brought to pass in the deep silence of God. How then
were they made known to the world? [Literally, how was <i>he</i> manifested
to the ‘<i>aiôsin</i>’—see below.] Up in the heavens a star gleamed
out, more brilliant than all the rest; no words could describe its luster,
and the strangeness of it left men bewildered [literally, it caused astonishment].
The other stars and the sun and moon gathered round it in chorus, but this
star outshone them all. Great was the ensuing perplexity, where could this
newcomer have come from, so unlike its fellows? Everywhere magic crumbled
away before it; the spells of sorcery were all broken, and superstition
received its death-blow. The age-old empire of evil was overthrown, for
God was now appearing [literally, being manifest] in human form to bring
in a new order, even life without end. Now that which had been perfected
in the Divine counsels began its work; and all creation was thrown into
a ferment over this plan for the utter destruction of death.”</blockquote>
Attempts to demonstrate that this
passage is a hymn have proven inconclusive. Schoedel (<i>op.cit.</i>, p.88)
settles on regarding it as “a product of Ignatius’ rhetorical methods,”
though he could be putting in his own words a summary of a ‘cosmic myth’
that already existed in the community. Its resemblance to the gnostic redeemer
myth has been pointed out, with its implications of a descent of the savior
while hidden from the evil spirits, and his re-ascent to heaven as represented
by the “star” which shines out and gains power over the world of evil in
magic, sorcery and superstition, bringing in a new order. Some of these
elements can be found in the Pauline epistles (e.g., Eph. 1:10 and 3:10),
but perhaps the closest parallel is in the Ascension of Isaiah 9, in which
the Son descends through the spheres of heaven, to be hung on a tree by
the god of the firmament, Satan. There, Christ’s identity is hidden from
the evil powers who “do not know who he is.” (See Article No. 3: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm">Who
Crucified Jesus?</a>)
The parallels are also striking
in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8. There, God’s wisdom in Christ is also a hidden
“mystery,” while “the rulers of this age” are unaware of the Lord of Glory’s
identity and crucify him. The debate over the meaning of “<i>tôn
archontôn tou aiônos toutou</i>” in 2:8 should be elucidated
by Ignatius’ use of the identical phrase—with “ruler” in the singular—here
and elsewhere as a reference to Satan, and not to any worldly authority.
It makes a strong argument for taking Paul’s phrase as also referring to
the evil powers of the lower heavens. (Schoedel is another scholar who
concedes that this is the meaning of Paul’s term “the rulers of this age.”)
Paul’s “hidden wisdom of God” and Ignatius’ “deep silence of God” convey
the same thing: the spiritual realm of God where spiritual processes take
place, and those to whom they are of most concern and whom they most affect
are the spirit powers.
<br />
In fact, Ignatius’ passage speaks
of these “secrets” of God being “made known to the <i>aiôsin</i>.”
Both Staniforth and Lake translate the latter term as “the world,” but
this is an avoidance of the more direct meaning. There are other words
Ignatius could have used to signify the world as a spatial area or the
people that inhabit it. Instead, he uses the plural (dative) of “<i>aiôn</i>.”
This can mean “ages” in regard to an expanse of time, and the writer elsewhere
uses it as such. But it can also mean supernatural beings, “Aeons,” who
inhabit the celestial spheres. Bauer’s Lexicon provides such a meaning
(def. 4), and suggests this as the meaning in Ignatius’ Ephesians 19:2.
Further, it regards this as the probable meaning in the Pauline Ephesians
2:2—“when you followed the aeon [spirit ruler] of this world” (“the age
of this world” doesn’t really make much sense)—as well as in Colossians
1:26—“hidden from the aeons and from the generations” (the spirits and
the humans, since “from the ages and from the generations” would be a redundancy)—and
in Ephesians 3:9, although it allows that other meanings in these passages
are possible. Schoedel (<i>Ibid</i>., p.91, n.24) supports the reading
of supernatural beings in Ignatius.
<br />
Such a reading is internally
supported. Ignatius asks how these things were made known to the world/aeons.
Since he goes on to speak solely of the effects created in heaven—the “star”
portion of the passage—and not of effects on a human audience, “aeons”
is to be preferred. Staniforth’s translation of “it left men bewildered”
is not specified in the text, which merely says that the new star caused
astonishment; and since this is enlarged on by reference to “the other
stars, with the sun and moon gathered in chorus round this star” (Lake),
we ought to be left in no uncertainty as to where this scene takes place.
<br />
Thus, if Ignatius means “how
were these things revealed to the aeons,” the spirit powers, we are squarely
in the realm of the mythological, part of a family of passages in several
documents which provide mutual support to each other, including the crucial
1 Corinthians 2:8. We need not make all the tortured readings most commentators
feel are necessary to get around the plainest meaning of the passage. It
represents a mythical outlook predating the adoption of the new historical
Jesus. The virginity of Jesus’ mother, the birth, and Jesus’ very death
itself, are mythological events that “came to pass (<i>epraxthê</i>,
aorist passive of <i>prassô</i>)”—were wrought (Lake), performed,
executed—within that mythological setting. To get around this, Staniforth
suggests they were “prepared” in the silence of God. Schoedel notes that
it could mean that these three things were “effected within the purpose
or sphere of the divine” (<i>Ibid.</i>, p.91), but then chooses to drop
them into history on the basis of the use of same verb in Magnesians 11
and Smyrneans 4:2 in connection with Ignatius’ historical declarations
about Jesus. The latter consideration is hardly conclusive. It is the context
that determines the meaning we should draw, and <i>prassô</i> is
an extremely common verb, used in all sorts of contexts.
<br />
In the earlier form of this myth,
we are led to assume that the name of Mary did not appear (just as Paul
does not give us her name in Galatians 4:4’s “born of woman”); this is
possibly Ignatius’ own amendment. Schoedel suggests that the two elements
at the head of this mythical scene, Jesus’ conception by a virgin and his
birth, are a direct mirroring of Isaiah 7:14 (“A virgin shall conceive
and bear a son”). But he fails to follow through and conclude that these
things are not based on historical traditions but are in fact mythical
elements grounded in scripture, just as we can surmise in regard to Paul’s
Galatians 4:4 statement. The Christian myth before historicization was
the product of meditation on scripture. Everything in the New Testament
epistles points in this direction.
<br />
When we get to the “star” passage,
we encounter some uncertainty. It is by means of this star that the Aeons
learn of the conception, birth and death of Jesus—things already brought
to pass. If this myth has ties to gnostic thought, the star could be seen
as the ascended Christ himself, now shining out in heaven. It is after
his death and exaltation that he gains the power to destroy magic and superstition,
and the old empire of evil forces and death is brought to an end. Because
gnostic mythology does not specifically use the image of a star in the
ascension of the divine redeemer, but only light and glory, Schoedel and
others claim the star refers to Jesus’ descent into the world, not his
ascension, and their tendency is to relate it to the Star of Bethlehem,
though not assuming that the latter is literally historical. The precise
alignment of the star motif is not spelled out in this passage, and it
may not matter. But if the plainer meaning of the opening sentences is
adopted, that all activities of the Savior have already been accomplished,
then the star in this sequence of thought must appear at the ascension
and not at the point of birth.
<br />
It is quite possible that the
Star of Bethlehem feature of Matthew’s Nativity story (it is missing in
Luke’s) is derived from this sort of mythological background. Ignatius’
thought milieu is undeniably closer to elements of the Matthean Gospel
than any other, and the similarity of many passages in Matthew to expressions
in Ignatius is best explained by postulating that Matthew was being written
in the same general area around the same time.
<br />
This “myth” in Ephesians 19,
then, is a hold-over from the pre-historical Jesus phase of the Ignatian
community. All its elements fit a mythological setting, including the wonder
and confusion of the other stars as representing the spirit forces, good
and bad, from whom the identity of Jesus has been hidden from “birth” to
death. Under the historical scenario, it may well be questioned how Satan
could be unaware of the birth and death of Jesus, taking place under the
open skies of Judea and in the sight of many. If Ignatius sensed inherent
contradictions, now that Jesus had died outside Jerusalem under sentence
of Pontius Pilate, he shows no sign. But old modes of expression are often
adapted to new understandings, while anomalies are glossed over or ignored.
<br />
Ignatius says that the three
“mysteries,” Jesus’ conception, birth and death, were brought to pass in
the “deep silence of God,” which although obscure, strongly suggests a
spiritual realm that is inaccessible to human observation where God carries
out his work of salvation. The word “silence” is “<i>hêsuxia</i>”
and this word appears a few chapters earlier in another passage which commentators
find obscure. In 15:1, Ignatius says that “the man who truly possesses
the word of Jesus can also hear his silence.” Staniforth muses over and
rejects a possible application to Jesus’ silence before the High Priest
and Pilate, but he fails to offer any meaningful alternative. But here
Jesus’ “silence” which the one possessing his “word” can penetrate suggests
the same mythical significance as in the later passage. Jesus began as
a spiritual entity who also worked in the deep and impenetrable mythical
realm of God.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Rite of Chrisma</i></b>
<br />
<br />
Finally, a quick look at the
second Gospel-like anecdote in the Ignatian epistles. In Ephesians 17:1,
Ignatius tells his readers:
<br />
<blockquote>
“The reason for the Lord’s acceptance of the
precious ointment on his head was to exhale the fragrance of incorruptibility
upon his church. So you must never let yourselves be anointed with the
malodorous chrism of the prince of this world’s doctrines, or he may snatch
you into his own keeping and away from the life that lies before you.”</blockquote>
That the “chrism” refers to an anointing
at the time of baptism (here contrasted with the Devil’s anointing), part
of a rite of initiation, is a common interpretation and undoubtedly correct.
The first Johannine epistle, probably coming from the same geographical
area of northern Syria a little earlier than Ignatius, also refers to a
rite of chrism (2:20/27). That Ignatius’ is alluding to the Gospel episode
of the anointing of Jesus at Bethany is also a common suggestion, but this
is far less certain. Not only are no historical details attached to it,
the reference bears all the marks of a traditional cultic explanation for
the community’s rite, in that sectarian thinking tends to develop myths
about the founder establishing the ritual or performing some act upon which
the ritual is allegedly based, or which gives it its meaning. In this passage,
Ignatius refers to the rite of chrism, and makes his remark about the Lord,
specifically to explain a certain aspect of the rite’s significance. This
is an example of the phenomenon which anthropologists such as Mircea Eliade
have long noted, that of ‘ritual producing explanatory myth.’ In this same
class, we may place Paul’s scene of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians
11:23-26, something he says he has “received from the Lord.” Here Paul
may be inventing on his own and claiming revelation, attempting to impart
a sacramental quality to the communal meal whose spirit he feels the Corinthians
are abusing. (See Article No. 6: <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp06.htm">The Source of Paul’s
Gospel</a>.)
Again, Ignatius does not appeal
to any Gospel account or apostolic tradition as the source of this information.
The alleged similarity to Matthean wording (26:7) relates only to the word
“ointment” and the phrase “upon his head,” basic ideas that can hardly
avoid being expressed in a common way. As for the possible derivation of
Ignatius’ idea from a more general oral tradition, this is undermined when
one notes that no consistent tradition is in evidence in the Gospels, since
both Luke and John portray their equivalent scene as an anointing of Jesus’
<i>feet</i>. It is much safer to conclude that Matthew may have derived
his scene from mythical precedents such as we see in Ignatius.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Postscript</i></b>
<br />
<br />
From the vantage point of the
mythicist position, it is safe to say that not a single early Christian
document outside the Gospels from the first hundred years of the faith—and
some extending beyond that—actually says the things that orthodox scholarship
would like them to say and which it has done its best to make them say.
From the 19th century translator of Minucius Felix (in the <i>Ante-Nicene
Fathers</i>), who labeled Octavius’ denigration of the idea of a crucified
man and his cross as “A reverent allusion to the Crucified, believed in
and worshipped as God,” to J. H. Charlesworth’s scouring of the Odes of
Solomon in search of some word that could refer, no matter how obscurely,
to the resurrection, Christian scholars have imposed one small segment
of the early Christian documentary record, the Gospels and Acts, upon their
reading of everything else.
<br />
The Hellenistic era was the age
of personal salvation, through the individual’s mystical union with a personal
savior god. While the Greeks looked only for the ascent of the soul to
the divine, Jews and Christians looked for a place in the Kingdom of God.
While Paul did not envision this Kingdom as located on earth in the material
world, he still looked for a resurrection in a transformed body, made of
spirit material like that of Christ. The god’s own death and resurrection
in the heavenly dimension guaranteed that of the believer, but as Christian
thought moved increasingly toward resurrection in the flesh, the divine
redeemer who was entrusted with this role had to do so by taking part in
the same flesh: to save it he must enter it. But the exact nature of his
coming to earth was not universally accepted. Its precise nature had to
be worked out. Some circles along the way resisted the more concrete manifestations
‘in flesh.’ The conflict first appears in 1 John 4, although exactly what
the writer of that epistle conceived of as constituting “in flesh,” or
the precise position of his opponents, is not clear. It is notable that,
writing probably a decade or two before Ignatius, he did not enumerate
any of the bishop of Antioch’s historical biographical details, and the
basis of his own belief was revelation through the Spirit.
<br />
There was one way to ensure that
a divine Savior had fully partaken in flesh and human nature, that his
redemptive acts were sufficient to guarantee the benefits to his devotees:
place him in history. This was a need which the equivalent salvation religions
among the Greeks did not so urgently feel—probably because they had no
need or desire to perpetuate the flesh. Though they conceived of their
savior gods as ‘approaching matter’ in some way, of having a body and experiences
that possessed the “likeness” of those of humans, they were content to
leave them in mythical times and settings. The earliest Christians as well
were content with this much: a Christ Jesus, an Anointed Savior, incarnated
in a mythical part of God’s heavens, grappling with the evil spirits who
were one of the chief concerns of both Deity and humanity. Man as a whole
was separated from God largely because Satan and his evil angels were the
rulers of this age, cutting off earth from heaven. They were the cause
of much misery, misfortune and unbelief in the world, including the original
Fall. Jesus had a job to do in the heavens and in the underworld—perhaps
his principal job—to destroy the power of the demons, restore the unity
of the universe, and rescue the souls of the righteous.
<br />
The victory over the evil powers
would automatically set the scene for salvation and a new age. The righteous
who believed in Christ Jesus would enter the Kingdom when Jesus came to
earth to judge the world. A simple, efficient system. Some time before
Ignatius, it ceased to be enough. Jesus had to have entered history and
material flesh. His parentage had to be elucidated, though he kept the
universal paternity of the ancient world gods and heroes as son of a Deity
by a virgin. The agency of his suffering had to become a human force (as
was humanity’s own), the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, with an active
part played by the hostile and despised Jewish authorities. The biographical
details were largely supplied from scripture. But there was another, fortuitous
source for his activities in flesh: the milieu of Kingdom preaching centered
in Galilee. Probably by the grace of the writer of Mark, the imagined founder
of that movement became wedded to the savior god come to suffer and die
on earth. Thus the single most dramatic and influential historical event
in the planet’s history, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, entered
human consciousness. Before Ignatius, no Christian document—allowing for
the inauthenticity of 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 and a second century provenance
for 1 Timothy—refers to it in that context.
<br />
Ignatius himself clearly shows
the fundamental impulse for this development, for the historicization of
Jesus and his ‘true’ human experience of suffering and exaltation. It is
not because it is so recorded, not because some reliable account of it
exists to be read and drawn upon. It is not because these traditions have
been passed down through the generations since the events themselves. It
is not because some carefully thought-out theology and process of philosophical
deduction urged such a doctrine upon him, for this, too, Ignatius never
offers us in his letters. It is for purely subjective reasons, personal
and immediate, that he “knows and believes” that Jesus Christ was truly
born of Mary, truly suffered under Pilate, was truly crucified in human
flesh and rose in the same state. It is so because “by believing in his
death you may escape death” (Tral. 2:1), and here he is drawing on the
universal pattern of Hellenistic salvation thought: the paradigmatic parallel
that has both deity and believer undergoing the same experiences. It is
because if Christ’s suffering was only a semblance, then Ignatius is “dying
in vain” (Tral. 10:1). If all of Christ’s experiences were simply an illusion,
then his experiences too are only an illusion (Sm. 4:2). This is the true
source of all theology: human need. What we need we will create theologies
to support. God’s Anointed Savior arose when certain circles within the
Hellenistic Jewish milieu created their own divine intermediary to their
increasingly inaccessible God, and a Messiah to rescue them and bring them
into their destiny. This Christ Jesus emerged into history when the need
of the individual for salvation became paramount and only a Jesus who had
been fully human could accomplish the task.
<br />
Before long, the political advantages
of possessing a human figure as the fount of the movement also emerged,
providing a chain of authority and correct doctrine that could be traced
back to him who had established it, and the Jews could be accused of rejecting
a human figure who had been in their midst. If the first apostles could
be claimed to have seen Jesus in the flesh, the assurance of human resurrection
in the flesh was secure, but it could only be available through the institution
that preserved those traditions and guaranteed their historical veracity.
The power over the human mind is the power most sought after, and human
fear is its most vulnerable channel. Humanity’s most primitive fear is
the fear of death, and the story of Jesus evolved to take away that fear.
<br />
<center>
<b>*</b>
<br />
<b>BIBLIOGRAPHY</b></center>
<b>Translations:</b>
<br />
Staniforth, Maxwell: <i>Early Christian Writings</i>,
Penguin Classics, 1968
<br />
Lake, Kirsopp: <i>The Apostolic Fathers</i> (2 volumes),
Loeb Classical Library, 1912-13
<br />
<i>Ante-Nicene Fathers</i>, vol.1 (1870), reprinted Eerdmanns,
Grand Rapids, 1951-78
<br />
Translations also included in some works below.
<br />
<b>Commentaries:</b>
<br />
Cross, F. L., <i>The Early Christian Fathers</i>, Duckworth,
London, 1961
<br />
Grant, R. M., editor (and author of vols. 1, 2 and 4),
<i>The
Apostolic Fathers</i> (6 vols.), T.
<br />
Nelson, New York, 1964-68
<br />
Schoedel, William R., <i>Ignatius of Antioch</i>, Fortress
Press, Philadelphia, 1985
<br />
Kleist, J. A., <i>Ancient Christian Writers</i> *
<br />
Tugwell, Simon, <i>The Apostolic Fathers</i>, London,
Chapman, 1989
<br />
Lightfoot, J. B., <i>The Apostolic Fathers</i> (5 vol.)
*
<br />
Richardson, Cyril, <i>Early Christian Fathers</i>, London,
SCM Press, 1953
<br />
Barnard, L. W., <i>Studies in the Apostolic Fathers and
Their Background</i>, Schocken, New York, 1966
<br />
Molland, E., “The Heretics Combatted by Ignatius of Antioch,”
JEH 1954<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp12Two.htm">http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp12Two.htm</a><br />
===================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-68962698355373805462017-03-20T01:46:00.003-07:002017-03-20T01:46:53.285-07:00EARL DOHERTY : The Mystery Cults and Christianity (4)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
EARL DOHERTY<br /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Mystery Cults and Christianity</b></span><br />
<b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">Part Four:</span><span style="font-size: large;">
<br /> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">A CULT OF PARALLELS: <br />
PAGAN MYTHS AND THE JESUS STORY</span><br />
</b>
<br />
<center>
<br />
<big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>---
i ---</big></big><br />
<br />
</center>
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Introduction</big><br />
<br />
According to Euclid, parallel
lines never meet. But Euclid didn't work in the field of comparative
religion. There, parallels between the mysteries and Christianity seem
to intersect all over the place. Beginning in the 19th century, there
has been a thread of scholarly research that has devoted itself to
uncovering
specific and close correspondences between the story of Jesus and the
myths of the pagan savior gods. While interest in such parallels has
been kept alive
even into the 21st century, the older scholarship on which this type of
exercise was based has fallen into
disrepute,
although to what extent this is deserved is a matter of debate.
Mainstream New Testament scholars, as the 20th century progressed,
largely dismissed such parallels as
part of their reactionary antagonism against the History of Religions
school.
Outright apologists, especially in recent years and especially on the
Internet, have dumped on the whole business, claiming it is little
short of a farce and without foundation. Poor old Kersey Graves, with
his now-notorious <span style="font-style: italic;">The World's
Sixteen Crucified
Saviors</span>, which has come to typify the genre (though
inappropriately),
has become a
punching bag. But the dismissive attitude is unjustified, even if much
care and qualification needs to be brought to the pursuit of such
parallels.<br />
<br />
Part of the problem lies in the
nature of the evidence being appealed to on the pagan side. The primary
sources from which such comparisons are made are a motley uncoordinated
array of texts and fragments of texts, artifacts, frescoes, uncertain
records of traditions and rituals, excavated temples and places of
worship that require interpretation and a careful gleaning of their
significance. A good example of an alleged parallel one often
encounters is the birth of Mithras being attended by shepherds. We have
no literary account of this event from Mithraists such as we do in the
Matthew and Luke nativity stories. The idea comes from several
sculptural representations of Mithras' birth, in which he emerges from
the head of a rock, the rock being the cosmos. Around the base of the
rock
are attending figures who have suggested to some the idea of shepherds.
(Manfred Clauss, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Roman Cult of
Mithras</span>, p.69, is of the opinion that "there are no grounds for
calling these two figures 'shepherds', in the wake of the Christian
nativity story," probably because they could also be interpreted as the
familiar figures of Cautes and Cautopates of the tauroctony
representation.) The rock itself, and the known fact of the tradition
that Mithras slew the bull in a cave, have suggested that the birth was
seen as taking place in a cave, which not only supports the shepherds
interpretation, it leads to the 'parallel' that Mithras was born in a
cave as Jesus was born in an outdoor enclosure.<br />
<br />
An example of a better attested
parallel is the tradition that Dionysos turned water into wine at a
wedding—his own, with Ariadne. This is mentioned
by Walter Otto in his <span style="font-style: italic;">Dionysos: Myth
and Cult</span>, p.98, and is derived from Seneca's tragic play <span style="font-style: italic;">Oedipus</span>. Thus there can be no doubt
about this one being a legitimate parallel. Might the author of the
Gospel of John have consciously copied this tradition in his similar
miracle of the wedding at Cana? We don't know. The Dionysian myth is
tied to the common claim that at festivals of Dionysos, wine would
miraculously appear in empty vessels, or that water set out overnight
would be
changed to wine by morning.<br />
<br />
Other types of parallels are more
subtle, involving comparisons of themes and motifs in the literature.
According to Gerald Massey (and others), one of the characterizations
of the Egyptian Horus (son of Osiris and Isis) was as the "good
shepherd." Massey refers to portraits of Horus "with his crook in hand,
shepherd(ing) the flocks of Ra beyond the grave" [<span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Egypt: Light of the World</span>,
p.487]. Here he does not identify the location and nature of this
'portrait', but he backs it up with references to the literary "Ritual"
(Egyptian Book of the Dead). Horus, says Massey, "came into the world
as shepherd of his father's [Osiris'] sheep, to lead them through the
darkness of Amenta [the Egyptian underworld] to the green pastures and
still waters of the final paradise upon Mount Hetep in the heaven of
eternity"—which certainly justifies styling
Horus as a savior figure, who bears resemblance to Jesus (and other
divinities) as one who descends to an underworld to rescue the souls of
the righteous. The "green pastures" and "still
waters" in Massey's quote are phrases used to deliberately echo Psalm
23, since similar phrases are used in the Book of the Dead to refer to
Horus' precincts; Amenta becomes the "valley of the shadow of death" of
Psalm 23. The Psalms are relatively old, and its ideas could reflect
themes that were originally derived from Egypt. Massey suggests: "The
portrait of Horus the good shepherd, who was likewise the arm of the
lord [Osiris] in this picture of pastoral tenderness, was readapted by
the Hebrew writer for the comforting of distressed Jerusalem" [<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.532]. Even older is
Isaiah 40:11, in which the prophet foretells the coming of God (not
Jesus), who "will tend his flock like a shepherd and gather them
together with his arm; he will carry the lambs in his bosom and lead
the ewes to water." (Second) Isaiah was prophesying the end of the
Exile (6th century BCE), and Massey suggests the very reasonable idea
that such images could well have been derived from Egypt and the
ancient Horus tradition. Whether Horus was a direct inspiration for the
later imagery of the shepherd as applied to Christ cannot be said; but
if Jesus as the Good Shepherd was an extension of God as shepherd, one
might well postulate that the original source and ancestor of both
ideas was the Egyptian Horus.<br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Some Background
Considerations</span></big><br />
<br />
But before we delve deeper into
such similarities, we need to step back and consider certain aspects of
the situation. It seems to be assumed by some proponents of such
parallels
that Christianity formulated itself and its Jesus on the basis of this
type of precedent in the mystery cult myths and other sources. But this
overlooks the fact that in the earliest record of Christianity, as in
Paul and other epistle writers, there is no sign of such 'biographical'
parallels. In fact, there is no biography at all. The parallels in Paul
relate entirely to the <span style="font-style: italic;">principles</span>
of salvation theory we have looked at in the earlier articles of this
series. Paul gives us no 'myth' of Jesus on earth. His death and
resurrection of Christ are soteriological constructs, not historical
ones. The vast majority of parallels presented by researchers
like Gerald Massey find no echo in the earliest writings of Christians.
If we do not read the Gospels into the background of those epistles,
Paul
cannot be accused of 'borrowing' any of this stuff from the mystery
myths, beyond elements like death and rising, unity with the god, a
homologic sharing in the god's experiences, baptismal rebirth, and
sacred
meals commemorating mythical activities of the god. Such ideas can
certainly be interpreted as dependent, conscious or otherwise, on the
mysteries, but nothing of it is 'biographical'. And since nothing
biographical about the early Christian Christ can be found before the
Gospels, the biographical elements become the responsibility, as far
as we can see, of the evangelists. The Gospels are essentially the <span style="font-style: italic;">adding</span> of an earthly myth to a
spiritual one.<br />
<br />
This contrast between Pauline
Christianity and the mysteries is often pointed out. The fact that Paul
doesn't have anything like the extravagant 'irrationalities' of the
savior god biographies is regarded as an asset. But then neither does
he have any corresponding 'rationalities'. First of all, the cults had
centuries to develop their myths, whereas Christianity was of recent
vintage in the time of Paul. The latter is no excuse, of course, for
the Christian faith
not to possess biographical traditions of their savior if he had indeed
lived in recent history. The very absence of such things
suggests that the origin and character of the Christian Christ and his
work of redemption reflected the
salvation philosophy inherent in Platonism and its concept of a higher
spiritual world.
The fact that this is the almost exclusive venue of the Pauline Christ
suggests that the initial Jesus operated within this
philosophical and
cosmological atmosphere at the turn of the era, when divinities
inhabited and communicated from the heavens, descending and ascending
its layers to grapple
with the evil spirits (and occasionally be killed by them), and rescue
souls from Hell, with no sign of earthly incarnation being a factor or
necessity until the Gospels came along.<br />
<br />
The question of what spheres the
gods of the mysteries were believed to operate in during this period is
complicated by the
fact that their initial myths arose at a time when such divine
activities were
thought to have taken place in a sacred prehistoric time or primordial
history, more or less on earth, although some divine processes (such as
Cronos eating his children) would likely have been regarded as heavenly
events. Such myths were still operable at the turn of the era, but it
becomes difficult to know how they were now envisioned. They still
retained
their primordial/earthly character, but we can hardly overlook the
possibility (even the likelihood) that their interpretation was being
newly
influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the time, especially in the
context of ideas like the 'heavenly Man' (as in Philo) or the riotous
Pleroma of Divine emanations of incipient gnosticism, and above all,
the prominent philosophical principle that everything on earth is a
copy of a more 'genuine' form in heaven. Philosophers, no longer able
to accept a literal reading of the cultic myths, as 'history' occurring
in
primordial times, began to allegorize them. But we cannot assume that
the average pagan devotee was that sophisticated. I think it likely
that the myths were transported by most devotees to some 'spiritual
world' not on earth but some place in the heavens they may not have
thoroughly defined in their own minds. (Robert
Price notes that Paul Veyne, in <span style="font-style: italic;">Did
the Greeks Believe in their Myths?</span>,
refers to "the hazy zone of mythic time" when the imagined incarnation,
death and resurrection would have occurred, not in the historical time
of chronologies and dates. Although Veyne is speaking of an earthly
setting, "the hazy zone of a mythic heaven" would be equally
applicable.) <br />
More specific interpretation of
such things was formulated (based on Aristotle) by Middle and Neo-
Platonic philosophers, assigning anything that could undergo suffering,
death and corruption to the sphere below the moon. But there is no
reason to think—or require—that
the average devotee of the cults took the trouble to impose that kind
of careful interpretation on the activities of their saviors. The myths
were not recast to reflect such refinements or relocations, and none of
the early Christian epistle writers talk of the spiritual Christ as
operating above or below the moon—with the
exception of the writer of the Ascension of Isaiah, who many be styled
'proto-Christian' and probably reflects a Jewish sect which
evolved into a more recognizable form of Christianity. (The document
was later interpolated by Gospel-oriented Christians.)<br />
<br />
All of this leaves us to assign
the
vast amount of "parallels" in the Jesus story to the Gospel writers. I
have said earlier that Paul (and whoever preceded him in formulating
the original expression of the Christ cult, perhaps surviving in the
pre-Pauline hymns) may have absorbed mystery-salvation ideas that were
'in the air' of the period, in regard to how such a savior would
function and what sort of relationship the initiate and believer
assumed toward him. In such a context we might more easily let Paul off
the hook and postulate that such 'absorption' was for the most part
unconscious. But can we give the same benefit of the doubt to the
evangelists? They were sitting at their writing desks, crafting
literary documents. The pervasive midrashic content of their work,
based
on the Jewish scriptures, could hardly have been unconscious. If they
didn't have the Septuagint open on the desk in front of them, it was
open in their minds through close familiarity. While multiple sources
may have been in operation, it is difficult to rule out a
conscious mimicking, in creating their story of Jesus (and "create" it
they did, since there is no sign of it before them, other than limited
material in Q), out of the myths of
the pagan saviors. They did, after all, write in Greek, reflecting the
culture around them. Even Galilee, if Mark wrote
near to that vicinity, had a prominent Hellenistic population, and
Syria
next door even more so. In creating Jesus of Nazareth, or even fleshing
out some historical figure they may have presumed lay behind him, it is
anything but
outlandish to envision the evangelists drawing on known myths and
characteristics of the pagan saviors and other figures to give their
Jesus the qualities
and biography they wanted him to have, especially one their non-Jewish
audiences
could relate to.<br />
<br />
As they say in the courtroom, the
evangelists had both motive and opportunity, and they show multiple
indications of a consistent "M.O." To judge the extent of their
plagiarism, it becomes a case of identifying with some degree of
confidence the existence of such precedence of story elements in the
mystery cults and other popular myths and literature. In some cases
that
will be easy, in others difficult or inconclusive.<br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Turtles All the Way
Down?</span></big><br />
<br />
I do not intend to attempt a
comprehensive examination of parallels here, a far too monumental task,
but
rather to discuss basic principles and offer some representative
examples.
The major complaint by detractors is that the presentation of such
parallels, especially in more recent times (such as by Timothy Freke
and Peter Gandy in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Jesus
Mysteries</span>,
or by Acharya S in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Christ
Conspiracy</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Suns of God</span>)
is entirely dependent on secondary sources, that is, on previous
writers who have made these claims themselves. In some cases, these
previous writers may be
dependent on still other previous writers, with almost none of it being
rechecked along the way by going to the
primary sources to confirm how valid such parallels really are. This
state
of affairs goes back into the late 19th century, with books like
Kersey Graves' <span style="font-style: italic;">Sixteen Crucified
Saviors</span> and a little later, Remsburg's <span style="font-style: italic;">The
Christ</span>. This secondary line
is not infinite, of course; at some point—or
points—primary sources were consulted, by people
such
as Gerald Massey, who lived and wrote into the 20th century. The
question becomes, how well
do we trust those original researchers and to what extent have they
been
rechecked? Even among the so-called "secondary" sources, such writers
have been in a position to consult things like extant literary works,
as J. M. Robertson seems to have done with the Persian <span style="font-style: italic;">Avesta</span> and the Aryan <span style="font-style: italic;">Vedas</span> in regard to certain data
about Mithras [in<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>Pagan Christs</span>, p.103].<br />
<br />
Remsburg, for example (1905), in
discussing the Indian Krishna under "Sources of the Christ Myth,"
refers to "points of resemblance between Krishna and Christ" [<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.500].
He says that "some of these are apocryphal, and not confirmed by the
canonical scriptures of India." So here we have a rather comforting and
commendable admission that not all parallels can be relied on, and that
reliance is to be placed on those present in a written record,
something far less capable of being misinterpretated than, say,
frescoes. Furthermore, when he goes on to list important parallels
relating
to the respective births of Krishna and Christ, he identifies them as
"according to the Christian translator of the 'Bhagavat Purana,' Rev.
Thomas Maurice." Not only is Remsburg deriving these from a
translator's reading of a primary literary source, that
translator is a Christian reverend, who is not liable to have brought
any particular desire or predisposition to see Christian elements
pre-reflected in Indian scripture.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, those parallels are
as follows:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
1. Both were
miraculously conceived.<br />
2. Both were divine incarnations.<br />
3. Both were of royal descent.<br />
4. Devatas or angels sang songs of praise at the birth
of each.<br />
5. Both were visited by neighboring shepherds.<br />
6. In both cases the reigning monarch, fearing that he
would be supplanted in his kingdom by the divine child, sought to
destroy him.<br />
7. Both were saved by friends who fled with them in the
night to distant countries.<br />
8. Foiled in their attempts to discover the babes both
kings issued decrees that all the infants should be put to death.</div>
I will not personally vouch for the accuracy of all
these claims, but they are said to be drawn from literary sources that
are still in existence and can be checked. Remsburg subsequently
mentions other items such as Krishna washing the feet of the Brahmins,
and miracle-working such as the raising of the dead and the cleansing
of the leprous, all drawn from literary sources. <br />
<br />
A similar situation exists in
regard to the Buddha (who may or may not have existed). <br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
The "Tripitaka," the
principal Bible of the Buddhists, containing the history and teachings
of Buddha, is a collection of books written in the centuries
immediately following Buddha. The canon was finally determined at the
Council of Pataliputra, held under the auspieces of the Emperor Asoka
the Great, 244 B.C., more than 600 years before the Christian canon was
established. The "Lalita Vistara," the sacred book of the Northern
Buddhists, was written long before the Christian era. [p.504]<br />
</div>
The list of close parallels between the Buddha and
Christ is even longer than that of Krishna and Christ, taken from these
literary sources. I'll quote a few of Remsburg's mentions:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Buddha was "about 30
years old" when he began his ministry...At his Renunciation "he forsook
father and mother, wife and child."...He enjoined humility, and
commanded his followers to conceal their charities. "Return good for
evil"; "overcome anger with love"; "love your enemies," were some of
his
precepts...The account of the man born blind is common to both. In both
the mustard seed is used as a simile for littleness...There is a legend
of a traitor connected with each...Both made triumphal entries, Christ
into Jerusalem, and Buddha into Rajagriba...The eternal life promised
by Christ corresponds to the eternal peace, Nirvana, promised by
Buddha... [p.505-6]<br />
</div>
In regard to Krishna, Remsburg
notes [p.503] that in his day "some argue that while Krishna himself
antedated Christ, the legends concerning him are of later origin and
borrowed from the Evangelists." That sort of apologetic counter is
still indulged in today, of course, and while literary development of
such primary records always needs to be taken into account, the overall
evaluation of such an 'out' remains no different that it was in
Remsburg's time: "absurd."<br />
<br />
Remsburg also mentions the
notoriously-regarded parallel that Krishna was crucified. "There is a
tradition, though not to be found in the Hindoo scriptures, that
Krishna, like Christ, was crucified." This, then, is far less
certain. If something is not found in literary records we can peruse
today, we are usually reliant on interpretations of less secure
sources. On the other hand, they say a picture is worth a thousand
words. British traveller Edward Moor around 1800 brought back many
sketches of Hindu sculptures and monuments, some which depicted a
figure apparently crucified, with nail holes in feet and hands. Moor's
publication of these travels and sketches was edited and censored at
the behest of Christian authorities of the time in Britain, while other
reports
from India suffered a similar fate. Kersey Graves reports:<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
(Sir Godfrey Higgins)
informs us that a report on the Hindoo religion, made out by a
deputation from the British Parliament, sent to India for the purpose
of examining their sacred books and monuments, being left in the hands
of a Christian bishop at Calcutta, and with instructions to forward it
to England, was found, on its arrival in London, to be so horribly
mutilated and eviscerated as to be scarcely cognizable. The account of
the crucifixion was gone—cancelled out. The
inference is patent. [<span style="font-style: italic;">Sixteen
Crucified Saviors</span>, p.107]<br />
</div>
Acharya S, in her recent <span style="font-style: italic;">Suns of God</span>, tells a similar story,
of "plates and an entire chapter removed [from Moor's publication],
which have luckily been restored in a recent edition of the original
text" [p.243], although descriptions of this missing material have long
been available through Godfrey Higgins who examined Moor's original
work in the British Museum during the 1800s. This is part of a thorough
examination in one chapter of <span style="font-style: italic;">Suns
of God</span>, of the whole question of whether Krishna was regarded,
at least in some circles, as crucified. There are multiple versions of
his
death (as there are in most ancient mythology attached to savior gods),
and it is possible that some form of 'crucifixion', probably on a tree,
is one of them. Acharya refers to other cases of
apparent destruction of records and mutilation of texts in modern
times, by ecclesiastical interests seeking to hide the evidence of
parallels. To this we must add the destruction caused by conflicts
like World War II, a situation which has made it more difficult than
ever for modern researchers to track down and verify the existence of
such parallels in the primary record. Dismissal by modern apologists of
such conditions and practices as some kind of nutty conspiracy theory
is unwise, as Christian history almost from its beginnings is full of
wanton destruction of anything that could call into question the
veracity and originality of the Christian faith.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
My
point here is that simple blanket dismissal of all parallels as "bogus"
or unfounded is far too simplistic. It is also usually done without
much actual argument and investigation, to demonstrate why such things
are unfounded. Apologists will latch onto a few of the more unfortunate
mistakes (such as that Mithras also died and resurrected, which is
never claimed in works like Remsburg's) and use them to discredit the
entire field. They also have a habit of playing up legitimate
distinctions within
some of the parallels and argue that this disqualifies them as
parallels at all. I'll be looking at a specific example of this later,
when we will return to Acharya S, Gerald Massey, and the land of Egypt.<br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Issue of
Borrowing</big><br />
<br />
There are varying degrees of trust which can be
placed on 'secondary' accounts and analyses. Nor are we required to
fall into the same trap which Remsburg and others of his time tended to
do.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Various incidents
recorded in the life of Christ were doubtless suggested by similar
incidents in the life of Krishna. [p.501]</div>
<br />
The accusation of direct borrowing cannot be so blithely applied today,
since we have adopted a more sophisticated view of how ideas can
migrate and be absorbed. And yet, so many of these parallels are so
close, one wonders if the evangelists were indeed familiar
with some of them as traditions attached to other savior gods
(particularly when they had their own parallels in the Old Testament),
and were guilty of a degree of conscious borrowing in crafting their
picture of what was essentially a fictional figure. In view of the
latter, they would hardly have felt there was anything underhanded or
deceptive about it, since it all would have served to create the best
allegory to fit their purposes. All these features, present in the air
of the time, would have conjured up the desired effect in the audience
for these "gospels."<br />
<br />
Nor does it require a parallel to be all that exact.
We should not claim that the use made by an evangelist of a previous
mytheme had to be slavish. Unfortunately, those who actually derived
certain parallels from non-literary primary sources may have been
guilty of setting up that misunderstanding by presenting the same thing
in reverse. A common parallel between Mithras and Christ is stated as
both having had twelve 'disciples'. Since there are no literary records
in Mithraism, this is not derived from a recorded myth. Unless I have
missed something, it can only have arisen as a questionable
interpretation from the appearance on some bull-slaying monuments of a
row of twelve figures across the top. These almost certainly represent
the heavenly signs of the zodiac, and not some earthly following,
especially given the modern astronomical interpretation of the Mithraic
myth. So Mark would not likely have been imitating a tradition that a
Mithras on earth had twelve disciples. On the other hand, the choice of
the number twelve by Mark is often thought of as being influenced by
the significance of that number in previous contexts: most importantly
by the twelve tribes of Israel, but also by the twelve signs of the
zodiac which had widespread mystical significance in many cultures; the
latter influence being true if Jesus also bore roots as a sun god. Such
a parallel would then be meaningful as operating on those more abstract
lines.<br />
<br />
Remsburg describes a mural in the Roman catacombs of
"the infant Mithra seated in the lap of his virgin mother, while on
their knees before him were Persian Magi adoring him and offering
gifts" [p.520-1]. This highlights another problem in the practice of
presenting parallels, merging all the mythic elements attached to a god
over the course of centuries and sometimes across cultural lines,
taking no account of changes and evolution. The Roman cult of Mithras
was something quite distinct from the Persian religion of Mithra, few
elements being carried over from the earlier to the later. The Roman
Mithras was 'rock-born' with little or no reference to being born of a
woman, let alone a virgin, or having an earthly birth setting. The
presence of Persian "magi" at his birth may be an element of Persian
myth associated with Mithra, but then we must decide if Matthew in
fashioning his nativity story around the turn of the 2nd century could
have been
exposed to that more ancient tradition rather than contemporary ones.
Clauss (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.169) shows a
sketch of a 4th century medallion on which three Persian Magi,
presented as priests of Mithras, bear gifts to the infant Christ
sitting in his mother's lap. Supposedly a 'gloat' over the triumph of
Christianity over Mithraism, it could also be a distant echo of a
Persian myth wherein the child is in fact Mithra.<br />
<br />
Even before the Gospels, early Christians like Paul,
in formulating their concepts of the spiritual Christ based primarily
on the interpretation of Jewish scriptures under perceived revelation
from the Holy Spirit, could have been influenced by non-Jewish
traditions of how foreign gods were regarded as dying and resurrecting.
If even a quarter of Kersey Graves' "crucified saviors" has some
legitimacy and was in the air of the time of Christianity's inception,
who knows whether such an influence on the formation of Paul's
non-historical "Christ crucified" (1 Cor. 1:23)—in
opposition to those who thought he was foolish and rejected such a
theology—could not have supplemented the
scriptural inspiration of Psalm 22 and Zechariah 12? We can never be
sure on that score, of course, but speculation within the larger
picture of the exchange of religious ideas in the ancient world is
entirely legitimate.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />
</span><big><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Hero Cult</span></big><br />
<br />
Another category of parallel relates to a broader
spectrum of ancient myth, not specific to savior gods, but attached to
the "aretalogies" (acts of heroic/wondrous deeds) of hero figures, some
of them historical. Robert Price, in <span style="font-style: italic;">Deconstructing
Jesus</span>, devotes considerable attention to this dimension of
dependency in early Christian formulation of the Jesus story. Price
points out that certain "gospel stories are so close to similar stories
of the miracles wrought by Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Asclepius,
Asclepiades the Physician, and others that we have to wonder whether in
any or all such cases free-floating stories have been attached to all
these heroic names at one time or another, much as the names of
characters in jokes change in oral transmission" [p.258-9]. He provides
us with a list (according to foklorist Alan Dundes) of 22 "typical,
recurrent elements" in the pattern of Indo-European and Semitic hero
legends, as part of a "world-wide paradigm of the Mythic Hero Archetype
as delineated by Lord Raglan, Otto Rank, and others." Among them are:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
mother is royal virgin<br />
father is a king<br />
unusual conception<br />
hero reputed to be son of god<br />
attempt to kill hero<br />
hero spirited away<br />
no details of childhood<br />
becomes king<br />
he prescribes laws<br />
later loss of favor with gods or his subjects<br />
meets with mysterious death<br />
often at the top of a hill<br />
his body is not buried<br />
nonetheless has one or more holy sepulchres</div>
<br />
One can certainly recognize, without me spelling
them out, that key features of the Jesus story correspond to these
paradigmatic elements. Price notes that there are even further mythemes
in hero tales not listed here which correspond to Jesus' tale, such as
the hero displaying himself as a child prodigy, reflected in the Lukan
incident in the temple (2:41-52) when Jesus amazes the elders. The odds
are that all these heroic elements to the Jesus story are simply
fictional, created by Mark and his redactors, especially since they
don't appear in Christian tradition before the Gospels. This in itself
may not prove there was no historical Jesus, but as Price sums up:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Traditionally,
Christ-Myth theorists have argued that one finds a purely mythic
conception of Jesus in the epistles and that the life of Jesus the
historical teacher and healer as we read it in the gospels is a later
historicization. This may indeed be so, but it is important to
recognize the obvious: <span style="font-style: italic;">The gospel
story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last</span>.
In the gospels the degree of historicization is actually quite minimal,
mainly consisting of the addition of the layer derived from
contemporary messiahs and prophets, as outlined above. One does not
need to repair to the epistles to find a mythic Jesus. The gospel story
itself is already pure legend. What can we say of a supposed historical
figure whose life story conforms virtually in every detail to the
Mythic Hero Archetype, with nothing, no "secular" or mundane
information, left over? [p.260]</div>
<br />
The point here, in regard to this article, is that
the evidence is strong for pagan influence on the formation of the
Jesus story, and thus the issue of parallels is to a great extent
justified, that they are not simply "all bogus" and without foundation.
The weakness of this or that particular claim, or even if there are a
lot of "this's and that's," does not alter the essential validity of
the exercise or the general conclusion drawn from it.<br />
<br />
An attempt by apologists to partially rescue the
Jesus story from being yet another version of traditional pagan tales
and savior god myths is to point up the possible derivations from <span style="font-style: italic;">Jewish scriptural</span> sources. I'm not sure how this preserves Jesus for
historicity, but it may give him a more acceptable, Jewish, character
and imply that a certain historicity lies behind the scriptures as
being 'prooftexts in the form of prophecy' rather than as
'source-texts'. But even this is difficult, for how can one
characterize the Exodus story of Moses' death threat from Pharaoh and
his preservation by being committed to the Nile in a basket as mere
'prophecy' of Jesus' experience with Herod and the flight into Egypt?
And especially when that tale of Moses is a mirror image of both Greek
mythology concerning similar experiences by various gods (Rhea hiding
Zeus from Cronos, or Hera attempting to kill Heracles in his cradle,
etc.), as well as similar traditions attached to <span style="font-style: italic;">historical</span> figures like Sargon II
of Assyria, or pseudo-historical figures like Romulus, the founder of
Rome. It all looks like one vast complex of shared mythemes by the
whole ancient world, including Judaism, and thus the apologetic effort
is short-circuited. If the evangelists are "borrowing' from Jewish
scripture, they are also <span style="font-style: italic;">ipso facto</span>
"borrowing" from the wider cultural catalogue of essentially fictional
legends and embellishments.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>---
ii ---</big></big></div>
<br />
[<span style="font-style: italic;">This particular article is a work in
progress. I hope in the future to delve deeper into the
question of parallels as evidenced in primary sources, and it is my
intention to add to this article as new research is conducted. (This
will not be immediate, as work directed toward the second edition of
The Jesus Puzzle</span><span style="font-style: italic;">—</span><span style="font-style: italic;">such as this multi-article study of the
mysteries</span><span style="font-style: italic;">—</span><span style="font-style: italic;">is a top priority.) From
this point, the article will take the form of a series of
individual examinations of specific parallels. At this time I will
focus on
a particularly representative one and the issues surrounding it.</span>]<br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A Conjunction of
Nativity Stories: Massey, Acharya, and Carrier</big><br />
<br />
In volume 2 of Gerald Massey's monumental <span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World</span>,
in tracing the precursors of the Jesus legend in Egypt, he presents
[p.757] a reproduction of a wall engraving from a temple at Luxor,
built by Amen-hetep III about 1700 BCE. Acompanied by hieroglyphic
inscriptions which 'narrate' this legend, four successive scenes
represent its key events. Massey refers to them as "The Annunciation,
Conception, Birth and Adoration of the Child." To understand the
significance of this legend, one has to understand its cultural
setting. From at least the dawn of historic times, the Pharaoh was
regarded as divine, possessing a godhood that was transferred from
father to son, old Pharaoh to new. In that process of transference, the
father, the old Pharaoh, embodied the god Amun (or Osiris); the child,
the destined new Pharaoh, the god Horus. The old Pharaoh's wife, and
mother of the new, was identified with the virgin goddess Isis. (She
was still regarded as 'virgin' even though, in other myths, she was
impregnated by the reassembled Osiris.) Thus the divine trio of
Amun/Osiris, Isis and Horus was the mythologization of the royal birth
event and the continuity of the royal-godly line. It was a recurring,
cyclical event. The old regularly passed into the new, the present into
the future. Massey calls Horus "the mythical Messiah" or "the Messianic
Child," in that he is the recurrently born 'savior' of the royal line
and the Egyptian world order. Thus, the Egyptians from early on
attached a parallel mythical counterpart involving their gods to the
physical earthly process of pharaonic succession, investing the latter
with the
desired divine character and a guarantee of its enduring force.<br />
<br />
The Luxor engraving recounts that dual, parallel
legend. In the process of describing its scenes and narrative, I shall
take into account an article written by Richard Carrier, posted on the
internet at <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/carrier_luxor_inscription.htm">http://www.frontline-apologetics.com/carrier_luxor_inscription.htm</a></div>
He takes exception to certain elements of Acharya's
description of this engraving (see below), and with the similar views
of other writers on this topic. Where there is a difference of
interpretation between them I may or may not take sides, because
ultimately such niceties have little effect on the overriding issue at
hand. Carrier's article was written at the behest of a Christian
apologetic website, <span style="font-style: italic;">In the Word</span>,
although Carrier points out that, being an atheist, he has "no
particular axe to grind" against the hypothesis "that the nativity of
Jesus derives in part from a very ancient inscription at Luxor."
Unfortunately, as Acharya has pointed out in her response to Carrier's
article, apologists, as is their wont, have seized ("gleefully," as she
puts it) on Carrier's disagreements and alternative views as a
perceived justification for rejecting the entire basis of the parallel,
and this does a disservice to the fundamental question of
Christianity's lack of originality—and
historicity—in the matter of Gospel events like
the Nativity story.<br />
<br />
Here is a reproduction of the engraving (made in the
19th century by Samuel Sharpe). This artifact still exists, but was
transferred, as I understand it, to a museum in Egypt.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmlqVitITvXh2w_640v_Qu-6QbgB5axPkseo7MzBCis_nIxdtUpbK6ale-D_OX_CqGynqeAhXsYGFcwBcUS1O-V4b2G0Qdg9E94GZLSNv109iA3QwvU4uiwDUsbaKHGnXGnppNyBRE9A/s1600/luxor_800.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOmlqVitITvXh2w_640v_Qu-6QbgB5axPkseo7MzBCis_nIxdtUpbK6ale-D_OX_CqGynqeAhXsYGFcwBcUS1O-V4b2G0Qdg9E94GZLSNv109iA3QwvU4uiwDUsbaKHGnXGnppNyBRE9A/s1600/luxor_800.JPG" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
</div>
<center>
</center>
<br />
Carrier, drawing on a study by Helmut Brunner,
discusses the scenes, but also the narrated portions (the columns of
hieroglyphics, here and perhaps elsewhere) which provide much more
detail than the depictions
themselves. First, I'll reproduce Massey's brief description of the
depicted scenes (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>,
p.757-8):<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
In these scenes the
maiden queen Mut-em-Ua, the mother of Amen-hetep, her future child,
impersonates the virgin-mother, who conceived and brought forth without
the fatherhood. The first scene on the left hand shows the god Taht
[Thoth], as divine word or logos, in the act of hailing the virgin
queen and announcing to her that she is to give birth to the coming
son. (That is, to bring forth the royal Repa in the character of Horus
or Aten, the divine heir.) In the second scene the ram-headed god
Kneph, in conjunction with Hathor, gives life to her. This is the Holy
Ghost or spirit that causes conception, Neph being the spirit by nature
and by name. Impregnation and conception are apparent in the virgin's
fuller form. Next, the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and the
child is supported in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene
is that of the Adoration. Here the infant is enthroned, receiving
homage from the gods and gifts from men. Behind the deity, who
represents the holy spirit, on the right three men are kneeling
offering gifts with the right hand, and life with the left. The child
thus announced, incarnated, born and worshipped was the Pharaonic
representative of the Aten-sun or child-Christ of the Aten-cult, the
miraculous conception of the ever-virgin mother imaged by Mut-em-Ua.</div>
<br />
Acharya has paraphrased this description thus:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
Furthermore, inscribed
about 3,500 years ago on the walls of the Temple at Luxor were images
of the Annunciation, Immaculate Conception, Birth and Adoration of
Horus, with Thoth announcing to the Virgin Isis that she will conceive
Horus; with Kneph, the "Holy Ghost," impregnating the virgin; and with
the infant being attended by three kings, or magi, bearing gifts.<br />
<br />
</div>
Note that Massey says the
queen Mut-em-Ua "impersonates" the virgin-mother. The latter can only
be a reference to Isis, since the actual mother of the future Pharaoh
was never claimed to be a real virgin, being already married to the
present Pharaoh and perhaps having had previous children (girls or
now dead sons). By "impersonates" (and later "personates"), I take this
to be dated (Victorian) language meaning "represents," in that the
parallel divine myth is poised in the background. (Even the foreground
includes divine figures.) Thus it becomes something of a semantic
dispute for Acharya to describe the recipient of the Annunciation as
"the virgin Isis" and Carrier to object that "the woman involved is the
mythical Queen of Egypt in an archetypal sense, not Isis <span style="font-style: italic;">per se</span>."<br />
<br />
The first scene depicts an Annunciation by the god
Thoth, "as divine word or logos," says Massey, to—whom?
Acharya, following Massey, sees it as the queen, receiving the
annunciation of her impending conception and birthing of a son. Carrier
maintains (based, I presume, upon Brunner's translation) that the
accompanying narrative in hieroglyphics clearly has the god Amun
announcing to the queen, in bed after their dalliance, that she is
impregnated and will bear his son. (The god had disguised himself as
her husband, but she recognized "the smell of a god" and knew what was
up.) The depicted first scene is thus alternatively interpreted as
Thoth announcing to <span style="font-style: italic;">Amun</span> this
future occurrence. I am not in a position to suggest who is correct and
to pronounce upon the identity of the figure being announced to (I
presume this is Brunner's opinion); but while the difference is not an
insignificant one, an "Annunciation" does take place to one of the
parties responsible for the conception, and the impregnation is
performed by a god. Besides, mythical tales are traditionally full of
redundancies and contradictions, so an annunciation from one god in
bed, and another from another god to the same person at another time
would not necessarily be incompatible. (Carrier is not clear as to
whether the alleged announcement to Amun by Thoth is based on the
narrative, or is an alternate identification of the figure standing in
the scene.)<br />
<br />
The second scene, according to Massey and Acharya,
depicts the gods Kneph and Hathor "giving life" to the queen (i.e., in
her womb); the
former deity represents the "Holy Ghost or spirit (that) causes
conception." Again, Carrier raises a technicality. The <span style="font-style: italic;">ankh</span> touched to the queen's nose
does not represent impregnation, since that took place when Amun was
with her in bed. (Carrier rightly calls this "real sex" as opposed to
simply spiritual impregnation as in the case of Mary.) Yet he also
acknowledges that the <span style="font-style: italic;">ankh</span> is
imparting the god's soul (the <span style="font-style: italic;">ka</span>)
into the fetus already in her womb (she is showing her pregnancy in the
picture), and that this represents the "quickening" of the fetus. So
the distinction is really quite marginal. In fact, since this is the
time of the installation of the soul and of the 'quickening', it is not
really a mistake to call this a 'conception', performed by the Egyptian
equivalent of the Holy Spirit. At the very least, it is the most
important phase of the process, as indicated by the fact that it has
been given its own spotlight scene. Thus it becomes rather moot as to
whether, as Carrier suggests, things are out of sequence here, when
compared with the unfolding of the Christian story. In any case, it all
depends on one's interpretation of what constituted the essential
'Conception' and which 'Annunciation' one is referring to.<br />
<br />
The third scene is the birth itself. Performed by
midwives and presumably in the queen's quarters or some royal birthing
center, it has no direct parallel in the Gospel Nativity story other
than the birth itself. But its next phase, the fourth scene, very much
does. The newborn infant receives hommage: from gods (certain figures
on both left and right) and from three men (far right) who bear gifts.
(There seems to be another one like them on the left as well.) Carrier
maintains that these can only be "important state officials" and "not
kings or magi," possibly because no foreigners would have attended the
royal birth. If so, both Massey and Acharya have
perhaps unwisely carried over New Testament terminology to where it
does not belong. But even if this is true, we are dealing only with a
marginal difference. The basic common parallel is there in the
Adoration of the child, with dignitaries offering gifts. How apologists
can get so excited over these
minor distinctions is beyond my understanding. (I suppose when straws
are
all you have to grasp at, they have to do.)<br />
<br />
Now, Carrier is certainly correct in saying that so
many of these elements are common, in one form or another, to patterns
of traditional legends and myths all over the ancient world, including
those attached to historical figures like Alexander the Great. For all
we know, the Alexander tradition (or another one like it) <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> in a better position to
influence the envangelists in their creation of a nativity story for
Jesus. In Carrier's opinion, "To look to Luxor is to look too far
back." While Egypt influenced the development of Hellenistic ideas
surrounding the birth of kings, it was the Hellenistic format of these
later times which "almost completely informs the Christian one."<br />
<br />
Yet all this is nothing to merit celebration by
Christian apologists, nor does it undercut the principle of borrowing
from pagan parallels. The very universality of such conception and
birth stories, containing such similar elements, demonstrates the basic
non-originality of the Christian one—or ones,
since as Carrier observes, the versions by Matthew and Luke are almost
entirely different. But in sum, merged together (which Christians
themselves do all the time), they contain all the fundamental elements
in common with Luxor and Hellenistic royal legends. The specific
distinctions do not disprove the principle, and are inevitably
determined by differences in cultural setting and other contemporary
factors. If we can point to a dozen "annunciation" traditions or
"virgin birth" legends, Luke's Annunciation and Matthew's Virgin Mary
has to be invention. By the same token, so too the visit of three magi
bearing gifts, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt.
We don't have to know whether Matthew and Luke were familiar with the
traditional Egyptian myth of kingly birth (certainly not impossible),
or had been to Luxor (certainly not likely); and perhaps it is crossing
the line for Massey to present it as a conscious copying of
specifically Egyptian mythemes on the part of the evangelists. On the
other hand, if Egypt's legendary traditions influenced the development
of Hellenistic ones, and the latter in turn influenced the Christian
ones, then Luxor is the ancestor to Matthew and Luke, and the parallel
principle is intact.<br />
<br />
Such things represent the common impulses of ancient
world mythical thinking, which all cultures seem to have shared. It is
difficult if not impossible to believe that Matthew and Luke were not
aware of these universal expressions, and thus they could not have
approached their nativity stories as a record of genuine history. And
neither should we. If there are individual distinctions between the
versions of a common story, we can certainly allow that Matthew
and Luke would have had no interest in slavishly copying another
version; they would have felt no need or desire to provide an exact
parallel to some Egyptian myth or Macedonian legend. Who wants to be
seen as a blatant plagiarist, in any case? But a parallel works best on
the subliminal level, by appealing to things which are familiar,
familiar because they have been found effective in the common
psychological responses of the time, satisfying to both writer and
reader. Matthew and Luke's 'originality' would lie in their patinas of
distinctive detail, set into patterns and themes of cultural preference
and expectation. It's debatable whether readers of such tales would
have uncritically accepted them, or would not have recognized on some
level
that they were all appealing to the same instinct and were not to be
seen as literally true, although it didn't take long before Christians
were swearing by them.<br />
<br />
As they eventually did with all details of the
Gospels. But just as we cannot accept the historicity of the nativity
stories because of their closeness to ancient world parallels, so too
we must reject virtually all the rest of the Gospel content, because of
its close similarity to a range of precedents, whether in the Old
Testament, in Hellenistic Hero legends, or in the myths of gods from
Egypt to India. The story of Jesus is not historical, but one created
for a new faith movement out of the sights and sounds and dreams of the
day.
</div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13D.htm">http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13D.htm</a><br />
<b>==================== </b></div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-34091018321489003512017-03-20T01:40:00.000-07:002017-03-20T01:40:04.096-07:00EARL DOHERTY : The Mystery Cults and Christianity (3)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
EARL DOHERTY<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span>The Mystery Cults and Christianity</span></b><br />
<b><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">Part Three:</span>
<br /> </span></b><br />
<b><span>A REVIEW OF GUNTER WAGNER'S <br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">PAULINE BAPTISM AND THE PAGAN
MYSTERIES</span> </span></b>
<br />
<br />
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
"Problem"</big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>If there is a "bible" for modern
scholars who champion the disassociation of Christian doctrine from
that of the mysteries, it is Gunter Wagner's <span style="font-style: italic;">Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries</span>,
published in 1963 in German, English translation 1967. It is also a
favorite
on amateur apologetic websites, which quote the book to
support the disproving of any dependence by early Christianity on the
Graeco-Roman mystery cults. Wagner's stated purpose is to solve a
"problem."
This problem centers around Christian baptism as presented in the New
Testament. In the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, baptism is a rite of
conversion following a declaration of faith and acceptance of the
message about Jesus. It confers forgiveness of sins and a reception of
the Holy Spirit. And the recipient will "have part in the
eschatalogical salvation" [p.5]. But then...<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span> If we
now turn to the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, we are
struck by the completely different language that is used. In his own
particular fashion, Holtzmann has expressed astonishment that can be
felt on finding such an "innovation" in the New Testament conception of
baptism. He characterises baptism according to Rom. vi as a mystical
action, by means of which the believer is incorporated into the
Mystical Body of Christ, and he continues:<br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 80px;">
<span> Here,
to eyes accustomed to the simple and clear-cut outlines of the
world-picture drawn by the Old Testament and the Synoptic Gospels, a
sudden glimpse is given of an odd twilight such as up till now we have
only come across in our introductory account of the nature of
contemporary mystery religion.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span> It
seems odd that here Paul connects baptism with the death of Jesus, and
regards it as a dying with Christ and a rising to new life with Him.
Furthermore, the phrase "<span style="font-style: italic;">ē agnoeite</span>"
obviously presupposes that what he has said is not strange to the
Christian community at Rome; hence it might be inferred that to
understand baptism in terms of the mysteries is indigenous to them, and
that Paul sets out from that point. Does not the expression "<span style="font-style: italic;">homoiōma</span>" suggest that baptism is a
ritual re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Christ, and that</span><span>—like the initiate in the mystery religions</span><span>—the baptised believer shares the fate of his Lord? Do not
other baptismal texts (such as Gal. iii. 27 and 1 Cor. xii. 13, xv. 29)
support such an interpretation? But can such an interpretation be
arrived at in so simple a way? Can a view that is not far removed from
the magical be ascribed to Paul? Or does he perhaps shoulder its burden
because it is a remnant of paganism of which he cannot get rid?<br />
Is not his thinking, however, fundamentally
different from all that is thought and practised there in those mystery
cults? Is it to be held that his dependence on the mystery religions
simply consists in his terminology, while the real interpretation of
his views must be obtained from his own theology? Where is the solution
of the problem to be found? [p.5-6]</span></div>
<span> Thus, Wagner's starting point is
incredulity. He cannot accept what seems to lie on the pages of Romans
(and other Pauline epistles), an impression which a host of other
scholars have also gained and over which they have expressed everything
from acceptance to puzzlement to dismay. And thus Wagner embarks on a
determined
enterprise to discredit that impression and reinterpret Paul so that he
says what Wagner and his readers would prefer him to say.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: center;">
<span><big style="font-weight: bold;">-- i --</big><br />
</span></div>
<span><big style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Taking No Prisoners</span></big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>First, however, he devotes the
bulk of the book to an examination of virtually every aspect of the
mysteries of certain savior gods which past scholarship, especially
that of the History of Religions school, have presented as having
similarities to Christian soteriology. Virtually everything is
challenged, denied, discredited. No rebirth of the initiate, no
resurrection of the god, (sometimes no dying, either), no linking of
the fate of the initiate with that of the god, and much else. In the
course of his swathe of destruction, Wagner exhaustively addresses the
opinions of previous generations of scholars who have pronounced on
Paul's vision of baptism and its relation to the mysteries, although
when they support a connection with the mysteries he consistently does
it to disprove or set aside such views. The book is
thus a useful survey of almost a century of scholarly thinking on the
matter prior to the 1960s.<br />
</span><br />
<span> It is not my intention to examine
all of it in detail. But some of it is too informative to pass over,
and I want to give some indication of Wagner's approach and a
sense of what he is up against. Which is not to say that nothing Wagner
says can be trusted; he is a formidable scholar, and I would accept a
lot of what he concludes in regard to the character of the mysteries
and their savior figures. But his bias is not just evident, it is
rampant, and even his admissions are delivered with the greatest
reluctance.<br />
</span><br />
<span> He first examines the range of
particular interpretations of Pauline baptism in Romans 6 in relation
to the mysteries. Here it would be advisable to lay out that passage in
Paul, as well as a few subordinate ones mentioned by Wagner (Romans 6
will be repeated later):<br />
</span><br />
<span>Romans 6:<br />
<sup>2 </sup>...We who died to sin:
how can we still live in it?<br />
<sup>3 </sup>Or don't you know that
all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?<br />
<sup>4 </sup>Therefore we were
buried with him through baptism into death,<br />
in order that as Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father,<br />
so also we might walk in newness
of life.<br />
<sup>5 </sup>For if we have become
united with him in the likeness of his death,<br />
so too shall we be (united with
him) in
(the likeness of) his resurrection.<br />
<sup>6 </sup>For we know that our
old self was crucified with him <br />
so that our body of sin might be
done
away with...<br />
</span><br />
<span>Galatians 3:27:<br />
For all of you who were baptized into
Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.<br />
</span><br />
<span>1 Corinthians 12:13:<br />
For by one Spirit we were all baptized
into one body...a body not made of one part but of many.<br />
</span><br />
<span>1 Corinthians 15:29:<br />
Otherwise, what will they do who are
baptized on behalf of the dead?<br />
If the dead are not raised, why are they
baptized on behalf of them?<br />
</span><br />
<span> Wagner's first survey is of those
scholars who regarded Paul's view of baptism as fully dependent on the
mysteries. With one eye on the foregoing passages from Paul, we can
perhaps sympathize with those scholars, like Gunkel (1903, 1930),
Wendland (1912) and Brandon (1955), who interpreted Romans 6 as
teaching that<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>- the believer is joined
in mystical union with Christ<br />
- the recipient experiences the death of Christ<br />
- he rises to a new life<br />
- he puts on Christ 'as if a garment'<br />
- everlasting life is to be gained by such a sacrament<br />
- what happened to the heavenly person (Christ) happens again to the
believer in the sacrament<br />
</span></div>
<span> Wagner admits that to those
approaching Romans 6 from the Old Testament, from a Jewish direction,
such things "may be incomprehensible and strange" [p.8]. Wendland
expresses the view that Paul, who may have come in contact with
Mithraism in Tarsus, unconsciously and unintentionally "reconstructed
mystery ideas because he was 'steeped in the atmosphere of those
religions'." Wendland equates Paul's baptism with initiation rites in
the mysteries: the cleansing bath in the cults of Mithras and Isis, the
<span style="font-style: italic;">taurobolium</span> of the Cybele cult
which confers rebirth, and a rising with the deity to new life. In his
opinion, an even
'magical' view of Pauline baptism can be seen in the fact that it was
administered "in the name of Christ, that a formula and name was
believed to have power, and that it was supposed that the Spirit was
communicated by the laying on of hands" [p.9]. Other scholars were of
the opinion that Pauline baptism is "a mystico-sacramental action"
(Schneider, 1954), "a ritual re-enactment of the death and resurrection
of Christ in the person of each neophyte," not a memorial or a
prophecy, but a re-creation, a 'tapping into' "the efficacy of events
he believed to be beneficial." As such, Christian baptism was something
in a long line of
thought in religious history, the practice of "ritual perpetuation of
(a sacred event of) the past," usually a primordial one (Brandon, 1955).<br />
</span><br />
<span> This will give us an idea of what
Wagner must contend with. To discredit such views, which seem quite
reasonable in light of the Pauline texts and in the context of the
mysteries, Wagner must do two things: show that the mysteries
themselves did not actually contain such elements, and reinterpret Paul
in a different manner. To avoid having the two trains collide, he will
send them off in opposite directions.<br />
</span><br />
<span> As others have done before him,
Wagner offers as a fundamental difference between Paul and the
mysteries the emphasis in the former on ethics, while it is
"insignificant" in the latter [p.11-12]. There is no denying that Paul
is fixated on sin (one might ask whether such a thing is simply to be
equated with "ethics" rather than neurotic obsession), while the
mysteries, with the exception of Orphism, were rather refreshingly not.
But such a distinction has no effect on the basic issue. I like the
quote [p.12, n.22] from A. Titius (1900), that Paul held a "conception
of the mystical contact of the soul with the heavenly world," for it
places Paul's focus on that non-earthly sphere which his Jesus
inhabited. The relationship between earth and heaven, matter and
spirit, not only fits the philosophical atmosphere Paul moved in, it
aligns itself with the spirit of the mysteries with their ever-present
gods interacting with the devotee, at a time when myths are being
reinterpreted by philosophers as timeless or recurring events, not as
historical happenings in the distant primitive past.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Wagner calls attention to the
views of H. Böhlig (1914): "The Christian and Christ become merged
into one single personality and therefore, as soon as this happens, the
death and resurrection of Jesus must also be communicated to the
believer" [p.15]. Paul never spells out the latter thought, but the
former saturates his thinking. Christ and the believers form one body
('Christ the head, believers the limbs'), as some of the above epistle
passages show. To these witnesses to the idea of the integration of the
believer with Christ, we can add Galatians 3:20, "I have been crucified
with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me"; or Galatians
4:19, "My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth
until Christ is formed in you." For </span><span>Böhlig,
this has definite magical overtones, the baptismal ceremony directly
producing an effect, a transformation of the initiate, and the creation
of a mystical
relationship between god and believer. Thus there is "no longer any
perceptible difference from the mysteries here."<br />
</span><br />
<span> Wagner has a task ahead of him.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ex
Opere Operato</big><br />
</span><span> </span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>There is a curious stance in
modern scholarship in this area which I don't have the theological
smarts to understand. It seems the worst thing one can accuse
Christian baptism of is being a "sacrament" or "mystery" which works "<span style="font-style: italic;">ex opere operato</span>". As I explained
earlier in Part Two, this refers to the concept that
the actual performance of the rite, in this case baptism, created the
effect. I describe the principle this way in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Jesus Puzzle</span>:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Just as today we perceive
natural laws and forces working in nature and the universe, the
ancients perceived spiritual forces operating between the natural world
and the supernatural, between the present, earthly reality and the
primordial past or higher divine reality. For Paul, the rite of baptism
was a sacrament in this sense, something which drew on invisible
spiritual forces operating between past and present, between heaven and
earth. [p.99]<br />
</span></div>
<span> Considering that the Catholic
Church, as I understand it, has no hesitation in calling baptism and
the Eucharist "sacraments" (although just how they perceive the
operating forces I am unclear), perhaps this all relates to a sectarian
distinction between Catholic and Protestant, in which the ancient Roman
Church corrupted apostolic Christianity by "platonizing" it, as
discussed in the previous article. The preferred alternative is that
"Paul's doctrine of baptism was not sacramental, but symbolical and
subjective" since the former is seen as too close to 'magical'
principles.
Kirsopp Lake (1911) is quoted as saying that Paul's conception is based
on "the well-known idea that results could be reached in the unseen
spiritual world by the performance of analogous acts in the visible
material world" [p.17, n.45]. This is a compelling idea, and it
further supports the concept just mentioned, that Christ operates in
the spiritual world with which believers in this one strive to
establish a connection through the participation in sacred rites. A
little later Wagner quotes J. Leipoldt (1908)
who provides a succinct statement of the homologic principle, the idea
of the counterpart parallel between heaven and earth in the workings of
salvation, which is nothing more than an extension of one of the
fundamental ideas of the ancient world, that things in heaven are
mirrored on earth, the prototype and the type. (See <span style="font-style: italic;">The Jesus Puzzle</span>, p.99-100.)<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Those who believe in the
mysteries relive the fortune of the god in their sacraments."...In
these cults the fortune of the god is the prototype of the fortune of
his believers. "As the god dies and rises again from the dead, so does
the devotee who is united to him by sacraments." [p.28]<br />
</span></div>
<span>Within such an outlook, many of the features found
in the epistles of the New Testament assume a coherence which
theologians seem unable to give them in the context of an historical,
Gospel-based Jesus.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Some scholars have chosen to see
Paul as inhabited by a contradiction, a warring combination between the
two worlds, like oil and water. The Pauline water is identified as his
precondition for faith sincerely held, a factor absent in the
mysteries. So too, of course, the ethical emphasis and the love of God,
supposedly much weaker in the cults of the pagan saviors who, it will
be
remembered, did not voluntarily die for humanity. This conflict is
resolved by seeing Paul as one who "did not think magically, (and
whose) doctrine is of infinitely higher worth; it is 'moralised'
mystery doctrine" [p.24, from P. Gardner, 1911). Others, such as Otto
Pfleiderer (1905), see Paul as transforming the baser mystery concepts
by presenting the death of Christ as "the moral act of the
self-sacrifice of holy love" [p.26]. Paul thus used the traditional
mystery forms "to express deeper and more truly Christian thoughts."
But even this will not do, for in the latter 20th century, no mystery
dimension is allowed to sully Pauline Christianity.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Inevitably, there surfaces the
supposed major difference between Christianity and the mysteries, as
put forward
by M. Bruckner (1908). Both "have a common mythological source, while
their reciprocal influence is to be understood as due to their kinship.
On the other hand, it is the historicity of the person of Jesus that
distinguishes Christianity, and prevents Christian thought from getting
lost in the general history of religion" [p.27]. As we know by now,
Paul fails to give us any clear indication that he was aware of such a
distinction.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">When
is a Resurrection Not a Resurrection?</big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>In the central section of the
book, Wagner steers the train of the mysteries out of the station and
into a dismal and barren countryside. Here there is no grass of
rebirth, no trees resurrecting into the sky, no green meadows where
happy devotees romp in unity with the god; no foliage of hope crowns
the
sterile shriveled scrub. Across this desolate landscape, mourning
figures shuffle in celebration of death, vainly seeking the entrance to
a happier afterworld. Savior after savior is relegated to a ghostly
apparition, flitting about the scene uncertainly as if asking, "What am
I doing
here?"<br />
</span><br />
<span> In a brief preliminary survey of
the major savior gods in regard to the 'dying and rising' category,
only Dionysos "is possibly to be counted among the 'dying and rising'
gods, though in this case one can only speak of a 'resurrection' in the
most symbolical sense of the term" [p.66-7]. Close, but no cigar. And
what is the standard to qualify at all for a resurrection? Wagner
quotes
Martin Nilsson (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Dionysiac
Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age</span>, p.130). Referring to
the myths in which Dionysos descends to the Underworld and reascends
with his mother in tow, and in which Dionysos is reborn from Zeus after
being killed by the Titans, Nilsson says:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>This may seem to be the
best example of an idea, dear to scholars who tried to find a common
background of beliefs in the mysteries of the Roman age, that is, that
the death and resurrection of the god was the prototype of the death
and resurrection of man; thus the mystae would be sure of rising again
from death. But this is not so. The adherents of the Bacchic mysteries
did not believe that they would rise up from the dead; they believed
that they would lead a life of eternal bliss and joy in the Other
World." [p.67, n.22]<br />
</span></div>
<span> This, of course, is the classic
objection, constantly reiterated by a generation of scholars and
universally appealed to on apologetic Internet sites devoted to
discrediting any mystery-Christianity connection (and they are legion).
The latter are perhaps to be forgiven for their myopia, but scholars
who have studied the mysteries in detail should not be forgiven for
mounting this colossal straw man and wielding their scythes so
vigorously. Even if Jesus were historical and was believed to have
exited from his tomb in flesh, such a distinction has no effect on the
ultimate fate of the believer, or the basic process by which it is
achieved. Besides, no Christian today imagines he is going to walk out
of his
grave in a resurrected body. His destiny in heaven is exactly
equivalent to the expectation Nilsson allots to the cultic initiates:
"they believed that they would lead a life of eternal bliss and joy in
the Other World." If this could be guaranteed by unity with a god who
had proceeded to the Netherworld after death, to set up the salvation
accommodations, why is one different or superior to the other?
Christians also have a belief
(according to some creedal promises) that the body will be resurrected
at the end of the world, but no Greek or Roman
wanted that to happen; it was the soul that would enjoy the afterlife.
The irony here is that Paul never makes this
kind of distinction himself. It is not a factor in his soteriological
system. He doesn't say, because Jesus rose in flesh, you will too. In
fact, he tells his readers that flesh and blood <span style="font-style: italic;">cannot </span>enter the kingdom of
heaven. And the conception of Christ's resurrection in all of the
epistles is one of ascending immediately to the right hand of God, in
spirit. There
is no sojourn on earth in flesh, let alone any appeal to such a feat as
an essential feature in the death and resurrection parallel as laid out
in Romans 6.<br />
</span><br />
<span> If one assumes this standard
scholarly illusion, Christianity must have possessed an undeniably
distinctive asset in a savior who had risen from an earthly
tomb, to walk the countryside again in a physical body. And he had done
this within living memory, whereas the pagan saviors were a distant
mythical echo. What a huge selling point! What a knockout piece
of superiority! Yet not a single epistle writer brings up such a
difference. Furthermore, whether
Jesus was claimed to have walked out of his tomb (as in the Gospels),
or was resurrected
only in spirit (as in 1 Peter 3:18), no one, Christian
or pagan, ever says that Christians had a monopoly on the very idea of
resurrection. Certainly Celsus did not. Most of the second century
apologists have not a single word to say about resurrection of any kind
for their Son and Logos.
The Pauline concept, as pointed out earlier, surfaces nowhere in the
Christian record in the entire 2nd century. Justin, in defending
Christianity against pagan similarities, does not say, 'But we have the
only god who was resurrected!' This is one reason why we can say
with confidence that the pagan mysteries must have had a 'resurrection'
concept for their gods, even if it wasn't exactly equivalent to that of
Christianity</span><span>—although in the 1st century, before
the Gospels began to circulate, it <span style="font-style: italic;">would</span>
have seemed equivalent. This is a huge red herring, and modern scholars
are to be faulted for not recognizing, or admitting it as such.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Dissecting
and Eviscerating the Cults</big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Wagner spends almost 200 pages
subjecting most of the cults</span><span>—Eleusis,
Osiris-Isis, Tammuz, Marduk, Adonis, Attis</span><span>—to
close examination. He does not address Mithras or Dionysos, Mithras
because he is not a dying and rising god, Dionysos probably because he
is, as Wagner has allowed. He questions and largely rejects all the
past scholarly
interpretations attached to the elements we have been discussing
throughout these articles: baptism, rebirth, death and resurrection,
unity with the god, salvation through parallelism with the god's own
experiences. It is impossible to lay out and respond to all of Wagner's
arguments here; nor can all of them be refuted, especially as posed.
Diversity <span style="font-style: italic;">did</span> exist,
differences <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> clearly
evident between the cults and Christianity,
some of them significant and pointing up the gap in cultural background
and the innovation which Christianity, especially Paul, brought to the
new faith. Many of the arguments Wagner presents against this or that
savior god have been dealt with earlier in other contexts. What I will
do is focus on three particular areas, especially where he addresses
ground not previously covered here, and then go on to the more
important issue of how he interprets Pauline baptism itself.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Baptism at Eleusis</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>In examining Eleusinian baptism,
Wagners appeals to two arguments which are common throughout. The first
one goes like this:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Notwithstanding the
attempts that have been made to prove that Eleusinian baptism signified
rebirth, or to envisage it as a bridal-bath, a death-mystery, or an
image of the resurrection, such possible interpretations cannot be
grounded on the attestations that have come down to us.<br />
</span></div>
<span>This, if course, is the argument from silence, but
there is a difference here from the appeal made to it as part of the
mythicist case, such as by myself. In the latter we have an organized
collection of literary documents numbering over 100,000 words in the
early record of non-Gospel Christianity, inside and outside the New
Testament. When something critical (such as a life of Jesus) is missing
from a record like that, we are justified in taking notice and drawing
certain conclusions. When the record in the other case is
fragmentary, without coordination, on subjects which are largely
forbidden to be expounded, less secure interpretations are inevitable.
But one is hardly permitted to simply dismiss them as worthless on the
basis of a lack of clear evidence; and too often the evidence that <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> available for interpretation is
not permitted to speak to us in positive ways. Wagner notes that there
is
only one surviving illustration of Eleusinian baptism, on a
dedicatory relief from the 5th century BCE. Here is how he dismisses
any dramatic inferences (like the ones mentioned in the above quote)
from its more arresting features:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The portrayal is
doubtless ideal. The sprinkling form is probably chosen for artistic
motives. From the fact that this is done not by the priest but by the
goddess, one can scarcely venture to draw an inference about the value
attached to baptism in the mysteries. </span><span>[p.71,
n.13]</span></div>
<span>The fact that the initiate is
being baptized by the goddess herself rather than by the priest fails
to impress Wagner or lead him to think that such an honor might suggest
a view of this rite which is greater than he is allowing it to be
given. [I am unaware of any early Christian representations of Christ
himself performing baptism on the convert.] <br />
</span><br />
<span> Wagner's analyses are full of
such terms as
"probably," "not likely," "appears untenable," "does not convince."
Others' views are often "an over-interpretation." Through filters like
these it is going to be very difficult to get any sense that the
mysteries stood for anything that might encroach on Christian
prerogatives.<br />
</span><br />
<span> The second commonly-used argument
is even more insidious. Some of the interpretations of Eleusinian
baptism which Wagner is eager to discredit rely on evidence contained
in Tertullian, in his <span style="font-style: italic;">De baptismo</span>.
But this is not to be taken at face value.<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Since there is no
evidence anywhere that the "fundamental significance" of the mysteries
is that the neophyte is adopted by Demeter, becomes her child, and so
attains to everlasting life, what Tertullian says in <span style="font-style: italic;">De baptismo 5</span> could simply be
evidence that Eleusinian baptism is associated with the idea of
adoption. But in Tertullian <span style="font-style: italic;">Pelusiis</span>
is to be read instead of <span style="font-style: italic;">Eleusiniis</span>,
and in speaking of <span style="font-style: italic;">regeneratio</span>
the Church Father is putting a Christian construction upon the pagan
festivals that he mentions.<br />
</span></div>
<span>It would seem that neither the primary, nor the
secondary evidence from the ancient world is to be accepted as anything
but misleading. (In another spot [p.82], Wagner says that "the text
from Hippolytus must be set aside.") Even Christians contemporary with
the practice of the mysteries misunderstood them and were guilty of
'reading into' them the understandings of their own practice. What a
methodology! Did Wagner not consider that the latter in itself might
indicate that they were able to do so because the two did in fact bear
such close resemblance? This, incidentally, is what Tertullian has to
say:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>[T]he nations, who are
strangers to all understanding of spiritual powers, ascribe to their
idols the imbuing of waters with the selfsame efficacy....For washing
is the channel through which they are initiated into some sacred
rites....at all events, at the Apollinarian and Eleusinian games they
are baptized; and they presume that the effect of their doing that is
their regeneration and the remission of the penalties due to their
perjuries. [<span style="font-style: italic;">On Baptism</span>, ch. 5;
ANF, vol.3, p.669]<br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span>Quite a lot to get
wholly wrong, I would say.<br />
<br />
Even if all the interpretations of Eleusinian
baptism cannot be clearly supported, even if it was basically a rite
"of a prepartory nature" to the main mystery ceremonies, Wagner has not
come close to banishing the elements of "regeneration and remission" of
sins which more adventurous scholars have read into the entire process.
As I've said earlier, baptism in Christianity was a self-standing rite,
complete in itself. Mysteries such as those of Eleusis and Attis
comprised a complex of components, only one of which was the baptismal
experience, and often it is difficult to know where to attach a given
effect. Factors like these may illustrate differences between the two
expressions, but they do not eliminate certain commonalities in overall
result or understanding.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Firmicus Maternus and Osirian
Resurrection</span><br />
<br />
Wagner questions the spread of the Isis-Osiris cult
in the 1st century, and the degree of influence it could have had on
early Hellenistic Christian communities and figures like Paul. In the
west, Isis worship tended to be accompanied by that of Serapis, the
artificial god (an oxymoron?) who supplanted Osiris. Yet Plutarch in
the late 1st century witnesses to the vigor of Osiris traditions in the
Roman world at that time. Paul lived and worked in the Levant, which is
next door to Egypt, so Wagner cannot rule out the presence of such
Osirian influences. Moreover, "mysteries centered on Osiris did exist
in the West" [p.96], which we know from Apuleius in the mid 2nd
century. Wagner deals with the much-examined comments of Firmicus
Maternus in the mid 4th century. Where others apply them to the rites
of Attis, Wagner represents another group who identify them with those
of Osiris, perhaps correctly.<br />
<br />
In <span style="font-style: italic;">De errore
profanarum religionum</span> [22, 1], Firmicus says:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>...On a certain night
the effigy of the god is laid on its back on a bier and is lamented
with cries of woe and threnodies. Then, when they have had enough of
their imaginary grief, a light is brought in. Then the throats of all
who have been mourning are anointed by the priest, and when they are
anointed, the priest whispers in a slow, murmuring voice: "Take heart, <span style="font-style: italic;">mystai</span>, the god has been saved, and
for us also shall there be salvation from troubles." [p.96, translation
by Ziegler]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Wagner feels he must discredit the usual
interpretation of the final sentence, the pronouncement of the priest.
Not even in the mid 4th century can it be allowed that the pagan gods
were regarded as resurrected or that their devotees should themselves
be saved as a conjoined consequence of the god's salvation. He calls
attention to the second following paragraph [3], and admits in regard
to its final sentence that "in point of fact there does happen to be a
sentence in Firmicus that could refer to a death and resuscitation
mystery: <span style="font-style: italic;">Sic moriaris ut moritur,
sic vivas ut vivit</span>." <br />
<br />
That paragraph reads (in the translation by Clarence
A. Forbes, <span style="font-style: italic;">Firmicus Maternus: The
Error of the Pagan Religions</span>, 1970, p.93-4):<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>You bury an idol, you
lament an idol, you bring forth from its sepulture an idol, and having
done this, unfortunate wretch, you rejoice. You rescue your god, you
put together the stony limbs that lie there, you set in position an
insensible stone. Your god should thank you, should repay you with
equivalent gifts, should be willing to make you his partner. So you
should die as he dies, and you should live as he lives [<span style="font-style: italic;">Sic moriaris ut moritur, sic vivas ut vivit</span>]!"</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
In regard to that final sentence, Wagner says:
"Yet it is quite 'uncertain whether these words express Firmicus's own
reflections or whether he is alluding to the actual beliefs of the <span style="font-style: italic;">mystai</span>'." (Here he is quoting
Martin Nilsson.) In other words, both are suggesting that from "Your
god should thank you..." the thought is a taunt from Firmicus, not
actually reflective of the beliefs of those engaged in the ritual. A
taunt it certainly is, and the entire text of Firmicus, when speaking
of pagan beliefs, drips with scorn. But how sensible is Wagner's
contention? The previous portion of the text speaks of a burial and
lament, followed by the bringing forth of the idol from its tomb,
reassembly its parts (an indication that the myth of Osiris is probably
in view here), and this is accompanied by rejoicing. Firmicus calls the
assembled idol "insensible stone," but this does not mean it did not
symbolize Osiris' resuscitation; Firmicus is simply denying that
symbolism any true reality. Familiarity with the myth of Osiris would
indicate that for the devotees this represents the rescue and
reassembly of Osiris by Isis, with a consequent benefit for them. All
the features
that Firmicus then enumerates reflect "the actual beliefs of the <span style="font-style: italic;">mystai</span>," but Firmicus is doing so
in his own sneering fashion. If none of these ideas actually existed in
the cult, why would Firmicus raise them? Rather, it's like throwing a
taunt at
a suicide bomber: "Then go to your Paradise with its 72 virgins!" Nor
is Firmicus likely to be carrying over belief motifs from his own
religion and applying them in this context to a cult which knew nothing
of them. He is scorning their expectations that these supposed
consequences are guaranteed from</span><span>—as he presents
it</span><span>—putting together a pile of stones.<br />
<br />
(Forbes appends a note to this paragraph: "Though
Firmicus speaks contemptuously, he actually condenses in this short
sentence the essential doctrine of the mystery religions: that the
mystae by initiation and ritual acts gained a share in the divine life
and a guarantee of immortality." He has apparently not read Wagner.)<br />
<br />
Thus, contrary to what Wagner wants to suggest, this
passage is a very good indication that the cult of Osiris in Firmicus'
day contained the ideas of unity with the god, and parallel experiences
between man and god. It also sounds as though Firmicus has similar
concepts in his own faith, but the taunt involves ridicule of the idea
that such hopes as Christians legitimately enjoy should be entertained
by those who worship a god of stone. Such an interpretation is
supported by the tactic Firmicus adopts throughout this whole section,
comparing similar things in both religions and making a contrast in
their quality and worth. The ointment referred to in verse 1 is in
verse 4 ridiculed as "folly," an ointment for the dead, anointing the
Osiris initiates into alliance with the devil; whereas the ointment of
Christian rites is "a different thing...which God the Father gave over
to His only Son," of "an immortal composition and...of spiritual
ingredients" (even though both were no doubt obtained at the same
market).<br />
<br />
The same tactic is employed in the preceding verse 2
following on the priestly pronouncement of the cultic mystery, and this
too supports the contention that Firmicus is comparing the quality and
relative worth of two 'resurrection' traditions; not a Christianity
with one and a rival without. Here, Wagner attempts another spin on
things which is as weak as his previous one. He suggests that in the
description of the Osiris rite, if the priest's pronouncement were
referring to a resurrection of the god, "we would expect it to be
followed by a 'discussion of death and resurrection'." What sort of
discussion? Hardly one that would imply some respect given to the cult.
In fact, Firmicus does discuss death and resurrection, but, true to
form, it is to heap contempt on the Osiris faith and contrast it with
Christian faith in the resurrection of Christ. Here is that verse 2:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Why do you exhort
unfortunate wretches to rejoice? Why do you drive deluded dupes to
exult? What hope, what salvation do you promise them, convincing them
to their own ruination? Why do you woo them with a false promise? The
death of your god is known, but his life is not apparent, nor has a
divine prophecy ever issued a statement about his resurrection, nor has
he manifested himself to men after his death to cause himself to be
believed. He provided no advance tokens of this action, nor did he show
by prefiguring symbolic acts that he would do this.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Here again the assumption must be, as earlier, that
the Osiris cult had a belief in their god's resurrection, just as the
Christians did for theirs. It is the relative basis for those beliefs
that is being contrasted. Wagner overstates the case when he quotes
Nilsson, that "Firmicus, however, dismisses this thought very curtly,
declaring that the god is dead, not risen like Christ." Well, that is
precisely what Firmicus does <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span>
say. It can hardly be contained in the "The death of your god is known,
but his life is not apparent." This is not strong enough to encompass
the thought that the Osiris cult had no conception of a resurrection;
he means simply that it was not justified. Firmicus could simply have
said, "We have a god who was resurrected, you don't." "His life (i.e.,
his resurrection) is not apparent," means that it has not been
witnessed, or well-recorded</span><span>—which he goes on to
contrast with the 'well-recorded' resurrection of Christ. Firmicus
would hardly trouble to outline the 'proofs' of Christ's resurrection
if it was not to illustrate that the justification for believing in a
resurrection of Osiris could not equal the Christian justification.
Such an exercise would be meaningless if in fact the Osiris cult did
not claim resurrection for their god. Of course, the 'proof' on the
Christian side was entirely dependent on the historical veracity of the
Gospels and the view of Jewish scripture as a divine prophecy of Jesus.<br />
<br />
Wagner is further mired in his failure to logically
think things through when he goes on to say [p.97]: "On this account
Nilsson justly says that either the Christian writer had not fully
grasped the idea 'that the resurrection of the god is a pattern for the
resurrection of his worshippers, or else we ourselves read it into what
he tells us'." Without Nilsson's context in which this remark is made,
its meaning is somewhat uncertain. But it seems to imply that Nilsson
has
read the text as suggesting an imperfect understanding on Firmicus'
part of the parallel-pattern principle, if we are not seeing the latter
because of our own disposition. But I think that this is indeed
Firmicus' implication, that he ridicules the Osiris cult in terms of
their apparent belief in that very thing, that their salvation is in
parallel with the perceived salvation of the god. Nor can I see any
indication that Firmicus has "not fully grasped the idea." After
quoting the priest's pronouncement (god saved</span>—<span>we
shall be saved), he condemns the priest for exhorting them to rejoice.
"Why woo them with a false promise?" That promise has to be personal
resurrection and not simply earthly "troubles," which is what Wagner
claims it is limited to [p.98]. The latter would be too mundane, hardly
sufficient fodder for Firmicus' vigorous condemnation. Besides, the
entire verse 2 is about the contrast between the unreliability of
Osiris' promise based on inadequate proof of his resurrection, and the
reliability of the Christian promise based on sure proof of Christ's
resurrection. The latter promises are not likely to be simply a
reference to Christians being saved from their earthly "troubles"
(something Christianity did not lay any emphasis on), but are to
salvation
from death, based on Christ's resurrection. If that thought is on one
side of the debated equation, it has to be on the other side. Once
again, logic compels us to conclude that the Osiris initiates expected
salvation <span style="font-style: italic;">from death</span> and it
was based on the idea of Osiris' salvation from death. As for the word
itself in Firmicus, it is <span style="font-style: italic;">ponos</span>
in the plural (pains, travails, miseries): "there will be salvation for
us from our <span style="font-style: italic;">ponōn</span>," such as
we might say that "God will rescue us from the pains of this world,"
implying salvation to the next. The word <span style="font-style: italic;">ponos</span> could be being used (rather
than simply from "death") because it also encompassed the idea of a
better lot <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> death,
which <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> an emphasis in the
mysteries.</span><br />
<span><br />
That "promise" of salvation (in this world and the
next) could only be rooted in the god's own resurrection; this Firmicus
plainly understands. And where did he get this understanding? Where
else but from his own faith system? Both Wagner and Nilsson seem to be
trying to exclude such a principle from Christian thought, which
contradicts their earlier preference for denying such a thing to the
Osiris cult, preferring instead that the sentence, "So you should die
as he does, and you should live as he lives," are "words (that) express
Firmicus' own reflection." They can't have it both ways.<br />
<br />
Nor should we take refuge in presuming that perhaps
Firmicus has completely misunderstood the cult he has quoted from. By
now (mid 4th century), the mysteries and ascendant Christianity were
locked in mortal combat, as evidenced by documents like this one.
Scholars suggest that mutual copying was going on, especially by the
mysteries. Condemnation by Christian writers of minute details in the
cults and pagan theology in general was widespread, and had been for a
couple of centuries. There is no reason to think that Firmicus got
things that wrong.<br />
<br />
As a last resort, Wagner falls back on the timeworn
recourse just alluded to. If we are forced to believe that the pagan
cults like that of Osiris <span style="font-style: italic;">did</span>
possess a dying and resurrecting god, whose actions <span style="font-style: italic;">did</span> guarantee a parallel experience
of resurrection for the devotee, well,<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>In Firmicus a
fourth-century writer is speaking to us, and so an author who wrote in
an age when the pagan cults had long been forced back on the
defensive, and in order to compete with the now fashionable
Christianity had appropriated some of its doctrines. [p.98]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
In contrast to this, Wagner says, 1st century mystery thought around
Osiris regarded him as only "the god of the dead," and thus we are back
to the old red herring that being 'god of the dead' was no proper form
of resurrection for a god, and no good status for a human. Somehow, one
supposes, Paul's "Thus we shall always be with the Lord (in the kingdom
of heaven)" (1 Thess. 4:17) is of a different and superior nature than
the Osiris believers joining Osiris in <span style="font-style: italic;">their</span> afterworld.<br />
<br />
We are also brought full circle back to Paul's view
of baptism as a parallel-experience relationship between Christ and the
Christian saved. If that's what the Osiris cult "appropriated" from
Christian doctrine, this is an admission that such a thing existed in
the Christian repertoire, and what is to prevent us from seeing this as
going back to Paul? Of course, Wagner will be denying any such
attribution later in the book, as he has all along. When one deals with
evidence from preconceived and dogmatic positions, conflict and
contradiction is inevitable.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The Resurrection of Adonis</span><br />
<br />
Wagner's study of Phoenician Adonis is quite thorough. More a
demigod than a full deity in his own right, Adonis was for a long time
subordinate to a female deity (Aphrodite/Venus), like Attis to Cybele.
But Adonis never reached Attis' exalted status. The cult,
such as it was, was chiefly observed by women, and little case can be
made that Paul would have been influenced by it, if he even came in
contact with it. Wagner is willing to allow that Adonis began as a
vegetation god, but one representing the birth of foliage in the spring
followed by a death in the heat of summer. Elements of his myth suggest
this, such as death by a boar, "the animal peculiar to the god of the
summer heat." The common motif of a portion of the year spent in the
underworld and the rest in the upper world is present in standard
versions of the myth, but in the pre-Christian era there seems to be no
suggestion whatever, either in myth, cult or other records, of anything
pertaining to a resurrection in any sense.<br />
<br />
That changed in the second century CE. Wagner admits
that "a sort of 'resurrection' is suggested" in Lucian (<span style="font-style: italic;">De dea Syria</span>, 6). The first trace
in the annual Adonis festival of a rejoicing over the god's return from
death is found about 150 CE. Prior to that it had apparently been a
cult of mourning, difficult to see as designed to confer any mystical
benefit on the participant. There is a certain 'cyclical' element to
the festival, in that it began by celebrating the return of Adonis to
the upper world and his marriage to Aphrodite, but this preceded the
mourning for his death which followed immediately afterwards, and the
bulk of the festival is devoted to the mourning. Wagner will not allow
any thought of 'resurrection' to be read into things, and it does seem
that it is certainly underplayed, not to mention being in the 'wrong'
order. Yet there is this quote from Theocritus who puts these words
into the mouth of a celebrant at the end of the festival:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Look on us with favour
next year too, dear Adonis. Happy has thy coming found us now, Adonis,
and when thou comest again, dear will be thy return. [p.197, n.128]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Agreed, this is not resurrection, but neither is it finality of death.
And while it is difficult to get inside the minds of the participants
of these ancient cults and to understand what they were commemorating
and what they derived psychologically from them, we still must believe
that no society ever creates a cult, preserves it for centuries and
invests the lives of thousands in it, unless there is some positive
element involved, some embodied hope beyond a mere cathartic indulgence
in
a morbid fixation on death.<br />
<br />
But this is not the crux of the matter for our
purposes here. Wagner acknowledges that "after the beginning of the
second half of the 2nd century of the Christian era we hear about the
'resurrection' of Adonis being celebrated in connection with the annual
mourning festival" [p.198]. Further, "a festival of the resurrection of
Adonis is also known to a few of the Church Fathers," namely Origen
(first half of the 3rd century), Jerome and Cyril. In these writers,
the sequence of the festival is a reversal of what was found earlier,
yearly return of Adonis followed by his death. Now it is death of the
god followed by his resurrection. Wagner searches for an explanation of
this apparently new appearance of "the resurrection of Adonis as part
of the mourning festival," and comes up with this:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>[T]his gives reason for
serious consideration of the possibility of a new development in the
Adonis cult under the influence of syncretism, and perhaps also as a
result of its struggle to compete with Christianity. [p.199]<br />
</span></div>
<span><br />
Thus the specter of reverse borrowing rears its
head. But there are problems with this floated idea that Wagner does
not address. First of all, he explores the idea that "there is much to
support the view that the introduction of a celebration of Adonis'
resurrection is to be attributed to the influence of the Osiris cult"
[p.200]. I need not go into his detail on that here, but this would
certainly be the prime and preferred candidate for influence on a new
Adonis resurrection over that of any Christian influence. Wagner's
detail relates to features of the Osiris cult, while he has no detail
to spotlight in Christianity other than the concept of Christ's
resurrection. But the major anomaly is the idea in his quote above,
that the Adonis cult would be struggling to compete with Christianity.
The new Christian religion, throughout the 2nd century, was a despised
faith, widely persecuted, and we have no evidence that there were huge
numbers of Christians in the empire with whom any of the cults had to
'compete'. (The one thing often appealed to, Pliny's reference in his
letter to Trajan to deserted temples and unpurchased sacrificial
animals supposedly on account of Christian conversions, is too
ludicrous to accept as accurate or genuine; and it is not even clear
from Pliny's language that the falling off was due to Christianity,
especially since the new reversal of that situation is not said to be,
nor likely to be, because of the persecution.) If syncretism was taking
place, it is far more reasonable that it was happening among the
mystery cults themselves. If Adonis, a relatively minor cult throughout
the empire, was adopting a resurrection motif from other cults, that
concept obviously existed in them prior to the mid 2nd century, perhaps
at least as early as the 1st century if we can judge by some of the
artifacts unearthed at that time and earlier in regard to Attis. Such
earlier dates would even more securely rule out Christianity as being
the example 'copied' from. It simply wouldn't have exercised that kind
of pressure on the pagan cultic organizations. Even in the latter 2nd
century, whole apologies by major Christian writers (Tatian,
Theophilus, Athenagoras, Minucius Felix) do not speak of a resurrection
of their Logos/Son in presenting a picture of the faith. If even
Christian writers failed to take notice of such a thing, why should
long-established pagan cults? And as I pointed out earlier, no one,
Christian or pagan, refers to a situation in which Christianity alone,
even in the 1st century, possessed the unique concept of a resurrection
of its god. Celsus has nothing but distaste and condemnation for this
young upstart which has borrowed everything from its hallowed
predecessors. Could such an outlook lead to blatantly stealing its most
prominent feature for the mysteries when they supposedly never
possessed it before?<br />
</span><span><br />
Moreover, Wagner's own presentation of the earlier
phases of the Adonis cult shows that it contained at least the
potential for a resurrection element, and that is even more true for
other cults, especially of Osiris. We may not recognize</span><span>—or be willing to admit</span><span>—this latency,
but it is inherent in the myths and it is expressed in the many
witnesses to the expectation of a happy afterlife by devotees of the
cults. For example, Martin Nilsson <span style="font-style: italic;">[op
cit</span>, p.130], reminding us of "the ever increasing concern of the
age with the afterlife," mentions an inscription on a gravestone in
Roman times: <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>"While we, overcome by
our loss, are in misery, you in peace and once more restored live in
the Elysian fields."</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
</span><span>If this is connected to the Dionysos cult, one
has to ask by what process such a happy fate was assured if not through
some kind of linkage with the god's own fate. If ancient Egyptians
could look to an afterlife by undergoing the same ritual processes as
had Osiris, which gave <span style="font-style: italic;">him</span>
the desired afterlife, then the god had undergone his own
'resurrection'. Cicero, as quoted earlier, wrote: "We have learned from
(the Eleusinian rites) the beginnings of life, and have gained the
power not only to live happily, but also to die with better hopes" [<span style="font-style: italic;">De legibus</span>, II, 14, 36]. The
Homeric Hymn speaks of the <span style="font-style: italic;">epopteia</span>
rite at Eleusis and its climactic vision: "Happy is he who has seen
it!" The hymn "directly relat[es] the vision to the assurance of a
favored lot in the other world" [Walter Otto, "The Meaning of the
Eleusinian Mysteries," in <span style="font-style: italic;">Papers
from the Eranos Yearbooks</span>, p.23].<br />
<br />
Walter Burkert admits that evidence for "the promise
of a privileged life beyond the grave for those who have 'seen' the
mysteries...ranges from the earliest text, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn to Demeter</span>, down to the last
rhetorical exercises of the Imperial period" [<span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Mystery Cults</span>, p.21]. The
same, he says, "is true for the Dionysiac mysteries from at least the
5th century BC onward. Scholars have been reluctant to acknowledge this
dimension of Dionysiac worship, on the assumption that concern about
the afterlife should be seen to have developed in later epochs; but the
clearest evidence is concentrated right in the classical period." On
what in the mysteries could this almost universally witnessed
conviction of an assured happy afterlife have been founded if not a
linkage with the god? What purpose do the myths serve if not as a
perceived indication, a perceived basis, for that linkage? Scholars
have been anything but forthcoming, let alone convincing, with their
alternative explanations. Usually they present 'uncertainty' for our
consideration, founded on the lack, or ambiguity, of such motifs, the
sheer frustrating murkiness of clear meaning in the record. Burkert's
subsequent comment is typical:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>It is tempting to
assume that the central idea of all initiations should be death and
resurrection, so that extinction and salvation are anticipated in the
ritual, and real death becomes a repetition of secondary importance;
but the pagan evidence for resurrection symbolism is uncompelling at
best. [p.23]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Heaven forbid that we should give into temptation. Indeed, Wagner
conveys nothing so much as an obsession with avoiding at all costs the
'sin' of connecting the ideas of the pagan cults with the purity of
Christian faith, especially as found in Paul</span><span>—or
rather, an obsession with doing the reverse, effected through his
dubious methodological technique: finding Christian ideas copied by the
pagan cults. Burkert's observation, if taken at face value, certainly
raises a conundrum. But is the evidence being downplayed? Is it
"uncompelling" because that is the way Christian scholars want to see
it? Have they placed the bar so high that it becomes quite <span style="font-style: italic;">impossible</span> to see it? Or is it
because the difference between the bountiful record left by early
Christianity and the meagre, deliberately obscure information on the
pagan cults is vast? Should not a degree of dispassionate logic be
brought to our evaluation of the mysteries, what they promised to their
followers and through what spiritual processes those ends were
achieved? <br />
<br />
The monumental irony in all of this frustrating
pursuit is that if there were not such a dread on the part of
scholarship to link Christianity with the mysteries, such a driving
need for denial (no one demonstrates this more than Wagner),
Christianity itself would present an indicator, a window to cast light
on the workings of the cults that lie in so much greater obscurity. If
we were not blinded by the requirement of special privilege for
Christianity, we could see that the 'new' religion was being joined by
the same men and women, the same mentality as those who joined the
mystery cults, inhabiting the same world, possessing the same responses
and outlooks. Recognizable and inevitable differences would not be
seized on to cut the cords entirely, but would be usable as
methodological tools to help postulate what forms and expressions
certain elements might have assumed in Graeco-Roman culture. The
process of insight might also work the other way: what we can glean
from the cults would also help interpret exactly what writers like Paul
are getting at, how they have formulated their own soteriological
philosophies. But, of course, that would only work in the context of
dispassionately conducted historical investigation. What happens in the
vast bulk of modern New Testament research is passionately something
quite different.<br />
<br />
I will leave off any further discussion of Wagner's
treatment of the mysteries and proceed to the long-delayed core of his
concern: Pauline baptism, as reflected in Romans 6. One part of his
groundwork has been laid, the discrediting of the mysteries as
containing anything that could be related to Christian soteriology.
That train has left the station for parts distant and unknown. Now the
Pauline train, made up entirely of first-class coaches, must be driven
in the opposite direction, toward lands sacred and familiar.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span><big style="font-weight: bold;">-- ii --</big></span></div>
<span><br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Nature of
Pauline Baptism</big><br />
<br />
Wagner's opening argument relies on a careful
examination of the implications behind the language and tone of Romans
6:1-11. It revolves around the question of what Paul is assuming the
people he is writing to already understand about Christian baptism
(specifically his). This is crucial to the further question of where
they have gotten this existing understanding. Keep in mind that Paul
has never been to Rome, so he has not previously been responsible for
giving them whatever understanding they already have. Do they possess
this because it is closely related to a widespread salvation philosophy
as found in the mysteries, that the initiate into rites like baptism
enters into unity with the god and undergoes counterpart experiences?
Is Paul simply building on this 'universal' understanding? Keep in
mind, too, that although the question is debated, the people he is
writing to in Rome (presumably in the 50s, only about a decade after
Claudius' expulsion of all Jews from the city) are liable to be
chiefly, if not entirely, gentiles. (He, after all, considers himself
an apostle to the gentiles, and he also speaks of the Jews and Israel
in chapter 9 as though they are other than those he is speaking to.)
This further suggests that his audience would be familiar with
Graeco-Roman mystery cult theory.<br />
<br />
Wagner, then, has to analyze this passage in such as
way as to minimize any understanding, including on Paul's part, that
his audience was a party already to the ideas he is expounding.To
consider Wagner's argument, we need to lay out the passage, and I have
italicized certain lines for reasons that will become clear. Note first
of all that the principal if not sole object of this passage is not to
teach about baptism, but to use an understanding of baptism, its
inbuilt principle of being united with Christ and undergoing parallel
mystical experiences with him (as I would read it), in order to make
the
point that Paul wishes to make <span style="font-style: italic;">about
sin</span>: namely, that the believer has "died to" it and is now
embarked on
and capable of living a new life without sin, which he urges his
audience to do.<br />
<br />
</span><span><sup><small>
2</small> </sup>...<span style="font-style: italic;">We
who died to sin:
how can we still live in it?</span></span><br />
<span> <sup><small>3</small>
</sup>Or do you not know [are you ignorant] that
all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus <br />
were baptized into his
death?<br />
<sup><small>4 <big>a</big></small> </sup>Therefore
[<span style="font-style: italic;">oun</span>] we were
buried with him through baptism into death,<br />
</span><sup>b </sup><span><span style="font-style: italic;">in order that</span> as
Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father,<br />
<sup>c </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">so we too might walk in newness of life</span>.<br />
<sup><small>5</small> </sup>(For) if
we have become
united with him in the likeness of his death,<br />
so too shall we be (united
with him) in
(the likeness of) his resurrection.<br />
<sup><small>6</small> </sup>This we
know [knowing this], that our
old self was crucified with him,<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">so that our body of sin might be done
away with,</span><br style="font-style: italic;" />
<span style="font-style: italic;">
that we should no longer be slaves to sin,</span><br />
<sup><small>7</small> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">because he who has died</span> [i.e., in
the way represented by baptism] <span style="font-style: italic;">has
been freed from sin.</span><br />
<br />
Wagner focuses on the "do you not know" of verse 3.
What is its implication? Is Paul implying that they <span style="font-style: italic;">do not</span> know, therefore he is
telling them? Wagner wants to get as close to this as possible, even if
he does not assume that they would be entirely ignorant. The tone does
not allow for that, and besides, the passage is not one of teaching
such basics from scratch; they are brought in by Paul as a tool to make
his point about abandoning sin. Wagner settles on Leitzmann's
"courteous instruction": "actually you do not know this but you really
ought to have known it." Paul shows, says Wagner, a "mild
displeasure...that his correspondents have simply not grasped what
their baptism involved" [p.278]. <br />
<br />
But if Paul had never been to Rome,
how could he have felt they "ought to have known" the proper
understanding based on other missionaries' preaching </span><span>(which is Wagner's way of interpreting the matter)</span><span>? Let's consider that for a moment. Paul has said he did not
get his gospel from any man but through revelation (Gal. 1:11-12);
though we might question exactly how this Romans passage is to be
equated with his "gospel," still, we should wonder at his trust in
other "apostles of the Christ" to teach the sophisticated baptismal
theory he is advancing here</span><span>—e</span><span>specially in light of 2 Corinthians 10-12 where he is
largely castigating other apostles who "preach another Jesus,"
especially in light of 1 Corinthians 1 where he is condemning rival
apostles (like Apollos?) who frequent places further west, like
Corinth, and seem not to possess even a basic theology of the cross
("Christ crucified"). Despite 1 Corinthians 15:11, Paul's general
remark that "we all preach the same thing," is any scholar prepared to
suggest that the Jerusalem apostles like Peter could have taught the
Romans (did they even get that far by the 50s?) the highly
sophisticated mystical doctrine of Romans 6, or that Paul would assume
they had? Paul, in fact, is traditionally regarded as the one who
turned the simple Jesus into a Hellenistic transcendent entity; there
are those who even suggest that the Jerusalem group did not regard
Jesus as divine! On all these counts, it makes no sense for Paul to
assume that, in the absence of any preaching from him, the Romans had
sufficient understanding of this mystical significance to baptism that
he could use it as a springboard to make his point about sin. And yet,
that is the overriding tone of the passage.<br />
<br />
I suggest that this would be possible only if such
an understanding was part of <span style="font-style: italic;">the
language of the time</span>, on which Paul could build his particular
emphasis, the consequences for sin. (This, of course, was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> the emphasis of the mysteries</span><span>—though they were not entirely without it</span><span>—but was the fixation of certain early Christian preachers
like Paul.) We therefore need to separate out, in this passage as well
as others, the understanding that is based on the simple
parallelism/likeness principle relating to death and resurrection which
is arguably derived from the extra-Christian milieu of mystery cult
understanding, and the overlay Paul has placed on it in regard to the
consequences for living a new sin-free life. It is the latter that is
essentially Paul's product, and which he is "teaching" to the Romans,
not the homologic theory on which he is basing it. Those two layers in
the text have been marked out by using italics to represent Paul's
overlay in regard to sin.<br />
<br />
(In passing, I might point out the tradition in
regard to Rome's conversion to the Christ faith mentioned by
"Ambrosiaster" a few centuries later. This 4th century churchman
remarked in his commentary on the epistle to the Romans that "One ought
not to condemn the Romans, but to praise their faith; because without
seeing any signs or miracles and without seeing any of the apostles,
they nevertheless accepted faith in Christ, although according to a
Jewish rite." If this tradition has any basis, it indicates that Christ
belief in Rome arose independently of any proselytizing movement from
outside. This would remove any question of Paul trusting in others to
have conveyed a 'proper' teaching about baptism (which would have to
have coincided with his own), and would support a picture of an early
Christian movement not based on an historical figure or single point of
origin, but one that arose through a widespread philosophical and
theological speculation reflective of trends of the time.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">"Do you not know?"</span><br />
<br />
So let's reconsider Wagner's reading of "do you not
know" in verse 3: "do you not know that all of us who were baptized in
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" Paul is chiding them, to
give us a reading that could be illustrated by this analogy:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>"Do you think you can
go to a party and consume a dozen drinks and then drive home? <span style="font-style: italic;">Do you not know</span> that this would put
you over the legal limit and you could be charged with DUI? Don't drink
and drive!"</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Here the listener knows very well that driving over the legal limit of
alcohol can lead to an arrest. It's part of the community's knowledge
which everyone should be aware of. The speaker uses that assumed
knowledge, which he reminds his listener of, to make his point about
not drinking and driving. The "do you not know," especially given the
presence of the "not," implies: "You are acting as though you don't
know, but I expect that you really do." The presence of the negative in
a phrase like this almost always implies an expectation of the
positive: "Don't you know I love you?" Or, "Wouldn't you know!" where
the understood meaning is that we <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span>
know.<br />
</span><span><br />
Ironically, Wagner appeals to a subsequent passage
which in fact supports my interpretation rather than his. Chapter 7:1-4
also begins with "do you not know," and here we can see the two layers
of thought, the appeal to what is known and the consequent principle to
be derived from it. Paul, in fact, spells out in this case that the
'what is known' <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> known by
his audience.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Do you not know brothers</span><span>—for I am speaking to men who know the law</span><span>—that the law has authority over a man only for such time as
he lives?</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Then he proceeds to give an example which actually does not fit the
point he is making. He says that a woman is bound to her husband only
as long as <span style="font-style: italic;">he</span> lives, that she
is only an adulteress if she marries again while he is alive, but not
if he has died. The point Paul then derives from this is:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>So, my brothers, you
also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong
to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might
bear fruit to God.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
And he goes on once again to speak of passing from being 'in the
passions of the flesh' to dying to sin and the Law, and serving in the
new sinless spirit.<br />
<br />
The example Paul gives from "the law" (whether this
is common law or Jewish Law doesn't matter) represents what his
listeners <span style="font-style: italic;">know</span> (even though
he asks "do you <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> know"):
namely, the principle that the law has authority over someone only
while he is alive. No one would argue the common sense of that, or the
common sense of the example he gives, even if it isn't the same thing
as
the principle. (In the former it is the one who dies who becomes free;
in the latter, one is freed by another's death. Wagner calls this
'changing the metaphor', but that's being kind to Paul, who has simply
come up with an inaccurate and confusing analogy.) In any case,
principle and example represent what Paul declares he knows his
audience knows. From this common knowledge, he justifies his
conclusion, that "you died to the law" (here he unquestionably refers
to the Jewish Law). This again is a focus on the subject of sin.<br />
<br />
We can go back now to chapter 6. Let's repeat it
here:<br />
<br />
</span><span><sup><small>
2</small> </sup>...<span style="font-style: italic;">We
who died to sin:
how can we still live in it?</span></span><br />
<span>
<sup><small>3</small> </sup>Or
do you not know [are you ignorant] that
all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus <br />
were baptized into his
death?<br />
<sup><small>4 <big>a</big></small> </sup>Therefore
[<span style="font-style: italic;">oun</span>] we were
buried with him through baptism into death,<br />
</span><sup>b </sup><span><span style="font-style: italic;">in order that</span> as
Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father,<br />
<sup>c </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">so we too might walk in newness of life</span>.<br />
<sup><small>5</small> </sup>(For) if
we have become
united with him in the likeness of his death,<br />
so too shall we be (united
with him) in
(the likeness of) his resurrection.<br />
<sup><small>6</small> </sup>This we
know [knowing this], that our
old self was crucified with him,<br />
<span style="font-style: italic;">so that our body of sin might be done
away with,</span><br style="font-style: italic;" />
<span style="font-style: italic;">
that we should no longer be slaves to sin,</span><br />
<sup><small>7</small> </sup><span style="font-style: italic;">because he who has died</span> [i.e., in
the way represented by baptism] <span style="font-style: italic;">has
been freed from sin.</span></span><br />
<span><br />
Wagner is forced to allow that the content of verse 3 is what is known
to the Romans, but <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> that.
He points to the "<span style="font-style: italic;">oun</span>" (thus,
therefore) at the beginning of verse 4 as introducing a "conclusion" by
Paul, one following on verse 3. But 4a is essentially the same thought
as 3, adding the corollary of burial, and 4b is definitely known and
simply introduces a further condition for 4c. Thus, 4c is the only part
of that verse which represents a "conclusion," and it concerns the
subject of sin, namely the new absence of it, which is Paul's focus
here.<br />
<br />
In any case, the content of verse 3, even alone,
seems suspiciously tied to mystery concepts. Being "baptized into his
death" represents a linkage with the god's experiences, the homologic
principle. As he died, so too do we. Wagner has already taken a great
step across the supposed great divide. And the following thought, of
being "buried" with Christ, is simply consequent on the death, a
natural corollary. It is part of the mystery-style background leading
to Paul's focus on sin. (Remember the 'burial' of the Attis devotees
during his 'passion week' festival, when they descended to the tomb of
the Great Mother.)<br />
<br />
But what, then, do we make of the powerful verse 5?
The funny thing is, in the argument of this entire passage, it is the
least important. It's almost an aside, for it is quite incidental to
Paul's focus on sin and his justification for regarding oneself as free
from it. First of all, we need to be clear on its meaning. Wagner
almost seems to suggest that it does not refer to a resurrection after
death, but is part of the focus on sin: since it follows on the thought
of embarking on a new sin-free life (v.4c), the latter is what is being
referred to as "resurrection," i.e., to one's newness of life. But this
surely has to be ruled out by the use of the future tense: "we <span style="font-style: italic;">shall</span> be [<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">esometha</span></span>]
also <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span> </span>resurrected." The other
would require the <span style="font-style: italic;">past</span> tense,
as used in regard to the death and burial. Besides, that idea has
already been covered in verse 4b and c. No, this is referring to the
future resurrection after literal death. It almost seems as though,
having spotlighted the two parallels in symbolic death and burial, Paul
in verse 5 simply threw in their companion, even if it did not directly
relate to his topic of freedom from sin. It was the ultimate linkage
with the god Christ: as he was, we too shall be resurrected. He then in
verse 6 reverts back to the already-realized parallel of a symbolic
"crucifixion with Christ" and what this means for sin.<br />
<br />
Thus, verse 5, like verses 3 and 4a, is not part of
Paul's "conclusion." It is part of the background (if an irrelevant
part) to the actual conclusion he <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span>
focusing on: the new, present life and its freedom from sin. All of
that background is rooted in the homologic principle, that what the god
undergoes, so too does the believer by being united with him through
baptism. This is the underlying engine of the mysteries, even if, as
Wagner has demonstrated, it is variously embodied across the cults in
often obscure fashion. And it is this background that Paul assumes is
familiar enough to the Romans that he need refer to it only in passing,
without explanation or argumentation, in making his insistent homily on
living a new life.<br />
<br />
Wagner seeks to show that the "<span style="font-style: italic;">homoiōma</span>" of verse 5 ("likeness")
does not refer to baptism itself, i.e., 'in the likeness of the rite.'
This is true, in the sense that the rite itself is not seen as a
're-creation' (Wagner refers to it as "realized ritually") of Jesus'
death, burial and resurrection. This is a concept often assigned to
mystery cult thinking, and it smacks too much of 'magic' for
theologians' liking. </span><span>(By the way, it's
debatable whether this denial
can be made in the case of the Eucharist, at least in Catholicism,
which
sees the transubstantiation of the bread and wine by the priest as a
're-creation' of Christ's action at the Last Supper.) But this still
leaves open a significance for </span><span>"</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;">homoiōma</span></span></span><span>" in the sense of parallel actions or experiences between
Christ and the initiate, brought into effect through the rite of
baptism. In the end, the distinction is minimal, if not meaningless.
Since the guarantee is based on having undergone baptism, the efficacy
proceeds from the rite. Baptism triggers the potential application,
which is in the same general category as magic. To say that it requires
the action of God on precondition of faith and repentance is no
different from saying that it is automatic if all the right elements
are present. One theologian's "power and wisdom of god" is another
man's "magic" (especially when neither one of them bears any relation
to reality).</span><span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br />
<br />
Wagner attempts a similar sleight-of-hand on the
matter of "burial with Christ" [p.281]. He argues that "baptism is not
'of necessity to be understood as a reproduction of the burial of
Christ'," (the internal quote is from Dibelius, with which he
disagrees), in that same sense that the rite itself is not a
're-creation' of Christ's burial. In any event, how is the 'burial' in
Christian baptism different from the mystery concept?<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>...the <span style="font-style: italic;">suntaphēnai</span> (to be buried) is
referred to because it strongly stresses the genuine nature of the
death to sin; just as the burial of Jesus is "a sealing of the actual
bodily death of Christ, so too the </span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">suntaphēnai</span> of believers is a seal
of their being dead with Him" (quoting Bornkamm). [p.281]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Wagner has mentioned in passing that Paul referred to Christ's burial
in the "traditional kerygmatic formula" of 1 Corinthians 15:4, so here
he is comparing that presumed historical burial as a 'seal' of the
actuality of Christ's bodily death, with the symbolic burial of the
believers as a 'seal' of their being dead with Christ. In such a
comparison, we've got a very literal understanding of a literal event
providing a parallel (in Paul's understanding, so Wagner claims) with a
very unliteral and mystical "death" with Christ. This is not only
incomprehensible, it is not a parallel at all. The "seal" in the first
case is a tangible 'proof' of actual death in the normal sense. In the
second it is some kind of mystical assurance, based on a mystical
sacrament, that the believer has undergone a symbolic "death" to sin
with Christ. One might ask what it means to call this "genuine." (If it
all seems mind-bogglingly obscure, we can put it down to the natural
tendency of theological discourse.) What <span style="font-style: italic;">would</span> make it more of a parallel,
however, is if we realized that in 1 Corinthians 15:4 Paul is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> speaking of an actual physical
historical death and burial, but a mythical one. That way, the 'events'
on both sides are spiritual; the parallels both have to do with
spiritual processes, one undergone by Christ in a spiritual setting,
the other by the initiate wherein the spiritual operates within the
material. Everything inhabits a mystical dimension.<br />
<br />
In any case, it is difficult to see how Wagner's
interpretation as having nothing to do with the 're-creation' concept
effects a complete divorce from mystery cult attitude toward burial.
The Attis cult (as suggested in his passion week festivities) also
involved a symbolic burial of the celebrant, which may have been looked
upon as a 'death' to his old life; it may even have involved a 'death'
to past sin. (See the discussion in Article 13A.) And Wagner's "sealing
of burial with Christ" quote above certainly looks like a statement of
the parallel-experience principle. Thus his concluding sentence is
entirely unfounded:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The understanding of
baptism as a <span style="font-style: italic;">burial</span> with
Christ does not favour the mystery-hypothesis, but is definitely
against it.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
But perhaps we can cast further light on that
obscurity I referred to above. Wagner now notes [p.282] that the
believer enjoys "a life with Christ free from the dominion of death and
sin." And why is this? It is based on Romans 6:8-11:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span><sup> 8 </sup>Now
if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
him,</span><br />
<span><sup> 9 </sup>knowing that Christ, having been
raised from the dead, is never to die again;</span><br />
<span> death is no longer master over him;</span><br />
<span><sup>10 </sup>For having died, he died to sin, once
for all; but living, he lives to God.<br />
<sup>11 </sup>So you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin but
alive to God in Christ Jesus.<br />
</span></div>
<span><br />
Christ died to sin. And Christ cannot die again. How exactly Paul sees
the former is unclear, since he hardly would have regarded Christ as
having previously been sinful. But he says it, showing that the need
for parallelism with the believers overrides any consideration as to
whether the concepts </span><span>involved</span><span> make consistent sense. It is on the basis of Christ never
again being in thrall to sin and death that Paul declares that
believers
too are dead to sin and to death's mastery over them. They have
conquered both, just as Christ did. This claim would not work without
the underlying concept of parallel experiences between god and man,
which in any case Paul in these verses has spelled out. The theological
and linguistic contortions Wagner is engaging in are designed to keep
himself (and his readers) from realizing what Paul is saying.<br />
</span><span><br />
As I noted above, Wagner refers to the burial of
Christ "in the traditional kerygmatic formula in 1 Corinthians 15:4"
["and that he was buried"], adopting the usual view that this is a
death,
burial and resurrection promulgated in the community, based on recent
history. Such a dramatic <span style="font-style: italic;">historical</span>
event in the background of Paul's thought would serve to stress a
difference between Paul's Christianity and any possible correspondence
in the mysteries, since the latter would only have been paralleling a
symbolic feature of their rite with a <span style="font-style: italic;">mythical</span>
experience of the god. Again, this ignores Paul's statement that he got
his gospel not from any man but through revelation, making the natural
meaning of "according to the scriptures" (in 1 Cor 15:3-4) a reference
to knowledge derived <span style="font-style: italic;">from</span> the
scriptures through revelation, and thus we can postulate that Christ's
experience, too, was mythical. We can also note that Paul does not
attach "according to the scriptures" to the phrase "and that he was
buried." As I noted above in regard to Paul's inclusion of Christ
himself being "dead to sin" simply because of his need for parallels
with the believer, I suggest that he included the 'burial' element in
his gospel of 1 Corinthians 15:4 for the same reason: it wasn't derived
from scripture, but Paul still needed it because Christ had to go
through parallel experiences to the believer in order to bring about
the desired guarantee.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Early Missionary Preaching</span><br />
<br />
Wagner argues [p.286] that "the obvious assumption
is that in missionary practice it was taught that baptism into Christ
was a baptism into his death." This is anything <span style="font-style: italic;">but</span> obvious. Nothing like this idea
existed in Judaism. Where did all the early apostles get it? From Paul?
He had only a two week contact with Peter and James in the
first 17 years of his mission, according to Galatians. And would they
have submitted to
some weird, very un-Jewish ideas on the say-so of a man who was going
off half-cocked about abolishing the Law entirely? </span><span>It's hardly
likely they came up with it themselves, being so hidebound that they
insisted on circumcision and the continued application of Jewish
dietary laws for gentiles (Gal. 2).</span><span> Whatever the
source,
if they didn't get it from Paul, then Paul was not the originator of
such concepts as applied to Jesus, which stands in direct contradiction
to standard scholarly estimations of Paul's role.<br />
<br />
Wagner attempts to argue for this "obvious
assumption," that "baptism into his death" was the message of general
early Christian preaching.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>[I]n the centre of the
Christian message of salvation stands the <span style="font-style: italic;">kyrios Xristos</span> [Lord Christ] as the
<span style="font-style: italic;">estaurōmenos</span> [crucified]. To
this Christ as his Lord the man submits himself by faith, confession
(Rom. x.9), and baptism. In Rom. vi.3 Paul can appeal to baptism to
elucidate his doctrine of grace, for baptism stands at the beginning of
every man's Christian life...</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
So far, none of this has anything to do with a parallelism of
experience between man and god, simply because Wagner is doing his best
to come up with something which does not, and still relate it to Romans
6. But his problem is with the key phrase itself, <span style="font-style: italic;">baptisthēnai eis Xriston Iēsoun </span>(to
be baptized into Christ Jesus), and particularly that pesky "<span style="font-style: italic;">eis</span>." It more than suggests a
'linkage' idea, a connection between the baptized believer and Christ
achieved through the rite itself. So Wagner goes on, following on the
above, to conjure up a different interpretation for it:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>...and does so as the
basic deed of the man's <span style="font-style: italic;">conveyance
to Christ</span> [my emphasis]</span><span>—which is implied
by the </span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">baptisthēnai
eis Xriston Iēsoun </span>in Rom. vi.3</span><span>—and of
his engagement by the One who was crucified for him....In this
engagement</span><span>—as in all obedience of faith</span><span>—the "acceptance" of Christ's death, of His Cross, is
included." [p.286-7]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
"Conveyance to Christ"? What does this mean? Where
does Paul say or imply this? This is little more than theological
mummery to be able to define the "baptized into Christ" in a mundane
way that avoids mystery associations. Besides, if the "baptized into
Christ" means 'conveyed to Christ,' then the following phrase "baptized
into his death" means 'conveyed to his death,' which makes no sense.
Wagner's second idea, "and of his engagement by the One who was
crucified for him," is equally woolly and provides no meaningful
explanation for why a sophisticated idea like 'baptized into Christ and
into his death' would have been adopted by the entire early preaching
movement, especially if it was supposed to have had some concrete
meaning not associated with mystery-cult concepts. Those readers not
taken in by this hocus-pocus will find Wagner's summary claim
unconvincing:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The explanation of
baptism into Christ as a baptism into his death therefore follows as a
logical consequence from the preaching of salvation and the character
of baptism as a conveyance to the Lord who died for us...these logical
conclusions were drawn in the primitive Christian preaching...</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Considering that the whole idea of baptism into the
death of Christ is found only in Paul, and that, as pointed out
earlier, there is no sign of it anywhere else in the Christian record
even through the 2nd century, those early Christian preachers must have
had a hard time getting it across to the communities they visited. And
to expect that subtle ideas like this, ones not easily communicated to
simple believers (as the modern theological output on Paul
demonstrates), could permeate and be adopted by a diverse,
uncoordinated missionary movement and preached to become widespread
doctrine, is beyond reasonable credence. All of which renders absurd
Wagner's claim that such a theological understanding was not only
current in the Christian congregation in Rome in the 50s, but that Paul
knew and expected that it was.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span><br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Wagner's Ten
Arguments
Against the Mystery Hypothesis</big><br />
<br />
</span><span> Wagner advances ten
"arguments against the mystery hypothesis" [p.283f]. I will consider
each of them in turn, often by way of summary of fuller discussions
above.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">First</span>. He
claims that no one with a primary concern for ethics would appeal to
something as "maladroit" as the mystery pattern, since the latter,
presumably, has nothing to do with ethics. But nothing prevents Paul
from superimposing his own concerns on a pre-existing foundation.
That's what the evolution of ideas is all about. If the postulated
mystery-cult salvation thinking is what is prevalent in his society,
Paul has little other option than to work with it, and there would be a
natural inclination to do so. Wagner also suggests that the mysteries
are "marked by magic," which is something "against which (Paul) sets
his face." Wagner is reading the latter into things, since Paul does
not actually argue in those terms. In any case, removing the rite of
baptism from the 'magical' sphere is a concern of modern scholarship,
and the distinction is not clear-cut between the two.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Second</span>. He
offers an unproven assumption that the "knowledge" presupposed was only
the "baptism into Christ as a baptism into his death" and nothing else.
I have demonstrated that this is a dubious if not untenable assessment.
Besides, "baptism into his death" is a good distance into mystery cult
thinking.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Third</span>.
Paul's characteristic "with Christ" has allegedly no parallel in the
cults, but is specifically Pauline. Partially true, but it could be
seen as having a general derivation from 'being in unity with the
god', with an overlay of Paul's own thought as to what that constitutes
in terms of effect and benefit. No one is saying that Paul brought
nothing new to his preaching message.<br />
<br />
</span><span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Fourth</span>. "The <span style="font-style: italic;">suntaphēnai</span> [to be buried], for
which it is even less possible to cite any parallel, bears such a
strong stress in our passage that it surely ought to be admitted that
Paul is determined to undercut the mystery rites." I have discussed the
alleged distinction between the burial concepts above, with conclusions
that make Wagner's opinion here entirely unjustified. If Paul were
"determined" to undercut the mystery rites, he would have said so. It
is also not clear how a use of the verb </span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">suntaphēnai</span> would serve to
"undercut" the mysteries; Wagner offers no arguments on that point, but
simply begs us to "admit" it.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Fifth</span>. The
death for sin of Jesus is never said about any of the "dying and
rising" gods. Perhaps true enough, although we don't have the written
sources for the latter that we do for early Christianity, so we can't
be quite that categorical. Besides, a linkage with sin, while not
predominant in the record we do have, can be found in general in some
mystery cult thought. Again, the fixation on sin being something
peculiar to Paul and other early Christians does nothing to rule out a
mystery cult foundation in other basic ways.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Sixth</span>. "The
death of Jesus is further distinguished from the fate of all the
mystery-deities by the fact that it happened once for all (<span style="font-style: italic;">ephapax</span>, vs.10), and is incapable
of being repeated cultically; here we have an historical event, there a
mythical drama." I dealt with this alleged distinction in previous
articles. Of course, it is dependent on the proposition that
Paul is speaking of an historical event, despite the stark absence of
any
clear reference to such a thing in the entire epistolary corpus
(outside of 1
Thess. 2:15-16, widely regarded by critical scholars as an
interpolation, and 1 Timothy 6:13 within the Pastorals, widely regarded
as a 2nd century product). In any case, the mythical "Christ event"
would not be portrayed as 'repeated' since it had no direct root
in agricultural or other cycles. (Neither would the 'Mithras-event',
the slaying of the bull, have been regarded as cyclical.) Moreover, the
one-time character of Christ's death is never presented in historical
terms by the early writers. It can easily be seen as having been
relegated, in its 'once-for-all' character, to some higher spiritual
realm, at some unspecified 'past' point (all Paul can say is that it
happened "in the fullness of time"), in loosely Platonic fashion. What
has happened in the present, historical time is the <span style="font-style: italic;">revelation</span> of that spiritual event
and its consequences for humanity in terms of the salvation that is now
available. <span style="font-style: italic;">That</span> is what the
epistles are full
of, not an historical Christ event.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Seventh</span>.
"Jesus' death and resurrection are salvation events." Wagner claims
that no "all-inclusive significance (is) attached to the fate of the
cultic demigod." But this statement is actually a qualified one; it is
true in the sense that "to none of them has the intention of helping
men been attributed." But the significance of this distinction is
relatively unimportant; it might simply be regarded as an 'improvement'
on the mysteries, one determined by cultural differences, given the
Jewish focus on 'atonement' in the deaths of martyrs (though not quite
the same sort of atonement as the Christian concept). In any case, I am
unconvinced that in the minds of the devotees, even if it is not
expressed in the meagre writings on the subject, there was no thought
present that the gods had a conscious interest in providing salvation.
If it was entirely an automatic, almost accidental, effect proceeding
from the god's fate (which Wagner is anxious to suggest), why such
devotion expressed by initiates like Apuleius? Why would the devotee
feel so attached to the god if he was envisioned as having no concern
for humans? Isis (though not a dying and rising deity) is widely
portrayed as being sympathetic to humankind. Besides, it's hard to see
how the parallel effect could exist if not intended by the gods. Wagner
has overstated his case here.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Eighth</span>.
Somewhat like the Sixth: "In baptism</span><span>—in absolute
antithesis to the mystery-initiations</span><span>—the
primary thing is the historical salvation-event that took place in
Jesus, and what the believer experiences is the derivative.
'Paul...speaks of the Christ-event in order to explain the
baptism-event' [quoting Bornkamm]. The external symbolism of the
process of baptism is of secondary importance." Certainly, the
Christian rite of baptism is much simpler, with less "complicated
display," than the rites of the mystery cults, but this proves nothing.
It is the underlying principle that counts. Again, Wagner makes an
unexamined assumption that the Christ salvation-event was historical.
Even if it were, the "derivative" benefit to the believer is still of
the same basic nature as that of the pagan initiate from the cultic
myth of the god's experience. One of the hallmarks of the evolution of
ideas is that older concepts are borrowed and invested with new
significance. Paul's focus (or rather obsession) on sin as the central
theme of his baptismal rite is an example of such an adaptation.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ninth</span>.
"Thus while baptism</span><span>—in antithesis to the
initiations</span><span>—does not acquire its significance
through the performance of a ritual that works magically, there is
nevertheless a corresponding faith-attitude on the part of the
candidate, and this attitude of faith is the necessary precondition for
receiving it, though of itself it does not make baptism into baptism."
The scholarly claim that the workings of baptism bear no resemblance to
'magic' is debatable, as I've discussed earlier. The faith component of
Christian baptism may be unique, but this does not change the character
of the rite itself or its understanding; it is simply a precondition to
its operation.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Tenth</span>. This
final argument needs to be carefully examined for its implications.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Had the Christians in
Rome been obliged to understand baptism as an initiation-sacrament,
which (as in the cults of Attis, Adonis, and Osiris) grants
participation in the destiny of the cult deity, how much more must
this have applied in the following centuries, during which the mystery
cults flourished and developed as never before. I have not been able to
trace a single text or allusion from the Apostolic and Church Fathers
in which Rom. vi was interpreted by reference to or in contrast with
"analogous" rites or experiences of the <span style="font-style: italic;">mystai</span> of Attis, Adonis, or Osiris.
Not even one allusion of this nature is to be found. This fact speaks
for itself, and all the more so as the Fathers dealt very fully with
the relationship between baptism and the death of Jesus.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
In the attached note [117], Wagner refers to four examples. The first
is the Epistle of Barnabas, ch.10, v.8. In this chapter, the author is
trawling scripture for 'prophetic' references to water/baptism and the
cross. He offers several Old Testament passages (Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel) which make reference to "water," which Barnabas, in his
typical bizarre fashion, without any reasonable justification,
interprets as a veiled reference to the future Christian baptism
(though the Jews <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span> have
seen this!); as in Jeremiah 2:13, "they [the Jews] have deserted me
[referring to God], the spring of life"; or Isaiah 33:18," his water is
sure" [Staniforth translation: "where there are springs of
never-failing water"]. The key passage is dependent on a quote from
Psalm 1:3: "And he shall be as the tree, which is planted at the
partings of the waters...[LXX]" For Barnabas this is a reference to the
cross and baptism: "Mark how he described the water and the cross
together. For he means this: blessed are those who hoped on the cross,
and descended into the water" [11:8].<br />
<br />
Now, aside from the ludicrous nature of such
interpretations of the Jewish scriptures, Wagner should realize that
Barnabas, throughout this entire epistle, is focused solely on finding
adumbration of Christian elements in those scriptures, with the purpose
of showing how blind and shortsighted the Jews were in not realizing
that God was forecasting Christian doctrine and ritual through the
prophets. With such tunnel vision, this writer could hardly be expected
to digress outside his narrow focus and make any comparison or contrast
with mystery analogies. A mind like Barnabas', saturated in Christian
theory, might not even have been aware of such things; or if he was, it
would have been akin to blasphemy to throw light on such parallels. And
since his theme is the relationship of Christianity to Jewish
'prophecy', anything to do with the mysteries would have been
thoroughly irrelevant. Thus, Wagner's argument from silence is
misplaced. We should also note that Barnabas, throughout his entire
epistle, makes no appeal to Paul or to Pauline principles surrounding
the meaning of baptism. This is a far more significant silence than any
silence on the mysteries. It indicates a point made earlier: Pauline
mysticism is either unknown to the 2nd century Fathers, or had little
impact on their thinking.<br />
<br />
Wagner's next example is Ignatius, Epistle to the
Ephesians 18:2. After a quote from 1 Corinthians 1:20 ("where is your
wise man now, or your subtle debater?"</span><span>—which
shows that he is familiar with a letter of Paul, though this quote has
nothing to do with baptism)</span><span>—</span><span>Ignatius goes on to speak of Jesus as
conceived by Mary of the Holy Spirit. Then: "He was born, and was
baptized, that by his Passion he might purify the water." Ignatius has
led off this brief passage by declaring his devotion to the Cross
which, for Christians, is "salvation and eternal life." There is no
description of the workings of baptism, either as a rite or in its
effects on the believer. This is hardly a case of a Father, as Wagner
has put it, "deal(ing) very fully with the relationship between baptism
and the death of Jesus," and certainly not in any connection with
effects on the believer. It is a mystical statement of how Christ
purified the waters of baptism. There is no scope here at all for
bringing in any reference to or comparison with the mysteries, and
Ignatius would no doubt have shied away from such a thing in a pastoral
letter to a Christian community. Once again, Wagner's argument from
silence is totally inappropriate. Ignatius is even silent on <span style="font-style: italic;">Paul's</span> interpretation of baptism,
so he clearly had no interest in analyzing the workings of the
sacrament. As noted earlier, this is also an indicator that the force
of Pauline teaching on soteriology was quite weak, if not virtually
non-existent, in much of the 2nd century. Ignatius shows definite
knowledge only of 1 Corinthians; Ephesians is a possibility, but in
regard to others such as Romans "the evidence (is) too uncertain to
allow any reliance to be placed upon it," as J. C. O'Neill points out [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Theology of Acts</span>, p.23]. Again,
a wide influence of Paul on the early Christian scene has to be
discounted, and that a corpus of his letters was formed before the
early part of the 2nd century virtually ruled out. </span><br />
<span><br />
For his next two examples, Wagner appeals to quotations from Ambrose
and
Augustine, both of the late 4th century. He takes these from the
context of a paper by Hugo Rahner, which we looked at in an earlier
article ["The Christian Mystery and the Pagan Mysteries," <span style="font-style: italic;">Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks</span>,
p.394], and I will consider them in that context.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Ambrose: "What is water
without the Cross of Christ?" [<span style="font-style: italic;">De
mysteriis</span>, 4, 20]</span><br />
<br />
<span>Augustine: "The water of the baptismal font is
consecrated by the sign of the Cross" <span style="font-style: italic;">[Contra
Julianum</span>, VI, 19, 62]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Rahner claims that "this mystery is the form taken
by Pauline theology, stated in Romans, which sees baptism and the Cross
of Christ as a single mystery." Is it? Ambrose and Augustine, and
Ignatius before them, have in common the idea that Christ, through his
cross, have sanctified the water of baptism. Through some process,
magical or otherwise, the 'event' of Christ's
crucifixion transformed the rite of baptism to give it sacred
properties capable of conferring certain effects on the recipient. This
is, in only a limited and most general way, equivalent to the Pauline
theology of baptism. There is no mention in any of these three writers'
contexts about being baptized into Christ's death, or burial, or
joining with him in being freed from sin and death. And seeing "baptism
and the Cross as a single mystery" is a very general conception. Nor is
there any mention in Paul of Christ's cross having an effect on the
waters of baptism, though as a background concept it could have been
present in his thinking. Colossians 2:14 has the cross serving as the
bulletin board for an announcement of the Law's death-knell, but
nowhere before Ignatius [Eph. 18:2] is the cross</span><span>—possibly, since the passage is unclear</span><span>—</span><span>said to have an effect on the waters of baptism, and even
here it is at most Christ's "suffering" and not the cross itself. The
latter thought is characteristic of the Christianity of Late
Antiquity.<br />
<br />
Of course, theology is supremely capable of reading
anything into anything. And it is also capable of overlooking what is
missing. Rahner says:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>For a fuller insight
into this mystery, we must go back to the baptism of Jesus in the
Jordan, which the early Christian theologians already regarded as the
true paradigm of the mystery of baptism [<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.394]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Those "early Christian theologians" must surely include Paul, and yet
Rahner seems oblivious to the fact that Paul (or any other of those
early
theologians) never once addresses or alludes to Jesus' supposed baptism
in the Jordan. If this was so essential to 'the mystery of wood and
water', how could Paul have avoided working it into his thinking on
baptism? As Rahner goes on to say:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>That God himself in
human form should have stood in earthly water, and that in this moment
God should have spoken to say, This is my son: for the ancient
Christian
this was a paradox, a mystery, a moment foreshadowing the decision
between light and darkness, the irruption of the transcendent principle
to be realized through Christ's suffering on the Cross.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
God's words from heaven at the Jordan: This is my son. Paradox or not,
how could Paul not have seized on such a tradition to illustrate his
claim (Gal. 4:5-6) that God had made us his sons</span><span>—presumably
through baptism, the only Christian rite eligible for such a purpose?
The descent of the Holy Spirit into Jesus at the Jordan. Since this was
one of the declared effects enjoyed by the recipient of the baptismal
rite, how could such a comparison with Christ's own experience not have
been made by <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> early
Christian theologian?<br />
<br />
Remember that Wagner's point was that nowhere in the
Apostolic or Church Fathers could he find a text or allusion "in which
Romans vi was interpreted by reference to or in contrast with
'analogous' rites or experiences of the initiates of (the mystery
cults)." But none of the four cases he appeals to as examples discuss
Romans vi or Paul's concept of baptism <span style="font-style: italic;">at all</span>! Ambrose is describing "for
the benefit of those about to be baptized, the rites and meaning of
that Sacrament..." Ambrose never quotes Romans 6 in the context of
discussing the workings of baptism, including in the chapter from which
Wagner and Rahner have drawn their citation. In another chapter Ambrose
quotes Romans 6:4, but only in the context of addressing the debate
over whether post-baptismal sin can be forgiven. In this entire
document on the Christian "Mysteries" no appeal is made to Romans 6 as
a factor in the presentation and interpretation of the baptismal rite.
So not only is Wagner's context (an "interpretation of Romans 6") a
non-existent one in Ambrose, he is ignoring the context of Ambrose's
treatise, a manual for Christian initiates illuminating the Christian
sacraments. It is highly unlikely that Ambrose would bring in the pagan
mysteries for discussion. As for the quote from Augustine, I have been
unable to locate a text of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Contra
Julianum</span> (even the comprehensive Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
series does not contain it, due to its "bulk"), but the quote itself
does not suggest it is to be found in the context of a general
discussion of the meaning of Romans 6. Thus, the foundation of Wagner's
"tenth" argument falls apart.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Romans 6 in Other Christian Literature</span><br />
<br />
As a final point on this matter, one might consider
perhaps the most extensive discussion of Romans 6 in the ancient
Christian literature, the Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the
Epistle to the Romans (written around the year 400).<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Verse 3, 4.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">“Know ye not,” he says, “my brethren, that
so many of us as</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> were baptized
into Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> buried with Him by baptism into death.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span>What does being “baptized into His Death” mean? That it
is with a view to our dying as He did. For Baptism is the Cross. What
the Cross then, and Burial, is to Christ, that Baptism hath been to us,
even if not in the same respects. For He died Himself and was buried in
the Flesh, but we have done both to sin. Wherefore he does not say,
planted together in His Death, but in the likeness of His Death. For
both the one and the other is a death, but not of the same subject;
since the one is of the Flesh, that of Christ; the other of sin, which
is our own. As then that is real, so is this....</span><br />
<br />
<span>Do you believe, he means, that Christ died, and that He
was raised again? Believe then the same of thyself. For this is like to
the other, since both Cross and Burial is thine. For if thou hast
shared in Death and Burial, much more wilt thou in Resurrection and
Life. [<span style="font-style: italic;">Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers</span>,
Series II, vol.11, p.709]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Now, this certainly smacks of the language and concepts of the
mysteries. And Chrysostom's explanation of Paul's meaning also bears a
resemblance to what Paul actually says. I am not going to attempt any
close comparison between the two. They are centuries apart, so there
would be little surprise if the two did not coincide in all respects.
Besides, in this homily, Chrysostom does not say much by way of
explanation than to put Paul's words into his own, adding little
insight that is not already there in Paul. But my point is this. By
the late 4th century and early 5th, which is when all three of these
examples appear (Ambrose 380, Chrysostom 400, Augustine 420),
Christianity and the mysteries had had centuries to undergo a good
degree of absorption of each other; this would have been especially
true in the 4th century. By then, Christianity's sense of itself and
its doctrines would have become second nature. Christianity had won the
day, and the mysteries were on their death-bed; in fact, they were in
the process of being outlawed and exterminated. There would have been
no need or reason to discuss any parallels with those defunct and
discredited cults when laying out Christian principles, and certainly
not in documents written for the faithful.<br />
<br />
Thus in all respects Wagner's argument and its basis
is an illusion. That later situation, however, is quite different from
what would have obtained in the time of Paul. Then, Christianity was a
fledgling newcomer, with many competing ideas within its own ranks, not
to mention in the great religious maelstrom that surrounded it on all
sides. In such a situation, Paul's audience <span style="font-style: italic;">would</span> have been familiar with
similar, very active, ideas attached to the mysteries, even if in
somewhat different contexts than that presented by Paul with his focus
on a death to sin and a new life. The fact that Paul presents the
parallel experience template without explanation, without providing any
disassociation from, or saving contrast with, mystery principles
strongly suggests that it was simply the accepted background thought of
the time. Paul was building on precedent, and knew his Roman audience
would understand and fit his particular version, one based an a new
"Christ" savior god with some new angles in a Jewish oriented setting,
into the framework they were accustomed to.<br />
<br />
Prior to the 4th century, there is no discussion to
be found in any Christian writer on the analysis of the workings of
baptism in Romans 6. Not in Irenaeus, not in Clement of Alexandria, not
in Origen, not in any of the minor writers of the intervening
centuries. The only extended appeal to this passage is to be found in
Tertullian's "On the Resurrection of the Flesh" 47. The title of the
treatise tells us the context of Tertullian's appeal to 6:3-5 and a few
verses from later in the chapter. He is not analyzing Paul's concept
of baptism or the believer's parallel guarantees, but rather uses these
verses to prove the necessity of being resurrected <span style="font-style: italic;">in flesh</span>. Thus there is no occasion
or need to introduce a comparison or contrast with mystery concepts. As
for Justin, he discusses Christian baptism once (<span style="font-style: italic;">Apology</span> 61) without the slightest
nod to Pauline thought on the subject. If Romans 6 made this little
impact on Christian thinking for centuries, how likely that it was
central to formative Christian preaching, as Wagner has claimed? How
likely that it was so original, and not simply one thread of new
application to the background thinking of the time? Paul's greatest
impact has been on the post-medieval and modern world. Even in the late
4th century, in the minds of Augustine, Ambrose and Chrysostom, the
thought of Paul in Romans 6 has been carried into fresh fields of
interpretation, such as the sanctification of baptism by the cross of
Christ, as in the quotes from those three Fathers. (The one thing that
remains constant is the fixation on sin.)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Wagner's Final Arguments</span><br />
<br />
It is at this point that Wagner introduces his
reading of "conveyance to Christ" as the meaning of the "baptized into
Christ" found in Romans 6:3, as the first in a concluding series of
"Explanation[s] of the Pauline Association of Baptism with the
Salvation-Events." I dealt with this one in detail earlier, in a
context to which I preferred to relate it. We will consider the
remainder of these explanations here.<br />
<br />
Wagner tries to make the case that the language of Romans
6:4-6 could be seen as simply one of metaphor [p.288-290]. He notes
Jesus' words in Mark 10:38 (echoed in part by Luke 12:50): "Can you
drink the cup which I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am to be
baptized with?" Jesus compares his impending death with baptism,
such as we would use the mataphor 'a baptism of fire'. Just as "the cup
I drink" is a metaphor, so too the reference to baptism, claims Wagner,
eliminating
the need to think that Jesus is expressing himself like Paul, that "
'being baptized' is the symbolic equivalent to 'dying'," which would
place the language and thought perilously close to the mystery cult
prototype. But even if Mark's words placed in Jesus' mouth are meant
only to be metaphorical, this cannot absolve Paul of being
non-metaphorical. The two writers are vastly different, coming neither
from the same time nor setting.<br />
<br />
Wagner acknowledges that the Markan use of metaphor,
as well as similar tendencies toward metaphor in the Old Testament, "do
not go all the way towards explaining Romans vi" [p.289]. He also
admits that "there is no evidence at all that Paul developed his
doctrine of baptism on the basis of these <span style="font-style: italic;">logia</span>" (the sayings in Mark and
Luke). On that he is certainly correct. The Gospels reflect a much
simpler world, one with which Paul seems to have little or no
connection, where even the basic doctrine of atonement is scarcely of
much substance.<br />
<br />
Wagner makes a further observation [p.290] which I
am all in favor of. He suggests that Paul has employed the metaphorical
language of "burial" (in both Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 15) because
the baptismal process of bodily immersion in water suggested such an
image. Here we have sufficient reason for Paul's inclusion of Christ's
burial in his gospel kerygma of 1 Corinthians 15:4, because he needed a
parallel for Christ to the symbolic 'burial' of the initiate in the
waters of baptism.<br />
<br />
Once again, Wagner examines the recurring phrase in
Romans 6 (as well as chapter 5) "with Christ" (<span style="font-style: italic;">sun Xristō</span>), which is closely
connected with the very common phrase through Paul and pseudo-Paul, "in
Christ" (<span style="font-style: italic;">en </span></span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">Xristō</span>). This
phrase, he maintains "is explained not by the mystery-hypothesis but by
the representative and eschatological salvation-event in Christ, in
which the baptised person becomes involved." The former (unpermitted)
explanation certainly seems to fit the general mystery concept of
unity with the god, a sharing in his experiences, which is what the
language of 6:3-5 taken plainly seems to be outlining. Wagner's
struggle to present a qualitative distinction from this is strained,
and he cannot avoid slipping into language descriptive of the
relationship between Christ and believer which smacks of the very thing
he is claiming it does not possess:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Since Christ died a
representative death for sinners...the man who believes in Him is
justified and has attained life; he is <span style="font-style: italic;">en Xrist</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;">ō Iēsou</span></span></span><span>,
i.e. his life is determined by the Christ-event...To be determined by
the Christ event really means to be involved in the eschatalogical
event of the cross and resurrection...He has become like Christ in his
death, and in this lies his hope of sharing in the resurrection...Paul
can say that he bears the "death of Jesus" in his body, so that the
life of Jesus may be manifested...Life </span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">en Xrist</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;">ō</span></span></span><span> is
sharing in the life of Christ in all its phases...a "being crucified
with Him." [p.291]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Trying to dig into these and other quoted passages
to argue whether or not they contain or do not contain what Wagner
wants them to contain or not to contain would be a fruitless endeavor,
since it would be based on the obscure and elusive niceties of
theological thinking. But Wagner's concluding statement to this passage
is astounding.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Since relationship with
Christ is not a question of mysticism and the texts cited above do not
favour a "mystical interpretation, "dying with Christ" is not to be
explained mystically..." [p.292]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
And in Note 138, Wagner remarks, after Wiencke, that "Paul is not to be
accused of 'mystical excess'." Well, I don't know what definition of
"mystical" Wagner subscribes to, but if I can quote the Random House
Webster's College Dictionary, "mystic(al)" as an adjective is defined
as:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>1. "characterized by
esoteric, otherworldly, or symbolic practices or content, as certain
religious ceremonies and actions. 2. involving mysteries known only to
the initiated. 3. spiritually symbolic.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
"Mysticism" is defined as: <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>... 2. the doctrine of
an immediate spiritual intuition of truths believed to transcend
ordinary understanding. 3. [my favorite] obscure thought and
speculation.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Now, if the passages quoted by Wagner do not fit the
definition of mystical or mysticism, I don't know what would qualify.
No doubt, theological definitions are more malleable and cooperative.
So much of Wagner's argument throughout his book involves this sort of
methodology. State that something is or is not a certain way, and back
it up with 'evidence' whose meaning is not only tractable but variously
interpretable, with the chosen interpretation always the one that
allegedly supports the
statement. It's a more than faintly circular process. The unprejudiced
reader eventually realizes that the whole of Wagner's case rests on
shifting sand and flickering illusion.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Corporate Personality and
Contemporaneity</span><br />
<br />
That mercurial flicker often reveals quite an
opposite picture, one nowhere so telling as in Wagner's final argument.
"[T]he understanding of participation in Christ's death and
resurrection and of the 'contemporaneity' of the Christian with Christ
in baptism" is to be seen in the context of an idea "known to us from
the Old Testament, that (of) 'corporate personality' " [p.292]. That
is, each person is part of a group, while the individual can represent
the collective. Supposedly, this type of thinking "most probably"
underlies the Pauline idea of "the Body of Christ" (I'll come back to
this below). But it is also to be seen as underlying the parallels
between the initiate and Christ in Romans 6; this is Wagner's final
effort to explain the latter passage by something which has nothing to
do with the mysteries. But is his effort feasible? <br />
<br />
Looking back by way of comparison to the Adam-Christ
parallel of Romans 5:12f, Wagner says: "Adam and Christ are both
representatives of mankind"; as Adam represented all fallen and sinful
mankind, so Christ represents the "new redeemed and death-conquering
mankind"..."The destiny of man is involved in their destiny." Rather
than see this as sharing in the god's (and the forebear's) experiences <span style="font-style: italic;">à</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">la</span> the mysteries (which would
certainly be a natural interpretation of Wagner's description), he
reaches instead for that idea of "corporate personality." But I'm not
sure that this alleged connection is legitimate. Because Adam and
Christ, within their respective spheres, both have a determining effect
on the <span style="font-style: italic;">nature</span> of mankind
within their respective spheres, does this have anything to do with
"corporate personality" as supposedly understood in the Old Testament?
The Adam and Christ effect is better seen as an expression of the
parallelism principle, that as one side of the conjunction behaves, so
does the other. As Adam, so humanity in its fallen state; as Christ, so
humanity in its redeemed state. This is misleadingly labeled
"corporate." Adam doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">represent</span>
his group; he gave rise to it. Christ doesn't <span style="font-style: italic;">represent </span>his group; he determines
it, he makes it possible. The 'corporate' idea may be, as Wagner
claims, present in Paul's concept of the Body of Christ of which
believers are a part, Christ the head and Christians the members of one
"body," but this is a mystical concept; the 'group' (entailing the
participation of Christ) exists only in the minds of the believers. If
Paul was inspired here by Old Testament concepts, so be it. But this is
different from the area of parallelism, the sharing of attributes or
experiences. If dependency could conceivably be present in the former,
it is by no means thereby present in the latter. In any case, the
Adam/fallen and the Christ/redeemed parallelism has as much if not more
in common with the idea of unity with the god than with Old Testament
concepts of "corporate personality." In fact, the former is closer,
since the latter never involved any 'incorporation' into God himself,
virtually a blasphemous proposition for Jews. By that same token, even
Paul's "Body of Christ" idea, involving as it does a combination of
divine and human components in the corporate entity, could never find a
home in Jewish thought. Perhaps the best that could be said here is
that Paul is syncretizing two separate trends of thinking, and in
undeniably quite mystical fashion.<br />
<br />
However, Wagner also introduces alongside this idea
of 'corporeality' something rather distinct from it: "contemporaneity,"
in which he appeals to Thorlief Boman's <span style="font-style: italic;">Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek</span>.
Boman calls attention to the peculiarities (to us) of the Hebrew and
other Semitic languages in regard to verb forms. The latter make
distinctions between the completeness and incompleteness of actions, as
opposed to the Greek language (and our own) which distinguishes between
past, present and future. This allegedly suggests that Hebrew thought
was capable of experiencing the past <span style="font-style: italic;">as
present</span>, through feeling a connection (a "corporate
personality," if you will) with all manifestations of a group, even
across the Greek dividing lines of past, present and future. For Boman
(and H. Wheeler Robinson, whom he quotes [p.70, 148]), this enabled the
Israelites to feel an ever-present connection with their 'history', and
especially its major events like the Exodus, as still alive within
themselves. (I suppose that could be said of the Jewish psyche even
today, though I doubt it is still determined by their language.)<br />
<br />
What does Wagner make of these observations? <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>For Paul, in whom this
same way of thinking was innate, the Cross and Resurrection were an
event not in the past, but still going on and present to faith. For him
the baptised person was involved in the "history" that began with
Christ, i.e. in the eschatological event of the Cross and Resurrection.
[p.293]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Boman makes much the same type of point in regard to modern Christians
as illustrating the concept of contemporaneity (as presented by
Kierkegaard):<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>To be a true Christian
and truly to believe in Christ means, according to him [Kierkegaard],
to leap across and forget the centuries in order to become
contemporaneous with Jesus and his disciples as well as his opponents,
to see and hear the simple, misunderstood Rabbi, and then in that
situation to make with the soul's passion a decision for him, because
one believes in him as the Son of God. [<span style="font-style: italic;">Hebrew Thought Compared with Greeek</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>p.147-8]<br />
</span></div>
<span><br />
Yet I wonder if Boman (and Kierkegaard) are guilty of
over-interpreting. Modern Christians are thinkers in Greek-language
forms, not Hebrew, so their sense of close association with Jesus of
Nazareth and events of his time is not an example of the concept of
"corporate personality"; they have simply absorbed the story of a
2000-year-past alleged man and his activities and made it a part of
their lives and hopes, and thus their commitments.<br />
<br />
As for Wagner, once again he wants to be able to
interpret Romans 6, in its idea of enjoying personal experiences <span style="font-style: italic;">with</span> those of Christ, as a
reflection of the "corporate personality" thinking of the Old Testament
and Hebrew thought patterns, rather than mystery cult principles. Yet
there are many "but's" here. Paul spoke and thought in Greek; he was an
inhabitant (we presume, according to Acts) of the Diaspora, raised in a
Greek milieu. To what extent could that have been overridden, if at
all, by reading the Old Testament according to Hebrew thought-patterns?
It's a dubious proposition, and Wagner's claim that Hebrew thinking was
"innate" in Paul is wishful thinking. In fact, Paul would almost
certainly have known the Jewish scriptures through the Greek
Septuagint, which was generally guilty of converting the Jewish bible's
thought to Greek thought, as a comparison of the two texts will show in
so many instances. Philo in the Hellenistic-Jewish community of
Alexandria rendered the scriptures thoroughly into Greek patterns of
thinking</span><span>—and contemporary ones at that, in the
exegetical practices of his own community which were steeped in Middle
Platonism.<br />
<br />
Moreover, as Boman points out [p.70], this
'corporate/collective' sense of something individual representing a
whole group has a parallel of sorts in the Platonic Idea, which thus
provides a feasible root for Paul in <span style="font-style: italic;">Greek</span>
thought. Other aspects of Greek thought plainly inform so much of early
Christian expression, from descriptions of the Son that are virtually
identical to the intermediary Logos</span><span> (as in
Hebrews 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-20)</span><span>, to the
Eucharist conforming to 'consumption of the god' sacred meals in the
mysteries, both decidedly un-Hebrew. Most significant, however</span><span>—and this is the crux of the matter here</span><span>—is Paul's conception that, in the above words of Wagner,
"the Cross and Resurrection were an event not in the past but still
going on and present to faith." It is true that Paul often expresses
himself as though this were so; there is so little if any sense in Paul
(and all the other early epistle writers) of the Christ-event being a
fact of recent history</span><span>—or <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> history. Lightfoot made the
comment of the writer of 1 Clement:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>To Clement Jesus is not
a dead man whose memory is reverently cherished or whose precepts are
carefully observed, but an ever living, ever active Presence, who
enters into all the vicissitudes of Clement's being. [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Apostolic Fathers</span>, p.398]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
The same comment could equally be made of Paul. But is this to be put
down to Wagner's "corporate personality" based on the Old Testament, or
is it better explained</span><span>—in view of Paul's and
Clement's Greek background rather than an archaic Hebrew one</span><span>—in terms of Greek thought as found in Platonic philosophy
and the mysteries? (For a thorough look at the lack of an historical
Jesus in 1 Clement, see my Article No. 12, <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp12One.htm">Part
One</a>.)<br />
<br />
Besides, in the context of Old Testament "corporate
personality," Wagner's attempt to co-opt Paul doesn't work. The Hebrews
could identify themselves with their past, but that past was always
clearly located in <span style="font-style: italic;">history</span>
(or perceived history). They never transcendentalized (if I may coin
such a term) the Exodus, or the figures of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Paul, on the other hand, has done exactly that to the presumed Jesus of
Nazareth; the 'past' he is identifying with is obscure, to say the
least. Thus, one can hardly appeal to the Hebrew precedent as an
explanation for why Paul did this to Jesus, <span style="font-style: italic;">ignoring</span> history and the historical
figure, leaving it and him in the forgotten and 'uninteresting' shadows
in his alleged raising of the Christ event to mystical, spiritual
significance and making Jesus into a transcendent deity. The same is
true of the writer of Hebrews, of the fashioner of the pre-Pauline
hymns. The baptized person was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span>,
as Wagner thinks to put it, "involved in the 'history' that began with
Christ," the historical "event of the Cross and Resurrection," because
Paul never makes any such connection. In his complex presentation of
the meaning of baptism for the initiate, there is no link to the
historical baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, with features of that event
(as discussed earlier) which would truly have spelled a direct
"involvement" of the baptized person with Christ in history. Scholars
simply do not allow themselves to recognize this; they read into Paul,
into the background of his words, the alleged history of Christ, never
able to acknowledge that it is not there in the text itself</span><span>—indeed, that the text is full of indications of the
opposite. If they did, they would realize that the aspect of Paul
Wagner highlights, the 'present-ness' of Christ to faith</span><span>—</span><span>as it is in 1 Clement, as it is in
Hebrews, in 1 John, in 1 Peter, concurrent with the absence of any
accounting of history</span><span>—</span><span>is
there not because these writers are continually reliving and embodying
such a history, but because they are experiencing and embodying an
entirely spiritual Christ who has acted in the spiritual, essentially
timeless, sphere of reality in the heavens. Their Christ communicates
with them from there (as the language of Hebrews and 1 Clement
manifestly reveals). They have been inspired by the revelation that
proceeds from scripture and Christ's voice as found within it, not by
historical traditions and memories from recent history which are never
mentioned. This, too, scholars cannot allow themselves to recognize in
the texts, though it stares openly at us from their pages.<br />
<br />
This involvement of the believer with an
ever-present Christ is not rooted in Hebrew thought and its
relationship with an historical past, but in Platonic thought, the
relationship between the material present with its earthly copies of
things, and the higher realm where true reality existed and the gods
operated. This Platonic duality is what is to be found in Paul's
parallelism of action between man and god, and especially as embodied
in the Platonically-realized mystery cult soteriology. Mithras 'saves'
and vitalizes the earth (according to the astro-theologians of Tarsus
who quite possibly created the Roman cult of Mithras) by 'slaying' the
heavenly Taurus and directing the grand-scale movements of the stars;
he is an ever-present force for his devotees. Other gods save by
undergoing a paradigmatic dying and rising (of sorts) which, because it
is a governing paradigm in the 'real' higher universe, creates a
counterpart effect for those linked to them in the 'copy' universe. The
pagan gods effected this salvation because it was inherent in the
system. Paul and early Christianity, no doubt under certain Jewish
influences, converted this to a more personal conception, that their
savior Christ died for them through a voluntary offering of himself,
contingent on faith and the living of a new sin-free life. This is one
reason why Christianity was triumphant, and the mysteries passed into
"fossilized history"</span><span>—a passing aided by a swift
kick from the Christian bully who was determined to rule over the whole
schoolyard by himself. The other reason was an advance over
Paul. This savior had come to earth as a man and lived his redeeming
life among us in recorded history; in remembered events, not mythical
ones. Once the Gospels gained the ascendancy, the actual roots of the
faith were lost, expunged, and are only being recovered today.</span><span><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span><a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13C.htm">http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13C.htm</a><br />
</span></div>
<b><span>===================</span></b></div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-63285978008709356372017-03-20T01:34:00.002-07:002017-03-20T01:34:49.742-07:00EARL DOHERTY : The Mystery Cults and Christianity (2)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
EARL DOHERTY<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><span>The Mystery Cults and Christianity</span></b><br />
<b><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">Part Two:</span>
<br />
ON COMPARING THE CULTS AND CHRISTIANITY</span></b><b><span> </span></b>
<br />
<br />
<span> With Part One's survey of the
major mystery cults of the ancient world in view, we can address the
thorny question of their relationship to Christianity. Was the religion
of Paul simply another
branch of the multi-faceted tree by which men and women of the day
sought relief from the pains and apprehensions of life and refuge from
the fear of death? Was it part of a common quest for a belief in
salvation beyond the grave? Or was Christianity so different and
distinct that it could lay claim to originality and unique truth? We
will look at a number of commentators' views on the subject. The first
is a representative example of the apologetic agenda, <span style="font-style: italic;">Backgrounds of Early Christianity</span>
(1987), a textbook for undergraduate classes in Christian universities
by Everett Ferguson; here we will also take a few side glances at
Walter Burkert's 1987 <span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient
Mystery Cults<span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>. The
second is by a theologian of the mid 20th century, Fr. Hugo Rahner, who
wrote a well-known paper for the Eranos meeting of 1944, "The Christian
Mysteries and the Pagan Mysteries." Finally, a respected scholar,
Jonathan Z. Smith, has made two contributions to the question, an
Encyclopedia article in 1977, and a more recent book which has become
something of a classic in this field: </span><span><span style="font-style: italic;">Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of
Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity</span></span><span> (1991). In the succeeding article (13C), I will be taking a
detailed look at perhaps the most influential book ever written on this
subject, the 1963/1967 <span style="font-style: italic;">Pauline
Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries</span>, by Gunter Wagner.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span>
<br />
<span><br />
</span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>---
i ---</big></big><br />
<span style="font-style: italic;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span><span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></span></div>
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Backgrounds
of Early Christianity: Everett Ferguson</big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Everett </span><span>Ferguson
is Professor of Bible at
Abilene Christian University (in Texas). The orientation of
apologetic defense in his book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Backgrounds
of Early Christianity</span>, is quiescent much of the time, for he
surveys a wide range of ancient
politics and
culture. But it emerges when he is addressing the mystery
cults and certain philosophies which are perceived as comparable
to
Christianity. In his Introduction, he claims to occupy a neutral ground
in his assessment of similarities and differences between Christianity
and the cults, and yet he takes
refuge in the stance that "Christian faith does not depend on
uniqueness" and that "Questions of parallels are historical
questions, not faith questions" [p.xiv]. He admits that he details
differences
more than similarities, and pointedly mentions that where major
similarities are found, more often than not the prior attestation is in
Christianity, without mentioning that there are qualifications to
be imposed on an evaluation of the latter state of affairs.<br />
</span><br />
<span> In his summary section to
the mystery cults, "Mystery
Religions and Christianity" [p.237-240], the university copy I was
using bore dramatic underlinings by some unknown borrower at all the
passages where Ferguson offers observations of alleged 'contrast' that
seem
meant to reassure those with Christian interests and counter any
disquiet produced by his prior discussion of the cultic rites and
myths. These are fairly standard claims put forward by many apologists,
in books and on websites. We will look at these points of contrast in
detail and
consider the question of how significant they are and what effect they
have on the overall picture.</span><br />
<span> Ferguson echoes a common opinion
of apologetic-oriented writers. It is
essentially an accusation that those who have seen pervasive common
elements between the mysteries and Christianity have done so "by
(unconsciously) starting with Christian ideas, using them to
interpret the data about the mysteries, and then finding the mysteries
as the source of Christian ideas" [p.237-8]. But let's observe here
that this coin has an opposite side to it as well. Defenders of
Christian
distinctiveness</span><span>—if not uniqueness</span><span>—have often done their best to describe and <span style="font-style: italic;">define</span> the elements of Christianity
in ways which present the best face of differentness to that of
the mysteries; then they appeal to such differences as
'proving'
the distinctiveness if not uniqueness of Christianity.</span><br />
<span> </span>
<br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Resurrection</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>The first point to address is the
all-important question of resurrection. Ferguson says [p.238-9]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Parallels to the
[Christian] resurrection have been suggested in the "dying and rising
savior-gods." But the "resurrection" of these gods is very different
from what is meant by that word in Christian belief. There is nothing
in the myth of Osiris that could be called a resurrection: the god
became ruler over the dead, not the living. The myth of Attis contains
no specific mention of a resurrection, though it has been thought the
gladness following mourning in his cult presupposed some such notion.
The Adonis myth perhaps most clearly indicates the resuscitation of a
god, but even here it is not strictly a resurrection. These beliefs are
more closely allied to the cycle of nature, and the mysteries seem to
have had their origin in the agricultural cycle. Even this element does
not seem prominent in the mysteries of the Roman period where urban
life had weakened the connection with the soil.<br />
</span></div>
<span> I have made the point earlier
that there are different forms of 'resurrection'. All are variants on
the basic idea of 'conquest of death' by the god, and all have the same
result regardless of their differences, namely the guarantee of some
form of positive afterlife for the initiate. Probably no pagan savior
cult envisioned in its myth the resuscitation of the mourned-over
corpse of the god to the status of a former living person, even
temporarily. When the 'dying and rising' concept was initially attached
directly to the agricultural cycle, the earliest myths, such as that of
Eleusis or in the even earlier myths of Inanna or Tammuz, had to do
with the descent of the deity to the underworld, not always presented
as
an actual death, and his or her reemergence to the surface. When such
myths began to be applied to humans and their fate, they had to undergo
a mystical deepening which embodied much more than the plant and food
cycle; they had to encompass human death and what lay beyond</span><span>—in a different world, since the dead, in universal
experience, did not come back to this one. In very early societies,
such as the Sumerian and Egyptian, the king/pharaoh was the
representation or incarnation of the god who conquered death. While
alive, such rulers celebrated the annual rebirth of the sun and plants
as a type for the more important rebirth they would undergo from this
world to the next</span><span>, a privilege and fortunate
fate which came to be appropriated by the nobility and then potentially
by everyone. Thus the dying and rising gods of seasonal vegetation
expanded their quality and import. As Mircea Eliade puts it [<span style="font-style: italic;">The History of Religious Ideas</span>,
vol.1, p.67], life and death<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>constituted the two
moments of a single process. This "mystery," perceived after the
discovery of agriculture, becomes the principle of a unified
explanation
of the world, of life, and of human existence; it transcends the
vegetable drama, since it also governs the cosmic rhythms, human
destiny, and relations with the gods. The myth relates <span style="font-style: italic;">the defeat of the goddess of love</span>
and fertility in her attempt to conquer the kingdom of Ereshkigal, that
is, <span style="font-style: italic;">to abolish death</span>. In
consequence, men, as well as certain gods, have to accept the
alternation life/death. Dumuzi-Tammuz disappears, to reappear six
months later. This alternation</span><span>—periodical
presence and absence of the god</span><span>—was able to
institute "mysteries" concerning the salvation of men, their destiny
after death.<br />
</span></div>
<span> This is why the acceptance of the
inevitability of
death is reflected so strongly in the various cultic myths, in the
dying and mourning elements of the rites, such as in the 'passion week'
of Attis. But as I have said before, no religion celebrates death
per se, as a finality, with no associated reversal of the coin (despite
what modern scholars seem to want to claim). The 'rising' may be
evident and unmistakeable in nature, but for humans it has to be taken
'on faith,' which is why such a faith is always linked with and placed
in something beyond the material, namely in a god and his experiences,
in supernatural processes that become embodied in myth, or in the
mystic deepening of old myths. Rites take on an ever more mystical
sacramentalism (as in Pauline baptism). Because such things evolve into
ever more sophisticated versions at the hands of ever more
sophisticated minds does not mean that they are not all expressions of
the same thing or do not share a common root and impulse.<br />
</span><br />
<span> It is simply incidental to claim,
as Ferguson does, the distinction between the pagan gods' fate after
death with that of Jesus. Both are designed to confer the same effect
on the believer, which is what matters. If Osiris "became ruler over
the dead, not the living," the same can be said for Jesus. The
resurrected Christian who goes to heaven is part of "the dead" and not
"the living," in the sense of the departed from this world, the same as
"the dead" pagan. And Christ in heaven is the same as Osiris in the
underworld. Both are rulers over "the dead" in that same sense. The
location of the happy afterlife is hardly significant. (A heaven in the
sky simply sounds better to us than an eternity under the ground.) In
essence, they are exactly the same, and Osiris gives such benefits to
his devotees as much as Jesus to his. We as a culture, and Christianity
in its writings, may have managed to paint a brighter, fuller picture
of the Christian afterlife than did the mysteries, but this is in large
part because we have the greater literary production of the two, and
such things were not expressed openly in the cults.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Christians eventually came to
focus on a rising <span style="font-style: italic;">in flesh</span>
for Jesus, partly under the influence of Jewish concepts of a kingdom
of God to be set up on a transformed earth, something which would
require a rising in some form of flesh. We have largely lost that
'millenarian' focus, so that modern Christianity seems to suffer from a
schizophrenic attitude toward the afterlife. The soul will be saved,
but so will the body, as resurrected at the end of the world</span><span>—all of it in Heaven. The exact nature of one's afterlife
form and how it will function is, I think, a woolly matter in the minds
of most Christians. At least the ancient Greek was more clear: the body
is dumped onto the material refuse heap, and the soul containing the
real essence of the individual is exalted to the true world of spirit.</span><br />
<span> To his comment on resurrection,
Ferguson appends this remark:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>But insofar as paganism
offered "dying and rising gods," these gods are a world apart from
Christ's resurrection, which was presented as a one-time historical
event, neither a repeated feature of nature nor a myth of the past.<br />
</span></div>
<span>There are a few caveats here. Collectively, the
pagan cults had a long and deep heritage of centuries behind them. The
concept of a savior "Christ" was of new vintage, with no attendant
mythological 'stories' such as the mysteries had had time to develop
and evolve. And the nature of Christ's resurrection looks very
different in the early epistles from that presented in the Gospels. As
I said in my response to John in Reader Feedback 27,<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Not
only do Paul and other epistle
writers fail to tell us that Jesus rose from the dead <span style="font-style: italic;">in flesh</span>, or returned to earth
after his resurrection (the "seeings" of 1 Cor. 15:5-8 are better
understood as visions, all of them like Paul's own), the early
Christian writings tell us <span style="font-style: italic;">explicitly</span>
where Jesus went
immediately after his rising from death: to Heaven, to take his place
at the right hand of God. 1 Peter 3:18-22, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews
10:12, the hymns of Philippians 2 and 1 Timothy 3:16, exclude any
period on earth. (Can we really believe that if there was such a thing,
not a single epistle would make mention of it?) In other words, Jesus
after his death (which to judge by the early writers is in myth, not
history) is resurrected to the <span style="font-style: italic;">afterworld</span>,
there to receive his devotees. That is the resurrection which is the
"firstfruits," with the resurrection of believers to follow into the
same place. This is all that Paul presents to us. Christ's is a
resurrection just like that of Osiris and Attis.</span></div>
<span> Now, this would be true even in
the context of an historical Jesus. But Paul and the others are equally
silent on any historical setting whatever for the death and
resurrection of their Jesus, which is one of the factors which makes
the mythicist scenario possible and compelling. If we were to judge by
the earliest Christian writings (instead of reading the later Gospels
into them), we would find no real distinction between the god's
resurrection in Christianity and in the cults.
It is true that Christianity envisioned the death and resurrection of
Jesus as a "one-time" event, but this concept was applied to the
mythical setting, not to history. Consider Galatians 4:4. When was it
that God "sent his son"? "In the fullness of time," which has no
temporal or historical significance, especially considering that the
"sending" is stated as that of the "<span style="font-style: italic;">spirit</span>"
of the son into believers' hearts (4:6) and that what has happened in
the present to bring an end to the term of the Law is the arrival of "<span style="font-style: italic;">faith</span>" (3:23, 25), not of Jesus.
Even in Hebrews, which actually uses the term "once for all" (<span style="font-style: italic;">hapax</span>), the word appears in the
context of a sacrifice made <span style="font-style: italic;">in heaven</span>,
in the heavenly sanctuary, not of an appearance <span style="font-style: italic;">on earth</span>. It is used to
make a contrast with the repeated sacrifices of animals by the priests
on earth, whereas Jesus had to make <span style="font-style: italic;">his</span>
sacrifice only once (in heaven). The key passage 9:24-26
employs the idea of "appearance" once for all in that heavenly context.
It is a <span style="font-style: italic;">spiritual</span> event, not
an historical one. This may be a distinction from the view of certain
Platonic philosophers (like the 4th century Sallustius, or Plutarch in <span style="font-style: italic;">Isis and Osiris</span>) that the myths of
the savior gods represented timeless truths, a spiritual process that
"always is so," as Sallustius styles it; but this can be put down to
cultural differences and is hardly critical in view of the silence on
any historical context for this 'one-time' quality to the Christ event.
In any case, Ferguson exaggerates the contrast because, as he himself
has recognized elsewhere, the "repeated" feature of the god's
dying and rising as founded in nature's cycle has receded into the
background in the cults, where the interpretation of the death and
resurrection of the god takes on a quality no different from a
'one-time' event, being the guarantee of the initiate's similar triumph
over death.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Baptism</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>Ferguson also points out [p.239]
that<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>There are no true
parallels to baptism in the mysteries. Where water was applied it was
done so for a preliminary purification, not as the initiation itself.
The manner in which the initiation into the mysteries and baptism in
the New Testament worked was entirely different: the benefit of the
pagan ceremony was effective by the doing (<span style="font-style: italic;">ex opere operato</span>), whereas the
benefit of baptism was a grace-gift of God given to faith in the
recipient....All converts to Christianity received baptism, whereas
initiation in the mysteries was for an inner circle of adherents.<br />
</span></div>
<span>Notice here that Ferguson avoids using the term
"initiate" for the recipient of Christian baptism, but there is no
question that the latter was a rite of initation into the sect. It was
a rite of linking to the god and his experiences, as Paul makes clear
in his description of the process in Romans 6:1-10. The fact that the
mystery cults did not treat their water rite as an initiation is
because they had separate ceremonies for that purpose, following the
water rite. And if the latter was a "preliminary purification," then it
was, broadly speaking, part of the set of initiatory rites. Ferguson
also doublespeaks in making an entirely artificial distinction between
what happens to the initiate in either case as a result of undergoing
the rites. If the initiation as a whole marks the pagan reception of
the god and his benefits by the devotee, this is in the same taxonomic
category as the Christian reception of grace in the Holy Spirit, which
is both <span style="font-style: italic;">from </span>God and <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> God. To say that all converts to
Christianity received baptism while the mysteries' initiation was
restricted to an inner circle is really a disguised tautology. Just as
all new Christians <span style="font-style: italic;">chose</span> to
be converted and thereby received baptism, so did all those who chose
to be initiated receive the benefit of the mysteries. The only concrete
difference lay in the relative affordability. This point, however, is
hardly significant.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Ferguson has also brought up a
favorite point of difference repeated by many scholars. From the above
quote: "</span><span>the benefit of the pagan ceremony was
effective by the doing (<span style="font-style: italic;">ex opere
operato</span>), whereas the benefit of baptism was a grace-gift of God
given to faith in the recipient." This is a prime example of my point
that Christian scholars will define Christian features in ways designed
to create artificial, if not false, distinctions. Considering that both
cases involve imagined supernatural workings which can hardly be
scientifically studied let alone verified, it is fatuous in the extreme
to label one's opponents' rites 'magic' and one's own legitimate
spirituality. The idea of "<span style="font-style: italic;">ex opere
operato</span>" is that the act itself, the performance of the rite,
generates the effect on the initiate, like a direct current operating
under magical principles</span><span>. The god or the process
had no choice in the matter. Like magic, if you knew the right words,
the secret names, the proper actions to perform, the result was
automatic. Christian baptism, on the other hand, is being presented not
as a
rite that would automatically force God to confer some benefit on the
participant, but as an act of faith from which God would bestow a gift.
Such a distinction is little more than sleight of hand. The rite
honestly undertaken in either case would bring the benefit; no pagan
initiate would think he could fail to have the proper attitude and
still put one over on the god. The Christian baptismal rite also
appealed to the deity's names, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And
whatever force is imagined to be working between the performance of the
rite and the response of the divinity it was directed at, it is
ludicrous to think of scoffing at one while bowing down to the other.
Paul's concept of 'dying with Christ' in the baptism ritual is
virtually indistinguishable on any rational plane from what the pagan
initiate imagined was happening to him when he went through the rites
in the mysteries of his own god.</span><br />
<span> Walter Burkert [<span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Mystery Cults</span>, p.101f] also
weighs in on the question of baptism. For him, "baptism proper" is
"immersion into a river or basin as a symbol of starting a new life,"
another example of defining Christian elements so that their
equivalents in the mysteries will not fit the profile. However, this is
followed
by an admission that <br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>there are some features
in early Christian baptism that irresistibly remind one of pagan
mystery initiations: the individual ritual upon application, often
thwarted by <span style="font-style: italic;">oknos</span>; the
preparation and instruction; the nocturnal celebration, preferably on
the eve of the great common festival, which is Easter; the use of milk
and honey; and the curious detail of "stamping on goatskins" (the
Eleusinian <span style="font-style: italic;">mystes</span> is shown
sitting on a ram's fleece).<br />
</span></div>
<span>Burkert acknowledges that these are probably "some
direct borrowings that took place." Then he goes on with monumental
naivete to say, "they are clearly additions to what John the Baptist
did at the Jordan." Not only does this accept the Gospel account as
gospel, as though Christian baptism was initially modeled on some
'pure' historical precedent at the Jordan river, it ignores the obvious
discrepancy between what is supposed to have been the "baptism of John"
(in token of repentance, as in Acts 19:4 and supported by Josephus) and
the Pauline version, regarded as involving reception of the Holy
Spirit, something said (in Acts) to be unknown to John. It also ignores
the fact that Paul, in all his reference to baptism, never once
mentions Jesus' own baptism by John at the Jordan. He never relates the
significance of baptism as he interprets it to any of the features of
that Gospel account, which might be presumed to be circulating in
Christian tradition even before the Gospels were written. This would
include the purported descent of the Holy Spirit into Jesus, which
would have been an irresistibly useful parallel for Paul in his claim
that at baptism the Holy Spirit entered into the initiate. Paul,
moreover, is completely silent on the figure of John the Baptist in any
connection.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Burkert concludes by noting that
"Another ritual firmly rooted in the Jewish tradition, anointing, is
likewise scarcely seen in mysteries." This may well be true, but it
simply highlights the fact that Christian rites and traditions are a
mix, a syncretism, of the Jewish and the non-Jewish. The presence of
the former does not, as too many scholars seem to try to intimate, rule
out the presence of the latter, or absolves us from weighing the
balance between the two influences and determining how much debt is
owed to
Greek thought and the mysteries themselves, especially in regard to
significant aspects of the Christian salvation system.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Rebirth</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>On the subject of rebirth,
Ferguson says [p.239]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Initiation into the
mysteries has been presented as a "pagan regeneration" in which there
is a rebirth and a kind of mystical union with the deity. The
terminology of regeneration is rare in connection with the mysteries
and then as a metaphor for a new life. The idea of rebirth does not
appear to be specifically connected with moral renewal.<br />
</span></div>
<span>The latter may be largely true, in that the initiate
did not primarily see himself as reborn shed of previous sins, although
Ferguson himself has admitted that moral demands could accompany
initiation (p.236, in connection with Mithras). This is something on
which Paul lays emphasis. And yet, Paul also laid his supreme emphasis
on faith, and rejected moral works as the basis for salvation. In fact,
it would seem that his primary focus in regard to ethics was that the
initiate was now free of the cumbersome Jewish Law, which could be seen
at base as the proclamation of the <span style="font-style: italic;">abandonment</span>
of an ethical system, one he himself had no use for. (One wonders why.)
Once again, it goes against common sense to maintain that a religious
impulse tied to promises of regeneration and of salvation after death
would not entail the concept of 'rebirth', regardless of whether we
fail to find abundant language of that sort in a record so sparse.
Ferguson himself [p.229] has admitted, echoing Burkert as noted above,
that "a few inscriptions speak of the person [undergoing the
taurobolium in the rites of Attis] as 'reborn', although one speaks of
the person as 'reborn for eternity'." In a meagre record, the presence
of "a few inscriptions" completely removes any legitimacy for
suggesting that given ideas did not exist or were "rare."<br />
</span><br />
<span> One of those inscriptions is
Mithraic. Manfred Clauss [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Roman
Cult of Mithras</span>, p.104] recounts:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>It is therefore
intelligible that initiation was understood as a kind of rebirth. An
unknown person scratched a graffito into the side-wall of the
cult-niche of the mithraeum beneath S. Prisca in Rome: 'Born at first
light when the Emperors (Septimius) Severus and Antonius (Caracalla)
were consuls, on the 12 day before the first of December, the day of
Saturn, the 18 of the Moon'. That was 20 November AD 202. By analogy
with the Sun's birth at sunrise, the initiand is also 'born' through
initiation into the mysteries.<br />
</span></div>
<span> Still, it would admittedly be
good to find more references to the concept of rebirth.
Burkert is kind enough to detail some of the suggestions we do have,
notably in Apuleius' <span style="font-style: italic;">The Golden Ass</span>,
in which "the day following the night of initiation is reckoned as a
new birthday; Isis has the power to change fate and to grant a new
life" [p.99]. As well, Mithraic inscriptions (as noted above) and some
taurobolium inscriptions "indicate that the day of the initiation
ritual was a new birthday; the <span style="font-style: italic;">mystēs</span>
was <span style="font-style: italic;">natus et renatus</span>"
[p.100]. The situation is probably best summed up as Burkert says, "The
taurobolium could also suggest an act of birth, when the initiate
emerges from a cave in a garment dripping with blood; but there is no
explicit confirmation." The latter could apply to almost everything
where the mystery cults are concerned. However, this does not justify
declaring judgments which are always slanted in the same direction and
clearly agenda driven.<br />
</span><br />
<span> That an agenda and a bias lie in
the background is evident in this summary paragraph in Burkert [p.101]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>To sum up, there is a
dynamic paradox of death and life in all the mysteries associated with
the opposites of night and day, darkness and light, below and above,
but there is nothing as explicit and resounding as the passages in the
New Testament, especially in Saint Paul and in the Gospel of John,
concerning dying with Christ and spiritual rebirth. There is as yet no
philosophical-historical proof that such passages are directly derived
from pagan mysteries; nor should they be used as the exclusive key to
the procedures and ideology of the mysteries.<br />
</span></div>
<span>First of all, it is unrealistic if not ludicrous to
complain of, or use as evidence, the fact that we have in the record of
the mysteries nothing as "explicit and resounding" as all those themes
and passages in the New Testament when the relative size of the
literary record is so disparate, when secrecy was the hallmark of only
one half of the equation, and when Christianity destroyed so much when
it emerged triumphant. It is also ironic that scholars will have no
hesitation in accusing the mysteries of borrowing from Christianity in
the 4th century in the face of the latter's growing influence and
power, and yet have no sympathy for the idea that early Christianity
may have done exactly the same thing in its early days, when it was
trying to carve out its share of the market and could well have
borrowed ideas from longstanding and popular rivals. It can be no
coincidence that in 1 Corinthians 10-11, when trying to persuade the
Corinthians to behave themselves better at the communal table and
condemning any participation in similar pagan sacred meals (10:20-21),
Paul would come up with (claiming revelation "from the Lord himself") a
sacramental understanding to be applied to the Christians' own meal
(11:23-26) which clearly suggests the influence of parallels in the
mysteries. Of
course, no Christian scholar would ever admit as much.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Sacred Meals</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>We are not reliant on Paul for
knowledge that the mysteries had sacred meals, although he does witness
to their pre-Christian existence. In fact, as Ferguson says [p.239]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Sharing meals was a
common religious activity in paganism, Judaism and Christianity, and
there are certain similarities in all these meals. The significance of
the "communion," however, was different in each case. The weekly
memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the specific note
of thanksgiving (eucharist) in the prayers of consecration provide no
pagan counterparts.<br />
</span></div>
<span>The latter is a debatable point. And one will note
that Ferguson makes no mention of the idea that the early Christians
thought of themselves as actually consuming Jesus' own body as present
in the bread. One presumes this is because such a doctrine became a
Roman Catholic notion which later 'reformists' rejected, and Ferguson
is not part of the Catholic outlook. If one wants to take Paul and some
of the evangelists literally, Jesus identified the bread at the
Lord's/Last Supper as "my body." Without this element, Ferguson is
reduced to making distinctions only in regard to the frequency of
observance, and in claiming that no thanksgiving or consecration aspect
was involved. The latter would be a very difficult point to prove,
since we know so little about the intricacies of the pagan rites.
Helmut Koester (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>,
p.194-5) speaks of the cultic meals in the worship of Sabazius. This
was a minor mystery-type deity who, in some circles of Asia Minor, was
apparently syncretized with the Jewish Yahweh by Hellenized Jews,
showing that the mystery cult phenomenon could even cross the Greek-Jew
boundary. One wonders whether some of the condemnation of "judaizing"
features in several epistles could be referring to groups like these.
In regard to the cult of Sabazius, Koester notes:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>There apparently were
common cultic meals which</span><span>—judging from the
painting on the Vincentius tomb in Rome</span><span>—seemed
to symbolize one's acquittal before the judge of the dead and reception
into the everlasting meal of the blessed.<br />
</span></div>
<span>Could there have been a 'thanksgiving' element to
such meals? One can hardly rule it out.<br />
</span><br />
<span> In regard to the cult of
Dionysos, while noting that the rites and religious concepts of the
mysteries of this god are not fully known, Koester does say that "the
celebrations certainly included a common meal and the drinking of wine</span><span>—Dionysus was, after all, the god of the vine." In fact, it
is with the cult of Dionysos that commentators make the observation
that here we have the closest parallel to the presumed early Christian
motif of "eating the god." Such a cultic practice was rooted in the
Dionysian myth of the devouring of the child Dionysos by the Titans,
supposedly reflected in the indulgence of the early women celebrants in
eating the raw flesh and blood of wild animals. Ferguson himself notes
that "Since Dionysos was believed to appear in animal form and to be
present in the wine, eating the flesh from a living animal and drinking
wine could be understood as incorporating the god and his power within"
[p.205]. Such an idea is certainly different from the Christian concept
of the Last Supper, with the body and blood of Christ representing a
"new covenant" with God, but this is simply a reflection of the
different applications made of a common practice by different cultural
groups. The covenant idea is specifically Jewish, and has been
incorporated into the concept of Jesus as atonement sacrifice. <br />
</span><br />
<span> Martin Nilsson [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Dionysiac Mysteries</span>, p.135-6]
has made the interesting observation that an inscription found in
Smyrna (Asia Minor) from the 2nd century CE seems to indicate that the
sacred meal being observed by the mystae of Bacchus (the Roman
Dionysos)
was in danger of "desacralization," that it was being turned into a
mere indulgent dinner, and the inscription's writer seems to be aiming
to restore the sacred character of the meal against these misuses. This
is a scenario virtually identical to what we find in 1 Corinthians 11.
One of the writer's noted prescriptions for the meal is that it should
not involve cooking and eating of the "heart," which suggests that meat
was a chief element of what was consumed. Nilsson links this to the
myth that the Titans did not eat the heart of Dionysos, which was
rescued by Athena and brought to Zeus.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Perhaps the most secure
interpretation of a sacred meal in the mysteries comes from Mithraism.
Several Mithraic reliefs depict the sacred meal, a ritual reenactment
of the second most important theme represented on Mithraic monuments:
the meal shared by Mithras and the Sun god Helios following Mithras'
slaying of the bull. This mythical meal is celebrated on the carcass of
the slain animal. Often the figure of the Sun god is presented showing
deference to Mithras; Ulansey suggests quite compellingly that this
represents the superior power of Mithras over Helios, since he is the
god responsible for controlling the macro-movements of the heavens in
the precession of the equinoxes, something Helios cannot equal. Such
scenes also support the primary scene of the bull-slaying, which
depicts grapes emerging from the death-wound in the bull's neck and
ears of wheat growing out of its tail: bread and wine, the two staples
of the ancient world diet. The meal of the two gods, involving bread
and wine, represents that bounty, a bounty proceeding from the
sacrifice
of the bull. This type of mythology is more common to the mystery
cults, and yet the "bread of life" is also a motif in Christianity. By
the actions of a god or gods, the earth and humans are provided with
sustenance; nature's operation has been personified in grand myths of
divine activities. While there are certainly ground-level distinctions
of a significant character, still, the death or underground descent of
deities, the sacrifice of a bull, the crucifixion of Christ, all such
things are the mythical constructs of the human mind, designed to
explain the benefits seen as bestowed on humanity from the realm of
divinity, both in this world and the next.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Justin Martyr, in the middle of
the 2nd century, witnesses very clearly to the existence of a sacred
meal among Mithraists which seems to him so close to the Christian
Eucharist, both in regard to the bread and cup as well as the mystical
incantations over them, that he must declare the similarity to be the
work of the devil [<span style="font-style: italic;">Apology</span>
61]. Such a pagan rite would hardly have arisen only in his own day, so
there can be no question of borrowing from the Christian Eucharist. In
fact, we must assume by Justin's prior remarks in <span style="font-style: italic;">Apology </span>54 that such rites arose
prior to the Christian ones, for he argues that the demons were able to
counterfeit the latter because they could read what was being forecast
about Christ in the Hebrew prophets!<br />
</span><br />
<span> Manfred Clauss in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Roman Cult of Mithras</span>, has this
to say about the Mithraic sacred meal [p.109]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The Mithraists evidently
believed that they were reborn through the consumption of bread and
wine. The food was of course not simply actual or literal food, but
also food in the metaphorical sense which nourished souls after death:
the meal was the guarantee of their ascension into the undying light.
In the case of these analogies, there can be no question of imitation
in either direction. The offering of bread and wine is known in
virtually all ancient cultures, and the meal as a means of binding the
faithful together and uniting them to the deity was a feature common to
many religions. It represented one of the oldest means of manifesting
unification with the spiritual, and the appropriation of spiritual
qualities.<br />
</span></div>
<span>Thus, to claim any degree of originality or
uniqueness for the tradition known in the Gospels as the Last Supper,
or for the Lord's Supper as presented by Paul, who may well have
invented it whole cloth based on the mystery practice, is nothing more
than special pleading. Even Ferguson's claim that prayers of
consecration over the bread are distinctive to Christianity is
compromised by one of the representations of the Mithraic meal in which
Clauss points out that the right hands of the two presiding priests
"are raised in a gesture of blessing. They are apparently speaking
sacred formulae over the offerings on the small circular table in front
of them." Naturally, any words spoken would not be the same as those
spoken by Jesus in the Gospels, or as presented by Paul. But the spirit
would be the same. The bread and wine were representative of the bull,
whose sacrifice gave life to the world; at the Last Supper, the bread
and wine were representative of Jesus, whose sacrifice gave eternal
life to the
world.</span><br />
<br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">On Redemption from
Sin</span><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span> </span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The salvation the
mysteries brought was a
deliverance from fate and the terrors of the afterlife, not a
redemption from sin. [p.239]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
In light of all we have said</span><span>—and
even what Ferguson himself has said</span><span>—the first
part of this statement can hardly stand. What hairs are being split by
saying the pagans had a terror of the afterlife? Orpheus was no more
hell-oriented than Christians were, and most Graeco-Roman outlook was
much less. The prevailing attitude toward one's fate with the "shades"
in Hades was that it was an empty, dismal existence; naturally, a
happy afterlife was to be preferred, no less so than among the
Christians. This is no distinction at all, except in regard to
Ferguson's second thought. But even here, he is guilty of an
exaggerated spin. It is true that the pagan savior gods did not
"redeem" in this sense, though even this needs modification in Orphic
contexts. This is another apologetic whipping post, that the mysteries</span><span>—and the Graeco-Roman mentality in general</span><span>—were less morally oriented and ethically commendable than
the Judaeo-Christian one. No society can exist or function without
ethics, and despite the primitive and 'immoral' behavior (by our
standards) of certain elements of Graeco-Roman society, high ethical
standards could be found in many circles. Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus
were writers and advocates of some of the greatest moral thought of the
time, unsurpassed by anything in the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
(Douglas Sharp, in his 1914 book <span style="font-style: italic;">Epictetus
and the New Testament</span>, was so struck by how close in their
ethical views were Jesus and Epictetus that he naively wondered if
Epictetus could have been a secret Christian!) Stoicism was all about
ethics and proper social responsibility. Other philosophies also upheld
pragmatic and responsible conduct as beneficial to personal fulfillment
and society's well-being, the latter being a focus which Jewish and
Christian morality never achieved. One's contribution to the state and
social cohesiveness was a principle almost unique to Graeco-Roman
culture; in the Judaeo-Christian the obsession was with one's
relationship to God. Others were judged in accordance with their
adherence to religious truths, which in the Christian case were
exclusive to themselves, an attitude far more divisive and destructive
to happiness and social well-being than Graeco-Roman attitudes. Pagan
religion had an open door policy: all gods, all faiths welcome, for
many were the avenues to truth and salvation. Not a single religious
war marred the landscape of Graeco-Roman history (the wars against the
Jews were not on account of their beliefs but their rebellion against
Rome), and there were no inquisitions against heretics. The persecution
of Christians by the empire proceeded from the Christian refusal to
take part in the state's religious observances and acknowledge its
gods, ceremonies that were more an expression of civic responsibility
and cooperation for the sake of social and political cohesion than of
conforming to a set of required faiths.<br />
<br />
Ferguson's "redemption for sins" is an apologetic
catchphrase. The characteristic Christian sense of sin is a
continuation from the traditional Jewish obsession with transgression
against an obsessively strict God (something fed by an almost
continuous history of subjugation by foreign powers, a situation which
had to be explained in the context of Yahweh being the only true god).
This neurotic fixation with "sin," endemic in early Christian centuries
(and which has largely continued to this day in Christian circles, to
the great detriment of mental health and human self-image), led
naturally to an interpretation of their own savior as one who redeemed
from the effects of sin. It became the centerpiece of Christian
soteriology, though it is curiously missing from the very earliest
Christian expression: those 'pre-Pauline' hymns found in various
epistles of the Pauline corpus. This focus on personal sin led to the
Christian attitude that all things pagan were irredeemably rotten and
immoral</span><span>—which didn't help Christians' relations
with their fellow citizens</span><span>. That pagan society
was a moral cesspool from top to bottom before Christianity came along
is a sanctimonious fantasy, despite certain lamentable elements (Howard
Fast's trio of "slavery, crucifixion, the arena"). The Christians
generally regarded almost all sexual activity as sinful, so pagan
libertinism would certainly have suffered by comparison. On the other
hand, atrocities committed in the name of the true religion, even
between disputing sects and theological positions, were exempt from any
negative judgment, and when the Christians acquired power in the 4th
century they showed no morality or charity in their ruthless
extermination of the mystery cults and the murder of many of their
devotees.<br />
<br />
It is true that the concept of Jesus' vicarious
atonement for sins is unparalleled in the mysteries. That seems to be
an idea which has specifically Jewish roots, though not in a
universalist sense. The Jews never believed they were suffering for
humanity as a whole, despite the twist Christians put on the Suffering
Servant Song of Isaiah 53. The Maccabean martyrs suffered for Jewry,
the Jewish state of the righteous they wanted God to liberate and exalt
over other nations. The pagan cults never had politically aggrandizing
ambitions, and one initiate was as worthy as another, in ignorance of
state and cultural lines. If apologists want to claim a certain
uniqueness in regard to Jesus' death as redemption for sin, they are
welcome to it. This does not mean, however, that an ethical dimension
was not part of any of the cults. Helmut Koester speaks of "the moral
demands" of the Cybele cult which were "severe and rigorous" (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.194) and even Ferguson
speaks of such moral demands imposed in Mithraism. Nor does it mean
that the Greek cults did not have a sense of sin, as we have seen in
regard to Orphism, or that one of the aspects of salvation was a
putting aside of the consequences of evil and attaining a moral life.
Koester also speaks of the "consciousness of sin and guilt" which
"played a significant role." The Orphic soul could not enter its
eternal heaven until it had been purified, though this was not
accomplished simply by the death of Dionysos. But the path to this
purification, to this <span style="font-style: italic;">redemption</span>,
was through the rites and tenets of the cult. So again, in the end the
similarities are just as significant as the differences, and inhabit
the same conceptual universe.<br />
<br />
More of the same sanctimonious attitude is evidenced
in Ferguson's comment in his discussion of Stoicism. While admitting
"similarities in Christian and Stoic ethical thought," he maintains
that "these instructions are placed in such a fundamentally different
world view as to give them a different significance" [p.293]. Why?
Because "Stoicism did not have a personal God; it knew only an imminent
God," and the Bible God is not equated with the world. Here, I must
quote
the passage in its entirety as an example indeed of different world
views and the misplaced self-righteousness that is inherent in the
apologetic one.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>
Stoicism's consciousness of sin did not reach the depths of Jewish and
Christian thought. Conscience has little significance unless there is a
Person to whom it must answer. Stoicism shared the limitations of all
philosophies in comparison to religion: A knowledge of universal
ethical precepts, as such, is seldom sufficient to call out and
organize a corresponding conduct. This only follows when a special
religious motive or ground of obligation is united with the knowledge
of the universal principle. Thus Stoicism, although denying the reality
of the world's distinctions, remained a philosophy for the few, because
the basis of its ethics was intellectual. Not all persons can live on a
high plane because the divine spark flickers but feebly in most.
Christianity, on the other hand, appealed to the masses. It did so by
relating all classes of people to a personal Savior with moral power.</span><br />
<span> Stoicism had no personal
immortality. When one died, his divine part went back into the Whole.
Stoicism was a creed of despair and acquiescence; it looked down on the
Christian virtues that depend upon the affirmation "God is love."
Stoicism's apathy basically denied the emotional side of human
experience. Christianity by contrast brought joy and hope into the
world.</span><br />
<span> Again, even where the teaching on
social ethics was similar, the motivation was fundamentally different.
Christians, ideally, act benevolently not merely in fulfillment of the
obligation of a common kinship in the universe or even in God, but
because they have learned self-sacrifice and active love from God in
Christ. Self-respect, not love, was Stoicism's driving force. For
Stoicism, as for all Greek philosophy before Neoplatonism, the goal of
humanity is self-liberation, and this goal is attainable. It did not
know the redemptive love of a merciful God.</span><br />
<br />
</div>
<span> For all their air of superiority,
Ferguson's comments point up the dubious wisdom of ranking the
Judaeo-Christian self-image over that of Greek philosophy in perhaps
its most commendable reflection, Stoicism. We can start right at the
core idea: Ferguson's declaration that "the basis of its ethics was
intellectual." This is really a code word for anything produced by the
human mind itself rather than received through divine revelation, with
a concomittant obligation to the dictates of that supernatural entity,
the "Person to whom it must answer." Christianity appealed to the
masses because one could simply receive instructions on what one must
do; no "intellectual" judgment was needed. One was absolved of all
responsibility except to acknowledge one's "personal Savior." Ferguson
is applying his own (religious) standards in calling "a creed of
despair" anything which does not involve the concept of an afterlife,
in classifying as "apathy" any philosophical movement not based on such
grandiose and woolly aphorisms as "God is Love," as though humans are
only capable of love in the context of faith in the divine and that
this is the full tally of human emotionalism. To add the condescending
presumption that only with Christianity was joy and hope brought to the
world places Ferguson squarely in the too numerous ranks of
self-righteous scholars who deserve little respect and less trust for
their conclusions within New Testament study and ancient history in
general.<br />
<br />
This is the most blatantly prejudiced passage in the
book. But worse follows. Ferguson sinks into typically Christian
self-congratulation. As for "love" being the driving force of
Christianity, there are too many throughout history, from Jews to
heretics, to women to witches, to modern atheists and many ordinary
folk
in between who have been on the receiving end of Christian "love," who
have experienced, both inside and outside Christian ranks, the
intolerance and rigidity that characterizes most religion, to make this
statement anything but risible, a prime example of the gulf between
theory and practice. Social responsibility and self-respect are
essential ingredients to any true and fruitful expression of love
within human society, and to intimate that Stoics and other
non-Christians of the ancient world were capable only of some inferior
brand of humanity is the height of narcissistic arrogance, and
unfortunately, all too typical.<br />
<br />
Perhaps we might sum up what may be the greatest
difference between paganism, as reflected in its salvation religions
and its philosophies, and that of Christianity by noting Ferguson's
final comparison here. While Stoicism had no connection to any mystery
cult and believed officially in no afterlife, its goal was indeed to
achieve a self-liberation from the fears and failings of life</span><span>—a goal Ferguson sneers at. In its stead he places "the
redemptive love of a merciful God." He considers it superior not only
to place one's fate and happiness entirely in the hands of an
otherworldly being and abandon any attempt to achieve liberation
through one's own devices and humanity's potential, he subscribes to
the very un-Greek and non-Stoic evaluation that humans are so
inherently evil and laden down with sin that we require a god's
redemption. Considering that Christianity has done its
best to convince its adherents of this proposition, it is no wonder
that Ferguson is forced to style his god as "merciful." But even in
this comparison, he is magnifying the differences. It is true that "The
mysteries did not offer a god who came to earth to save humans. Their
gods did not die voluntary to save mankind" [p.240]. The pagan savior
was not a vehicle of atonement for some higher deity who required such
a sacrifice to confer forgiveness on humanity. But if the cultic gods
represented forces inherent in nature, if their representative actions
produced salvation, then love and mercy toward humans had to be
involved. Moreover, it could be looked upon as a love and mercy
inherent in the workings of the world itself, rather than something
external to it and dependent on the caprice of an unpredictable
overseer who could be as adept at fashioning merciless punishment as
merciful salvation. If there were no such things as love and mercy
imputed to
the cultic gods by their devotees, they would hardly have enjoyed the
worship and devotion they clearly did for centuries. If Isis was the
universal protectress of so many in so many walks of life, how could
she not be envisioned as "merciful" or "loving"? Ferguson himself finds
"a moving testimony to a deep, personal religious faith" [p.218] in
Apuleius' account of his initiation into the mysteries of Isis. This is
not the only time one finds Ferguson's scholarly integrity at odds with
his Christian prejudices.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span><br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>---
ii ---</big></big><br />
</div>
<span><br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A Theological
Evaluation of the Mysteries: Hugo Rahner</big><br />
<br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span> There is another type of superiority that apologetic
scholars have regularly appealed to as a means of demonstrating the
impossibility of significant dependence of Christianity on the mystery
cults: the superiority of doctrine. One of the best examples of this
approach is a well-known paper delivered at the 1944 Eranos meeting by
Fr. Hugo Rahner, entitled "The Christian Mystery and the Pagan
Mysteries" [reprinted in <span style="font-style: italic;">Papers from
the Eranos Yearbooks</span>, p.337-401]. Here we can quote Rahner in a
way that also provides a good insight into the character of the
mysteries and their effect on those who underwent experience of the
rites. It does indeed highlight an essential difference between the two
expressions:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span> Closely
related to this is a second peculiarity of the mysteries. They are a
religion of feeling. They do not address themselves to the perplexed
intellect of man, they are no "doctrine" or "dogma".... This [Attis]
mystery cult is "free from all dogmatism," [Hepding] says, and the same
is true of nearly all the ancient cults, and he continues: "Essentially
it consists rather in the performance of certain old traditional rites.
These are the fixed, enduring element; he who venerates the gods by
exactly executing these prescriptions is <span style="font-style: italic;">eusebēs</span> [pious, religious],
according to the conception of the ancients....Common to all mysteries
is a ritual that speaks to the feelings through powerful external
techniques, through glaring light and sound effects and a polyvalent
symbolism that sublimates the elementary actions into images of
supersensory secrets. The godhead is thus brought much closer to the
believers."...[W]e are entitled to say that the mystery cult was
entirely a religion of feeling. "The mystai are not intended to learn
anything, but to suffer something and thus be made worth" runs a
fragment from Aristotle. The aim of the initiation is "not to learn but
to suffer." [p.350-1]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
If there is one thing that characterizes the western
religions which have emerged out of late antiquity, in contrast to
previous religions, it is "doctrine" and "dogma"</span><span>—to
history's great sorrow. Rahner claims that the cult initiate does not
"learn" but rather is induced to 'hope' through an emotional
experience. That may be basically true, but it is difficult to imagine
that no
one ever 'intellectualized' the meaning that underlay those experiences
or sought to understand how such hope could be 'rationally' supported,
even if no such reflections were allowed to be set down for others to
peruse; the Greek intellect was hardly devoid of a spirit of inquiry.
Yet what, on the Christian side, constituted <span style="font-style: italic;">its</span> "learning"? If the mystery
cults did not address themselves to the "intellect of man," in what way
did Christianity? I will let Rahner speak to that:</span><br />
<span><br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>It will be therefore my
first duty to demonstrate to you...the essential difference between
Christianity as a revealed religion and the Greek mysteries; between
the "hidden mystery" of the Christians and the <span style="font-style: italic;">must</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;">ēria</span></span></span><span>
of the Hellenistic world: between the "natural mystery" of the Greek
mystery symbolism and the "supernatural mystery" of the New Testament
doctrine of salvation. [p.355]</span><br />
<br />
<span><span style="font-style: italic;">Mysterion</span> is
the free decision of God, taken in eternity and hidden in the depths of
the godhead, to save man, who in his sinfulness has been separated from
God. [p.356]</span><br />
<br />
<span>Hence <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span>
is always both a manifesting and a concealment of the divine act of
salvation: manifest in the communication of the truth through the
promised Christ; concealed in the unfathomable nature of the divine
utterance, which even after its communication cannot be fully
understood but is apprehended only by faith. For this <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span> is a supernatural drama
transcending all human nature and all human thought, the drama of man's
acceptance as the son of God. [p.357]</span><br />
<br />
<span>[A]ll these are called <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span>, because they are acts
and rites and words that flow from God's unfathomable plan and that
themselves in turn, in their visible, modest, unpretentious cloak,
conceal and intimate and communicate God's unfathomable depths. [p.358]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
</span><span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>
It is difficult to detect any "understanding" or "learning" here, where
all is concealed with God, unfathomable, and dependent on faith. One
hears echoes of Paul's admission in 1 Corinthians 1, that to the
intellect his doctrine of the crucified Christ appears as
"foolishness"; we can hear the later voice of Martin Luther, that
Reason "is the greatest enemy fath has," that Faith "must trample under
foot all reason, sense and understanding." Rahner appeals even to Jesus
himself, as speaking of "the mystery of the kingdom of heaven" [Mt.
13:11, based on Mk. 4:11], which must be, as Rahner puts it, "hidden
beneath the cloak of parables 'in order that they may see and yet not
see, hear and yet not hear' [Mt. 13:13]." One fails to see any
addressing here of the "intellect of man," which is indeed "perplexed"
and remains so.<br />
<br />
I am unaware of any sentiment expressed by the
ancients in regard to the mysteries that the salvation processes they
embodied were contrary to reason or could not be understood because
they were hidden by the gods. Perhaps little emphasis (as far as we can
tell) was placed on the idea of understanding those workings of
salvation, but at least they did not openly declare the abandonment of
all hope of doing so. The mythology-oriented mind of the Greeks may
have felt that it intuitively understood the savior god myths, aided by
the insights gained during the experience of the rites. Indeed, the
demand for silence on the practices and meanings of the mysteries</span><span>—so that the unworthy would not profane or adulterate them</span><span>—implied that understanding <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> available, just that it could
not be widely disseminated. Rahner quotes the Hermetica: "To expose
this treatise imbued with all the majesty of God to the knowledge of
the many would be to betoken a godless mind." And the Pythagoreans:
"The goods of knowledge must not be communicated to him whose soul is
not cleansed" [p.364-5].<br />
<br />
Christianity, on the other hand, regarded divine
truths as essentially inaccessible, unfathomable, and only God could
confer insight and knowledge.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Christianity is never a
religion of the naked word, of mere reason and ethical law, but of the
veiled word, of loving wisdom, of grace concealed in sacramental symbols</span><span>—and hence also the religion of mysticism, in which the
infinite depths of God are disclosed hidden behind simple words and
rituals. But (and this is the specifically Christian element) God alone
is the mystagogue and hierophant of these mysteries: only when His
spirit confers the power of vision does man become an epoptes of the
Christian mystery. [p.367]</span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span> </span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Natural vs. Supernatural</span><br />
<br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span>Here is the fundamental difference between the
outlook of the mysteries and that of Christianity. It is commonly said
that the mysteries are at their core "naturalistic," based as they
were, ultimately, on the workings of the natural world, the cycles of
nature, the regeneration of life. Christianity divorced itself from all
that. Its basis became "<span style="font-style: italic;">super</span>naturalistic,"
beyond the reach of nature and the perceivable, fathomable world. The
workings of the world, including the human intellect, became
irrelevant, even a negative force for self-destruction and damnation.
This is, at heart, why there was so little progress in intellectual
knowledge, social improvement, technological advance for a thousand
years following the triumph of Christianity; these were things of the
devil. And it was not until the Renaissance revival of ancient Greek
learning and culture that the western world began to lift itself out of
that deathly gloom of suffocating faith and dogma.<br />
<br />
With doctrine and dogma rooted in the supernatural,
Christianity was forced to take refuge in the admission that its truth
is not accessible to reason. Indeed, it glories in such an admission,
as Paul did in 1 Corinthians. God himself is relied on, not to provide
a rational understanding of such doctrine, but the grace and faith
needed to accept it. Commit intellectual suicide, and God will
resurrect you to the saving world of revelation. Chrysostom said of the
Christian mystery: "For it remains unfathomable to those who have not
the right understanding for it. And it is revealed not by human wisdom,
but by the Holy Ghost in such measure as it is possible for us to
receive the spirit" [quoted on p.367]. Tertullian, in a much-quoted
sentiment, said that the death of the Son of God "is by all means to be
believed because it is absurd" [<span style="font-style: italic;">On
the Flesh of Christ</span>, 5]. The whole tone of Rahner's presentation
is that Christianity has 'advanced' over the mysteries by entering a
non-naturalistic dimension which admits of irrational ideas that
require the abandonment of the intellect and the withdrawal into a
sphere that is necessarily defined as inaccessible to reason. "The
Cross" as the basis of the Christian mystery, over the regeneration of
the gods who represented the workings of nature in the pagan mysteries,
was indeed a quantum leap, from the knowable to the unknowable, from
natural to supernatural. Rahner contrasts the two on those terms:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The ear of grain, the
sprouting tree, the bath, the life-giving union of the sexes, light and
darkness, moon and sun, all these, precisely because they are so simple
and human, provided, even in the natural mystery, the most suitable
expression for the profoundest <span style="font-style: italic;">arrēton</span>
and <span style="font-style: italic;">aneklalēton</span>" [both words
meaning 'something inexpressible']....</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Indeed so, for there is much to provoke wonder and even reverence in
the material universe, reverence that need not invoke the supernatural,
nor contravene rational principles and require one to admit a judgement
of apparent 'foolishness'. The mysteries were essentially a reading of
the perceivable universe and what fate humans could look for within it,
even if scientific understanding of its features was largely erroneous.
Christianity, on the other hand, operated <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>on an entirely
different plane and with a new divine content, in the mystery of the
Cross. [p.371]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
The Cross had nothing to do with the workings of nature, or with
"simple and human" experiences of life. Life became superfluous to the
concept of salvation. The widespread impulse to martyrdom, so startling
and incongruous to the ancients (though it had a precursor in Judaism),
demonstrates this. The idea of allowing oneself to be executed for
uncompromising faith in one god would have been unthinkable to the
Greeks; the situation would simply never have arisen. Christianity's
vaunted ethics were more a <span style="font-style: italic;">denial</span>
of life, designed to guarantee the attaining of the next world. Such
ethics, unlike those of a philosophy like Stoicism, lacked all focus on
the betterment of society, on commitment to general social
responsibility and making this world work. Proper faith was paramount
and salvation was accessible only to those who adhered to it. The
product of such an outlook was social divisiveness, and an unprecedent
animosity toward others, as found on the pages of many Christian
apologists whose condemnation of pagan practices and beliefs drip with
venom and self-righteous execration. (We will see some of that in the
writings of the 4th century Firmicus Maternus in the next article.)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">A Sanguinary Preoccupation</span><br />
<br />
While the mystery cult myths could certainly be
about blood and death, a natural preoccupation of ancient man in the
everyday experiences of life that he had so little control over,
Christianity enthroned this theme in an unprecedented way. Rahner
revels in the 'mystery of the Cross': "the agony, the blood, the
bleeding heart" [p.371]. For him, <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The vision of the
Christian mystic, illumined by faith, mounts upward from the Cross on
which the Creator and Logos died to the starry firmament of Helios and
Selene [sun and moon], penetrates the profoundest structure of the
cosmos, the structure of the human body, and even the forms of the
everyday things that serve him: and wherever he looks he sees the form
of the Cross imprinted on all things. It is as though the Cross of his
Lord had enchanted the whole world. [p.372]<br />
</span></div>
<span><br />
This is certainly a prime case of theology's ability to put a
whitewashed face on a primitive and repugnant concept, on the
prehistoric principle now abandoned in every other sphere of thought:
of blood sacrifice needed to placate an angry god. Rahner's drenching
of the
universe in the suffering, blood and death of Christ is something the
mysteries never achieved, and it colors</span><span>—if not
discredits</span><span>—all that Christianity claims for
itself. Rahner quotes Clement of Alexandria, who maintained that (in
common with mystical Greek philosophy) the signs given to us by
divinity tend to be obscure, "in order that research should try to
penetrate to the meaning of enigmas and thus ascend to the discovery of
truth." Rahner seconds this:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The divine word of
Scripture is a mystery, and behind the audible meaning of its words and
images, of its whole historical narrative, are concealed unknown realms
of the spirit and unsuspected possibilities of ascent to the imageless
truth. [p.366]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Through such a morass of mystery, concealment and the admittedly
unfathomable mind of God, what legitimate, usable, verifiable "truths"
could possibly be uncovered that would be accepted by all of humanity,
not just the mystics? When truth is sought on "a more real,
transcendent realm jutting into this dark world, a miniature sketch of
the vast divine ideas that are the source and ultimate goal of all
created thought" [p.366], what are the chances that these 'truths' will
bear any relation to actual reality, to the world revealed by sober,
objective science and rational intellect? The pagan mysteries did not
themselves stand close to reaching the truths of actual reality. But
when Christianity supplanted them and withdrew even further into its
fantastical supernatural world of "the cosmic mystery of the Cross, the
epitome of the structural law of the universe" [p.375], when the future
became envisioned as the cross "shin[ing] in the heavens at the end of
the earth's visible history to foreshadow the coming of the
transfigured Christ," when a God is envisaged as one who "imprinted on
the cosmos the fundamental scheme of the Cross" and "secretly looked
toward (its) coming" in the murder and death of his Son, western
humanity suddenly faced what would be almost two millennia of lost
ground to make up. In the face of such an outlook on reality, how was
the world to be capable of creating a sane society and a healthy mind?
Unfortunately, that question still needs to be asked.<br />
<br />
It is the curse of the evolved human mind to see an
overblown significance, a hidden glory and cosmic meaning, in the
completely natural and impersonal phenomena of the world we find
ourselves in. While it may once have had an evolutionary survival
advantage (though even that is debated by evolutionary anthropologists
today), what we need now is salvation from our own 'ascent' into
mysticism and the supernatural.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Myth vs. History</span><br />
<br />
Finally, Rahner commits the usual fallacy of
reducing all this grand and exalted mystery of the Cross and God's
revelation to an historical event, the crucifixion of an historical man
by Pontius Pilate on the hill of Golgotha. He appeals to Kittel who
lectured that<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The gospel of Christ
crucified is utterly unmythical....It does not speak of a remote
legend, but of an immediately near, realistic, brutal, wretched, and
terrible episode in history. [p.359]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
This, of course, is the major difference from the mysteries alleged by
subsequent Christianity from Ignatius on. Indeed, Rahner and the
scholars that he favors express amazement that any scholar of
comparative religion</span><span>—who are in his day starting
to fade into 'discredited' obscurity</span><span>—could have
ventured comparisons which try "to derive the basic doctrine of
Christianity from the mystery religions." The future will "fail to
understand that the idea of an inner kinship between the mysteries and
Christianity in so many basic concepts could ever have been put forward
with so much seriousness." For, "Christian revelation is not myth but
history." [p.359]<br />
<br />
Someone should have told that to Paul, who never
speaks in terms of history, let alone recent history; to the writer of
Hebrews who locates Christ's sacrifice in heaven and tells us that he
had never been on earth; to countless other epistle writers who make no
room for an historical Jesus in their descriptions of the faith and its
genesis. Here, of course, lies the solution to the fallacy. The cosmic
mystery of the Cross belongs not on a mundane hill outside Jerusalem as
a result of jealous High Priests and an oblivious Roman governor, but
in a truly cosmic setting of divine and heavenly processes in the
greater spiritual world, revealed by God through revelation and
scripture, and by the voice of the Son who speaks from that scripture.
This is indeed the picture created by Paul and other early mystics who
have entered the mythological world of the mystery cults and created a
new one. With their more mundane Gospels, the evangelists set up a huge
disparity, and out of their crude and contradictory Jesus of Nazareth
theologians and scholars have struggled ever since to resurrect the
original cosmic Son.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span><br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>---
iii ---</big></big><br />
</div>
<span><br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">"Dying and Rising
Gods": Jonathan Z. Smith</big><br />
<br />
Jonathan Z. Smith first weighed in on the apologetic
side to dismiss any significant connection between
Christianity and the mysteries in an article for <span style="font-style: italic;">The
Encyclopedia of Religion</span> (1977) on the subject of "Dying and
Rising
Gods," later in a full-length study of the process of comparison, <span style="font-style: italic;">Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of
Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity</span> (1991).
The earlier piece
adopts a one-track strategy which a few others have followed, but
rarely
with such a single-minded determination. To wit, that there was no such
thing as dying and rising gods in the ancient world.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Modern scholarship has
largely rejected, for good reasons, an interpretation of deities as
projections of natural phenomena....There is no unambiguous instance in
the history of religions of a dying and rising deity.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
In his survey of seven cases of reputed dying and
rising gods in antiquity (Adonis, Baal, Syrian Haddad, Attis, Marduk,
Osiris, Tammuz), Smith gives us four accounts of divinities descending
to the underworld and then reascending, to which might be added the
classic example of such, the myth of Demeter-Kore in the Eleusinian
mysteries; yet somehow none of these are allowed to be regarded as
representing cycles of nature, "projections of natural phenomena."
While criticizing other scholars for reading positive interpretations
of dying and rising into fragmentary or ambiguous or uncertain texts
and artifacts, Smith himself manages to draw the opposite conclusion
from these same sources, usually appealing to such argumentation as
"not necessarily equivalent to dying and rising" or "such an
understanding is unlikely."<br />
<br />
But I am going to bring in another voice here, that
of Robert Price who in his <span style="font-style: italic;">Deconstructing
Jesus</span> [p.88-91] rebuts Smith's article in incisive fashion and
exposes it for what it clearly is.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>It is very hard not to
see extensive and basic similarities between these religions and the
Christian religion. But somehow Christian scholars have managed not to
see it, and this, one must suspect, for dogmatic reasons.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Smith's first error is his failure, as I see it, to
grasp the point of an "ideal type," a basic textbook
definition/description of some phenomenon under study....Smith, finding
that there are significant differences between the so-called
dying-and-rising-god mysths, abandons any hope of a genuine
dying-and-rising-god paradigm. For Smith, the various myths of Osiris,
Attis, Adonis, and the others, do not all conform to type exactly; thus
they are not sufficiently alike to fit into the same box</span><span>—so let's throw out the box! Without everything in common,
Smith sees nothing in common.</span><br />
<br />
<span>Smith's error is the same as that of Raymond Brown, who
dismisses the truckload of comparative religion parallels to the
miraculous birth of Jesus: This one is not strictly speaking a virgin
birth, since the god fathered the child on a married woman. That one
involved physical intercourse with the deity, not overshadowing by the
Holy Spirit, and so on. But, we have to ask, how close does a parallel
have to be to count as a parallel? Does the divine mother have to be
named Mary? Does the divine child have to be named Jesus? Here is the
old "difference without a distinction" fallacy.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
</span><span>Smith claims that all those trips to the
underworld in the old myths do not necessarily involve death. Price
counters:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>But what does it mean
to say someone has descended to the netherworld of the dead? Enkidu did
not deem it quite so casual a commute "to Hell and back" as Smith
apparently does: "He led me away to the palace of Irkalla, the Queen of
Darkness, to the house from which none who enters ever returns, down
the road from which there is no coming back." One goes there in the
embrace of the Grim Reaper. Similarly, Pausanias: "About the death of
Theseus there are many inconsistent legends, for example that he was
tied up on the Netherworld until Herakles should bring him back to
life." Thus to abide in the netherworld was to be dead, even if not for
good.<br />
<br />
Baal's supposed death and resurrection does not pass muster for Smith
because the saga's text has big holes in it "at the crucial points."
Mischievous scholars may like to fill them in with the model of the
resurrected god, but Smith calls it an argument from silence. Is it?
Even on Smith's own reading, the text actually does say that "Baal is
reported to have died" after descending to the underworld. There he is
indeed said to be "as dead." Anath recovers his corpse and buries it.
Later El sees in a dream that Baal yet lives. After another gap Gaal is
depicted in battle. What is missing here?<br />
</span></div>
<span><br />
Of course, Smith floats the same objection to gods like Osiris "rising"
which I have pointed out above, that they did not return to earth but
proceeded directly to the underworld. To which Price replies:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Osiris, Smith admits,
is said even in very ancient records to have been dismembered,
reassembled by Isis, and rejuvenated (physically; he fathered Horus on
Isis). But Smith seizes on the fact that Osiris reigned henceforth in
the realm of the dead. This is not a return to earthly life, hence no
resurrection. But then we might as well deny that Jesus is depicted as
dying and rising since he reigns henceforth at the right hand of God in
Heaven as the judge of the dead, like Osiris.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
And so on. There is an agenda here, and it is not honest, unbiased
scholarship.<br />
<br />
Price makes the point that in the Graeco-Roman
mysteries there was no exclusivity; consequently a convert to
Christianity would have assumed in undergoing baptism in the new sect
that there was no necessity to abandon other savior god cults he might
have already joined, those of Mithras, Attis, Isis or Dionysos. Paul
himself, in 1 Corinthians, more than hints that Christian converts were
also taking part in feasts to idols and false gods (8:7); they "sit
down to a meal in a heathen temple" (8:10). As Price puts it [p.92],
these are "open gates," and thus "we would be amazed not to find a free
flow of older 'pagan' myths and rituals into Christianity." Here Price
sees in Paul's condemnation "the <span style="font-style: italic;">beginning</span>
of the process to exclude the other faiths as rivals and counterfeits
of Christianity. But the barn door was, as usual, shut after the horse
had got out (or rather, in!)."<br />
<br />
<big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Comparison: Art or
Science?</big><br />
<br />
When we move on to Jonathan Z. Smith's <span style="font-style: italic;">Drudgery Divine</span>, we find the art of
comparing Christianity and the mystery cults converted to a science.
This is both a history of two centuries of scholarship on the question
as well as a dissection of the process of comparison itself. This
original approach casts quite a bit of new light on the subject, and
Smith adopts in this later work a more neutrally professional
attitude, not sparing the more embarrassingly apologetic defenders of
Christian uniqueness in his own field, such as Bruce Metzger.<br />
<br />
He begins the book with a lengthy but interesting
account of an exchange of letters over several years between John Adams
and Thomas Jefferson in which they discussed the lamentable evolution
of the early Christian faith from an assumed original pristine and
Jewish state
as Jesus had presented it, to the later 'Platonizing' corruption it
underwent at the hands of gentiles with their mystery cult thinking
(Smith makes it clear that this exchange of views represented the
spirit
of the time). The great bugaboo here was the Roman Catholic Church and
"Popery" which was responsible for this "corruption" in the interests
of winning over the Roman world. The Protestant Reformation was
regarded as a freeing of Christianity from this centuries-long
degradation and a reviving of the original content and spirit of Jesus'
teaching.
This Catholic-Protestant dichotomy, reflecting one of truth vs.
corruption, the real Jesus vs. the Platonic Christ, is a theme which
Smith demonstrates was an active force in scholarship for hundreds of
years, and one can find traces of it even in the 20th century.
(Jefferson and Adams, of course, had things backwards in more ways than
one, placing their trust in the primacy of the Gospels and their
picture of Christianity's beginnings. Even today, Paul can still be
portrayed as a 'corrupter' of Jesus' message, converting the simple
human preacher into a Platonic monstrosity which buried the man of
Nazareth under a suffocating mysticism. Too bad Paul isn't here to
defend himself and give us an outline of the real nature of his Christ
Jesus.)<br />
<br />
Smith spends several very informative pages [26f] on
that groundbreaker of the French Revolution and solar mythologist
Charles Francois Dupuis, who is often credited with being the first
true Jesus mythicist, adopting a systematic approach to bringing order
out of chaos in the field of comparative religion. Dupuis also seems to
have been the first to formulate a coherent theory of the "seasonal
pattern" in which the movements of the sun are translated into the
myths of the dying of the gods, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, etc., followed
by the rejoicing attendant on the return of the sun and spring, and the
god's recovery. Dupuis regarded such gods as different manifestations
of the same solar god of light. Christ, too, was a solar deity, "an
instance of a universal, 'seasonal' pattern, who if he seems to have
assumed a mortal body, like the heroes of ancient poems, this will be
only the fiction of legend." While rejecting Dupuis' work as hopelessly
outdated, Smith acknowledges that for the first time, Dupuis
added to the comparative field "a rudimentary sense of depth," and an
attempt to formulate the larger picture.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">On the Principle of Comparison</span><br />
<br />
Before embarking on the modern comparative exercise,
Smith examines the principle of comparison itself. He zeroes in on the
essence of the apologetic strategy: the appeal to "uniqueness" in
Christianity as a <span style="font-style: italic;">sui generis</span>
phenomenon, something arising on its own, completely original, with no
precedent or debt to other belief systems contemporary or previous.
Smith quotes Burton Mack [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Myth of
Innocence</span>, p.4]:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The fundamental
persuasion is that Christianity appeared unexpectedly in human history,
that it was (is) at core a brand new vision of human existence, and
that, since this is so, only a startling moment could account for its
emergence at the beginning. [p.38-39]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Mack and Smith have put their finger on the working mechanism that
powers the apologetic defense of the "Christ-event": since Christianity
was "brand new," unanticipated, unique, it needed a dramatic occurrence
to explain this out-of-the-blue genesis, namely the death and genuine
resurrection of Jesus. In order to preserve the uniqueness of that
event, it was necessary to disclaim and disprove any connection or
dependency on similar 'events' in other belief systems. Thus the
perennial
campaign to discredit comparative religion. This forceable
disassociation makes possible the evaluation of Christianity as a
distinctive and unprecedented phenomenon in the ancient world, which
then requires a dramatic occurrence to explain. The whole exercise
becomes patently circular. On the other hand, if Christianity was not
unique, but dependent, at least in part, on the flavors of the time, if
it was the growth of a new branch on an old and broad tree, possessing
simply an "ordinary difference," no such dramatic event is required to
explain it (especially if the Gospel picture is a shoot of later
growth).<br />
<br />
In a less dogmatic tone than he used in the earlier
"Dying and Rising Gods" article, Smith suggests that we have to abandon
the "extra-historical categories of uniqueness</span><span>—that
somehow Christianity starts outside/above history and its time</span><span>—and develop "a discourse of 'difference', a complex term
which invites negotiation, classification and comparison, and, at the
same time, avoids too easy a discourse of the 'same'." [p.42] He notes
one way that has been adopted to preserve the 'uniqueness' of Christian
doctrine and practice is to set up a division between the earliest
Christians and the Church of later centuries. The latter (being Roman
Catholic) was open to influences from the mystery religions as they
were in the 3rd and 4th centuries (before the latter were run out of
town by a
triumphant Church after emperor Constantine's conversion); but the
early "apostolic" Christianity (read "= Protestant," says Smith) was
allegedly immune to such influences. The fact that the bulk of the
evidence for the mysteries comes from the 3rd and 4th centuries invites
comparison with the later Roman Church practices and what they may have
absorbed (or vice-versa), whereas we have very little from the cults to
compare to the alleged pristine "apostolic" phase. Smith does not spell
it out (and perhaps he doesn't have it in mind), but one wonders if we
had as much light on the earlier turn-of-the-era period whether we
might well find points of commonality between earliest Christianity and
the mysteries that are now in the dark, or glint only tantalizingly
from the
surface of Paul's letters.<br />
<br />
As well, and this is a point Smith never properly
addresses, "apostolic Christianity" draws its picture almost entirely
from the Gospels and Acts, all relatively later documents. Paul was "<span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> Apostle," but any direct
comparison of Pauline thought in the epistles with that of the
mysteries is always performed through the filter of those later
writings, using them to reinterpret him so as to downplay or 'correct'
any
resemblance to mystery rites or soteriology. Thus the purity of
"apostolic" Christianity is preserved.<br />
<br />
Smith quotes J. A. Faulkner (<span style="font-style: italic;">Did Mystery Religions Influence Apostolic
Christianity?</span>, 1924) who offers a very limited list of 'safe'
comparisons: "Christianity did not get the fact of sin from this
source, nor her method of dealing with it by repentance and faith in
Christ...She had no secret meetings or initiations...Nor did she play
on the pride of knowledge in general, as did Gnosticism and some of the
mysteries. Her first disciples were plain men and not scholastically
trained, and she welcomed everybody into her ranks and not simply
philosophers and the learned. Nor did Christianity deal in ritual or
spectacular display, thus being far removed from the mystery religions"
[p.45; the hiatuses are Smith's]. As for "sin"</span><span>—which
the exclusionary approach seems to seize on with such relish</span><span>—this is indeed the "difference" <span style="font-style: italic;">par excellence</span>, as I noted in
discussing Ferguson above, but it speaks only to the motivation behind
the commonalities of the salvation system. If we compared the
anatomical differences between men and women by noting only those
aspects related to sex, we might well conclude that each one came from
a different species!<br />
<br />
So how does Smith propose we approach the exercise
of comparison without fooling ourselves with ill-disguised partisan
preconceptions and tactical manoeuvrings? <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The questions of
comparison are questions of judgement with respect to difference: What
differences are to be maintained in the interests of comparative
inquiry? What differences can be defensively relaxed and relativized in
light of the intellectual tasks at hand? [p.47]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
He chides his own peers that this is "<span style="font-style: italic;">not</span>
the working assumption of many scholars in the field...frequently due
to apologetic reasons." Points of comparison which bear the
mark of similarity are usually categorized in two ways: they are either
"genealogy"</span><span>—that is, they express descent from
earlier forms, in the sense of borrowing or dependency; or they are
"analogy"</span><span>—that is, they are independent but
parallel expressions proceeding from a common impulse in human nature,
the result of the 'psychic unity' of humankind. The former, of course,
is the more threatening and garners the most attention, "if only,
typically, insistently to be denied." He quotes Bruce Metzger, who
spells out his 'value judgment' that only the former are significant
for purposes of comparison (because they challenge Christian
uniqueness). But then Metzger tries to have it both ways. In an article
entitled "Methodology in the Study of the Mystery Religions and Early
Christianity" he claims that the resemblance between the Lord's Supper
and certain Mithraic ceremonies could be regarded as either. If
'analogical' it is simply "fortuitous," a matter of chance; if
'genealogical' it is "the result of adaptation by Mithraic priests of
an impressive rite in the Christian cultus" [p.49, n.16].<br />
<br />
This is crafting one's "methodology" in order to
arrive at a desired result, and Smith has no hesitation in exposing and
rebuking this blatant apologetic slant. (The late Bruce Metzger, a
highly regarded scholar in his field, was one of those interviewed by
Lee Strobel in the latter's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Case
for Christ</span>, to establish the reliability of the Christian
documentary record; with a methodology like that, Metzger's task was
easy. Of course, Strobel's standards were anything but high.) But Smith
also has a rebuke for those on the other side of the fence</span><span>—referring to them as "amateurs." The latter, he says, try
to see every similarity as a case of genealogy: a borrowing or a
dependence. Whether this is true or not (see Article 13D), those not in
sympathy tend
to build this up as something of a straw man. Apologists attack with
glee the mania for parallels between Christianity and the mysteries,
indulged in by those who have subscribed to the worst excesses of
comparative religion. Be that as it may, I think Smith has gone
unnecessarily far. Analogy is perfectly acceptable, especially in
moderate cooperation with genealogy. There are indeed common impulses
in the human psyche, leading to common expressions for the same needs
and circumstances. Thus the often startling similarities of expression
between widely separated geographical and cultural areas</span><span>—sometimes with no possibility of a connected dissemination,
as between the old and new worlds before Columbus, for example. But
this, too, is a threat to Christian privilege and exclusivity, for if a
non-true religion could arise bearing strong resemblance to the true
one, it undercuts the latter's claim to divine inspiration and
direction, let alone uniqueness. <br />
<br />
Smith is right, in that some comparative
religionists need to dilute their 'parallel-o-mania' with a bit of
analogical input. Almost every sect that looks back to a divine event
or interaction with a deity develops a sacred meal as a commemorative,
thanksgiving or ritual reflection. (What is more fitting, or available,
to give to a god than food and drink, or more traditionally associated
with a god's own nature and bounty?) If the most fundamental religious
impulse is to find a way to believe in a life after death, this is
almost inevitably going to take the form of creating a deity who will
bestow such a thing; and given our mystical predilections it should not
be surprising that a process we would all tend to hit upon is the
principle of the god undergoing the desired goal himself. It would
indeed take a god to conquer death, but if we could just find a way to
ride through that formidable barrier on his powerful coattails...<br />
<br />
These are common developments which enjoy no
exclusivity in any one expression. And yet, the reality is probably a
combination of the two. Ideas are 'in the air' precisely because they
are the current product of a common impulse in the human psyche, but
each expression has also absorbed the example of, and been additionally
motivated and influenced by, other expressions, a cacophony built
largely of the same aural ingredients. As in music, each generation or
period of composition has its characteristic sound, one gradually
evolving, not because any individual composer (and certainly not the
great ones) has been consciously copying his musical peers, but because
he or she cannot think musical thoughts in isolation, but will build
his own expression and innovations on what is currently being heard in
the environment.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">On Comparing Mysteries</span><br />
<br />
So how does Smith apply his principles of comparison
to the formation of a methodology for comparing Christianity with the
mystery cults? He breaks the rest of his book into three sections: On
Comparison Words, On Comparing Stories, and On Comparing Settings. </span><span>The third of these does not directly relate to the study
here and will not be addressed.</span><br />
<span><br />
There is no denying that, on the face of it, Paul
uses 'mystery' terminology. Traditionally, there have been two ways to
get around this. One, that he had different meanings in mind for these
words than those understood in the pagan cults; and two, even if there
was sometimes a similar meaning to be found in them, Paul did this
deliberately so as to win over Greek converts by presenting Christian
doctrine and practice in terms of the words and ideas they could relate
to; it was a necessary 'accommodation'. (Note that the latter rationale
must involve the acceptance that such mysteries and the understanding
of their rites were in existence in the early 1st century CE.) Good
examples might be 1 Corinthians 15:51, where Paul reveals the "mystery"
of how we will all be changed at the last trumpet; or 14:2, when the
one speaking in tongues speaks "mysteries." And the process fed on
itself, as the new converts embraced and enriched such terminology and
understandings from precedents in their own past. (It should not escape
us that this is tantamount to a degree of actual borrowing of ideas.)<br />
<br />
</span><span>
Smith focuses on the single most important word in this regard,
"mystery" itself, <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span>.
Scholars in the field regularly point out that this term, as used in
Christianity generally and by Paul in particular, does not refer to a
rite that is secret, whose significance is revealed only to the
initiate. Instead, it signifies a 'secret' that has been previously
hidden by God, revealed only in the present time to such as Paul (1
Cor. 2:7, Rom. 16:25, Eph. 3:5, etc.). Many of these refer to the
"mystery about Christ." And yet, is the difference as wide as they
imagine? This is a question Smith does not address. What was revealed
to the initate if not secrets about the god (Christ), what he had
undergone, and how this related to the destined fate of those to whom
these mysteries were revealed? Whether such secrets were imparted
through a dramatic private ceremony or through public preaching does
not change their nature and effect, especially when emotionally
supported by a baptismal rite which Paul himself casts as effecting a
dramatic linkage with the god. Whether these were secrets kept hidden
for so long by God (casting God in a questionable and somewhat
disparaging light, which no Christian writer tries to explain or
justify beyond speaking of "a fullness of time"), or whether they were
secrets
in the sense that they were not naturally evident but needed discovery
through ritual experience and insight</span><span>—and who is
to claim that the latter is not a more conscionable system?</span><span>—hardly changes the fact that both are <span style="font-style: italic;">revealed</span> knowledge and both
transform the recipient's self-image and anticipated fate. While the
ingredients may be slightly different and the flavors distinctive, both
are baking the same sort of cake, both are offerings from the same
culinary menu; the respective cooks are simply declaring the
superiority of their own recipe and its nutritive value.<br />
<br />
Another apologetic tactic which Smith calls
attention to is the contention that, irrespective of the meaning given
to "<span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span>" by Paul and
other early writers, the term has been derived not from the mystery
cult milieu, but from the Old Testament, in its Greek Septuagint (LXX)
translation. In fact, said H. A. A. Kennedy [<span style="font-style: italic;">St. Paul and the Mystery Religions</span>,
1913, p.154-5], "Practically every leading conception in this sphere of
Paul's religious thought may be said to have its roots definitely laid
in that soil [of the Greek Old Testament]." This was a famous, and
still prized (by such as Bruce Metzger), defense taken up by Arthur
Darby Nock some years later, "in a setting not innocent of apologetic
concerns," says Smith [p.66], despite Nock's claim to be a
disinterested historian of religion. This cultivated mirage of
neutrality where New Testament research is concerned has been and
continues to be standard fare in much of mainstream scholarship, on the
basis of which many appeals to authority are still regularly made on
this or that question, as mythicists are well aware, but it does not
stand up to close examination. Nock was a prime example of this basic
sham, and Smith, to his credit, has no hesitation in exposing him.<br />
<br />
Nock claimed throughout his writings that even in
Gentile Christianity of the 1st century, "each of its constitutive
elements may be traced to a background in Judaism and that no
postulation of influence from the mysteries is, therefore, required"
[p,68]. This included, said Nock, the Christological titles used, the
ritual activities of eucharist and baptism, all of which are explain by
"Jewish conceptions" and "the linguistic usage of the LXX."<br />
<br />
Despite decades of eager acceptance of views like
that of Nock by subsequent scholars, Smith decides to call him on it.
He exposes two assumptions that lie behind Nock's argument that the LXX
can be seen as the 'source-book' for the terms used by Paul, such as <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span>, and the problems that
lie in those assumptions. The first is the matter of chronology. The
initial Pentateuch translation into Greek in Ptolemaic Egypt may have
taken place in the 3rd century BCE, a good distance from Paul, but this
ignores the many layers of its complex history and subsequent
development, and what parts of it would have been available at what
time to cast any alleged influence on the formation of New Testament
thought and terminology. The second assumption is that the LXX was an
accurate reflection in Greek of previous Hebrew/Jewish understanding.
But this entails an even greater problem, for the translation of any
document into Greek within a Hellenistic political and cultural system
would hardly be guaranteed to preserve the original Hebrew
thought-world. It will assume Greek understandings, especially when
there is any uncertainty on the translators' part. Even if the
enterprise was undertaken in Jewish circles (initially in Alexandria),
this was a milieu in which the formation of Hellenistic Judaism was
under way, and <span style="font-style: italic;">well</span> under way
as the centuries progressed toward the turn of the era. Philo may be
taken as an example of how Jewry in the Diaspora could thoroughly
reinterpret its own scriptures according to Greek principles. So
whatever influence the LXX might have had on early Christian writers,
it was already in a heavily hellenized form.<br />
<br />
In the case of the term "mysteries" in particular,
Smith shows how Nock really cooked the books. The relatively rare
appearance of the word in the LXX is found in a limited range of six
documents (Daniel, Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon and 2
Maccabees), all of which are late and do not reflect archaic Israel;
some of them were probably even written in Greek originally. To a great
extent, then, the 'source' books reflect as much Hellenism as Judaism.
But Smith is able to narrow down the full extent of the sources
considered by Kennedy and Nock, and this amounts to exactly one
document: Daniel. But Daniel underwent "a complex historical process
with a number of parallel, intersecting and revised versions."
Moreover, the date of its translation into Greek (likely from Aramaic)
was "no earlier than the 1st century BC, quite possibly as late as the
1st century AD," which makes Paul and Nock's "Septuagint" in this
regard "roughly contemporary." This hardly bespeaks a Paul who has
absorbed a longstanding tradition of LXX understanding of Greek
terminology in traditional Jewish terms. Paul, in fact, shows no
knowledge of Daniel whatsoever. On top of that, the actual usages of <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span> in the Greek Daniel do
not conform to the accepted meaning as Paul uses the term, to refer to
a revealed-after-long-hidden secret by God, or as some scholars put it,
an "eschatalogical mystery," one revealed by God as the imminent End
approached. As for the other usages of <span style="font-style: italic;">mysterion</span> in the LXX outside
Daniel, these are even more distant in meaning from anything which
could have supplied a precedent for the Pauline understanding of the
word. Several occurrences in the Wisdom of Solomon actually
"unambiguously refer, in a polemical fashion, to contemporary
Hellenistic 'mystery' cults" [p.75].<br />
<br />
Thus the entire case presented by Kennedy, Nock and
those who followed them, is built on smoke and mirrors. Its purpose
could only be to conjure up an argument, no matter how shaky or
deceptive, to disassociate Christianity's initial mysticism from any
connection with the pagan mysteries and root it instead in a safe
Jewish soil. Indeed, scholarship since the mid 20th century has in
its general study been entirely oriented toward the same end and
purpose, to characterize Christianity as essentially if not wholly a
child of Israel, and bury the bloody umbilical cord of pre-natal
nutrition from the pagan mystery cults. This strategy has given
scholars the false confidence that they have exploded the problematic
Mysteries connection, in much the same way that they assume a false
confidence that the idea of Jesus mythicism has been laid to rest.<br />
<br />
Smith sums up: "The notion of a singular biblical
meaning of the term</span><span>—indigenous to the Hebrew and
translated into Greek</span><span>—is wholly implausible in
light of the evidence" [p.75]. He also points out the folly of relying
on the meaning of words in isolation, without taking into account their
context. Considering that Paul was in the process of tearing down
fundamental Jewish concepts and requirements, and catering to
Hellenistic needs hardly persuades one of his faithful and respectful
regard for traditional Old Testament thought, or of a propensity to
absorb and reflect it. The history of comparing words, Smith concludes,
"has never been primarily a philological issue, but always an
apologetic one" [p.83].<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">On Comparing Savior God Myths</span><br />
</span><span><br />
Smith's chapter "On Comparing Stories" centers, as
one might expect, on the classic exercise of comparing the story of
Christ's death and resurrection with the genre of dying and rising gods
in pagan mythology. It was James G. Frazer who brought that comparison
to the forefront of scholarship's thinking, beginning in the 1890s with
the first edition of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Golden Bough</span>,
and subsequent editions over the next quarter century. "The ceremony of
the dying and rising of the deity must also have been a representation
of the decay and revival of vegetation." Scholars for decades had
little or no doubt that this was a legitimate interpretation of the
dying and rising aspect of the pagan savior gods, and almost as many
had little hesitation in presenting the Jesus story as having its
conceptual roots in that ancient pattern, although for only a few did
this translate into the non-existence of an historical Jesus.<br />
<br />
Specific focus was placed on Paul's conception of
baptism as constituting "a symbolic and dramatic repetition of Christ's
death and resurrection," and the evident mystical content of that
rite, interpreted by Paul, as fitting the idea of parallel
experiences between the death and rising of the god (Christ) and the
symbolic death and rising of the initiate who undergoes baptism. Paul,
after all, does seem to spell it out in Romans 6:3-5/8:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Or do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism
into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For
if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death,
certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection....Now
if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with
him. [NASB]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
These ideas consitute the elemental principles of the mysteries writ
large, and they have troubled and exercised the apologetic community
since the early 20th century. (In the next article, I will look at the
most
renowned and determined case of grappling with this Pauline passage by
any scholar: Gunter Wagner's <span style="font-style: italic;">Pauline
Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries</span>.) Smith details the writings of
Otto Pfleiderer at the turn
of the 20th century, wherein the German scholar expressed the opinion
that <br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px; text-align: left;">
<span>so
striking is the connection of these ideas with Paul's teaching of
Christian baptism...that the thought of historical relation between the
two cannot be evaded....The relation of these ideas and customs to
Paul's mystical theory of the death and resurrection of Christ and the
participation of the baptized therein is too striking to avert the
thought of influence by the former on the latter.</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
Pfleiderer points out 1 Corinthians 10:16-21 in which Paul himself
makes a clear analogy (in order to claim distinctiveness) of his Lord's
Supper to some form of equivalent in pagan sacrifices:<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Is not the cup of
blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the
bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?...But I say that
the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and
not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You
cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot
partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. [NASB]</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
This passage of 1 Corinthians alone is strong
evidence not only that pagan cults which bore resemblance in their
rites to those of earliest Christianity were in existence, but that
Paul was aware of them and sought to make distinctions. This, too, has
exercised apologists. No less a stellar light than Rudolf Bultmann
still maintained in 1965 that Paul's understanding of baptism as an
initiation-sacrament was understood as being in "analogy with the
initiation-sacraments of the mystery religions. The meaning of the
latter is to impart to the initiates a share in the fate of the
cult-deity who has suffered death and reawakened to life</span><span>—such as Attis, Adonis, or Osiris" [p.98]. Smith maintains
that "current opinion" in scholarship is that Bultmann and so many
others were wrong, that in fact "the matter is closed,
that the comparisons have proved false." But he has the good grace to
point out that "the most careful recent student of the motif of 'dying
and rising with Christ' in Paul has insisted, 'the question of the
relation of this motif to the mysteries, then, is not yet settled'."
[p.99, quoting R. C. Tannehill, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dying
and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology</span>, p.32]</span><br />
<span><br />
Except in the mind of apologists. Says Smith,<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Since the pioneering
researches of P. Lambrechts and the synthesis of the
state-of-the-question by Gunter Wagner, it has become commonplace to
assume that the category of Mediterranean 'dying and rising' gods has
been exploded; in the succinct formulation of one (apologetic) scholar,
"the description 'dying and rising gods' is a product of the modern
imagination,"</span><br />
</div>
<span><br />
the latter being a quote from K. Prumm. Smith, for the first time in
the book, now seems to openly align himself with the latter viewpoint.
Harking back to his earlier article in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Encyclopedia of Religion</span>, he lists
all the 'new' scholarly objections to any comparison between the two
expressions. "The majority of the gods so denoted appear to have died
but not returned; there is dying, but no rebirth or resurrection"
[p.101]. Well, the myths never claim a return to former life in flesh,
although as I and Robert Price have pointed out, Osiris clearly was
reanimated and fathered Horus (more than Jesus ever did in his
temporary sojourn back on earth). "Rebirth" was <span style="font-style: italic;">exactly</span> what Dionysos underwent, in
both versions of his myth. Smith acknowledges that Lambrechts was
subjected to "thorough-going critiques," one of which was by M. J.
Vermaseren, but in regard to the latter, "the implications he draws
from the figure of Attis <span style="font-style: italic;">hilaris</span>
fall short of being persuasive." Since he does not detail why, we don't
gain any insight into the relative merits of the case for and against
'explosion'.<br />
<br />
Smith expresses the objection that documents have
been "misinterpreted" (as if misinterpretation is not an endemic peril
on all sides, in all aspects of New Testament research), that
comparative claims are to be found in "late texts from the Christian
era (frequently by Christians) which reveal an <span style="font-style: italic;">interpretatio Christiana</span> of another
religion's myths and rituals," (as if Christian commentators could not
get even the most basic things right about their religious rivals and
read resurrection into cultic rituals and myths when it was not at all
there). Origen (early 3rd century), Jerome and others "mention a joyous
celebration, on the third day, commemorating the resurrection of Adonis
(identified with Tammuz) as analogous to that of Christ," but
apparently they were all mistaken and simply read their own cultic myth
into that of the mysteries. Further, "In the case of Attis, the
mythology gave
no comfort," which should leave Smith at a loss to explain why such
myths and their attendant rituals</span><span>—equally barren
of comfort, presumably</span><span>—kept the Attis cult, and
others, vibrantly alive for centuries and indulged in by millions. As
for the early myths of descent to the underworld and reascent to the
land of the living, found all over the Near East, these do "not conform
to the usual stipulation of the 'death and resurrection' pattern." This
from someone who has advocated taking things in context and not trying
to impose rigid restrictions where comparative exercises are concerned.
And I refer back to Robert Price's critique of Smith's take on these
descent-ascent myths as continued denials of what it means to enter and
leave the underworld and the definition of "dead." Indeed, when Smith
repeats the new old saw that Osiris doesn't conform to this 'dying and
rising' pattern because his continued existence lay in the realm of the
dead, we can see that the whole modern trend to divorce Christianity
from the mysteries is one gigantic red herring industry. Not only is
Osiris' role as king of the afterlife realm a direct and personal
conquest of death (just as it is for the human departed who follow and
live with him there), this state of affairs is identical to the case of
Jesus, who also conquers death by ascending to the right hand of God
where he rules over the saved departed. In the early epistles there is
no sign that such a death took place on earth in recorded history, or
that anything of a material nature intervened between such a death and
the ascent to heaven. At least we <span style="font-style: italic;">do</span>
have that in the Osiris myth.<br />
<br />
It is ironic that Christian apologetic scholars
criticize certain analysts of our time as applying '<span style="font-style: italic;">interpretatio Christiana</span>' to
another religion's myths and rituals, when the most blatant cases of
such things are their own indulgences. Christian Gospel-based concepts
are carried to the mystery cults and imposed on the latter's
presentation of 'resurrection' and then 'exposed' as not properly
conforming, which then 'proves' that any resemblance is illusory and
that all comparison is invalid.<br />
<br />
Smith has the good grace, again, to note that such views
"have not been without challenge by scholars of Late Antiquity"
[p.103], but they "represent a genuine reversal in scholarly thought."
Indeed they do, and one is entitled to ask what gave rise to it. While
the earlier understanding of the mysteries certainly needed a good
degree
of expansion and correction, particularly in regard to what we do <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> know about them with any
certainty because of the paucity and obscurity of their literary and
archaeological witness, one has to ask whether the underlying impulse
to make this about-face was a reaction to the perils which earlier
scholarship had finally made obvious by the mid 20th century. Perhaps
to some degree it may be seen as an expression of desperation.<br />
<br />
Regardless of the extent to which Smith sympathizes
with this school of reversal, he steps back from the ultimate brink of
the apologetic abyss by questioning its "eager" indulgence in an aspect
of the new evaluation: namely, that the similarities between
Christianity and the mysteries are not only not a case of Christian
borrowing from the mysteries, they "demonstrate that the Mediterranean
cults borrowed from the Christian" [p.104]. This has been an inviting
corollary to the observation/claim that almost all the features of
so-called similarity in the cults are drawn from the evidence of the
3rd and especially 4th century, when Christianity was a strong going
concern and a powerful rival, thus prompting copying on the part of the
pagan cults. If this were true, there is an inherent contradiction
here. On the one hand, the new scholarship highlights the incompatible
differences in concepts like resurrection in order to divorce the two,
but then hedges its bets by saying that the similarities evident
between pagan and Christian in the same evidence can be put down to
borrowing in the other, permissible, direction. If physical
resurrection of the Christian god was so appealing and so threatening,
and the strategy in response was to plagiarize, why even in the 3rd and
4th century is there no sign of Attis and Osiris undergoing a revised
resurrection and enjoying a physical return to earth in copycat fashion?<br />
<br />
Smith, as I say, will not go there. "In no work
familiar to me has this abrupt about-face [in regard to the direction
of borrowing] been given a methodological justification" [p.104].
Smith, in fact, finds a basic methodological fault in the new
scholarship's failure to treat the mysteries as evolving organisms,
with a centuries-old history and development behind them. Any internal
changes that are made are done so from the point of view of the cult
reinterpreting its own tradition, not because it is consciously at one
point in time for deliberate political reasons borrowing from some
external, let alone rival, entity. The same, of course, applies to
Christianity, it being simplistic to imagine that early Christians like
Paul opened the Mithraic manual to get some ideas on how to
sacramentalize the Corinthian communal meal. But the contents of that
'manual' were part of the cultural milieu which Paul would have
absorbed and which would have led his thinking in certain inevitable
directions.<br />
<br />
It is a fundamental mistake, Smith argues, to
"freeze" the mysteries into one version of 'dying and rising' common
for all periods</span><span>—or indeed any other aspect of
the cult myths and rituals</span><span>—and place it up
against a similarly imagined 'single enterprise' of the Pauline dying
and rising of Christ, and think to arrive at something meaningful. The
very theme of 'dying and rising' may be present in certain Christ-cult
traditions, but "it is notably lacking in others." The best example is
Q, and we cannot even be sure that it existed in the mind of Mark,
since there is no clear resurrection to flesh in the first Gospel's
original version. Smith might have added the first epistle of John
which makes no mention of a resurrection, and not even a death by
crucifixion is clear, only that "Jesus laid down his life for us." The
epistle of James has no atoning death, but regards salvation as
conferred by "the [ethical] message you received" [1:21]. It is
similarly missing in the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Odes
of Solomon.
'Dying and rising' would also be an impossible idea for most 2nd
century gnostics, Smith notes, even those that believed in some form of
historical Jesus. <br />
<br />
In connection with all those absences, there is an
important question of chronology in regard to Pauline ideas of a dying
and rising Christ. We tend to view the idea as basic to Christian
faith right from the beginning (the evangelical apologists couldn't do
without it!), but the fact of it being missing in so many early
Christian witnesses right from early times, and indeed well into the
2nd century in the apologetic writings of so many, is telling. This
point nearly slips by us in a short note [p.111, n.46] in which Smith
observes that Lindemann "is no more successful than Benoit...in
discovering Paul's 'dying and rising' theme in the second century
literature." The reference to Benoit concerns his observation as quoted
by Smith that "nowhere, in all of the patristic literature of
the second century can one perceive the least echo of the mystery
according to which to be baptised is to die and be resurrected with
Christ....[Paulinism] played no role in the development of baptismal
theology in this period" [p.112]. And Smith links this with the
question of the
first formation of the Pauline corpus, which he places only in the mid
2nd century [p.110, n.44], since the Pauline ideas Benoit refers to
cannot be found anywhere in the 2nd century and the Gospel concept of
Jesus' resurrection appears late, with the addition to Mark not
detectable before the same time.<br />
<br />
All of this indicates a development in <span style="font-style: italic;">Christian</span> thought, in both basics
and particulars, about a dying and rising of Christ that spans long
periods in the same way that recent scholars now impute to the mysteries</span><span>—certainly to some extent correctly, since no faith system
is
going to remain static for centuries and not undergo evolution. The
point is, if nothing else, chronological considerations speak to a
parallel development for both Christianity and the mysteries in which
both could in some measure have fed on the other, though overall
primacy must be given to the pagan cults because of their more ancient
history and the general attitude expressed by both pagans and
Christians of the 2nd century (as Celsus, Justin and Tertullian) that
specific ideas held by both were older in the cults. While this to a
great extent discredits the more naive claims of Christian abject
borrowing from the mysteries, it also removes Christianity from claims
of exclusivity and especially divine inspiration and originality, since
that inspiration and originality seems curiously spread over a
considerable length of time (during which God was having difficulty
making up his mind, one supposes, and those drawn-out decisions were
also being adopted by other deities' followers).<br />
<br />
Smith concludes from all this that we ought now to
view the relationship between Christianity and the pagan mysteries "as
analogous processes, responding to parallel kinds of religious
situations, rather than continuing to construct genealogical
relationships between them, whether it be expressed in terms of the
former 'borrowing' from the latter, or, more recently, in an insistence
on the reverse" [p.112-13]. This is a valid and commendable proposal,
but it is also a case of putting the best face on the matter, in that
it seems designed to absolve Christianity of the crime of direct
borrowing.
Behind that face, however, lies the unresolved question of exclusivity
and originality which scholarship has been so anxious to
preserve. Perhaps the crime has simply been pleaded down, from
"premeditated plagiarism" to "involuntary absorption." If Paul and
other early Christians were constructing their
doctrines and rituals according to the patterns of the time, as they
had
been evolving for centuries in the Hellenistic milieu they lived in,
even if they brought fresh elements and perspectives to them (which
everyone was doing in any religious context), this does not change the
basic fact that there was a dependence on and derivation from the wider
salvation theories of the age. Whether Paul is caught with his hand in
the neighbor's cookie jar or has bought the ingredients in the public
market to bake his own, is a distinction that may bring comfort to
some, but hardly removes Christianity from the general category of
ancient savior god cults, or bestows on it the garland of divine truth.</span><span><br />
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span>*<br />
</span></b></div>
</div>
<center>
</center>
<span> In the third article,
the examination of apologetic defense of Christian uniqueness will be
pursued further in a review of the most renowned
and determined effort to date to discredit the mysteries and reevaluate
the essential rite of Christian salvation: Gunter Wagner's <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pauline Baptism and the
Pagan Mysteries</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13B.htm">http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13B.htm</a></span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">=================== </span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-66448928937018174802017-03-20T01:28:00.001-07:002017-03-20T01:28:21.623-07:00EARL DOHERTY : The Mystery Cults and Christianity (1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
EARL DOHERTY<br />
<span><br />
</span><b><span>The Mystery Cults and Christianity</span></b><br />
<b><span><span style="color: #cc0000;">Part One:</span>
<br />
INTRODUCTION AND SURVEY OF THE CULTS<br />
</span></b>
<br />
<b><i><span><br />
Introduction</span></i></b>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>As in any field of study,
there are specialty areas within New Testament research. One of
these is the subject of comparative religion. It may well be the
longest-running specialty, not just for its centuries-old history in
the scholarship of modern times, but for the intense focus it received
in the early period of Christianity itself, when apologists had to
defend the purity and validity of the Christian faith (as each of them
saw it) in the face of the comparative religion of their own time,
indulged in by such people as Celsus who compared Christianity with the
religions of his own Graeco-Roman culture and found it wanting in
originality.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>On the other hand, unlike
virtually any other field of study outside religion, and certainly
within the general area of historical research, traditional New
Testament scholarship has always entailed a speciality which could
rightly be called an "industry," that of apologetics. Some degree of
apologetic intent can be found across the full spectrum of faith and
professionalism, from the fundamentalist defense of full biblical
inerracy to the best of modern critical scholarship. That degree, of
course, varies in subtlety and sophistication, but it can always be
identified by a certain amount of concern for preserving some aspect of
credo, tradition, legitimacy or uniqueness for the ancient Christian
phenomenon. When that concern overrides the pursuit of fully objective
study and analysis, it introduces apologetics into the equation. Thus,
in addressing the subject under examination in this article,
it will
not be possible to adopt a neutral academic approach, since
modern scholarship on this subject rarely demonstrates such a quality.
Addressing the presence of academic bias must be an integral part of
the challenge. </span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>Second only to
the question of the historical existence of Jesus, the comparison of
Christianity with the ancient religions known as the mystery cults has
engaged the apologetic interests of traditional New Testament research
more than any other. Perhaps it has even occupied first place, since
the Jesus Myth has always been greeted with knee-jerk disdain and
dismissal, leading few to actually undertake any rebuttal to it at all.
(See my recent article "<a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesRefut1.htm">Alleged
Refutations of Jesus
Mythicism</a>".) <br />
</span><br />
<span> If the 'problem' of the
mystery cults were to lie entirely in their relationship to
Christianity as multiple expressions of ancient world religious
thought
and yearnings, it would be nothing more than an historical matter,
though one fraught with difficulties of interpretation from an academic
point of view. What exactly did the mysteries believe in?
What did they and Christianity have in common? How did that commonality
arise? What were their points of contrast and why? What insight do they
provide into the ancient mindset or into the human instinct itself and
how it interprets the world? Most important, what can a comparison of
the Christian religion with the pagan cults tell us about Christianity
itself, its origins, its initial state, its evolution...its claims to
'truth'?</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>It is precisely the latter
question which carries this field of study beyond the merely
historical, because they add for the great majority of researchers a
threatening dimension to the 'problem' of the mystery
religions. This is not to say that modern scholarship on the cults,
even though almost exclusively the province of biblical academics
rather than secular historians (the latter, when they address the
subject at all, as in the case of Michael Grant in his <span style="font-style: italic;">From Alexander to Cleopatra</span>,
p.224-231, do little more than follow the former's lead), has not
illumined and refined our understanding of the ancient mysteries from
an historical point of view. Like all other fields of research,
scholarship in this area ever advances; new knowledge is gleaned, new
insights are achieved. This we certainly have need of, since intimate
reliable knowledge on the mystery religions is elusive, and probably
forever unattainable. We don't have enough information, and what we do
have is anything but clear. But there is also an evolution of
interpretation of the knowledge and insight we do gain, and this is
where subjectivity and special interests are continuing to play a role,
and where progress toward uncovering an objective reality on the
subject still moves along an erratic path. Just as New Testament
scholarship has continually reworked its image of who and what the
"historical Jesus"
may have been, a picture that changes with distressing regularity from
generation to generation with no consensus arrived at or permanence
achieved, so too has the scholarship on the nature of the mystery cults
and the ideas and impulses behind them proven changing and
inconclusive. What may once have been a near consensus on what the
savior gods of the mysteries represented and what they provided to
their devotees
has been called into question if not outright rejected by succeeding
generations of scholarship. And, of course, the debate over
their relationship to the doctrines and rituals of Christianity has
changed along with it.<br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>One of the accusations
brought by the newer generation against the old has been that former
study of the cults was guilty of bringing modern terminology and
thought patterns to the study of the mysteries; this put such study
already halfway to the goal of making close comparisons possible and
inviting</span><span>—</span><span>even inevitable.
The concept of "dying and rising," for
example, has been labeled a modern concept and a modern invention.
While possessing a certain degree of legitimacy, this accusation is
nevertheless an unrealistic exaggeration, and in the hands of many, an
apologetic device. (In any case, if it's true for the mysteries, it's
also true for ancient Christianity; no one has been more guilty of
presenting Christian beginnings and its faith according to later
concepts than modern scholars and theologians.) Deciding how we should
interpret the ideas of the mysteries and early Christianity is
complicated by the overriding concern of today's scholarship to detach
as much as possible the two thought-worlds of pagan cult and Christian
faith. This apologetic agenda has skewed our understanding of both the
mysteries and Christianity as a consequence.<br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>One of the important
insights into the ancient mysteries achieved in the last generation or
two is that the mysteries cannot be regarded as monolithic, either in
time or territory. While they may all have been of a single order they
were not all of a single genus, and certainly not over the course of
their history and their migration from one culture to another. They
evolved. But again, what's sauce for the goose is also sauce for the
gander. Modern scholarship has largely turned a blind eye on the
corollary to that principle: the evolution of Christianity itself. If
the mysteries cannot be treated as an unchanging block, neither can
Christianity be seen as a static entity, brought into existence as a
unique manifestation by the will of God. It, too, evolved over its
first few centuries, and through many diverse threads. (The most
important element of this picture, of course, one not admitted by most
scholarship to date, is that those threads did not all proceed from a
single historical point and figure of origin.) </span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><big style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Overview</big><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>In the latter 19th century,
the History of Religions school took shape, and being avant-garde and
willing to examine Christianity in the light of its (i.e.,
Christianity's) own time and the expressions of that time, quite
legitimately began to perceive all sorts of parallels and common
elements between the Christ faith and the Graeco-Roman mystery cults.
In some circles, that perception grew into a mania. It also adopted as
a methodological assumption the idea that commonality equalled
deliberate borrowing, in one direction or another. As well,
similarities became
equivalences. And what moved one people or one cult to formulate
rituals
and
doctrines of salvation must have been operable across the board.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>There will be a number of
areas I will address in this opening article. The first is almost
incidental to my purpose, although it is one that has been attended by
the most controversy and changing opinion: the genesis of the mysteries
and what their myths represented. This is a huge field, of course, much
mined by mythologists quite apart from any current religious interests,
and I don't expect to be able to bring much new, let alone definitive
opinion to it. The classic interpretation of the
mysteries, on which the History of Religions school was largely based
well into the 20th century and epitomized by J. G Frazer in his <span style="font-style: italic;">The Golden Bough</span>, is the so-called
"vegetation theory." Simply put, the cultic savior gods were based on
the agricultural cycle, the death and rebirth of plants. They and the
rituals associated with them represented the life-giving round of light
and heat governing plant growth, determined by the seasonal movements
of the sun. Thus the
"dying and rising" characterization given to these deities. Modern
scholarship claims that this scenario has been discredited and
abandoned, and other principles on which the mystery cults could have
arisen or been based have been put forward. I am hesitant about the
vigor with which the agricultural roots of the mysteries have been
tossed out, and the claimed 'discreditation' of writers like Frazer.
But what the ultimate answer
may be, while a matter of great historical interest, is not critical to
answering the more immediate question of comparison and dependency
between the cults and ancient Christianity.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>One element of the
supposedly discredited 'dying and rising' scenario that remains
critical, however, is the question of the so-called resurrection of the
god. The apologetic interest in modern scholarship has made this
feature the centerpiece of its rebuttal. It has often been claimed by
those depending on a popular understanding of the History of Religions
school that all the pagan savior gods were regarded as 'rising from
death'</span><span>—</span><span>even said to be on
the third day. The various myths and rituals
(with the exception of Roman views of Mithras) invariably focused
principally on the death of the god, but other, usually more subtle
elements, were regarded as pointing to a resurrection. It eventually
came to be realized, and rightly so, that the latter was not so
straightforward, especially in the context of applying fully-evolved
Christian conceptions to the cultic myths. Suddenly, scholars were
pointing out the obvious: none of the myths or deduced features (from
things like frescoes) of any of the savior gods spoke of or pointed to
a return to earth and a former life. Instead, it might better be
characterized as a 'conquest of death,' with the god taking up an abode
in the other world, usually an underworld. He became the "god of the
dead." This was not quite as doleful as it sounds, or as scholars would
like to make it. We shall have to
see just what this meant to the pagan devotee and how he or she viewed
it. It is also closer to initial Christian conceptions than one might
think, for in the epistles there is no portrayal of Christ's
resurrection as one in flesh, a return to earth. It is rather an ascent
to heaven, to take his place at God's right hand. We shall be looking
at this in more detail later.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>Scholars have gone so far
as to question whether the pagan mystery cults should be styled
"salvation" religions, an even more drastic attempt at disassociation
from Christianity. This, too, we shall look at, though a preliminary
response to such a tactical move ought to be the question: if they did
not cater to the Hellenistic preoccupation, a signal manifestation of
the age, to realize personal salvation to a better life and more
glorious existence after death, what could have been their appeal? What
made them the premiere religious expression of the period? Why were
they regarded with such fervor, such exaltation, by those who became
initiates, introduced to such wonders and insights that they regarded
their lives and hopes as transformed? (Sound familiar?) What led to the
intense devotion of so many to a whole range of similar deities, to the
investment of time, trust and worship in these cultic figures, if they
were merely "gods of the dead" who bestowed no benefits after this
narrow, desperate life on earth was over? If the cults, in the hearts
and hopes of the average person, were the voice of the age</span><span>—</span><span>and that
includes Christianity</span><span>—</span><span>the
modern scholarly attempt to denude them of
any salvation significance is not only unintelligible, it is
unpardonable.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>But the most important area
to be examined centers on the question of the similarities vs. the
differences between Christianity and the cults. While the skeptical
approach has traditionally been to accentuate (and exaggerate) the
former as a means of discrediting the validity of Christianity's claims
for itself, more, paradoxically, is to be learned about the nature of
the Jesus faith by considering the alleged differences which
apologetically oriented scholarship has traditionally appealed to.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>For all that scholarship
has managed to say about the mysteries (much of it contradictory), we
really know very little about them. It is impossible to describe the
rites of a single one of the cults, let alone identify the
interpretations the devotees put on whatever experiences they
underwent. Speculation is certainly possible, and many reconstructions
have been attempted based on hints and deliberately obscure
representations. Part of it is based on what Christian apologists like
Clement of Alexandria and the 4th century Firmicus Maternus have to say
about them, which is precious little. The injunction to secrecy about
the rites and their meaning was universal, and pretty well universally
observed. This is one of the distinctions made by scholars, that
Christianity had no such injunction, and the faith with its consequent
salvation was proclaimed to all and open to all, at no cost but faith
and repentance. This is true, but such a distinction is unimportant and
has no effect on the doctrines and philosophical underpinnings of
either religious system. <br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>There is one comparison of
sorts to be made (and often is) in light of Mark 4:10-12 and parallels
in Matthew and Luke. There, the evangelists have Jesus say that he
teaches in parables in order that those on the 'outside' will have only
superficial understanding; the true secrets of the kingdom of God are
explained only to an elect. Much effort has gone into
understanding what the evangelists are getting at here, since no
one provides any meaningful explanation beyond saying that it conforms
to a passage in scripture. It may simply be a feeble attempt by Mark,
subscribed to in turn by Matthew and Luke, to rationalize why the
preaching message has not enjoyed a wider success. I can think of no
parallel
to this concern for secrecy anywhere outside this passage in the
Synoptics.</span> <span>In any case, there are
distinctions of greater import to be made between the mysteries
and Christianity, and there is no end to the making of them among
modern scholars. To set this table of the ancient salvation banquet
with its various dishes and
beverages, we need to lay out the guest list of those in
attendance. </span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>Two principles need to be
reiterated at the outset. One is that, as stated earlier, they were not
as a group monolithic. They underwent evolution, and there were
significant differences between them. Within each cult, the myth told
of the individual god could vary in detail from place to place, or
between different periods of the cult's history. Second, while most of
them had roots in Oriental precedents, in Egypt, Persia and the Levant,
they underwent significant recasting when adopted by Greek and Roman
societies, adapting themselves to older Greek models. It thus becomes a
tricky exercise to make detailed comparisons between Christianity and
the
mysteries as a whole. Tricky, but not entirely invalid. At the same
time, we must also be conscious of that similar factor of diversity
within
early Christianity and its own evolution.</span>
<br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>The word
"mystery" (<span style="font-style: italic;">mystērion</span>) referred
to a secret rite attached to a given deity which placed those who
underwent it in a relationship with that god. This relationship granted
them a hidden insight and guaranteed certain benefits both in this
world and the next. The word was generally used in the plural
(mysteries, <span style="font-style: italic;">mystēria</span>)</span><span>—</span><span>the
mysteries of Dionysos, the mysteries of Isis</span><span>—</span><span>to refer collectively to
the rites, conferred insight and accrued benefits of the god, as
received by the devotees. One was "initiated into" the mysteries of
such and such a deity. A "<span style="font-style: italic;">mystēs</span>"
was one so initiated. The rite itself, which varied from cult to cult,
involved an experience, usually in a group and conducted by a priest or
priests of the cult, in which "things (were) seen/shown" (<span style="font-style: italic;">deiknumena</span>), "things (were)
heard/said" (<span style="font-style: italic;">legomena</span>), and
"things (were) staged" (<span style="font-style: italic;">dromena</span>).
All of which provoked a feeling or insight on the part of the initiate,
if not some form of ecstatic vision</span><span>—</span><span>a virtual epiphany. Preparation
for the rite could involve fasting or meditation, even isolation. The
total experience gave the initiate an understanding of reality in terms
of mystical experiences of the god and the role the god played in the
workings of the world, along with a conviction that his or her new
relationship with the god would bring a better fate in this life and a
happy
afterlife.<br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>As an example, we might
make our first comparison with Christianity, and we'll do it in reverse
method to that which the comparative religionists are commonly accused
of. We'll apply mystery ideas and terminology to the Christian side and
see where they coincide and where they differ. As a rite by which the
initiate was brought into a relationship with the god, one could offer
the example of Christian baptism, as laid out by Paul in Romans 6:1-11
and references elsewhere in the later corpus. Baptism could be
administered individually or
in a group, with input from a priest. The rite linked the initiate
with Christ and his experiences (his death, burial and resurrection),
though it also brought him/her into a relationship with God the Father
as well, and the Holy Spirit. The reception of the latter, a stated
feature of Pauline baptism, is in a general way equivalent to the pagan
<span style="font-style: italic;">mystēs</span>' reception of insight
and experience of the god, and both received guaranteed
benefits: a transformed life in this world and 'resurrection' to a
happy afterlife. The teaching which accompanied the baptismal rite laid
out the god's (Christ's) role in the workings of the universe, his
power over evil spirits for example, and outlined the mystical
connection between the initiates ("the church") and the god (as in
Paul's 'Christ the head, believers the limbs' in one 'body'), and so
on. It matters not that there are distinctions between the two
expressions in the individual ideas, there is clearly a commonality of
underlying basic concepts.<br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>Modern scholarship focuses
on playing up the differentiation in specifics. Nothing in Christianity
was "secret" in the sense of being revealed only to initiates at the
time of initiation itself, with a proscription against revealing the
rites and their meaning to others. The early Christian writers use the
same word "mystery," but this refers to something that has been a
secret, hitherto unknown to humanity or "hidden for long ages" by God,
and only now revealed (as in Col. 2:2, "the mystery of God, namely
Christ") by apostles like Paul through revelation and a new reading of
scripture. (No role for an historical Jesus there!) Apologists like to
play up the 'devil in the details,' but this is a devil who is quite
impotent, having little effect on the organism itself. Those common
broad
outlines, regardless of how different cultures applied them, places
both in the same taxonomic order, if not the same genus; they are
branches of the same tree growing from a common ancient-world soil of
religious impulse and need. We will see more of these similarities, as
well as distinctions, as we go along. In regard to other types of rites
and ceremonies, such as a sacred meal, these are further commonalities,
and with a bit of leeway in applying the concepts of "rites, insight
and benefits" we would be quite justified in referring to "the
mysteries of Christ" in the sense of rites and faith based on yet
another savior god of the time.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><big><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Survey of the Major
Cults</span></big><br />
</span><br />
<br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Eleusis</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<span>To return to our guest list
at the table of salvation banquets, the oldest and classic "mystery"
cult of the ancient Greek world was that of Eleusis, near Athens. Its
roots are distant and obscure, but the rites at Eleusis go back at
least to the 6th or 7th century BCE. With its myth of the grain goddess
Demeter and her daughter Kore (Persephone), the latter kidnapped by the
god of the Underworld and ultimately forced to spend part of the year
with him beneath the earth and the other part on the surface, we have
what is clearly a representation of an agricultural cycle. Initially a
local cult, it was taken over by Athens and became a politically
directed civic institution, with initiation open to ever wider circles
until eventually anyone in the Roman empire could come to Eleusis and
be initiated into its mysteries (though 'fees' were costly, another
point of distinction with Christianity).<br />
</span><br />
<span> The staged drama within the
initiation hall at the Eleusis site probably enacted some aspect of the
Kore myth, while the "things shown" were sacred objects of unknown (to
us) nature, displayed by the priest amidst the production of a sudden
great light. Did Christianity have anything similar? Perhaps not as
part of an initiation rite, but Paul does speak cryptically to the
Galatians (3:1): "you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly
portrayed as crucified." Whether this referred to a speech, an effigy,
a
written proclamation, or even some sort of acted-out representation, is
not known.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Despite its age, a paper
delivered by Walter F. Otto at the 1939 Eranos ("shared feast")
meetings in Switzerland has some very interesting and insightful things
to say about the Eleusinian mysteries ["The Meaning of the Eleusinian
Mysteries" in <span style="font-style: italic;">Papers from the Eranos
Yearbooks</span>, vol.2: "The Mysteries," p.14-31]. Otto refers to the
Homeric Hymn to Demeter, which outlines the (non-secret) cult myth of
the Eleusinian goddess. According to this hymn, those who took part in
the mysteries "could look forward to a far better lot in the afterworld
beyond the grave" [p.14], demonstrating quite clearly in a primary
source that this was a
"salvation" religion. Demeter was a goddess "whose unique favors
included the promise of agricultural fertility, the ennoblement of
human life, the cultural gifts which overcame the bestial in man."
The Athenian Isocrates in the 4th century BCE praised the Eleusinian
goddess for the
rites, "participation in which makes us look with joyful hope upon the
end of life and upon existence as a whole." Cicero, in an oration of 59
BCE, praised Athens (in its association with Eleusis) as "this city in
which 'humanity,' religion and agriculture had originated, and from
which these sublime gifts had been carried to all countries" [p.15]. In
myth and the Homeric Hymn, Demeter and Eleusis gave agriculture to
the world.<br />
</span><br />
<span> This we know to be a
foreshortening of human and agricultural history, but it speaks to the
esteem and sacred respect in which the mysteries were held, to the
emotional investment placed in
them by even the greatest sophisticates of the age. In the face of
this, attempts by modern scholars to devalue them, to reduce them to
little more than social guilds</span><span>—</span><span>which is more or less Walter Burkert's evaluation in his <span style="font-style: italic;">Ancient Mystery Cults</span> [1987]</span><span>—</span><span>is demeaning and
reprehensible. Burkert calls it a "stereotype"
that "the mystery religions are spiritual...indication of a basic
change in religious attitude...the pagan in a search for higher
spirituality." For him this will not do, because "In this
view, the mystery religions are considered religions of salvation, <span style="font-style: italic;">Erlösungsreligionen</span>. This
would make Christianity just another</span><span>—</span><span>indeed, the most successful</span><span>—</span><span>of
the Oriental mystery religions" [p.3]. He laments the application of
Christianity as a "reference system" to the mysteries, appealing in
lockstep with many others to the "radical differences" between the two
and the judgment that the mysteries were not even "religious" in the
first place, when compared to the now-familiar Christianity, Judaism
and Islam. Why not? Such "religions" as the three latter are
concerned with exclusivity, each in demarcating itself against the
others. The Graeco-Roman mystery cults "are never exclusive; they
appear as varying forms, trends, or options within the one disparate
yet continuous conglomeration of ancient religion" [p.4].<br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span>
True enough, but does this distinction disqualify the pagan cults as
"religions"? I won't argue the 'proper' definition of the term here,
but surely it is not so narrow as to exclude beliefs in different gods
and processes of salvation which were accommodating to one another
(what a concept!), much less a definition dependent on the dubious
value judgment that rival, divisive</span><span>—</span><span>and in modern times threatening to
world stability</span><span>—</span><span>faiths
are
of a superior nature. Besides, these days
the term "religion" has become so diluted and encompassing that we can
surely make room under its heading for manifestations followed by
millions over centuries and covering half of the world known to the
classical ancients.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span>
To return to Walter Otto, he tells us that the display "of an ear of
wheat plays a central role in the (Eleusinian) mysteries," and in his
day (prior to World War II) this agricultural basis was deemed by most
to be sufficient explanation for the cultic myth and rite. Still, he
has a bone to pick with this view. To regard the rape of Persephone as
referring to the annual disappearance of vegetation doesn't really fit
the myth. In pre-Hellenic fertility god and goddess mythology, the
earth
loses that fertility when the deity descends to the underworld, as in
the case of the Babylonian Ishtar. But in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter,
after the abduction of Kore by Pluto, nothing happens to vegetation
until later, when Demeter, in her sorrow at losing her daughter, brings
drought to the land and a failure of vegetation, seemingly as a
blackmail device to get Zeus to have Kore returned to earth, at least
part of the time. Moreover, the mythology says that it was only <span style="font-style: italic;">after</span> Kore's abduction and return
that grain agriculture was established; thus the descent of Kore into
the underworld would not represent the seasonal eclipse of "seed and
harvest." Otto suggests that the primeval myth contains elements more
fittingly representing the earth mother who claims her own rights in
competition with other gods, those of heaven such as Zeus, and those of
the sea (Poseidon) and the underworld (Pluto). Even more important is
the somewhat startling conclusion that, since grain and agriculture are
dispensed to humanity by Kore only <span style="font-style: italic;">after
</span>she has been abducted to the underworld, where she becomes Queen
of the Dead, returning to earth precisely to establish sowing and
harvesting, it would seem that "Death is prerequisite to the growth of
the grain." <br />
</span></div>
<span> Otto sees in this a
profound principle, an intuition innate to the ancient world but one
"that seems extremely strange to modern thinking." Among primitive
peoples it still forms the basis of myth.<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>The substance of this
intuition is that generation and fertility, and particularly the growth
of grain, are indisolubly bound up with death. Without death, there
would be no procreation. The inevitability of death is not a destiny
decreed by some hostile power. In birth itself, in the very act of
procreation death is at work. It is at the base of all new life. In
the Bible, procreation, birth, and agriculture as well occur outside of
paradise and appear only after death has been decreed for man. Certain
primitive peoples of today still preserve a tradition</span><span>—</span><span>which is
symbolically enacted at regular festivals</span><span>—</span><span>that a mythical woman had to
die in order that the grain might spring from her dead limbs; and that
only by initiation into her death can man become potent and life be
renewed. This then is the core of the myth of Persephone, to which the
Eleusinian Mysteries attach. Man receives the fertility which is
indispensable to him from the hand of death. He must appeal to the
Queen of the Dead. And this he can do; for here in Eleusis her divine
mother mourned for her, here she returned to her mother, and here the
goddesses created agriculture. But they did more. They provided also
for the destiny of man himself: Demeter gave them a rite and a vision
through which they might gain certainty that a happy lot awaited them
after their death. [p.20-21]<br />
</span></div>
<span> I have gone into this in
detail for a
number of reasons. First, it is one illustration of the complexity and
subtlety involved in modern study of the cults and the myths attached
to them, and the uncertainty and debate which surrounds their
interpretation. More importantly, it establishes the principle that in
the ancient mind, death and life were two sides of the same coin,
"indisolubly bound," as Otto puts it. The cults always entail, as a
first step, a "death," usually of the god, although in Mithraism it is
the death of the bull at the hand of Mithras. (That first step, of
course, is also present in Christianity.) In the case of the most
ancient myths, such as that of Demeter-Kore and the Phoenician and
Babylonian myths, it is symbolically
represented by a descent into the realm of death, the underworld. As
well, the death of the god is very often paralleled by a symbolic
'death' undergone by the initiate as part of the rite, and a ritual
emphasis is laid on mourning the god's death, almost to the eclipse of
any focus on a subsequent positive fate for the god. As we shall see,
more recent Christian commentators have tried to turn that eclipse into
outright denial, that no resurrection of any kind was envisioned for
the god. This makes little sense, if only because it is an attempted
denial of the second side of the coin, the other bound element. While
many are the variants and much is the confusion raised by the diversity
and evolution of the myths, most scholars are agreed that ultimately
this type of mythology goes back to the principle of dying and rising
in nature and agriculture, symbolized one way or another by the gods
and their actions. If the genesis of it all lies in the double-sided
feature of death and renewed life in nature, on the principle that
death precedes renewed life, it is highly dubious that,
in whatever later paths of thought which the cults and the ancients'
understanding of
them may have followed, one half of that equation, the "renewed life"
side, would have been abandoned or lost, that such gods would no longer
be seen as rescued from death themselves and undergoing renewal or
'resurrection'.<br />
</span><br />
<span> It also makes little sense
that devotion to such gods would be possible, that initiation into the
cults could have been so widely respected and valued, and have had such
positive emotion invested in them, if they did not entail the element
of guaranteed benefits, and especially of 'resurrection' from death to
a happy afterlife. How could the death/life dichotomy not have been a
part of the understanding, the perceived 'system' of the mystery
religions? What else could have powered their appeal and longevity? And
how could the initiates be convinced of a conquest of death for
themselves if the same fate had not been enjoyed by the gods who were
representative of the process? And yet that is precisely what today's
scholars have done their best to argue. Too much recent study of the
mysteries seems to have lost the spirit of true inquiry and has instead
settled into trying to discredit older theories, focusing above all on
protecting Christian interests from contamination. Bruce Metzger,
Gunther Wagner, Walter Burkert, Jonathan Z. Smith, are only some of the
writers whose efforts seem bent in this direction.<br />
</span><br />
<span> In Otto's proposal there is
also a motif to be encountered in other mysteries, the idea that the
savior deity becomes king or queen of the dead. Earlier, we considered
the use of the phrase 'god of the dead' which tends to be served up by
modern scholars with not always subtle derogatory overtones. We will
find that this is in fact a central theme of the cultic myths, although
it is not to be completely detached from the general concept of the
dying and renewal of vegetation (as the mysteries of Demeter and Kore
show); there is a subtlety here in the amalgamation of concepts and
associations which the modern mind can too easily dismiss or fail to
appreciate. I have remarked elsewhere on Otto's concept that "without
death there can be no life; without dying, no fertility." In this age
of secular preoccupation with finding ways to prolong individual life,
we have little sympathy for the ancients' (and primitive peoples')
ready acceptance of individual death as part of the great cycle of
life. Survival could only be in terms of other worlds and other states,
and they saw their savior gods as guaranteeing such things. The Christ
myth is the surviving synthesis of that outlook.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dionysos</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>The cult of Dionysos
(later, the Roman Bacchus) was
wholly indigenous to Greece. Originating in Thrace in the northern
Aegean, it spread first across the Bosphorus strait into
Phrygia (northeast Asia Minor) and later to the Greek islands and
mainland, where it was firmly entrenched by the 7th century BCE. Unlike
the Eleusis mysteries which were tied to one locale, Dionysiac rites
could be celebrated anywhere. Throughout much of their early history,
such rites were notorious. They were engaged in by women, outdoors in
the forests and mountains, consisting of wild dancing and thrashings
and frenzied shrieking. Flutes and cymbals often accompanied such '<span style="font-style: italic;">orgia</span>'. And since Dionysos was the
god of wine, intoxication was also a factor. The plays of the Greek
dramatists and numerous representations on vases, cups and other
artifacts depict the women who follow Dionysos, called "maenades" after
the 'madness' that seemed to possess them. They were reputed to tear
apart animals and eat their raw flesh. This wild element to the rites
persisted in some circles for centuries, but as the cult spread to the
cities and political circles of the Greek states, it was softened under
the tutelage of various governmental bodies to make it acceptable to
society as a whole. Men became involved in the rites, and processions
and staged plays on Dionysian themes became common. When mystery rites
were added to the old, now watered-down <span style="font-style: italic;">orgia</span> in Hellenistic times, they
were never conducted with the degree of secrecy characteristic of the
other cults, and there are surviving frescoes depicting those
ceremonies. When Dionysos became Orphic (see below), he also acquired
'holy books.'<br />
</span><br />
<span> Dionysos was also the god
of fertility, and his standard myth involves a descent to the
underworld to bring back his human mother Semele. She had died while
carrying Dionysos, fathered by Zeus, and Zeus himself had carried the
unborn child to term in his thigh, making him immortal. These features,
akin to elements of the Demeter-Kore myth, suggest not only some kind
of nature renewal connection, but also a role for the god as a
guarantor of immortality, of some form of 'resurrection' after death.
Much of the rites associated with Dionysos seem to mark a celebration
of life and fecundity, especially the sexual side of life; his symbol
was the phallus, carried in processions in a basket (the "<span style="font-style: italic;">liknon</span>") rising out of a bed of
fruit. In some contexts, it is Dionysos himself, the child, who is
carried in the <span style="font-style: italic;">liknon</span>.<br />
</span><br />
<span> In this regard, a
resurrection motif can be found in Plutarch's <span style="font-style: italic;">Isis and Osiris</span>, where he is
comparing Osiris with Dionysos and noting all sorts of common practices
in the two gods' rites. Martin Nilsson [<span style="font-style: italic;">The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic
and Roman Age</span>, p.39-40] says: "Reading this passage as a whole
[ch.35/364F] one certainly gets the impression that Plutarch has in
mind not the awakening of a sleeping god but the raising of him from
the dead. One is instantly reminded of the Orphic doctrine that the
child Dionysos was dismembered by the Titans and reborn as the second
Dionysos, and this myth is hinted at by the mention of the Titanika and
their comparison with the dismemberments, returns to life, and rebirths
of Osiris." The key elements of the passage referred to in Plutarch are
as follows:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>They call him [Dionysos]
out of the water by the sound of trumpets, at the same time casting
into the depths a lamb as an offering to the Keeper of the
Gate....Furthermore, the tales regarding the Titans and the rites
celebrated by night agree with the accounts of the dismemberment of
Osiris and his revivification and regenesis. Similar agreement is found
too in the tales about their sepulchres. The Egyptians, as has already
been stated, point out tombs of Osiris in many places, and the people
of Delphi believe that the remains of Dionysus rest with them close
beside the oracle; and the Holy Ones offer a secret sacrifice in the
shrine of Apollo whenever the devotees of Dionysus wake the God of the
Mystic Basket [<span style="font-style: italic;">liknon</span>].<br />
</span></div>
<span> Thus Plutarch bears witness
to resurrection motifs in the cults of both Dionysos and Osiris. Where
Dionysos is concerned, scholars often style this as a 'rebirth' to a
"second Dionysos." But the Dionysos who has been rent and eaten by the
Titans is not resurrected to the same state. Instead, in this Orphic
myth his heart has been preserved, is eaten by Zeus, who
then fathers a new Dionysos by Semele. These multiple myths and sources
can be confusing to any study of the Dionysos cult, and were even
confusing to some ancient commentators.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dionysos and Orphism</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>At some point early in its
career, the cult of Dionysos became associated with another set of
myths and mysteries, those of Orpheus. Some scholars (see Walter Wili,
"The Orphic Mysteries and the Greek Spirit" in <span style="font-style: italic;">Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks</span>,
vol.2: "The Mysteries," p.64-92) regard Orphism as growing out of the
Dionysian cult in the 6th century BCE, a kind of "reform" movement
within it, to use Everett Ferguson's phrase. It becomes difficult to
separate out the Orphic elements from the Dionysian, since parts of the
myths are intertwined and they share common organs. Similar myths are
to be found in the catalogue of both Orpheus and Dionysos. Orpheus, who
may be based on an historical figure of several centuries earlier, was
a mythical singer whose music tamed wild animals; he was credited with
introducing "culture" to the rough and barbaric world of pre-classical
Greece. This was perhaps a representation of the evolution from the
frenzied <span style="font-style: italic;">orgia</span> of the
original cult to more sedate observances and mysteries which eventually
took their place.<br />
</span><br />
<span> But Orpheus also introduced
other things which had far-reaching consequences for all of subsequent
humanity. Orphism first gave Greek thought the idea that the soul was
something separate from the body, having its own existence before and
after its emplacement within the latter. The soul underwent a process
of purification from the stain of the Orphic 'original sin', reflected
in one of the Dionysian myths; this might entail the necessity for
reincarnation (transmigration of souls). It also, earlier than any
other culture including the Judaic, presented us with the principle of
punishment and reward in the next world. It gave the Greeks a 'sense of
sin'. As Everett Ferguson puts it [<span style="font-style: italic;">Backgrounds
of Early Christianity</span>, p.124]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>There are two worlds</span><span>—this world and the other world. One pays the penalty in one
for sins in the other...[P]ersons could escape the cycle of rebirth by
rituals of purification for self and for one's dead relatives. An
initiation could secure for one a happy afterlife. The sense of
cyclical time remained nothing more than a theory, and the idea of
transmigration never became axiomatic. The idea of rewards and
punishments in another life and the conception of the soul as
personality apart from the body very nearly did. A concern for another
world entered Greek thought. Here for the first time in Greece the next
life was geared in a significant way to each person's action in this
life.<br />
</span></div>
<span> From Orphism, this
momentous duality of two worlds, rewards and punishments after death,
an eternal soul and a temporary body</span><span>—the latter
being the prison of the former</span><span>—passed to Plato
(perhaps by way of the intervening Pythagoreans of the 6th-5th
centuries BCE, who adopted Orphic doctrines) and from there to the mind
of western man....to his infinite detriment.<br />
</span><br />
<span> The Orphic Original Sin
involved one of the multiple myths and characterizations of Orpheus'
own god, Dionysos. The ritual act of the maenads in rending and eating
the raw flesh of a wild animal was translated into the actions of the
Titans in rending and devouring
the child Dionysos. Zeus, angered at the Titans' action, reduced them
to ashes with his lightning bolts. From those ashes mankind arose, who
thus inherited the Titans' evil and sinful nature. However, at the same
time, since the Titans had eaten Dionysos, humans took on a good, even
divine element derived from Dionysos himself, and the tendencies toward
good and evil lay side by side in humanity's nature, warring with each
other. It was the goal of humans to let their good nature triumph, to
atone for past sins, to achieve the soul's purity (aided through the
transmigration between bodies) and reunite with the divine. One can
recognize the roots of some of the fundamental ideas of Gnosticism in
these myths, as well as key elements of Christianity. The religious
philosophy of the ancient world was an evolving, interlocking organism,
and to think of divorcing Christianity from these processes is the
ultimate burial of one's head in the sand.<br />
</span><br />
<span> That initiation into the
Dionysiac mysteries guaranteed a happy afterlife is generally
acknowledged. Walter Burkert (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>,
p.5) says: "The existence of mysteries proper, of personal and secret
initiations with the promise of eternal bliss in the beyond, has
recently been confirmed by the gold tablet of Hipponion, mentioning the
<span style="font-style: italic;">mystai</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">bakchoi</span> on their 'sacred way' in
the netherworld." And Nilsson calls attention (<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>, p.44) to the burial
practices of Dionysian devotees, whose sarcophagi "show that the hope
of a joyous afterlife was essential to them."<br />
</span><br />
<span> The myths of Dionysos make
him both a dying and a rising god, though this is never directly
related to an agricultural cycle. Orpheus, too, in mirror image
undergoes the same death as his god in the legend that he was torn to
pieces by the Thracian maenads. Is this the first manifestation of that
homologic parallel between a man and his god, the idea of both
undergoing the same fate? Perhaps, although Orpheus' killing is
actually brought about at the instigation of Dionysos himself, perhaps
representing a vengeful response to Orpheus' softening of his original
rites. Walter Wili [<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>,
p.69] writes that<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>this myth calls for an
intrinsic interpretation that was seen even in antiquity (Proclus on
Plato): the prophet suffers the same fate as his god....Thus the
essential elements in the legend of Orpheus are sacred song, the other
world, and the ennobling of man by song and transcendence, by the
mysteries and the divine suffering of their founder. This legend was
firmly established in the sixth century [BCE]."<br />
</span></div>
<span> And thus, six centuries
before Christianity, we have the first grand coalescence of the
principle that has been governing popular religious thinking for two
and a half millennia and counting: that salvation lies in knowledge of
and association with a god who is himself a participant in the
principle of renewable life and survival of death. If this began in
prehistoric roots of the renewable life of vegetation and the gods who
supervised it, who embodied it, it mutated into more complex renderings
of gods who controlled the processes of life and death in general, and
who underwent them. By attaching oneself in parallel to the god and his
experiences, in a way becoming part of him in those experiences, one
took on those divine processes of renewable life and the survival of
death. In direct line to this mystic thinking, Paul six centuries later
could say: we have been baptized into Christ's death, and we shall
undergo a resurrection like his (though Gunter Wagner, among others,
does his best to reinterpret Romans 6 away from any such mystical
understanding: see Article 13C).<br />
</span><br />
<span> Of course, the Dionysian
resurrection (god and initiate) is different from that reputed of Jesus
in the Gospels. Ferguson makes the pointless comment that neither
Dionysos nor the initiate into his mysteries was thought of as "rising
from the dead." Of course not, if this means returning to one's life on
earth in flesh. Rather, the focus was on an afterlife in another world.
There is some question as to Dionysos' status as "a god of the dead."
That seems not to have been his original role, though in some places he
later became identified as such. But in his Orphic guise, he was
involved in the cult's concerns over rewards and punishments in the
next world. In a letter to his wife following the death of their young
child, Plutarch refers to "mystic symbols of the Dionysiac mysteries"
(into which he himself had been initiated). He consoles her with the
thought that these symbols mean that their daughter was too innocent to
have acquired any stain and will enjoy a happy afterlife [Consol. ad
uxorem, p.611D].<br />
</span><br />
<span> The Orphics not only
focused on a moral life, they envisioned a judging of the dead which
determined their fate in the next world. Considering that Hebrew
thought contained very little, if anything, about a fate in an
afterworld determined by one's behavior in this one, even long after
Orphism took shape, we can identify this element in Christianity's
moral outlook and next-world expectations as rooted in the Graeco-Roman
tradition, rather than anything inherently Judaic. Even the Orphic
concept of "hell" with its punishing demons preceded the
Judaeo-Christian one. To accuse the ancient world of having virtually
no ethical integrity before Christianity came along is the height of
apologetic fatuousness, and is all too common among even mainstream
biblical commentators. And that's not even taking into account the
sophisticated ethical concerns of groups like the Stoics and Cynics.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Isis and Osiris</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Now we move to the three
major mystery cults that have roots in "oriental" precedents, which
when established in Graeco-Roman society adopted much of the Greek
model. The most important of these was the cult of Isis and Osiris.
Isis became the closest thing to a universal deity achieved by the
ancient world, claiming that all gods and goddesses were really
expressions of herself. She became the most widely popular divine
figure of the first two centuries CE. Her roots in pre-Hellenistic
Egypt are complex, and go back into prehistoric times. I'll briefly
quote Helmut Koester [<span style="font-style: italic;">Introduction to
the New Testament</span>, vol.1, p.184):<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Isis was the goddess of
the royal throne and thus the mother of Horus, the mythical
representation of the living Pharaoh. Osiris, probably in his origin
the god of the shepherds of the Nile's eastern delta, became the
mythical embodiment of its fertile lands, which flooded every year and
were thus restored to new life. His enemy, therefore, was Seth, the god
of the desert. At the same time, Osiris was the god of the dead, and in
this function he was identified with the dead Pharaoh: he represents
the life of the deceased king in the world of the dead....That Osiris
was also connected with Isis is apparently the result of royal and
throne mythology: because Isis was the mother of Horus, now the living
king, Osiris, the dead king, became her husband and the father of Horus.<br />
</span></div>
<span> The myth of Isis and Osiris
is well-known, though details vary, since multiple myths have been
conjoined. Osiris is captured by his brother Seth, killed and
dismembered, and his parts buried across Egypt. Isis searches for him,
finds all the pieces except for the phallus, which she renders
artificially and from this conceives and gives birth to Horus, who
later takes his revenge on Seth for his father's murder. The
now-immortal Osiris (representing the dead pharaohs) became ruler over
the dead in the underworld.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Whether Isis' reassembly of
Osiris can technically be called a "resurrection" to this world is an
esoteric point, but he did at least have enough life in his reassembled
body to father Horus. (Nothing is said about eating or appearing to
followers.) But the significance of that act related to the furtherance
of life in the succeeding pharaoh and the provision of a son who was
himself something of a savior figure. In terms of benefits to the
devotees of Osiris, it related to one's fate in the next life where
Osiris was established as king. Thus, the idea of a resurrection in
flesh (other than to father Horus) would have been irrelevant to the
myth. The rites of Osiris, before they were
converted into a Hellenistic mystery, were not undergone by living
initiates, but were performed on the dead (whoever could afford them,
or who had access to such privileged-class amenities), to guarantee
them a life with Osiris in the afterworld. In the Hellenistic cult,
that guarantee was conferred on initiates during life, though still at
some cost.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Osiris himself underwent a
syncretistic evolution in post-Alexander Hellenistic Egypt by being
morphed into an artificially created god known as Serapis. For
political reasons, Ptolemy I had the priests combine Osiris with a cult
of a local sacred bull, Apis, giving it Greek features and mysteries of
a Greek nature. When Isis spread throughout the Graeco-Roman world, it
was with this transformed Osiris. But Osiris/Serapis soon became
eclipsed by Isis herself, who acquired rites of her own, temples and
priests, as well as her own "I am..." aretalogies, declaring herself
ruler of the universe, protectress of virtually everything, controller
of fate, responsible even for the movement of the stars. This rivals
the hymnic aretalogy of the Christ-Son given in Colossians 1:15-20, who
contains within himself the complete being of God, pre-existent,
sustainer of the universe, everything created by and for him. Both
proceed from the same impulse: to create a god who controls life and
destiny, but is at the same time accessible, concerned with the fate of
humanity. The mark of theology has always been its freedom to fashion
gods in the image of one's needs and desires.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Isis became an expression
of the prehistoric figure of the Earth Mother goddess, in line with the
Greek Demeter and the Phrygian Cybele and many others around the world.
One observation we might make in passing is that such female deities
were usually in association with male deities or figures: Aphrodite
with Adonis, Cybele with Attis, Ishtar with Tammuz, Isis with Osiris.
And they end up mourning for him at his death. (The Eleusinian case is
distinctive in one aspect: the mother mourns for her daughter.) This
was apparently a compelling and necessary feature to give a dying god,
and it was not lost on Christianity. The <span style="font-style: italic;">mater dolorosa</span> became a motif
associated with Jesus. Paul knows nothing of her, but the Gospel phase
eventually introduced her when John placed Jesus' mother at the foot of
the cross, mourning over her son's demise.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cybele and Attis</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>The Phrygian Cybele was the
Great Mother goddess of the ancient world <span style="font-style: italic;">par excellence</span>. Her worship came to
Rome during the Hannibalic War, officially adopted by the state (204
BCE), and it immediately, it seemed, produced results favorable to the
Roman
struggle with Carthage. Like the cult of Dionysos, which influenced
Phrygia from neighboring Thrace, the rites associated with Cybele were
originally wild and ecstatic, leading to the self-castration of her
priests, known as Galli, a practice which continued into the Common
Era. This extreme measure of dedicating oneself to the goddess' service
probably
gave rise to the myth of Cybele's Attis and his self-castration.
Originally a shepherd boy and lover of Cybele who betrayed her with a
nymph or by marrying a king's daughter (the myth varied), Attis
underwent a long evolution, eventually reaching the status of a solar
deity and savior god by the time of the 4th century CE. He became the
subject of much philosophical speculation (as by Julian the Apostate)
about the generation of life and the relationship between the upper and
lower worlds of spirit and matter.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Commemorating the myth of
his death and, apparently, a certain concept of 'resurrection,' the
rites of Attis became embodied in a so-called 'passion week'
celebration whose features are very similar to the Christian Holy Week
observance and mythology. It even took place at the same time of year:
March 15 to 27 on the Roman calendar. The festivities included a
mourning for his death, with Attis attached to a tree (the one under
which he died as a result of the castration); then both Attis and the
tree were buried. Two days later came a day of rejoicing (the <span style="font-style: italic;">Hilaria</span>), which by the 4th century
represented a "saving" of the god which conferred a guarantee of
similar salvation for the initiate into the Attis mysteries (as quoted
by Firmicus Maternus in the mid 4th century, although some scholars
identify his comments with the cult of Osiris). Exactly when this
element, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Hilaria</span>, was
added to the festivities is a matter of debate. The festival was
established
officially in Rome under the emperor Claudius (mid 1st century CE), but
its exact components at that time are uncertain. However, temple
frescoes and artifacts from that period and from the previous century
portray Attis in ways which suggest that he has attained immortality
and can confer the same on devotees. Maarten Vermaseren regards this as
an expression of "resurrection" for Attis</span><span>—</span><span>a term, however, which needs defining and is not to be
equated with the portrayal of Jesus' resurrection in the Gospels. (For
a fuller discussion of these matters, along with a more detailed
comparison with their Gospel and Pauline equivalent expressions, see my
<a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/rfset27.htm#John">Response to John</a> in Reader Feedback 27.)<br />
</span><br />
<span> The rites of Attis included
a sacred meal and a form of baptism known as the "taurobolium." In this
rite the recipient descended into a pit over which a live bull on a
grill was slaughtered, the animal's blood pouring down over him. This
blood baptism "accorded expiation for sin and granted rebirth to the
initiate, normally for the period of twenty years (in one case it is
said 'in all eternity')" [Koester, <span style="font-style: italic;">op
cit</span>, p.193].<br />
</span><br />
<span> In regard to the origins of the
Attis cult, Maria Lancellotti [<span style="font-style: italic;">Attis:
Between Myth and History</span>, 2002] suggests an alternative to an
agricultural basis, namely in a genesis somewhat akin to that of
Osiris. The cults of both gods began essentially as cults of the dead,
but attached to dead kings (Pharaohs in Egypt) who were regarded as
continuing their existence in a "divine" dimension in the afterworld,
to which the privileged in this world could follow and join them.
(Though as we saw in regard to the Osiris myth and its connection with
the annual flooding of the Nile, a nature cycle could possibly have
been present in Attis' prehistoric roots.) Lancellotti traces the Attis
tradition, whose home lay in Phrygia/Lydia of western Asia Minor, to
royal Hittite funerals (although the transition from the realm of
royalty to shepherd herder attached to the Mother Goddess remains
obscure):<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>These funerals mark the
transition of the king (and queen) from the human to the "divine"
dimension. Dead kings, in fact, were accorded a cult modelled on the
cult of deities in the temples....Attis would appear to be, in fact, an
ancient member of the royal clan for whom there was a cult similar to
the cult reserved for dead monarchs in the Hittite period....The fall
of the Phrygian monarchy led to a transformation of the political
situation which the religious institutions also had to take into
account....A new dynastic model founded a priestly theocracy, although
it had strong continuity with the preceding funeral cult. [p.152-3]<br />
</span></div>
<span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> With such
beginnings in a funeral cult attached to a dead king, and the
envisioning of that king as one who takes up an "effective permanence
in the Netherworld (and) is to some extent active and functions
positively on behalf of the living" [p.154], I might suggest that this
theory gives us a clue (as does the similar tradition of Osiris) to the
evolution of such figures into 'saviors'. Members of the cult, which
eventually involved initiation and the undergoing of certain rites,
came to see themselves as enjoying guarantees from such divinized kings
and joining them in the Netherworld after death. Thus we can see that
any concept of 'resurrection' is to be interpreted as the survival of
the 'savior' and his devotees in the afterlife, and not a rising/return
to the material world. This would explain not only that favorite
distinction with the (post-Gospels) resurrection of the Christian
Christ, but why the discernable aspect of the pagan cults is so
prominently the death and ritual mourning element. It is the death,
like the death of Christ, which has 'enabled' salvation. Because the
savior proceeds only to the Netherworld, there is less focus to be
placed on the post-death 'event' in the observances of the cult; nor
can that transition be reflected in the earth-based myth itself. <br />
</span><br />
<span> Scholars and apologists are thus
misled into pointing to that apparent void in the cultic rites: the
lack of celebration of the god's 'resurrection' or return. There was no
return; rather, it was a passing on to the next world. The god's
benefits to the believers flowed from there and would be realized there
after death. This distinction cannot be emphasized enough. And
ironically, there is a companion distinction that also cannot be
emphasized enough and to which scholars are generally blind. In early
Christianity, as reflected in the epistles of Paul and other writers,
one finds a similar void in attention paid to the resurrection of their
Christ Jesus as an 'event'. Paul has much to say about "Christ
crucified," about his death as a saving act, atoning for sins. Paul
suggests, in his letter to the Galatians [3:1], that some kind of
scenario of the crucifixion of Christ (in the spiritual realm at the
hands of "the rulers of this age" [1 Cor. 2:8]) was presented to his
listeners, and perhaps this was a missionary practice in his circle.
Other renditions of the crucifixion and its effects appear elsewhere,
as in Colossians 2:15 (again in an apparent spiritual-realm setting).
But where is the focus on the resurrection, on Easter Sunday, on the
empty tomb and the appearances in flesh? No such thing exists in the
epistles. There are a few references to God "raising Jesus from the
dead," and of the believer being "raised with him" to a new life, but
there is no more sign of a focus on this as an 'event' or of it being
reflected in ritual observance than there is in what we can see of the
pagan cults. In fact, less, for in myth Osiris was at least brought
back to function as the progenitor of Horus. (It goes without saying
that in the entire non-Gospel record of earliest Christianity, there is
no sign that anyone knew of the 'location' of the tomb from which Jesus
rose or that it was a holy site that anyone ever visited. The same is
true of Calvary.)<br />
</span><br />
<span> Lancellotti admits that evidence
in Attis symbolism suggests the concept of "immortality": such things
as "images of the pine cone, the branch, the poppy or the pomegranate
flower" [p.161]. Yet she suggests that these "could refer to the
Netherworld that the dead person is entering rather than to
immortality." But where is that immortality to be enjoyed if not the
Netherworld? Is not Christian immortality to be enjoyed in the
Christian "netherworld," namely Heaven? Scholars are scarcely to be
forgiven for being stuck in such misleading and myopic Christian
thought patterns, for it skews their interpretation of the mysteries
and serves their apologetic agendas. Lancellotti reveals her own in her
comments surrounding the terms used for Attis' 'revival' by the 4th
century Firmicus Maternus. For her, they make "particularly clear the
distance separating (Attis') 'resurrection' and Christ's. The risks
involved in possible similarities between the Attis story and Christ's
are thus overcome precisely by demonstrating that the apparent
"similarities" conceal instead an unbridgeable chasm" [p.158]. This is
a "chasm" of modern scholars' own excavation, and the "risks" speak of
a danger only to Christian faith and privilege, not to dispassionate
scholarship.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Adonis</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span>Somewhat like Attis, Adonis
was a lover and companion figure to a major goddess, in this case
Aphrodite/Astarte, but unlike Attis he remained in her shade. He was
native to Syria (Phoenicia) but enjoyed a limited success in Greece,
with his myth of being killed by a boar during a hunt. The fact of
mystery rites attached to Adonis and whether he could be styled a
'savior god' is uncertain, but Ferguson notes that there are
traditions about a "resurrection" for Adonis from the 2nd century and
that these were probably under the influence of the cult of Osiris</span><span>—which is an admission that something resembling
resurrection was attached to Osiris. We will look more closely
at Adonis later when considering Gunter Wagner's book in Part Three.</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><br />
</span><br />
<span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mithras</span><br />
</span><br />
<span> </span><br />
<br />
<span> Mithras, or Mitra/Mithra in
his pre-Roman form, was an ancient god whose territory stretched from
Asia Minor to Iran and northern India, going back at least into the 2nd
millennium BCE. He was a god of oaths and treaties (his name means
"covenant"), due to the fact that as a sun god, he "saw all." Mithra
never enjoyed much success in the Greek Hellenistic world, and was to
come into his own as a mystery deity only in the heyday of the Roman
empire, under the name Mithras. By then, Mithras had lost any working
connection to his Persian roots. He was primarily a god for men (women
could not be initiated), and popular among soldiers. The cult
functioned in small groups of people, using sanctuaries (<span style="font-style: italic;">mithraea</span>) that were small and often
in caves or even underground (mirroring the cave in which Mithras slew
the bull).<br />
</span><br />
<span> The myth of Mithras is more
properly referred to as a "cult legend," since this account is not
rooted in literary sources or in an ancient piece of mythology, but was
put together in Roman times; it has been interpreted by modern scholars
from reliefs, sculptures and paintings on surviving monuments, mostly
in the <span style="font-style: italic;">mithraea</span>. Mithras was
born on December 25 by emerging from a rock, a birth apparently
attended by shepherds. As an adult, he hunts a sacred bull, captures
and drags it into a cave where he slays it with a short sword. From the
bull's blood and semen arise grain and the general vitality of nature.
As Ferguson puts it [<span style="font-style: italic;">op cit</span>,
p.233]:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>this was the principal
event for the Mithraic interpretation of reality. The bull-slaying was
a creative and beneficial act. Life and energy (symbolized by the bull)
were captured and released for the benefit of nature and human beings
by this act. An inscription in the Santa Prisca Mithraeum on the
Aventine in Rome says, "You saved us by shedding the eternal blood."<br />
</span></div>
<span>The Mithraic 'sacred meal' is also represented on
these monuments.
Mithras and the Sun god seal a covenant between them over the body of
the bull, eating the animal's flesh and drinking its blood. The Sun is
usually represented as deferring to Mithras' superiority.<br />
</span><br />
<span> Because there seems to be
no direct evolution from the Persian Mitra to the Roman Mithras (no
Iranian myth, for example, has Mitra killing a bull), scholars have
long debated how the cultic myth arose in Roman times. Various
astrological theories have been advanced in the past, but the work of
David Ulansey has recently formulated such a genesis in a compelling
fashion. He set out to fully explain the tauroctony (bull-slaying
scene) and its various elements in terms of astronomy, arising in
Tarsus at the hands of that city's long tradition of astral theology
and based on the discovery by the astronomer Hipparchus around 128 BCE
of the precession of the equinoxes. This "new" religion arose out of an
interpretation of the heavens and its movements, a focus on the astral
realm as a reflection of the activities of divinities.<br />
</span><br />
<span> This is not the place to
attempt a detailed description of those astronomical movements (see
Ulansey's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Origin of the Mithraic
Mysteries</span>). Suffice to say that the ancients' view of the
immovable centricity of the earth (a 'fact' also supported by the
Bible)
led to the concept of the outer fixed sphere of stars revolving around
the earth once a day, as did the sun. But the sun also had an
additional movement of its own around the earth once a year, at an
angle (the zodiac plane) to the celestial equator of the stars'
movement. The intersection points of these two planes were at the
equinoxes, and the constellations of stars that appeared at those two
points, because of a slight wobble of the earth on its axis, were ever
so slowly shifting backwards around the zodiac circle. As Ulansey puts
it in an Internet summary article:<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Hipparchus's discovery of
the precession made it clear that before the Greco-Roman period, in
which the spring equinox was in the constellation of Aries the Ram, the
spring equinox had last been in Taurus the Bull. Thus, an obvious
symbol for the phenomenon of the precession would have been the death
of a bull, symbolizing the end of the "Age of Taurus" brought about by
the precession. And if the precession was believed to be caused by a
new god, then that god would naturally become the agent of the death of
the bull: hence, the "bull-slayer."<br />
</span></div>
<span> We know next to nothing
about the actual rites of the Mithras cult and how those ceremonies
reflected such astral mythology, but it is clear that the power of
Mithras gave him the stature of a 'savior god', not by dying for sin,
but through holding the keys to the workings of the universe and
enabling those 'in the know' who were linked to him to pass through the
celestial spheres and reach the realm of the gods and a fortunate
afterlife. Again, as Ulansey puts it,<br />
</span><br />
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span>Given the pervasive
influence in the Greco-Roman period of astrology and "astral
immortality," a god possessing such a literally world-shaking power
would clearly have been eminently worthy of worship: since he had
control over the cosmos, he would automatically have power over the
astrological forces determining life on earth, and would also possess
the ability to guarantee the soul a safe journey through the celestial
spheres after death.<br />
</span></div>
<span>Considering that in the circles represented by
Christian thought the demon forces separated earth from heaven, and
that Christ's primary role (to judge by early writings, including Paul)
was to destroy the hindering powers of those sundering forces which
interfered with humanity's fate and the attainment of heaven, we can
place
both thought patterns under the same taxonomic genus of salvation
concerns. We will return to this comparison later.</span><br />
<center>
<b><span>*</span></b><br />
</center>
<big>To</big> <span><a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13B.htm">Part Two</a>: On
Comparing the Cults with Christianity<br />
<br />
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<big><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Bibl."></a>BIBLIOGRAPHY</span><br />
(covering Parts 1-4)<br />
</big></div>
<span><br />
Angus, S: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Mystery Religions</span>. Dover, New York, 1975 (orig. 1928)<br />
Boman, Thorleif: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Hebrew
Thought Compared with Greek</span>. SCM Press, London, 1960<br />
Brandon, S. G. F.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">History,
Time and Deity</span>. Manchester University Press, 1965<br />
Burkert, Walter: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ancient
Mystery Cults</span>. Harvard University Press, 1987<br />
Campbell, Joseph: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Masks of God: Occidental Mythology</span>. Penguin, New York, 1964<br />
</span><span>Campbell, Joseph, ed.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks</span></span>,
v.2 "The Mysteries", Pantheon, NY, 1955</span><span>
<br />
Clauss, Manfred: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and his Mysteries</span>. ET: Routledge,
NY, 2001<br />
Cooper, D. Jason: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Mithras</span>.
Samuel Weiser, Maine, 1996<br />
Cumont, Franz: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism</span>. Open Court, Chicago, 1911<br />
Eliade, Mircea: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">A
History of Religious Ideas</span>. 3 vols., University of Chicago
Press, ET 1978<br />
Eliade, Mircea: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Myths,
Rites and Symbols</span>. 2 vols., Harper & Row, New York, 1975<br />
</span><span>Ferguson, Everett: <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Backgrounds
of Early Christianity</span></span>.
Ee</span><span>rdmans, Grand Rapids, 1987<br />
Frazer, J. G.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Golden Bough</span>. MacMillan, New York, 1951 (orig. 1922)<br />
Freke, Timothy and Gandy, Peter: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Jesus Mysteries</span>,
Random House, New York, 1999<br />
Kennedy, H. A. A.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">St.
Paul and the Mystery Religions</span>. Hodder and Stoughton, London,
1913<br />
Koester, Helmut: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Introduction
to the New Testament</span>. vol.1, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1982<br />
Harpur, Tom: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Pagan Christ</span>. Thomas Allen, Toronto, 2003<br />
Lancellotti, Maria Grazia: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Attis: Between Myth and
History</span>. Brill, Leiden, 2002<br />
Legge, Francis: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Forerunners
and Rivals of Christianity</span>. University Books, NY, 1964 (orig.
1915)<br />
Massey, Gerald: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Ancient
Egypt: Light of the World</span>. 2 vols., Stuart&Watkins, London,
1970 (orig.1907)<br />
Massey, Gerald: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ.</span> Star Publishing,
Springfield, 1886<br />
</span><span>Meyer, Marvin W.: </span><span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Ancient Mysteries:
A Sourcebook.</span> Harper & Row, San Francisco, 1987<br />
</span><span>Nilsson, Martin P.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Dionysiac Mysteries
of the Hellenistic and Roman Age</span>. Arno Press, NY, 1975<br />
</span><span>Nock, A. D.: <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Conversion. </span></span>Oxford
University Press, 1933<br />
Otto, Walter F.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Dionysus:
Myth and Cult</span>. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1965<br />
</span><span>Price, Robert M.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Decon</span></span><span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">structing
Jesus</span>. Prometheus Books, 2000<br />
Remsburg, John E.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Christ</span>. Truth Seeker, New York, 1909 <br />
Roberston, J. M.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pagan
Christs</span>. University Book, New York, 1967 (orig. 1903)<br />
S, Acharya: </span><span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Suns of God</span>.
Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton Illinois, 2004<br />
S, Acharya: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Christ Conspiracy</span>. Adventures Unlimited Press, Kempton Illinois,
1999<br />
Smith, Jonathan Z.: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Drudgery Divine: On the
Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity</span>.
University of London, 1990<br />
Temple, Richard: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Icons
and the Mystical Origins of Christianity</span>. Element, Rockport, 1992<br />
Ulansey, David: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The
Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries</span>. Oxford University Press, 1989<br />
Vermaseren, Maarten: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Cybele and Attis: Myth
and Cult</span>. Thames & Hudson, London, 1977<br />
Vermaseren, Maarten: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Mithras the Secret God</span>.
Barnes & Noble, New York, 1963<br />
Veyne, Paul: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Did
the Greeks Believe in their Myths?</span> University of Chicago Press,
1988<br />
Wagner, Gunter: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Pauline
Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries</span>. Loiver & Boyd, Edinburg, ET
1967</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span> <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13A.htm">http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp13A.htm</a></span><br />
<span>==================== </span></div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-67715510512878523332017-03-20T00:22:00.001-07:002017-03-20T00:22:17.107-07:00Neil Godfrey : Why the Gospels are Historical Fiction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Why the Gospels are Historical Fiction</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: white;">.</span></div>
<table align="center" border="1" style="width: 90%px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="background-color: #068d9c;">
<td><b><span style="color: white;"><b>A recent book by Jacob Licht, </b></span><span style="color: yellow;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Storytelling-Bible-Jacob-Licht/dp/9652235423" target="_blank"><span style="color: yellow;"><i>Storytelling in the Bible</i></span></a></b></span><span style="color: white;"><b>
(Jerusalem, 1978), proposes that the “historical aspect” and the
“storytelling” aspect of biblical narrative be thought of as entirely
discrete functions that can be neatly peeled apart for inspection —
apparently, like the different colored strands of electrical wiring. </b></span></b>
<br />
<div>
<b><span style="color: white;"><b>This facile separation
of the inseparable suggests how little some Bible scholars have thought
about the role of literary art in biblical literature.</b></span></b><span style="color: white;"> (Robert Alter, </span><span style="color: white;"><i>The Art of Biblical Narrative</i>, p. 32)</span></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: white;">.</span></div>
By “historical fiction” I mean a fictitious tale, whether it is a
theological parable or not, set in a real historical time and place.
Authors of “historical fiction” must necessarily include real historical
places and real historical persons and events in their narrative or it
will be nothing more than “fiction”. Ancient authors are known to have
written “historical fiction” as broadly defined as this. We have the
Alexander Romance by Heliodorus that is a largely fictitious
dramatization of the person and exploits of Alexander the Great. Of more
interest for our purposes here is Chariton’s tale of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariton"><i>Chaereas and Callirhoe</i></a>.
These are entirely fictitious persons whose adventures take place in
world of historical characters who make their own appearances in the
novel: the Persian emperor, Artaxerxes II; his wife and Persian queen,
Statira; the Syracusan statesman and general of the 410s, Hermocrates.
There are <a href="http://vridar.org/2011/02/19/ancient-novels-like-the-gospels-mixing-history-and-myth/" target="_blank">allusions</a>
to other possible historical persons. Sure there are several
anachronisms that found their way into Chariton’s novel. (And there are
several historical anachronisms in the Gospels, too.) Chariton even <a href="http://vridar.org/2011/02/22/historical-imitations-and-reversals-in-ancient-novels-and-the-gospels/" target="_blank">imitated some of the style</a> of the classical historians Herodotus and Thucydides.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #333399;">In this way Chariton
imitates the classical historians in technique, not for the purpose of
masquerading as a professional historian, but rather, as Hagg (1987,
197) suggests, to create the “effect of openly mixing fictitious
characters and events with historical ones.”</span> (Edmund Cueva<i>, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1678356/book/7632253" target="_blank">The Myths of Fiction</a>, </i>p. 16)</blockquote>
A word to some critics: This post does not argue that Jesus did not
exist or that the there is no historical basis to any of the events they
portray. It spoils a post to have to say that, since it ought to be
obvious that demonstrating a fictitious nature of a narrative does not
at the same time demonstrate that there were no analogous historical
events from which that narrative was ultimately derived. What the post
does do, however, is suggest that those who do believe in a certain
historicity of events found in the gospels should remove the gospels
themselves as evidence for their hypothesis. But that is all by the by
and a discussion for another time. Surely there is value in seeking to
understand the nature of one of our culture’s foundational texts for its
own sake, and to help understand the nature of the origins of culture’s
faiths.<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 202px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
This post is inspired by Robert Alter’s <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/29421/book/100718536" target="_blank"><i>The Art of Biblical Narrative</i></a><i>. </i>Alter
believes that the reason literary studies of the Bible were relatively
neglected for so long is because of the cultural status of the Bible as a
“holy book”, the source of divine revelation, of our faith. It seems
gratuitously intrusive or simply quite irrelevant to examine the
literary structure of a sacred book. So the main interest of those who
study it has been theology. I would add that, given the Judaic and
Christian religions of the Bible claim to be grounded in historical
events, the relation of the Bible’s narratives to history has also been
of major interest.<br />
But surely the first rule of any historical study is to understand
the nature of the source documents at hand. That means, surely, that the
first thing we need to do with a literary source is to analyse it see
what sort of literary composition it is. And as with any human creation,
we know that the way something appears on the surface has the potential
to conceal what lies beneath.<br />
Only after we have established the nature of our literary source are
we in a position to know what sorts of questions we can reasonably apply
to it. Historians interested in historical events cannot turn to
Heliodorus to learn more biographical data about Alexander the Great,
nor can they turn to Chariton to fill in gaps in their knowledge about
Artaxerxes II and Statira, because literary analysis confirms that these
are works of (historical) fiction.<br />
Some will ask, “Is it not possible that even a work of clever
literary artifice was inspired by oral or other reports of genuine
historical events, and that the author has happily found a way to
narrate genuine history with literary artistry?”<br />
The answer to that is, logically, Yes. It is possible. But then we
need to recall our childhood days when we would so deeply wish a
bed-time fairy story, or simply a good children’s novel, to have been
true. When we were children we thought as children but now we put away
childish things. If we do have at hand, as a result of our literary
analysis, an obvious and immediate explanation for every action, for
every speech, and for the artistry of the way these are woven into the
narrative, do we still want more? Do we want to believe in something
beyond the immediate reality of the literary artistry we see before our
eyes? Is Occam’s razor not enough?<br />
If we want history, we need to look for the evidence of history in a
narrative that is clearly, again as a result of our analysis, capable of
yielding historical information. Literary analysis helps us to discern
the difference between historical fiction and history that sometimes
contains fictional elements. Or maybe we would expect divine history to
be told with the literary artifice that otherwise serves the goals and
nature of fiction, even ancient fiction.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The beginning of the (hi)story</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
Take the beginning of <i>The Gospel According to St. Mark</i>.
Despite the title there is nothing in the text itself to tell us who the
author was. This is most unlike most ancient works of history. Usually
the historian is keen to introduce himself from the start in order to
establish his credibility with his readers. He wants readers to know who
he is and why they should believe his ensuing narrative. The ancient
historian normally explains from the outset how he comes to know his
stuff. What are his sources, even if in a generalized way. The whole
point is to give readers a reason to read his work and take it as an
authoritative contribution to the topic.<br />
The Gospel of Mark does indeed begin by giving readers a reason to
believe in the historicity of what follows, but it is has more in common
with an ancient poet’s prayer to the Muses calling for inspiration and
divinely revealed knowledge of the past than it does with the ancient
historian’s reasons.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger . . . . </span></blockquote>
That’s the reason the reader knows what follows is true. It was foretold in the prophets. What need we of further witnesses?<br />
Yes, some ancient historians did from time to time refer to a belief
among some peoples in an oracle. But I can’t off hand recall any who
claimed the oracle was the source or authority of their narrative. I
have read, however, several ancient novels where divine prophecies are
an integral part of the narrative and do indeed drive the plot. Events
happen because a divine prophecy foretold them. That’s what we are
reading in Mark’s Gospel here from the outset, not unlike the ancient
novel by Xenophon of Ephesus, <i>The Ephesian Tale</i>, in which the plot begins with and is driven by an oracle of Apollo.<br />
Note, too, how the two lead characters in the opening verses are introduced. <span id="more-44852"></span>The
author tells us nothing of their backgrounds, their families, their
origins, and we are even left wondering about what they were doing at
the time they begin their action on-stage. No, John and Jesus are
introduced directly and bluntly as fulfilments of prophecy and nothing
more. They have no historical background in this narrative.<br />
Notice: Mark (let’s call the author Mark) begins with a prophecy that concludes with:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. </span></blockquote>
Then notice the words that immediately follow that:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance . . . </span></blockquote>
Mark has placed John’s introduction in apposition to the prophecy.
That is all the background the reader needs to know about John. He comes
out of the divine oracle. That is his origin. And this is reinforced,
as we well know, by his subsequent appearance as the new Elijah, that
greatest of all prophets till that time. (We also know that the details
about the nature of his baptism, and the chronology of his appearance
and imprisonment, are all in contradiction with other — debatable —
testimony in Josephus.)<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignleft" id="attachment_44860" style="width: 243px;">
<br /></div>
Scholars have not been satisfied with Mark’s introduction of John to
the extent that Mark does not give us an historical account. He is
creating a fulfilment of the prophecy. So what Mark was doing is set
aside and scholarly imaginations take over and seek to flesh out the
account with historical imagination and recreation. That’s fine as long
as we keep in mind that this are imaginative recreations and that they
have nothing to do with what Mark has given us.<br />
Then look at how Jesus is introduced. John is finishing his speech.
(Notice that Mark does not write an historical account of the what John
was preaching; he does not explain his themes, his program, his agenda.
Rather, he is depicted uttering a dramatic narrative that directly
answers to the oracle. Yes, ancient historians did put speeches into the
mouths of historical persons, but not like this. Thucydides tried to
imagine what Pericles would have said; but Mark is creating dramatic
dialogue to fulfill the prophecy.)<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">I indeed have baptized you with water,; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Galilee and was baptized of John in Jordan.</span></blockquote>
Again, there is no historian or biographer here to introduce us to
Jesus as a historical figure. There is no interest in the background of
Jesus, who he was personally, the life setting he came from (he only
came from Galilee — the “Nazareth” in the texts is very likely not
original to the text). Indeed, the identity of Jesus throughout this
gospel is going to remain a theological mystery. That is, Jesus is not
presented as an historical figure at all. He is presented, like John, as
the direct fulfilment of a prophecy, of John’s prophecy. The literary
apposition could not be more stark. The message of the artifice is
clear.<br />
Readers are taken from the beginning into a mystery narrative. We
begin not with real-life accounts of two notable figures of the past,
their families, how they came to be where they were and what they were
doing in the broader scheme of things. No. We are introduced to two
prophecies and the immediate and direct fulfilments of those prophecies.
That is the nature of John and Jesus and all we need to know. It is all
the author knows. It is what the scene the author is creating.<br />
Much, much more could be said about the sources of the other details —
how they are derived from 1 Kings, from Isaiah, from Exodus, and so
forth — and so much has been about those sources for this scene both
here and in many other places. We know the sources for the baptism and
John’s dress and the voices and the wilderness are all literary. I won’t
repeat the abundant evidence here. I will only observe how the scene
closes with a neat book-end. Just as John was introduced as the
messenger (“angel”) who was not worthy to serve Jesus as his shoe-lace
fastener, the scene closes with other messengers from God (“angels”)
serving Jesus in the wilderness. This is imaginative literature with
style. How lucky, many would say, that it just happens to also be
derived from the author’s knowledge of real events.<br />
I <a href="http://vridar.org/2013/09/15/how-historical-imagination-destroys-the-gospels/" target="_blank">posted recently</a>
on the artificiality of the call of the first disciples and their
surreal responses. It is most evident that the scene is entirely
literary, theological, without any point touching reality. I won’t
repeat the arguments here. A reminder is enough.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Who is this Jesus, really?</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
But let’s look at the literary nature of Jesus as an exorcist. Many
scholars say that one of the indisputable facts about Jesus is that he
performed exorcisms. I submit that their evidence is based entirely on
creative (theological) fiction. Take the first exorcism scene in chapter
1:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">Saying, Let us alone; what have we to
do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I
know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And they were all amazed, insomuch that
they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new
doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean
spirits, and they do obey him.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.</span></blockquote>
Again, we are given no idea what Jesus taught. He had to say more
than “The Kingdom of God is at hand”. Mark is not interested in telling
us what Jesus taught because that is not his point. What he wants to
show readers is that this Jesus is the Son of God. He has the authority
of God. And that’s what makes him a mystery. All that is important about
Jesus’ teaching here is the reaction of the crowds. They are astonished
at the mysterious authority of Jesus.<br />
Again, there is no hint that Mark is relaying to readers information
that has been handed down from eyewitnesses who knew something of what
Jesus taught and how various people really came to respond over time.
The scene is entirely artificial. It is the scene of a deity or holy
spirit from God himself possessing a man in such a way that crowds
respond not to the (historical) person but to the divine presence. The
crowds are mystified and awed as is appropriate when in the presence of
the divine, of God or the Son of God himself.<br />
Then look at the artful dialogue that follows. Someone looking for
history and reality cries out to know what Jesus was saying and the
details about his appearance and voice that made him so awe-inspiring.
Mark’s imagination (and his supposedly historical or eyewitness source)
fails them in that respect, though. Instead, readers are regaled with
the ravings of a madman.<br />
The man possessed is given an extended dialogue to convey his fear
and torment. The dialogue could in translation amount to at least five
sentences.<br />
Move past Jesus for the moment and notice the dialogue that follows
the exorcism. Again we have an extended series of direct speech
statements. And they all express mystery, awe.<br />
And in the middle of torrents of words mindlessly expressing fear and awe? The simple, calm, few words of a commanding Jesus.<br />
The dialogue is fictitious. It is also effective literary artistry.
It conveys the towering supremacy of Jesus through a dramatic scene. He
stands a man of few words, but words empowered by divine authority, in
the midst of human and demonic fear and trepidation.<br />
The narrative concludes with a claim that Jesus was not, as so many
scholars looking for history want to say, just one more of many
exorcists wandering around Syria-Palestine at the time. No, Jesus was
singular. This exorcism was nothing comparable to the exorcist tricks we
read about in other literature of the era. Jesus merely uttered a
commanding word and suddenly he was famous throughout the entire region.
He was God speaking. And the literary artistry conveys this well.<br />
The author, Mark, is inspired by his theological and literary
imagination. If he is working with materials from eyewitnesses or
purveyors of oral traditions he has subsumed his material so well as to
be no longer recognizable as having any independence at all from his
literary art.<br />
Later “Luke” will attempt to impose some historical verisimilitude to
Mark’s narrative. He will introduce the preaching of John with a <a href="http://vridar.org/2012/01/03/the-earliest-gospels-6c-lukes-gospel-couchoud/" target="_blank">Josephan chronological formula</a>.
Like Chariton he tries harder to imitate the historians with this, and
his preface. At the same time, however, he adds more theological tales
such as the miraculous tale of John’s birth that sounds very much like
the miraculous births of patriarchs and heroes in Genesis and Judges.
Luke tries harder to create a narrative that runs more fluently from the
magical tales of the patriarchs and judges.<br />
One could write a book covering the literary artifice that makes up
the Gospel of Mark. I have of course only scratched the surface of a few
verses. The entire gospel could be analysed in such a way to reinforce
the same conclusion.<br />
So I’ll conclude with something Robert Alter wrote in relation to his literary analysis of tales from Genesis:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">From this distance in time,
it is impossible to determine how much of this whole tale was
sanctified, even verbally fixed, tradition; how much was popular lore
perhaps available in different versions; how much the original invention
of the writer. What a close reading of the text does suggest, however,
is that the writer could manipulate his inherited materials with
sufficient freedom and sufficient firmness of authorial purpose to
define motives, relations, and unfolding themes, even in a primeval
history, <b>with the kind of subtle cogency we associate with the conscious artistry of the narrative mode designated prose fiction</b>.</span> (p. 32, my emphasis)</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2013/09/28/why-the-gospels-are-historical-fiction/">http://vridar.org/2013/09/28/why-the-gospels-are-historical-fiction/</a><br />
================ </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-2360644661769500582017-03-20T00:17:00.004-07:002017-03-20T00:17:57.295-07:00Tim Widowfield : Is Jesus’ Itinerancy a Secure Fact or a Narrative Device?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Is Jesus’ Itinerancy a Secure Fact or a Narrative Device?</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Tim Widowfield </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br />
</div>
Scholars who study the historical Jesus will sometimes compile
lists of minimal “secure facts” — the few things we can be reasonably
certain “must be” true about the life of Christ. At the barest minimum,
we have: “An itinerant Jewish teacher or preacher from Galilee who was
crucified by Pilate.”<br />
In the words of E. P. Sanders:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">We have seen that the
gospels depict Jesus and his disciples as itinerant. Some or all of them
had homes and families, but they spent a lot of time on the road, and
there is no mention of their working during Jesus’ active career. In
part they were busy proclaiming the kingdom; in part the condition of
the call of the close disciples was that they give up everything. (<a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/129202/book/83325382" target="_blank">Sanders 1993</a>, p. 107)</span></blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;"><em>Bricks and mortar</em></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;"><em> </em></span></h3>
The overwhelming number of NT scholars today would likely tell us
that the reason the gospels portray a traveling Jesus is that such a
portrayal reflects reality. But recently, while reading <a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/19255106/book/139620879" target="_blank"><em>Redactional Style in the Marcan Gospel</em></a>
by E. J. Pryke, it struck me that many of the key redactional elements
in Mark, our first narrative gospel, have to do with time and place. In
other words, when Mark joined his stories together he needed some brief
connecting language to create some sort of flow. Changing the time and
place provides an implicit explanation for a change in subject and
audience.<br />
Mark, as you know, frequently didn’t care to elaborate on these
shifts in place and time. In fact, quite often he barely takes the time
to say Jesus and his cohorts “immediately” went from location A to
location B.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">And immediately after they
came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew,
with James and John. (Mark 1:29, NASB)</span></blockquote>
Redaction critics look for linguistic markers (peculiar usage,
telltale vocabulary, etc.) that would tend to signify the parts of the
gospels that are probably redactional. In other words, they look for
indicators that help discriminate between the <strong>story-bricks</strong> and the <strong>redaction-mortar</strong> that holds them together.<br />
Each evangelist had his own set of quirks. Pryke notes that Mark, for example, had a habit of using the <a href="http://www.ntgreek.net/lesson32.htm#genitive%20absolute" target="_blank"><strong>genitive absolute</strong></a>
when introducing a new pericope. In a nutshell, the genitive absolute
is a short participial phrase unrelated to the main clause except, in
Mark’s case, as a kind of introductory scene-setting device. In Mark
5:2, for example, we have:<span id="more-69581"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">καὶ ἐξελθόντος αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ πλοίου . . .</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">kai exelthontos autou ek tou ploiou . . .</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">And having-gone-forth him out of the boat . . .</span></blockquote>
All of the words above other than “<em>kai</em>” and “<em>ek</em>” are in the genitive case. The marker here is <strong>exelthontos</strong>, which is an active aorist participle in the masculine genitive case.<br />
The genitive absolute occurs rarely in Mark’s source material (5
times), but much more frequently in his redactional glue (24 times).
Pryke explains:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">The fact that most of these genitive absolutes are to be found opening the pericope, and that their subject matter is <strong>chronological or topographical</strong> or comments on the ‘progress of the gospel’, as well as the <strong>literary nature</strong> of the genitive absolute, suggest that the editor is opening his pericope with a linking phrase, and thus <strong>developing material which was <span style="text-decoration: underline;">originally without time or place references</span>, so as to make of it a continuous narrative</strong>.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">A few examples will illustrate the function of the construction.</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>4:35</strong>, commencing a new section, reads — <em>‘That day, when evening came . . . ‘</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>5:2</strong> — <em>‘When He came out of the boat . . . ‘</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>5:21</strong> — <em>‘When Jesus had crossed over in the boat . . . ‘</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>5:35</strong> — <em>‘While He was still speaking, they came . . . ‘</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>6:2</strong> — <em>‘And when the sabbath came He began to teach . . . ‘</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>6:54</strong> — <em>‘And when they disembarked from the boat . . . ‘</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>8:1</strong> — <em>‘In those days the multitude again being great, and having nothing to eat, . . . ‘</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>9:9</strong> — <em>‘On their way down the mountain, . . .’</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>10:17</strong> — <em>‘And as He was going forth for His journey . . . ‘</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>10:46</strong> — <em>‘And as He was going forth to Jericho, and His disciples and much people . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>11:12</strong> — <em>‘And on the morrow when they came out from Bethany . . .’</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>11:27</strong> — <em>‘And in the temple as He was walking about, there . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>13:1</strong> — <em>‘And as He was going out of the temple . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>13:3</strong> — <em>‘And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives over against the temple . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>14:3</strong> — <em>‘And when He was in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as He lay at table . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>14:17</strong> — <em>‘And when it was evening . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>14:22</strong> — <em>‘And as they were eating . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>14:43</strong> — <em>‘And forthwith, as He was still speaking . . .’</em>; </span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>14:66</strong> — <em>‘And whilst Peter is below . . .’</em>;</span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;"><strong>15:42</strong> — <em>‘And when it was already evening, since it was the preparation . . . ‘ </em></span><br />
<span style="color: #003366;">All these short clauses, constructed in
the participial genitive absolute, link the previous pericope to the
new section which originally existed independently of them, their
presence being superfluous to the story, and <strong>their only <em>raison d’être</em> to move on the ‘Gospel’ narration with a semblance of time and place</strong>. (Pryke 1978, pp. 62-63, bold emphasis and reformatting mine)</span></blockquote>
In the view of Pryke and all other redaction and form critics, Mark’s
source material consisted of some combination of oral and written
tradition. Mark created the first narrative gospel from these
scattered traditions, which, if they were written down at all, looked a
lot like the Gospel of Thomas or the hypothetical sayings gospel, “Q.”
That is to say, the community of believers collected brief snippets of
events, sermons, sayings, etc., which in themselves rarely contained any
reference to time or place.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;"><em>The invention of the gospel and the re-invention of Jesus</em></span></h3>
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;"><em> </em></span></h3>
Mark, then, invented the narrative gospel form by joining these
traditions into a semi-coherent whole. But did he invent more than just
the gospel? Paul, as we’ve noted many times here at Vridar, never refers
to Jesus as a teacher, healer, or exorcist. NT scholars will point out
that the oral traditions about Jesus — presumably, Mark’s source
materials — have many cases in which Jesus teaches his disciples, heals
the sick, and casts out demons. However, as we see from the results of
redaction criticism, the first secure evidence of Jesus and his
followers wandering about comes from Mark.<br />
So now we should ask, where did the itinerant tradition come from?
Did Mark “reconstruct” an authentic narrative forgotten in the Rich Oral
Tradition™? Or did he invent it to tie disparate stories and sayings
together?<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_69695" style="width: 650px;">
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_Allston_-_Elijah_in_the_Desert_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg"></a><div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
Recall as well that Paul describes Jesus as lord and master, but
never as prophet. By the time Christians began creating the narrative
gospels, however, the character of Jesus took on the aspect of OT
prophets. He teaches, he heals, and — just like the itinerant prophets
of old — travels from place to place. In fact, there seems to be little
rhyme or reason to Jesus’ path, as if he and his traveling Twelve are
wandering like Moses and the twelve tribes. Yet, despite the admission
that Mark invented the gospel form and the fact that redaction critics
have clearly shown that Jesus’ itinerancy happens within Mark’s
editorial mortar, the vast majority of historical Jesus scholars would
probably agree that the Jesus-on-the-Move presented in the gospels is
authentic.<br />
I have argued that before the gospels, most Christians conceived of
Jesus as a priestly or royal messiah. Only after the war with Rome
and the destruction of the Temple did they begin to refashion his image
into a prophetic messiah. One of the defining characteristics of a
prophet, of course, is the tendency to move from place to place,
especially in the countryside — sometimes alone in the wilderness or on
mountaintops.<br />
I have also argued that the evidence we have can support neither the
historicity of Jesus nor the outright denial of his existence. The best a
historian can do is to ask, “If Jesus existed, what can we know about
him?” Given the above evidence, I think we have to say that we can’t <em>know</em>
that Jesus was an itinerant figure. It’s just as likely, if not more
likely, that Mark invented the traveling Jesus while inventing the
narrative gospel form and while re-imagining Christ as an Old-Testament
prophet type.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2017/03/18/is-jesus-itinerancy-a-secure-fact-or-a-narrative-device/#more-69581">http://vridar.org/2017/03/18/is-jesus-itinerancy-a-secure-fact-or-a-narrative-device/#more-69581</a><br />
====================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-54272654283974755562017-03-19T23:49:00.000-07:002017-03-19T23:49:09.719-07:00Neil Godfrey : Gospel of Mark’s use of Jewish scriptures for Jesus’ Jerusalem entry narrative<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Gospel of Mark’s use of Jewish scriptures for Jesus’ Jerusalem entry narrative</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br />
</div>
Everyone knows how indebted the Passion Narrative is to allusions to
the “Old Testament” scriptures (e.g. Psalm 22), and few deny the
Elijah, Elisha and other Jewish scripture templates for miracles of
Jesus in the early part of the gospel (e.g. raising a dead child in an
upper room of a house; feeding large numbers with little), so this post
is a draft attempt to fill in an often missing middle bit. And I think
it has significant implications in many discussions about how the gospel
was constructed and what it can tell us about the origins of the
orthodox Christian narrative, and when.<br />
There is an argument that attempts to explain the heavy reliance of
the gospel Passion Narrative on Old Testament passages by proposing that
these events had to be constructed out of “old cloth” since there was
no-one there to witness them. But as demonstrated in my previous post,
the same in depth weaving of OT quotations, allusions and influences
began in the prophetic discourse of Mark 13, a chapter that is often
seen as originally being a separate apocalyptic composition borrowed and
adapted by the author of the gospel. In this context, it is interesting
that the Passion Narrative itself has sometimes been thought to have
been composed separately from the rest of the gospel, and that the
earlier chapters were a subsequent afterthought.<br />
Howard Clark Kee sees the thick mixture of OT references beginning in
chapter 11, and continuing through the entire section from chapters 11
to 16, as evidence that this entire section, the narrative from the
entry of Jesus into Jerusalem up to the time of the empty tomb, as a
cohesive literary unit. The author of this gospel chose to create this
entire section with the tints and echoes and materials of the Jewish
scriptures and other closely related texts such as 1 Enoch.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: red;">Red are the quotations</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: purple;">Purple are the allusions</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: blue;">Blue are the influences</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em>Black italics — from sources other than Kee </em></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark.11</span></h3>
[1] And when they came <strong>nigh to Jerusalem</strong>, unto Bethphage and Bethany, <strong>at the mount of Olives</strong>, he sendeth forth two of his disciples,<br />
[2]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">And
saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as
soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never
man sat; loose him, and bring him.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:4<em>-5</em></span> And in that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east . . . <em>Thus the LORD my God will come, and all the saints with him.</em><br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">Zechariah</span></span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> 2:10</span> “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” says the LORD.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">Zechariah</span></span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> 9:9</span> </span><span style="color: purple;">“Rejoiced
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold,
your King is coming to you, He is just and having salvation, Lowly and
riding on a donkey.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">Zechariah</span></span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> 3:14</span>; Sing, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 49:11</span> </span><span style="color: purple;">Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine . . .<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 21:3</span>
And it shall be that the elders of the city nearest to the slain man
will take a heifer which has not been worked and which has not pulled
with a yoke</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: blue;">Numbers 19:2</span></span><span style="color: blue;">
This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying:
‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer
without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has
never come.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Samuel 10:2</span>
And when you have departed from me today, you will find two men by
Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will say
to you, “The donkeys which you went to look for have been found . . .”</em><span id="more-906"></span></div>
[3] And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither.<br />
[4] And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him.<em><br />
</em>[5] And certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the colt?<br />
[6] And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let them go.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Samuel 10:9</span> . . . and all those signs came to pass that day</em></div>
<span style="color: black;">[7] </span><strong><span style="color: black;">And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him; and he sat upon him.<br />
</span></strong><span style="color: black;">[8] </span><strong><span style="color: black;">And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down branches off the trees, and strawed them in the way.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">Zechariah</span></span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> 14:4?</span> (Kee cites 14:4 . . . suspect this is a typo for 9:9 . . . )<br />
</span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">Zechariah</span></span><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;"> 9:9 </span></span><span style="color: purple;">“Rejoiced
greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold,
your King is coming to you, He is just and having salvation, Lowly and
riding on a donkey.</span></em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">II Kings 9:13</span>
Then each man hastened to take his garment and put it under him on the
top of the steps; and they blew trumpets, saying, “Jehu is King!”<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Maccabees 13:51</span> I</span><span style="color: blue;">n
the twenty-third day of the second month, in the year one hundred and
seventy-one, the Jews entered the citadel with shouts of jubilation,
waving of palm branches, the music of harps and cymbals and lyres, and
the singing of hymns and canticles, because a great enemy of Israel had
been destroyed.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Kings 1:32-34</span>
King David said, “Call in Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet and
Benaiah son of Jehoiada.” When they came before the king, he said to
them: “Take your lord’s servants with you and set Solomon my son on my
own mule and take him down to Gihon. There have Zadok the priest and
Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and
shout, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ Then you are to go up with him, and he
is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place. I have appointed
him ruler over Israel and Judah.”</em></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[9] <strong>And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord:</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 118:25a</span> (LXX) Blessed is he that comes in the name of the LORD<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 33:22</span> The LORD is our King; He will save us. . .<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 33:14-16</span>
Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, that I will perform that
good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house
of Judah: In those days and at that time I will cause to grow up to
David a Branch of righteousness; He shall execute judgment and
righteousness in the earth. In those days Judah will be saved, and
Jerusalem will dwell safely, And this is the name by which she will be
called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.<br />
</span></div>
[10] <strong>Blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that cometh in the name of the Lord:<span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;">Hosanna in the highest.</span></strong>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 118:25-26a</span> (LXX) </span> <span>Blessed
is he that comes in the name of the Lord: we have blessed you out
of the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, and he has shined upon
us: celebrate the feast with thick <em>branches, . . . </em></span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:13</span> (LXX) </span>And
to him was given the dominion, and the honour, and the kingdom;
and all nations, tribes, and languages, shall serve him: his
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and
his kingdom shall not be destroyed.</span></div>
[11] And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the temple: and when
he had looked round about upon all things, and now the eventide was
come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Malachi 3:1</span> And the LORD whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple</em></div>
[12] And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethany_%28Jerusalem%29"><em>[Bethany = “House of figs”]</em></a>, he was hungry:<br />
[13] <strong><span style="color: black;">And seeing a fig tree afar off
having leaves, he came, if haply he might find any thing thereon: and
when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs
was not yet.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hosea 9:10b</span> I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first-fruits on the fig tree in its first season . . .<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Micah 7:1</span>
Woe is me! For I am like those who gather summer fruits, like those who
glean vintage grapes. There is no cluster to eat of the first ripe
fruits which my soul desires.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Habbakuk 3:17</span>
Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vine; Though
the labour of the olives may fail, and the fields yield no food, . . . </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joel 1:12</span>
The vine dries up And the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm
also, and the apple tree, All the trees of the field dry up. Indeed,
rejoicing dries up From the sons of men.</em></div>
[14] And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.<br />
[15] <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>And
they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to
cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the
tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves;</strong></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">[16]</span> <span style="color: black;"><strong>And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple.</strong></span></span> <strong></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: purple;">Malachi 3:1</span></span></span><span style="color: purple;"><strong><span> </span></strong>And the LORD whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hosea 9:15</span> Because of the evil of their deeds I will drive them from my house<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:21</span> In that day their shall no longer be a trader/merchant in the house of the LORD of hosts.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm of Solomon 17:30f</span> And he shall purge Jerusalem, making it holy as of old: So that nations shall come from the ends of the earth to see his glory<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 90:28-29</span>
And I stood up to see till they folded up that old house; and carried
off all the pillars, and all the beams and ornaments of the house were
at the same time folded up with it, and they carried it off and laid it
in a place in the south of the land. And I saw till the Lord of the
sheep brought a new house greater and loftier than that first, and set
it up in the place of the first which had beer folded up: all its
pillars were new, and its ornaments were new and larger than those of
the first, the old one which He had taken away, and all the sheep were
within it.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: blue;">Berakoth 9:5</span></span> <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=nHzAXTKWqswC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=berakoth+9:5&source=web&ots=z-bobktZXO&sig=K5CshnJ-Wui5vcA0Qgi-otc0mxo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA36,M1"><span style="color: blue;">[one cannot enter a temple with a wallet]</span></a></div>
[17] <strong><span style="color: black;">And he taught, saying unto
them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the
house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 56:7</span> (LXX) For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:16, 21</span>
And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all nations
which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship
the King, the LORD of hosts . . . In that day there shall no longer be a
merchant in the house of the LORD of hosts.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 7:11</span> (LXX) </span><span style="color: red;">Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 2:2</span>
Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the
Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall
be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Matthew 21:14</span> Then the blind and the lame came into the Temple and he healed them<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Samuel 5:8</span>
(LXX) Now David said on that day, “Whoever climbs up by way of the
water shaft and defeats the Jebusites (the lame and the blind who are
hated by David’s soul) he shall be chief and captain.” Therefore they
say, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”</span></div>
[18] And the scribes and chief priests heard it, and sought how they
might destroy him: for they feared him, because all the people was
astonished at his doctrine.<br />
[19] And when even was come, he went out of the city.<br />
[20] And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.<br />
[21] And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away.<br />
[22] And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.<br />
[23] For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not
doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith
shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.<br />
[24] Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.<br />
[25] And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any:
that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your
trespasses.<br />
[26] But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.<br />
[27] And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the
temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the
elders,<br />
[28] And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things?<br />
[29] And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one
question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do
these things.<br />
[30] The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me.<br />
[31] And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then did ye not believe him?<br />
[32] But if we shall say, Of men; they feared the people: for all men counted John, that he was a prophet indeed.<br />
[33] And they answered and said unto Jesus, We cannot tell. And Jesus
answering saith unto them, Neither do I tell you by what authority I do
these things.<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark.12</span></h3>
[1] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">And
he began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a
vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat,
and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far
country.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 5:1-2</span>
(LXX) My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug
it up and cleare out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so he
expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild
grapes. . .</span></div>
<span style="color: black;">[2] </span><span style="color: black;"><strong>And at the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.</strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Amos 3:7</span> Surely the Lord God does nothing unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 1:6</span>
Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the
prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said:
Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways
and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joshua 14:7</span>
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from
Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it
was in my heart.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 7:25; 25:4</span>
Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until
this day, I have even sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily
rising up early and sending them. . . . . And the Lord has sent to you
all his servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you
have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear. </span></div>
[3] And they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty.<br />
[4] <strong>And again he sent unto them another servant; and at him they
cast stones, and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully
handled.</strong><br />
[5] <strong>And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others; beating some, and killing some.</strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Chronicles 36:15-16; 24:19</span>
And the Lord God of the fathers sent warnings to them by his
messengers, rising up early and sending them, because he had compassion
on his people and on his dwelling-place. But they mocked the messengers
of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath
of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy . . . .
And he sent prophets to them, to bring them back to the Lord: and they
testified against them, but they would not listen.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 7:25; 25:4</span>
Since your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have
even sent to you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early
and sending them. . . . . And the Lord has sent to you all his servants
the prophets, rising early and sending them, but you have not listened
nor inclined your ear to hear.</span></div>
<strong></strong><br />
[6] <strong>Having yet therefore one son, his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They will reverence my son.</strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 22:2</span> And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love . . .</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Judges 11:34</span>
And when Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, there was his daughter,
coming out to meet him with timbrels and dancing: and she was his only
child. Besides her he had neither son nor daughter.</span></div>
[7] But those husbandmen said among themselves, <strong><span style="color: black;">This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 37:20</span> (LXX) Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit . . . </span></div>
[8] And they took him, and killed him,<span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;">and cast him out of the vineyard.</span><br />
[9] What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard do? <strong><span style="color: black;">he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the vineyard unto others.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 96:13</span>
For he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge
the world with righteousness, and the people’s with his truth.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Amos 5:17</span> In all vineyards there shall be wailing, for I will pass through you, Says the Lord.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 1:9</span>
And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute
judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all
flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly
committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken
against Him.</span></div>
[10]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">And have ye not read this scripture; The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner:</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: black;">[11] <strong>This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 118:22-23</span>
(LXX) The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief
corner-stone. This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 28:16</span>
(LXX) Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I lay in Zion a stone
for a foundation. A tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure
foundation. Whoever believes will not act hastily.</span></div>
[12] And they sought to lay hold on him, but feared the people: for
they knew that he had spoken the parable against them: and they left
him, and went their way.<br />
[13] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">And they send unto him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, to catch him in his words.</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: black;">[14] </span><strong><span style="color: black;">And
when they were come, they say unto him, Master, we know that thou art
true, and carest for no man: for thou regardest not the person of men,
but teachest the way of God in truth: </span></strong><span style="color: black;">Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?</span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Leviticus 19:15</span>
You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the
poor, nor honour the person of the mighty. But in righteousness you
shall judge your neighbour.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Malachi 2:9</span>
Therefore I have made you contemptible and base before all the people.
because you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in the law.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 1:1, 6</span> Blessed is the man who walks not in the cousel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, . . . </span></div>
[15] Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their
hypocrisy, said unto them, Why tempt ye me? bring me a penny, that I may
see it.<br />
[16] And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s.<br />
[17] And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things
that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they
marvelled at him.<br />
[18] Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying,<br />
[19] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">Master,
Moses wrote unto us, If a man’s brother die, and leave his wife behind
him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and
raise up seed unto his brother.</span></strong><br />
<span style="color: black;">[20]</span> <strong><span style="color: black;">Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 25:5f</span>
If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the
widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the
family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife,
and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. And it shall be that
the first-born son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead
brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 38:8</span> And Judah said to Onan, Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 4:1</span>
And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will
eat out own food and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by
your name, to take away our reproach.<br />
</span></div>
[21] And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise.<br />
[22] And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also.<br />
[23] In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.<br />
[24] And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?<br />
[25] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">For
when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given
in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Tobit 12:19</span>
(LXX) All these days I did appear unto you; but I did neither eat nor
drink, but ye did see a vision. Now therefore give God thanks: for I go
up to him that sent me; but write all things which are done in a book.
And when they arose, they saw him no more. Then they confessed the great
and wonderful works of God, and how the angel of the Lord had appeared
unto them.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[26] </span><strong><span style="color: black;">And
as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of
Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: red;">Exodus 3:6, 15. 16</span></span> <span style="color: red;">Moreover he said, I am the God of your father — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. . . . (repeat X 2)</span></div>
[27] He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.<br />
[28] And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning
together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him,
Which is the first commandment of all?<br />
[29] <strong>And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:</strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 6:4-5</span>
(LXX) Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love
the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your might.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joshua 22:5</span>
But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses
the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to
walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and
to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.<br />
</span></div>
[30] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:
this is the first commandment.<br />
[31] <strong><span style="color: black;">And the second is like, namely
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other
commandment greater than these.</span></strong>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Leviticus 19:18</span> (LXX) . . . you shall love your neighbour as yourself<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Testament of Dan 5:3</span> Love the Lord through all your life, And one another with a true heart.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Testament of Issachar 5:2, 7:6</span>
But love the Lord and your neighbour, Have compassion on the poor and
weak. . . . . I loved the Lord; Likewise also every man with all my
heart.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[32] </span><span style="color: black;"><strong>And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 6:4</span> </span><span style="color: red;">Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 4:35</span> the Lord himself is God; there is none other beside him.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 45:2</span> . . . And there is no other God beside me<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[33] </span><span style="color: black;"><strong>And
to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and
with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour
as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 6:5</span> </span><span style="color: red;">You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joshua 22:5</span> </span><span style="color: red;">But
take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the
servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in
all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to
serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Leviticus 19:18</span> </span><span style="color: red;">. . . you shall love your neighbour as yourself</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Samuel 15:22</span>
Then Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and
sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is
better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hosea 6:6</span> (LXX) For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hosea 6:6</span> (LXX) </span><span style="color: red;"> For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Proverbs 21:3</span> To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.<br />
</span></div>
[34] And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto
him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. And no man after that
durst ask him any question.<br />
[35] And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple,<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">How say the scribes that Christ is the Son of David?</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 11:1-9</span>
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow
out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit
of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit
of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear
of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what
his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and
decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill
the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and
faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the
lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and
the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and
the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole
of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth
will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples;
the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. On
that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the
remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from
Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from
the coastlands of the sea.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 23:5f; 33:14-18</span>
“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will raise up to
David [a] a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what
is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and
Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called:
The LORD Our Righteousness. . . . . . ‘The days are coming,’ declares
the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house
of Israel and to the house of Judah. ” ‘In those days and at that time I
will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what
is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and
Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be
called: The LORD Our Righteousness.’ For this is what the LORD says:
‘David will never fail to have a man to sit on the throne of the house
of Israel, nor will the priests, who are Levites, ever fail to have a
man to stand before me continually to offer burnt offerings, to burn
grain offerings and to present sacrifices.’ ”<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ezekiel 34:23f; 37:24</span>
I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend
them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the LORD will be their
God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have
spoken. . . . . </span><span style="color: purple;">.My servant David
will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will
follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. </span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 89:20ff</span>
I have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him.
My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him. No enemy
will subject him to tribute; no wicked man will oppress him. I will
crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries. My faithful
love will be with him, and through my name his horn will be exalted. I
will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers. He will
call out to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.’ I will
also appoint him my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the
earth. I will maintain my love to him forever, and my covenant with him
will never fail. I will establish his line forever, his throne as long
as the heavens endure.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 9:7</span>
Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He
will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and
upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and
forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 2:2, 6</span>
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel
together, against the Lord and against his anointed . . . . Yet I have
set my King on my holy hill of Zion.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[36] </span><strong><span style="color: black;">For
David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 110:1</span> (LXX) The LORD said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 2:7</span> The Lord has said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 89:20-23</span> </span><span style="color: purple;">I
have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him. My
hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him. No enemy will
subject him to tribute; no wicked man will oppress him. I will crush
his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.</span></div>
[37] David therefore himself calleth him Lord; and whence is he then his son? And the common people heard him gladly.<br />
[38] And he said unto them in his doctrine, Beware of the scribes, which
love to go in long clothing, and love salutations in the marketplaces,<br />
[39] And the chief seats in the synagogues, and the uppermost rooms at feasts:<br />
[40] Which devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater damnation.<br />
[41] <span style="color: black;"><strong><span>And Jesus sat over
against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the
treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Kings 12:9</span>
Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set
it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of
the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put there all the money that
was brought into the house of the Lord.</span></div>
[42] And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.<br />
[43] And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I
say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they
which have cast into the treasury:<br />
[44] For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.<br />
----------------<br />
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<a href="http://vridar.org/2008/08/30/gospel-of-marks-use-of-jewish-scriptures-for-jesus-jerusalem-entry-narrative/">http://vridar.org/2008/08/30/gospel-of-marks-use-of-jewish-scriptures-for-jesus-jerusalem-entry-narrative/</a><br />
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ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-42255239668876420072017-03-19T23:44:00.000-07:002017-03-19T23:44:12.291-07:00Neil Godfrey : The little apocalypse of Mark 13 – historical or creative prophecy?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
The little apocalypse of Mark 13 – historical or creative prophecy?</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br />
</div>
The “little apocalypse” or “Olivet prophecy” of Mark 13, Matthew
24 and Luke 21 is often cited as a key passage for dating the gospels.
The idea is to match the events described in this passage with what
seems to be the best fit historically.<br />
Others have questioned whether we are right to attempt to match the
specific events listed (wars, famines, etc) to historical occurrences at
all. See, for example, <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/luke-denies-an-early-pre-70-date-for-the-gospel-of-mark/#comments">eklektekuria’s comment</a> on another post here.<br />
Picking up from that latter thought I have listed below the OT
quotations, allusions and influences on Mark 13 as analyzed by Howard
Clark Kee in his chapter titled <em>The Function of Scriptural Quotations and Allusions in Mark 11-16</em> (1975).<br />
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: red;">Red are the quotations</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: purple;">Purple are the allusions</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: blue;">Blue are the influences</span></div>
<br />
I also think it is very significant that a common literary trope in
epics and novels was to precede a climactic scene involving a hero’s
contact with death with a detailed point by point divine prophecy. This
was the case with Odysseus just prior to a crisis in which he was to
lose his entire crew before reaching his final destination (one
comparative <a href="http://vridar.info/xorigins/homermark/mkhmrfiles/nm6finaldays.htm#prophecies">summary of this here</a>).
Sibyl likewise delivered a step by step prophecy to Aeneas before he
descended into Hades. Hellenistic romances (popular novellas such as the
story of Jason and the Argo) often included the same. (Would give more
examples from the turn of the century era but I’m away from my library
at the moment.)<br />
Question: If this passage that obviously refers to the historical
destruction of Jerusalem is nested so profusely in literary allusion and
with scant attention to anything necessarily drawn from historical
memory, would not such a “literary fabrication” suggest a date of
composition that is long after the event, when personal historical
memories were no longer?<br />
Another question, and one implied by Kee: The extent of literary
allusion in this passage is comparable to the OT allusions that make up
the Passion Narrative and the preceding chapters 11-12. This would argue
for this whole section, 11-16, being the creative work of the one mind.
Is it not special pleading to suggest that the literary allusions in
Mark 13 are evidence of a separate composition that was squeezed in to
the gospel with some minor editing here and there?<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">Mark 13</span></span></span></h3>
[1] And as he went out of the temple, one of his disciples saith unto
him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!<br />
[2] <span style="color: black;"><strong><span>And Jesus answering
said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Micah 3:12</span>
Zion shall be ploughed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of
ruins, and the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 26:6, 18</span> And I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth. . . . </span><span style="color: purple;">Zion
shall be ploughed like a field, Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
and the mountain of the temple like the bare hills of the forest.</span></div>
[3] And as he sat upon the mount of Olives over against the temple, Peter and James and John and Andrew asked him privately,<br />
[4] <span style="color: black;"><strong><span>Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:7</span> (LXX) </span><span style="color: red;">And
one said to the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the
river, When will be the end of the wonders which thou has mentioned?</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:6; 8:19</span>
And one said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of
the river, “How long shall the fulfilment of these wonders be?” . . . .
And he said, “Look, I am making known to you what shall happen in the
latter time of the indignation: for at the appointed time the end shall
be.”<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:8</span> (LXX) </span><span style="color: purple;">Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, “My lord, what shall be the end of these things?”</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[5] <strong>And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:</strong><br />
[6] <strong>For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 45:18</span> (LXX) Thus saith the Lord that made the heaven, this God that created the earth, . . . I am the Lord, and there is none beside.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:8, 11, 20, 25</span>
. . . and, behold, there were eyes as the eyes of a man in this horn,
and a mouth speaking great things. . . . I beheld then because of the
voice of the great words which that horn spoke . . . . and concerning it
ten horns that were in its head, and the other that came up, and rooted
up some of the former, which had eyes, and a mouth speaking great
things, and his look was bolder than the rest. . . . And he shall speak
words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most
High . . . .<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 14:13</span>
But thou saidst in thine heart, I will go up to heaven, I will set my
throne above the stars of heaven: I will sit on a lofty mount, on the
lofty mountains toward the north<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 8:10; 11:36</span>
. . . and it magnified itself to the host of heaven; and there fell to
the earth some of the host of heaven and of the stars, and they trampled
on them . . . And he shall do according to his will, and the king shall
exalt and magnify himself against every god, and shall speak great
swelling words, and shall prosper until the indignation shall be
accomplished: for it is coming to an end.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[7] <strong>And
when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled: for
such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;">Daniel 11 <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%2011;&version=31;">11:1-45</a><br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;">1QM</span> <a href="http://biblical-studies.ca/dss/introductions/1QM.html"><span style="color: blue;">The War Scroll</span></a></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 2:29, 45</span> (LXX Th)</span><span style="color: red;">
O king: thy thoughts upon thy bed arose as to what must come to pass
hereafter: and he that reveals mysteries has made known to thee what
must come to pass. . . . the great God has made known to the king what
must happen hereafter<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 2:28, 29 (LXX), 30, 45</span>
But there is a God in heaven revealing mysteries, and he has made known
to king Nabuchodonosor what things must come to pass in the last days.
Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are as follows, </span><span style="color: purple;">O
king: thy thoughts upon thy bed arose as to what must come to pass
hereafter: and he that reveals mysteries has made known to thee what
must come to pass. Moreover, this mystery has not been revealed to me by
reason of wisdom which is in me beyond all others living, but for the
sake of making known the interpretation to the king, that thou mightest
know the thoughts of thine heart. . . . the great God has made known to
the king what must happen hereafter: and the dream is true, and the
interpretation thereof sure.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="color: purple;">Compare the language of eschatological mystery in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 9:26; 11:27 </span>(LXX)</span> <span style="color: purple;">And
after the sixty-two weeks, the anointed one shall be destroyed, and
there is no judgment in him: and he shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary with the prince that is coming: they shall be cut off with a
flood, and to the end of the war which is rapidly completed he shall
appoint the city to desolations. . . . . And as for both the kings,
their hearts are set upon mischief, and they shall speak lies at one
table; but it shall not prosper; for yet the end is for a fixed time.</span></em></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">[8] <strong>For
nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and
there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines
and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 19:2</span>
I will set Egyptians against Egyptians; everyone will fight against his
brother, and everyone against his neighbour, city against city, kingdom
against kingdom.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Chronicles 15:6</span> So nation was destroyed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every adversity.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 11:25; 2:40</span>
And his strength and his heart shall be stirred up against the king of
the south with a great force; and the king of the south shall engage in
war with a great and very strong force; but his forces shall not stand,
for they shall devise plans against him . . . . and a fourth kingdom,
which shall be strong as iron: as iron beats to powder and subdues all
things, so shall it beat to powder and subdue.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Sibylline Oracles 3:635</span>
Woe, woe to thee, O Crete! To thee shall come A very painful stroke,
and terribly Shall the Eternal sack thee; and again Shall every land
behold thee black with smoke, Fire ne’er shall leave thee, but thou
shalt be burned. <span style="color: black;"><em>(See the context for similar, <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/sib05.htm">here</a>.)</em></span><br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 13:31</span>
And one shall undertake to fight against another, one city against
another, one place against another, one people against another, and one
realm against another.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 99:4</span> <em><span style="color: black;">(Typo for 97:5? In those days the nations shall be overthrown) See the text <a href="http://www.reluctant-messenger.com/1enoch61-105.htm">here</a>.</span></em><br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Baruch 27:7; 70:3-8</span> <em><span style="color: black;">(27:6 And in the fifth part famine and the withholding of rain.)</span></em>
And in the sixth part earthquakes and terrors . . . . And they shall
hate one another, And provoke one another to fight, And the mean shall
rule over the honorable, And those of low degree shall be extolled above
the famous. And the many shall be delivered into the hands of the few,
And those who were nothing shall rule over the strong, And the poor
shall have abundance beyond the rich, And the impious shall exalt
themselves above the heroic. And the wise shall be silent, And the
foolish shall speak, Neither shall the thought of men be then confirmed,
Nor the counsel of the mighty, Nor shall the hope of those who hope be
confirmed. And when those things which were predicted have come to pass,
Then shall confusion fall upon all men, And some of them shall fall in
battle, And some of them shall perish in anguish, And some of them
shall be destroyed by their own. Then the Most High peoples whom He has
prepared before, And they shall come and make war with the leaders that
shall then be left. And it shall come to pass that whoever gets safe out
of the war shall die in the earthquake, And whoever gets safe out of
the earthquake shall be burned by the fire, And whoever gets safe out of
the fire shall be destroyed by famine.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 7:21(?); 13:13; 14:30; 19:22</span>
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of
her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his
fierce anger. . . . . And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the
needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine,
and he shall slay thy remnant. . . . . And the LORD shall smite Egypt:
he shall smite and heal it: . . . .<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 23:19</span>
Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous
whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ezra 5:12</span>
But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven unto wrath,
he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, the
Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into
Babylon.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Haggai 2:6</span>
For thus saith the LORD of hosts; Yet once, it [is] a little while, and
I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry
[land];<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:4</span>
And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which
[is] before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave
in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, [and there
shall be] a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove
toward the north, and half of it toward the south.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">[9]</span> <strong><span style="color: black;">But
take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and
in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before
rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:25</span> And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[10] <strong>And the gospel must first be published among all nations.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 2:10; 14:16</span>
Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion! For behold I am coming and I will
dwell in your midst, says the Lord. . . . . And it shall come to pass
that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against
Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of
hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.</span></div>
[11] But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no
thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: <strong><span style="color: black;">but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Exodus 4:1</span>
And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor
hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared
unto thee.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Numbers 22:35</span>
And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, Go with the men: but only
the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 1:9</span> Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.<br />
</span></div>
[12] Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; <strong><span style="color: black;">and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death.</span></strong>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: red;">Micah 7:2, 6 (Targ)</span></span><span style="color: red;">
The good [man] is perished out of the earth: and [there is] none
upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man
his brother with a net. . . . For the son dishonoureth the father, the
daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her
mother in law; a man’s enemies [are] the men of his own house.</span><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: red;"><br />
</span></span></div>
[13] <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 11:32</span>
And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by
flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and
do exploits.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 5:9; 6:25</span>
And salt waters shall be found in the sweet, and all friends shall
conquer one another; then shall reason hide itself, and wisdom shall
withdraw into its chamber, . . . . And it shall be that whoever remains
after all that I have foretold to you shall himself be saved and shall
see my salvation and the end of my world.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jubilees 23:19</span>
And they shall strive one with another, the young with the old, and the
old with the young, the poor with the rich, the lowly with the great,
and the beggar with the prince, on account of the law and the covenant;
for they have forgotten commandment, and covenant, and feasts, and
months, and Sabbaths, and jubilees, and all judgments.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Baruch 70:3</span> And they shall hate one another, and provoke one another to fight . . .<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;">See </span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=%20Daniel%2011-12;&version=31;"><span style="color: blue;">Daniel 11 and 12</span></a></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[14] <strong>But
when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel
the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth
understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11</span>
. . . and in the midst of the week my sacrifice and drink-offering
shall be taken away: and on the temple shall be the abomination of
desolations; and at the end of time an end shall be put to the
desolation. . . . And seeds shall spring up out of him, and they shall
profane the sanctuary of strength, and they shall remove the perpetual
sacrifice, and make the abomination desolate. . . . And from the time of
the removal of the perpetual sacrifice, when the abomination of
desolation shall be set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and
ninety days.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Maccabees 1:54</span>
Now the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred forty and
fifth year, they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar,
and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 19:17</span>
And it came to pass when they brought them out, that they said, Save
thine own life by all means; look not round to that which is behind, nor
stay in all the country round about, escape to the mountain, lest
perhaps thou be overtaken together with them.<br />
</span></div>
[15] And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house:<br />
[16] And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment.<br />
[17] <span style="color: black;"><strong><span>But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 6:21</span>
Infants a year old shall speak with their voices, and women with child
shall give birth to premature children at three and four months, and
these shall live and dance.<br />
</span></div>
[18] And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.<br />
[19] <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>For
in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning
of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:1 (LXX-Th)</span>
And at that time Michael the great prince shall stand up, that stands
over the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of
tribulation, such tribulation as has not been from the time that there
was a nation on the earth until that time: at that time thy people shall
be delivered, even every one that is written in the book.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joel 2:<em>2-</em>3</span> <span style="color: black;"><em>for
a day of darkness and gloominess is near, a day of cloud and mist: a
numerous and strong people shall be spread upon the mountains as the
morning; there has not been from the beginning one like it, and after it
there shall not be again even to the years of many generations.</em> </span>Before
them is a consuming fire, and behind them is a flame kindled: the land
before them is as a paradise of delight, and behind them a desolate
plain: and there shall none of them escape.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 38:2; 39:6</span>
When righteousness shall be manifested in the presence of the righteous
themselves, who will be elected for their good works duly weighed by
the Lord of spirits; and when the light of the righteous and the elect,
who dwell on earth, shall be manifested; where will the habitation of
sinners be? And where the place of rest for those who have rejected the
Lord of spirits? It would have been better for them, had they never been
born. . . . Countless shall be the number of the holy and the elect, in
the presence of God for ever and for ever.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><br />
<span style="color: black;">[20] <strong>And except that the Lord had
shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s
sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:6-7</span>
And one said to the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the
river, When will be the end of the wonders which thou has mentioned?
And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the
river, and he lifted up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and
sware by him that lives for ever, that it should be for a time of times
and half a time: when the dispersion is ended they shall know all these
things.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 80:2</span>
Then I looked on all which was written, and understood all, reading the
book and everything written in it, all the works of man;<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 4:26</span>
He answered me and said, “If you are alive, you will see, and if you
live long, you will often marvel, because the age is hastening swiftly
to its end.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Baruch 20:1</span>
Therefore, behold! the days come, And the times shall hasten more than
the former, And the seasons shall speed on more than those that are
past, And the years shall pass more quickly than the present (years).<br />
</span></div>
[21] And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:<br />
[22]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">For
false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and
wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 13:1-3 (LXX)</span>
And if there arise within thee a prophet, or one who dreams a dream,
and he gives thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to
pass which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go and serve other gods,
which ye know not; ye shall not hearken to the words of that prophet, or
the dreamer of that dream, because the Lord thy God tries you, to know
whether ye love your God with all your heart and with all your soul.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Linked verbally with Daniel 11:36-45</span>
And he shall do according to his will, and the king shall exalt and
magnify himself against every god, and shall speak great swelling words,
and shall prosper until the indignation shall be accomplished: for it
is coming to an end. And he shall not regard any gods of his fathers,
nor the desire of women, neither shall he regard any deity: for he shall
magnify himself above all. And he shall honour the god of forces on his
place: and a god whom his fathers knew not he shall honour with gold,
and silver, and precious stones, and desirable things. And he shall do
thus in the strong places of refuge with a strange god, and shall
increase his glory: and he shall subject many to them, and shall
distribute the land in gifts. And at the end of the time he shall
conflict with the king of the south: and the king of the north shall
come against him with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships;
and they shall enter into the land: and he shall break in pieces, and
pass on: and he shall enter into the land of beauty, and many shall
fail: but these shall escape out of his hand, Edom, and Moab, and the
chief of the children of Ammon. And he shall stretch forth his hand over
the land; and the land of Egypt shall not escape. And he shall have the
mastery over the secret treasures of gold and silver, and over all the
desirable possessions of Egypt, and of the Libyans and Ethiopians in
their strongholds. But rumors and anxieties out of the east and from the
north shall trouble him; and he shall come with great wrath to destroy
many. 45 And he shall pitch the tabernacle of his palace between the
seas in the holy mountain of beauty: but he shall come to his portion,
and there is none to deliver him.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 4:2-3 (LXX)</span>
I saw a vision, and it terrified me, and I was troubled on my bed, and
the visions of my head troubled me. And I made a decree to bring in
before me all the wise men of Babylon, that they might make known to me
the interpretation of the dream.<br />
</span></div>
[23] But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.<br />
[24] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 13:10; 34:4</span>
For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the host of heaven, shall
not give their light; and it shall be dark at sunrise, and the moon
shall not give her light. . . . And all the powers of the heavens shall
melt, and the sky shall be rolled up like a scroll: and all the stars
shall fall like leaves from a vine, and as leaves fall from a fig-tree.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ezekiel 32:7, 8</span>
And I will veil the heavens when thou art extinguished, and will darken
the stars thereof; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon
shall not give her light. All the bodies that give light in the sky,
shall be darkened over thee, and I will bring darkness upon the earth,
saith the Lord God.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Joel 2:10, 31; 3:15</span>
Before them the earth shall be confounded, and the sky shall be shaken:
the sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw
their light. . . . The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon
into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord come. . . .
The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw
their light.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 5:4</span>
But if the Most High grants that you live, you shall see it thrown into
confusion after the third period; and the sun shall suddenly shine
forth at night, and the moon during the day.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ascension of Moses 10:5</span>
And the horns of the sun shall be broken and he shall be turned into
darkness; And the moon shall not give her light, and be turned wholly
into blood. And the circle of the stars shall be disturbed.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[25] <strong>And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 34:4</span>
And all the powers of the heavens shall melt, and the sky shall be
rolled up like a scroll: and all the stars shall fall like leaves from a
vine, and as leaves fall from a fig-tree.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[26] <strong>And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:13-14</span>
I beheld in the night vision, and, lo, one coming with the clouds of
heaven as the Son of man, and he came on to the Ancient of days, and was
brought near to him. And to him was given the dominion, and the
honour, and the kingdom; and all nations, tribes, and languages, shall
serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 19:1</span>
Behold, the Lord sits on a swift cloud, and shall come to Egypt: and
the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and their heart shall
faint within them.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[27] <strong>And
then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from
the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost
part of heaven.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 2:6, 10</span>;
Ho, ho, flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord: for I will
gather you from the four winds of heaven, saith the Lord, . . . .
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Sion: for, behold, I come, and will
dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 27:13</span>
And it shall come to pass in that day that they shall blow the great
trumpet, and the lost ones in the land of the Assyrians shall come, and
the lost ones in Egypt, and shall worship the Lord on the holy mountain
in Jerusalem.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 30:4</span>
If thy dispersion be from one end of heaven to the other, thence will
the Lord thy God gather thee, and thence will the Lord thy God take
thee.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:5</span>
And the valley of my mountains shall be closed up, and the valley of
the mountains shall be joined on to Jasod, and shall be blocked up as it
was blocked up in the days of the earthquake, in the days of Ozias king
of Juda; and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with him.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 27:12; 11:10</span>
And it shall come to pass in that day that God shall fence men off from
the channel of the river as far as Rhinocorura; but do ye gather one by
one the children of Israel. . . . And in that day there shall be a root
of Jesse, and he that shall arise to rule over the Gentiles; in him
shall the Gentiles trust, and his rest shall be glorious.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ezekiel 32:9f; 39:27</span>
And I will provoke to anger the heart of many people, when I shall lead
thee captive among the nations, to a land which thou hast not known.
And many nations shall mourn over thee, and their kings shall be utterly
amazed, when my sword flies in their faces, as they wait for their own
fall from the day of thy fall. . . . . Yet there shall be none to
terrify them when I have brought them back from the nations, and
gathered them out of the countries of the nations: and I will be
sanctified among them in the presence of the nations.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 106:47 (105 in LXX)</span> Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen . . .<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 147:2</span> The Lord builds up Jerusalem; and he will gather together the dispersed of Israel.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[28] <strong>Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:8 (LXX only)</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span class="verse">And I heard, but I understood not: and I said, O Lord, what <em>will be</em> the end of these things? </span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 11:13</span> <span style="color: black;">And
seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might
find any thing thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but
leaves; for the time of figs was not yet.</span></em></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[29] <strong>So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zephaniah 1:7, 14</span>
Fear ye before the Lord God; for the day of the Lord is near; for the
Lord has prepared his sacrifice, and has sanctified his guests. . . .
For the great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and very speedy; the
sound of the day of the Lord is made bitter and harsh.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[30] <strong>Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:7 (LXX)</span>
And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the
river, and he lifted up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and
sware by him that lives for ever, that it should be for a time of times
and half a time: when the dispersion is ended they shall know all these
things.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[31] <strong>Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 51:6</span>
Lift up your eyes to the sky, and look on the earth beneath: for the
sky was darkened like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment,
and the inhabitants shall die in like manner: but my righteousness
shall not fail.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:7</span>
And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was over the water of the
river, and he lifted up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and
sware by him that lives for ever, that it should be for a time of times
and half a time: when the dispersion is ended they shall know all these
things.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Ezekiel 31:1ff</span>
To whom hast thou compared thyself in thy haughtiness? Behold, the
Assyrian was a cypress in Libanus, and was fair in shoots, and high in
stature: his top reached to the midst of the clouds. The water
nourished him, the depth made him grow tall; she led her rivers round
about his plants, and she sent forth her streams to all the trees of the
field. Therefore was his stature exalted above all the trees of the
field, and his branches spread far by the help of much water. All the
birds of the sky made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches
all the wild beasts of the field bred; the whole multitude of nations
dwelt under his shadow. . . . Therefore thus saith the Lord; Because
thou art grown great, and hast set thy top in the midst of the clouds,
and I saw when he was exalted; Therefore I delivered him into the hands
of the prince of the nations, and he wrought his destruction. And
ravaging strangers from the nations have destroyed him, and have cast
him down upon the mountains: his branches fell in all the valleys, and
his boughs were broken in every field of the land; and all the people of
the nations are gone down from their shelter, and have laid him low.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Amos 5:18ff</span>
Woe to you that desire the day of the Lord! what is this day of the
Lord to you? whereas it is darkness, and not light. As if a man should
flee from the face of a lion, and a bear should meet him; and he should
spring into his house, and lean his hands upon the wall, and a serpent
should bite him. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light? and
is not this day gloom without brightness?<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 2:12</span>
For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud
and haughty, and upon every one that is high and towering, and they
shall be brought down<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zephaniah 1:7</span>
Fear ye before the Lord God; for the day of the Lord is near; for the
Lord has prepared his sacrifice, and has sanctified his guests.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:1</span> Behold, the days of the Lord come<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[32] <strong>But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:13</span>
But go thou, and rest; for there are yet days and seasons to the
fulfillment of the end; and thou shalt stand in thy lot at the end of
the days.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">cf. in Daniel 2:28, 45; 10:14; 11:20, where in LXX <strong>εσχατα των ημερων</strong> is used</span>
But there is a God in heaven revealing mysteries, and he has made known
to king Nabuchodonosor what things must come to pass in the last days. .
. . the great God has made known to the king what must happen hereafter
. . . . and I have come to inform thee of all that shall befall thy
people in the last days: for the vision is yet for many days. . . . and
yet in those days shall he be broken<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 14:7</span>
But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor
night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be
light.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm of Solomon 17:23 (=21 in LXX)</span>
Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them their king, the son of David, At
the time in the which Thou seest, O God, that he may reign over Israel
Thy servant<br />
</span></div>
[33] Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.<br />
[34] For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his
house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work,
and commanded the porter to watch.<br />
[35] Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house
cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the
morning:<br />
[36] Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.<br />
[37] And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.<br />
-------------------<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2008/08/27/the-little-apocalypse-of-mark-13-historical-or-creative-literature/">http://vridar.org/2008/08/27/the-little-apocalypse-of-mark-13-historical-or-creative-literature/</a><br />
======================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-23858083388799269812017-03-19T23:38:00.000-07:002017-03-19T23:38:09.111-07:00Neil Godfrey : Jewish Scriptures in Mark’s Passion and Resurrection Narratives<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Jewish Scriptures in Mark’s Passion and Resurrection Narratives</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<br /><div class="entry-content">
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: red;">Red are the quotations</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: purple;">Purple are the allusions</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<span style="color: blue;">Blue are the influences</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em>Black italics represent material from sources other than Kee</em></div>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark.14</span></h3>
[1] <strong><span style="color: black;">After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread</span></strong><span style="color: black;">: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.</span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hosea 6:2</span> After two days he will heal us<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Chronicles 35:17</span> And the children of Israel that were present kept the passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.</span><span id="more-1063"></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>(Does the reference to “taking and
killing” him echo Exodus 12:5-6 where the command is to take and kill
the Passover, albeit with different vocabulary?)</em></div>
[2] But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.<br />
[3] And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at
meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of
spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his
head.<br />
[4] And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?<br />
[5] For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and
have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.<br />
[6] And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.<br />
[7] For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.<br />
[8] She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.<br />
[9] Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken
of for a memorial of her.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em>Cf Mark 1:29-45 with the scene in the
house of Simon, where a woman serves him, and where a leper soon after
is commanded to go to the priests but “betrays” the command by not doing
so, all of which appears to be a foil for these later scenes: — And
forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they <strong>entered into the house of Simon </strong>and
Andrew, with James and John. But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a
fever, and anon they tell him of her. And he came and took her by the
hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and <strong>she ministered unto them</strong>. . . . . And there came <strong>a leper</strong>
to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him,
If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with
compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I
will; be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the
leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed. And he straitly charged
him, and forthwith sent him away; And saith unto him, See thou say
nothing to any man: but <strong>go thy way, shew thyself to the priest</strong>, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But he <strong>went out</strong>,
and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch
that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in
desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Deuteronomy 15:11</span>
For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command
you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your
needy and poor in your land.’</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Kings 9:6</span>
Jehu got up and went into the house. Then the prophet poured the oil on
Jehu’s head and declared, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel,
says: ‘I anoint you king over the LORD’s people Israel.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Samuel 16:13</span>
So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his
brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in
power. Samuel then went to Ramah.</em></div>
[10] And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went unto the chief priests, to betray him unto them.<br />
[11] <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 11:12</span>
And I will say to them, If it be good in your eyes, give me my price,
or refuse it. And they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[12] <strong>And
the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his
disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that
thou mayest eat the passover?</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Exodus 12:1-6, 14-20</span>
And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying,
This month shall be to you the beginning of months: it is the first to
you among the months of the year. Speak to all the congregation of the
children of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month let them take
each man a lamb according to the houses of their families, every man a
lamb for his household. And if they be few in a household, so that there
are not enough for the lamb, he shall take with himself his neighbour
that lives near to him, —as to the number of souls, every one according
to that which suffices him shall make a reckoning for the lamb. It shall
be to you a lamb unblemished, a male of a year old: ye shall take it of
the lambs and the kids. And it shall be kept by you till the fourteenth
of this month, and all the multitude of the congregation of the
children of Israel shall kill it toward evening . . . . . And this day
shall be to you a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord
through all your generations; ye shall keep it a feast for a perpetual
ordinance. Seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread, and from the first
day ye shall utterly remove leaven from your houses: whoever shall eat
leaven, that soul shall be utterly destroyed from Israel, from the first
day until the seventh day. And the first day shall be called holy, and
the seventh day shall be a holy convocation to you: ye shall do no
servile work on them, only as many things as will necessarily be done by
every soul, this only shall be done by you. And ye shall keep this
commandment, for on this day will I bring out your force out of the land
of Egypt; and ye shall make this day a perpetual ordinance for you
throughout your generations. Beginning the fourteenth day of the first
month, ye shall eat unleavened bread from evening, till the twenty-first
day of the month, till evening. Seven days leaven shall not be found in
your houses; whosoever shall eat anything leavened, that soul shall be
cut off from the congregation of Israel, both among the occupiers of the
land and the original inhabitants. Ye shall eat nothing leavened, but
in every habitation of your ye shall eat unleavened bread.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[13] <strong>And
he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into
the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water:
follow him.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">1 Samuel 10:2, 3, 5</span>
As soon as thou shalt have departed this day from me, thou shalt find
two men by the burial-place of Rachel on the mount of Benjamin, exulting
greatly; and they shall say to thee, The asses are found which ye went
to seek; and, behold, thy father has given up the matter of the asses,
and he is anxious for you, saying, What shall I do for my son? And thou
shalt depart thence, and shalt go beyond that as far as the oak of
Thabor, and thou shalt find there three men going up to God to Baethel,
one bearing three kids, and another bearing three vessels of bread, and
another bearing a bottle of wine. . . . And afterward thou shalt go to
the hill of God, where is the encampment of the Philistines; there is
Nasib the Philistine: an it shall come to pass when ye shall have
entered into the city, that thou shalt meet a band of prophets coming
down from the Bama; and before them will be lutes, and a drum, and a
pipe, and a harp, and they shall prophesy.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf. Mark 11:1-7</span>
And when they came nigh to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at
the mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples, And saith
unto them, Go your way into the village over against you: and as soon as
ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man
sat; loose him, and bring him. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye
this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will
send him hither. And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the
door without in a place where two ways met; and they loose him. And
certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye, loosing the
colt? And they said unto them even as Jesus had commanded: and they let
them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments
on him; and he sat upon him. </em><br />
</span></div>
[14] And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the
house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat
the passover with my disciples?<br />
[15] And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us.<br />
[16] And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover.<br />
[17] And in the evening he cometh with the twelve.<br />
<span style="color: black;">[18] </span><span style="color: black;"><strong>And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me.</strong><br />
[19] <strong>And they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? and another said, Is it I?</strong><br />
[20] <strong>And he answered and said unto them, It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish.</strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 41:9 (LXX 40:10)</span> For even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, lifted up his heel against me.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Obadiah 7</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span class="verse">They
sent thee to thy coasts: all the men of thy covenant have withstood
thee; thine allies have prevailed against thee, they have set snares
under thee: they have no understanding. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">[21] <strong>The
Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man
by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had
never been born.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:12(?)</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span class="verse">For
ye shall not go forth with tumult, neither go by flight: for the Lord
shall go first in advance of you; and the God of Israel shall be he that
brings up your rear.</span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:21, 25</span>
I beheld, and that horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against
them . . . . And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall
wear out the saints of the Most High, . . . and power shall be given
into his hand for a time and times and half a time.<br />
</span></div>
[22] And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body.<br />
[23] <span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it.</strong><br />
[24] <strong>And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Exodus 24:8</span>
And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and said,
Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you
concerning all these words.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 9:11</span> And thou by the blood of thy covenant has sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit that has no water.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 38:31-34 (LXX)</span>
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel, and with the house of Juda: not according to
the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold
of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode
not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord. For this is
my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those
days, saith the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and
write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall
be to me a people. And they shall not at all teach every one his fellow
citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall
know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be
merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[25] <strong>Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 25:6</span> And the Lord of hosts shall make a feast for all the nations: on this mount they shall drink gladness, they shall drink wine<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 62:14 <em>(Typo?) My guess is 10:18-19</em></span><em>
And then shall the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and shall
all be planted with trees and be full of blessing. And all desirable
trees shall be planted on it, and they shall plant vines on it: and the
vine which they plant thereon shall yield wine in abundance</em><br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Apocalypse of Baruch (Syriac) 29:5</span>
The earth also shall yield its fruit ten-thousandfold and on each (?)
vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a
thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each
grape produce a cor of wine.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[26] <strong>And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalms 114 to 118</span> (2nd part of Hallel at end of Passover)</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Samuel 15:30</span>
As David went up the Mount of Olives, he wept without ceasing. His head
was covered, and he was walking barefoot. All those who were with him
also had their heads covered and were weeping as they went.</em></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[27] A<strong>nd
Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this
night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall
be scattered.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 13:7 (LXX)</span>
Awake, O sword, against my shepherds, and against the man who is my
citizen, saith the Lord Almighty: smite the shepherds, and draw out the
sheep: and I will bring mine hand upon the little ones.<br />
</span></div>
[28] But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.<br />
[29] But Peter said unto him, Although all shall be offended, yet will not I.<br />
[30] And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this day,
even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me
thrice.<br />
[31] But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all.<br />
[32] And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray.<br />
[33] And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;<br />
[34] <span style="color: black;"><strong>And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and watch.</strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jonah 4:9 (LXX)</span> And God said to Jonas, Art thou very much grieved for the gourd? And he said, I am very much grieved, even to death.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: black;"> [35] <strong>And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. </strong><span style="color: blue;">(</span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:25</span> And he shall speak words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,)</span></span><span style="color: black;"><br />
[36] <strong>And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto
thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what
thou wilt.<br />
</strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:20</span> Deliver my soul from the sword; my only-begotten one from the power of the dog.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 31:9, 10, 22</span>
Pity me, O Lord, for I am afflicted: my eye is troubled with
indignation, my soul and by belly. For my life is spent with grief, and
my years with groanings: my strength has been weakened through poverty,
and my bones are troubled. . . . But I said in my extreme fear, I am
cast out from the sight of thine eyes: therefore thou didst hearken, O
Lord, to the voice of my supplication when I cried to thee.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 69:1ff</span>
Save me, O God; for the waters have come in to my soul. I am stuck fast
in deep mire, and there is no standing: I am come in to the depths of
the sea, and a storm has overwhelmed me. I am weary of crying, my throat
has become hoarse; mine eyes have failed by my waiting on my God. They
that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: my
enemies that persecute me unrighteously are strengthened:<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 42:2-6, 11</span>
My soul has thirsted for the living God: when shall I come and appear
before God? My tears have been bread to me day and night, while they
daily said to me, Where is thy God? I remembered these things, and
poured out my soul in me, for I will go to the place of thy wondrous
tabernacle, even to the house of God, with a voice of exultation and
thanksgiving and of the sound of those who keep festival. Wherefore art
thou very sad, O my soul? and wherefore dost thou trouble me? hope in
God; for I will give thanks to him; he is the salvation of my
countenance. O my God, my soul has been troubled within me: therefore
will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Ermonites, from
the little hill. . . . Wherefore art thou very sad, O my soul? and
wherefore dost thou trouble me? hope in God; for I will give thanks to
him; he is the health of my countenance, and my God.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 43:5</span>
Wherefore art thou very sad, O my soul? and wherefore dost thou trouble
me? Hope in God; for I will give thanks to him, who is the health of my
countenance, and my God.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 10:16-19</span>
And, behold, as it were the likeness of a son of man touched my lips;
and I opened my mouth, and spoke, and said to him that stood before me, O
my lord, at the sight of thee my bowels were turned within me, and I
had no strength. And how shall thy servant be able, O my lord, to speak
with this my lord? and as for me, from henceforth strength will not
remain in me, and there is no breath left in me. And there touched me
again as it were the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, and
said to me, Fear not, man greatly beloved: peace be to thee, quit
thyself like a man, and be strong. And when he had spoken with me, I
received strength, and said, Let my lord speak; for thou hast
strengthened me.<br />
</span></div>
[37] And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 13:33</span> Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.</em></div>
[38] <span style="color: black;"><strong><span>Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 12:10 (LXX)</span> Many must be tested, and thoroughly whitened, and tried with fire, and sanctified<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zephaniah 1:15</span> </span><span style="color: blue;"><span class="verse">A
mighty day of wrath is that day, a day of affliction and distress, a
day of desolation and destruction, a day of gloominess and darkness, a
day of cloud and vapour,</span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Habbakuk 3:16</span>
I watched, and my belly trembled at the sound of the prayer of my lips,
and trembling entered into my bones, and my frame was troubled within
me; I will rest in the day of affliction, from going up to the people of
my sojourning.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">First Enoch 94:5; 96:2</span> </span><span style="color: blue;">Woe
to you, false witnesses, you who aggravate iniquity; for you shall
suddenly perish. . . . . You shall yourselves be conscious of it; for
the Most High will remember your destruction, and the angels shall
rejoice over it. What will you do sinners? And where will you fly in the
day of judgment, when you shall hear the words of the prayer of the
righteous?</span></div>
[39] And again he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words.<br />
[40] And when he returned, he found them asleep again, (for their eyes were heavy,) neither wist they what to answer him.<br />
[41] And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now,
and take your rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of
man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.<br />
[42] Rise up, let us go; lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand.<br />
[43] And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the
twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the
chief priests and the scribes and the elders.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 3:7</span> But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea,</em></div>
[44] And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying,
Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away
safely.<br />
[45] <strong><span style="color: black;">And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, Master, master; and kissed him.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Proverbs 27:6</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span class="verse">Be not boastful in the presence of the king, and remain not in the places of princes</span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 41:9</span> For even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, lifted up his heel against me.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Samuel 14:33; 20:9-10</span>
The king then called Absalom, who came to him and in homage fell on his
face to the ground before the king. Then the king kissed him. . . . And
Joab asked Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” With his right hand Joab
held Amasa’s beard as if to kiss him. And since Amasa was not on his
guard against the sword in Joab’s other hand, Joab stabbed him in the
abdomen with it</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 2:12</span> Kiss the son, lest he be angry</em></div>
[46] And they laid their hands on him, and took him.<br />
[47] And one of them that stood by drew a sword, and smote a servant of the high priest, and cut off his ear.<br />
[48] And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?<br />
[49] I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me not: but the scriptures must be fulfilled.<br />
[50]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">And they all forsook him, and fled.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Zechariah 13:7</span>
Awake, O sword, against my shepherds, and against the man who is my
citizen, saith the Lord Almighty: smite the shepherds, and draw out the
sheep: and I will bring mine hand upon the little ones.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 1:18</span> And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
</div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[51] <strong>And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:</strong><br />
[52] <strong>And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Amos 2:16</span> And the strong shall find no confidence in power: the naked shall flee away in that day, saith the Lord.<br />
</span></div>
[53] And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were
assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes.<br />
[54] And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high
priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Psalm 38:11</span> My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off. </em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Odyssey Book 10:</span>
Eurylochus, chief companion of Odysseus, fearfully followed his doomed
companions from a distance as they went into the palace, and
subsequently broke down weeping over their fate and his failure.</em></div>
[55] And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none.<br />
[56] <strong><span style="color: black;">For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 27:12</span>
Deliver me not over to the desire of them that afflict me; for unjust
witnesses have risen up against me, and injustice has lied within
herself.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 35:11-12</span> Unjust witnesses arose, and asked me of things I new not. They rewarded me evil for good, and bereavement to my soul.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 109:2-5</span>
for the mouth of the sinner and the mouth of the crafty man have been
opened against me: they have spoken against me with a crafty tongue. And
they have compassed me with words of hatred; and fought against me
without a cause. Instead of loving me, they falsely accused me: but I
continued to pray. And they rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my
love. Set thou a sinner against him; and let the devil stand at his
right hand.<br />
</span></div>
[57] And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying,<br />
[58]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">We
heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and
within three days I will build another made without hands.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: purple;">First Enoch 90:29 (? — typo?)<br />
</span></span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">4 Ezra 9:38-10:27</span>
And when I spake these things in my heart, I looked back with mine
eyes, and upon the right side I saw a woman, and, behold, she mourned
and wept with a loud voice, and was much grieved in heart, and her
clothes were rent, and she had ashes upon her head. . . .</span><span style="color: purple;">
And it came to pass while I was talking with her, behold, her face upon
a sudden shined exceedingly, and her countenance glistered, so that I
was afraid of her, and mused what it might be. And, behold, suddenly she
made a great cry very fearful: so that the earth shook at the noise of
the woman. And I looked, and, behold, the woman appeared unto me no
more, but there was a city builded, and a large place shewed itself from
the foundations</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Targum Isaiah 53:5</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">My servant, the Messiah, will be great, who was bruised for our sins.</span></span></div>
[59] But neither so did their witness agree together.<br />
[60] <strong><span style="color: black;">And the high priest stood up
in the midst, and asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? what is
it which these witness against thee?</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:7 (?)</span>
And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a
sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he
opens not his mouth.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 38:12-14</span>
While they pressed hard upon me that sought my soul: and they that
sought my hurt spoke vanities, and devised deceits all the day. But I,
as a deaf man, heard not; and was as a dumb man not opening his mouth.
And I was as a man that hears not, and who has no reproofs in his mouth.<br />
</span></div>
[61] But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high
priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed?<br />
[62] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 110:1</span> </span><span style="color: red;"><span class="verse">The Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.</span></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 7:13 (LXX)</span> </span><span style="color: red;"><span class="verse">I beheld in the night vision, and, lo, <em>one</em> coming with the clouds of heaven as the Son of man, and he came on to the Ancient of days, and was brought near to him. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[63] <strong>Then the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What need we any further witnesses?</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">(Sanhedrin 7:5)</span>
The blasphemer is punished only if he utters [the divine] name. Rabbi
Joshua b. Korcha said: “The whole day [of the trial] the witnesses are
examined by means of a substitute for the divine name:, ‘may Yose smite
Yose.” When the trial was finished, the accused was not executed on
this evidence, but all persons were removed [from court], and the chief
witness was told, ‘State literally what you heard.’ Thereupon he did so,
[using the divine name]. The judges then arose and tore their garments,
which were not to be resewn. The second witness stated: “I too have
heard thus” [but not uttering the divine name], and the third says: “I
too heard thus.”</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[64] <strong>Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be guilty of death.</strong></span></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Leviticus 24:16</span>
And he that names the name of the Lord, let him die the death: let all
the congregation of Israel stone him with stones; whether he be a
stranger or a native, let him die for naming the name of the Lord.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[65] <strong>And
some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him,
and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the
palms of their hands.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Micah 5:1</span> . . . . they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 50:6</span> I gave my back to scourges, and my cheeks to blows; and I turned not away my face from the shame of spitting:<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:3-5</span>
But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men;
he was a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of sickness,
for his face is turned from us: he was dishonoured, and not esteemed. He
bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in
trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on
account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities: the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were
healed.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span>1 Kings 22:24f </span></span><span class="verse">And Sedekias the son of Chanaan came near and smote Michaias on the cheek, and said, What sort of a spirit of the Lord <em>has</em> spoken in thee? </span><span class="verse">And Michaias said, Behold, thou shalt see in that day, when thou shalt go into an innermost chamber to hide thyself there.</span></span></div>
[66] And as Peter was beneath in the palace, there cometh one of the maids of the high priest:<br />
[67] And when she saw Peter warming himself, she looked upon him, and said, And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth.<br />
[68] But he denied, saying, I know not, neither understand I what thou
sayest. And he went out into the porch; and the cock crew.<br />
[69] And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them.<br />
[70] And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said
again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean,
and thy speech agreeth thereto.<br />
[71] But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak.<br />
[72] And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the
word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt
deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark.15</span></h3>
[1] And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, <strong>and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him</strong> to Pilate.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Genesis 22:9</span> He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar</em></div>
[2] And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it.<br />
[3] And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing.<br />
[4] And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee.<br />
[5] But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:7 (?)</span>
And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a
sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he
opens not his mouth.<br />
</span></em>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 38:12-14</span>
While they pressed hard upon me that sought my soul: and they that
sought my hurt spoke vanities, and devised deceits all the day. But I,
as a deaf man, heard not; and was as a dumb man not opening his mouth.
And I was as a man that hears not, and who has no reproofs in his mouth.</span></em></div>
[6] Now at that feast he released unto them one prisoner, whomsoever they desired.<br />
[7] And there was one named Barabbas, which lay bound with them that had
made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the
insurrection.<br />
[8] And the multitude crying aloud began to desire him to do as he had ever done unto them.<br />
[9] But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews?<br />
[10] For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.<br />
[11] But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.<br />
[12] And Pilate answered and said again unto them, What will ye then that I shall do unto him whom ye call the King of the Jews?<br />
[13] And they cried out again, Crucify him.<br />
[14] Then Pilate said unto them, Why, what evil hath he done? And they cried out the more exceedingly, Crucify him.<br />
[15]<strong><span style="color: black;"> And so Pilate, willing to
content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus,
when he had scourged him, to be crucified.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:6(LXX)</span> All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;">Cf. Mark 9:31; 10:33; 14:10; 14:11, 18, 21, 42, 44; 15:1, 10, 15</span></div>
[16] And the soldiers led him away into the hall, called Praetorium; and they call together the whole band.<br />
[17] And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,<br />
[18] And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!<br />
[19] And they smote him on the head with a reed, and did spit upon him, and bowing their knees worshipped him.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Philo’s Flaccus VI:</span>
There was a certain madman named Carabbas … this man spent all this
days and nights naked in the roads, minding neither cold nor heat, the
sport of idle children and wanton youths; and they, driving the poor
wretch as far as the public gymnasium, and setting him up there on high
that he might be seen by everybody, flattened out a leaf of papyrus and
put it on his head instead of a diadem, and clothed the rest of his body
with a common door mat instead of a cloak and instead of a sceptre they
put in his hand a small stick of the native papyrus which they found
lying by the way side and gave to him; and when, like actors in
theatrical spectacles, he had received all the insignia of royal
authority, and had been dressed and adorned like a king, the young men
bearing sticks on their shoulders stood on each side of him instead of
spear-bearers, in imitation of the bodyguards of the king, and then
others came up, some as if to salute him, and others making as though
they wished to plead their causes before him, and others pretending to
wish to consult with him about the affairs of the state. Then from the
multitude of those who were standing around there arose a wonderful
shout of men calling out Maris!; and this is the name by which it is
said that they call the kings among the Syrians; for they knew that
Agrippa was by birth a Syrian, and also that he was possessed of a great
district of Syria of which he was the sovereign; </em></div>
[20] And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple from him,
and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.<br />
[21] And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out
of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 8:33-34</span>
he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest
not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. And when
he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto
them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow me.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 3:19</span> Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him:– with Iscariot meaning Red Dyer (c.f. Rufus = red) — <span style="text-decoration: underline;">cf Genesis 25:25, 30-34</span>
And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they
called his name Esau. . . . And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray
thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name
called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau
said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this
birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware
unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau
bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up,
and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>Cf Simon coming out of the country to
carry the weapon to execute the sacrifice with Heliodorus’s description
of a Triumphal ceremony in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Book 3 of The Ethiopian Story</span>:
. . . The Hecatomb went before, and such men as were but lately entered
into the holy ministry, of rustic dress and life, led the same. Each
one had a white robe girt about him, his breast and arm and right hand
naked, and a poleaxe therein.</em></div>
[22] And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf. Rome’s Capitoline Hill</span>,
named for the skull (caput) found there. This was said to have been
found while digging foundations for temple building there, and was
interpreted as an omen that Rome was to become the head of the world.</em></div>
[23]<span style="color: red;"> <strong><span style="color: black;">And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but he received it not.</span></strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 69:21</span> They gave me also gall for my food, and made me drink vinegar for my thirst.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;">Proverbs
31:6-7 A great snare is spread for a sinner: but the righteous shall be
in joy and gladness. A righteous man knows how to judge for the poor:
but the ungodly understands not knowledge; and the poor man has not an
understanding mind.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;">[24] <strong>And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:18</span> They parted my garments among themselves, and cast lots upon my raiment.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:16</span> For many dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked doers has beset me round: they pierced my hands and my feet.<br />
</span></div>
[25] And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.<br />
[26] And the superscription of his accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.<br />
[27] And with him they crucify two thieves; the one on his right hand, and the other on his left.<br />
[28] <span style="color: red;"><strong><span style="color: black;">And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.</span></strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">(Isaiah 53:12)</span>
Therefore he shall inherit many, and he shall divide the spoils of the
mighty; because his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered
among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered
because of their iniquities.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">[29] <strong>And
they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah,
thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:7</span> All that saw me mocked me: they spoke with their lips, they shook the head,<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 109:25</span> I became also a reproach to them: when they saw me they shook their heads.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Lamentations 2:15</span>
All that go by the way have clapped their hands at thee; they have
hissed and shaken their head at the daughter of Jerusalem. . . .<br />
</span></div>
[30] Save thyself, and come down from the cross.<br />
[31] Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save.<br />
[32]<span style="color: red;"> <span style="color: black;"><strong>Let
Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see
and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 69:8</span> I became strange to my brethren, and a stranger to my mother’s children.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:16</span> For many dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked doers has beset me round: they pierced my hands and my feet.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> [33] <strong>And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Amos 8:9</span>
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that the sun
shall go down at noon, and the light shall be darkened on the earth by
day<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 13:9-10; 50:2-3</span>
For behold! the day of the Lord is coming which cannot be escaped, a
day of wrath and anger, to make the world desolate, and to destroy
sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven, and Orion, and all the host
of heaven, shall not give their light; and it shall be dark at sunrise,
and the moon shall not give her light. . . . Why did I come, and there
was no man? why did I call, and there was none to hearken? Is not my
hand strong to redeem? or can I not deliver? behold, by my rebuke I will
dry up the sea, and make rivers a wilderness; and their fish shall be
dried up because there is no water, and shall die for thirst. I will
clothe the sky with darkness, and will make its covering as sackcloth.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Jeremiah 15:6-9</span>
Thou hast turned away from me, saith the Lord, thou wilt go back:
therefore I will stretch out my hand, and will destroy thee, and will no
more spare them. And I will completely scatter them; in the gates of my
people they are bereaved of children: they have destroyed my people
because of their iniquities. Their widows have been multiplied more than
the sand of the sea: I have brought young men against the mother, even
distress at noon-day: I have suddenly cast upon her trembling and
anxiety. She that bore seven is spent; her soul has fainted under
trouble; her sun is gone down while it is yet noon; she is ashamed and
disgraced: I will give the remnant of them to the sword before their
enemies.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;"> [34] <strong>And
at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?</strong></span></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 22:1</span> </span><span style="color: red;"><span class="verse">O God, my God, attend to me: why hast thou forsaken me?. . .<br />
</span></span></div>
[35] And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.<br />
[36] <span style="color: black;"><strong>And one ran and filled a
spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink,
saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down.</strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 69:1</span> Save me, O God; for the waters have come in to my soul.<br />
</span></div>
<span style="color: black;"> [37] <strong>And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.</strong></span>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Psalm 31:22</span> </span><span style="color: purple;"><span class="verse_num"> </span><span class="verse">But
I said in my extreme fear, I am cast out from the sight of thine eyes:
therefore thou didst hearken, O Lord, to the voice of my supplication
when I cried to thee. </span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"> [38] <strong>And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.</strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Exodus 26:31ff</span>
And thou shalt make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet woven, and
fine linen spun: thou shalt make it cherubs in woven work. And thou
shalt set it upon four posts of incorruptible wood overlaid with gold;
and their tops shall be gold, and their four sockets shall be of silver.
And thou shalt put the veil on the posts, and thou shalt carry in
thither within the veil the ark of the testimony; and the veil shall
make a separation for you between the holy and the holy of holies. And
thou shalt screen with the veil the ark of the testimony in the holy of
holies.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Leviticus 21:23</span>
Only he shall not approach the veil, and he shall not draw nigh to the
altar, because he has a blemish; and he shall not profane the sanctuary
of his God, for I am the Lord that sanctifies them.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 1:10</span> As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.</em></div>
[39] And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that
he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the
Son of God.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 1:11</span> And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” </em></div>
[40] There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and
Salome;<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Psalm 38:11</span> My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off. </em></div>
[41] (Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered
unto him;) and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem.<br />
[42] And now when the even was come, because it was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath,<br />
[43]<strong><span style="color: black;"> </span><span style="color: black;">Joseph
of Arimathaea, and honourable counseller, which also waited for the
kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the
body of Jesus.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:9</span> And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>(my note — if Joseph of Arimathea was a
rep of faithlessness as i have argued elsewhere, this provenance would
support that argument)</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Deuteronomy 21:23</span>
his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but ye shall by all
means bury it in that day; for every one that is hanged on a tree is
cursed of God; and ye shall by no means defile the land which the Lord
thy God gives thee for an inheritance.<br />
</span></div>
[44] And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto
him the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.<br />
[45] And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.<br />
[46] <strong><span style="color: black;">And he bought fine linen, and
took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre
which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the
sepulchre.</span></strong>
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 53:9</span> </span><span style="color: purple;">And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Isaiah 22:16 (LXX)</span>
(where the sepulchre is a metaphor for the temple) thou hast here hewn
thyself a sepulchre, and madest thyself a sepulchre on high, and hast
graven for thyself a dwelling in the rock</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Joshua 10:18-27</span>
And Joshua said, Roll great stones upon the mouth of the cave, and set
men by it for to keep them: And stay ye not, but pursue after your
enemies, and smite the hindmost of them; suffer them not to enter into
their cities: for the LORD your God hath delivered them into your hand.
And it came to pass, when Joshua and the children of Israel had made an
end of slaying them with a very great slaughter, till they were
consumed, that the rest which remained of them entered into fenced
cities. And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in
peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.
Then said Joshua, Open the mouth of the cave, and bring out those five
kings unto me out of the cave. And they did so, and brought forth those
five kings unto him out of the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of
Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon.
And it came to pass, when they brought out those kings unto Joshua,
that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said unto the captains
of the men of war which went with him, Come near, put your feet upon
the necks of these kings. And they came near, and put their feet upon
the necks of them. And Joshua said unto them, Fear not, nor be dismayed,
be strong and of good courage: for thus shall the LORD do to all your
enemies against whom ye fight. And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew
them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the
trees until the evening. And it came to pass at the time of the going
down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the
trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid, and laid
great stones in the cave’s mouth, which remain until this very day. </em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark :3-4</span>
And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne
of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they
uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they
let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay.</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
</div>
[47] And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark.16</span></h3>
[1] <strong><span style="color: black;">And when the sabbath was
past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had
bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">2 Chronicles 16:14</span>
And they buried him in the sepulchre which he had dug for himself in
the city of David, and they laid him on a bed, and filled it with spices
and all kinds of perfumes of the apothecaries; and they made for him a
very great funeral.<br />
</span></div>
[2] And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.<br />
[3] And they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Genesis 29:8-10</span>
And they said, We cannot, until all the flocks be gathered together,
and till they roll the stone from the well’s mouth; then we water the
sheep. And while he yet spake with them, Rachel came with her father’s
sheep; for she kept them. And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the
daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his
mother’s brother, that Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the
well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. </em></div>
[4] And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away: for it was very great.<br />
[5] <span style="color: black;"><strong>And entering into the
sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a
long white garment; and they were affrighted.</strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 1:6; 14:51-52</span> And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins . . . .<span style="color: red;"><span style="color: black;">
And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast
about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him: And he left
the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.</span></span></em></div>
<span style="color: black;"> [6] <strong>And he saith unto them, Be
not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is
risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.</strong></span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 10:5-6</span>
And I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a man clothed in
linen, and his loins were girt with gold of Ophaz: and his body was as
Tharsis, and his face was a the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as
lamps of fire, and his arms and his legs as the appearance of shining
brass, and the voice of his words as the voice of a multitude.<br />
</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: purple;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 10:12</span> And he said to me, Fear not, Daniel: . . .<br />
</span></div>
[7] But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth
before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said unto you.
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 1:35-39</span>
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left
the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and
his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they
exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”</em> Jesus replied, “Let us go
somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That
is why I have come.” So he traveled throughout Galilee</div>
[8] <strong><span style="color: black;">And they went out quickly,
and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: neither
said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid.</span></strong><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: red;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Daniel 10:7, 12 (LXX-Th)</span>
And I Daniel only saw the vision: and the men that were with me saw not
the vision; but a great amazement fell upon them, and they fled in
fear.<br />
</span>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="color: blue;">(With Matthew 28:3 “</span><span style="color: blue;">His appearance was bright as lightning, and his clothes were white as snow” compare</span><span style="color: blue;"> Daniel </span><span style="color: blue;">10:6</span><span style="color: blue;"> and 7:9 in LXX-Th: 10:6 </span><span style="color: blue;">“and
his body was as Tharsis, and his face was a the appearance of
lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his legs as
the appearance of shining brass, and the voice of his words as the voice
of a multitude” — </span><span style="color: blue;">7:9 “</span><span style="color: blue;">I
beheld until the thrones were set, and the Ancient of days sat; and his
raiment was white as snow, and the hair of his head, as pure wool: his
throne was a flame of fire, and his wheels burning fire.”</span></em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Cf Mark 6:49-51</span>
but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost.
They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.
Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be
afraid.” Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died
down. They were completely amazed </em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>---------------------</em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em> <a href="http://vridar.org/2008/08/30/jewish-scriptures-in-marks-passion-and-resurrection-narratives/">http://vridar.org/2008/08/30/jewish-scriptures-in-marks-passion-and-resurrection-narratives/</a></em></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<em>=========================== </em></div>
</div>
</div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-13811129077802578632017-03-19T04:43:00.000-07:002017-03-19T04:43:03.734-07:00Neil Godfrey : “Born of a Woman” — Sober Scholarship Questioning the Authenticity of Galatians 4:4<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
“Born of a Woman” — Sober Scholarship Questioning the Authenticity of Galatians 4:4</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
<a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/rev-professor-john-o-neill-1-646345" target="_blank">J. C. O’Neill (1930-2004)</a>
was a well respected critical scholar with some controversial views and
always offering stimulating argument. Possibly the most controversial
was his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Who-Jesus-Think-Biblical-Interpretation/dp/9004104291" target="_blank"><i>Who Did Jesus Think He Was?</i></a><i> </i>in
which he argued that Jesus did believe he was the Messiah and that even
the doctrine of the Trinity could be detected in the Gospels. He also
wrote <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/1233291/summary/7635534" target="_blank"><i>The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians</i></a>
(1972). In that work he found himself forced to conclude that the
passage declaring Jesus was “born of a woman” was not original to Paul.
This should be quite a surprise to anyone who has encountered scholars
scoffing at any doubts about the historical existence of Jesus because
the passage in Galatians averring that Jesus was “born of a woman” is
invariably declared to be iron-clad evidence that Paul had good reason
to know that Jesus was, well, born of a woman. Presumably these scholars
are convinced that no-one would ever suggest a fictive person would
have come into the world by means of a birth or that the gender through
whom he was born would be female.<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;">Authority of the epistle remains</span></h3>
But don’t let me misrepresent J.C. O’Neill. Though O’Neill believed
Galatians was riddled with “interpolations” he nonetheless hoped that
his analysis would<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">clear the way for <b>a fresh conviction that Paul was in fact an apostle of the Son of God</b>. </span>(p. 13 — <i>my bolding and formatting in all quotations</i>)</blockquote>
If our final text of Galatians was not entirely Paul’s original
writing then the authority of the whole letter was only minimally
affected as far as the Church is concerned:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">This book (“<i>The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians”</i>) should make it easier to <b>accord to Paul the authority due to him</b>, and also make it easier to <b>accord to the later theologians</b> (<i>i.e. those responsible for the interpolations and glosses in Galatians</i>) <b>the lesser authority due to them</b> for their insights into the doctrinal consequences of the apostle’s teaching.</span> (p. 13)</blockquote>
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;">Cannot return to the older approach</span></h3>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 110px;">
<br /></div>
O’Neill may have been true to what we might see as a conservative
faith, but was also true to critical principles in the study of the
Scriptures.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">We cannot simply return to
the older approach; we are bound to accept Spinoza and Locke for,
whether we like it or not, we are heirs of the whole modern awareness of
history. We must, at all costs, discover what Paul himself wrote, and
we must discover, as precisely as we can, the history of the text of his
epistles, from the time they were received by those he first addressed
until the time when they were gathered together, in a more or less fixed
form, into the Christian canon.</span> (p. 12)</blockquote>
Spinoza? Locke?<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="width: 90%px;">
<colgroup>
<col width="45%*"></col>
<col width="45%*"></col> </colgroup>
<thead>
<tr valign="TOP">
<th bgcolor="#ffffcc" style="text-align: center;" width="50%"><span style="color: #7e0021;">SPINOZA</span></th>
<th bgcolor="#ffffcc" style="text-align: center;" width="50%"><span style="color: #7e0021;">LOCKE</span></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td bgcolor="#ccffff" width="50%">“The universal rule . . . in
interpreting Scripture is to accept nothing as an authoritative
Scriptural statement which we do not perceive very clearly when we
examine it in the light of its history.”</td>
<td bgcolor="#ccffff" width="50%">Paul must have been “a coherent,
argumentative, pertinent Writer; and Care, I think, should be taken, in
expounding of him, to show that he is so.”</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td bgcolor="#ccffff" width="50%">The “history” of a scriptural statement comprises:
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
— nature of its original language<br />
— analysis of a book and its arrangement<br />
— background of the book: author, occasion, reception.</div>
</td>
<td bgcolor="#ccffff" width="50%">The starting point for studying Paul
is therefore to read the epistles through from beginning to end many
times to see the coherence of the argument.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 85px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
.</div>
</div>
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;">Why think there are any interpolations at all?</span></h3>
Why can we not assume that the text we have was all Paul’s to begin with? J. C. O’Neill explains why:<span id="more-48507"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">If Paul was “a coherent,
argumentative, pertinent writer” (Locke), Galatians as it now stands
cannot have been written by Paul, for, . . . Galatians is full of
obscurities, contradictions, improbable remarks, and <i>non sequiturs</i>;
but, if Galatians was not written by Paul, it is too obscure and
disjointed, and at the same time too urgent and vital and compelling, to
have been written by a compiler.</span> (p. 8)</blockquote>
But haven’t there been commentators who have made “satisfactory and
coherent sense of the text” known to us? Doesn’t this prove that we
don’t need to posit interpolations? O’Neill says, No. The reason: these
commentators do not agree with one another.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">If they cannot agree, it
seems to me forbidden . . . to rest in the assumption that the text as
we have it is, in principle, capable of yielding coherent sense.</span> (p. 8)</blockquote>
Recall Roger Parvus also quoting J. C. O’Neill in <a href="http://vridar.org/2013/09/20/a-simonian-origin-for-christianity-part-2-the-letters-of-paul/" target="_blank">one of his posts</a> on a Simonian origin for Christianity:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">If the choice lies between
supposing that Paul was confused and contradictory and supposing that
his text has been commented upon and enlarged, I have no hesitation in
choosing the second.</span> (J.C. O’Neill, <i><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_recovery_of_Paul_s_letter_to_the_Gal.html?id=0l8JAQAAIAAJ" target="_blank">The Recovery of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians</a>,</i> p. 86)</blockquote>
<h3>
<span style="color: #333399;">Motives/Intent?</span></h3>
O’Neill is kind to the original interpolators. They did not intend
their marginal notes to be incorporated into the main body of the text,
he says. They may have been elaborating on the text with their own
thoughts set in the margins. Copyists were piously fearful of losing
anything that might have been important to eventually our text came to
us with original text and marginal notes all bound up in one. (Given the
length of some of these “glosses” I think the suggestion that they all
found their way into the main body of the text raises more questions
than it answers.)<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #333399;">O’Neill’s argument on Galatians 4:1-10</span></h4>
J. C. O’Neill shows us that the authenticity of Galatians 4:4 passage
(Christ was born of a woman) is open to question. It is not
unquestionable bedrock evidence for what Paul himself believed or even
wrote about Jesus, birth and the gender of one giving birth. So let’s
look at his arguments for Galatians 4:4 and the surrounding passages.<br />
Verses 1-3 and 8-10 are omitted from the original. Paul did not write those, he argues.<br />
Galatians 4:1-10 (ASV)<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #666699;"><i><span style="color: black;">1</span> But I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a bondservant though he is lord of all; </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #666699;"><i><span style="color: black;">2</span> but is under guardians and stewards until the day appointed of the father. </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #666699;"><i><span style="color: black;">3</span> So we also, when we were children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world:</i></span><br />
<div class="box-right">
<b>4.</b> <span style="color: #993366;">οτε δε ηλθεν το πληρωμα του χρονου</span> {12}<br />
<span style="color: #993366;">εξαπεστειλεν ο θεος τον υιον αυτου</span> {13}<br />
<span style="color: #993366;">γενομενον εκ γυναικος </span>{8}<br />
<span style="color: #993366;">γενομενον υπο νομον</span> {8}<br />
<b>5.</b><span style="color: #993366;"> ινα τους υπο νομον εξαγοραση</span> {12}<br />
<span style="color: #993366;">ινα την υιοθεσιαν απολαβωμεν </span>{13}</div>
<div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b><span style="color: black;">4</span></b> <span style="color: #993366;"><b>but when the fulness of the time came</b>,</span> {12}</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: #993366;"><b>God sent forth his Son</b>,</span> {13}</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b><span style="color: #993366;">born of a woman</span></b>, {8}</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b><span style="color: #993366;">born under the law</span></b>, {8}</div>
</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b><span style="color: black;">5 </span><span style="color: #993366;">that he might redeem them that were under the law</span></b>, {12}</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b><span style="color: #993366;">that we might receive the adoption of sons</span></b>. {13}</div>
6 <span style="color: #993366;">And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.</span><br />
7<span style="color: #993366;"> So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666699;"><i>8 Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods: </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #666699;"><i>9 but now that ye have come to know
God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak
and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again?
</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #666699;"><i>10 Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years.</i></span></blockquote>
Verses 1 to 3 are incompatible with verses 4 to 7.<br />
<b>Verses 1-3</b> tell us that an <b>heir is kept in subjection</b> while he is a minor and is little different from a slave, though he is lord of all. Even<b> though he is “in bondage” <i>he is always an heir</i></b> still. Then on the appointed day he becomes free. The heir here is the Gentile or pagan. Chapter 3 explained that the <b>Gentiles are heirs of Abraham</b> and verses 1 to 3 continue in that context.<br />
<b>But 4-7</b> speaks of a quite different situation. <b>A slave is ransomed and adopted as a son.</b> He is really a slave but only <b>after adoption as a son does he become an heir.</b> We are no longer speaking of the pagan Gentile but of <b>the Jew who is under the law</b>
that God gave (3:19). The law here is surely the Mosaic law since
virtually all references to this νομος in the preceding chapter were of
the Mosaic law.<br />
So if 1-3 and 4-7 are speaking of different situations (the former of
one who is always a son and heir and the latter of one who is a slave
who is adopted as a son), verses 8 to 10 must go with the former, verses
1 to 3.<br />
Verses 8 to 10 speak of the folly of one who has come to know God returning to the bondage of the time before he became free. <b>Verses 8-10</b> speak of <b>the governing powers over the child and heir</b>
awaiting the appointed time to become free. This has no relevance to
verses 4 to 7 that make no mention of slave-owners or governing powers.
(And the ruling powers in 8-10 are negatives, not the law of 4:4 that
came from God.)<br />
Now if verses 1-3 and 8-10 are a single and coherent argument, then
they could not have been written by Paul. Why? Because they do not
address the dangers facing the Galatians.<br />
The Galatians were facing the problem of Judaizers — those wanting to
impose the Jewish law. But Paul could hardly have spoken so
disparagingly of the law that he had said came from God. Paul would not
call this Jewish law “weak and beggarly elements” etc. He had only just
declared (3:19) that the law came from God! He had even said Jews have a
right to continue to live “as Jews”, so there was nothing wrong with
that law.<br />
O’Neill suggests the closest heresy known that matches this
description of devotion to days and times and seasons is the heresy of
the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcesaites" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Elchesaites</span></a>. The Elchesaites (known from Hippolytus) appear to be going back to pagan practices, and I (not O’Neill) quote one section <a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/hippolytus9.html" target="_blank">from Hippolytus</a> here:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">But since we have stated that they also bring into requisition <b>astrological deceit</b>, we shall prove this from their own formularies; for <b>Elchasai</b> speaks thus: </span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="color: maroon;">“There exist wicked stars of impiety. This declaration has been now made by us, O ye pious ones and disciples: </span></div>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><span style="color: maroon;"><b>beware of the power of the days</b> of the sovereignty of these stars, and engage not in the commencement of any undertaking during<b> the ruling days</b> of these. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: maroon;">And baptize not man or woman during <b>the days of the power of these stars</b>, when the moon, (emerging) from among them, courses the sky, and travels along with them. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: maroon;"><b>Beware of the very day</b> up to that on which the moon passes out from these stars, and then baptize and enter on every beginning of your works. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: maroon;">But, moreover, <b>honour the day of the Sabbath</b>, since that day is one of those during which prevails (the power) of these stars. </span></li>
<li><span style="color: maroon;">Take care, however, not to commence your works <b>the third day from a Sabbath</b>,
since when three years of the reign of the emperor Trajan are again
completed from the time that he subjected the Parthians to his own
sway,–when, I say, <b>three years have been completed</b>, war
rages between the impious angels of the northern constellations; and on
this account all kingdoms of impiety are in a state of confusion.”</span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Since <b>verses 1-3 and 8-10</b> address a situation that
was not facing the Galatians in the time of Paul (i.e. temptations to
keep the Jewish law) O’Neill concludes they were <b>not originally by Paul</b>. They were a commentary or application of the principles of Paul’s argument to a later situation.<br />
<h4>
<span style="color: #333399;">What, then, of verses 4 to 7, or in particular 4 to 5? </span></h4>
Verse three has been grammatically linked to verse 4, but whoever
wrote verse 3 (about pagans) failed to understand that verse 4 was about
Jews only. Only Jews need to be ransomed from the Law.<br />
So what do we make of 4 to 5?<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
* These refer to Jews. And the writer says “that <i>we</i>
(i.e. the Jews) should receive the adoption”. What does this have to do
with Paul’s attempt to keep the Galatians law-free? O’Neill would
expect that Paul would make a point of arguing that whatever applied to
the Jews who were under the Law also applied to the Gentiles who were
not. But he argues not like that here.</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
* Besides, verses 4 to 5 appear to be a
citation from some sort of Jewish Christian liturgy. Note the chiasmic
structure and syllable pattern that I have highlighted above. The
syllabic pattern is a “striking regularity . . . not to be found in the
surrounding verses.” (p. 59)</div>
But then. . .<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">The great difficulty in the
way of regarding verses 4 and 5 as another gloss is that then the whole
section will have been glossed heavily by two different hands, one
responsible for verses 1-3, 8-10, and the other responsible for verses
4f. <b>Nevertheless, that seems to be the right solution</b>; and verses 4f would have been the first addition, which helped prompt verses 1-3, 8-10, the second addition.</span> (p. 59)</blockquote>
In short, the first giveaway for O’Neill concerning 4:4-5 (if I
understand his point correctly) is that the writer speaks of “we” as if
including himself with his readers as Jews. But more significantly, the
passage has no relevance to Gentiles or ex-pagans whom Paul is
attempting to turn away from Judaizers. One would expect Paul to argue
that any factor applicable to the Jews is also applicable to the
Gentile converts. Besides, the passage appears to have been someone’s
recollection of some credal formula that they have noted against the
original argument.<br />
<h3>
<span style="color: #003366;">Conclusion</span></h3>
I have attempted to present the O’Neill’s argument here as best I
can. Others may have a clearer understanding and wish to clarify or
correct anything. O’Neill himself said:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">I cannot hope to have been
completely right at every point in assigning this verse to Paul, and
that to a glossator, and the other to an interpolator; or even if the
division be right, I can easily have ascribed to Paul what was written
by a commentator on Paul, and to a commentator what was written by Paul
himself — and one such mistake could affect the whole enterprise.</span> (p. 11)</blockquote>
I like working with (or in this case reading and contemplating) ideas
that acknowledge their own uncertain foundations. There are far too
many dogmatic “fundamentalists” even among so-called critical scholars
in this field.<br />
So how to test O’Neill’s thesis?<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: #003366;">The only test of my thesis,
or of any other thesis, is to work through Galatians line by line, and
to see which thesis makes the best sense of the words.</span> (p. 13)</blockquote>
So I am not presenting it as an argument I am firmly convinced about
myself. It is a long time since I studied Galatians intensively and in
depth, and I would prefer to have time to follow through a few remaining
questions before committing to it.<br />
The reason I have posted it here is to demonstrate that there is
indeed an argument for interpolation that does emanate from the high
standards of critical scholarship. It is a reminder how little we know
for sure about the character of the sources we rely upon for early
Christian studies. That, in turn, reminds us how foolish it is to base
dogmatic arguments upon any single passage. Mostly, however, the point
is to show that even a passage that so many take for granted as a
foundational text is not necessarily what it seems to be — even
according to a Churchman many would consider conservative in beliefs yet
who values genuine critical scholarship and intellectual integrity.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2014/01/15/born-of-a-woman-sober-scholarship-questioning-the-authenticity-of-galatians-44/">http://vridar.org/2014/01/15/born-of-a-woman-sober-scholarship-questioning-the-authenticity-of-galatians-44/</a><br />
================<br />
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ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-79100279630121774172017-03-19T04:37:00.001-07:002017-03-19T04:37:07.071-07:00Neil Godfrey : Paul’s understanding of the Earthly Leprechaun (not necessarily Historical) Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Paul’s understanding of the Earthly Leprechaun (not necessarily Historical) Jesus</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
This post addresses an argument that is found well beyond the
covers of Eddy and Boyd. Nevertheless, I have been discussing in this
blog bits of <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/category/book-reviews/eddy-boyd-the-jesus-legend/">Eddy’s and Boyd’s case</a>
for refuting what they label the “‘legendary Jesus’ thesis” and
defending the historicity of Jesus, and to mention them here seems an
appropriate anchor. One of their discussions I have not yet covered is
about Paul’s apparent silence about the life of the human Jesus.<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/2023424/book/30493478">Eddy and Boyd</a> write:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">In this [<i>the “legendary-Jesus theorists”</i>] view, Paul’s silence indicates that he did not view Jesus as a recent historical figure.</span> (p. 201)</blockquote>
What E&B mean by “legendary Jesus theorists” covers a range of
views including those who propose there was no historical person at all:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">In this work, we will use “legend” in its more popular sense of a substantially nonhistorical/fictional story. </span>(p.13)</blockquote>
Here is Eddy and Boyd’s list Paul’s references (my numbering) to a “recent historical Jesus” (p. 209):<span id="more-4989"></span><br />
<ol>
<li>he knew Jesus was born and raised a Jew (Gal. 4:4)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was a descendant of Abraham and David (Gal. 3:16; Rom. 1:3)</li>
<li>he knew he had a brother named James (Gal.1:19)</li>
<li>and perhaps other brothers as well (1 Cor. 9:5)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was meek, loving, humble and serving (2 Cor. 10:1; Phil. 2:5-7)</li>
<li>he knew by their names disciples who ministered to Jesus (no reference supplied)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus’s disciple Peter was married (reference supplied for a
Cephas having a wife, only; not for Peter being a disciple of Jesus: 1
Cor. 9:5)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was betrayed (1 Cor. 11:23)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was crucified (1 Cor. 1:17-18; Gal. 5:1; 6:12; Phil.
2:8; 3:18 — but he omits here Paul’s reference to the responsible party —
archons, or “rulers of the age”)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was crucified “with the help of Jews in Judea” (1 Thess 2:14-15)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus instituted a memorial meal the night before his death (1 Cor. 11:23-25)</li>
<li>he knew Jesus was buried and resurrected three days later (Rom. 4:24-25; 1 Cor. 15: 4-8)</li>
</ol>
This list is interesting in that there is not a single item that I can see as pointing to a “recent historical” person.<br />
Perhaps what Eddy and Boyd meant was what are in fact references in
Paul’s letters to the concept of an “earthly Jesus”. This is not the
same concept as an “historical Jesus”.<br />
Another interesting thing happens when we return the above points to
their original contexts. Following is what emerges about Paul’s belief
in an earthly Jesus, at least by analogy.<br />
Compare a report of a leprechaun who entered the human realm through being born of a woman.<br />
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 161px;">
<br />
<div class="wp-caption-text">
<br /></div>
</div>
This woman is, moreover and most appropriately for a leprechaun, said
to have been descended from King Arthur. In other versions of the tale
she remained a ‘sealed virgin’ after giving birth.<br />
This leprechaun in human form was defeated and killed in combat by goblins.<br />
But he did not remain dead. He revived and returned to the leprechaun
world whence he originally came. Once back seated in his former glory
beside his father, the ruler of the leprechauns, he gave his daddy the
right, according to the rules of the Emerald Isle, to adopt as personal
sons all humans who believed the story.<br />
And many years later a letter was “discovered” by a
leprechaunist-marcionite branch of this cult and some time after it had
passed through the catholicist-tertullian branch it included a claim
that the author had met a brother of the goblin-defeated
leprechaun-human.<br />
The difference between belief in an “earthly” Jesus and an “historical” Jesus ought never be considered overly subtle.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2010/01/17/pauls-understanding-of-the-earthly-leprechaun-not-historical-jesus/">http://vridar.org/2010/01/17/pauls-understanding-of-the-earthly-leprechaun-not-historical-jesus/</a><br />
====================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-69347408887251694462017-03-19T04:32:00.000-07:002017-03-19T04:32:02.073-07:00Neil Godfrey : How Joseph was piously invented to be the “father” of Jesus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
How Joseph was piously invented to be the “father” of Jesus</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
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<br /></div>
<div class="zemanta-img" style="display: block; margin: 1em;">
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<dl class="wp-caption alignright"></dl>
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This post continues from the previous one about John the Baptist’s parents. It’s a sharing of my reading of John Shelby Spong’s <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/169533/book/7607376">Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes . . .</a>.
I covered in that earlier post the rationale for searching the Old
Testament scriptures for an understanding of the Gospel author’s choices
of names and narrative episodes.<br />
Spong begins his discussion of Joseph by reminding readers how
“shadowy” he is in the Scriptures. Much legend has accrued around him
since the Gospels were written, but the New Testament has very little to
say about him at all.<br />
<h3>
The earliest Christian evidence</h3>
Neither he nor Mary appears at all in Paul’s writings.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">At the very least, we can
state that to the degree that Paul represented Christianity in the
fifth, sixth, and seventh decades of this common era, there was no
interest in Jesus’ origins or his parentage at that stage in the
development of the Christian story. </span><br />
<span style="color: teal;">. . . Paul’s writing gives us no indication that he had ever heard of or had any interest in the miraculous birth traditions.</span> (p. 202)</blockquote>
Spong emphasizes the indications in Paul’s letters that Paul thought
Jesus’ birth was quite normal. He points to Galatians 4:4 (“born of a
woman”) and Romans 1:3 (from David “according to the flesh”). Others
have noted, however, that one does not naturally refer to anyone’s birth
as being “of a woman” or “according to flesh”! I would expect to get
strange looks if in any conversation I managed to explain that I or
anyone present was “born of a woman”! That such apparently obvious
truisms are made explicit does raise questions about the intent of such
phrases in Paul’s letters. But I’ll continue here with Spong’s
explanation.<br />
<h3>
The next Christian evidence<span id="more-16474"></span></h3>
The first gospel written, Mark (those who question this chronology of
Mark can play quick mind re-calcuations here), does introduce “slight
biographical data about the family of Jesus” for the first time.<br />
But Joseph does not appear in this data.<br />
Mark’s first mention of Jesus family portrays them as coming to “take
Jesus away” because it was being said that he was “out of his mind”,
insane. (This image hardly sits with an author who thinks that this
mother had given birth as a virgin to this son.) Religious leaders were
accusing him of being demon-possessed.<br />
Jesus responds by disowning his natural family.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%203:20-35&version=NKJV">Mark 3:20-35</a></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">20 Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 But when <b>His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.”</b></span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">22 And <b>the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebub,”</b> and, “By the ruler of the demons He casts out demons.” . . . . </span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">28 “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins
will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may
utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has
forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”— 30 because <b>they said, “He has an unclean spirit.”</b></span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">31 Then <b>His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. </b>32 And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.”</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">33 But <b>He answered them, saying,
“Who is My mother, or My brothers?” 34 And He looked around in a circle
at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My
brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My
sister and mother.”</b></span></blockquote>
But the significance of this earliest appearance of any information
about Jesus’ family is that the mother is nameless and no earthly father
appears.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Next Exhibit</h3>
The second reference in Mark to the family of Jesus gives us, for the
first time in the Christian record, the name of his mother and
brothers. Sisters are also mentioned.<br />
But no father is mentioned. Joseph is still an unknown. There is no
hint in the record up to this point that anyone had heard of Joseph.<br />
Mark in fact hints at a scandal here.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">To call a Jewish man, in this era, the son of a woman was to suggest that his paternity was in question or at least unknown. </span>(p. 205)</blockquote>
For Mark, Mary, the mother of Jesus, held no noteworthy status. The
only two times Mark mentions her he places her in a negative
relationship with Jesus. She does not appear at the crucifixion or at
his tomb afterwards.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%206:1-6&version=NKJV">Mark 6:1-6</a></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">1 Then He went out from
there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him. 2 And
when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many
hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these
things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty
works are performed by His hands! 3 <b>Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon?</b> And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">4 But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is
not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives,
and in his own house.” 5 Now He could do no mighty work there, except
that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And He
marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a
circuit, teaching.</span></blockquote>
There was another Gospel, John, that also contained no narrative of a
virgin birth, and that, like Mark, also brought up the suggestion of
Jesus’ birth being tainted with scandal:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%208:41&version=NKJV">John 8:40-41</a></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">But now you seek to kill Me,
a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did
not do this. You do the deeds of your father.”</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;"><b>Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication</b>; we have one Father—God.”</span></blockquote>
<h3>
The evidence of the later Gospels — Matthew and Luke</h3>
Joseph appears in these gospels only in their respective birth narratives.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">Take away from Matthew and
Luke the birth stories, including the story of the boy Jesus being taken
up to Jerusalem at age twelve, and Joseph disappears from these
gospels. So Joseph appeared to play a role on the stage of these gospels
<b>only as a character solely identified with the late-developing miraculous birth tradition</b>. Outside those birth stories, Joseph was not referred to by name in either gospel.</span> (p. 206, my bold)</blockquote>
Unlike Mark, Matthew does not contain any narrative in which Jesus’ family appear hostile to Jesus.<br />
Mark’s second appearance of Jesus’ family contained a hint of scandal
by identifying Jesus with reference to his mother and not his father.
Mark had also said Jesus himself was “a carpenter”.<br />
Contrast Matthew’s account. Rather than identify Jesus by his mother,
he introduces Jesus’ earthly father, known from the earlier birth
narrative by the name Joseph, into the scene of Jesus returning to his
hometown and being. In so doing Matthew shifts the carpentry profession
from Jesus to Joseph. Where Mark wrote “Is not this the carpenter?”,
Matthew wrote, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?”, and continued with,
“Is not his mother called Mary?”<br />
This is the sole indicator that Joseph was ever a carpenter. It is
generally seen as an editorial re-writing of Mark’s description of Jesus
as a carpenter as part of Matthew’s attempt to remove the whiff of
negativity associated with Jesus’ birth in Mark’s gospel.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">From this single Matthean
editorial addition has come the image of the earthly father of Jesus
being a carpenter, and pictures of Jesus helping his father in Joseph’s
carpentry shop entered the world of medieval art. </span>(p. 207)</blockquote>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013:54-58&version=NKJV">Matthew 13:54-58</a></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">54 When He had come to His
own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were
astonished and said, “Where did this Man get this wisdom and these
mighty works? 55 <b>Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?</b> 56 And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this Man get all these things?” 57 So they were offended at Him.</span><br />
<span style="color: maroon;">But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is
not without honor except in his own country and in his own house.” 58
Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.</span></blockquote>
<h3>
John’s Gospel</h3>
Joseph only makes two “oblique references” in John’s Gospel. (In both it is assumed he is the natural father of Jesus.) See <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201:45;%206:42&version=NKJV">John 1:45 and 6:42</a>.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white;">.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
—</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white;">.</span></div>
There is not a single appearance of Joseph (apart from a reference to
his name) in any Gospel in relation to the adult life of Jesus.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;"><b>Almost everything we know about Joseph comes out of the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke.</b></span> (p. 208)</blockquote>
And these birth narratives appear in Gospels that do not appear until the last decades of the first century.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">This means that since Joseph
appeared nowhere in Christian writings before the ninth decade, he as
clearly neither an original nor an early part of the Christian story. So
a new . . . question begins to invade our consciousness. Was Joseph a
legendary character developed by the tradition to fill in an enormous
blank in the story that existed as the virgin birth tradition was
developed? Was he a fictitious character created first by Matthew and
then incorporated by Luke? That possibility becomes larger and more
focused as these data accumulate. </span>(p. 208)</blockquote>
<h3>
Joseph in Matthew’s Birth Narrative</h3>
Who was Joseph for Matthew? (See <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201:16-2:23&version=NKJV">Matthew 1:16-2:23</a>)<br />
<ol>
<li>Husband of Mary of whom Jesus the Christ was to be born (1:16)</li>
<li>Son of Jacob (1:16)</li>
<li>A just man unwilling to shame Mary on discovering she was with child, and resolving to divorce her quietly (1:19)</li>
<li>A recipient of divine messages through dreams (1:20; 2:13; 2:19; 2:22)</li>
<li>In one dream he was addressed as “son of David” (1:20)</li>
<li>Divine origin of the baby was revealed in a dream, and the text that prophesied this (1:22, 23)</li>
<li>A dream revealed the name by which the baby was to be known (1:21)</li>
<li>In a dream he was warned to flee to Egypt to save the child’s life (2:13)</li>
<li>In a dream he was ordered to return from Egypt (2:20)</li>
<li>In a dream he was warned not to settle in Judea but to move to Galilee (2:22)</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;"><b>Each action</b>, the virgin birth of Jesus, the flight into Egypt, the return, and the choice of Nazareth as a home, <b>was
done in order “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet,” and
the scriptural allusion was implied, driving readers into the Hebrew
texts</b> (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%207:14&version=NKJV">Isa. 7:14</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hosea%2011:1&version=NKJV">Hos. 11:1</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2011:1&version=NKJV">Isa. 11:1</a> or <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%204:3&version=NKJV">4:3</a>, <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges%2016:17&version=NKJV">Judges 16:17</a>). </span>(p. 209)</blockquote>
Also noteworthy is that Matthew always portrays Joseph as obedient to divine instructions:<br />
<ol>
<li>He took his wife (1:24)</li>
<li>He rose and took the child and its mother to Egypt (2:14)</li>
<li>He rose and took them back to Israel (2:21)</li>
<li>He went and dwelt in Nazareth (2:23)</li>
</ol>
Joseph was also said to have “not known” his wife until she gave
birth to Jesus (1:25 — compare Gen. 4:1). The earliest appearance of
Joseph thus precedes the time when the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual
virginity was being developed.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">The Joseph that we meet in
Matthew is always responsive to the direction of a text from the Hebrew
scriptures. . . . Is it possible not only that Matthew invented Joseph,
but also that we can discern the Jewish <i>midrashic </i>methods that he employed to accomplish this literary task?</span></blockquote>
If so, Spong asks if we can suggest a reason for the choice of the
name of Joseph, and what details are found in other Josephs that match
Matthew’s portrait.<br />
<h3>
Choice of the name “Joseph”</h3>
<b>The geopolitical choice</b><br />
Biblical Israel was divided into two kingdoms. The northern Kingdom
of Israel or Samaria was predominantly made up of the sons of Joseph,
and sometimes called “Ephraim”, the firstborn of Joseph. The southern
Kingdom of Judah was the original base of the dynasty of King David. It
was here, in Bethlehem, that the Messiah was prophesied to be born.<br />
The Christ was to come from David, and hence from Bethlehem in Judah.
But Matthew’s Jesus was also living and working in Galilee, the remnant
of the northern kingdom of Joseph.<br />
Moreover, the authors of Chronicles addressed the question of the
royal line being through Judah, and relationship between the two
kingdoms of Judah and Joseph, and concluded that the birthright belonged
to Joseph.<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Chronicles%205:1-2&version=NKJV">1 Chronicles 5:1-2</a></span></div>
<blockquote>
<span style="color: maroon;">1 Now the sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel—he was indeed the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s bed, <b>his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph</b>,
the son of Israel, so that the genealogy is not listed according to the
birthright; 2 yet Judah prevailed over his brothers, and from him came a
ruler, <b>although the birthright was Joseph’s</b>—</span></blockquote>
The name “Joseph” would thus serve the purpose of acknowledging the
northern origin of Jesus. And if Joseph was also the son of David, the
southern origin of Jesus was also acknowledged. Thus the dual origins of
Jesus would be recognized in the parentage of Jesus. The Chronicles
passage may, furthermore, well have been interpreted as stating that the
birthright of the Messiah was to be Joseph’s. If so, this could be
symbolized by the choice of the name Joseph.<br />
(Spong does not refer to the evidence suggesting the possibility that
there was also a belief in another Messiah to come from the northern
kingdom prior to the advent of the Messiah from David, and known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_ben_Joseph">Messiah ben [son of] Joseph</a>.)<br />
<b>The genealogical choice</b><br />
Joshua (the Hebrew form of the Greek Jesus) means “God is salvation”, a most apt name for a saviour.<br />
The name was common enough among Jews, but only two Joshuas have a
significant part to play in the Hebrew Scriptures. The first one was the
Joshua who succeeded Moses.<br />
Connections between this Joshua and Jesus are easily recognized:<br />
<ol>
<li>Joshua fulfilled the promise prepared for by Moses; Jesus fulfilled the promise prepared for by John the Baptist.</li>
<li>Joshua created extra daylight to fulfil his task (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2010&version=NKJV">Josh. 10</a>:12-14);
Jesus fulfilled his task as extra darkness covered the earth (Matt.
27:45), and became the source of eternal light of the world.
<ul>
<li><i>Not alluded to by Spong, but the same story of the extra
daylight culminated in the burial of five kings in a cave that was
sealed with stones; the kings were later brought out alive, executed and
then hung on trees, and then resealed in the cave. Crossan and others
have observed the link between this passage and the Gospel story of
Jesus’ burial in a “cave” that was sealed by a large stone.</i></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
But for our purposes, it is significant that this Joshua belonged to
the tribe of Joseph. He was given an inheritance and buried in the
tribal area of the first son of Joseph, Ephraim: Josh. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2019:49-50&version=NKJV">19:49-50</a>; <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2024:30&version=NKJV">24:30</a>.<br />
So this first Jesus (Joshua) was also a son of Joseph.<br />
The second renowned Joshua in the Hebrew Bible is discussed in the
prophetic books of Zechariah and Haggai. As pointed out in the previous
post, this Joshua (Jesus) was in Zechariah 4:14 described as one
anointed by God, meaning he was a “messiah” or “christ”.<br />
The father of this second Joshua was the son of Jehozadak (<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Haggai%201&version=NKJV">Haggai 1</a>:1, 12), or Jozadak, or Josedech or Josedek.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">I submit that this is too
close to Joseph to be ignored. So the two primary biblical figures in
Jewish history who bear the name Joshua/Jesus were both related to a
paternal figure named Joseph or to a variation of that name. When these
facts are added to the suggestion in 1 Chronicles that the “birthright”
belonged to Joseph, the case becomes firmer. These Hebrew sacred
traditions could have constituted sufficient justification for the
author of Matthew’s gospel to add this bit to the fulfillment of the
scriptures by suggesting that the earthly father of Jesus, who was
called Christ, would be named Joseph. </span>(pp. 213-4)</blockquote>
<h3>
Joseph’s Character and Experiences</h3>
Matthew described Joseph as a “just” or “upright” man who planned a
compassionate and merciful alternative to having Mary publicly shamed or
executed. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2022:23-25&version=NKJV">Deuteronomy 22:23-25</a>
decreed that a betrothed virgin who was violated in the city was to be
executed (if she had cried for help she could have been rescued) but a
betrothed virgin violated in the country (and out of earshot) should be
allowed to live, but the marriage cancelled. Joseph was thus presented
as a wronged man who did not seek revenge or justice.<br />
Spong compares this with the famous Joseph of Genesis 37-50. He had
been wronged by his brothers but nevertheless took action to spare them
and to save their lives once he attained power in Egypt.<br />
This same Genesis Joseph was also famous for his ability to interpret
dreams, and for the way his life was led by revelations that came to
him (or others) in dreams. Dreams led him to understand that he would be
the ruler over his brethren, and it was his dreams that led others to
hate and love him.<br />
Matthew had his Joseph also be guided at each point of his life by dream revelations from God.<br />
Spong writes: “Embrace the similarities!”<br />
<ol>
<li>Both the Joseph in Genesis and the Joseph of Matthew had<b> fathers named Jacob</b></li>
<li>Both Josephs had lives and careers marked by <b>dreams</b></li>
<li>Both Josephs played dramatic roles in salvation history</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>The Patriarch Joseph <b>saved his family by bringing them down into Egypt</b></li>
<li>Matthew’s Joseph <b>saved Jesus and Mary by bringing them down to Egypt</b></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Then when God wanted to send Joseph back to Israel, he came to Joseph
in a dream and said: “Those who sought the child’s life are dead”
(Matt. 2:20).<br />
This was the same word God spoke to Moses when he wanted him to
return to Egypt: “For all the men seeking your life are dead.” (Exod.
4:19)<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">The textual similarity served Matthew’s later task of <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/jesus-moses-matthew/">identifying Jesus with Moses</a> in a <i>midrashic</i> manner. </span>(p. 215)</blockquote>
<h3>
Luke’s Disagreements with Matthew</h3>
Luke found meanings in other scriptures, and accordingly wrote <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/jesus-as-the-new-elijah-and-the-gospel-was-a-symbolic-tale-according-to-a-scholarly-view/">a different view of Jesus</a> from Matthew’s.<br />
One resulting difference of was for him to give Joseph a different
father from the one assigned by Matthew. Matthew had, in imitation of
the Patriarch Joseph’s father, named his own Joseph as the son of Jacob.
But Luke’s Joseph was said to be the son of Heli. See <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%201:16;%20Luke%203:23&version=NKJV">Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23</a>.<br />
Luke’s nativity story was largely woven out of the story of Hannah and Samuel (1 Samuel 1-3):<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="width: 100%px;">
<colgroup><col width="128*"></col>
<col width="128*"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="50%">God announced through a priest to Hannah that she would have a child (1 Sam 1:17)</td>
<td width="50%">God announced through an angel to Mary that she would have a child</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="50%">Hannah responded: “Let your maid servant find favour in your sight” (1 Sam 1:18)</td>
<td width="50%">Mary responded: “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your will.” (Luke 1:38)</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="50%">Hannah’s song began: “My soul exults in the Lord and my strength is exalted in the Lord.” (1 Sam. 2:1-10)</td>
<td width="50%">Mary’s song began: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit exults in God my savior” (Luke 1:46-55)</td>
</tr>
<tr valign="TOP">
<td width="50%">Hannah and her husband took Samuel to the Temple when he was of age (1 Sam. 1:22)</td>
<td width="50%">Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple when he was twelve (Luke 2:41-50)</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br />
<br />
Now the priest Samuel served was Eli, and old enough to be his grandfather.<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">So Luke, continuing to lean
for his details on the Samuel material, made the father of Joseph, or
Jesus’ grandfather, bear the name Eli; but since he did it under the
Greek spelling, Heli, few people grasp that connection quickly. It was
another clear <i>midrashic</i> use of ancient sources by the gospel
writers and signals rather loudly that we are not dealing with history
in these gospel narratives. We are, in fact, dealing with the <i>midrashic</i> interpretations by Jewish people seeking to process their experience of God in Jesus of Nazareth in a traditional Jewish way.</span> (p. 216)</blockquote>
<h3>
The deadly alternative</h3>
People who have read the Joseph narratives as history have generally
attempted to explain his disappearance from the Gospels right after the
birth scenes by saying he must have died early.<br />
Not that Spong alludes to this, but this “knock ’em off” explanation
is the same rationale some (even learned scholars) use to explain the
contradictory name-lists of the apostles. Some died and were replaced by
new names throughout Jesus’ one or three year ministry.<br />
A better explanation, Spong offers, is that Joseph “never existed.”<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">Joseph, I believe, was a product of a <i>midrashic</i>
Jewish use of their sacred scriptures that created a narrative out of
the Jewish past to interpret biblically the meaning of the presence of
God that had been met and experienced in Jesus of Nazareth. The concern
of Jewish writers was not to relate biographical facts, but to interpret
within the framework of their faith tradition the meaning of the
experience that they had with the living God. So Joseph as Jesus’
earthly father, patterned after the Joseph of the book of Genesis and
symbolized by the fathers of the two major Joshua/Jesus figures of
Hebrew history, entered the Christian story in the ninth decade from the
pen of the Jewish/Christian scribe who wrote the book we call Matthew.</span> (p. 217)</blockquote>
I covered in my previous post how Spong explains why this understanding was lost after the church became predominantly gentile.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2011/01/03/how-joseph-was-invented-as-the-father-of-jesus/">http://vridar.org/2011/01/03/how-joseph-was-invented-as-the-father-of-jesus/</a><br />
===================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-53269776770323673852017-03-19T04:27:00.001-07:002017-03-19T04:27:22.529-07:00Neil Godfrey : Seed of David, born of woman, and mythicism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Seed of David, born of woman, and mythicism</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
I
have been recently addressing some common misconceptions about
mythicist arguments. Another one is that “mythicism” places strained
interpretations on passages that refer to Jesus as “the seed of David”
and as being “born of a woman.” This post does not explore all the ins
and outs of the arguments, but briefly points to what is overlooked by
many of the historicist critics.<br />
Other misconceptions I have recently addressed:<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<b>Mythicism’s alleged reliance on arguments from silence and too many assumptions:</b></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/doherty-the-sublunar-realm-and-paul-correcting-some-disinformation/</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br />
<b>Mythicism’s alleged reliance on arguments for interpolations and metaphors </b>(this includes a comment on the specifics of this post – seed of David and born of woman):</div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/do-mythicists-read-pauls-references-to-jesus-humanity-as-interpolations-or-metaphors-or-is-it-the-historicists-who-do-this/</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br />
<b>James the brother of the Lord:</b></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/applying-sound-historical-methodology-to-james-the-brother-of-the-lord/<br />
and http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/the-plot-driven-need-to-create-siblings-for-jesus/</div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br />
<b>Doherty’s sublunar realm discussions:</b></div>
<div style="padding-left: 60px;">
http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/doherty-the-sublunar-realm-and-paul-correcting-some-disinformation/</div>
<br />
<b>So what about the “seed of David” and “born of woman” readings?</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHHfVlS9xzXhrhH92cjAMS3-tBo0ae5YLpPu9k5ic8_DSvfgp8XskmjUObqrsq_26-BvElneD9PzgukPKJvq2y3fTWQJ1HVE_PXnGyzI21IrgxjKuqK2F-oqvacKjIaD7B1J4_rmqeVmo/s1600/kingchrt1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHHfVlS9xzXhrhH92cjAMS3-tBo0ae5YLpPu9k5ic8_DSvfgp8XskmjUObqrsq_26-BvElneD9PzgukPKJvq2y3fTWQJ1HVE_PXnGyzI21IrgxjKuqK2F-oqvacKjIaD7B1J4_rmqeVmo/s640/kingchrt1.jpg" width="491" /></a></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Mythicism per se does not hang on any particular reading of either of these passages in Romans and Galatians.<span id="more-12942"></span><br />
For example, there is nothing odd at all in the notion that a
mythical character might be descended from a famed royal line or be born
of a woman. Look at the mix of mythical and historical persons in the
chart long cherished by British Israelites, for example.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It is worth keeping in mind that, in the
light of recent scholarship and archaeological research, it is extremely
unlikely that there ever was a “family of David” recognized as such
throughout the Second Temple period. Major investment in institutional
hedges would need to be maintained to guard its lineage in some
identifiable sense if there were. Otherwise probably every Simon, Judah
and Joseph in Palestine could have claimed a family tie to such an
ancestor just as countless nobodies today across the continents can
literally trace some family tie to the British Royal family.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As for the “born of woman” passage, it is
unnecessary to single out examples of mythical characters who have been
“born of women”.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
My point here is not that this is what
“mythicists” believe or argue in connection with these verses in Paul.
It is to point out that the common default response of historicist
critics does not rebut “mythicism” or establish the argument for the
historicity of Jesus.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It is Doherty’s interpretation of these
passages that has gained some prominence on the net, and I think many
critics of mythicism have simply assumed that Doherty’s arguments are to
be equated with “the mythicist” arguments — not that I have seen any
evidence that these critics generally are aware of the nature of
Doherty’s specific arguments.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Doherty’s argument is not “the mythicist”
argument, but one of several arguments found among mythicists. In this
respect, there is little difference from what we find among historical
Jesus scholars who debate widely varying interpretations of the
historical value of certain passages, their meanings, and conclusions to
be drawn from them. Doherty examines the “seed of David” passage in
comparison with similar phrases and terminology in Paul’s letters, and
argues that it ought to be read as a mystical or spiritual meaning. One
thinks of the way Kochba was presented as a Davidic Messiah, and the
ambiguity of the Davidic references in Mark’s gospel, as well as the
clearly spiritual meaning Paul invests in his “seed of Abraham”
references.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
But Doherty is not mythicism. He is one of a
number of proponents of mythicism. One can disagree with Doherty’s
interpretations, but that will no more dent the core case for mythicism
than an argument against a Bultmannian interpretation of a Gospel
passage will shake an argument for historicity.<br />
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So look at another well-known mythicist, one
for whose arguments R. Joseph Hoffmann has expressed some measure of
respect: G. A. Wells.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Here is what Wells has to say of the “seed of David” passage, with reference to the “born of woman” verse:</div>
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: teal;">The earliest
mention of Jesus’ Davidic descent is Paul’s statement (Rom. 1:3-4) that
he is God’s son, “descended from David according to [i.e. in the sphere
of] the flesh, and designated son of God in power according to the
spirit of holiness [that is, in the sphere of the holy spirit] by his
resurrection from the dead.” Paul, we recall, believed that Jesus had
alway existed as son of God before coming to earth. Hence he is not here
saying that Jesus was “designated” or “appointed” son of God only after
his resurrection, but rather that he was designated son of God <i>in power</i>
after that event . . . On earth he lived, according to Paul, obscurely
and humbly, but after his resurrection was properly enthroned as God’s
son. Thus his Davidic existence on earth was part of his act of humbling
himself by assuming human form. Paul says that Jesus, “though he was in
the form of God,” nevertheless “emptied himself, taking the form of a
servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6-7). Thus
“descended from David according to the flesh” of Rom. 1:3 is parallel to
“born of a woman, born under the law” of Gal. 4:4, in that in both
cases submission to something humiliating is implied.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: teal;"><b>Conservative
scholars conjecture that Paul derived his information that Jesus was
descended from David from the original community of Christians at
Jerusalem, who, they believe, had known Jesus personally. But nothing
that Paul says supports this. When he affirms Jesus’ Davidic descent,
his intention is surely to state an article of faith on which both he
and the Christian community at Rome which he is addressing (and which he
never visited) are agreed. He must therefore have reckoned that his
tenet was current there, and it is clear from his letter that — as one
would in any case have expected — Christians at Rome about AD 60 were
Gentiles or Diaspora Jews (in both cases Greek speaking). And so nothing
in the evidence necessarily points to any connection with a Palestinian
Jesus and Aramaic-speaking disciples.</b> </span>(<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/564185/book/7606599">The Historical Evidence for Jesus</a>, p. 175)</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So it is misguided of opponents of the
mythical view of Jesus to dismiss the whole case primarily over
disagreements with interpretations of a handful of arguments that they
seem to deploy as simplistic proof-texts for the historicist position.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://vridar.org/2010/08/18/seed-of-david-born-of-woman-and-mythicism/">http://vridar.org/2010/08/18/seed-of-david-born-of-woman-and-mythicism/</a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
================== </div>
</div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-80768779849621662552017-03-19T04:21:00.000-07:002017-03-19T04:21:23.029-07:00Neil Godfrey : Did Jesus Have A Body?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Did Jesus Have A Body?</h2>
<br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br /></div>
Frank Zindler’s <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/book/92798705" target="_blank"><i>Through Atheist Eyes: Scenes From a World That Won’t Reason</i></a>
is a treasure chest of reflections on religion, Christianity in
particular. I’m sure he won’t mind if I share a few of them here from
time to time.<br />
In chapter 15 of volume 1 he captures the essence of a curiosity in
the New Testament that seems to generally fly right over the heads of
anyone prone to take reputed Holy Writ far too seriously. How often do
we hear even professors of religion declaring that the Christ Myth is
patently false because the apostle Paul wrote that Jesus had a body!
They are usually more specific than that. They’ll say Paul wrote that
Jesus was born to a woman! And that Jesus had flesh and blood. There it
is! In plain print! Jesus was no myth!<br />
The sorts of passages they’ll usually quote are:<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
Galatians 4:4-5 <sup> </sup><span style="color: maroon;">But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, <b><i>born of a woman</i></b>, born under the law,to redeem those under the law</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
Romans 1:3 <span style="color: maroon;"> concerning his Son, who was descended from David <b><i>according to the flesh</i></b></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
Romans 8:3 <span style="color: maroon;"> For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son <b><i>in the likeness of sinful flesh</i></b> and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
Colossians 1:21-22 <span style="color: maroon;"> Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because ofyour evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you <b><i>by Christ’s physical body</i></b> through death</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
1 Timothy 3:16<span style="color: maroon;"> Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was <b><i>manifested in the flesh</i></b>, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
1 Peter 3:18 <span style="color: maroon;"> For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, <b><i>being put to death in the flesh</i></b> but made alive in the spirit,</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
1 Peter 4:1 <span style="color: maroon;"> Since therefore <b><i>Christ suffered in the flesh</i></b>, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
1 John 4:1-3 <span style="color: maroon;">
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see
whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out
into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every
spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ <b><i>has come in the flesh</i></b>
is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not
from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is
coming and even now is already in the world.</span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
2 John 1:7 <span style="color: maroon;"> For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ<b><i> as coming in the flesh</i></b>. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
Frank Zindler delves a little into the consensus dates for these
texts and other extra-biblical writings expressing similar thoughts. I’m
in the mood for a much simpler post for now so here’s the pertinent
point:<span id="more-35584"></span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: teal;">It should be noted that in
all of the verses I have quoted the writers seem to have gone out of
their way to stress that Jesus had a body — something one might think
would be a given. Why would these sacred authors bother to mention such a
fact? </span><br />
<span style="color: teal;">If I were writing about my childhood and
talking about the exciting times I had with my grandfather, wouldn’t it
seem more than odd if I mentioned even once, “By the way, my
grandfather had a body”? What if I told you, “My grandfather had a
mother”? </span><br />
<span style="color: teal;"><b>Clearly the verses quoted were written to contradict rival Christians who were claiming that Jesus only <i>seemed</i> to have a body.</b></span> (p. 218, my bolding and formatting)</blockquote>
These rival Christians, Zindler notes, are known to us today as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism" target="_blank">Docestists</a>.<br />
There is more to Zindler’s chapter as I noted. One additional point
asks the reader to stop and think through the situation understood by
the dates of the above scriptures: they were written as early as 25
years after the supposed death of Jesus.<br />
But the main point I have brought out here stands on its own. Anyone
who tries to build a case for the historicity of Jesus on verses like
Galatians 4:4 that say Jesus was born of a woman has to have a very
strong poker face in order to conceal just how weird it is to say
someone had a woman for a mother!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2013/02/14/did-jesus-have-a-body/">http://vridar.org/2013/02/14/did-jesus-have-a-body/</a><br />
================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-9018057489564196082017-03-19T04:06:00.000-07:002017-03-19T04:06:39.776-07:00Neil Godfrey : Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History (6)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Dating the Book of Acts: the Marcionite Context (1)</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<strong></strong><br /> </div>
This post continues notes from Tyson’s <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/details/14712666" target="_blank">Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle</a>. Previous posts reconsidering the date of the composition of Acts and the Marcionite challenge can be found in my <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/category/book-reviews/tyson/" target="_blank">Tyson</a> and <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/category/religion/marcion/" target="_blank">Marcion</a> archives.<br />
Tyson begins with Haenchen. <span id="more-654"></span>Haenchen (on
the assumption of a first century date for the composition of Acts)
attempted to explain the fact that there is no certain evidence that
Acts was widely known before the middle of the second century by it
having no “life situation” in the church before then. It was not used in
preaching, had no wider value for the church, and only survived because
of its association with the Gospel of Luke. H notes that Acts first
proved useful in the struggle against Gnosticism and was extensively
used by Irenaeus.<br />
For Tyson, Haenchen creates the problem for himself by insisting on a
first century date for the composition of Acts while finding no context
for its reception before the late second century. Tyson argues that the
earlier neglect of Acts is better explained by it not being available
than by the assumption that “no earlier writer knew what to make of it.”
(p.51)<br />
Tyson explores the possibility of finding a context that would give
meaning to both the composition and reception of Acts. Of course a work
can find itself being used for purposes in ways its author never
intended, but nor is there any reason to avoid asking if their is a
context that explains both the composition of Acts and its first usage.<br />
To this end Tyson asks:<br />
<ul>
<li>What are the themes of Acts?</li>
<li>What literary patterns are employed?</li>
<li>How are the characters portrayed?</li>
<li>Why does the author adopt these themes and shape these characterizations?</li>
<li>In what historical context does this kind of presentation best fit?</li>
</ul>
<h2>
Themes and literary patterns in Acts</h2>
Tyson begins with the problem of subjectivity and absence of accepted
method in determining the controlling themes in Acts. There are many
lists of themes in Acts but no or few clear explanations about how they
were determined.<br />
Since questions of genre and the intended audience of Acts are also
problematic, and in the discussions depend in part on a subjective
assessment of the themes of Acts, Tyson decides he must find a way of
determining the fundamental themes of Acts without (circular) reference
to genre or audience.<br />
Tyson therefore seeks the dominant themes of Acts in the following:<br />
<ol>
<li>redactional passages, where the author summarizes or interprets events in his own voice</li>
<li>repeated literary patterns</li>
<li>“exemplary episodes that contain points of stress to which the author returns on several occasions</li>
</ol>
Some themes will form parts of the structure of the narrative; others will be stressed through repetition.<br />
<h3>
<b>1. The Summaries and their themes </b></h3>
The summaries lay great stress on the <i><b>growth of the community</b></i> (Acts 2:47; 5:14)<br />
<blockquote>
in Jerusalem (2:41; 4:4; 6:1, 7; 21:20)<br />
and beyond (9:31; 11:21, 24; 12:24; 14:1; 19:20)</blockquote>
Summaries also stress the <i><b>order of the community</b></i> (Acts 2:42, 43; 4:33, 35; 5:12)<br />
<blockquote>
This order is maintained by the apostles who were
appointed by Jesus (1:2), who proclaim the resurrection and perform
miracles. The story of both why and how their number Twelve was
maintained is carefully and fully explained (1:15-26). The requirements
for apostolic leadership are made clear, and the names of the twelve
made public. The apostles speak for the community before potential
converts and political and religious leaders; they also control the
community’s property ownership and distribution (4:35; 5:1-11).</blockquote>
Summaries emphasize the <b><i>divine leadership of the community</i></b> (Acts 2:47; 4:33)<br />
<blockquote>
Most prominent examples are the divine guidance in the
choice of the twelfth apostle (1:15-26) and the descent of the spirit at
Pentecost (2:1-13)</blockquote>
Summaries give special stress to the <b><i>internal harmony of the community</i></b> (Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24; 5:12)<br />
<blockquote>
The characteristic word used in this connection is <a href="http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3661&version=kjv" target="_blank">Homothumadon</a>
(concord, agreement) which is found nowhere else in the New Testament
apart from once in Romans 15:6 — ten times altogether in Acts. (1:14;
2:46; 4:24; 5:12) The story of Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-11) shows
awareness of violations of this accord, but also shows how harmony was
quickly restored.</blockquote>
<h3>
2. Literary Patterns and their themes</h3>
Note the literary pattern used to support the harmony theme<br />
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: a utopian beginning, exemplified by Barnabas — 4:32-37</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: the lie of Ananias and Sapphira– 5:1-2</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: Peter’s condemnation and elimination of the threat — 5:3-10</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: the whole community in awe — 5:11</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
Note the same literary pattern in Acts 1:12-2:1; 5:12-42; 6:1-7; 8:6-13; 8:14-25 and elsewhere.<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Acts 1:12-2:1 </b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: All united in one room in prayer</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: Judas fell, incomplete number</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: Resolution through lots</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: All with one accord in one place again</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Acts 5:12-42</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: Another utopia as all united in Solomon’s Porch</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: Apostles arrested</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: Gamaliel reasons with the rulers</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: All harmoniously back in temple and homes.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Acts 6:1-7</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: Disciples multiplying</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: Murmuring against the Hebrews by the Hellenists</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: The Twelve appoint the Seven</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: Disciples multiplying again</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Acts 8:6-13</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: Samarian multitudes of one accord through Philip</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: Enter Simon the Sorcerer, reputed to be “the great power of God”, who has a large following</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: Simon also believes</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: Simon, amazed, is united and continues with Philip</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b>Acts 8:14-25</b><br />
<ol>
<li><b>Harmony</b>: News of Samarian converts spreads and they receive the holy spirit</li>
<li><b>Threat</b>: Simon the Sorcerer’s “Simony”</li>
<li><b>Resolution</b>: Peter rebukes Simon forcing him into retreat</li>
<li><b>Restoration</b>: Preaching among the Samaritans is resumed</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
So the theme of harmony is underscored by this repeated literary
pattern. Harmony is presented as the natural and original order of the
church, threats to it are quickly resolved, and the church is then
restored to its utopian condition.<br />
Below when we discuss the episodes of Paul we will see further use of a repeated literary pattern.<br />
<h3>
3. Themes in exemplary episodes with repeated stress points</h3>
The theme of <i><b>the community’s fidelity to Jewish traditions and practices</b></i> is seen in the centrality of the temple setting for many episodes in the early part of Acts.<br />
<blockquote>
Believers gather in the Temple (2:46; 5:12) which is the
centre for many episodes – 2:46; 3:1, 2, 3, 8, 10; 4:1; 5:20, 21, 22,
24, 25, 26, 42. The apostles perform their miracles there, they pray
there, they preach there. The temple is also the centre of conflict. The
apostles are arrested there, but return on their release to speak to
everyone gathered there.</blockquote>
The theme of <i><b>Jewish opposition</b></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
The Jewish leaders oppose the apostles — Acts 4:1,5, 8, 23; 5:17, 21, 24, 26<br />
Individual Jewish opponents are named — Acts 4:6<br />
Apostles appear before the Sanhedrin, some of whom want them executed — Acts 5:27, 34<br />
Gamaliel, described as a Pharisee and teacher of the law, argues in favour of the apostles.</blockquote>
Tyson selects a few of these “exemplary episodes” to illustrate:<br />
<blockquote>
<div align="left">
<b>i. The episode of the Hellenists vs the Hebrews in Acts 6:1-7 </b></div>
This episode uses the literary patten discussed above:<br />
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<b><i>Harmony</i></b>: Growth of the numbers of disciples<br />
<b><i>Threat</i></b>: Hellenists complain about the Hebrews<br />
<i><b>Resolution</b></i>: The Twelve call everyone together, propose a plan, all accept the plan, and the Seven are ordained<br />
<i><b>Restoration</b></i>: Disciples multiply again, and even priests join them</blockquote>
</blockquote>
The narrative continues an emphasis on themes introduced in earlier chapters:<br />
<blockquote>
the order of community is shown by apostles’ convening
the assembly and proposing and executing the plan; the ordination of the
Seven allowing the Twelve to do their work. So as new characters are
introduced the<i><b> themes of harmony and order</b></i> are still in the forefront of the narrative.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div align="left">
<b> ii. The episode of Stephen in Acts 6:8-7:60</b></div>
<b> </b> This episode focuses on the themes of <i><b>Jewish opposition</b></i> and the early Church’s <i><b> fidelity to Jewish practices</b></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
The opposition begins with diaspora Jews (1:9) but
quickly extends to the people and leaders of Jerusalem (1:12). The
charges are blasphemy against Moses and God and speaking against Torah
and Temple.<br />
Stephen stresses the church’s common heritage with the Jews,
identifies himself and the church with Israel and his accusers (“our
ancestors”, “our nation”), makes abundant use of the Pentateuch and
figures from the Jewish scriptures.<br />
The speech stresses that the charges against him (and the community)
are false, implying that the church did not at all teach against Moses
or the Law or the Temple.<br />
<blockquote>
The author will make the same point in a later episode in regard to Paul (21:18-28)</blockquote>
The author uses Stephen to argue that the Jewish people have always
been stiffnecked and opposed to the will of God. Without citing any
specific incidents he also accuses them of having always murdered their
prophets. Thus the Jewish opposition to Jesus and the Christians is
merely an extension of the characteristics of the Jewish people.<br />
At the end of the speech Stephen no longer speaks of “our ancestors”
but of “your ancestors”, thus distancing himself from their rebellion;
and he finally accuses the Jews of being the ones who do not observe the
Torah.<br />
<blockquote>
Hence the reader is being persuaded that it is Stephen
and the Christians who are the true “Jews” or believers and observers of
the Torah, while the Jews are continuing in their age-old habit of
opposing the will of God.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
After the Stephen episode a new theme finds regular reappearances, the theme of <i><b>the community’s inclusion of Gentiles</b></i>.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div align="left">
<b> iii. The episode of the conversion of Cornelius</b></div>
The author uses a series of anecdotes to show how the church changed
ethnically from Jewish to Gentile. The primary exemplar is the story of
Cornelius but this is prepared for by a series of smaller episodes that
begin with the time of Stephen. It change began among Samaritans and
diaspora Jews, those on the ethnic periphery of the Jerusalem Jews.
There is a convert from Ethiopia, believers in Damascus and converted
Hellenists in Antioch. All of these forerunners gradually extend the
ethnic base from the core of Jerusalem Jews until the climactic
conversion of Cornelius, regarded narratively as the first true Gentile.<br />
(Tyson does not make the following observation, but I suspect the
author in his lead up to the conversion of full gentile Cornelius was
also setting the scene with the healing of Aeneas, the namesake of the
founder of the Romans, and another healing at Joppa, the port from which
Jonah left on his unavoidable way to preach to the gentile Assyrians.)<br />
So <b>the literary pattern</b> is:<br />
<ol>
<li> to the Jews first and within the setting of Jewish customs, thereby demonstrating the theme of <i><b>fidelity to Jewish practices and customs by the believing community</b></i>;</li>
<li> followed by <b><i>Jewish opposition to the believer community</i></b></li>
<li>and <i><b>rejection of their message</b></i>;</li>
<li>followed by theme of <i><b>inclusion of the gentiles</b></i></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<div align="left">
<b> iv. The paradigmatic episode of Paul and Barnabas in Pisidian Antioch</b> (Acts 13:13-52)</div>
This same theme, <i><b>the community’s inclusion of Gentiles</b></i>, governs the Pauline mission, Acts 13-28.<br />
<b>The same literary pattern</b> is used repeatedly here, too. Paul
enters a city, goes first to the Jews, or some Jews and God-fearers,
meets with some success but always ends up with a major rejection. From
then on he goes to the Gentiles where he meets with often unbounded
success. This provokes further Jewish opposition, and results in his
expulsion. But before he leaves he announces publicly that since the
Jews have rejected him he will thenceforth offer salvation to the more
receptive Gentiles (13:46; 18:5; 28:28).<br />
Paul’s announcement in 13:46 is a statement of how the author
controls the story. Paul regularly begins each new mission to a city
with a visit to the synagogue, thus reinforcing the theme of <b>fidelity of the believing community to the Jewish traditions and practices</b>.<br />
See also Acts 13:13-52; 14:1-7; 17:1-9, 10-15; 18:1-17</blockquote>
The theme of <i><b>Jewish rejection of the Christian message</b></i><br />
This theme is dominant in the later episodes of Acts. In the earlier
chapters the Jews embrace the message but with the mission of Paul we
read of their initial partial acceptance and then their rejection of the
message. Meanwhile the conversion of the Jews back in Jerusalem
continues offstage — 21:20.<br />
So <b>the literary pattern</b> that the author plies to the Paul stories ties together 4 of the above themes:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>fidelity of the believing community to the Jewish traditions and practices</b> — Paul always begins with the synagogue</li>
<li><b>the community’s inclusion of Gentiles</b></li>
<li><b>Jewish rejection of the Christian message</b></li>
<li><b>Jewish opposition to the community</b></li>
</ol>
<h3>
<b>The major themes</b> for the whole of Acts thus identified are:</h3>
<ol>
<li><b>growth of the community</b></li>
<li> <b>order of the community</b></li>
<li> <b>divine leadership of the community</b></li>
<li><b>internal harmony of the community</b></li>
<li><b>community’s fidelity to the Jewish traditions and practices</b></li>
<li><b>Jewish opposition to the community</b></li>
<li><b>the community’s inclusion of Gentiles</b></li>
<li><b>Jewish rejection of the Christian message</b></li>
</ol>
<b>Why these themes?</b><br />
Themes and literary patterns are under the control of the author, so
it is not enough to say that any sources used led the author to read the
events that way.<br />
Some of the themes may be accounted for as rhetorical devices:
utopian beginnings to present the church in a good light, Jewish customs
to give it the credibility of venerable roots, Jewish opposition to
distance Christians from contemporary Jews.<br />
Tyson however sees many of these themes as best explained by a motivation to counter Marcionism.<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Marcion taught a split between Paul and the older apostles</b>.
<ol>
<li>Compare the theme of harmony.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><b>Marcion taught the leadership of Paul</b> (and Tyson does not say
it, but Marcionism was also known for its lack of disciplined
organizational structure and chains of authority).
<ol>
<li>Compare the theme of order under leadership of the apostles.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li><b>Marcion opposed the application of Jewish practices and customs and traditions.</b>
<ol>
<li>Compare the theme of fidelity to Jewish traditions and the Hebrew scriptures.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
Tyson next looks at the characterization of Peter and Paul and believes he finds support for the above Marcionite explanation.<br />
That’s a future post/s.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2008/01/21/dating-the-book-of-acts-the-marcionite-context-1/">http://vridar.org/2008/01/21/dating-the-book-of-acts-the-marcionite-context-1/</a><br />
==================<br />
<br />
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
Dating the Book of Acts: Marcionite Context 2 — and beyond</h2>
<br /><h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<br />After attempting a form of controlled analysis for determining the
main themes and their supporting literary patterns in Acts, and arguing
that the results are best explained as a response to the Marcionite
challenge, Tyson examines the characterizations of Peter and Paul in
Acts to see if they also are best explained the same way.<br />
Tyson leaves what I think is a major gap in his discussion of how the
author presented Peter in Acts but I’ll leave that discussion till
after outlining Tyson’s argument.<br />
<h4>
Characterization of Peter</h4>
There is no subtlety in how the author of Acts portrays this leading
apostle. We all know Peter is the leader — (Tyson specifies that he is
depicted as the leader of the church at Jerusalem), miracle-worker, bold
and convincing speaker before rulers and converting crowds of thousands
(2:41), taking the initiative in reconstituting the Twelve in the wake
of the demise of Judas, interpreter of divinely sent visions (10:28 )
and miracles (2:14-16). Sinners drop dead (5:1-11) or beg for mercy
(8:20-24) at his word and his mere shadow heals the cripples (5:20). Not
even prison chains and guards can hold him (12:8-10).<br />
But Tyson asks, if the author knew the epistles of Paul, why did he
portray Peter this way? In Galatians Paul portrays a Peter who is
unstable, very much “unleaderlike” — I would add, as much more akin to
the Peter of the synoptic gospels. There Jesus had to regularly correct
him; in Galatians Paul assumes that role.<br />
Tyson asks if it is possible the author of Acts derived his
alternative image of Peter from 1 Clement, thought to be written near
the end of the first century. (Tyson, of course, is arguing for a second
century date for canonical Luke-Acts.) That document elevates both
Paul and Peter to leadership status, and speaks of Peter’s sufferings.
But there is no indication of his relationship to the Jerusalem church
or of his role as a prominent preacher and witness there.<br />
Tyson believes that the best explanation for the way Peter is drawn
in Acts is the Marcionite context. Marcion relied exclusively on the
letters of Paul, and declared the other apostles, including Peter, to be
false apostles. Paul seems to be referring to the Jerusalem apostles in
2 Corinthians 11:1-15 when he criticizes those known as “super
apostles”, whom he calls “false apostles”, implying they were preaching a
“different gospel” (cf Gal.1:6-7).<br />
Tyson argues that a Marcionite challenge would have provided the
perfect foil for the way the author of Acts accounted for Peter.<br />
He was answering the charge that Peter<br />
<ul>
<li>was an unreliable and false apostle</li>
<li>was not a dependable witness to the faith — nor even the
resurrection (Marcion’s gospel apparently disputed Peter’s witness of
this)</li>
</ul>
and, it should be added, also answering the charge that Jerusalem was the birth place and base of this false witness and gospel.<br />
<h4>
A question — the limits of the anti-Marcion hypothesis?</h4>
While I like the idea of canonical Luke-Acts being a response to
Marcionism, I cannot avoid a problem when it comes to Tyson’s discussion
of Peter in support of this. If Acts was composed so late, then surely
the author knew of the gospel of Matthew. And if, as Tyson’s argument
goes, the same author heavily redacted Luke to become a companion volume
to Acts, then why would he have omitted any reference in his gospel to
Jesus’ promise to give the keys of heaven to Peter and use him as a
foundation stone for his church (Matt.16:18)?<br />
This passage in Matthew would surely have served as the most direct challenge conceivable to Marcionism.<br />
If Matthew was written as a response to the “Paulinism” many see in
Mark (compare Matthew’s heavy emphasis on obedience to a law more
binding than that of Moses in the Sermon on the Mount, Matt 23, etc.)
one might easily see Matthew’s depiction of Peter’s confession as a
direct rebuff to the name and authority of Paul.<br />
If the author of Acts intended to show that Paul stood subordinate to
the Twelve then surely this claim about the leader of the Twelve would
have found a prominent place in the debate.<br />
<h4>
The broader catholicizing agenda of Acts — embracing James, and group work, too?</h4>
To me the best explanation is that while Marcionism might have been
a/the prime challenge that its author was addressing, it was not the
only one. Marcionites looked to Paul as The (Sole) Apostle. But there
were others who looked to James. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Galatians
appears to acknowledge James as the leader of the Jerusalem community by
naming him first among the pillars there.<br />
The Gospel of Thomas informs believers that James is the primary
focal point of the church on earth. It was even believed among some
Christian quarters that God willed the destruction of Jerusalem because
of the martyrdom of James. And James was undeniably a representative of a
form of Jewish Christianity.<br />
The author of Acts obviously had no problem with allowing James to
assume the leadership of the Jerusalem church. Presumably this was
because James represented the same Jewish flavoured Christianity as
Peter also represented and that stood in opposition to Marcionism .<br />
But there was more than the inclusion of those Christians who looked to James at work here.<br />
Peter does not wield Matthew’s keys to the kingdom of heaven willy nilly — or ever at all, really, in Acts.<br />
<ul>
<li>In the appointment of Matthias to fill the twelfth position Peter
may initiate the action, but the action is carried out by the collective
as they roll the dice while praying to God. Matthias is not added by
Peter, but by God, through the acceptance of “the Twelve”.</li>
<li>Peter’s first dramatic miracles are performed in partnership with John (3:1, 12).</li>
<li>Similarly in the appointment of the Seven. Peter is not seen there.
It is the Twelve who summon the community and give directions for how
they were to appoint the new leaders.</li>
<li>Philip and others are used to first push the ethnic boundaries of
the church by evangelizing among the Samaritans and to an Ethiopian.</li>
<li>And in the conversion of the Centurion, Peter is confused at first,
not knowing what the vision he has just seen means. He has to explain
both to the centurion’s household that he is letting God decide how
things turn out and what they mean.</li>
<li>And after that moment, he is summoned to give an account of his
actions to those “of the circumcision”, presumably among both the
apostles and brethren (Acts 11:1-3).</li>
</ul>
Peter is a leader — even THE leader in the early chapters of Acts.
But he is not the sole leader of the Jerusalem community. The author of
Acts is stressing the significance of not only Peter, but of the
authority of the Twelve with Peter, and even of James eventually.<br />
Justin Martyr is witness, in Trypho, that at the time of Marcion,
other well entrenched traditions throughout the Christian “philosophy”
included the belief that its beginnings could be traced to The Twelve at
Jerusalem, and that among those Christians were those who followed
Jewish customs, and that these were to be accepted as brethren, too.<br />
Canonical Luke-Acts comfortably fits in such an environment.<br />
Matthew 16:18 could well have been a response too much in the faces
of those the author of canonical Luke-Acts wanted to embrace. It could
serve well in a power conflict between West and East. But it risked
supplanting the idea of the Twelve as an authoritative foundation from
Jerusalem. Note that Matthew even concluded his gospel with some of the
Twelve (or Eleven) doubting the resurrection.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2008/01/28/dating-the-book-of-acts-marcionite-context-2-and-beyond/">http://vridar.org/2008/01/28/dating-the-book-of-acts-marcionite-context-2-and-beyond/</a> <br />
========================<br />
<h2 class="single-entry-title">
The literary genre of Acts. 3: Speeches</h2>
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="license" target="_blank"></a><br />
<h4>
by Neil Godfrey </h4>
<div class="related-data">
<br />
</div>
“We cannot name any historian whom . . . Luke has taken as a model” (Dibelius, 1956, 183-185)<br />
<a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/details/7603549" target="_blank">Pervo</a>
cites Dibelius as one scholar unimpressed with claims that the speeches
in Acts are necessarily attributable to historiographical intent.
Certainly ancient historians crafted lengthy speeches for historical
characters, and certainly the speeches in Acts are not like those in the
gospel of Luke. But it does not follow, as is sometimes argued, that
therefore the speeches in Acts demonstrate the author’s intent to write
real history. Anyone who has read ancient novellas would immediately
recognize the speeches in Acts as just one of the many features found in
fiction. Lengthy speeches were tools of historians and fiction writers
alike. They were used to convey information about characters and
situations, both historical and fictional.<br />
Examples are too numerous to mention, so I would simply suggest to
anyone who doubts this claim to find a collection of ancient novels
(such as <a href="http://www.librarything.com/work/details/7603636" target="_blank">Reardon</a>‘s collection) in a library or on the net (some are linked in my <a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/the-literary-genre-of-acts-1-the-prologue/" target="_blank">Prologue post</a>) and read a couple. They are not very long and quite entertaining as insights into ancient cultures, interests and humour.<br />
For this post I opened my copy of Reardon’s collection at random and
the first page opened was 206 in the middle of the story of Leucippe and
Clitophon by Achilles Tatius. There at paragraph 37 begins a lengthy
speech on the beauty of women. I flip over to pages 340-1 to fine
Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe and on each page are speeches equal to the
length of anything in Acts.<br />
But one need only recall the emphasis on rhetoric in ancient
education and the popularity of tragic drama to quickly guess the need
of scepticism over claims of the relationship between speeches and
historicity.<br />
I will in time give more specific discussions here on the different
types of speeches in Acts, the legal defences, the exhortations, and
their structures and comparisons with their counterparts in other forms
of literature.<br />
I often felt some resonance in the fictional literature somewhere
when reading the long speech of James at the Jerusalem conference in
Acts 15. I seemed to hear echoes from somewhere each time I read its
stylized account of preliminary short speeches followed by Jame’s
lengthy decision-pronouncing finale. I don’t know why it took me so long
to notice how similar the structure and pattern of the speeches and
speech situation was to the speeches delivered in the grand royal
assemblies in Homer’s Iliad. I suppose what we have been trained to
associate from very early years with religious truth and fact is not
easily recognized when we view it through the perspective of literature
with which its author would certainly have been familiar, if only from
his education in learning how to write Greek.<br />
A crisis in the war needs to be dealt with. An assembly of the
notables is called. Names of renown stand up to express their views
while the king listens in silence. After the to and fro debating has
finished the king rises to deliver his decision and the course that all
must follow. The pattern is a regular one, and the assembly in Acts 15
is only one of its many echoes.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://vridar.org/2007/11/18/the-literary-genre-of-acts-3-speeches/">http://vridar.org/2007/11/18/the-literary-genre-of-acts-3-speeches/</a> <br />
========================== </div>
ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785814404524667077.post-69639495469366623342017-03-19T03:01:00.001-07:002017-03-19T03:01:46.870-07:00Matthew Ferguson : Eyewitness Recollections in Greco-Roman Biography versus the Anonymity of the Gospels<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<h2 class="entry-title">
<a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/eyewitness-recollections-in-greco-roman-biography-versus-the-anonymity-of-the-gospels/" rel="bookmark">Eyewitness Recollections in Greco-Roman Biography versus the Anonymity of the Gospels</a></h2>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author"></span><span class="by-author"><span class="author vcard"><br /></span> </span> </div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author"></span>-Matthew Ferguson </div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author"></span><span class="by-author"><span class="author vcard"><br /></span> </span> </div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/eyewitness-recollections-in-greco-roman-biography-versus-the-anonymity-of-the-gospels/"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author">https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2016/08/29/eyewitness-recollections-in-greco-roman-biography-versus-the-anonymity-of-the-gospels/</span></span></a><span class="by-author"><span class="author vcard"><br /></span> </span> </div>
<div class="entry-meta">
<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author"></span><span class="by-author"><span class="author vcard"><br /></span> </span> </div>
<div class="entry-content">
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In the genre of Greco-Roman
biography (as well as historiography) ancient authors did not always
name all of their oral or written sources, and there were no footnotes
in the literature of the period. Nevertheless, biographers from the
early Roman Empire tend to cite such sources at a much higher frequency
than what is seen in the NT Gospels. The citation of literary and
documentary sources (e.g., letters, previous authors, notebooks, etc.)
occurs more often in biographies that deal with subjects dating to long
before the author’s lifetime. The biographer Suetonius, for example,
cites far more literary and documentary sources in his </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lives</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of Julius Caesar and Augustus (who lived over a century before he was writing) than he does in his </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lives</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of the Flavian emperors (whose reigns he personally lived through).</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">What is interesting about biographies
dealing with subjects dating close to the author’s own lifetime,
however, is that they tend to include more citations of the author’s own
eyewitness experiences, as well as discussion of his oral sources.
Sometimes it is claimed that the authors of the Gospels do not
explicitly discuss their own eyewitness experiences, nor cite their oral
and written sources, because the Gospels were written close enough to
Jesus’ lifetime for such sources to be implicit for their audiences.
This assumption is undermined, however, by surveying the Greco-Roman
biographical literature from the same period.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In fact, virtually every biographer
from the early Roman Empire whose works are still extant–Cornelius
Nepos, Tacitus, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Lucian–explicitly cites his own
eyewitness experiences in biographies that deal with subjects dating to
his own lifetime. The biographer Cornelius Nepos, for example,
discusses a funeral speech that he heard of Atticus (a philosopher and
friend of Cicero) in his </span><a href="http://www.attalus.org/translate/atticus.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Atticus</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (17.1-2):</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“Of the affectionate disposition of Atticus towards his relatives, why should I say much, </span><b>since I myself heard him proudly assert</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">,
and with truth, at the funeral of his mother, whom he buried at the age
of ninety, that “he had never had occasion to be reconciled to his
mother,” and that “he had never been at all at variance with his
sister,” who was nearly of the same age with himself; a proof that
either no cause of complaint had happened between them, or that he was a
person of such kind feelings towards his relatives, as to think it an
impiety to be offended with those whom he ought to love.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Tacitus, although he is primarily
known for being a historian, wrote a biography of his father-in-law, the
Roman statesman Agricola. And indeed, Tacitus specificities that he was
related to Agricola at the beginning of the biography (</span><a href="http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/tacitus/agricola_e.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Agricola</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, 3.3):</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“Meanwhile this book, intended to do honour to Agricola, </span><b>my father-in-law</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, will, as an expression of filial regard, be commended, or at least excused.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This would be like the author of Matthew, for example, stating that he was a personal disciple of Jesus. Not only do </span><a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/why-scholars-doubt-the-traditional-authors-of-the-gospels/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">modern scholars doubt that the Gospel of Matthew was actually written by the disciple Matthew</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,
but furthemore the author of the gospel makes no explicit statement
about his personal relation to the subject. Tacitus likewise discusses
stories and anecdotes that he personally heard from Agricola. Later in
the biography (4.1), for example, Tacitus states:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><b>I remember that he used to tell us</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">
how in his early youth he would have imbibed a keener love of
philosophy than became a Roman and a senator, had not his mother’s good
sense checked his excited and ardent spirit. It was the case of a lofty
and aspiring soul craving with more eagerness than caution the beauty
and splendour of great and glorious renown. But it was soon mellowed by
reason and experience, and he retained from his learning that most
difficult of lessons—moderation.”<br />
</span></blockquote>
And near the end of the biography (24.3), Tacitus also relates:<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><b>I have often heard him say</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">
that a single legion with a few auxiliaries could conquer and occupy
Ireland, and that it would have a salutary effect on Britain for the
Roman arms to be seen everywhere, and for freedom, so to speak, to be
banished from its sight.”</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The biographer Plutarch likewise
discusses how he conversed with eyewitnesses regarding a battle fought
by the Roman emperor Otho, who waged a civil war during his own
lifetime. As Plutarch (</span><a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Otho*.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Otho</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, 14.1) relates:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“This
is the account which most of the participants give of the battle,
although they themselves confess that they were ignorant of its details,
owing to the disorder and the unequal fortunes of the several groups. </span><b>At a later time, when I was travelling through the plain, Mestrius Florus</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, one of the men of consular rank who were at that time with Otho (by constraint, and not of their own will),</span><b> pointed out to me an ancient temple,</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">
and told me how, as he came up to it after the battle, he saw a heap of
dead bodies so high that those on top of it touched the gable of the
temple.”</span></blockquote>
The biographer Suetonius discusses several eyewitness recollections,
both from within his family, as well from own experiences. In his <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Caligula*.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Caligula</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (19.3),
for example, Suetonius describes his grandfather’s recollections about a
spectacle that the emperor Caligula performed in the Bay of Naples:</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“I know that many have
supposed that Gaius devised this kind of bridge in rivalry of Xerxes,
who excited no little admiration by bridging the much narrower
Hellespont; others, that it was to inspire fear in Germany and Britain,
on which he had designs, by the fame of some stupendous work. </span><b>But when I was a boy, I used to hear my grandfather say</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">
that the reason for the work, as revealed by the emperor’s confidential
courtiers, was that Thrasyllus the astrologer had declared to Tiberius,
when he was worried about his successor and inclined towards his
natural grandson, that Gaius had no more chance of becoming emperor than
of riding about over the gulf of Baiae with horses.”</span></blockquote>
Suetonius likewise discusses his father’s own military experiences in his <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Otho*.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Otho</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (10.1): </span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><b>My father Suetonius Laetus took part in that war</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, as a tribune of the equestrian order in the Thirteenth legion. </span><b>He used often to declare afterwards</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">
that Otho, even when he was a private citizen, so loathed civil strife,
that at the mere mention of the fate of Brutus and Cassius at a banquet
he shuddered; that he would not have engaged with Galba, if he had not
felt confident that the affair could be settled peacefully; further,
that he was led to hold his life cheap at that time by the example of a
common soldier.”</span></blockquote>
And, in his <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Domitian*.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Domitian</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (12.2), Suetonius even discusses an event that he personally witnessed during the emperor Domitian’s reign: </span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“Besides other taxes, that
on the Jews was levied with the utmost rigour, and those were
prosecuted who without publicly acknowledging that faith yet lived as
Jews, as well as those who concealed their origin and did not pay the
tribute levied upon their people. </span><b>I recall being present in my youth </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">when
the person of a man ninety years old was examined before the procurator
and a very crowded court, to see whether he was circumcised.”</span></blockquote>
The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sophistic">Second Sophistic</a>
author Lucian, although he is not primarily known for being a
biographer, likewise wrote a biography of the philosopher Demonax. And,
in that biography, Lucian specifies that he personally knew and
frequently consorted with the subject <span style="font-weight: 400;">(</span><a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/wl3/wl302.htm"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Demonax</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, 1):</span><br />
<blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">“It
was in the book of Fate that even this age of ours should not be
destitute entirely of noteworthy and memorable men, but produce a body
of extraordinary power, and a mind of surpassing wisdom. My allusions
are to Sostratus the Boeotian, whom the Greeks called, and believed to
be, Heracles; and more particularly to the philosopher Demonax. </span><b>I saw and marvelled at both of them, and with the latter I long consorted</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.”</span></blockquote>
Considering that virtually every Greco-Roman biographer from the
early Roman Empire, writing on subjects dating to within half a century
or so of his composition, mentions his personal relation to events, the
failure of any of the Gospel authors to explicitly do so should make us
question whether the Gospels belong to the same literary genre as these
authors.<br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">In my essay “</span><a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/are-the-gospels-ancient-biographies-part-1-the-spectrum-of-ancient-%ce%b2%ce%af%ce%bf%ce%b9/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are the Gospels Ancient Biographies?</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,”
I discuss how a number of NT scholars, such as Richard Burridge and
Dirk Frickenschmidt, argue that the Gospels belong to the genre of
Greco-Roman biography. I am not fully against this comparison, but as I
argue in my essay “</span><a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/greek-popular-biography-romance-contest-gospel/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Greek Popular Biography: Romance, Contest, Gospel</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">,”
the Gospels do not resemble the style of elite and historiographical
biographers, such as those quoted above. Instead, the Gospels far more
closely resemble the popular and novelistic biographical literature from
antiquity–such as the </span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=j-SEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=%22aesop,+the+story+teller+and+composer+of+fables%22&source=bl&ots=u6HYzXnSzc&sig=xRRCgfNjCHDU2-pl9y4l9mRccm4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIhrTx8LydyQIVxl4eCh2N9AwS#v=onepage&q&f=false"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Aesop</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.attalus.org/info/alexander.html"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Alexander Romance</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">–which likewise tends not to contain any discussion of sources or eyewitnesses, and instead is formally anonymous.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Much like these popular-novelistic
biographies, the gospels Matthew and Mark do not even contain statements
from the author in the first person, much less do they discuss the
author’s own relation to events. The author of Mark, for example, at no
point states that he was a personal attendant of Peter (</span><a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/michael-kok-the-gospel-on-the-margins-the-reception-of-mark-in-the-second-century/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">and modern scholars likewise doubt that the gospel was actually written by John Mark</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">). The author of Luke uses the first person in the prologue of his gospel (</span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1%3A1-4&version=NIV"><span style="font-weight: 400;">1:1-4</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">), as well as in the prologue of Acts (</span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+1%3A1&version=NIV"><span style="font-weight: 400;">1:1</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">),
in order to dedicate the works to Theophilus (an unknown, later
Christian figure), but at no point does he explicitly state that he was a
personal attendant of Paul. It is likewise doubtful that the ambiguous
use of the first person </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">plural</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, scattered throughout the “we” passages in Acts (</span><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%2016:10-17;%2020:5-15;%2021:1-18;%2027:1-28:16&version=NIV"><span style="font-weight: 400;">16:10-17; 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">),
reflects the eyewitness experiences of the author (and such passages
certainly do not claim eyewitness status as clearly as the biographers
above). As William Campbell in </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/The_we_Passages_in_the_Acts_of_the_Apost.html?id=QoVM5vlUuekC"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The “We” Passages in the Acts of the Apostles</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (pg. 13) explains:</span><br />
<blockquote>
“Questions of whether the events described in the “we”
sections of Acts are historical and whether Luke or his source/s
witnessed them are unanswerable on the basis of the evidence currently
available, as even the staunchest defenders of historicity and
eyewitnessing acknowledge. More important, the fact that Acts provides
no information and, indeed, by writing anonymously and constructing an
anonymous observer, actually withholds information about a putative
historical eyewitness, suggests that the first person plural in Acts has
to do with narrative, not historical, eyewitnessing.”</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">The Gospel of John is the only one to
claim eyewitness status, but this is only through an anonymous
figure–“the disciple whom Jesus loved”–which, once more, is a vastly
more ambiguous identification of source and eyewitness experience than
what is used by the biographical authors above. In fact, the use of the
“beloved disciple” is such an odd and ambivalent construction, that many
scholars think the author is only suggesting (not explicitly claiming)
to his audience that the gospel was based on the recollections of a
specific eyewitness. As NT scholar Mark Goodacre (</span><a href="http://podacre.blogspot.com/2010/06/nt-pod-38-who-is-beloved-disciple-in.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“NT Pod 38: Who is the Beloved Disciple in John’s Gospel?”</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">) explains:</span><br />
<blockquote>
“It’s not a historical relationship, specifically, what
it is, is the author of the fourth gospel allowing you to make that
connection, even encouraging you to make that kind of connection, but
himself just wanting to hold off a little bit on making that explicit
claim.”</blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Now, I mentioned above that popular-novelistic biographies–such as the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Aesop</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Alexander Romance</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">–likewise
do not discuss authorial eyewitnessing. The earliest surviving versions
of these texts were written, however, long after the periods in which
both Aesop and Alexander the Great lived. We do possess another popular
biography from antiquity, however–the </span><a href="http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/life_of_secundus_the_philosopher.htm"><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Secundus</span></i></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">–which
was likely written within 40-60 years of the subject’s own lifetime
(roughly the same gap of time after which the Gospels were written about
Jesus). But, like the Gospels, the author of the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Secundus</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> does not discuss himself in the first person, nor does he mention any of his personal relation to events within the narrative.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: yellow;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">So, the fact that the Gospels do not
explicitly discuss any of their authors’ relation to sources or events
is a major reason why scholars consider them to be anonymous. The fact
that historiographical biographers–such as Nepos, Tacitus, Plutarch,
Suetonius, and Lucian–actually do is likewise a reason why their
biographies are not considered to be anonymous. But, we do have other
anonymous biographical literature from antiquity–such as the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Aesop</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Alexander Romance</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and the </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Life of Secundus</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">.
These biographies are popular and novelistic, however, and not
historiographical, which should thus offer us some insight into where,
on the broader spectrum of Greco-Roman biography, the Gospels more
appropriately belong. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: yellow;">
</span><br />
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ΠΑΝΑΓΙΩΤΗΣ ΜΑΡΙΝΗΣhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05704141690266937856noreply@blogger.com0