Gitte Buch-Hansen »It is the Spirit that Gives Life«
Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche
Herausgegeben von
James D. G. Dunn · Carl R. Holladay Hermann Lichtenberger · Jens Schröter Gregory E. Sterling · Michael Wolter
Band 173
De Gruyter
Gitte Buch-Hansen
»It is the Spirit that Gives Life« A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John’s Gospel
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-022597-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-022598-3 ISSN 0171-6441 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Buch-Hansen, Gitte. »It is the spirit that gives life« : a Stoic understanding of pneuma in John’s Gospel / Gitte Buch-Hansen. p. cm. – (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und Kunde der älteren Kirche ; Bd. 173) Revision of the author’s thesis (Ph. D.), 2007. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-022597-6 (alk. paper) 1. Bible. N. T. John - Theology. 2. Spirit - Biblical teaching. 3. Philo, of Alexandria. 4. Stoics. 5. Spirit. I. Title. BS2615.6.H62B83 2010 226.5106709015-dc22 2010002347
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. ” 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ⬁ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com
Preface The book “It Is the Spirit That Gives Life”. A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John’s Gospel is my contribution to the seminar Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity. During the years 2003-2007 the seminar was affiliated to the Department for Biblical Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology, the University of Copenhagen. The seminar was organised by Prof. Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Assoc. Prof. Henrik Tronier and funded by the National Research Council for the Humanities. The seminar organized a Ph.D. program with weekly seminars, international conferences, master classes and supervision. I am grateful for having my Ph.D. project accepted in the program and for having had the opportunity of developing it in an inspiring dialogue with supervisors and fellow Ph.D. students. The participants in the seminar have willingly placed their valuable insights and their critical capacities at my disposal and I am thankful for that. My supervisor Troels EngbergPedersen deserves all my appreciation. Without his insisting sklhro_j lo&goj and generous support, the dissertation would not have reached its final standard. The dissertation was defended the 13 th of September 2007. I thank the members of the assessment committee, Dean and Prof. Harold D. Attridge, Yale University, Prof. Ismo Dunderberg, Helsinki University and Assoc. Prof. Jesper Tang Nielsen, the University of Copenhagen for their critical remarks and constructive suggestions, which have guided the rewriting of the dissertation into the present book. I also thank the anonymous editors of the publisher De Gruyter who worked their way through the manuscript and came up with valuable suggestions for improvement. Thanks also to Centre of Naturalism and Christian Semantics at the University of Copenhagen that financed the linguistic revision of the manuscript, and to the graduated students from Durham and Oslo Universities who carried it out. Finally, I would like to thank my husband who has patiently tolerated my affair with John for more than three years.
Oslo and Copenhagen, 2010 Gitte Buch-Hansen
Foreword This book is an analysis of the role that the phenomenon of pneu=ma plays in the Fourth Gospel. Since Chrysostom, John’s Gospel has been valued as the most spiritual text among the New Testament writings. However, this recognition has not occasioned an examination of the Gospel in light of the idea of the pneu=ma as found in ancient philosophy, pre-eminently in Stoic physics. We find statements about the pneu=ma in the Gospel that, although traditionally considered as marginal and insignificant, are clarified significantly when situated within Stoic physics; e.g. the identification of God with pneu=ma (4:24). In fact, it is Philo’s allegorical exposition of biblical texts in terms of Stoic philosophy that seems to be the tradition within which we should situate the Fourth Gospel. In order to surpass Stoic theory, Philo develops and expands several core Stoic ideas. First, of special importance is Philo’s development of the Stoics’ ontological hierarchy into an ordering of successive generations brought about by the addition of pneumatic bodies. In Philo’s reformulated hierarchy, man’s generation culminates in his divinely executed “second generation” (deute/ra ge/nesij). Second, and also important, is Philo’s application of the Stoics’ understanding of cosmic conflagration to individual human beings, who may in extraordinary cases be transformed from bodily beings into pneumatic mind stuff. When these ideas are applied to the Fourth Gospel an implicit story featuring the pneu=ma as protagonist may be discerned behind the events in the Gospel where the pneu=ma is explicitly mentioned. The first pneumatic event is the descent of the spirit on Jesus (1:32). The penultimate pneumatic event is Jesus’ ascent to the Father, which should be understood in terms of a Philonic transformation: the risen Jesus’ body of flesh and blood is translated into a body made up of pneu=ma. Through this event a pneumatic union is established between the Father, who is Himself pneu=ma (4:24), and the Son, who becomes life-giving pneu=ma. The transformation of Jesus into life-giving pneu=ma is a precondition of the ultimate pneumatic event in which believers are themselves regenerated a!nwqen through the reception of the Holy Spirit (20:22; cf. 3:3, 5). In this story of pneumatic transformations, the Johannine pneu=ma functions as vehicle for the revelation of the identity of the hitherto unknown Father (1:18) and, in turn, also of those believers in “spirit and truth” whom the Father desires (4:23). In short, the move-
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Foreword
ment of the focus from Christology to pneumatology – that is to say the shift of the protagonist position from Jesus to the Johannine pneu=ma – provides a solution to Bultmann’s well-known Johannine puzzle of the empty revelation in which the revealer reveals nothing but that he is the revealer. This book consists of eight chapters, which develop, step by step, John’s pneumatic narrative. Chapter One introduces the whole project. The idea of a meta-story of pneumatic transformations is developed and sharpened in critical dialogue with Anglo-American and German scholarship on John. Chapters Two and Three analyse the contextual material that serves as a foundation for the exegetical section. Chapter Two is an introduction to the concept of pneu=ma in Stoic physics and chapter Three accounts for Philo’s development of and critical stance towards Greek philosophy in general and Stoic philosophy specifically. Special attention is given to Philo’s anthropology and his thesis of different types of men and their different manners of generation. Chapters Four to Eight constitute the exegetical section. Chapter Eight concludes the survey. Each of these chapters focuses on and discusses one of the pneumatic events outlined above and aims to situate the pneumatic meta-story within the major discussions of modern scholarship on John; e.g. the lo&goj-pneu=ma divide, the role of John the Baptist, the understanding of the Johannine ta_ shmei=a, the role of the resurrection and the seeming absence of the ascension. Informed by Philo’s idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij, chapter Four argues that the descent of the spirit on Jesus (as witnessed by the Baptist) is the moment of Jesus’ divine generation. This chapter features interaction with Johannine feminist scholarship with regard to the nature of Jesus’ incarnation: should it be understood in terms of a virginal, divine generation like in Luke or rather as an instance of Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij? Chapter Five discusses the status of John the Baptist’s witness in this light. It is argued that the Baptist’s testimony cannot be reduced to his index finger; instead that testimony explicates the task and thematic role for which Jesus has been chosen and anointed by God. Jesus’ commission has two aspects; from a physical point of view, he must provide the Holy Spirit; from an epistemological point of view, he must take away sin from the world. The question with which the Baptist’s testimony leaves the reader is whether Jesus will succeed in carrying out the task appointed to him, and if so, how. Chapter Six focuses on Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3. It is argued that the discourse constitutes the hermeneutical key to the Johannine signs and that the idea of regeneration a!nwqen introduced here should be understood in this context. A chain of causes is described: the precondition
Foreword
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for decoding the signs is that one is regenerated a!nwqen by the pneu=ma; the precondition for being regenerated a!nwqen is that the Son of Man has been lifted up (3:14); finally, the giving of the Son is motivated by God’s love for a world in danger of going astray. The chain of causes makes up the pneumatic events that constitute the story of pneumatic transformations. In reverse, the chain corresponds to the epistemological decoding of the signs. God’s love is simultaneously the first cause of the pneumatic movements and the ultimate referent of the signs. In chapter Seven, the focus is placed on Jesus’ transformation into the Father, the penultimate pneumatic event. It is argued that this process in which, in a Pauline manner, Jesus becomes life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45) is staged in John 20 by means of changes in the topographical set-up and in the choreography of the meetings between the risen Jesus and his followers. Thomas’ recognition, that he now simultaneously faces his Lord and his God (20:28) captures this transformation. Thomas’ confession corresponds with the final verse in the Prologue (1:18), the only other place in the Gospel in which Jesus is explicitly designated God. The bookends 1:18 and 20:28 constitute an interpretive arch that reveals the hitherto unknown God. Chapter Eight discusses the content of Thomas’ vision. In light of the disciples’ request for the way to the Father (John 14), it is argued that Thomas’ vision provides this knowledge and that it is knowledge of the hitherto unknown God that is capable of removing sin from the world. A few formal pieces of information must be given here. All translations of biblical texts, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Septuagint, are my own unless otherwise noted. Translations of nonbiblical, ancient texts are those of the Loeb edition, unless otherwise noted. The volumes of the Loeb edition actually used are mentioned in the bibliography. The abbreviation LS refers to Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers. The abbreviation LSJ refers to A Greek-English Lexicon, 1968, compiled by H. G. Liddell & R. Scott, revised by H. S. Jones, which is used throughout the study.
Table of Contents Preface ..................................................................................................... v Foreword ................................................................................................... vii
Chapter 1 History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel ............. 1 1.1
Introduction. “It is the spirit that gives life” (6:63) .............. 1
1.2 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 1.2.3.1 1.2.3.2 1.2.3.3
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis .......................................... 8 Bultmann. The gnostic redeemer; myth, not philosophy .... 8 Meeks. Discourse without cosmography .............................. 9 Reinhartz. The Word in the world; a cosmological tale .... 13 The theoretical framework .................................................... 13 The cosmological tale and its Johannine features .............. 17 Discussion of Reinhartz’ cosmological tale ......................... 19
1.3
New Historicism and the semiotics of the supplement .... 24
1.4
Discerning the metastory of pneumatic transformations .. 28
1.5 1.5.1 1.5.1.1 1.5.1.2 1.5.2 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.2 1.5.2.3 1.5.3 1.5.3.1 1.5.3.2
The Johannine pneu=ma in German exegesis ......................... 34 Theobald. Geist- und Inkarnationschristologie .................. 37 The genealogy of the Fourth Gospel .................................... 37 Identifying the opponents ..................................................... 38 Kammler. Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet ................ 44 Easter witnesses and post-Easter generations .................... 45 The hermeneutical function of the Paraclete ...................... 48 The fourth Evangelist’s Trinitarian consciousness ............ 49 Discussion of pneu=ma in German Johannine exegesis ....... 50 The strategy of differentiation .............................................. 50 Two critical perspectives ....................................................... 54
1.6
Summary .................................................................................. 57
Chapter 2 Cosmology in Stoicism. The Discourse of Physics ............. 59 2.1
Introduction. The pneumatic meta-story and Stoicism ..... 59
2.2 2.2.1 2.2.1.1
Stoic physics ............................................................................ 64 Introduction. The basic principles of Stoicism ................... 64 The oneness of Nature ........................................................... 64
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2.2.1.2 2.2.2 2.2.2.1 2.2.2.2 2.2.2.3 2.2.2.4 2.2.2.5 2.2.3 2.2.3.1 2.2.3.2 2.2.3.3 2.2.4
The logical analysis of the principles of Nature ................. 66 Stoic ontology. The theory of matter in motion .................. 68 Studying the parts. Bodies and movements ....................... 68 The analogy of force fields .................................................... 70 Interchangeability of elements (a)nastoixei/wsij) .............. 71 The phenomena of pneu=ma and to&noj ................................. 72 The ontological hierarchy ...................................................... 73 The centrality of blending (kra~sij) in Stoic doctrine ........ 75 kra~sij. The fusion and co-extension of bodies ................... 75 Nature and kra~sij. The idea of sumpa&qeia ......................... 78 Epistemology and kra~sij ...................................................... 79 God, principles and pneu=ma in the Stoic sign ...................... 84
2.3 2.3.1 2.3.2 2.3.2.1 2.3.2.2 2.3.2.3 2.3.3 2.3.3.1 2.3.3.2 2.3.3.3
Stoic ethics ............................................................................... 89 The Stoic doctrine of oi0kei/wsij ............................................. 89 The Stoic doctrine of the emotions ....................................... 92 Emotions and the theory of oi0kei/wsij ................................. 92 Chrysippus. Emotions as judgements ................................. 93 a)krasi/a and e0gkra&teia in the Stoic doctrine ...................... 94 The contemporary debate on the Stoic emotion ................. 97 Stoic criticism of Chrysippus’ theory ................................... 97 Seneca’s introduction of the pre-emotion ........................... 99 The charge of the Stoic sage with inhumanity .................. 101
Chapter 3 Philo’s Divine Generation. The Safer Way to Truth ........ 105 3.1 3.1.1 3.1.2 3.1.3
Introduction. The discourse on the way to virtue ............ 105 Philo’s ambiguity with regard to Stoicism ........................ 108 Philo’s rhetorical strategy. First take .................................. 110 The structure of the present chapter .................................. 111
3.2 3.2.1 3.2.1.1 3.2.1.2 3.2.2 3.2.2.1 3.2.2.2 3.2.2.3
Philo’s anthropology. The quandary of the two men ...... 112 Philo’s two men in the scholarly debate ............................ 113 Tobin. Philo and the history of interpretation .................. 113 Baer’s and Runia’s wrestling with Philo’s men ................ 120 Philo’s two men and the Stoic powers ............................... 123 Philo’s exegesis of the two men .......................................... 125 The moulded man in Philo’s ethical discourse ................. 130 The female intermediary and the hierarchy of powers ... 132
3.3 3.3.1 3.3.2
The shortcomings of philosophy ........................................ 134 The femme fatale of sense and pleasure ............................ 134 The safer way to truth. The law as guide and antidote ... 138
3.4
Moses’ law and Stoic philosophy ....................................... 144
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3.4.1 3.4.1.1 3.4.1.2
The law’s guidance of the not-yet perfect man ................ 144 Gardening as exhortation .................................................... 145 Philonic exhortation. The law as guide and helper ......... 146
3.5 3.5.1 3.5.2 3.5.3
Evaluation of Philo’s rhetorical strategy ........................... 152 The turn towards pragmatism ............................................ 152 The discourse on intermediaries ........................................ 154 Summary. Philo’s rhetorical strategy. Take two .............. 157
Chapter 4 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit as Jesus’ Divine Generation .... 159 4.1 4.1.1 4.1.1.1 4.1.1.2 4.1.2 4.1.3
Introduction to the exegetical section ................................ 159 The new meta-story. Textual signifiers, signified story .. 159 Discerning textual signifiers ............................................... 159 The plotted, signified story ................................................. 162 The textual quality of John. Paradigmatic structures ...... 162 The descent of the spirit in the scholarly tradition .......... 165
4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.2.3.1 4.2.3.2 4.2.3.3
Meeks. Moses traditions and Johannine Christology ...... 168 Meeks’ exegesis of John 3:8 ................................................. 168 Methodological considerations. First take ........................ 170 Jesus’ divine generation and Moses’ deute/ra ge/nesij ..... 173 Problems inherent in Meeks’ reading ................................ 173 Developing the potentials in Meeks’ works ...................... 174 Meeks’ methodology. Take two ......................................... 176
4.3 4.3.1 4.3.1.1 4.3.1.2 4.3.2
Reinhartz and Seim. Aristotelian epigenesis and John ...... 177 Reinhartz. Incarnation as divine epigenesis ....................... 178 The epigenesis. Aristotle’s theory of generation ................ 179 Divine epigenesis in John ...................................................... 183 Seim. Divine paternity. Does the mother matter .............. 186
4.4 4.4.1 4.4.1.1 4.4.1.2 4.4.1.3 4.4.1.4 4.4.1.5 4.4.2 4.4.3
Generation in the exegesis of the Fourth Gospel ............. 189 Feminist scholars. Divine epigenesis or deute/ra ge/nesij ... 189 Virgin birth in Philo? ............................................................ 191 The epigenesis in Philo’s theory of the two men ................ 196 Virgin birth in John? ............................................................. 198 But what is really real .......................................................... 199 Disussion. Generation in feminist scholarship ................. 202 German scholars. Wiedergeburt or Zeugung von oben ....... 204 Anglo-American scholarship. Generation sui generis ...... 208
4.5
Summary ................................................................................ 213
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Chapter 5 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord ......................................................... 217 5.1 5.1.1 5.1.2 5.1.3. 5.1.4 5.1.4.1 5.1.4.2 5.1.4.3
The testimony of John the Baptist ...................................... 217 John the Baptist in the scholarly tradition ......................... 217 The Baptist’s narrative function. Marker and mediator .. 219 The wilderness as the symbolic place of Judaism ............ 222 The testimony of John the Baptist ...................................... 224 The content of John’s testimony. Jesus’ mission ............... 224 The structure of John’s testimony. The chiasm ................ 226 The chiastic structure of John’s testimony ........................ 228
5.2 5.2.1 5.2.1.1 5.2.1.2 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.2.4
First circle. The role prescribed for God’s anointed ......... 230 The reinvestment of Christ with the Isaianic program ... 232 Parallel sequences. Isaiah 61:1-3 and John ........................ 236 John’s testimony and Isaiah 42:1 ........................................ 240 The enigma of Elijah redivivus in the Fourth Gospel ....... 241 Philo. The Levitical manner of ransoming ........................ 244 Summary ................................................................................ 249
5.3 5.3.1 5.3.2 5.3.3
Second circle. A well-guided way to the Lord ................. 250 John the Baptist’s self-presentation .................................... 252 Philo on the well-guided life (eu0qu&nein) ............................. 254 Summary ................................................................................ 256
5.4
Third circle. John’s baptism ................................................. 256
5.5
Fourth circle. The hitherto unknown ................................. 258
5.6
Fifth circle. The status of Jesus ............................................ 260
5.7 5.7.1 5.7.1.1 5.7.1.2 5.7.2 5.7.2.1 5.7.2.2 5.7.3
The centre. The removal of sin from the world ................ 262 The Lamb of God in the scholarly tradition ...................... 263 Intertextual proposals for the Lamb of God ..................... 264 The discourse on atonement in John’s Gospel .................. 267 The open heaven ................................................................... 270 The open heaven. Philo on atonement .............................. 270 The open heaven in John (1:51) ........................................... 271 Summary ................................................................................ 273
Chapter 6 Regeneration as Hermeneutical Competence. The Johannine Signs and the Meta-Story of Pneumatic Transformations .................................................................... 275 6.1
Introduction. The signs and the meta-story ...................... 275
6.2 6.2.1
The Johannine discourse on the signs ................................ 277 The Johannine discourse on the shmei=on (3:1-2) ................ 277
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6.2.1.1 6.2.1.2 6.2.2 6.2.2.1 6.2.2.2 6.2.2.3 6.2.2.4 6.2.3 6.2.3.1 6.2.3.2 6.2.3.3 6.2.4
The Nicodemus dialogue. The rhetorical situation .......... 277 The Johannine ambiguity towards the signs .................... 279 The Bultmann-Käsemann controversy on ta_ shmei=a....... 280 “And the Word became flesh”. Incarnation as paradox . 281 “And we saw his glory”. Incarnation as communication 283 Deconstructing the Bultmann-Käsemann divide ............. 285 Gendering the Johannine signs ........................................... 290 Dodd and the typology-allegory divide ............................ 290 The parable-allegory discussion ......................................... 291 The typology-allegory divide ............................................. 292 Deconstructing the typology-allegory divide ................... 293 Summary ................................................................................ 296
6.3
The Nicodemus discourse. The structure of the text ....... 297
6.4
The presupposition for understanding the signs. Regeneration a!nwqen (3:3-7) ................................................ 301 Generation and Johannine irony ........................................ 302
6.4.1 6.5 6.5.1 6.5.1.1 6.5.1.2 6.5.2 6.5.2.1 6.5.2.2 6.5.2.3 6.5.2.4 6.5.2.5 6.5.3 6.5.3.1 6.5.3.2 6.5.4 6.5.4.1 6.5.4.2 6.5.4.3 6.5.4.4 6.5.5 6.6
The presupposition for regeneration. “The Son of Man must be lifted up” (3:8-15) .................... 304 Spiritual regeneration and the prophetic voice (3:8) ....... 305 The comparison between wind and regeneration ........... 305 The prophetic voice in Philo and John ............................... 307 Verses 3:9-15. Four cruces .................................................... 312 Crux 1. The plural of speaker and addressee (3:11) ......... 312 Crux 2. 3:12. ei]pon: 1st person sg. or 3rd pl.? ....................... 313 Crux 3. The referents of ta_ e0pi/geia–ta_ e0poura&nia.......... 314 Crux 4. “Who is this Son of Man?” (3:13f) ......................... 315 Premises for a solution to the cruces .................................. 317 Solution to the cruces ........................................................... 319 Solution to crux 1 and 2 ....................................................... 319 Solution to crux 3 .................................................................. 320 Frey. Moses and the hermeneutics of typology (3:14) ..... 324 Moses’ serpent in Jewish literature .................................... 325 Philo and Moses’ serpent ..................................................... 325 Typology and the Gospel’s anti-docetic agenda .............. 328 Discussion of Frey’s typology ............................................. 329 Summary ................................................................................ 331
6.6.1
The presupposition for the uplifting of the Son of Man. God’s love (3:16-21) .............................................................. 333 First cause and ultimate referent. God’s love ................... 333
6.7 6.7.1
The Baptist’s summary of the introduction (3:22-36) ...... 339 The gift of the spirit (3:27-28) .............................................. 340
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6.7.2
The voice of the groom (3:29-30) ........................................ 341
6.8
Summary ................................................................................ 344
Chapter 7 The Penultimate Pneumatic Event. “It Is the Spirit That Gives Life” (6:63). Jesus’ Ascent and Translation into the Father .................. 347 7.1
Introduction. The preconditions for the spirit’s coming .. 347
7.2 7.2.1 7.2.1.1 7.2.1.2 7.2.1.3 7.2.1.4 7.2.2 7.2.2.1 7.2.2.2 7.2.2.3 7.2.2.4
The ascension in the scholarly tradition ............................ 353 Resurrection and ascent in Johannine scholarship .......... 353 Bultmann. Resurrection narratives as shmei=a.................... 355 Dodd. Sub specie aeternitatis ................................................. 357 Brown. Dramatization of the ascension ............................. 359 Schneiders. The resurrection (of the Body) ....................... 360 Discussion of scholarship on resurrection and ascent ..... 362 Dodd, Käsemann. God’s love; sub specie aeternitatis ........ 364 van Kooten. John 11 and Plato’s cave allegory ................. 367 The translation. Challenging Brown and Schneiders ...... 370 Mary D’Angelo: A critical note on John 20:17 .................. 373
7.3 7.3.1 7.3.1.1 7.3.1.2 7.3.1.3
Philo and the translation of devout men ........................... 375 Philo and the idea of regeneration: paliggenesi/a............ 376 Paliggenesi/a as new world cycle ...................................... 376 Paliggenesi/a as emotional development ......................... 378 Paliggenesi/a as cosmic translation ................................... 379
7.4 7.4.1 7.4.1.1 7.4.1.2 7.4.2 7.4.2.1 7.4.2.2 7.4.2.3
John and the translation of Jesus ........................................ 386 The enigmas of Jesus’ departure ........................................ 389 Ingesting Jesus ...................................................................... 389 Jesus and the Paraclete – blurred identities ...................... 391 Jesus’ ascent. A narrative analysis of John 20 ................... 395 Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene ............................ 396 Jesus’ encounters with the male disciples ......................... 399 Summary ................................................................................ 402
Chapter 8 The Ultimate Pneumatic event. Worshippers in Spirit and Truth. The Quest for the Father – The Quest of the Father .......... 405 8.1
Introduction. The quest for the truth ................................. 405
8.2 8.2.1
Thomas’ recognition. Seeing the Father ............................ 408 The figure of Thomas in the scholarly tradition ............... 408
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8.2.2 8.2.2.1 8.2.2.2 8.2.2.3 8.2.2.4 8.2.3 8.2.3.1 8.2.3.2 8.2.3.3 8.2.3.4 8.2.3.5 8.2.3.6 8.2.4
Seeing the Father. The epistemology of space .................. 414 The paternal place in John 14 and Jesus’ translation ....... 415 Divine-human indwelling. John and philosophy ............ 418 The Johannine signs in light of the translation ................. 420 Knowing the Father. The epistemology of space ............. 421 Seeing the Father. The epistemology of the emotions ..... 427 Jesus’ emotions in the Nestle-Aland text ........................... 431 Jesus’ emotions in modern exegesis ................................... 432 Origen’s interpretation of Jesus’ emotions ........................ 434 Origen, Seneca and Jesus’ tears .......................................... 437 Philo and the fourth eu0pa&qeia............................................. 438 Knowing the Father: the epistemology of emotions ........ 441 Summary ................................................................................ 443
8.3 8.3.1 8.3.2 8.3.3 8.3.4
Worshippers in spirit and truth .......................................... 445 Making Jewish faith strong. Sabbatical work ................... 447 Making Jewish faith strong. The case of Peter .................. 451 Making Jewish faith strong. Crossing the Tiberias .......... 453 Summary ................................................................................ 456
Bibliography Ancient Sources ........................................................................................ 459 Modern Works on Ancient Philosophy ................................................. 463 Modern Hermeneutics ............................................................................. 467 Theological Literature .............................................................................. 469 Biblical Studies. Modern Works ............................................................. 469 Indices Subject Index ............................................................................................. 483 Index of Modern Authors ....................................................................... 487 Index of Ancient Authors ........................................................................ 490 Biblical Source Index ................................................................................ 494
Chapter 1
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
1.1 Introduction. “It is the spirit that gives life” (6:63) This book analyses the role played by the phenomenon of pneu=ma in the Fourth Gospel’s communication of its message. I have called the study “the meta-story of pneumatic transformations” since the designation “meta-story” mirrors the two focal points of the methodological approach. First, the meta-story of pneumatic transformations is investigated as a narrative, that is, as a story about an appointed agent who solves an urgent task. Traditionally, it is Jesus Christ who is considered to be God’s agent in the world. I suggest, however, that a minor displacement be made so that the divine pneu=ma is seen as the intentional agent and protagonist of the story. Second, this change is justified by an investigation of the influence of Hellenistic meta-physics, especially Stoic physics, on the Johannine concept of pneu=ma. In Stoic cosmology, the universal pneu=ma is a rational and intentional being that embodies the lo&goj of the Whole. This philosophically informed literary study of the Gospel will demonstrate that the term “meta-story” has additional connotations. The title also alludes to the designation that the Johannine Jesus gives in the Farewell Discourses to the complex of events related to his impending death: his being lifted up upon the cross, the resurrection, the ascension and the regeneration of believers. Taken together, these events constitute Jesus’ meta&basij to the Father (13:1).1 This meta&basij enables the transition at the heart of the Fourth Gospel, namely the transition from Jesus as the Son of God to the next generation of divinely begotten children (1:12-13). This is the urgent task with which the Fourth Gospel wrestles. The solution seems to be inspired by the idea articulated by Paul in First Corinthians, namely that “the second Adam became life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).2 This statement must be 1 2
John 13:1: Pro_ de\ th=j e9orth=j tou= pa&sxa ei0dw_j o( 0Ihsou=j o#ti h]lqen au0tou= h9 w#ra i3na metabh=| e0k tou= ko&smou tou&tou pro_j to_n pate/ra, 1 Cor 15:45: o( e1sxatoj 0Ada_m ei0j pneu=ma zw|opoiou=n.
2
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
understood in light of Stoic physics.3 The idea has two aspects: that Christ became spirit, and that this spirit is life-engendering. The Fourth Gospel dramatizes these philosophically informed ideas and stages them in a narrative that makes use of material known from the Gospel tradition. I shall argue that in the Fourth Gospel, the first aspect, Jesus’ “becoming spirit”, is staged in the narrative of the ascension (20:17), and the second aspect, “being life-engendering”, culminates, as the ultimate goal of Jesus’ transformation, in the infusion of this spirit into the disciples (20:22). Finally, the term “meta-story” is an acknowledgement of my profound dept to the Johannine scholar Adele Reinhartz for her reintroduction of cosmology into the Johannine scholarly agenda and her identification of a “meta-tale” within the Fourth Gospel in her 1992 book The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel. Although my version of the story differs from hers, as far as its protagonist is concerned, the literary function of the pneumatic meta-story corresponds to the one that she prescribes for her cosmological tale. In spite of the fact that the “meta-tale” is not present on the discursive surface of the narrative, it still gives the story great cohesive force. Due to the prominent role that the Fourth Gospel ascribes to the phenomenon of pneu=ma, the Gospel has generally been recognized in New Testament scholarship as the most spiritual among the canonical writings. However, the Cartesian/Platonic dichotomy of soul and body, in light of which the Johannine pair of spirit and flesh is often understood, has prevented scholars from committing themselves to an investigation of the physics involved in the Gospel’s communication of its message. From the Cartesian point of view, the idea of juxtaposing spirit and physics appears nonsensical. There may be yet another reason for this. Together with ethics and logic, physics constituted the major disciplines in Hellenistic philosophy. If one idea united the Johannine exegesis of the 20th century, it was the consensus that the world view of the Fourth Gospel was not philosophical. Adolf von Harnack’s article “Ueber das Verhältnis des Prologs des vierten Evangeliums zum ganzen Werk” (1892) definitively put a stop to the flirtation with philosophy that had characterized German Johannine exegesis in the 19 th century: “I will probably not be 3
Troels Engberg-Pedersen (2007a, 2009) argues that Paul’s discussion of the resurrection body should be understood in light of the Stoic physics that Paul himself features in the same discourse (15:35-41). Engberg-Pedersen concludes that Paul’s idea of the resurrection body is informed by the Stoic idea of the e0kpu&rwsij in which the dense elements through the process of a)nastoixei/wsij are transformed into the lightest heavenly material.
Introduction. “It is the spirit that gives life”
3
wrong if I claim that nobody would have thought of a relation between the Johannine Christ and the Alexandrian or any other personification of the divine Logos if the Prologue had not made this connection” (211, my translation). According to Harnack, the body of the Gospel did not provide material for this identification. The purpose of the Prologue was to put an end to all philosophical speculation by replacing the metaphysical concept of lo&goj with the history of Jesus Christ. The Prologue was not the key to any Christology of the lo&goj, but simply the entrance to the sanctuary of the Gospel (zum Heiligthum des Evangeliums) (226). In this line of thinking, instead of philosophy, the context for our understanding of Johannine Christology should be Jewish apocalyptic thinking as found, for instance, in Daniel. The exclusion of philosophy from the German exegesis of the Fourth Gospel was approved by Oxford. In a study on “Genesis I-III and St John’s Gospel” (1920), Edwyn C. Hoskyns praised the suggestion that the proper context for a reading of the Prologue was Jewish Wisdom Literature, especially that of the Old Testament, and emphatically not Hellenistic philosophy. This insight, Hoskyns contends, takes the understanding of the Prologue in the right direction, although it does not go far enough, namely back to the beginning of the Old Testament, to the Word of God in Genesis: If re-creation by God is St. John’s primary explanation of Christian experience, the Prologue ceases to present real difficulty. Dr Rendel Harris in his ‘Origin of the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel’ has brought back the study of i 1-14 from Hellenistic Philosophy to the Old Testament Wisdom Literature, and for this we cannot be too grateful. But he has not explained the use of the word Lo&goj. If his argument were finally adequate, the Gospel should have opened with the words )En a)rxh=| h]n h9 Sofi/a. If, however, we take the opening chapters of Genesis rather than the Wisdom Literature as the starting-point, and then use the Wisdom Literature where it also is alluding to the Book of Genesis, the theological as well as the linguistic difficulties of the Prologue can be explained. (Hoskyns 1920, 216)
In this way, the Johannine lo&goj was bereft of any philosophical connotations; it was God’s creative word and nothing else. In the few exceptional cases where exegetes defied mainstream exegesis and insisted that philosophy remained the key to the Fourth Gospel, it was Platonic epistemology they had in mind. Despite the fact that the concept of pneu=ma is a key concept in Stoic physics, but has no place in Platonic philosophy, Stoicism has never loomed large in Johannine scholarship. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, published in
4
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
1953 by C. H. Dodd, constitutes the exception that proves the rule.4 Dodd recognizes the debt of the Fourth Gospel to the Stoic doctrine of the lo&goj, but at the same time points out that, in the era of the New Testament writings, Stoic philosophy had been infused with large doses of Platonism and transformed into “one of the forerunners of neo-Platonism” (11).5 However, it is difficult to discern any genuinely Stoic heritage in Dodd’s discussion of the Middle Platonism of the Fourth Gospel. According to Dodd, “[t]he fusion of Platonism and Stoicism provided an organon for thinkers of various tendencies who sought a philosophical justification of religion” (11, emphasis in original). It is this Platonizing of Stoic doctrines that enables the fourth Evangelist to reinterpret the contrast made by Hebrew thinkers between God and mortal man – that is, between God’s powerful spirit (ruâh) and powerless flesh (bâsâr) – in terms of the antithesis nohta&ai0sqhta&. When put into practice, Dodd’s exegesis reduces the Stoicism of the Fourth Gospel to pure Platonism. The allusions to Stoic doctrines reverberating in the Gospel remain an exterior verbal form, whereas the meaning is derived from Platonic ideas of transcendence. The comment on John 4:24 (pneu=ma o( qeo&j) is a typical example of the strategy. On the one hand, Dodd notes that the Stoic definition of God as pneu=ma dih=kon di’ o#lou tou~ ko&smou seems, at least verbally, to be echoed in John 4:24, and he continues: “the materialism of that definition was seldom completely transcended by Hellenistic writers who used the term pneu=ma, however they might wish to maintain a non-material, Platonic, conception of deity” (225). On the other hand, he shares Origen’s “uneasiness about the Johannine definition” (225). Dodd quotes Origen’s comment: Many writers have made various affirmations about God and His ou0si/a. Some have said that He is of a corporeal nature, fine and aether-like; some 4
5
Dodd’s assignment of core ideas of the Fourth Gospel to the philosophical agenda of Hellenism is unique in the 20th century. That is probably why the book has been reprinted several times (the latest paperback edition is from 1995). During the 1950s and 1960s, however, the book was subjected to strong criticism, especially from German colleagues. See Bultmann, ”The interpretation of the Fourth Gospel” (1954) and Käsemann, “Zur Johannes-Interpretation in England” (1964). Dodd dissociates himself from Augustine’s association of the Fourth Gospel with Platonic thoughts. Instead, Dodd argues that Platonism is the proper context for the Gospel: “The Logos-doctrine, however, to which Augustine specially refers, is no part of the original system of Plato, though it appears in the neo-Platonism of Plotinus. That doctrine owed more to the Stoics. From the time of Posidonius, who gave the Stoic philosophy a strong infusion of Platonism, the two schools approached one another, and on the popular level philosophy often took the form of a platonizing Stoicism or stoicizing Platonism” (1953, 11).
Introduction. “It is the spirit that gives life”
5
that He is of incorporeal nature; others that He is beyond ou0si/a in dignity and power. It is therefore worth our while to see whether we have in the Scriptures starting-points (a)forma&j) for making any statement about the ou0si/a of God. Here [John iv.24] it is said that pneu=ma is, as it were, His ou0si/a. For he says, pneu=ma o( qeo&j. In the Law He is said to be fire, for it is written, o( qeo_j h9mw~n pu~r katanali/skon (Deut. iv.24, Heb. xii. 29), and in John to be light, for he says, o( qeo_j fw~j e0sti, kai\ skoti/a e0n au0tw~| ou!k e0stin ou0demi/a (I John i.5). If we are to take these statements at their face value, without concerning ourselves with anything beyond the verbal expression, it is time for us to say that God is sw~ma; but what absurdities would follow if we said so, few realize.6 (Origen, Comm. Jo. xiii. 21-3; translation by Dodd 1953, 226)
It is this uneasiness, articulated by Origen, with which the present study takes issue. In his book, Dodd demonstrated how in Corpus Hermeticum and in Philo’s writings the understanding of God’s ontological status and his pneu=ma oscillated between a non-material Platonic transcendence and a Stoic materialism. Maybe this ambiguity is also found in the Fourth Gospel? Often antithetical pairs of ideas are instinctively referred to a radically dualistic world view, be it Platonic or apocalyptic. But maybe the polar oppositions within the monistic system of Stoicism may also – maybe even in a better way – account for the complex attitude towards the world that we find in the Fourth Gospel? On the one hand, the Johannine Christ defines his relation to the world as one of opposition (e.g. 17:14-16). On the other hand, it is also stated explicitly that the Son was not sent in order to judge this world (3:17; 12:47) which had come into being through God’s lo&goj (1:3). God even gave up His monogenh/j Son in order that this world should not perish, but be saved and have eternal life through him (3:16f). Neither the traditional conception of Platonic philosophy as a radical dualism with its world of shadows and unstable, unreal phenomena nor apocalypticism with its judgement of this evil aeon can capture the Fourth Gospel's affirmative stance towards the world.
6
Dodd quotes from Brooke’s Commentary of Origen on St. John’s Gospel (1896, 267-70). Origen’s solution to the problem of John 4:24 is that, in the Fourth Gospel, God is only called pneu=ma by analogy. Just as the pneu=ma is the source of (intermediate) life, God is the source of real life (a)lhqinh\n zwh/n). Dodd himself chooses another, more straightforwardly Platonic solution. He distinguishes between a transcendent interTrinitarian divine pneu=ma and the Holy Spirit: “The Logos, being qeo&j, has the nature of pneu=ma. … Being pneu=ma (not, of course, being ‘the Holy Spirit’) …” (Dodd 1953, 226). As we shall see later on in this chapter, the distinction between the divine pneu=ma and the Holy Spirit also looms large in German exegesis of the Johannine pneu=ma. But whereas Dodd’s descriptions overtly demonstrate the influence of later doctrinal thinking, German exegesis is keen on being historical. In Chapter Seven, I shall discuss Dodd’s exegesis of the Johannine pneu=ma in more detail.
6
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
My exposition of Johannine ”physics”, that is, the meta-story of pneumatic transformations, begins with a brief sketch of two key positions within Johannine research: the Anglo-American and the German. It is recognized, especially from the German quarter, that AngloAmerican and German Johannine exegesis constitute two different interpretive communities, each with their own questions and methodological agendas.7 Since this theological/exegetical schism was developed in the wake of World War II, the discourses still share a common ground, namely Rudolf Bultmann’s exegesis of the Fourth Gospel. Whereas Anglo-Americans wrestle with the Johannine puzzle identified by Bultmann in his seminal 1925 article “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” Germans take issue with the tension between lo&goj and pneu=ma identified by Bultmann in his 1941 commentary on the Fourth Gospel, a tension subsequently designated the Johannine hiatus. The first account of the history of research is oriented towards the Anglo-American agenda and will focus on the issue of cosmology. Three different methodological approaches are described, each of which dominated Johannine scholarship in different eras of the previous century: (1) the history of religion at work in Rudolf Bultmann’s gnostic redeemer myth introduced in his 1925 article; (2) the sociology of knowledge or the socio-scientific perspective in Wayne A. Meeks’ 1972 essay “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism”; and (3) the literary perspective adopted by Adele Reinhartz in her reconstruction of John’s cosmological meta-tale in her 1992 book, The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel. Common to all three approaches is the discussion of the function of the puzzling descent/ascent pattern in the Fourth Gospel. The choice of these works is motivated partly by the nearly canonical status that has been ascribed to these writings by Johannine scholarship, partly because their discussion of cosmology is as close as we get to a discussion of physics proper in the previous century. The analysis and discussion of these contributions to Johannine scholarship will set the stage for the study of the cosmology of the Fourth Gospel, in both methodology and content.
7
Often German exegetes accuse their Anglo-American colleagues of being apologetic. The accusation rests on the fact that the whole enterprise of tradition and source criticism has never been an urgent issue to Anglo-American scholarship. Among modern Anglo-American scholars, German exegesis is found to mirror their confessional Protestant milieu. Both parties claim that the other part represents the more conservative stance.
Introduction. “It is the spirit that gives life”
7
The second approach to the history of research traces the fate of the Johannine pneu=ma (die Pneumatologie des Johannesevangeliums) in German scholarship. Although exceptions exist, German exegesis of the Johannine pneu=ma is to a large extent marked by pneuma-phobia.8 This part features different methodological approaches, too. First, I introduce Michael Theobald’s work. Here redaction criticism is intimately linked with historical criticism and an interest in the development of the Johannine community and its internal conflicts. With regard to Johannine theology, the pneu=ma must be characterized as a marginal concept since, Theobald claims, it primarily belonged to the group of opponents criticized in First John. Next, I examine Hans-Christian Kammler’s argument. Kammler differentiates between the variuos pneumatic phenomena that he finds in the Fourth Gospel; the Johannine pneu=ma is not an undifferentiated entity, but must be subjected to an ontological distinction between the divine and human sphere. 9 The German idea of a hiatus between the Christology of the lo&goj and that of the pneu=ma is common ground for the work of the two scholars. Whereas the overview of Anglo-American research serves as a point of departure for my thesis, the review of German research will address potential objections to my project. In examining the AngloAmerican research, I argue that a philosophical perspective on physics and cosmology that integrates the Johannine pneu=ma into the Fourth Gospel’s meta-story is necessary in order to solve the problems that the various approaches to the ascent/descent pattern have faced. In the review of German scholarship, I defend the Johannine pneu=ma against attempts to subject it to partitions which are foreign to the discourse on pneu=ma in the physics of antiquity and which seem rather to have their rationale in the agenda of modern theology.
8
9
Exceptions are F. Porsch’s Wort und Pneuma: Ein exegetischer Beitrag zur Pneumatologie des Johannesevangliums (1974) and U. Schnelle’s essay “Johannes als Geisttheologe” (1998). As was the case in Dodd’s distinction between the inner-Trinitarian divine pneu=ma and the Holy Spirit. See note 6 above.
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History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
1.2 Cosmology in Johannine exegesis Not the least of Rudolf Bultmann’s enduring contributions to Johannine studies was his recognition and insistence that any attempt to solve the ‘Johannine puzzle’ must begin with this picture of the descending/ascending redeemer. W. A. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism” (1972, 44)
1.2.1 Bultmann. The gnostic redeemer – myth, not philosophy For almost a century the agenda of Johannine scholarship has been defined by the Johannine puzzle identified by Rudolf Bultmann in his 1925 article: “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums”.10 According to Bultmann, the depiction of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel as a revealer who had descended from heaven and who, after having fulfilled his mission, ascended back to heaven constitutes a puzzle, since throughout the narrative Jesus’ revelation remains empty. Nothing is revealed by Jesus apart from the fact that he is the revealer. In spite of Jesus’ repeated reminder to the audience that he is commissioned as a divine messenger, no message is ever delivered. The revelation remains ein blosses Dass.11 Bultmann’s solution to the puzzle is wellknown. The interpretive context of the motif was to be found outside the text, in the religious milieu of the Gospel, in the gnostic redeemer myth. The ascent/descent motif in the Fourth Gospel characterized Jesus as the man, the revealer of that myth (Bultmann 1925; Meeks 1972, 47). According to Bultmann, the cosmological language of the redeemer myth was intimately related to the individual experience of being abandoned to the contingencies of the world. The cosmic drama of redemption was an external, objectifying language onto which the inner, subjective experience of being lost and, in turn, being rescued through faith was projected. The cosmic language was secondary, extrinsic and arbitrary in relation to the universal human experience, and as such, it could, and should, be stripped off in order to reveal the eternal character of the message of salvation present in the Gospel, the kerygma. As a way of expressing the individual experience of self and world, the cos10
11
In the introduction to The Interpretation of John (1986), John Ashton notes that Bultmann’s article kept Johannine exegesis occupied during most of the 20th century (14). In English: “A bare and unadorned ‘that’” (Ashton 1986, 14).
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
9
mological language was mythological and should not be confused with the descriptive logic of philosophical language (Bultmann 1988). The experience of salvation came about as a change in one’s subjective perception of the self and the world, and this personal and phenomenological dimension of being could not be captured by a philosophy and abstract ideas. The cosmological language of the myth belonged to phenomenology, not to metaphysics and speculative philosophy. In Johannine scholarship, the discussion of the sources of the mythical descent/ascent motif survived Bultmann’s program of existential demythologization, at least for some decades. But when the scholarly community was convinced that the phenomenon of “gnosticism” did not belong to the sources of the Fourth Gospel, but to its reception, Bultmann’s idea of an extra-Christian redeemer myth was left behind as well. Cosmic speculations were no longer seen as an intrinsic factor in the formation of the Fourth Gospel, but rejected as heretical readings of the Gospel. The criticism of Bultmann’s construction of the redeemer myth continued to grow. On the one hand, the myth was seen as a structural abstraction that did away with the particularity of specific myths. On the other hand, it was claimed that the myth itself was dependent on the language of the Fourth Gospel to such a degree that the idea of an antecedent form became a hypothesis without explanatory value. The idea of an extra-textual myth, with its Sitz-im-Leben in an early Christian cultic milieu, was abandoned by Johannine scholarship. Although the cultic myth became a scholarly relic, the puzzle related to the descent/ascent pattern survived, but now attention was directed towards the more mundane life and the conflicts within the Johannine community (Ashton 1986, 8-18; Meeks 1972, 4449).
1.2.2 Meeks. Discourse without cosmography In his 1972 article “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism”, Wayne Meeks revived Bultmann’s agenda and puzzle. Writing at the height of redaction criticism, Meeks provocatively suggested that at least some of the linguistic aporiae in the Fourth Gospel were deliberately intended by the fourth Evangelist. The fact that the author clearly demonstrated that he was able to construct a coherent, seamless literary whole (e.g. the narrative of the judgement at Pilate’s place in John 18) supported this idea. In response to this observation, Meeks asked: “In what situation does a literary puzzle provide an appropriate means of communication?” (47). Instead of Bultmann’s cultic setting, Meeks re-
10
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
ferred the answer to the social function of language. A closed, non-referential language may play an important role in the construction of a group’s collective identity. Thus, theological ideas were displaced by socio-scientific terms. In place of the existential crisis of Bultmann’s individual believer, Meeks looked to the group’s historical experience of traumatic conflicts with Judaism (55). As an alternative to salvation, Meeks spoke of the establishment of a new social identity. The Sitz-imLeben of the puzzling language was not to be found in the cultic practice of Oriental culture but in the socio-symbolic world of the Johannine community.12 In his adoption of Bultmann’s puzzle, Meeks gives the idea of the empty revelation (das blosse Dass) a linguistic turn. The enigmatic, opaque language of the revelatory discourse serves only to mark Jesus as the divine Stranger: “The pattern, descent and ascent, becomes the cipher for Jesus’ unique self-knowledge as well as for his foreignness to the men of this world” (60):
12
Tricia G. Brown’s 2003 monograph, Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-Scientific Perspective, constitutes an Anglo-American approach to the pneumatology of the Fourth Gospel. Brown’s study may be seen as an application of Meeks’ 1973 study on the social function of the Johannine language to the specific discourse on the spirit in the Johannine writings. Here, too, the expulsion from the synagogue and the assumed loss of identity constitute the context against which the language reacts. To Tricia Brown, the pneumatic discourse constitutes a subversive “anti-language” that evades meaning in ordinary language, but which provides the sectarian group with an anti-identity. The new identity rests on the privileged relation to the divine that the group has obtained through Jesus. However, Brown does not refer her study to Meeks’ work on language and identity. Instead, she sees her work as a continuation of the socio-scientific tradition of Malina and Rohrbaugh, especially their Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (1998). Inspired by their work, Brown argues in favour of understanding the Fourth Gospel in light of the informal Mediterranean institution of patron and client. She sees Jesus as a brokermediator between God, who is the ultimate patron, and the Johannine community as the client. The community obtains its identity from its relation with the broker. The social function of the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit are understood within this framework. In order to restore the potential loss of identity caused by Jesus’ absence, the Paraclete/Holy Spirit is introduced as a new broker that secures the relation between believers and the previous broker and, through him, their relation to God. Brown’s interpretation rests on a dualism that is characteristic of socialscientific readings. A dualistic world view is a strong factor in the construction of group identity due to the fact that it provides the basis for an insider-outsider identity. Brown’s reading gives rise to several questions. First, her focus on the social function of pneumatic discourse causes the pneumatology of the Gospel to be defined wholly in terms of its Christology. Consequently, the reading cannot be sensitive to the specific language of the spirit in the Gospel. Since the matrix of Tricia Brown’s work is the same as Meeks’, my criticism of Meeks’ essay applies to Brown’s book as well. The anti-language does not necessarily evade logic. It depends on the repertoire – e.g. Stoic physics – of the (real) reader.
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
11
Thus the dialogue with Nicodemus and its postscript connected with John the Baptist constitute a virtual parody of a revelation discourse. What is “revealed” is that Jesus is incomprehensible, even to “the teacher of Israel” who holds an initially positive belief in him – within the context of Jewish piety – and even to the Baptist who has been his primary human witness (5:3235). The forms of speech which would ordinarily provide warrants for a particular body of information or instruction here are used in such a way that they serve solely to emphasize Jesus’ strangeness. Yet it is not quite accurate to say with Bultmann that Jesus reveals only that he is the revealer. He reveals rather that he is an enigma. (Meeks 1972, 57, emphasis added)
There is no solution to the riddled language, for it represents Jesus’ strangeness. From this perspective, any interest in the history and sources of the idiosyncratic, enigmatic language of the Fourth Gospel appears senseless.13 Instead, we should ask: “What function did this particular system of metaphors have for the group that developed it?” (68). The language of the Gospel mirrors the historical situation of the Johannine group. Separated from Judaism, the group experienced an alienation from the world at large. In this situation, the Gospel provided the new community with a new identity, although a negative one (70). They were neither Jews nor Gentiles; they were not of this world. Instead, they lived in unity with Christ and through him with God. A kind of language-game (68) takes place in which the symbolic world, particularly that of Judaism, is demolished (71). It is a core claim in Meeks’ study that the descent/ascent “motif belongs exclusively to discourse, not to narrative” (50, Meeks’ emphasis). Meeks demonstrates his point with several examples. First, the descent and ascent of Christ from, and back to, heaven are not narrated in the Fourth Gospel but simply presupposed. Second, the promise to Nathanael that he shall see the heaven open and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (1:51) is without any “explicit fulfilment in John” (51). Finally, no geographical features from the heavenly journeys are recorded, the movements of Christ between heaven and earth provide no “occasion for a cosmography” (50). The descent/ascent motif is, instead, “used exclusively to identify Jesus … as the Stranger
13
Meeks’ characterization of Jesus’ revelatory discourse in socio-scientific terms finds its counterpart in German Protestant exegesis where Jesus’ discourse is claimed to be incomprehensible as well. The obscurity, however, is here referred to God’s mystery in the incarnation; the possibility of a rebirth is impervious to human reasoning. The shortcoming of human reasoning is embodied in the character of Nicodemus. See Hofius’ essay “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt” (1996). The vertical God-human dichotomy in Protestant exegesis is in the socio-scientific approach transformed into the sectarian consciousness of a horizontal inside-outside identity.
12
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
par excellence” (50, Meeks’ emphasis).14 He alone has access to heavenly secrets, he alone has seen and entered the kingdom of God (3:3; 5). 15 The radical dualism of the Fourth Gospel leaves an aporia in the story: if Jesus as the Man from Heaven is the stranger par excellence, how is it possible that someone belonging to this world will be able to respond to him? According to Meeks, the Fourth Gospel is content to leave this question unexplained, but “that enigma cries out for some master myth to explain it” (71). The master myth is found in the gnostic reception of the Fourth Gospel. In “Gnosticism”, the counter-cultural stance of Johannine sectarianism was reinforced by cosmology. The self-referential language of the Gospel was assigned an ontological refe14
15
Meeks notices that the particular order of the pair of verbs in 1:51: a)nabai/nein-katabai/nein opposes the sequence related to the incarnation, namely descent-ascent. He explains the actual sequence with a reference to the traditional logion – a Midrash on Gen 28:12 – that the text of the Gospel seems to depend on. Meeks also notes that it is the ascent that is emphasized in the Gospel: “Naturally more and more emphasis is placed on the ascent as the book progresses, and it becomes apparent that descent and ascent are not treated in precisely symmetrical fashion. The ascent is more complex, for more independent motifs have been bound together in the Johannine picture of Jesus’ leaving the world than in the picture of his coming into it” (1972, 62). In spite of these observations, Meeks does not question the basic pattern of the myth which he, in accordance with the incarnation, continues to describe as the descent/ascent pattern. I shall argue that the choice of sequence in the Gospel, a)nabai/nein-katabai/nein, is in no way accidental and that the present sequence represents more than loyalty to an original saying. When the complex of “independent motifs” related to Jesus’ death are drawn into the foreground, the actual sequence observed by Meeks suddenly becomes meaningful. Jesus’ ascent to the Father precedes the simultaneous return of Father and Son (14:23, 28) in the form of the Holy Spirit/Spirit of Truth/Paraclete that becomes the re-generation a!nwqen (3:3, 5); in other words, it is a downward movement. This interpretation will be discussed in Chapter Seven. Consequently, Meeks concludes that Jesus’ statements in the discourse with Nicodemus about being born from above (of spirit and water), refer primarily, if not exclusively, to Jesus himself. Meeks’ reading of 3:1-8 as a reference to Jesus’ own generation is exceptional in Johannine exegesis. Most commentators reserve the generation from above for believers; they understand it metaphorically and oppose it to the real incarnation of 1:14a. They claim that the soteriology of the Fourth Gospel depends on this ontological difference. Meeks’ interpretation demonstrates that it is not the text itself which generates resistance to his reading, but a weighty scholarly tradition. In my reading of 3:1-8, I intend to combine Meeks’ reading, in which the referent is Jesus, and that of the scholarly tradition, which refers to believers. The generation “from above” is a real generation which takes place “for the second time”, and it happens, first, to Jesus and then to the believers. Jesus’ generation as Son of God through the descent of the Spirit from above witnessed by John the Baptist is paradigmatic for the generation of the children of God (1:12f). The ontological difference, on which Johannine soteriology is based, is established through the complex of events related to the cross, pre-eminently, the resurrection and the ascension – and not through the incarnation.
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
13
rence in cosmos. The idiosyncratic language thus became a myth. The divine seed, which the gnostic pneumatics possessed, filled the aporia. The gnostic interest in cosmology and ontology is taken by Meeks to be alien to the symbolic world of the Fourth Gospel.16 Meeks’ description of Jesus’ revelatory discourse as an “irrational, disorganized, and incomplete” speech of “aporiae”, of “parody”, of “enigma” and “foreignness” will be called into question by this study. I shall argue that, once John’s language is understood within the perspective of Stoic physics, it loses its enigmatic character.
1.2.3 Reinhartz. The Word in the world – a cosmological tale 1.2.3.1 The theoretical framework The so-called “literary turn” in New Testament exegesis succeeded in placing cosmology on the agenda of Johannine scholarship once more.17 From his socio-scientific perspective Meeks had concluded that the descent/ascent motif belonged to discourse and not narrative. Now the literary perspective leads Adele Reinhartz to the opposite conclusion. In her 1992 book The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues that the descent/ascent motif certainly belongs to the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. In addition, the cosmological tale constitutes the interpretive framework that provides the signs, metaphors and revelatory discourse of the Gospel with meaning (44). Reinhartz leaves unanswered the question of genre and sources, once posed by the History of Religion School, and she postpones the discussion of the social function of the cosmological tale in order to concentrate on its literary function in the Gospel. Crucial to Reinhartz’ approach to the narrativity of the descent/ascent pattern is the signifier/signified distinction that she borrows from the literary theories of Gérard Genette and Seymour Chatman.18 In the modern narratology of Genette, a distinction is made 16
17
18
In another article “Corinthian Christians as Artificial Aliens” (2001), W. Meeks describes the Corinthian congregation as consisting of “artificial aliens” using the status of foreign citizens in Greek cities as metaphor. The description holds good as well for Meeks’ understanding of the Johannine group. The literary turn in the scholarship of the Fourth Gospel was inaugurated by Alan R. Culpepper’s influential study Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (1983). Reinhartz refers to Seymour Chatman’s Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (1978) and Gérard Genette’s Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (1980).
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between the written text as sign and signifier and the signified story which it tells. Chatman varies the terminology and distinguishes between discourse/narrative (corresponding to Genette’s signifier) and story (Genette’s signified). The model allows a story to be represented by the written text, although the events that make up its plot are not explicitly described or even mentioned. The conceptual distinction between discourse and story explains the different conclusions reached by Meeks and Reinhartz, respectively. When Reinhartz reconstructs her cosmological tale, this story has the status of a signified in Genette’s terminology. Meeks’ argument that the motif “belongs exclusively to discourse, not to narrative” (1972, 50) referred to the fact that the events of the pattern are only presupposed and not directly narrated. In the terminology of Genette, they are not part of the signifier (Reinhartz 1992, 1). This distinction made by modern narratologists enables the textual signifier to represent several overlapping stories, that is, a multiplicity of signified stories. The theory allows Reinhartz to identify no less than three signified tales in the Gospel. The designation “tale” is chosen in order to emphasize the wholly literary character of the stories. They belong to the world of the text and may be constructed by the (compliant) implied reader (Reinhartz 2003, 26).19 The primary signified tale of these stories is “the historical tale” of Jesus’ mission. The setting of the tale is first-century Palestine (C.E.), and it takes place during the final years of Jesus’ mission. The plot that drives the tale is the conflict between Jesus and the Jews on the question of Jesus’ identity and commission (Reinhartz 1992, 2). The observation of Raymond E. Brown and J. Louis Martyn that some of the narrated events of the historical tale do not really fit the situation of Jesus’ Palestinian followers, 20 but match the conditions of Christian communities at the turn of the first century (e.g. the expulsion from the synagogue) led to the suggestion that events recorded in the
19
20
Reinhartz expresses her enterprise in the following way: ”The present study will therefore examine the ways in which one construct of the Fourth Gospel, namely the implied reader, would derive at a second construct, the story or stories embodied in the Johannine narrative, in order to discern the intentions of the third construct, the implied author. Its focus will therefore be on the activity of the implied reader” (1992, 8). For reasons that will soon become clear, I disagree with Reinhartz in her understanding of the implied reader as a phenomenon within the text and as a construct of the text. There is more at stake in the reading process than being “compliant” or “resistant” (Reinhartz 2003). There is also the supplement that the reader her- or himself brings to the story. See R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (1979) and J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (1968).
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
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history of Jesus’ mission may have a double reference. 21 This idea is incorporated by Reinhartz into her textual model. Underneath the historical tale as the “primary tale”, there exists yet another “sub-tale” that mirrors the life and experiences of the Johannine community. Reinhartz calls this sub-tale the “the ecclesiological tale”, since its setting and story time belongs to that community. In the ecclesiological tale, the plot that drives the story is the conflict between the Johannine community and the synagogue, again, concerning Jesus’ identity. The narrated life of Jesus and his followers are represented here as the experiences of the community and Jesus’ Jewish opponents represent the Diaspora synagogue. During the second half of the 20 th century, scholarly interest has centred primarily on the ecclesiological tale (3). The written text is the signifier of the historical tale, but in relation to the ecclesiological tale, it is the reconstructed historical tale that functions as signifier. Whereas the historical tale is constructed from a realistic reading of the text, the ecclesiological tale is perceived through a representational or symbolic understanding of the historical tale. Reinhartz suggests that yet another tale must be constructed in order to reach the full meaning of the Gospel. Actually, it has already presented itself in the historical tale, namely in Jesus’ claim to heavenly origin. Reinhartz designates this story “the cosmological tale” due to the fact that cosmos constitutes its setting and eternity its time frame (4). Reinhartz observes that the cosmological tale of the Word’s relation to the world fulfils Aristotle’s definition of a story in his treatise on Poetics. The tale has a beginning, a middle and an end (27); it “describes the movement of its central character, Jesus, through time and space” (18). In the beginning, before the creation of the world, the pre-existing Word resided with God “in that non-worldly realm which God also inhabits” (17). The middle is concerned with the entering of the eternal Word into historical space and time, that is, the incarnation. The purpose of the sending of the Word to the world is described as the removal of sin from the world (1:29). The defeat of the “ruler of this world” (14:30), “the evil one” (17:15), Satan (13:27) or the devil (8:44; 13:2) constitutes the plot of the story: Will Jesus succeed? However, the 21
In the end, the literary approach to the “tales” leads Reinhartz to reject Brown’s and Martyn’s two stage-model; the narratives of the Gospel do not mirror the real history of the community, but rather history as the fourth Evangelist interprets it. In her 2003 book, Reinhartz argues that the depiction of the Jews in the Fourth Gospel is more complex than Brown’s and Martyn’s history of the expulsion from the synagogue allows (2003, 48-53). Whereas Brown and Martyn base their story on John 9, Reinhartz also takes John 11 and the sympathy manifested at Lazarus’ burial into consideration.
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divine Word’s residence in the world is not permanent. Having fulfilled his mission, Jesus returns and ascends to the Father in order to reassume the place he enjoyed before entering the world. The effect of the fulfilled mission is the gathering of a community that is equipped to carry on the mission. The commissioning of the community takes place through its reception of the Holy Spirit from the risen Christ (20:22) and through the coming of the Paraclete, which replaces Jesus’ presence in the community and in the world (24). The real end of the story is postponed until the Parousia, when the return of Christ will result in the promised resurrection of believers in order that they, too, may follow Jesus out of the world to the realm of the Father (25, 39). The cosmological tale is thus an open-ended story.22 The placement of the historical and ecclesiological tales within the framework of the cosmological tale reopens the restricted spatio-temporal horizons of these tales and offers a new and universal perspective to the implied reader: It is therefore by universalizing the specific temporal and spatial boundaries of the historical and ecclesiological tales that the cosmological tale allows and encourages readers to situate themselves within the Gospel and to see themselves as its addressees. (38)
The Gospel is no longer a window to the past. Instead, it offers a perspective that real readers of all times are invited to adopt. Reinhartz notes that the passages which speak directly of the cosmological tale are often “found in the worlds of the narrator rather than on the lips of the Johannine Jesus or any other character in this Gospel. This is true, for example, of such key passages as 1:1-18, 3:16-21 and 3:31-36” (44). The cosmological meta-tale thus constitutes a kind of meta-discourse between implied author and implied reader (45). It provides the reader with an interpretive key to important issues in the Gospel, e.g. the Christological titles, Jesus’ signs and the Johannine irony.
22
In the historical and the ecclesiological tales, the plot is concerned with Jesus’ identity. In the cosmological tale, however, the character of the plot differs. Here Jesus’ divine origin is no longer an issue, it is simply presupposed. Instead, focus is on the task that Jesus is committed to carrying out. In Reinhartz’ version of the tale, the task is the defeat of the ultimate source of evil and sin. In Chapter Five of this book “The Commissioning of Jesus. The Cry in the Wilderness for a Straight Way to the Lord (John 1:23)” I discuss the plot of the pneumatic meta-story. I, too, argue that the plot is driven by the question of whether Jesus will succeed in carrying out his mission – and, if so, how the task is solved. In my version of the plot, the purpose of Jesus’ mission is the provision of a new generation of divine children (1:13) who will worship in “spirit and truth” (4:24). Different versions of the plot do not necessarily contradict one another; they may belong to different layers or tales of the signified story.
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
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In order to set the stage for my own pneumatic version of the cosmological tale, a short discussion of some of Reinhartz’ readings are instructive.
1.2.3.2 The cosmological tale and its Johannine features i. Christology and the cosmological tale In accordance with the general tendency in Johannine scholarship, Reinhartz, too, finds Christology to be “virtually axiomatic in Johannine studies” (30). She therefore sets out to demonstrate the dialectic between the major Christological titles and the cosmology of the Gospel: the titles obtain their ultimate meaning from the cosmological framework and contribute to the construction of the cosmic world view. Reinhartz observes that the title “Son of God” emerges most often in relation to the theme of sending (31); throughout his worldly agency, Jesus speaks and acts in the place of one who resides somewhere else. Jesus comes and leaves, he leaves and comes. He descends and he ascends. The image of the messenger is borrowed from the ancient institution of telegraph service. Since the two spheres oppose each other, the world view is both dualistic and apocalyptic. The dualistic cosmology establishes a hierarchy of values; what comes from above is positive, what comes from below remains negative. Those who orient themselves towards heavenly things live “spiritual” lives, those who are oriented towards the values of the world live “physical” lives. The world below is a place associated with sin (1:29), darkness and spiritual death: That the world, the realm of physical life, is antithetical to spiritual life, is indicated in 12:25: “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life”. The world cannot receive the spirit of truth (14:17); it hates Jesus and his disciples because they are not of the world (7:7; 17:14). (40, emphasis added)
The Johannine community’s possession of a link to the world above through the presence of the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete substantiates the group’s identity and their claim to authority (37). The spatial perspective is also applied to the Christological titles associated with Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman. Here traditional Jewish titles – the Messiah and the formula for God’s self-identification, “I am” – are used to identify Jesus. Both epithets, however, are reinterpreted by the aid of the cosmological framework. The Samaritan woman identifies the Messiah as “the coming one” (4:25: oi]da o#ti
18
History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
Messi/aj e1rxetai), that is, “a formula which appears to be short for ‘the one coming into the world’” (30, emphasis added).23 Also the “I am” saying, which is used by Jesus to identify himself, should be placed in the cosmological framework: In 4:26, Jesus uses the formulation [e0gw& ei0mi] absolutely, declaring to the Samaritan woman, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you [e0gw& ei0mi, o( lalw~n soi]. In this case, the completion “the Messiah” is implied, since Jesus’ words are in response to the woman’s comment, “I know that Messiah is coming [e1rxetai] (who is called Christ). When he comes [e1lqh|] he will proclaim all things to us” (4:25). The presence of the words “comes” and “is coming” signal the cosmological tale. (34)
In Reinhartz’ cosmological tale, the event of coming is reserved primarily for the incarnation and secondarily for the Parousia. It is the “knowledge of and belief in Jesus as described in the cosmological tale” (36) that constitute the content of the faith that brings salvation. As I will explain below, it is questionable whether it is precisely these happenings that the event of coming refers to. ii. The sign narratives and the cosmological tale The so-called sign-narratives, which make up the major content of the historical tale, refer symbolically to the cosmological tale. In the signs, it is possible to catch a glimpse of the glory that Jesus shared with the Father and that he will re-assume in full at his return. According to Reinhartz, “[t]he clues which the implied author provides regarding the meaning and significance of the sign-narratives are not abstract Christological tenets but have their place in the coherent narrative structure of the cosmological tale” (43). The sign-narratives refer to Jesus’ divine origin and status in the heavenly sphere.24 iii. Johannine irony and the cosmological tale Reinhartz’ three-tale model is also able to account for the phenomenon of Johannine irony. The multi-storied signified of the Fourth Gospel provides the foundation for the multiple dimensions of Johannine irony. The misunderstandings occasioned by the double entendre of the text can be explained as failures to apply the cosmological tale to the textual signifiers. When the narrated audience reacts to statements about Jesus’ identity and mission with confusion and scepticism, their doubt and objections, although justified at the literal level, are often 23 24
Cf. Martha’s confession in John 11:27: e0gw_ pepi/steuka o#ti su\ ei] o( xristo_j o( ui9o_j tou= qeou= o( ei0j to_n ko&smon e0rxo&menoj. See the discussion in Reinhartz 1992, 30. Reinhartz follows Käsemann (1966) in his understanding of the Johannine signs. See the discussion in Chapter Six.
Cosmology in Johannine exegesis
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true as well when placed in the cosmological tale. This is the case, for instance, in John 7 and 8, where Jesus announces to the Jews that, when he leaves, they will not be able to find him, since he departs to a place to which they cannot come (7:34; 8:21). The Jews wonder if he is going to the Diaspora to teach the Greeks (7:35) and whether he will take his own life and put himself to death (8:22). Both objections, however, are unconsciously true. Through Jesus’ voluntary death, the universal perspective of his mission is established, and, in turn, the community of pagan believers will take over from Jesus and fulfil his mission.
1.2.3.3 Discussion of Reinhartz’ cosmological tale The strictly literary perspective adopted by Reinhartz legitimates her reintroduction of cosmology into the agenda of Johannine exegesis. Her distinction between text (signifier) and story/tale (signified), borrowed from modern semiotics and literary theory, allows us to speak of a plot, although its events are not present on the surface of the text. The differentiation of the plot into three distinct tales and the analysis of their interaction demonstrate how crucial the awareness of this extra, cosmological dimension is for the reader. While I find Reinhartz’ description of the structure of the Gospel text compelling, I would like to supplement her semiotic model and that of New Criticism with yet another dimension. But first I want to demonstrate the ambiguity of the signifiers with which Reinhartz operates. Reinhartz’ exegetical outlining of the cosmological tale leaves several questions unanswered. For example, regarding the Word’s entrance into the world, how are we to account for the fact that the Fourth Gospel takes seriously the claim that Jesus is from Nazareth and the son of Joseph? This is not the claim of Jewish opponents alone, but also of Philip, one of the first disciples to follow Jesus. Philip identifies “him of whom Moses wrote in the law and also the prophets” explicitly with “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1:45). Philip’s identification of Jesus appears in a catena of titles with which the first disciples identify Jesus as the fulfilment of Jewish expectations: Messiah (Andrew, 1:41), Rabbi, Son of God and King of Israel (Nathanael, 1:49). Why should Philip alone be wrong? Another question regards the events related to the Word’s departure from the world. Among Johannine scholars, the ambiguity of the text’s eschatology is widely accepted. Does the Gospel feature a realized eschatology, or is the Eschaton postponed to the end of time? The temporal ambiguity concerns the relation of Jesus’ coming in the
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History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
Parousia to the coming of another Paraclete, the Holy Spirit or Spirit of Truth, promised by Jesus. Is the idea of an end time Parousia absorbed into the coming of the Paraclete, as argued by Bultmann? Or do Jesus’ return and the Paraclete’s coming refer to two separate events, as claimed by Reinhartz? Are the parallel functions ascribed to Jesus and the Paraclete, respectively, to be understood in terms of identity?25 Or continuity?26 When the Samaritan woman identifies the Messiah with the coming one, to which of these comings does the text refer: the incarnation, the coming of the Paraclete or the Parousia? Reinhartz overlooks the textual ambiguity which is evidenced by the disagreements among Fourth Gospel scholars. The ambiguity of Johannine eschatology also has a spatial dimension. The sayings in John 14 about the dwelling place with the Father that believers are promised appear contradictory.27 In 14:2f, it is said that Jesus departs in order to prepare a dwelling place for the disciples in his Father’s house and that, when this place has been prepared, he will return and fetch his disciples in order that they may be in the place 25
26
27
Bultmann noticed how the Gospel spoke about Jesus and the Paraclete in a parallel manner, e.g. in 14:15 & 14:23: John 14:15: e0a_n a)gapa~te/ me, e0ntola_j ta_j e0ma_j thrh/sete: John 14:16: ka)gw_ e0rwth/sw to_n pate/ra kai\ a!llon para&klhton dw&sei u(mi=n. John 14:23: e0an& tij a)gapa|~ me to_n lo&gon mou thrh/sei … pro_j au0to_n e0leuso&meqa kai\ monh\n par’ au0tw~| poihso&meqa. To Bultmann, the parallel description constituted the main argument for identifying the Paraclete with the established spiritual union between Son and Father. In the Fourth Gospel, the primitive Christian ideas of Pentecost and the Parousia were in the Fourth Gospel absorbed into the coming of the Paraclete: ”The prophecy of the Paraclete picks up the early Christian idea of Pentecost, and similarly that of Jesus’ coming again takes up the primitive expectation of the Parousia; precisely in the coming of the Spirit, Jesus comes himself; precisely in the community’s Spirit-inspired proclamation of the word he himself is at work as Revealer” (Bultmann 1941, 477; 1971, 617f). Earlier traditions are incorporated in the Fourth Gospel in order to be reinterpreted by the Evangelist: “The reason why the Evangelist has not introduced the future experiences of Easter (vv. [14:]18f.) and Pentecost (vv. [14:]15-17) in their chronological order is that he wants the Easter experience to be regarded as the fulfilment of the hope of the Parousia” (1941, 479, 482; 1971, 620, 623). As claimed by Reinhartz and many other scholars. In her 2003 book Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-scientific Perspective, Tricia Brown becomes yet another representative of this position. The parallel statements concerning Jesus and the Paraclete led her to adopt a point of view opposite to that of Bultmann. The Paraclete replaced Jesus as the divine broker. In Jesus’ absence, the Paraclete ensured the continuous representation of the divine in the community. John 14:2f: e0n th|= oi0ki/a| tou= patro&j mou monai\ pollai/ ei0sin: ei0 de\ mh/, ei]pon a@n u(mi=n o#ti poreu&omai e9toima&sai to&pon u(mi=n; kai\ e0a_n poreuqw~ kai\ e9toima&sw to&pon u(mi=n, pa&lin e1rxomai kai\ paralh/myomai u(ma~j pro_j e0mauto&n, i3na o#pou ei0mi\ e0gw_ kai\ u(mei=j h]te.
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where he himself is staying. Later in the same chapter (14:23), the subjects and the direction in which they move are changed. Now the text speaks about the simultaneous coming of the Father and the Son to the person who loves the Son and keeps his word in order to make a dwelling with him.28 Most often, the tension is understood within a temporal framework; 14:2f represents a futuristic notion of eschatology, whereas 14:23 indicates a realized eschatology. The problem may be reformulated, however, in spatial terms: is the promised dwelling to be found in the heavenly Father’s house, to which Jesus will take his believers (14:2f)? Or: is the dwelling, to which the Father and Son return, established with or within the mundane believer (14:23)? Who will enter whose space? Conceived spatially, the tension of John 14 becomes part of a major theme in the Gospel, known among Johannine scholars as the question of “mutual indwelling”. The spatial dimension of the eschatological tension brings into question the two-compartment world view of the cosmological tale. We have seen how in Reinhartz’ cosmic scheme the world below is associated with the physical sphere, whereas the world above constitutes the spiritual realm of God. The “realm of physical life is antithetical to the spiritual … and eternal life” which awaits those who are “spiritually alive at the present” in their faithful expectation of their future resurrection (40, emphasis added). Especially in literarilyoriented readings, a kind of conceptual poetics befalls the Johannine notion of pneu=ma.29 Spiritual life in faith is the entry ticket to the nonphysical, spiritual, supernatural realm of God. In this way, “spiritual” becomes synonymous with transcendent or supernatural. The question is now whether this antithesis between the material, mundane world of physical, human life and the transcendent, immaterial, divine realm of future spiritual life really matches the world view of the Fourth Gospel. 28
29
John 14:23: a)pekri/qh 0Ihsou=j kai\ ei]pen au0tw~|: e0an& tij a)gapa|~ me to_n lo&gon mou thrh/sei, kai\ o( path/r mou a)gaph/sei au0to_n kai\ pro_j au0to_n e0leuso&meqa kai\ monh\n par’ au0tw|~ poihso&meqa. The “poetic” approach to the Johannine spirit is prominent in Anglo-American, especially Catholic, exegesis. The revelatory function of the Johannine spirit is often combined with the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation (Gulddal & Møller 2002; Ricoeur 1976). Inspired by his own theory of the interpretive surplus of the symbol, Ricoeur develops a hermeneutical concept of revelation in his article “Towards a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation” (1980b). In biblical scholarship, spirituality is re-defined in accordance with Ricoeur’s hermeneutical approach to revelation. Spirituality represents the personal appropriation of the biblical symbol. Revelation takes place whenever the textual power is capable of transforming the reader’s life. Dorothy A. Lee’s Flesh and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John (2002) and Craig R. Koester’s Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (1995) are exponents of this tradition.
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History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
In other words, is the spiritual, divine realm, in which the pneu=ma resides, to be found outside the world? If so, how can it be an active, transformative power within the world? I do not intend to address this question here. I simply want to draw attention to the fact that the Johannine language of the mutual indwelling inevitably destabilizes a clear-cut boundary between the humane and the divine. 30 If one does not desire to apply the scissors of redaction criticism or Meeks’ notion of a special, idiosyncratically closed language to the Fourth Gospel, then the construction of a cosmological tale must somehow be able to account for the ambiguity of space and time in the Gospel. Modern narratology, however, is not geared towards capturing this kind of ambiguity, since it operates with firm and well-defined subjects and places. Within this perspective, it is inevitable that Jesus’ coming and leaving implies a movement from one space to another, thereby presupposing a two-compartment world view. Yet this understanding does not match the materiality of the Fourth Gospel specifically, nor does it accord, more generally, with ancient thought. A strictly literary approach, which does not pay attention to the history of ideas, risks importing modern ideas into the world of antiquity. In spite of these reservations and questions, Reinhartz’ identification of a cosmological tale with meta-status in the Fourth Gospel constitutes an important contribution to Johannine scholarship. I will, however, suggest some minor adjustments that take the above-mentioned ambiguity into account. In some of her more recent work, Reinhartz has indirectly questioned and refined her earlier construction of the cosmological tale. In the article “’And the Word was Begotten’: Divine epigenesis in the Fourth Gospel” (1999), her application of Ari30
With regard to antiquity, Dale Martin is suspicious of any attempt to isolate the divine from the worldly sphere. In his book, Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians, he argues that the category of the supernatural is an anachronism when applied to ancient discourse: “Neither popular notions, held by the vast majority of inhabitants of the ancient world, nor philosophical notions (we could say ‘scientific’ with due consideration for the possible anachronistic connotations of the term) assumed that reality was split up into two realms, one ‘natural’, containing things like ‘matter’ and ‘natural forces’ such as gravity or electricity, and another ‘supernatural’, to which gods and similar beings (demigods, angels, demons, ghosts) could be assigned. Elsewhere I have argued that the invention of the modern category of the supernatural may be attributed to René Descartes in the sixteenth century [The Corinthian Body, 1995, 4-6]. Other scholars may disagree with that particular dating, preferring to point to Thomas Aquinas or perhaps even to certain thinkers of late antiquity. I have no interest in debating the precise time and place of the invention of the supernatural as an intellectual category. What is important for my purpose is that the category was not available, either explicitly or by assumption, for persons in the classical Greek and Roman worlds” (2004, 13f).
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stotle’s theory of epigenesis to the Prologue leads her to the suggestion that the incarnation should be understood in the manner of a Lukan miraculous birth: as divine seed and vehicle of the paternal form and lo&goj, the pneu=ma fertilized the womb of Jesus’ mother.31 In a subsequent paper (2006), Reinhartz goes a step further and suggests that the so-called incarnation of God’s lo&goj perhaps took place during an event actually narrated in the Gospel, namely in the descent of the pneu=ma on Jesus as witnessed by John the Baptist (1:33).32 The displacement in Reinhartz’ understanding caused by her application of Aristotle’s biological categories to the Fourth Gospel, demonstrates how the meaning and reference of textual signs, in this case the incarnation in John 1:14a, changes according to added supplementary knowledge. Much more than a particular reading is at stake here. The phenomenon of the supplement poses serious methodological questions for the semiotics involved in the production of textual meaning. In The Word in the World, Reinhartz combined the literary theory of New Criticism with the modern, formalistic theory of the sign. Here the sign-relation consisted of two poles: the signifier, provided by the text itself, and the signified, which belongs to the constructs of the (implied) reader. But even the signifiers of the texts are not obviously present on the surface of the text. In order to identify these signifiers, the third pole is needed; a pole informed by postmodern semiotics and called the supplement. The supplement represents the perspective in which the text is read. As such, it is a dimension that is brought to the text by (real) readers of all times. The supplement is like a vision device that enables us to see something while simultaneously restricting our perspective by excluding other things.33 It is the modern idea of a priori well-defined entities – signifier and, in turn, signified – that is called into question by post-structuralist semiotics. Here I shall provide a short presentation of the role of the supplement in New Historicism.34 New Historicism is a meta-reflection on historical and cultural theory
31 32
33
34
Reinhartz’ use of Aristotle’s De generatione animalium will be discussed in more detail in Chapter Four. Reinhartz’ paper “Aristotelian Epigenesis in the Gospel of John: The Next Generation” was presented at a seminar in Copenhagen, autumn 2004. The papers of the seminar are published in Gender and Body in the Gospel of John (2006), edited by Gitte Buch-Hansen, Troels Engberg-Pedersen and Lone Fatum. The term “vision device” is borrowed from Donna J. Haraway’s essay, “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspectives” (1991a). New Historicism is associated with the journal Representations. A key figure in the development of New Historicism has been Stephen Greenblatt. See e.g. his and Catherine Gallagher’s Practicing New Historicism (2000).
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History of Research. Cosmos in the Fourth Gospel
that discusses the premises of historical knowledge.35 It combines deconstruction and semiotics in an approach that simultaneously avoids the pitfalls of radical essentialism and constructivism. It allows us to say something about the past, while being aware that it is done on a non-foundational basis.36
1.3 New Historicism and the semiotics of the supplement In scholarly debate, the often quoted epigram from Derrida’s Of Grammatology, “There is nothing outside the text” (il n’y a pas de hors-texte; there is no outside-text) (1976, 158), encapsulates the philosophy of the linguistic turn. The epigram articulates Derrida’s critique of Platonic logo-centrism. No phenomenon is self-referential; meaning is not conferred onto the phenomenon to which the textual sign refers by an 35 36
The following exposition is based primarily on the book, Tegnets Tid (translation: The time of the sign) by the Danish historian, Dorthe Gert Simonsen (2003). The keen interest of literary readings in documenting how meaning is conferred to the reader often takes mainstream readings as its point of departure. The acute hermeneutical awareness with which the dynamic between implied author and reader is laid bare often masks the origin of the analytical categories at work in the analysis. Reinhartz’ reconstruction of the cosmological tale in The Word in the World articulates the how of readings in which the incarnation is understood traditionally as God’s mystery, impervious to human reason. In his book (The) Literary (Theoretical) Criticism (Challenge) and the Gospels (1989), Stephen D. Moore notes the relatively small difference in the outcome of readings produced by different methodological approaches, whether conventional, literary, or reader-oriented. He blames the homo institutionis to which the reader-oriented exegete as well as the more conventional exegete aspires. “Finally, reader-oriented exegesis is subject to the same epistemological vicissitudes as conventional exegesis. … Elaborate stories of reading result, which attempt to orient and organize themselves in relation to semantic properties in the text. But because there are so many semantic properties, and because they never all stay still but are always shifting and reforming in the tide of critical discourse, always being dislodged and refixed, they require endless stories of reading to account for them, whether the covert stories of reading told by traditional critics, or the overt stories of reading told by reader-response critics. And there is a strong familial resemblance between the overt and the covert stories of reading. Reader-response criticism of the Gospels, because it is an enterprise that tends to feel accountable to conventional gospel scholarship, has worked with reader constructs that are sensitively attuned to what may pass as permissible critical reading. That is why reader-oriented exegeses can often read disappointingly like the familiar critical renditions of the given biblical passage, lightly re-clothed in a reader vocabulary. The reader of audience-oriented gospel criticism is a repressed reader. Its parents are mainstream gospel exegesis on the biblical side, and reader-in-the-text formalism on the nonbiblical side. Its sibling, of course, is narrative criticism, which has the same exegetical formalist ancestry” (1989, 106f).
New Historicism and the semiotics of the supplement
25
eternal, external idea. Nor is the meaning of the signified referent restricted by the context within which the textual signifier situates it, as claimed by the structuralists. Post-structuralist semiotics goes a step further. The deconstructive approach to ontology reinterprets Frege’s categories of meaning/sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung) and claims that both categories come-into-being simultaneously through a process of differentiation in which the textual signifier itself is identified. The identification of the textual signifier must take-place before the text will produce any meaning. The signifier is discerned by being situated in a network of selected signifiers that demarcate its identity. The signifying network is established through an opaque process of socially performed negotiations in which some signifiers are included and others excluded; identity is subjected to a process of abjection.37 Accordingly, neither the signifying network or grid nor the phenomenon that it brings into being can any longer be seen as stable entities. It is this opaque activity of differentiation through which phenomena continually come-into-being that Derrida named la différance and with which post-structuralism is occupied. The pre-fix “post-” does not denote a temporal sequence; instead, the “post-“ represents the “meta-“ perspective committed to the discussion of the premises on which the production of meaning rests. To summarize: none of the sign’s three elements – the textual signifier, its meaning and its reference – exists a priori to this complex activity of signification. In post-structuralist ontology, therefore, phenomena are seen as events that come-into-being in a thoroughly situated fashion. Although in scholarly exegesis the shift from “context” to “intertext” may denote just another vagary of fashion, this shift in terminology perfectly captures the issue at stake with regard to the ontology of the linguistic turn. Phenomena are subjected to and filtered through the textual grid of included and excluded intertextual signifiers in which they are situated. Compared to the traditional idea of context, intertexts are moved from the background to the foreground. No phenomenon prescribes the proper context per se. On the contrary, the phenomenon first comes into being through the intertextual supplementation performed by the scholar (or by the scholarly community). In order to mark the difference between the ontology of traditional metaphysics and that of post-structuralism, phenomena are designated sites, a pun on the citation and silencing of intertexts involved in the process of 37
Subjection is abjection; the subject comes into being through the abject. For an introduction to Julia Kristeva’s key term, abjection, see The Kristeva Reader (1986). Alison Jasper (1998) and Jorunn Økland (2006) introduce J. Kristeva’s concept of abjection in the scholarly discourse on the Fourth Gospel.
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becoming. The category of being is replaced by the category of becoming. Another, more or less synonymous concept in Derrida’s theory of text and interpretation is the already mentioned supplement. The supplement denotes the network of signifiers through which any site – historical, cultural or textual – is filled with meaning. In the process of expounding the meaning of a particular site or text, something new is always added; otherwise the reading would not be an interpretation, but an absurd, pointless and tautological re-citation.38 However, if the process of interpretation did not add to something already present, it would no longer be an interpretation, but the writing of a new and different text. The activity of interpretation is neither re-citing nor creative writing, but a third and new textual genre. In this way, post-structuralist theory avoids the essentialism of New Criticism, which claimed only to say what was already said in the text. It evades, too, the radical constructivism of “anything goes”.39 Meaning is to be found neither in the intentions of the author, as claimed by new 38
39
This is the insight of the American literary theorist Stanley Fish expressed in another often cited – and just as controversial – question: “Is there a text in this class?” The text is not a container of meaning, which can be consumed after the opening of the text by the aid of a methodological can-opener. It first begins to yield meaning in the process of reading (Fish 1995). The text may also be compared to a landscape in which nobody is able to orient oneself before a grid, a system of co-ordinates or categories, has been added. But still, “map is not territory”, as the title of Jonathan Z. Smith’s book (1978) claims. If other categories were mapped onto the text, it would appear differently to us. The ambiguous relation of the interpretation to the original is captured perfectly by M. Foucault in his inaugural Lecture at Collège de France 1970, “The Order of Discourse” (L’ordre du discourse): “For the moment I want to do no more than indicate that, in what is broadly called commentary, the hierarchy between primary and secondary text plays two roles which are in solidarity with each other. On the one hand it allows the (endless) construction of new discourses: the dominance of the primary text, its permanence, its status as a discourse which can always be re-actualised, the multiple or hidden meaning with which it is credited, the essential reticence and richness which is attributed to it, all this is the basis of or an open possibility of speaking. But on the other hand the commentary’s only role, whatever the techniques used, is to say at last what was silently articulated ‘beyond’, in the text. By a paradox which it always displaces but never escapes, the commentary must say for the first time what had, nonetheless, already been said, and must tirelessly repeat what had, however, never been said. The infinite rippling of commentaries is worked from the inside by the dream of a repetition in disguise: at its horizon there is perhaps nothing but what was at its point of departure – mere recitation. Commentary exorcises the chance element of discourse by giving it its due; it allows us to say something other that the text itself, but on condition that it is this text itself which is said, and in a sense completed. The open multiplicity, the element of chance, is transferred, by the principle of commentary, from what might risk being said, on to the number, the form … and the circumstances of the repetition.” (Foucault 1970, 57f, emphasis added).
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critics, nor in the constructions of the reader, as erroneously claimed by the critics of post-structuralist theory. Post-structuralist interpretation is aware that the reader’s freedom is restricted by the materiality of the text and by the assortment of socially acceptable supplements. The theory of the supplement seizes the process of interpretation and rescues it from the war between essentialism and constructivism, between objectivism and subjectivism, between text and reader (Simonsen 2003, 92). The dichotomies, on which scholarly exegesis has rested firmly, are dissolved. This is the troubled waters in which New Historicism finds itself situated. Appealing to semiotics and deconstruction, this new theoretical approach to cultural relics profoundly questions our methodological heritage. A time-honoured interpretive grid which is called into question by the new approach is the chronology of time. Provocatively, the theorists of New Historicism ask how history actually develops. From the perspective of post-structuralism, the archaeological excavation of past sites is always an enterprise of the present. Through our present activity of differentiation (la différance), we establish the co-ordinates of our interpretive grids, which allow us to orient ourselves in textual sites of the past. It is our methodological categories that are used when we decide whether a phenomenon belongs to the present strata or site or whether it should be taken into account at all. What is allowed to takeplace and to come-into-being is in this way determined by the interpretive framework.40 The grid of categories becomes our vision device. It generously allows us to see something, but at the expense of the results that the use of a different grid would have offered us. When poststructuralist theorists provocatively cultivate anachronism, they draw attention to the unavoidable blurring of past and present in the interpretive enterprise. Like modern theorists of history, post-structuralists, too, claim that the historian is caught up in the gap between then and now; he always comes too late to the events that he intends to study. But in New Historicism, Lessing’s garstiges Grab assumes a new and positive meaning. It represents the archaeological caesura where the categorical differentiation that allows the historian to see and hear something takes place. In the traditional historical criticism, the accepted methodological grids were restricted to discourses contemporary with the phenomena in focus. By the aid of this strategic claim, the
40
For example, during the 19th century, German Protestant Johannine scholarship included Hellenistic as well as contemporary philosophy in their legitimate interpretive grid, but during most of the 20th century these co-ordinates were rejected by the same scholarly community.
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historian’s and interpreter’s contribution to the uncovering of the past was objectified and veiled. Another dichotomy that has been dismantled is the opposition between fact and fiction. New Historicism distinguishes between the mere fact that a phenomenon exists “out there” and the inscription of this factual phenomenon in a historical discourse. As soon as the fact enters the scholarly work, it has already been subjected to the act of differentiation; it has become a textual site. In New Historicism, the attempt to stabilize cultural artefacts through the differing activity of inclusion/exclusion is termed fixion, a pun upon fiction, facts and fixation (Simonsen 2003, 52). The term alludes to the composed character of any site, but it also reminds us of the facts that really are or were there. Fixion also implies – as is the case with aesthetic phenomena – that no foundation exists for the truth. Finally, the term fixion alludes to the social processes through which the past becomes shared history; the past is fixated by social agreement. The concept of fixion draws attention to a third mode of being, beyond the dichotomy of fact and fiction. The work of the historian as interpreter and excavator of the past neither opens a window through which we are enabled to watch the past wie es eigentlich gewesen, nor is it a solid wall on which the historian illustrates his historical narrative. There is a crack in the wall, but what we see is always already influenced by our imagination. In modern scientific methodology, the genre of historical fiction has become a hostage of the desire for a pure exposition of facts wie es eigentlich gewesen. From the view point of New Historicism, exegesis consists of three different activities, each of which is subjected to the opaque processes of socially performed negotiations that make up the scholarly subject: (1) identification of the site which is to be studied, (2) analysis of the site, (3) communication of the results. The phenomena to be studied first come-into-being through the intertextual grid of categories applied to the textual site. Analysis implies the application of a perspective which must be acceptable to the scholar (or the scholarly community). Finally, the representation of the analysis is subjected to linguistic and institutional conventions (Simonsen, 16).
1.4 Discerning the meta-story of pneumatic transformations In light of these post-structuralist reflections, two minor adjustments of Reinhartz’ meta-tale may be suggested. The first concerns the identification of the site to be studied. When the Fourth Gospel is supplemented by or read through the visual device of Stoic physics, the
Discerning the meta-story of pneumatic transformations
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Johannine pneu=ma immediately loses its modern airy and poetic character and becomes a distinct and material site, which may be filled through a literary analysis of the Gospel. The second adjustment concerns “the analysis of the site … through the application of a perspective, which must be acceptable to the scholar” and his or hers scholarly community (Simonsen, 16, my translation). The sense of unease mentioned at the beginning of this chapter – an unease caused by the overt allusions to Stoic theory in the Fourth Gospel, especially the equation of God with pneu=ma (4:24) – will now be subjected to analysis. This study inquires into the “absurdities” once feared by Origen in order to examine whether his anxiety was (and is) justified. The prevailing apocalyptic outlook of Johannine scholarship with its Platonic, ontological dualism will here be replaced by the monistic world view of Stoicism. When Reinhartz’ cosmological tale is adjusted and retold from a Stoic perspective, a displacement takes place in the accentuation of the events that make up the plot of the meta-story.41 As already mentioned, the descent of the pneu=ma on Jesus reported by John the Baptist replaces the mystery of the incarnation. More importantly, the climax of the story is moved from the coming of the lo&goj into the world to the complex of events related to Jesus’ departure from the world: the death on the cross, the resurrection, the ascent to the Father and, finally, the infusion of the Holy Spirit. The regeneration of believers constitutes the open end of the story. 41
The significance ascribed to 1:14a and c by the scholarly exegesis of the 20 th century has not always been a matter of course in Johannine exegesis. In fact, the exegesis of the 19th century, in which historical criticism was inaugurated, did not make this claim. 1:14a was seen as the precondition of the revelation of God, it was the sine-quanon or “den notwendigen Übergang, der ‘einmal’ formuliert werden musste” (Theobald 1988, 30, emphasis in original). This understanding was unanimously accepted from Baur to Harnack (6-53). In his article “Ueber das Verhältnis des Prologs des vierten Evangeliums zum ganzen Werk” (1892), Harnack argues that our understanding of 1:14a and c is strongly affected by the doctrines of the church: ”Wir lesen heute unwillkürlich das 4. Evangelium unter dem überwältigenden Eindruck der dogmengeschichtlichen Entwicklung. Daher ist es für uns selbstverständlich, dass uns das o( lo&goj sa_rc e0ge/neto – und zwar genau in dieser Formulierung – wie der Höhepunkt des Evangeliums erscheint” (1892, 228). Instead, Harnack draws attention to the community of love whose establishment is the goal of Christ’s coming: ”Nirgendwo zeigt der 4. Evangelist etwas von dem berauschenden Eindruck, den die Folgezeit an dem o( lo&goj sa_rc e0ge/neto gewonnen hat; nirgendwo bringt er eine Formulierung, die aus diesem Satz geflossen ist. Das Irenäische: „Er ist geworden was wir sind, damit wir würden was er ist“; liegt nicht in seinem Gesichtskreise. Er kennt einen verwandten Gedanken; aber dieser Gedanke lautet sehr anders: „damit sie Eins seien gleichwie wir; damit die Liebe, mit der du mich liebtest, in ihnen sei und ich in ihnen [John 17:26]” (Harnack 1892, 228f).
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The events of the Passover constitute a complex of happenings, described by Jesus in the Farewell Discourses as his impending crossing or Passover (meta&basij) from the world to the Father (13:1).42 Jesus also speaks of his ascension to the Father, e.g. in his dialogue with Mary Magdalene (20:17: a)na&basij).43 For the meta&basij (13:1) or a)na&basij (20:17) to the Father to succeed, and Father and Son to be truly unified, the body of flesh and blood, in which Jesus rises, must be transformed into a mode of being that matches that of the Father. Since the Father, according to the fourth Evangelist, “is pneu=ma” (cf. 4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j), Jesus must become pneu=ma, too. In his pneumatic mode of being, Jesus will no longer be confined or bound to a specific place in time and space. This transformation is the precondition of, and coincides with, the promised coming of the Holy Spirit (i.e. the Spirit of Truth and the Paraclete) to believers, which takes place when the ascended and transformed Jesus breathes himself into the disciples (20:22).44 Jesus’ ascent to the Father, and the transformation that it implies, is the sine qua non of the regeneration of God’s children (1:12-13). The events that really matter in the Fourth Gospel are those through which the Johannine Jesus, in the words of Paul, becomes “life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).45 Since Stoic physics represents the only system of philosophical reasoning in antiquity in which an epistemological analysis of the lo&goj and a physical analysis of the pneu=ma go hand in hand in non-reductive ways, a Stoically-informed perspective enables us to develop a bipolar focus on the divine intervention. The Johannine pneu=ma is simultaneously the vehicle of the revelation of the hitherto unknown God (1:18) and of the physical generation of divine children. Both revolve around 42 43 44 45
John 13:1: Pro_ de\ e9orth=j tou= pa&sxa ei0dw_j o( 0Ihsou=j o#ti h]lqen au0tou= h9 w#ra i3na metabh=| e0k tou= ko&smou tou&tou pro_j to_n pate/ra, John 20:17: a)nabe/bhka pro_j to_n pate/ra: … a)nabai/nw pro_j to_n pate/ra John 20:22: kai\ tou=to ei0pw_n e0nefu&shsen kai\ le/gei au0toi=j: la&bete pneu=ma a#gion: First Corinthians is also the starting-point in Gary M. Burge’s book The Anointed Community. The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (1987): “1. Cor 15:45 directly associates the exalted Christ and the Spirit – ‘the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving Spirit’. In early Christian experience, therefore, the exalted Christ was seen in a dialectical role: to believers in their experience, he was found in the Spirit of Pentecost; but at the same time, the exalted Christ was separated and enthroned at God’s right hand (Acts 2:33; 1 Cor. 15:24-28)” (49). In order to explain this “dialectic” Burge refers to James D. G. Dunn and his Christology in the Making: “So in some sense that is not clear the life-giving Spirit and exalted Christ merge in Paul’s thinking, the Spirit can now be thought of as the Spirit of Christ – that is, as that power of God which is to be recognized by the consciousness of oneness with Christ (and in Christ) which it engenders and by the impress of the character of Christ which it begins to bring about in the life of the believer” (Dunn 1980, 149, emphasis in original; Burge 1987, 49).
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Jesus’ translation into pneu=ma, the mode of being in which he unites with the Father (1:18) and generates believers a!nwqen (3:3, 5). The pneu=ma guarantees the continuation between Jesus as the (first) Son of God and subsequent generations of divine children. Within this perspective, the Johannine pneu=ma appears as an intentional and cognitive agent whose rationality, that is, the paternal lo&goj, affects persons and places through its dispositions and movements. The Fourth Gospel can therefore, as already mentioned, be read as a story in which the protagonist is no longer Jesus Christ, but the divine pneu=ma. This perspective accords with the attention that Reinhartz draws to the role of the divine pneu=ma in the incarnation in her article “’And the Word Was Begotten’: Divine epigenesis in the Gospel of John” (1999). Here, she argued that the divine pneu=ma was the vehicle of the paternal lo&goj (1999, 89). My version of the meta-story thus remains a tale about the lo&goj in the World.46 In summary: the events that constitute the revised meta-story are: (1) the descent of the pneu=ma from above onto Jesus, which is his divine generation (1:32); (2) the embodiment of the pneu=ma in Jesus’ life of words and deeds climaxing in his death on the cross; (3) the resurrection, which climaxes in the ascension and translation into the pneumatic Father (13:1, 20:17); (4) the regeneration of believers from above (3:3; 5) through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22). In comparison with the Synoptic Gospels, the new generation constitutes a surplus of meaning in the Gospel of John. Stoic physics is the glue that makes this version of the Johannine story a coherent narrative. In order to justify the supplement of Stoic physics, I shall briefly demonstrate how the pneumatic version of the meta-story may throw light on some of the exegetical shortcomings and obstacles faced by Johannine scholarship in general and especially by Reinhartz in her version of the cosmological tale. First, when the Samaritan woman identifies the Messiah as the coming one, Reinhartz, as we know, refers the woman’s expectations to the incarnation. In my pneumatic tale, it is 46
In the meta-story of pneumatic transformations, the Johannine Prologue does not replace the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. The Prologue is, indeed, about a divine generation, but focuses on the generation of God’s children (1:12-13) of which the incarnation of the divine lo&goj in Jesus from Nazareth is the precondition. In fact, this is also the conclusion of a group of scholars who share a structuralist approach to the Prologue, e.g. A. J. Greimas in his “Prologue de Jean” (1976) and R. A. Culpepper in his early essay “The pivot of John’s Prologue” (1980). In these readings, the centre of the Prologue is displaced from 1:14a and c to 1:10-13: “sie alle [viz. the structuralists] V. 14a und c als die traditionellen Platzhalter der Prologklimax (Bultmann/Käsemann) entthronen” (Theobald 1988, 133-44). In accordance with this displacement, ecclesiology replaces Christology as the centre of Johannine thought.
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the coming of the spirit – whose alias are the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth and the Holy Spirit – that is referred to instead. “When he comes, he will tell us everything (4:25: o#tan e1lqh| e0kei=noj, a)naggelei= h9mi=n a#panta)”, the Samaritan woman assures herself, thus anticipating what the Paraclete or the Spirit of Truth will do, “when he comes”. He is the one who “will guide them into the whole truth” (16:12-15); a task, which the incarnate Jesus cannot take upon himself (16:12).47 It is noteworthy that this brief exchange of words takes place in the immediate context of Jesus’ discussion of the pneu=ma. The Samaritan woman responds to Jesus’ announcement that the worshippers desired by the Father are those “who worship in spirit and truth” (4:23), and to Jesus’ explanation of that desire with a reference to the Father’s own pneumatic being (4:24).48 The pneumatic version of the meta-story, furthermore, makes sense of the actual sequence of motions in the so-called descent-ascent pattern, where ascent in the text precedes descent. Meeks noticed the emphasis that the Fourth Gospel placed on the ascension, but was himself content to refer the sequence of 1:51, in which Jesus promises Nathanael that he will see “the heaven open and God’s angels ascending and descending above the Son of Man”, to the Old Testament source, Gen 28:12.49 The sequence is repeated in 3:13: kai\ ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j, in which the use of the participle kataba&j blurs the sequence of the events. In the pneumatic tale, the ascension is a precondition for the coming of the spirit a!nwqen (3:3, 5) and for the future generations of divinely begotten children.50 Second, in accord with most Johannine commentaries, Reinhartz refers the “e0gw& ei0mi” (4:26) in Jesus’ answer to the Samaritan woman to his divine and absolute self-identification. The intertextual grid for this reading is the Old Testament and the story of God’s revelation of His 47
48
49
50
John 16:12: 1Eti polla_ e1xw u9mi=n le/gein, a)ll’ ou9 du/nasqe basta&zein a!rti. John 16:13: o#tan de\ e1lqh| e0kei=noj, to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj, o(dhgh/sei u(ma~j e0n th=| a)lhqei/a| pa&sh |… a)ll’ o#sa a)kou/sei lalh/sei kai\ ta_ e0rxo&mena a)naggelei= u(mi=n. John 16:14: e0kei=noj e0me\ doca&sei, o#ti e0k tou= e0mou= lh/myetai kai\ a)naggelei= u(mi=n. John 16:15: pa&nta o#sa e1xei o( path\r e0ma& e0stin: dia_ tou=to ei]pon o#ti e0k tou= e0mou= lamba/nei kai\ a)naggelei= u(mi=n. John 4:23f: a)lla_ e1rxetai w#ra kai\ nu=n e0stin, o#te oi0 a)lhqinoi\ proskunhtai\ proskunh/sousin tw|~ patri\ e0n pneu&mati kai\ a)lhqei/a|. kai\ ga_r o( path\r toiou&touj zhtei= tou\j proskunou=ntaj au0to_n. pneu=ma o( qeo&j, kai\ tou\j proskunou=ntaj au0to_n e0n pneu&mati kai\ a)lhqei/a| dei= proskunei=n. John 1:51: a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw u(mi=n, o!yesqe to_n ou0rano_n a)new|go&ta kai\ tou\j a)gge/louj tou= qeou= a)nabai/nontaj kai\ katabai/nontaj e0pi\ to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou. (NestleAland27’s emphasis) Actually, Philo designates the infusion of God’s spirit as a down-breathing: katapnei=n. See e.g. Agr. 62, 89; Plant. 23; Mos. 2.291.
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presence in the burning bush to Moses (Ex 3:14 LXX: 0egw& ei0mi o( w!n). The pneumatic meta-story, however, brings into play other intertexts which lead us to understand Jesus’ statement differently. According to the physiology of Greek philosophy, Aristotle’s as well as the Stoics’, the voice was intimately related to the psychic pneu=ma of the person. When seen in this perspective, Jesus identifies “the coming one” or the Messiah with the voice that speaks in himself (4:26): Le/gei au0th|= o( 0Ihsou=j: e0gw& ei0mi o( lalw~n soi. Jesus’ voice is the instrument played by the pneu=ma from above that abides with him continually (1:32: to_ pneu=ma … e1meinen e0p’ au0to&n). This phenomenon explains the multiplicity of referents in the Gospel: initially, the divine pneu=ma is active in Jesus; it works through his voice and expresses itself in his words.51 It then becomes active in believers, as well. Pneumatic utterances may simultaneously be referred to the pneu=ma as a divine entity abstracted from its embodiments, to Jesus, to the Johannine community of believers and even to faithful characters of the past, like Moses and the prophets. Of special importance are, of course, the words of the beloved disciple, the figure onto whom the implied author is projected by the text (Reinhartz 2003, 22). The meta-communication between the implied author and the implied reader is also included in this spiritual speech. The words of the Gospel are the work of the spirit. As was the case in Reinhartz’ cosmological meta-tale, the pneumatic meta-story also constitutes the interpretive framework for the historical and ecclesiological tale. However, the relation between the different stories now has a material foundation in the pneu=ma. Third, with a Stoic understanding of the Johannine pneu=ma the eschatological problem is seen in a quite different light. In relation to Reinhartz’ construct of the cosmological tale, it was demonstrated how Jesus’ seemingly ambiguous sayings cause the temporal and spatial framework of the Johannine eschatology to collapse. Throughout the Gospel, however, the idea of pneumatic transformations solves the language riddle. The tension in the Farewell Discourses between 14:2f and 14:23, mentioned above, dissolves when Jesus’ speech is read in light of Stoic physics. To dwell in the house of the Father (14:2f) or to have Jesus and the Father dwelling inside (14:24) are different ways of describing one and the same pneumatic situation. As I shall demonstrate in the next chapter, enclosing the divine pneu=ma and having it inside 51
Cf. John 14:10 in which Jesus says: “The words that I speak to you, I do not pronounce by myself, but the Father who resides in me carries out his work” (ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ le/gw u9mi=n a)p’ e0mautou= ou0 lalw~, o( de\ path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=). In my exegesis of John 3:8 in Chapter Six, I shall develop this understanding of Jesus’ voice.
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one – or being enclosed by the pneu=ma and abiding in it, amount to the same thing. Furthermore, in the Farewell Discourses, Jesus tells his disciples: “I depart and I come” (14:28: u(pa&gw kai\ e1rxomai pro_j u(ma~j) using the same verbal tense. When the ascension is understood as a pneumatic transformation, the bodily departure and the pneumatic return take place simultaneously. As aspects of the same event, Jesus’ leaving and returning take place within the one and same world. Seen in this light, Jesus’ enigmatic reproof of the murmuring disciples – “Does it offend you? What then, if you observe the Son of Man ascending to the place where he was before?” (6:61f) – becomes an ironic statement about his staying, yet in a different, pneumatic form.52 In this Stoically informed version of the pneumatic meta-story, hitherto well-defined boundaries are blurred. A firm line of demarcation can no longer be upheld between the divine sphere and the mundane world of human beings. They occupy the very same material world. Glorification, to which the sign-narratives symbolically refer, is represented by the total complex of events related to the cross: the death and the resurrection, of course, but also the coupled events of Jesus’ ascension and return. Within this perspective, God’s glory remains in the world. It is found wherever God’s lo&goj is received and remains (14:23), that is, in the spaces indwelled by the spiritual embodiment of the divine Father and His Son. The community of “worshippers in spirit and truth” (4:23) constitutes a world of light within the world of darkness. The Johannine signs are not tokens of Jesus’ divine power (his anointing) and origin (his sonship) alone (20:31a); in a symbolic way, the signs also allude to the life-engendering transformation of believers (20:31b).53
1.5 The Johannine pneu=ma in contemporary German exegesis The Evangelist has clearly not thought out the relation between the Spirit which Jesus receives in his baptism and his character as the Logos.54 R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary
52 53
54
John 6:61f: tou=to u(ma~j skandali/zei; e0a_n ou]n qewrh=te to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou a)nabai/nonta o#pou h]n to_ pro&teron; In my exegesis of Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus in Chapter Six, the implication of the pneumatic meta-story for our understanding of the Johannine sign will be discussed in detail. Bultmann 1941, 63f note 8; 1971, 92 note 4, emphasis added.
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The thesis of a pneumatic meta-story in the Fourth Gospel and the methodology involved in identifying it were developed as a response to a predominantly Anglo-American agenda. However, both the Anglo-American tradition and the German scholarly exegesis, to be discussed here, tend to be closed systems. Each interpretive community argues on the basis of its own presuppositions and categories, uses its own methods and it has its own agenda according to which it discusses and reacts to a canon of previous works. Like Meeks’ description of the social function of idiosyncratic language within the Johannine community, the two interpretive communities tend to exclude those who are not members of their grid. The present study situates itself between these two schools. My study departs from the German tradition in two ways. First, there is a tendency in German exegesis to treat the Johannine pneu/mata as differentiated phenomena. The pneu=ma which initially descended on Jesus (1:32f) should not be identified with the Holy Spirit with which Jesus would, in turn, baptize (1:33). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit infused by the risen Christ into his own disciples (20:22) was different from the Spirit of Truth (14:17; 15:26; 16:13) or the Paraclete (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) who would only renew future generations of believers. The encounter with the risen – but not yet ascended – Christ was a unique, never to be repeated event, reserved for Jesus’ own disciples. In subsequent generations, Christ’s spirit would work exclusively through the words of the Fourth Gospel. In his essay “Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet: Eine Studie zur johanneischen Verhältnisbestimmung von Pneumatologie und Christologie” (1996), Hans-Christian Kammler argues that a differentiation should be made between the various Johannine pneumatic phenomena. I, however, will argue that his reading rests on linguistic distinctions that the text does not support. My approach differs from the German tradition in a second way, insofar as it has been argued that the “meta-physics” of the Fourth Gospel ought to be considered in quotation marks since the idea of the incarnated lo&goj was conceived in opposition to Hellenistic thinking about the pneu=ma. 55 The incarnation was introduced in order to counter the problems that an enthusiastic pneumatic ecclesiology had occasioned within the Johannine community. This is the thesis of Michael Theobald’s 1988 book Die Fleischwerdung des Logos: Studien zum Verhältnis des Johannesprologs zum Corpus des Evangeliums und zu 1 Joh. From a German perspective, the mere idea of featuring a philosophical concept 55
In his 1996 essay, Kammler makes a distinction between a “charismatisch” understanding of Jesus and a ”,metaphysisch‘” concept of the Son of God (178).
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of pneu=ma as the recurrent main character in the Gospel’s meta-story was impossible even before the Fourth Gospel reached its final form. I, however, will argue that this approach is misleading because the historical reconstruction on which it is based rests on methodologically dubious decisions. Johannine exegesis in Germany has also been determined by the agenda set by Bultmann. In his commentary on the Fourth Gospel, Bultmann identified a problem with which German exegesis has been wrestling ever since. He noticed a tension between the descent of the spirit on Jesus, as witnessed by the Baptist (1:29-34),56 and Jesus’ own claims to pre-existence (8:58; 17:5).57 Facing the radically different Christologies implied by John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ testimony, respectively, Bultmann concluded that the relation of the pneu=ma, which descended upon and abided over Jesus, to the incarnation of the lo&goj remained obscured throughout the Fourth Gospel (see the quotation above). Scholars have intensively discussed whether this tension between a Christology of the incarnation (in German: die Inkarnationschristologie) and a Christology of the spirit (variously named die Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- oder Trennungschristologie) actually existed in the Gospel, and if so, how it was explained.58 What was the purpose of a baptism of Him who was the lo&goj from the beginning, it was asked. What was the point of having Him who was supposed to be filled with spirit from the very start receive yet another dose? Although the problem was primarily discussed under the heading of Christology, the answer had important implications for the soteriology and the ecclesiology of the Gospel as well. The question was how – in light of Jesus’ own reception of the spirit from above – we were to understand the regeneration of believers “in water and spirit” (3:5)?59 In other words: How did the identity of the incarnated Son of God (1:14a) relate to the children of God, who were born “not out of the blood (in plural), not out of the will of the flesh and man, but out of God” (1:13)? For nearly a 56 57
58
59
John 1:32: kai\ e0martu/rhsen 0Iwa&nnhj le/gwn o(/ti teqe/amai to\ pneu=ma katabai=non w(j peristera_n e0c ou0ranou= kai\ e)m / einen e0p’ au0to&n. John 8:58: a)mh_n a)mh_n le/gw u(mi=n, pri\n 0Abraa_m e0gw_ ei0mi/. John 17:5: kai\ nu=n do&caso&n me su&, pa&ter, para_ seautw~| th|= do&ch| h|[ ei]xon pro_ tou= to_n ko&smon ei]nai para_ soi/. The designations die Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie refer to the various aspects of the Christology that different scholars emphasize: Its source (Geist), the social and historical beginning (Tauf), the ontology of divine sonship (Adoption) or the eschatological implications (Trennung). The three first designations are well-known to most scholars, I shall return to the issue of “separation” in my discussion of Theobald’s imagined opponents and their theology. John 3:5: e0a_n mh/ tij gennhqh=| e0c u(/datoj kai\ pneu&matoj, ou0 du&natai ei0selqei=n ei0j th\n basilei/an tou= qeou=.
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century, German Johannine scholarship has been involved in bridging this gap – or Widerspruch, Antinomie, hiatus, Zwiespalt, Zweidimensionalität or Aporie – and cannot be understood apart from this agenda.60 Although Theobald and Kammler both assume the unity of the present text, the opposition between lo/goj and pneu=ma still defines the main categories at work in their exegesis.61
1.5.1 Theobald. Geist- und Inkarnationschristologie While French-Italian exegetes turned their attention to structuralism and Anglo-American exegesis became influenced by both New Criticism and literary criticism (in general), the Germans remained faithful to the Copernican turn in scholarly exegesis inaugurated by the Tübingen School in the 19th century. The text was no longer seen as a historical witness to the event that it spoke about, but as a source for the reconstruction of the life and thoughts (as well as conflicts) of the community in which it originated. Form-, tradition- and redaction criticism became the methodological tools of this new historical criticism. The archaeology of historical sediments within the text has to a large extent remained a German enterprise (Theobald 1988, 119). Although the more extreme use of scholarly “scissors and paste” has been left behind, redaction criticism still constitutes an important approach to textual problems. Theobald’s thesis, which is published in various books and articles, is unintelligible apart from this context.
1.5.1.1 The genealogy of the Fourth Gospel Theobald argues that the present introduction to the Fourth Gospel extends as far as to John 1:51. Although the first chapter now appears 60
61
In his study of Johannine pneumatology, Kammler gives an account of different scholars’ approach to the tension identified by Bultmann (Baur, Holtzmann, Haenchen, Bauer and Theobald). A general tendency exists to see the tension as occasioned by “eine synopt. Reminiszenz”. For his own part, Kammler emphatically denies the existence of this tension in the Fourth Gospel (1996, 168, note 341). The presentation of a German agenda in the English language is fraught with problems. The wording cannot be separated from the way German scholars think and conceptualize. Besides that, the translation of German concepts into English often makes the phrases appear clumsy. While being fully aware of the disturbances that the mix of language in the present exposition may cause the reader, I have chosen to preserve some of the German technical terms in order to be as precise as possible. Where the content of the German text is intimately bound to the language, I reproduce the German text in the footnotes.
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as a seamless unit, the introduction is the result of an editorial process. As a response and reaction to conflicts in the community, the Prologue has been added to an earlier version of the Gospel (1990, 130).62 In spite of the fact that the Prologue is wholly integrated into the Gospel opening, Theobald claims that the present introduction (1:1-51) is marked by a double perspective (eine literarische Zweidimensionalität). On the one hand, we have the historical inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, which has the activity of the Baptist as its point of departure (1:6-8, 15, 19-34). Theobald calls this aspect the historical basis (der geschichtliche Basis). On the other hand, we have the meta-reflection (136), which is a theological super-structure (ein theologischer Überbau) that gives the deeper and truer motivation for Jesus’ mission: Jesus was sent in order to reveal the true life (130). This second-degree reflection is found in the confessional perspective that the Prologue adds to the historical level. History becomes salvation history (Heilsgeschichte).63 According to Theobald, these two perspectives mirror the conflicts within the Johannine community. The problems were occasioned by different understandings of the soteriological role of the pneu=ma, but were played out on the battleground of Christology. The discussions concerned the beginning (h9 a)rxh/) of Jesus’ ministry: was his ministry inaugurated historically with the reception of the descending pneu=ma, as witnessed by John the Baptist? Or did it have an eternal origin beyond history with God’s lo&goj? Hidden in the present form of the Gospel, Theobald identifies a proto-gospel (Urevangelium). This Gospel is imagined to have begun in the manner of Mark with Jesus’ baptism and his reception of the spirit, through which he was adopted as Son of God. It was the interpretation of the proto-gospel that gave rise to the erroneous soteriology and its corresponding problematic Christology – that is, the Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie.
1.5.1.2 Identifying the opponents Theobald is aware of the methodological problems involved in the identification of the different editorial layers within the text as well as the step from the text to the reconstruction of the historical situation 62
63
Apart from Theobald’s 1988 monograph, see also his essays ”Geist- und Inkarnationschristologie: Zur Pragmatik des Johannesprologs (Joh 1,1-1,18)” (1990) and ”Gott, Logos und Pneuma: ‚Trinitarische’ Rede von Gott im Johannesevangelium” (1992). Cf.: “auf der Metaebene einer heilsgeschichtlichen Betrachtung bzw. eines Bekenntnisses des Prolog (1,1-18)” (Theobald 1990, 132).
The Johannine pneu=ma in contemporary German exegesis
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within the Johannine community, since no other source for the life of the community exists.64 Nevertheless, Theobald maintains that in the case of the Fourth Gospel, these steps are justified by the existence of First John, which he sees as a product of the same conflict. That epistle, too, addresses the conflicting theologies and self-understandings generated by the interpretation of the proto-gospel (Theobald 1990, 139). In order to control the interpretation of the original Gospel and, in turn, to counter the social problems created by the opponents’ soteriology, the Prologue was added to the proto-gospel by the author of First John. In German scholarship, the identification of the opponents’ theology has a long and complicated history. A summary of Theobald’s own position will suffice for the purpose of the present study. Theobald himself is inspired by the work of his German colleagues Klaus Wengst and Hans-Josef Klauck.65 According to these scholars, the so-called Secessionists featured a specific Johannine version of the heretical docetism. In Wengst’s and Klauck’s reconstruction, the opponents’ Christology hinged on the spirit; Jesus’ divinity was dependent on his possessing of the divine spirit (die Geistchristologie). The union of the divine spirit and the human body was imagined to have taken place at Jesus’ baptism (die Taufchristologie), through which he was adopted as Son of God (die Adoptionschristologie). Like a kind of cloak, the descending divine pneu=ma-Christ put on or assumed the body of the earth-born Jesus. The heretical Christology involved here did not deny Jesus’ true humanity, as later was the case with Gnosticism (capitalized).66 The problem was that the divine and human part did not really unite in Jesus; it was a kind of union that allowed the divine and human natures to separate again (die Trennungschristologie). This separation took place when, on the cross, Jesus declared his work completed and gave
64
65
66
The argument inevitably becomes circular. The reading of the text is projected onto history, which is then used as context for our understanding of the text. In AngloAmerican exegesis, this methodological failure is called mirror-reading. See e.g. J. Barclay’s Colossians and Philemon (1997). By the appeal to history, the role of the supplement that the reader brings to the text is masked. See K. Wengst, Häresie und Orthodoxie im Spiegel des ersten Johannesbriefes (1982). H. J. Klauck: “Internal Opponents: The Treatment of the Secessionists in the First Epistle of John” (1988a), German version: “Gegner von innen: Der Umgang mit den Sezessionisten im ersten Johannesbrief” (1988b). According to Michael A. Williams, this understanding cannot be taken as representative of “gnosticism”. His seminal 1996 book, Rethinking Gnosticism: Dismantling a Dubious Category, is devoted to a deconstruction of the stereotypes that have come to characterize Gnosticism in the scholarly discourse. Since there is no unified referent behind the term, Williams insists in spelling Gnosticism with small “g” and placing the term in quotation marks: “gnosticism”.
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back the spirit in his final expiration (19:30).67 Consequently, God did not suffer death on the cross. God’s glory and glorification had nothing to do with Jesus’ death; instead, the divine glory was exposed through the charismatic power at work in Jesus’ miraculous signs and wonders. The cross was not invested with any theological significance. It constituted the necessary entrance to the former heavenly glory. The imagined Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie was therefore a theologia gloriae (Herrlichkeitschristologie).68 In Wengst’s and Klauck’s reconstruction of the Secessionists’ theology, First John was used as a mirror, in which the opponents’ heretical Christology and soteriology appeared as an inverted version of the position ascribed to the author. In this way, a productive difference was constructed that yielded meaning, first, to First John and, in turn, to the Gospel. Especially two texts from First John attracted Wengst’s attention. The first was 1 John 4:2f: “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God”.69 According to Wengst, this statement emphasized the unified nature of Christ: the lo&goj was not “present in” flesh, it came as flesh – it “was” flesh. Another important text was 1 John 5:6: “This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood”.70 The emphatic combination of “water and blood” is seen by Wengst as protection against a position which claimed that salvation depended solely on the power given to Jesus in his baptism – that is, one that came trough water alone. In order to counter this position, the author of the letter associated the cleansing power with Jesus’ blood, too – that is, his death on the cross (Theobald 1988, 403).71 In this way, the idea of a Trennungschristologie was cast in the mould of the scholars’ interpretation of the letter. 67 68
69 70 71
John 19:30: o#te ou]n e1laben to_ o!coj o( 0Ihsou~j ei1pen: tele/lestai, kai\ kli/naj th\n kefalh\n pare/dwken to_ pneu=ma. I go into detail about the understanding of the opponents and their docetism because of the repercussions that this understanding has had on Johannine exegesis. The problems in relation to the exegesis of the cross are well-known. But the figure of Thomas has also been sacrificed on the altar of docetism. The Thomas-episode in John 20 is reduced to an anti-docetic appendix, without any real value for the message of the Gospel. In opposition to this understanding, I shall argue in Chapter Eight that although the Gospel, from a physical point of view, climaxes in the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22), the climax, from a cognitive point of view, is to be found in Thomas’ confession. 1 John 4:2: pa~n pneu=ma o$ o(mologei= 0Ihsou~n Xristo_n e0n sarki\ e0lhluqo&ta e0k tou= qeou= e0stin. 1 John 5:6: ou[to&j e0stin o( e0lqw_n di’ u3datoj kai\ ai3matoj, 0Ihsou=j Xristo&j, ou0k e0n tw|~ u3dati mo&non a)ll’ e0n tw|~ u3dati kai\ e0n tw|~ ai3mati: See 1 John 1:7: “and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin”.
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Although Theobald admits that the opponents’ ideas about the significance of Jesus’ death hover in the darkness of history, he still finds that Wengst’s work throws some light on their position and that a hypothetical guess, at least, can be defended methodologically.72 The first step is a conclusion by analogy.73 The Secessionists probably understood Jesus’ death in analogy with his baptism. If the pneu=ma-Christ could take up residence in Jesus, as occurred at his baptism, the divine spirit would also be capable of leaving him again. As the next step, Theobald asks whether such an interpretation finds any support in the Gospel, and he points to John 19:30,74 in which Jesus declares his work to be finished, expires and hands over the spirit.75 Theobald also draws attention to the role played by the witnessing figures, placed at the beginning and the end of Jesus’ ministry in the final edition of the Gospel. The fact that John the Baptist does not mention Jesus’ baptism (1:34) is seen as an attempt to ward off “der dualistischen Taufchristologie” (Theobald 1988, 411). In a like manner, the witness placed at the foot of Jesus’ cross (19:35) emphasizes the significance of Jesus’ death (Heilsbedeutsamkeit) by drawing attention to the blood (19:34b). In this way, the soteriological climax (der soteriologische Höhepunkt) of the passion story is displaced from Jesus’ handing over the spirit (19:30) to the blood issuing from his crucified body (19:33-37) (411).76 According to these three scholars, the trouble that Paul encountered in the Corinthian congregation was due to a Christology that in this manner centred on the spirit. Here, too, the pefusiwme/noi (1 Cor 5:2) and pneumatikoi/ (1 Cor 2:15), who claimed that in baptism they were equipped with the divine powers of Jesus’ spirit, became the source of multiple conflicts in the community. The opponents’ position has been the subject of innumerable studies. At one pole of the spectrum, we find the sectarian libertinism of those who believed that the spirit of 72
73 74 75 76
Theobald draws attention to some scholarly objections to Wengst’s reading. He mentions, for instance, that H. J. Venetz rejects the idea of eine Tauf- or Trennungschristologie based on Jesus’ baptism. He questions the notion that the water of 1 John 5:6 should be seen as a reference to Jesus’ baptism in John 1:29-34. The textual link is simply too general and too weak. Instead, Venetz finds that the water represents the new life affected by faith in the atonement performed by Jesus through his vicarious death: “’Wasser’ und ‘Blut’ bezeichnen ‘ein einziges Geschehen’ bzw. ‘eine einzige Gabe’, um derentwillen Jesus gekommen sei, die in zweifacher Weise gekennzeichnet [sei]: sie ist lebensspendend [Wasser] und entsühnend [Blut]” (Theobald 1988, 406). It is “a) ein Analogieschluβ von der Taufe Jesu” (Theobald 1988, 411, emphasis in original). John 19:30: 0Ihsou=j ei]pen: tete/lestai, kai\ kli/naj th\n kefalh\n pare/dwken to_ pneu=ma. It is “b) Eine Befragung des Evangeliums“. In this interpretation, the Catholicism of Michael Theobald seems noticeable.
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Christ rendered them immune to the powers of sin. At the other pole, we find the sectarian asceticism of those who imagined that they embodied Christ’s continuous presence in the world. There are also numerous scholarly proposals for the wickedness that originated with the Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie. For his part, Wengst opts for a Johannine libertinism. When the author of First John associates the presence of the spirit with witnessing and mutual love, this reveals (when viewed in the negative mirror) an image of the opponents as a group to whom the state of salvation was independent of moral behaviour. 1 John 3:9 is emblematic of the Secessionists’ theology: “Everyone who is begotten by God does not sin, because His [God’s] seed abides in him, and he is incapable of sinning due to the fact that he is begotten by God”.77 In response to this erroneous attitude, the author of First John makes the identity of God’s children conditional on the exercise of brotherly love and righteous deeds (Wengst 1982, 123). Klauck, by contrast, argues that the spiritual Christology of the opponents led to sectarianism and asceticism. The reception of the spirit in baptism established a mystical communion with God (Gemeinschaft mit Gott). The divine empowerment became manifest in the believer’s – that is, the spirit’s – vindication of sin (Klauck 1988, 467-473). However, due to the private character of the experience of God (der Gottesschau), the spiritual mysticism threatened the social life of the community (Theobald 1990, 145). The problem was that the spiritually experienced world became the real one, whereas real life lost its significance. When redemption and salvation are completed in an inward experience in which the spirit evokes a vision and cognition of God (Erkenntnis und Schau Gottes), then reality in its historical profundity and with its social commitments threatens to recede into the background in favour of a private blessedness of the visionary experience (der Erfahrung gegenwärtiger Geseligung). (Theobald 1990, 145, my translation)
The development of the Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie was seen by these German scholars as the Johannine community’s apologetic answer to the challenge of Greek philosophy. The naive docetism inherent in these Christologies was the result of a Platonic reinterpretation of the Jewish Wisdom tradition. The Jewish Wisdom is a reinterpretation of the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament. In this way, knowledge of God became associated with the possession of His spirit. Divine wisdom presupposed that human flesh was indwelled and empowered by God’s spirit. Problems, however, arose when the pair of flesh and spirit in Jewish Wisdom was reinterpreted in light of 77
1 John 3:9: Pa~j o( gegennhme/noj e0k tou= qeou= a(marti/an ou0 poiei=, o#ti spe/rma au0tou= e0n au0tw|~ me/nei, kai\ ou0 du/natai a(marta&nein, o#ti e0k tou= qeou= gege/nnhtai.
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the radical soul/body dualism of Platonism (die strenge hellenistische Transzendenzidee). The result was the naïve docetism that came to characterize the opponents’ theology,78 and which, in turn, paved the way for true Gnosticism (capitalized) (Theobald 1990, 135).79 According to Theobald and his German colleagues, the invention of the incarnation (die Logoschristologie) by the fourth Evangelist was a stroke of genius. In contrast to the opponents’ Trennungschristologie, the incarnation of God’s eternal lo&goj established the uniqueness and unity of Jesus Christ from the beginning and throughout eternity. In a miraculous and mysterious manner beyond human understanding, the transcendent Logos asarkos of God was incarnated in the historical human being, Jesus of Nazareth, as the Logos ensarkos. The idea itself guaranteed the presence of Jesus’ divinity on the cross and in this way saved it for Christian theology. Johannine soteriology became an (objective) inter-pre-Trinitarian business between God, His eternal Son and their inter-spiritual relation. Ordinary human beings gained salvation through faith in this event. By the aid of this particular construction, the ecclesiologically dangerous spirit was bridled; it was reserved for Christ from eternity. The “metaphysics” of the mystery of the incarnation was born, so to say, in opposition to Greek, that is, Platonic dualism. The incarnation, as well as the salvation, was an issue of faith, which neither could nor should be grasped in philosophical or logical categories of human understanding. Incarnation and salvation were both due to God’s folly.
78
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Cf. Theobald, here quoting Klauck: “Andererseits antwortete sie aber auch auf eine spezifisch hellenistische Problemlage, die sich ergab aus dem Zusammentreffen der ’christlichen Vorstellung vom Kommen des göttlichen Erlöser Christus in diese Welt’ mit der strengen hellenistischen ’Transzendenzidee, die auf dem Dualismus von Geist und Materie/Kosmos basierte.’ Dadurch, daß die Gegner die Epiphanie des göttlichen Geistes in Jesus auf die Zeit seines vollmächtigen Wirkens beschränkten und den Geist wohl auch aus der Negativität seines Todes heraushielten, nahmen sie auf solche Rahmenbedingungen des zeitgenössischen Denkens Rücksicht und vermochten so eine attraktive Theorie zu bieten” (Theobald 1990, 139, emphasis added). In order to demonstrate the difficulties in the reconstruction of the opponents’ theology, it is worth mentioning the position adopted by Raymond Brown in his commentary on the Johannine Epistles – which Theobald does himself (1988, 409). According to Brown, the conflict in the Johannine community was due to an opposition between a theology of the cross and a theology of the incarnation: “In later discussions the question arose among Christian theologians whether Jesus had to die on the cross to accomplish salvation, since the incarnation itself brought eternal life into the world. And GJohn lends itself to such an interpretation in the sentence that is the most explicit profession of incarnational theology [1:14]” (Brown 1982, 75).
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The editorial addition of the Prologue altered the meaning of the imagined proto-gospel profoundly. When John the Baptist’s testimony to Jesus’ reception of the spirit and its abiding on him (1:29-34) was read in light of the Prologue, John was no longer witness to an event that affected Jesus’ being through his spiritual empowerment and that changed his status in relation to God through his adoption (eine christologisches Gründungsgeschehen).80 In the revised version of the Gospel, John’s witness draws attention to Jesus’ eternally unchangeable, but hidden identity (ein Erkennungs- und Offenbarungsszene) (Theobald 1990, 132).81 In this way, the new opening of the Gospel was able to ease the tension – Widerspruch, Antinomie, hiatus, Zwiespalt, Zweidimensionalität or Aporie – between the descent of the spirit on Jesus and the incarnation of the lo&goj. The former became a visible and historical sign that referred to the invisible truth of the latter.
1.5.2 Kammler. Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet In his 1996 essay, “Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet”, Hans-Christian Kammler examines how the various pneumatic phenomena promised by Jesus in his Farewell Discourses are related to Christ as the incarnated lo&goj.82 Kammler’s essay consists of two parts. The first focuses on the relation of the spiritual phenomena to believers of different generations – that is, the soteriological aspect of pneumatology. The second part discusses the relation of the spirit to the Logos ensarkos – that is, the Christological aspect. Kammler’s treatise is his contribution to a hotly debated topic in German Johannine exegesis of the previous century, namely whether 80
81
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Theobald’s categories: eine christologisches Gründungsgeschehen and eine Erkendungsgeschehen is replaced in the Anglo-American semiotic tradition by the concepts of a “pragmatic” event and a “cognitive” event. Theobald’s understanding of the Fourth Gospel accords with the main thesis of two recent dissertations on the Fourth Gospel submitted to the University of Aarhus, Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Anagnôrisis in the Gospel of John (2006) and Jesper Tang Nielsen, Korsets kognitive dimension. En studie i Johannesevangeliets forståelse af Jesu død (2003; in German: Die cognitive Dimension des Kreuzes. Eine Studie zum Verständnis des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium). According to these Johannine scholars, the plot of the Gospel takes place solely in the cognitive dimension – that is, in believers’ recognition of the true and eternal, but hidden identity of Christ. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus remains the one he is from eternity. Cf. Theobald: “Was am Jordan geschah, war nicht Jesu Erhebung zum “Sohn Gottes”, sondern seine “Offenbarung” vor “Israel” (V. 31) als “Sohn Gottes” von Ewigkeit her (V. 34)” (1990, 132). Cf.: “wie in den Parakletsprüchen das theologische Verhältnis zwischen dem Geistparakleten und Jesus Christus genau definiert ist” (Kammler 1996, 168).
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the Fourth Gospel featured a theologia gloriae,83 or whether the Gospel stood in the tradition of Paul and was rather to be characterized by a theologia cruces.84 The discussion of the Johannine Widerspruch, hiatus etc. is mentioned by Kammler in a footnote (1996, 168 note 314) where he states that Bultmann greatly underestimated the theological genius of the fourth Evangelist. The tension between the incarnated lo&goj and the descending pneu=ma is only an apparent one, which can be solved by proper exegetical argumentation. According to Kammler, there is no evidence in the Fourth Gospel for the rampant charismatic phenomena, which in the scholarly imagination plagued early Christian communities (182). Since the Johannine pneu/mata – of which there are several – are closely bound up with the figure of the risen Christ, appeal to similarities with Corinth is barred (115). The question for Kammler is whether the Johannine spirit is constitutive of Christology or vice versa. Kammler’s exegesis demonstrates that the latter is the case: The question is whether the Paraclete was sent in order to lead believers beyond (hinauszuführen) the recognition of the identity of the earthly Jesus and the character of his work,85 or whether it should lead believers into (hineinführen) the understanding, given in faith, of the divine secret of Jesus’ identity (des göttlichen Persongeheimnisses Jesu) and of Jesus’ death on the cross.86 In other words, does the post-Eastern glorification of the raised Christ through the work of the Paraclete lead to an emancipation from the crucified Christ or does it strengthen the focus on the crucified Christ (einer Konzentration auf den Christus crucifixus)? (Kammler 1996, 8, my translation)
Only the soteriological part of the argument will be summarized here, since the Christological part resembles Theobald’s argument. The difference is that Kammler claims that Theobald’s final, seamless edition of the Fourth Gospel is the original one.
1.5.2.1 Easter witnesses and post-Easter generations Kammler makes a distinction between the way that the risen Christ encountered his disciples in the days between his resurrection and his ascent and the way in which subsequent post-Easter generations of 83 84
85 86
A proponent of the theologia gloriae was Ernst Käsemann in his Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (1966). The theologia cruces was defended by Udo Schnelle in his Antidoketische Christologie im Johannesevangelium (1987) and by Jörg Frey in his essay “’Wie Mose die Schlange in der Wüste erhöht hat …’ Zur frühjüdischen Deutung der ’ehernen Schlange’ und ihrer christologischen Rezeption in Johannes 3,14f” (1994). Cf. Käsemann’s theologica gloriae. Cf. Schnelle’s and Frey’s theologia cruces.
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believers – the Johannine community specifically, and Christians in general – encounter him (99). This change is occasioned by the return or ascent of the risen and glorified Christ in his bodily being to the Father, after which he only encounters believers in the presence of his spirit. Kammler speaks of the continuous Spiritualpräsenz Christi.87 The meeting between the risen Christ and his disciples, at which he infuses them with the Holy Spirit, is a unique, never repeated incident; having the spirit dwelling inside one remains a privilege of Jesus’ own disciples.88 Although Christ’s body is now absent from the world, his spirit is still an active and transformative power in the world. In subsequent generations, any encounter with the glorified Christ is bound to and mediated through the textual witness of the Fourth Gospel. Whenever a person comes to faith, Christ’s spiritual presence is felt. The spirit, however, never enters into believers; it remains a power that by the aid of the apostolic witness in the Gospel is capable of calling forth faith. This faith is said to be the work of the Paraclete. In spite of the fact that the Paraclete is an aspect of Christ’s spiritual presence in the world, it must not be identified with the Holy Spirit, which Jesus’ disciples receive and by which the Gospel itself is inspired and written. To summarize: the faith of the community is a manifestation of the Paraclete’s work, which is in turn the work of the Holy Spirit, which for its part is a gift of the risen, glorified and ascended Christ to his disciples and witnesses (113). A differentiation between the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete and, in turn, between the Easter and post-Easter generations, is supported by Kammler’s overall understanding of the Johannine Farewell Discourses.89 Although Jesus’ speech is “formally” (in ihrer äußeren Gestalt) 87
88 89
Cf. Kammler’ distinctions: “Daß Johannes das Wirken des Geistes an das Wort der ersten Zeugen bindet, welches selbst in der Kraft des pneu=ma a(/gion ergeht, zeigt sich darin, daß er zwischen der österlichen Spendung des Heiligen Geistes durch den Auferstandenen (20,21-23) und dem nachösterlichen Kommen des Erhöhten im Geistparakleten zu seiner Gemeinde unterscheidet und zwischen beiden Geistmitteilungen ein zeitlich wie sachlich unumkehrbares Begrundungsfälle behauptet …” (Kammler 1996, 113). In the dogmatic reflection of the Early Church, this privilege is given to the clergy; they belong to the apostolic succession. Cf. Kammler’s hermeneutical approach to the Farewell Discourses: “Sie [die Parakletsprühe] thematisieren demzufolge nicht in erster Linie das österliche [emphasis in original] Kommen des Auferstandenen zu dem einmaligen (emphasis added) und einzigartigen [emphasis added] Kreis seiner Zeugen, von dem in 20,19-29 eigens die Rede sein wird; sie sprechen vielmehr … vornehmlich von der nachösterlichen Gegenwart Christi bei seiner Gemeinde als seiner Präsenz im Parakleten [emphasis in original], die sich überall dort ereignet, wo auf das Christuszeugnis der einzigartigen Osterzeugen hin geglaubt und bekannt wird, o(/ti 0Ihsou~j e0stin o( xristo_j o( ui9o_j tou= qeou~” (90).
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directed to the disciples present with him before his death, the “content” of the speech (in Hinsicht auf ihren sachlichen Gehalt) concerns Jesus’ post-Easter presence with the community of faith (90). According to Kammler, many of the sayings of these discourses first become meaningful when they are applied to the post-Easter situation – that is, when the presence of Christ is mediated through the apostolic witness of the Gospel. This is, for instance, the case when Jesus promises that he will not leave the disciples as orphans (14:18),90 and that the Son and Father will come in order to make a dwelling with those who love the Son and keep his word (14:23).91 These utterances are best understood as metaphorical references to the post-Easter situation: It is difficult to see these two texts [sic. 14:18, 23] as referring to the risen Christ’s encounter with the small circle of disciples during Easter. If the texts are instead seen as referring metaphorically to the subsequent coming of the Spirit-Paraclete and the spiritual presence of the raised and glorified Christ, fewer problems are involved in our understanding (Ihre metaphorische Sprache läßt sich viel ungezwungener verstehen). (Kammler 1996, 91, my translation, emphasis added)
When Jesus speaks of the sending of “another Paraclete” (14:16: a)/lloj para&klhtoj), the stress should be placed on a)/lloj, which refers to the different ways in which the risen Jesus is present with his disciples and with his believers, respectively. Yet another pneumatic distinction is found in Kammler’s analysis, namely between the Holy Spirit, which is bound to Christ during his earthly ministry and then handed over to his disciples during Easter, and the divine pneu=ma (182). The Holy Spirit belongs to the world, whereas the divine pneu=ma is a transcendent and other-worldly phenomenon which belongs to God. It is the latter that John speaks of in 4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j.92 This distinction may explain why Kammler does not discuss the difficult statement of 4:24 in this treatise on the Johannine pneumatology: the divine spirit is not an ecclesiological issue. It belongs to the premises of Kammler’s study that the divine spirit, the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete denote three different pneumatic phenomena: the divine spirit is a transcendent phenomenon that belongs with God; the Holy Spirit is an immanent phenomenon which belongs to the earthly Christ and subsequently to the small circle of disciples;
90 91 92
John 14:18: ou0k a)fh/sw u9ma~j o)rfanou&j, e)r / xomai pro_j u(ma~j. John 14:23: e0an& tij a)gapa~| me to_n lo&gon mou thrh/sei, kai\ o( path/r mou a)gaph/sei au0to_n kai\ pro_j au0to_n e0leuso&meqa kai\ monh\n par’ au0tw~| poihso&meqa. See Dodd, note 6. One of two things seems to be at stake here. Either Kammler, in spite of his anti-philosophical stance, imports a Platonic dualism or else, in spite of his historical approach, he imports a modern notion of heavenly transcendence.
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the Paraclete is a textual phenomenon that is active in the community of faith.93
1.5.2.2 The hermeneutical function of the Paraclete In Kammler’s reading of the Farewell Discourses, the Paraclete becomes a hermeneutical figure who guarantees the identity and continuity between Jesus’ own words and deeds and the interpretation of his teaching found in the Gospel. Kammler speaks of die Christozentrik that characterizes the pneumatology of the Fourth Gospel (182). When it is said in John 14:26 that “the Paraclete will teach the disciples everything (pa&nta) and bring into recollection everything (pa&nta)” that Jesus has told them, this pa&nta-pa&nta means two things. 94 On the one hand, the Paraclete’s teaching is bound to the revelation that took place during Jesus’ earthly career, it will add nothing new. On the other hand, the recollection (u(pomimnh|&skein), which the Holy Spirit brings about in Jesus’ disciples, is different from a merely historical recollection of Jesus’ words and deeds: The task that the Spirit-Paraclete is given to carry out in no way consists of merely helping the disciples to a historical recollection (die historische Erinnerung) in order to guarantee the continuity of the tradition. Instead, the task primarily concerns the recollection which the spirit (das geistgewirkte Erinnern) brings about in the careful reader of the Gospel of John and which gives rise not only to new ways of stating Jesus’ original sayings but also the creation of whole speeches that interpret the meaning of Jesus’ words. What reverberates in the Fourth Gospel is not the ipsissima vox of the historical Jesus, but the ipsissima vox of the glorified Christ now present in the Spirit-Paraclete – although in the language of the Evangelist. (112, my translation)
The teaching of the Paraclete is new because it supplements Jesus’ historical work with the community’s interpretation of his death and resurrection. At the same time, it is not at all new, since it simply unfolds the hidden meaning already present in Jesus’ life and death. 95
93 94 95
In this interpretation the Protestantism of Hans-Christian Kammler is noticeable. John 14:26: o( de\ para&klhtoj, to_ pneu=ma to_ a#gion, o$ pe/myei o( path\r e0n tw|~ o)no&mati/ mou, e0kei=noj u(ma~j dida&cei pa&nta kai\ u(pomnh/sei u(ma~j pa&nta a$ ei]pon u(mi=n [e0gw&]. Thus, the Johannine Paraclete is a hermeneutical figure who mediates between the two impossible possibilities of the commentary – as described by Foucault (see note 39) – namely to say for the first time what has already, always been said, and to repeat what has never been articulated before.
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1.5.2.3 The fourth Evangelist’s Trinitarian consciousness How, then, should we understand this Spiritualpräsenz Christi that works through the textual Paraclete? In order to explain the meaning of the idea, Kammler refers to the fourth Evangelist’s Trinitarian consciousness. The fact that the Gospel speaks in parallel terms about the sending from God of the Son and of the Paraclete,96 and furthermore about the sending of the Paraclete as the shared work of the Son and Father (15:26), leads Kammler to the conclusion that the Gospel also ascribes pre-existence to the Paraclete. The Paraclete is an independent person in the pre-existing Godhead who is simultaneously different from and identical with Jesus Christ.97 Kammler approves of Walter Bauer’s conclusion and quotes it: The relation of the Spirit-Paraclete to Jesus Christ appears to be conceived “in analogy with the relation of the Logos to God: The kind of union that allows the Father to be present in the Son in a manner in which they are identical yet two separate persons, also allow the Spirit to be identical with the Christ who returns as spirit, and yet, as ‘the other’ helper, to be different from him”. (Kammler 1996, 117 note 134; Bauer 1912, 195, my translation)
The next question is: How are we to understand the claim made by Kammler that the historical figure of Jesus from Nazareth was with God in the beginning? In his answer, Kammler has recourse to the concepts Logos asarkos and Logos ensarkos. While the divine lo/goj retains His essence (wesenhaft), He assumes different forms or modes of being depending on the sphere in which He resides. The opening verse of the Fourth Gospel represents Jesus as the eternal beginning to whom everything owes its being – that is, in his role as Logos asarkos. In 1:14, we encounter the Logos ensarkos who, despite being of flesh, still possesses the glory of the eternal, pre-existent Logos asarkos (163). However, even asking how this is possible is misguided; the transformation of the Logos asarkos into the Logos ensarkos remains a mystery or paradox beyond human reasoning. In Trinitarian thinking, paradoxical categories of identity and difference are established which allow for identity when it is desirable and difference when that is necessary. The paradox of the inter-changeability of lo&goj’ two modalities guarantees the ontological difference between Jesus Christ and his dis96 97
As noted by Bultmann. See note 25. Thus, “daß Johannes nicht nur dem Sohn, sondern auch dem Geistparakleten die reale Präexistenz zuschreibt und ihn als eine vom Vater und vom Sohn distinkt unterschiedene selbständige subsistierende Person begreift, die ihrem Wesen nach auf die Seite des Vaters und des Sohnes gehört” (Kammler 1996, 109, emphasis added).
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ciples. A difference on which the Johannine soteriology is ultimately based. It is because Jesus is the eternal life that he is capable of eternally distributing life to believers. The German wording and, indeed, the play on words in Kammler’s text render the translation very difficult: “Jesus ist in sich selbst von Ewigkeit her das Leben in Person, und er ist es für andere durch seine Auferstehung von den Toten in aller Ewigkeit” (106, emphasis in original).98 In Kammler’s pun, his theological understanding of the Christ-event is hidden. In the death of the Jesus from Nazareth, the eternal lo&goj incarnate, an inter-Trinitarian drama between eternal Beings is acted out in history. While Jesus Christ truly is the Son of God, believers become children of God by grace – that is, by faith in this event. The Trinitarian thinking presupposes and upholds the separation of the heavenly and earthly spheres.99 1.5.3 Discussion of the pneu=ma in German Johannine exegesis 1.5.3.1 The strategy of differentiation The introduction of the third element, the “supplement”, in the theory of the textual sign had far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the practice of interpretation. The idea of neutral exegesis or, as 98
99
According to Kammler, the salvation rests on the ontological difference between Christ and his believers: “[Johannes weist] auf den bleibenden ontologischen und soteriologischen Unterschied … der zwischen Jesus und seinen Jüngern unaufhebbar besteht. Während nämlich Jesus das göttliche Leben ursprung- und wesenhaft zukommt, weil er als der eine und einzige Sohn in ewiger personaler Gemeinschaft mit seinem Vater lebt, wird es den Seinen durch seine Heilstat, die sie allererst zu te/kna qeou~ macht (1,12; 20,17), gnadenhaft zuteil” (1996, 107, emphasis in original). The opposition between the human capacity for understanding and God’s mystery – or between a philosophical, genuinely metaphysical understanding and true faith – is the theme and main point of O. Hofius’ exegesis of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in his essay “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt” (1996). Hofius’ exegesis focuses on Nicodemus’ question in 3:4: pw~j du&natai; Nicodemus, indeed, asks “reasonable” questions, but Jesus’ answer can only be grasped “in faith”. In the concluding remarks to his essay, Hofius cites a sermon of Luther on the Nicodemus-text (“Predigt zum Trinitatisfest”, Luther 1523). According to Luther, Nicodemus represented the most outstanding specimen of the Pharisees, of the Jews and of the human race in general. He is a pious, honest and reasonable person. As such, he represents and demonstrates a condition of universal validity. Even the best of human achievements appears blind and dead when facing God’s initiatives: “Darum hat er hier mit Exempel, Wort und Werken bewiesen, daß die Vernunft nichts ist als blind und tot vor Gott. Darum kann sie sich auch nicht nach göttlichen Dingen sehen und darnach begehren …” (Hofius 1996, 76f). Hofius’ study is presented in the same book as Kammler’s essay, and Kammler in general subscribes to Hofius’ exegesis.
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Kammler calls it, exegesis based on sprachlich-philologische Gründen and sachlich-inhaltliche Argumente (171), cannot be upheld. No meaning comes into being apart from the categories that the reader brings to the text. Meaning presupposes the supplement of a specific perspective, a vision device: in the beginning was la différance, not the (self-referential) Word.100 From this point of view, methodological reflection becomes the speech that one gives in defence or favour of one’s interpretive grid.101 The German scholars discussed here represent different understandings of the text derived from different methodological approaches. Based on redaction criticism, Theobald sees the text as a product of the Johannine community. Kammler understands the text as a theological treatise and is confident that a logically, linguistically direct, rhetorical analysis will lay bare the meaning intended by the author. Let us take a closer look at the activity of differentiation at work in the methodology of these two scholars. Redaction criticism with its “cut and paste activity” can be seen as la différance incarnate.102 The starting point of redaction criticism is the exegete’s scholarly standpoint and his definition of categories of difference and sameness. He scrutinizes the text for what he assumes to be cracks and seams in order to distinguish and identifies unified layers which he subsequently projects onto history and sees as representative of different factions in the community. Consequently, “in the beginning…“ of redaction criticism was the imagination of a conflict between the stance that became the orthodox one and a potentially heretical position. Theobald’s excavation of the Fourth Gospel focuses on the reconstruction of the opponents and their (heretical) Christology. The identity of the opponents is constructed on the basis of a mirror-reading of First John performed by Klauck and Wengst. Mirror-reading is in itself a lesson in how identity (subjection) comes into being through the activity of differentiation (abjection). The scholar’s interpretation of the author’s intention is ostensibly validated by proving that someone out100 The wording of the Prologue has made it a favoured object for post-structuralist exegesis. See e.g. W. Kelber, “In the Beginning Were the Words: The Apotheosis of the Word and the Narrative Displacement of the Logos” (1990); A. Jasper, The Shining Garment of the Text: Gendered Readings of John's Prologue (1998); P. C. Counet, John, A Postmodern Gospel (2000); E. Nutu, Incarnate Word, Inscribed Flesh: John's Prologue and the Postmodern (2007); J. Økland, “In the Beginning Was … Chôra or the Word?” (2006). 101 Post-modern biblical scholars stress the “rhetoric” and power of “persuasion” of any reading. See, for instance, D. B. Martin’s Sex and the Single Saviour: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (2006). 102 See Stephen D. Moore’s discussion of redaction criticism in his Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge (1989).
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side the text represented the opposing, and now abjected stance. In turn, the result of the mirror-reading becomes the template that is used to separate the supposedly original Johannine proto-gospel from the later, corrective layer. The question is now whether the oppositional phenomenon of the Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie, as it is depicted in these scholars’ work, really has a referent in the Johannine community. This question cannot be answered, however. The problem with mirrorreadings is that no criterion exists for their falsification. The same holds true for redaction criticism. Here, too, no limit is set on the historical imagination. Any textual disharmony with a favoured (orthodox) interpretation may be projected onto history and explained as evidence for conflicting factions in the community.103 It is therefore generally recognized, especially in Anglo-American biblical scholarship, that the appearance of opponents in the mirror of the biblical text – whether they be Corinthian or Johannine – results from work built on a very feeble, if not downright speculative base. In Kammler’s exegesis, too, the tool of differentiation is active. Readings of the Fourth Gospel that may lend support to what he designates as charismatic and enthusiastic phenomena are countered by his exegesis. The bridling of charismatic phenomena is achieved, first, through differentiations within the Johannine pneu=ma in which the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete come to denote different pneumatic phenomena and, second, through the restriction of believers’ encounter with Christ and his spirit to the textual encounter with the apostolic witness in the Fourth Gospel. The gift of life promised by the Gospel does not refer to the reception of the spirit itself, but to the new life in faith, which is the work of the spirit through the text of the Gospel; in a paraphrase of John 14:6: no one comes to the Father apart from the text. 104 The spiritual differentiation is justified by Kammler through the distinction between form and content and between literal and metaphorical speech in the Farewell Discourses. Additional support comes from the reference to the fourth Evangelist’s paradoxical Trinitarian thinking.
103 In a session in The Johannine Literature Group at the SBL Meetings in Toronto 2002, the recent death of the notable scholar of the Fourth Gospel, Raymond Brown, occasioned a stocktaking of the situation in Johannine scholarship. In the presence of scholars like Louis Martyn, Robert Kysar and Frank Moloney, the Johannine community was laid to rest as a scholarly project. It was recognized that the many factions and conflicts within the Johannine community documented in books and dissertations primarily mirrored the scholarly mindscape. 104 John 14:6: ou0dei\j e1rxetai pro_j to_n pate/ra ei0 mh\ di’ e0mou=.
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Kammler’s work is problematic for two reasons. First we must ask whether the Fourth Gospel supports a watertight division between the various pneumatic phenomena that Kammler identifies. Is it really possible to sort out the sayings of the Farewell Discourses in such a way that the activity of the Holy Spirit is reserved for the immediate disciples of the earthly Jesus, whereas the Paraclete convinces subsequent generations through the words – and the words alone – of the Fourth Gospel? Will the returning Spirit of Truth exclusively dwell inside the first generation of Jesus’ own disciples (e0n u(mi=n of 14:17), whereas subsequent generations must be content to have the spirit externally (par’ u(mi=n 14:23)? It is not necessary to delve into exegetical details here, I only wish to point out that, when using Kammler’s own premises, the text offers resistance to his reading. The designations of “Holy Spirit”, the “Spirit of Truth” and the “Paraclete” are all used synonymously for “the coming one”. Sometimes the names stand in apposition to one another (e.g. 14:26), 105 sometimes the identity appears from the immediate context (14:16f ~ 26; 16:7 ~ 13).106 It is also noteworthy that Kammler’s distinction between die Gestalt, which concerns the first narrated generation of Jesus’ own disciples, and der Gehalt, which is about subsequent generations of real believers, resembles Reinhartz’ distinction between the historical and ecclesiological tale. But whereas Reinhartz’ speaks of the double references of the textual signifier, Kammler differentiates and restricts the valid reference sometimes to die Gestalt, and sometimes to der Gehalt. This is also the case with his use of the distinction between literal and metaphorical language. Second, we may question Kammler’s premises and ask whether the differentiation within the phenomenon of the pneu=ma is supported contextually by the philosophy of antiquity. The answer is “No”. Supporting argumentation will be presented in my exposition of Stoic physics in the next chapter. But, of course, new ideas may, in principle, be introduced by the Gospel. In light of these reflections, it may no longer seem remarkable that, in spite of their methodologically very different readings, the stance of the authoritative editor or author of the Fourth Gospel that Theobald and Kammler, respectively, discover remains the same and is also in105 John 14:26: o( de\ para&klhtoj, to_ pneu=ma a#gion, o$ pe/myei o( path\r… 106 John 14:16f: ka)gw_ e0rwth/sw to_n pate/ra kai\ a!llon para&klhton dw&sei u(mi=n … to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj… John 16:7: e0a_n ga_r mh\ a)pe/lqw, o( para&klhtoj ou0k e0leu&setai pro_j u(ma~j. e0a_n de\ poreuqw~, pe/myw au0to_n pro_j u(ma~j. John 16:13: o#tan de\ e1lqh| e0kei=noj, to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj…
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distinguishable from orthodox Western Theology.107 They agree that the mystery of the incarnation was the inspired invention of the final editor/evangelist and that the Christology of the lo&goj should be opposed to any Christology of the pneu=ma. They find that the idea of the incarnation preserves the soteriological significance of the cross, and that this perfectly counters the potentially socially disruptive effects of pneumatic, enthusiastic phenomena in the Johannine community. They also claim that the mystery of the incarnation guarantees the ontological and soteriological difference between Christ and believers, and that salvation thus becomes an objective inter-pre-Trinitarian enterprise, in which Christ, through his vicarious death on the cross, atones for the sin of the world. This event becomes life-engendering for human beings when it is appropriated subjectively in faith. Furthermore, they both find that the mystery of the incarnation was born out of a conflict with rational thinking, whether specifically Platonic, in the case of Theobald, or just universally human, in the case of Kammler. Consequently, the “metaphysics” of the Fourth Gospel should be placed in quotation marks. Instead, the divine mystery generated a new kind of knowledge, namely faith. As the inspired invention of the fourth Evangelist, the mystery is neither Jewish nor Hellenistic in origin; it constitutes something unique, it is sui generis.
1.5.3.2 Two critical perspectives According to critical feminist philosophy – as presented, for instance, by the Danish-American philosopher, Robin M. Schott, in her book Discovering Feminist Philosophy: Knowledge, Ethics, Politics (2003) – the use of metaphors in a philosophical argument ought to arouse a hermeneutics of suspicion. The recourse to metaphorical speech often hides a weak point where the premises of an argument are no longer valid; the metaphor is introduced in order to fill in a logical gap in the argument.108 This suspicious attitude may also be directed towards the introduction of mysteries, paradoxes, quotation marks and other kinds of linguistic phenomena that escape, modify and bend the meaning of 107 Precisely on the spirit, Eastern and Western theology differ. 108 See Robin May Schott’s presentation, in her 2003 book Discovering Feminist Philosophy: Knowledge, Ethics, Politics (Danish edition 2004), of the French philosopher Michèle le Doeuff’s deconstructive approach to the history of philosophy. In her analysis, le Doeuff shows how certain elements, like e.g. metaphors, which at the first glance may seem of marginal importance often hide or fill in the gap of unsolved problems in the flow of the argument (2004, 57f).
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plain speech. In particular, one’s attention should be on the alert when the invented category, as is the case with divine mysteries and paradoxes, prevents further inquiry into the issue at stake. In the case of the German readings discussed in this chapter, the suspicion falls on the mystery of the incarnation and the whole enterprise of Trinitarian conceptualizing, in which the logic of language is suspended. These categories a priori preclude a discussion of rational reasoning and ward off obvious questions. Concerning the incarnation: How are we to understand the transformation of the eternal Logos asarkos, who was in the beginning, and who was with God, and who was God (John 1:1), into the fleshly historical Logos ensarkos (1:14)? How are we to understand the claim that “lo&goj was God”? Or that “God is pneu=ma” (4:24)? How are we to understand the presence of the divine lo&goj in the fleshy body of Jesus of Nazareth? Or how was God present in Jesus of Nazareth as the Fourth Gospel claims (14:10)? Concerning the ascension: if God is pneu=ma (4:24), how are we to understand Kammler’s claim that after the ascension, Jesus is bodily present with God? Concerning the regeneration of believers: how are we to understand the regeneration a!nwqen by the spirit (3:3, 5)? How are we to make sense of the language of mutual indwelling of God, Jesus and believers? The function of mystery in Protestant exegesis is also questioned by the scholar of comparative religion Jonathan Z. Smith in his influential book Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianity and the Religions of Late Antiquity (1990). Smith focuses on the methodology of comparing religious and cultural systems. As a case study, he features the reconstruction in Protestant exegesis of the relation of Early Christianity to its neighbouring religious systems, Judaism and Hellenism. The category of mystery is at the centre of Smith’s study. In the conclusion of his book, Smith criticizes New Testament scholarship for continually asserting the uniqueness of Christian ideas. The claim constitutes an unscientific and ahistorical enterprise. Although the quotation given below concerns Pauline scholarship, the remark may as well be applied to Johannine scholarly exegesis as it is represented in the work of both Theobald and Kammler.109 The old Reformation myth, imagining a “pristine” early Christianity centred in Paul and subjected to later processes of “corruption”, has governed all the modulations we have reviewed. As in the archaic locative ideology, the centre has been protected, the periphery seen as threatening, and relative difference perceived as absolute ”other”. The centre, the fabled Pauline seizure by the “Christ-event” or some other construction of an originary mo109 Smith’s “exorcism or purgation” corresponds to Kristeva’s “abjection”.
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ment, has been declared, a priori, to be unique, to be sui generis, and hence, by definition, incomparable. The periphery, whether understood temporally to precede or follow the Pauline moment, or, in spatial terms, to surround it, is to be subjected to procedures of therapeutic comparison. This is exorcism or purgation, not scholarship. The mythic model of radical conversion, that of wholly putting off the “old man” and wholly assuming the “new”, has been inappropriately projected into the historical realm. The Protestant hegemony over the enterprise of comparing the religions of Late Antiquity and early Christianities has been an affair of mythic conception and ritual practice from the outset. It has not yet become an affair of the academy. (Smith 1990, 143, emphasis added)
The methodological approaches of mirror-reading and redaction criticism can be seen as examples of the “exorcism or purgation” in order to “[put] off the ‘old man’ and wholly [assume] the ‘new’”. The exegetical quotation marks have come to represent the scholarly assertion that the Fourth Gospel constitutes something “unique, sui generis, a priori incomparable”. If the marks are removed from the Johannine “metaphysics”, and the thinking of the Fourth Gospel is situated in the contemporary world of ideas, the Gospel risks losing its uniqueness. Actually, more is at stake here than Smith discusses in his book, for the desire to preserve the New Testament’s uniqueness over against contemporary literature is not an issue of methodology alone. From the viewpoint of modern Protestantism, the loss of uniqueness affects core Reformatory theology. Without the sui generis of God’s acting in Christ, without the mystery, without the paradox, the foundation of modern Lutheran teaching on salvation crumbles. This was perfectly demonstrated in the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard’s conceptualization of the Christian paradox in his Philosophical Fragments or a Fragment of Philosophy by Johannes Climacus (1844). In Kierkegaard’s treatise, the Paradox, understood as the event in which the eternally transcendent God entered into the human sphere of history and time, became the basis of Christian faith. In Bultmann’s Theologie des Neuen Testament (1953), Kierkegaard’s Paradox was transformed into das blosse Dass. It was precisely this blosses Dass which in Bultmann’s exegesis of the Fourth Gospel generated the Johannine puzzle of the empty revelation. Modern Protestant faith needs the uniqueness and the incomprehensibility of God’s mystery – das Dass and nothing more. In the work of Theobald, Wengst and Klauck, the existence of die Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie was supported by the identification of a plausible source for the opponents’ theology, namely “[die strenge hellenistische] Tranzendenzidee, die auf dem Dualismus von Geist und Materie/Kosmos basierte” (Theobald 1990, 139). Whether a strong Hellenistic dualism was really a debated issue in Johannine
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circles can neither be verified nor falsified. Our discussion, however, indicates that the debate is an anachronistic invention of modern scholarship. Once more, the historian arrived on the scene too late. The reconstructed Johannine opponents of the baptismal circles (die Tauferkreisen) seem cast in the mould of the Anabaptists with whom Luther took issue during the Reformation. Furthermore, the conflict identified within the Johannine community resembles the conflict between modern North European Protestant Theology and Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism and other revivalist movements. Accordingly, we may be tempted to characterize the interpretations of Theobald, Wengst, Klauck and Kammler with a term borrowed from David Dawson’s 1992 book titled Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria: their readings are a “re-inscription of reality”. In an authoritative manner, the fourth Evangelist had already done away with the contemporary opponents and heretics. On the basis of this analysis and discussion of the German discourse on the Johannine pneu=ma, I suggest that we remove the quotation marks from the phrase: Johannine metaphysics, and leave the assumed genius of the fourth Evangelist behind in order to take the philosophical context, to which his text overtly alludes, seriously, namely Stoic physics. The quotation marks allowed us to defer answering the key questions. Let us now ask precisely these questions.
1.6 Summary The analysis given in the first chapter of Johannine “physics” – in terms of cosmology and pneu=ma – gave rise to a proposal to the effect that a Stoically informed reading of the Fourth Gospel, which focuses on the pneu=ma and the transformations that it engenders, might provide a solution to some important problems with which Anglo-American and German scholarship has been wrestling during the 20th century. In relation to the Anglo-American agenda, it was suggested that Stoic physics might contribute towards an elucidation of the riddled language that Bultmann ascribed to the work of multiple editors, Meeks attributed to the social function of language in Johannine sectarianism, but which was ignored by Reinhartz in her construction of the cosmological tale. The synchronicity of Jesus’ leaving and coming, the fusion of spaces, the blurring of established identities and the multiplicity of referents, all of which are characteristic of Johannine language, will – as we shall see – be accounted for by a Stoically informed meta-story of pneumatic transformations. When the text is understood within this
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specific framework, its resistance to Reinhartz’ reading disappears, Meeks’ nonsensical language suddenly begins to make sense, and Bultmann’s myth obtains a philosophical meaning. In relation to the German agenda, it was suggested that when the quotation marks were removed from the metaphysics of the Gospel and it was read within a Stoic perspective, then, first, the incarnation could be understood in a non-paradoxical fashion and, second, the hiatus between the Prologue’s lo&goj and the pneu=ma of the narrative body would dissolve. As we shall see, this is due to the fact that Stoicism is able to account for Jesus’ transformation into “life-giving spirit” in a manner which includes the physical body that suffered and died on the cross. Suddenly the divine revealer and missionary will have something very important to say that makes the Johannine puzzle disappears. As a consequence of the fact that it is Jesus’ physical body marked by the nails that comes to reside in the paternal bosom of a God (1:18) – who is Himself spirit (4:24) – the pneu=ma becomes the vehicle for revelation. In retrospect, the pneu=ma reveals the paternal lo&goj as present in Jesus’ life and death and, in turn, the identity of the Fourth Gospel’s worshippers “in spirit and truth” (4:23). What might be lost from an orthodox Protestant point of view is the iustificatio impiorum, which is based on a wholly objective inter-Trinitarian conception of salvation. This is acceptable Lutheran theology, but – as we shall see – it is not Johannine! When the Johannine pneu=ma is paid its exegetical due, salvation can no longer be said to be “by faith alone”. Instead, salvation incorporates believers into a radically subjective and transformative process. For what the God of the Fourth Gospel desires is worshippers in “spirit and truth” (4:23).
Chapter 2
Cosmology in Stoicism. The Discourse of Physics
2.1 Introduction. The pneumatic meta-story and Stoicism In the previous chapter the contours of a pneumatic meta-story were outlined: 1. The descent of the pneu=ma onto Jesus from above (1:32) constituted – as his divine generation – the first event. 2. The embodiment of the pneu=ma in Jesus’ life of words and deeds (including his death on the cross) filled out the story. 3. His resurrection, which climaxed in the ascension and translation into the pneumatic Father (13:1, 20:17), was the important penultimate event. 4. Finally, the regeneration of believers from above (3:3; 5) through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22) constituted the ultimate event and the goal of the story. Two core ideas in Stoic physics are necessary for the construction of this version of the Johannine meta-story. The Stoic idea of a)nastoixei/wsij is fundamental to our understanding of Jesus’ translation into spirit is – that is, his “becoming spirit” (cf. 1 Cor 15:45). According to this idea, elements may be transformed into one another, and consequently the matter of bodily flesh can become the air and fire that make up the pneu=ma. The Stoic idea of kra~sij or fusion and coextension of pneumatic bodies is crucial to our understanding of the divine regeneration of believers a!nwqen by this spirit – that is, Jesus’ “becoming life-giving” (cf. 1 Cor 15:45). Also the mutual indwelling between God, Jesus and believers, which is the result of this generation, is an example of pneumatic kra~sij. As already suggested in the previous chapter, this coupling between the physical phenomena of Stoicism and the narrative events in the biblical world seems to be mediated by the kind of allegorical interpretation that we find in Philo’s writings. As we shall see in Chapter Three, Philo lets the patriarchs’ lives embody Stoic physics and ethics. In order to account for Jesus’ translation or ascent in the Fourth Gospel
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(John 20), it is necessary to keep in mind Philo’s elaboration of the Stoic theory of a)nastoixei/wsij. Whereas the Stoics used the idea exclusively in relation to cosmic phenomena, primarily the conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), it is, in Philo’s writings, applied to individual characters, too. Here it accounts for the transformation that befalls outstanding holy men like Moses, Enoch and Elijah instead of an ordinary death (QG 1.86). Philo is also to be seen as a mediator between Stoicism and John in the case of the Johannine idea of a regeneration a!nwqen of spirit and water (3:3, 5). In Philo’s treatises, the divine enthusiasm of prophecy, with which these outstanding persons are empowered, is interpreted in terms of a divine regeneration. By the down-breathing of God’s spirit (Plant. 23: katapnei=n), the womb of the human mind is fertilized. The regenerated prophetic person brings forth virtuous behaviour and voices the truth (Migr. 33-35). This fertilization of the human mind is an instance of fusion (kra~sij) of pneumatic bodies, namely that of the human mind and of God’s spirit. In this way, prophecy opens a short cut to wisdom that, as we shall see, according to Philo, even surpasses the virtue pursued by pagan philosophers. The exposition of Stoic physics that will be given in the present chapter serves many purposes. First, with regard to the analysis of the scholarly tradition given in the previous chapter, the exposition of Stoic physics is meant to substantiate the solution that I proposed to the problem of the idiosyncratic Johannine language (American exegesis), and to support my argument against the differentiations made within the Johannine pneu=ma by the tradition. Second, concerning the following chapter: “Philo’s Divine Generation. The Safer Way to Truth”, the exposition of Stoic ideas serves a double purpose. On the one hand, it provides the basis for demonstrating how Stoic Philo’s treatises – in spite of Philo’s orientation towards Platonism – are. It enables us to understand the place of regeneration and translation within Philo’s overall world view. His treatment of the divine regeneration, in turn, provides the basis for the discussion in Chapter Four with feminist scholarship of the character of the incarnation in the Fourth Gospel: “The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit as Jesus’ Divine Generation”. On the other hand, the exposition of Stoic physics also enables us to see where Stoicism and Philo part and where Philo both surpasses Stoicism and even becomes anti-Stoic. The latter concerns his twisting of the central Stoic idea of oi0kei/wsij. Third, the exposition is furthermore intended to give an impression of the philosophical climate against which Philo and, in turn, also the Gospel of John should be seen. In general, the various philosophical
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schools shared the goal of virtuous living. But throughout the centuries, it continued to be a matter of debate what the best and safest way to reach this goal was. This discussion is brought into the foreground in Chapter Three on Philo and provides, too, the basis for Chapter Five: “John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord (1:23)” which is an analysis of John the Baptist’s testimony (1:19-34). In this testimony, John the Baptist outlines a program according to which Jesus is commissioned via the descent of the spirit to prepare a new way to the Lord. The Gospel of John outdoes contemporary claims to posses the way to the truth. Corresponding to the parallel discourses of Stoicism, the divinely ordained mission may be described in two ways. From an epistemological perspective, Jesus must provide the knowledge that will remove sin from the world (1:29); from a physical perspective, he must provide the baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:33). The overall question that drives the plot of the Fourth Gospel is subsequently articulated by Nicodemus (3:9): “How may these things happen (pw~j du&natai tau=ta gene/sqai;)?” Fourth, the exposition of the idea of fusion of pneumatic bodies (kra~sij), so fundamental to Stoic physics and philosophy, provides the basis for an understanding of the phenomenon of regeneration a!nwqen of spirit and water discussed in Jesus’ first extended discourse with Nicodemus (3:1-21). This discussion simultaneously introduces us to the hermeneutics of the Fourth Gospel. Being begotten – for the second time and from above (a!nwqen) – engenders a hermeneutical competence that enables the decoding of the surplus of meaning hidden in the Johannine signs. On the symbolic level the signs refer to the pneumatic meta-story. All this is discussed in the Chapter Six: “Regeneration as Hermeneutical Competence. The Johannine Signs and the Meta-Story of Pneumatic Transformations (3:1-21)”. Fifth, the whole meta-story of pneumatic transformations hinges on Jesus’ translation into the paternal spirit (4:24), which is, metaphorically expressed, his meta&basij (13:1) and a)na&basij (20:17) to the Father. Jesus’ translation into spirit constitutes the penultimate event in the metastory and it is the necessary antecedent to the regeneration of believers through the infusion of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the ultimate event in the story (20:22). As already mentioned, the Stoic idea of a)nastoixei/wsij is fundamental to our understanding of this translation. Chapter Seven: “The Penultimate Event. ’It Is the Spirit That Gives Life’ (6:63). Jesus’ Ascent and Translation into the Father” is an exegetical analysis of the risen Jesus’ three encounters with believers (20:1129). Whereas most commentators read this part of the Gospel as a narrative of various forms of inadequate faith, I shall suggest that John 20
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concerns a sequence of encounters that plot the successive stages of Jesus’ own translation into spirit by means of the Evangelist’s topographical staging of these encounters. Sixth, whereas Chapter Five and Chapter Seven focus on the pneumatic and physical transformations in the Fourth Gospel, Chapter Eight, “The Ultimate Pneumatic Event. Worshippers in Spirit and Truth. The Quest for the Father – the Quest of the Father”, discusses the knowledge and “truth” involved in these transformations. Through Jesus’ translation into the paternal pneu=ma (4:24), that is, his transposition into the paternal bosom, the hitherto unknown Father is revealed (1:18). The revelation of the Father, in turn, reveals the character of the worshippers “in pneu&mati and truth whom the Father wants” (4:23). In this analysis, Thomas Didymos, whose confession concludes the Gospel (20:28), becomes the textual marker that links a number of texts – John 11, 14 and 20 – serving this revelation. Referring to the Stoic theory of qualities as spatial, pneumatic bodies, I ask about the character of the enigmatic space in the paternal house (14:2-3: to&poj) which Jesus will prepare for his disciples and of which Thomas requires knowledge (14:2-9). The space (20:25Nestle 25: to&poj) left in Jesus’ crucified body by the nails, which Thomas must touch, hints at an answer. By the aid of an exegesis of the scene around Lazarus’ weakness (a)sqe/neia) and death in John 11, this solution is further elaborated. Here Thomas, too, represents the disciples. The Stoic discussion of mental and emotional weakness (a)sqe/neia) will help us to decode the psychological transformation of believers occasioned by faith. Inevitably, Jesus’ own emotional outbursts in John 11 challenge the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia and, therefore, any Stoic reading of John. Referring, again, to Philo’s elaboration of the Stoic doctrine of emotions, I shall argue that this needs not be the case. The present chapter also intends to give an account of Stoicism in its own right. Stoicism was a unified and logically coherent philosophy that hinged on the description of the cosmos as a coherent being unified by an all-pervasive dynamic continuum of pneu=ma. My exposition of the various aspects of Stoicism attempts to be loyal to this understanding and focuses all the way through on the character and role of this pneumatic continuum. The account of Stoic physics given here accords with the prevailing understanding among leading scholars of Stoicism. That physics constitutes the basis of the unity of Stoic philosophy was the claim of Johnny Christensen in An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy (1962). The centrality of the dynamic continuum and the phenomenon of
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kra~sij was demonstrated by Samuel Sambursky in Physics of the Stoics (1959). These two works remain classics for a study of Stoic physics. In the section on Stoic physics, I first present the Stoic discussion of the premises of physics as discourse. I then turn towards the Stoic ontology of bodies and point out the centrality of the phenomenon of kra~sij in Stoic doctrines. I conclude the exposition of physics proper by discussing the various claims found in the sources on the ontological status of the Stoic God. In the second section on Stoic ethics, I first give a brief presentation of the Stoic theory of oi9kei/wsij and then turn to the Stoic theory of emotions, which ought to be understood in the context of the former. The discussion of the emotions will focus on the charge of the Stoic sage with inhumanity and the Stoics’ defence. The discussion aims at evaluating the potential anti-Stoicism involved in Jesus’ tears in John 11. By supplementing the Fourth Gospel with Stoic physics, it becomes possible to integrate the scattered references to the pneu=ma throughout the Gospel into a unified story in which the whole meaning of the Gospel is found. In its original form, the Fourth Gospel ends with a statement about the purpose of writing down some of the many signs performed by Jesus. The aim is twofold: first, the signs are set down in order to convince the reader that Jesus is the Anointed, the Son of God (20:31: o( xristo_j o( ui9o_j tou= qeou=). This purpose is shared with the Synoptics, but it also constitutes a premise, from which John reveals the second purpose of the signs, namely that they may engender life by “his name”. This life is gained by decoding the signs symbolically and by following the movements of the pneu=ma that initially descended on Jesus through his continuous ascent, first up to Jerusalem, then up on the cross, up to the Father and finally back again in order to regenerate believers a!nwqen. Without this story Jesus’ revelation remains an empty puzzle.
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2.2 Stoic physics The fact is that I have been led on by the marvellous structure of the Stoic system and the miraculous sequence of its topics; pray tell me seriously, does it not fill you with admiration? … Where do you find a conclusion inconsistent with its premise, or a discrepancy between an earlier and a later statement? Where is lacking such close interconnexion of the parts that, if you alter a single letter, you shake the whole structure? Cicero, De finibus 3.73f
2.2.1 Introduction. The basic principles of Stoicism 2.2.1.1 The oneness of Nature From the viewpoint of modern philosophy, the foundation of Stoic ethics in physics may be charged with the so-called naturalistic fallacy of confusing the description of how things “are” with the prescription of what “ought” to be done. According to the Stoics, values and knowledge of the good had a foundation in nature. Although the Stoics could argue about the proper sequence of the philosophical curriculum, the study of cosmos or Nature (fu&sij) remained basic to ethics.110 In his treatise on Stoic ethics, De finibus 3, Cicero (106-43 B.C.E.) claims that virtue and the judgement of good and evil presuppose two things: (1) knowledge of the design of Nature and (2) knowledge of man’s place within this Whole. Only the person who lives in harmony with Nature can be said to be good. To the virtues we have discussed they also add Dialectic and Natural Philosophy. Both of these they entitle by the name of virtue … The same honour is also bestowed with good reason upon Natural Philosophy because he who is to live in accordance with nature [convenienter naturae] must base his principles upon the system and government of the entire world. Nor again can anyone judge truly of things good and evil, save by a knowledge [i.] of the whole plan of nature and also of the life of the gods, and [ii.] of the answer to the question whether the nature of man is or is not in harmony with that of the universe [conveniat necne natura hominis cum universa]. (Fin. 3.72)
In De finibus Cicero expresses his admiration for the Stoics’ systemization of their philosophy. The whole system, including their epistemology and ethics, may be deduced logically from their basic assumption 110 See Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (1987) Volume I & II 26A-H. In the following abbreviated LS.
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about Nature, namely that it is the only substance (ou0si/a) that can in a proper way be said to exist.111 Nature is this unified Whole (to_ o#lon); within this Being no voids are found, beyond it an infinite void exists (LS 44A, 49A, F). The claim that only Nature can be said to be good in an absolute sense – and as such constitute the ultimate measure of derived goodness – follows from the Stoic application of peripatetic ethics to the one and only substance. According to Aristotle, goodness was a measure of the relation of an actual exemplar to its eternal idea and form or of the fulfilment (telei/wsij) of its purpose. The predicates “excellent”, “perfect” and “good” were, in a proper and non-derivative sense, to be applied only to particular substances, and these were “excellent”, “perfect” and “good” in so far as their nature, potential or form, was actualized (Aristotle, Phys. 2.246a13ff; Christensen 1962, 63). Since Nature, according to the Stoics, represents the only form that exists; since only one exemplar of this form is found; and since nothing external exists that may cause it to change, Nature is the only Being that, conceived in Aristotelian terms, can be said to be perfect and good.112 Consequently, Stoicism becomes a radically particularistic philosophy. The unity of Stoic philosophy depends on three premises: (1) the nature of the good, conceived in an Aristotelian way; (2) the goodness of Nature, Stoically conceived; and (3) man’s ability to understand these premises. In a derived sense, man and his actions may be designated good, if as a part (me/roj) he identifies himself with the Whole and lives consistently or in agreement with Nature (o(mologoume/nwj th=| fu&sei zh=n). In his description of Stoic philosophy in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius quotes the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus (ca. 280-206 B.C.E.): … as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the nature of the whole universe [me/rh ga&r ei0sin ai9 h9me/terai fu&seij th=j tou= o!lou]. And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with nature [dio&per te/loj gi/netai to_ a)kolou&qwj th|= fu&sei zh=n].113 (D. L. 7.87-88)
111 It is this unity that has inspired the Danish classicist Johnny Christensen to An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy (1962). In a concise form, Christensen demonstrates how Stoic philosophy in its various branches of epistemology and ethics may be deduced from the premise that Nature is one. 112 See D. L. 7.94: “Another particular definition of good which they give is ‘the natural perfection of a rational being qua rational [to_ te/leion kata_ fu&sin logilou= w(j logikou=]’.” 113 This quotation from Chrysippus’ De finibus matches the situation established through Jesus’ translation in the Fourth Gospel. Through his translation into the divine and paternal pneu=ma, Jesus fills in the place of Nature in Stoicism. Through their regeneration, believers participate physically in Jesus’ spiritualized body.
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The radical particularism of Stoicism inevitably poses a problem for an exposition of their physics: How to conceptualize the particulars when generalizations are impossible? How to embrace this “Whole” which extends itself through space and time? How to speak of those phenomena which we actually perceive while living within time and at a particular place in this spatial Whole? In opposition to the Platonists and the Aristotelians who claimed that the linguistic representation of the mental idea corresponded to the eternal idea (Christensen 1962, 47), the Stoics argued, in accordance with their radically particularistic understanding of Nature, that the only description of Nature that referred to the universe in a true way was a never-ending sentence with an infinite row of predicates and an infinite number of subordinate clauses (Christensen, 13). In order to solve these problems, the Stoics made a distinction between, on the one hand, the logical analysis of principles or constituents of Nature that enabled us, although in an abstract way, to speak of the Whole, and on the other hand, physics proper that describes the components which make up Nature. Whereas the analytical constituents are merely meaningful utterances – that is, what the Stoics call le/kta – without a corresponding bodily referent that may be pointed out and identified, the physical analysis concerns components that exist in this demonstrative way. Both ways of speaking concern, however, “something” (to_ ti/), which is the broadest category in Stoic thinking (LS 27B, D).
2.2.1.2 The logical analysis of the principles of Nature The locus classicus for conceptualizing the different ways of speaking about Nature in Stoicism is Diogenes Laertius’ account in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.134-137: They hold that there are two principles in the universe [a)rxa_j tw~n o#lwn du&o], the active principle and the passive [to_ poiou=n kai\ to_ pa&sxon]. The passive principle, then, is a substance without quality, i.e. matter, [to_ me\n ou]n pa&sxon ei]nai: th\n a!poion ou0si/an – th\n u3lhn] whereas the active is the reason inherent in this substance, that is God [to_ de\ poiou=n: to_n e0n au0th|= lo&gon – to_n qeo&n]. For he is everlasting and is the artificer of each several thing throughout the whole extent of matter [tou=ton ga_r a)i5dion o!nta dia_ pa&shj au0th=j dhmiourgei=n e3kasta] … There is a difference, according to them, between principles and elements; the former being without generation or destruction, whereas the elements are destroyed when all things are resolved into fire [ta_ de\ stoixei=a kata_ mh\n e0kpu&rwsin fqei/resqai]. Moreover the principles are incorporeal and destitute of form [a)lla_ kai\ a)swma&touj ei]nai ta_j a)rxa_j kai\ a)mo&rfouj] while the elements have been
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endowed with form [ta_ de\ memorfw~sqai] (134). … God is one and the same with Reason, Fate, and Zeus; he is also called by many other names. In the beginning he was by himself [kat’ a)rxa_j me_n ou]n kaq’ au(to_n o1nta]; he transformed the whole of substance through air into water. … Thereupon he created first of all the four elements, fire, water, air, earth (135-36). … The four elements together constitute unqualified substance or matter [ta_ dh\ te/ttara stoixei=a ei]nai o(mou= th\n a!poion ou0si/an th\n u!lhn] (137).114
The logical analysis of Nature as a substantial Whole owes its basic concepts to Aristotelian ontology. Aristotle’s distinction between form and substrate in any particular being is applied by the Stoics to their only true Being, namely Nature considered as an organic Whole. Stoics then speak of the two principles of the universal Whole (a)rxa_j tw~n o#lwn du&o). On the one hand, we have the passive principle (to_ pa&sxon), which represents the substrate or prime matter (h9 u(lh/) that makes up the Whole. The passive principle is substance viewed abstractly or apart from its formative qualities (th\n a!poion ou0si/an). On the other hand, we find the active principle (to_ poiou=n), which represents formative reason or forces in the passive substance (to_n e0n au0th|= lo&gon), but now abstracted from matter. Prime matter is never found in raw form, but is always endowed with a minimum of form and exists in one or another combination of the four elements. At each moment in the world cycle, “[t]he four elements together constitute unqualified substance or matter” (D. L. 7.137). In the beginning of the world cycle (diako&smhsij) and at the end of the conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), all prime matter exists in the form of fire. During the formative phase this fire is transformed through air into water by a violent contraction, and out of
114 The English translation here follows LCL. With regard to the somatic character of the principles – and therefore of God – the sources are ambiguous. The LCL-edition of Lives of Eminent Philosophers follows the version of Suidas from Hesychius according to which the principles are incorporeal: a)swma&touj. But in The Hellenistic Philosophers (44B), Long and Sedley argue that the “[e]vidence that the Stoic ‘principles’ are bodies [sw&mata] is overwhelming” and that the opposite claim only “has dubious textual support in a variant reading” (Long & Sedley 1987, 274). Johnny Christensen follows LCL; Long and Sedley accord with Sambursky. When judged by the lectio difficilior potior principle of textual criticism: “the more difficult reading is the stronger”, Long and Sedley’s argument for choosing sw&mata is, however, turned on its head. They argue that God’s corporeality follows logically from the Stoic maxim that only bodies are capable of influencing bodies (LS 45A-C). The version, a)sw&maton, should be chosen precisely because it is the “more difficult reading” and because this claim differs from the majority of the sources. It is therefore more likely that a)sw&maton has been replaced by the sw&mata than the other way around. The established tension between the sources demands an explanation. In the paragraph: “2.2.4: God, principles and pneu=ma in the Stoic sign”, I – on my own speculative basis – attempt to sort out the various statements concerning the ontological status of the principles and of the Stoic God.
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this water the four elements come into being through contraction and expansion in matter (Strobaeus 1.129,2-130,13; LS 47A). Whereas the analytical discourse concerns the eternity of the only truly existing form, Nature, the discussion of physics proper concerns the flux, changes or movements, to which every part within this eternal Whole is subjected. The principles, lo&goj and prime matter, are everlasting and not subjected to generation and decay, but exist eternally throughout the world cycles. The active principle may also be named God (o( qeo&j), since this principle is everlasting (a)id5 ioj) and constitutes the creator of everything that is.115 The principles have, however, no distinct referent, since in Nature form and substance are inseparable. The Stoics also owed this idea of inseparability to Aristotle. The elements, on the contrary, which come into being through the creative work of God or lo&goj in the substrate or prime matter, are subjected to changes that involve generation and decay. Nevertheless, these elements refer to bodily beings that may be identified and pointed to. To summarize: the principles are eternal, and although they represent something material, they are as analytical concepts without bodily reference; the elements are subject to change, but have a bodily reference. Abstractly considered, prime matter is the recipient of all events in the history of the world, and the universal reason, God or lo&goj, is, again seen abstractly, the fate or universal law that is the ultimate cause of these events.116
2.2.2 Stoic ontology. The theory of matter in motion 2.2.2.1 Studying the parts. Bodies and movements In light of their radical understanding of Nature as the only proper Being (h9 ou0si/a), the Stoics had to rearticulate ontology in such a way that it was capable of explaining commonsensical experience of the world as a place consisting of multiple, perceptible beings. In order to explain everyday experience, the Stoics argued that the phenomena 115 See also Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos 9.11: “Moreover, the Stoics also, when they declare that there are two principles, God and unqualified matter, suppose that God acts and that matter is passive and altered…”. 116 See A. A. Long’s essay “Soul and Body in Stoicism”: “God and matter are the fundamental Stoic archai – active and passive principles – but they are never found in dissociation from one another. Even in the simplest state of the universe, before any cosmic circle has commenced, something can be predicated of matter, namely fieriness. God always causes matter to possess at least this quality” (1996b, 228).
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which we perceive represent patterns of ordered movements or stable differentiations of matter in space and time. To explain the existence of phenomena by reference to the eternal ideas, as the Academics did, was to the Stoics nothing but a tautology. Instead, they claimed that the ideas with which we identified these patterns were constructs of the human mind. This, however, did not mean that the order of the world was a mental construct subjectively imposed on an amorphous chaotic being. On the contrary, our ideas about the world, in so far as they were thoroughly tested, certainly matched and referred to bodily beings “out there”; the Stoics were not constructivists. The descriptive predication of an identified phenomenon may simultaneously be true and approximate. Johnny Christensen has described the epistemological situation concisely: Since the only substance is Nature as a whole … there are, as implied by the principle of continuity, no real wholes, thus no real parts of the supreme whole, or, differently stated, no determinate boundaries. When we talk of object(s), we do so on our own responsibility, so to speak. The separating of a region of space to be called “a” subject of some predicate is indeed the way a rational mind gets into contact with the external world, but it is not caused directly by the actual existence of “one” thing or “one” exemplification of “an” Aristotelian form. The part-whole scheme is superimposed by the mind on the continuous manifold of impressions. Parts and wholes, in human experience, are constructs (kat’ e0pi/noian). (1962, 26)
The Aristotelian term “substance” (ou0si/a) was reserved by the Stoics for Nature considered as a whole. In order to describe the parts of this Whole, they replaced the Aristotelian terminology of “substance” and “accidents” with bodies (ta_ sw&mata) and movements (ki/nhseij). What we perceive as a distinct phenomenon is a body in some state of stable movement: Sw&ma is the term which has the greatest affinity to, but should not be identified with, prime matter (h9 u(lh/); ki/nhsij is closer to, although not identical with, structure (lo&goj). In contrast to the lack of externally demonstrable referents in the case of the principles (h9 u(lh/ and o( lo&goj), a body (sw&ma) demarcates and denotes a part of Nature which “is considered with minimum attention to structure”; motion (ki/nhsij) refers to the same part of Nature, but now “with maximum attention to structure or differentiation” (Christensen 1962, 24). A “body” is only to be identified as a body, because it is already endowed with structure, and the “movements” that make up the qualities of any given body are in themselves bodies, since – and this was a Stoic maxim – only bodies are capable of influencing bodies (LS 45A-C). The Stoic maxim of bodily interactions was a critique of – and also a solution to – a well-known problem in Platonic ontology, namely the mediation between the eternal, immaterial ideas and the world of ma-
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terial phenomena perceptible to the senses. How, the Stoics asked, was the reception of immaterial ideas in amorphous matter capable of generating sense perceptible phenomena?117 The Stoic doctrine of bodies, especially their idea of the fusion of bodies, was, however, also subjected to critique. From the viewpoint of contemporary atomic theorists, the idea that two bodies were capable of occupying the same space appeared nonsensical (Plutarch, Comm. not. 1078B-D; LS 48E, F). The answer to this objection was the Stoic idea of kra~sij or diffusion of bodies, to which we shall soon return.
2.2.2.2 The analogy of force fields The modern interest in Stoicism stems to a large extent from the interest of modern science in Stoics physics. Modern physicists and mathematicians noticed the analogy between their theory of force fields (e.g. gravity, magnetism and electricity) and the Stoic ontology of bodies. The Stoics’ understanding of perceptible phenomena as spatial regions characterized by stable patterns of differentiated movements in space and time could be clarified and illustrated by the mathematical analysis of force fields.118 The analogy is based on the fact that matter – stuff, iron particles or electrons – when placed in a particular force field, moves and behaves in an ordered and predictable way. The actual pattern of movement depends on the quality of matter itself, on the forces that characterize the field and on the medium that fills the field and transmits the forces.119 The field analogy has several advantages. First, like the Stoic bodies, the fields of modern physics are material regions. Second, the analogy emphasizes the dynamic character of Stoic physics. The phenomena that we perceive as distinct beings are in fact events (ta_ gigno&mena) occasioned by the subjection of (prime) matter to the manipulating forces of additional bodies. If these events were capable 117 See Cicero, Acad. 1.39: “Zeno also differed from the same philosophers [Platonists and Peripatetics] in thinking that it was totally impossible that something incorporeal (to which genus Xenocrates and his predecessors too had said the mind belonged) should be the agent of anything, and that only a body was capable of acting or of being acted upon” (translation, LS 45A). 118 Sambursky (1959, viii) draws attention to the physicists Michael Faraday (1791-1867) and James Maxwell (1831-1879). In 1864, Maxwell wrote a treatise Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field in which he demonstrates that electric and magnetic fields travel through space in the form of waves at the speed of light. 119 Johnny Christensen as well as Samuel Sambursky makes use of the analogy.
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of bringing a particular body into being, it was due to the fact that the perceived material region was characterized by stable movements. Change of qualities was due to the addition or removal of bodies. Third, the analogy perfectly captures a development in Stoicism in which forceful pneumatic bodies came to be seen as powers (duna&meij) (see paragraph 2.2.4). Fourth, the analogy draws attention to the fact that ideas of the eternal, but unobservable principles, structure (lo&goj) and prime matter (u9lh/), were gained from the perception and systematic ordering of observable events. Other important analytic concepts, too, had their origin in the observation of matter in motion, e.g. space, density and time. When a body was considered from the perspective of matter, it gave rise to the concept of space (xw&ra) due to the extension of the observed pattern in three dimensions (LS 49A, E). When the body was considered from the perspective of structure, it gave rise to the idea of inertia or density (a)ntitupi/a) because of the resistance that the pattern displayed against further changes or differentiations. When motion was considered from the perspective of matter, it gave rise to the concept of time due to its receptivity to change (LS 51A-D; Christensen 1962, 24). 2.2.2.3 Interchangeability of elements (a)nastoixei/wsij) Two different kinds of movement characterized matter provoked to motion by different force fields, contraction and expansion. Whereas contractions took place along a straight line, expansion occurred in a spiral curve. Whereas the effect of linear contraction was observed in gravity, the spiraling expansion could be seen in the movements of heavenly bodies. The four elements were defined according to their kinetic pattern. Fire was a field or region in which prime matter was characterized by a highly expansive pattern of motion; earth was a field or region in which prime matter was subjected to contraction; water, too, was liable to contract, whereas air was a field or region in which expansion was held in check by contraction with the effect that “[a]ir tends to impart stability between the two basic forces” (Christensen 1962, 32). The motional pattern, in turn, defined the thermal qualities of the elements.120 While heat and heating were the property of fiery fastmoving bodies, the slower airy bodies were cold and the source of cooling (Strobaeus, 1.129,2-130,13; LS 47A; Cicero, Nat. d. 2.23-28; Sam120 It is this understanding of heat in terms of motions that has caused modern physicists to see in Stoicism the origins of thermo-dynamic thinking.
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bursky 1959, 117). Thus, change of thermal qualities was due to bodies as well. It was this definition of the four elements in terms of a motional pattern imparted to a region of prime matter which accounted for the Stoic phenomenon called a)nastoixei/wsij. By the addition or removal of heat, the motional pattern which characterized a specific region was changed. In this way, the elements were changed into one another. During the world cycles the process of elementary transformations differed; in the phase of creation or reconstruction (diako&smhsij), matter circulated continuously, and the upward motion balanced the downward one; in the phase of conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), the upward transformation of the more dense elements of earth, water and air into pure fire prevailed. The idea of an a)nastoixei/wsij of the elements was intimately related to the materiality of Stoic physics. The transformation of the elements differed from what was found in the Platonic cosmology of the Timaues, where the four elements remained stable entities. 2.2.2.4 The phenomena of pneu=ma and to&noj On the basis of this thermal understanding of the elements, we are now in a position to account for the physical phenomena that correspond to the principles in the Stoics’ logical analysis. The active and structuring principle of lo&goj has a physical counterpart in bodies made up by the expansive element of fire and the stabilizing element of air. It is this mixture of fire and air that the Stoics called pneu=ma. The passive and material principle has, for its part, a counterpart in the more contractive elements of water and earth. It is these slower and denser bodies that account for the material unity which we traditionally associate with a body. In Christensen’s terminology, these bodies constitute the “carrier fields” that host the swifter bodily fields of the qualities (33). Swift pneumatic bodies are capable of pervading these more dense bodies and affecting their physical qualities. Thus, qualities (poio&thtai) are but pneumatic bodies (pneu&mata) of airy and fiery currents. What we perceive as a phenomenon is a region of prime matter characterized by stability in the resultant pattern of movements caused by the active bodies or fields permeating the region. This stability is the result of a balance between the inward, contractive, inertial motion and the outward, swift, energetic motion. In spite of the oscillation to which matter is subjected, the balance leaves us with the impression of a body at rest. It is this balance of opposing vacillating movements in a particular re-
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gion that the Stoics defined as the tension (to&noj) of the matter in the perceived region. In other words, all properties of a particular phenomenon – its basic coherence as a body, as well as its qualities – were due to fields or bodies of various tensional fluctuations (Christensen 1962, 33). Plutarch has summarized the basic ideas of Stoic physics in a short note: Yet everywhere they declare that matter is of itself the inert and immobile substrate of qualities [kai/toi pantaxou= th\n u3lhn a)rgo_n e0c e9auth=j kai\ a)ki/nhton u(pokei=sqai tai=j poio&thsin a)pofai/nousi] and that qualities [ta_j de\ poio&thtaj], being vital spirits or aeriform tensions [pneu&mata ou1saj kai\ to&nouj a)erw&deij], give character and shape to the various parts of matter in which they come to be [oi[j a@n e0gge/nwntai me/resi th=j u1lhj ei)dopoiei=n e3kasta kai\ sxhmati/zein].121 (Stoic. rep. 1054b)
2.2.2.5 The ontological hierarchy The general description of the way that different pneumatic bodies fuse in order to provide a specific region of matter with its properties is specified in Philo’s account in Legum allegoriae 2.22 of the various faculties or powers that make up the human soul (duna&meij). Philo’s duna&meij correspond to the pneumatic bodies (ta_ pneu&mata) mentioned in Plutarch’s text above.122 Philo shows how different classes of being – solids, plants, animals and the various intelligible beings like humans and stars – make up a dynamic continuum, where new tensional fields 121 In order to understand the Stoic idea of a tensional movement, Sambursky draws attention to the description of the wave in modern physics. Like the waves in water or the air, the Stoic tonus is a movement within a material body: “What kind of motion did the Stoics have in mind when they talked about movement of pneuma within the body? Modern physics distinguishes between two types of motion: particle movement, i.e. transport of matter, and wave motion, i.e. propagation of a state. There can be little doubt as to the Stoic attitude in this respect; their conception of continuity and the idea of tension inherent in the pneuma make it highly probable that they visualized movement of pneuma as something akin to the second type pf motion, the expansion of a disturbance in an elastic medium“ (1959, 22f). Like the propagation of waves, the tonal movement is spherical, too. Sambursky himself refers to the description of Aëtius: “The Stoics say that the air is not composed of particles, but that it is a continuum which contains no empty spaces. If struck by a puff of breath [pneu/mati] it sets up circular waves which advance in a straight line to infinity, until all the surrounding air is affected just as a pool is affected by a stone which strikes it. But whereas in this case the movement is circular, the air moves spherically” (Arnim II, 425, Sambursky’s translation). 122 On the identification of duna&meij with pneu&mata see Sambursky’s comment in paragraph 2.3 below.
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are added one by one to a specific region in order to modify the previous state and provide the particular being with new properties.123 By the addition of these new and higher faculties, the region with which the particular being interacts – that is, it’s sphere of interests – is successively extended. Solids like stones have the most restricted and inactive manner of being; plants are basically solids but are additionally capable of extending their sphere of interest through metabolism and growth; animals are, in turn, able to extend their sphere of interest even further through their ability to receive impressions (fantasiai) of the surrounding world and through some kind of irrational and instinctive assent (sugkata&qesij) to respond to these in pursuit or avoidance (o(rmh/; a)formh/) of the external thing that provoked the impression. Finally, at the highest level, we find the “language animal” in which the passive sense impression becomes, in Philo’s words, an active form of sense perception (kat’ e0ne/rgeian ai0sqh/sewj). The instinctive and animalistic faculty of impression → assent → impulse is transformed by the use of language into perception → judgement → desire (Long 1996b, 246).124 Having said this, we must go on to remark that the mind when as yet unclothed and unconfined by the body [o( gumno_j kai\ a)ne/ndetoj sw&mati nou=j] (and it is of the mind when not so confined that he is speaking) has many powers [polla_j e1xei duna&meij]. It has the power of holding together, of growing, of conscious life, of thought [e9ktikh\n futikh\n yuxikh\n dianohtikh/n], and countless other powers, varying both in species and genus. Lifeless things, like stones and blocks of wood, share with all others the power of holding together [e3cij], of which the bones in us, which are not unlike stones, partake. “Growth” [fu&sij] extends to plants, and there are parts in us, such as our nails and hair, resembling plants; “growth” is coherence capable of moving itself [e1sti de_ h9 fu&sij e3cij h!dh kinoume/nh]. Conscious life [yuxh/] is power to grow, with the additional power of re123 See A. A. Long’s essay “Soul and Body in Stoicism”: “But it is worth dwelling, initially, on the fact that persons are not different from any other discrete objects in their basic principles or constituents. Human beings no less than stones are subject to the laws of physics; they resist and offer resistance to other discrete objects, just like stones. … There is in Stoicism a great chain of being which tolerates no discontinuity or introduction of principles which operate at one level but not at another. The entire universe is a combination of god and matter, and what applies to the whole applies to any one of its identifiable parts” (1996b, 228). 124 See Long, “Soul and Body in Stoicism”: “Like other animals, human beings are creatures whose psychic attributes and behaviour can be analysed in terms of the three faculties, imagining, assenting and impulsion. But the human mode of imaging etc., is invariably a rational activity. There is another way of putting this which expresses, I think, the central insight of the Stoics: the human soul is a capacity for living as a language animal” (1996b, 246, emphasis added).
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ceiving impressions and being the subject of impulses [yuxh\ de/ e0sti fu&sij proseilhfui=a fantasi/an kai\ o(rmh/n]. This is shared also by creatures without reason. Indeed our mind contains a part that is analogous to the conscious life of a creature without reason. Once more, the power of thinking [h9 dianohtikh/] is peculiar to the mind, and while shared, it may well be, by beings more akin to God, is, so far as mortal beings are concerned, peculiar to man. This power or faculty is twofold. We are rational beings, on the one hand as being partakers of mind, and on the other as being capable of discourse. Well, there is also another power or faculty in the soul, closely akin to these, namely that of receiving sense-impressions, and it is of this that the prophet is speaking. For his immediate concern is just this, to indicate the origin of active sense-perception. And logical sequence leads him to do so [ge/nesin th=j kat’ e0ne/rgeian ai0sqh/sewj: kai\ kata_ lo&gon]. (Philo, Leg. 2.22)
Through their ability to represent their impressions linguistically (fantasi/a logikh/), human beings become capable of judging these impressions rationally, in which case “reason becomes the craftsman of impulse” (D. L. 7.86, which will be discussed below). By the aid of this formal faculty, these rational beings are, at least in principle, capable of extending their sphere of interest infinitely in order finally to encompass the Whole. The tension (to&noj), which characterizes the motion of matter that constitutes the powers (or pneumatic bodies) of these still higher qualities, successively becomes swifter and swifter, and the mental field extends and rarefies its matter in still higher degrees.125 2.2.3 The centrality of blending (kra~sij) in Stoic doctrine 2.2.3.1 kra~sij. The fusion and co-extension of bodies The manner in which permeating bodies affect each other is called kra~sij by the Stoics, and the phenomenon is defined systematically in relation to other forms of mixed matter. The locus classicus on the Stoic idea of kra~sij is Alexander of Aphrodisias’ exposition in his De mix125 In “Soul and Body in Stoicism”, Long argues that, in the case of animals, the Stoics made a distinction between soul in a general and in a specific sense. In the first general case, soul denotes all the pneumatic bodies that pervade a region of matter and provide it with form, from the cohesive force to the specific intelligible power of higher beings, as is the case in the text quoted above from Philo. In the more specific sense, soul designates the two higher powers alone and is as to_ h9gemoniko&n opposed to the body shaped by the two lower powers of cohesion (e3cij) and growth (fu&sij). In spite of – and without compromising their materialistic and monistic approach to “bodies” – the Stoics operated in practice with a dualism of body and soul. However, even when this distinction was made the Stoics insisted on the corporeality of the soul (1996b, 234-39).
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tione of Chrysippus’ theory (see below). First, we have the mechanical compound, in which the material of the admixed bodies remains as separable entities. In the compound, the original properties of the two components are, of course, retained. Next, we find the chemical compound in which the original components no longer exist. The original properties of the components are lost in favour of a new set of qualities. The Stoic kra~sij constitutes an intermediary between the two. On the one hand, it is no longer possible to localize the original components to any region, however small, (Alexander, 7); the permeation is infinite and complete. The two original bodies now co-extend spatially so as to occupy the same space (ibid. 4: a)ntiparekteinome/nwn). The phenomenon of kra~sij enables an admixed body of matter to be stressed even beyond the size of space that it may occupy when in a pure and unmixed state. This is due to the fact that the passive part, too, possesses structure. Either it may be receptive to the permeating body and cooperate and facilitate its extension into it, or it may inhibit it (9). On the other hand, in spite of this co-extension, the original properties of the admixed bodies remain. The different qualities, however, cannot be localized to specific regions; the various properties permeate the whole. In principle, at least, the process of kra~sij is reversible (4). In order to explain the phenomenon of kra~sij, the field analogy proves especially illuminating. The mixing bodies constitute force fields in which prime matter is subjected to additional forces. In the case where kra~sij concerned solids, the Stoic spoke of “unified bodies” (ta_ h9mwme/na sw&mata), in the case of living things, they spoke of bodies that had grown together (su&mfusij):126 (1) Chrysippus has the following theory of blending [peri\ kra&sewj]: he first assumes that the whole of substance is unified by a breath which pervades it all [h9nw~sqai me\n u(poti/qetai th\n su&mpasan ou0si/an, pneu&mato&j tinoj dia_ pa&shj au0th=j dih/kontoj], and by which the universe is sustained and stabilized and made interactive with itself [u(f’ ou[ sune/xetai/ te kai\ summe/nei kai\ su&mpaqe/j e0stin au(tw~| to_ pa~n]. … (4) Other mixtures occur, he argues, when certain substances and their qualities are mutually coextended through and through [di’ o#lwn tinw~n ou0siw~n te kai\ tw~n tou&twn poioth/twn a)ntiparekteinome/nwn], with the original substances and their qualities being preserved in such a mixture; this kind of mixture he calls specifically ‘blending’; … for the capacity to be separated again from one another is a peculiarity of blended substances, and this only occurs if they preserve their own natures in the mixture. … (7) He believes that such a coextension of blended bodies occurs when they pass through one another, 126 In fact, this is the term that Paul uses in Rom 6:5 for the relationship of believers to the Christ who had become life-giving spirit through his death (1 Cor 15:45): Believers are su&mfutoi with Christ through his death.
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so that no part among them fails to participate in everything contained in such a blended mixture; otherwise the result would no longer be blending but juxtaposition [kra~sin a)lla_ para&qesin]. … (9) Since all this is so, they say there is nothing remarkable in the fact that certain bodies, when assisted by one another, are so mutually unified through and through that while being preserved together with their own qualities they are mutually coextended as wholes through and through, even if some of them are small in bulk and incapable by themselves of spreading so far and preserving their own qualities. In this way too a measure of wine is blended with a large amount of water and assisted by it to attain an extension of that size. … (10) As clear evidence of this being so they make use of the fact that the soul, which has its own individual existence, just like the body which receives it, pervades the whole of the body while preserving its own substance in the mixture with it. For none of the soul lacks a share in the body which possesses the soul. … (12). Of the four elements they say that one pair, fire and air, which are rare, light, and tensile (eu!tona), pass as wholes through the other pair, earth and water, which are dense and heavy and lack tension (a)to&nwn), both pairs preserving their own nature and continuity. (Alexander, Mixt. 216.14-218.6, translation LS 48C)
Blended bodies may also be said to “indwell” or “envelop one another”; Plutarch has described the phenomenon in this way. Although his immediate aim is to demonstrate that the idea of mutual extension is nonsensical, his exposition is to the point:127 If blending occurs in the way they [the Stoics] insist, the constituents must come to be in one another, and the same thing must both be enveloped by being in the other and by accommodating it envelop it [kai\ tau0to_n o(mou= tw~| e0nupa&rxein perie/xesqai kai\ tw~| de/xesqai perie/xein qa&teron].128 (Comm. not. 1078B-C, translation LS 48E)
The idea of blending in the form of an interaction and co-extension of bodies (kra~sij) was of paramount importance to Stoic thinking. This is the case in physics, in epistemology – and in the combination of these two, which makes up Stoic ethics. Let us first have a look at the role of kra~sij in Stoic physics.
127 In general, the Stoic idea of an infinite extension of a body was held to be unconvincing and against commonsense. In De communibus notitiis contra stoicos (1078B-D), Plutarch reports Arcesilaus’ attack on the Stoic theory of tension. Arcesilaus takes the Stoic theory ad absurdum: “For if blendings are through and through [ei0 ga&r ei0sin ai9 kra&seij di’ o#lwn], what prevents not only the armada of Antigonus, as Arcesilaus said, from sailing through the leg that has been severed, putrefied, thrown into the sea and dissolved, but the 1200 triremes of Xerxes along with the 2300 of the Greeks from having a battle within the leg?” (Translation LS 48E). 128 The Johannine language of mutual indwelling inevitably comes to mind, but we will return to this in the exegetical chapters.
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2.2.3.2 Nature and kra~sij. The idea of sumpa&qeia In De mixtione, Alexander of Aphrodisias took as his starting-point Chrysippus’ claim that the world was a unity constituted by a single, all-pervading pneumatic body that extended itself throughout it’s substance. In blended form (kra~sij), this universal pneumatic body contained all the partial pneumatic fields (spermatikoi\ lo&goi) which were the causes of the perceptible regional phenomena (Aëtius 1.7.33, LS 46A; Origen, Cels. 4.14, LS 46H. See below). But, as already mentioned, it remains an approximation to speak about regional pneumatic or tensional fields. The perceived phenomena are due to differentiations within the universal pneu=ma, but since the mutual indwelling in kra~sij is always complete and infinite and each partial pneumatic field coextends with the Whole, these differentiations are only of relative significance.129 All phenomena are, as parts of the Whole, in touch with one another. The universal pneu=ma is simultaneously the source of cohesion (e3xij) and stability of the differentiated parts, and of the unity, coherence (sune/xeia) and interrelatedness (sumpa&qeia) of the Whole (Alexander, Mixt. 1). Consequently, there is no event, however small, that does not affect the Whole. The chain of causes and effects is in principle infinite in time as well as in space. The Stoic notion of sumpa&qeia refers to his sensibility. When the Stoics spoke about fate, universal causality, natural law and divine providence, it was the dynamic continuum of Nature and the idea of sumpa&qeia that they had in mind. Through his perception and impulses man participated in the Whole, and he was – in contrast to lower beings like animals and children – capable of being conscious of this. Man was caught between determinism and freedom: determinism, because he was subjected to the Whole; freedom, because he affected the Whole through his choice.130 When the Stoics spoke about the wise man’s competence in omens and divinisation, they referred to this continuum, too. To the omniscient mind, every event, however small, constituted a sign by the aid of which the state of the Whole could be deduced. When they spoke about a)pa&qeia, the Stoics again had the sumpa&qeia of the Whole in mind. Bereft of this cosmological context the extinction of passions becomes, in Martha Nussbaum’s words, “a stingy sort” of behaviour (1998, 297), but to this we shall return soon. 129 The analogy to circular waves left in water by a stone disturbing its surface is suitable. Although the energy of the wave is rarefied during its extension, the wave continues infinitely, at least in principle. 130 See A. A. Long’s article on ”Freedom and Determination in the Stoic Theory of Human Action” (1971a).
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Therefore, as Cicero claimed in the text quoted at the beginning of this chapter, the study of Nature and ethics cannot be separated. But the relationship between Nature and ethics is mediated by epistemology, which pertains to the preconditions of knowledge. 2.2.3.3 Epistemology and kra~sij The phenomenon of kra~sij also plays a decisive role in Stoic epistemology: (i.) in sense perception proper, (ii.) in the generation of mental representations, (iii.) in the establishment and use of a criterion of truth and (iv.) in their claim for the unity and rationality of the human soul. i. kra~sij and seeing Although the idea of the mind as a tabula rasa is often associated with Stoicism, the act of seeing was not understood as a passive event in which the world in a mechanical way impressed itself from the outside upon the wax tablet of the eye. Seeing something was instead the result of an interaction between the pneu=ma of the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n) and that of the surrounding air. In the organ of the eye, the motions of the person’s psychic pneu=ma were transmitted to and interfered in kra~sij with the tensional movements (ki/nhsij tonikh/) of the air. The forces of the resultant tensional field caused the airy matter to form a kind of visual cone by the aid of which the objects were, so to speak, physically touched and thereby seen; just like the blind man “seeing” by the aid of a stick. This model of perception allowed the Stoics to account for the fact that two independent factors were involved in the act of seeing, the psychological faculty of seeing and the presence of light in the surroundings. This is in accordance with Cicero’s claim in De natura deorum that “the air itself is our partner in seeing, hearing and uttering sounds, since none of these actions can be performed without its aid” (Nat. d. 2.84).131 ii. kra~sij and mental representations Precisely this understanding of the act of seeing, in which the tensional disposition of the perceiving person’s mind was involved, too, meant that the act of seeing became a highly subjective event (Long 1996a). Against the early Stoics, who actually took the impressions (fantasi/ai) to be passive and mechanical imprints on the tabula of the soul, Chry131 See also D. L. 7.157, Heinrick von Staden, “The Stoic Theory of Perception and its “Platonic” Critics” (1978) and Sambursky (1959, 23).
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sippus argued in favour of understanding mental appearances in terms of modifications of the tensional movements in the pneu=ma that constitute the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n). Physically speaking, a mental representation is the kra~sij of the incoming tensional field originating in the senses and the tensional field of the mind. In Adversus Mathematicos, Sextus Empiricus has given an account of the Stoic discussions about the character of the impressions that perfectly illustrates the problems of the old model and the advantages of Chrysippus’ solution: These men, then, assert that the criterion of truth is the apprehensive presentation [katalhptikh\n fantasi/an]. … Presentation then, according to them, is an impression on the soul [tu&pwsij e0n yuxh|=]. But about this they at once began to quarrel; for whereas Cleanthes understood “impression” as involving eminence and depression, just as does the impression made in wax by signet-rings, Chrysippus regarded such a thing as absurd. … He himself, therefore, suspected that the term “impression” was used by Zeno in the sense of “alteration” [e9teroiw&sewj], so that the definition runs like this – “presentation is an alteration of the soul” [fantasi/a e0sti\n e9teroi/wsij yuxh=j]; for it is no longer absurd that, when many presentations co-exist in us at the same moment, the same body should admit of innumerable alterations; for just as the air, when many people are speaking simultaneously, receives in a single moment numberless and different impacts and at once undergoes many alterations also, so too when the regent part [to_ h9gemoniko&n] is the subject of a variety of images it will experience something analogous to this. (Math. 7. 228-231, translation LCL)
Contrary to the static model of a tabula rasa, the dynamic model, which was based on the phenomenon of kra~sij of tensional fields, was able to account for the ability of the mind to preserve, rework, modify and develop, to test and evaluate mental representations and even, all by itself, to generate new ones independently of the senses. As opposed to the static model, previous impressions were precisely not erased by new sense perceptions. Instead, new impressions were modified by – and, in turn, themselves modified – the tensional movements or disposition that characterized the perceiving person’s mind. iii. kra~sij and the criterion of truth Due to the dynamic and subjective factors involved in perception, two people who were watching the same phenomenon under the same circumstances might not have the same impression of the situation and, accordingly, might judge it differently. Even in the case where two people actually had the same (and true) impression of what was the case, one may have it in what the Stoics called a strong manner, whereas the other may have it in a manner that is weak. The represen-
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tation is of a weak character when the tensional movements of the mind are restricted in range (a)toni/a) and the field is weak (a)sqe/neia). In this case, the mind is inclined to give in to momentary modifications coming from the senses and the impression will be true only by chance. A strong representation presupposes that the tensional field (ki/nhsij tonikh/) of the mind has been modified and developed to such an extent that it is consistent and in harmony with itself and with Nature. In this case the tensional disposition of the mind is said to be firm and welltensed (eu0toni/a) and to have strength (i0sxu&j).132 Due to its stable character, the mind is reluctant to give in to incoming changes.133 Only when impressions were backed up by a well-tensed and strong field did the Stoics speak of knowledge (e0pisth/mh).134 All other kinds of beliefs, even those that were true, but merely by chance, were called opinions (do&ca).135 The cognitive content of a mind that had knowledge in this sense was true and the physical state of the mind constituted the truth. In his essay “Language and thought in Stoicism”, Anthony A. Long emphasizes the ambiguity of the truth involved in knowledge. On the one hand, truth refers to the reality as the object of knowledge; on the other hand, truth represents the quality that characterizes the mind that has knowledge (1971, 98). In the end, the two concepts of truth converge: when truth is understood as a state of mind, it stands for a tensional pattern which is harmonious, or in homology, with Nature. The tensional field of the sage’s mind therefore became the Stoic criterion of truth. The relationship between the cognitively true content of the impression and the physical state of truth can be 132 The description and classification of the mind’s tensional disposition refer to Chrysippus’ discussion of the emotions as it is reported in Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato (PHP; De Lacy 1978, 271). Galen’s text is much debated among scholars due to its biased exposition of Chrysippus’ ideas. In connection with the discussion of the Stoic doctrine of the emotions, I shall return to this text. 133 See Anthony A. Long’s 1971 essay “Language and Thought in Stoicism” where this third and subjective factor is discussed in the case of the sage: “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that what stabilizes the sage’s katalepsis is the possession of memory images and valid concepts against which he can test each phantasia as it presents itself in order to establish how it relates and whether or not it is true. If this is correct it helps to explain why some sources cite othos logos (right reason) as the criterion. The sage possesses a disposition which may be termed, indifferently, orthos logos, episteme or aletheia. We may conjecture that this grasp of truth enables him to fit any new presentation into the ordered structure of his own mind, and this ability to place it constitutes not only perceiving but knowing – knowing, that is, how it akolouthei (follows) and what follow from it” (102). 134 See Long (1971a, 98-104), Engberg-Pedersen (1991, 167-168), Brennan (1998, 27). 135 Whereas in Plato’s dualism knowledge and opinions were linked to the ideas and the world of phenomena, respectively, we here face the Stoics’ monistic redefinition of the terms.
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summarized with a quotation from Sextus Empiricus’ exposition of the Stoic theory. Empiricus stresses the bodily character of truth: It is supposed by some, and especially by the Stoics, that “truth” [th\n de\ a)lh/qeian] differs from “the true” [ta)lhqou=j] in three ways, in essence and composition and potency [ou0si/a| te kai\ susta&sei kai\ duna&mei] – in essence in so far as truth is a body whereas the true is incorporeal [ou0si/a| me\n paro&son h9 me\n a)lh/qeia sw~ma& e0sti, to_ de\ a)lhqe\j a)sw&maton u(ph=rxen]. And naturally so, they say; for the latter is “judgement,” and the judgement is “expression”,136 and the expression is incorporeal [kai\ di0ko&twj, fasi/n: touti\ me\n ga_r a)ci/wma& e0sti, to_ de\ a)ci/wma lekto&n, to_ de\ lekto_n a)sw&maton]. On the other hand, truth is a body in so far as it is held to be “knowledge declaratory of all true things [a)na&palin de\ h9 a)lh/qeia sw~ma& e0sti paro&son e0pisth/mh pa&ntwn a)lhqw~n a)pofantikh\ dokei= tugxa&nein],” and all knowledge is “a particular state of the regent part [pa&sa de\ e0pisth/mh pw~j e1xon e0sti\n h9gemoniko&n] … and according to these thinkers, the regent part is a body, so that truth also will belong to the genus body [toi/nun kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia kata_ ge/noj e1stai swmatikh/]”. (Math. 7.38-39, translation LCL)
We may correlate the physical admixture of the field coming from the senses with the tensional field of the mind, with the phenomenon in the cognitive analysis of perception called assent (sugkata&qesij) or approval of the appearance that is presented to the mind (fantasi/a).137 In this case the criterion of truth comes to reside with the faculty of assent, which may then be characterized by its strength (h9 i0sxu&j) or weakness (h9 a)sqe/neia). An approval was said to be strong, when the criterion against which the incoming impression was judged consisted of welltested and therefore consistent beliefs. The strong mind’s perception of the situation was true due to considerations, whereas the weak mind recognized the truth merely by chance. The mind of weak assent was therefore prone to give in to other, but false, impressions of the situation.
136 LCL translates a)ci/wma with “expression”. “Proposition” may be better, since it does not have the corporeal connotation that “expression” has. 137 A. A. Long identifies the subjective factor in perception in the following way: “Even at the purely animal level, it seems, the Stoics would want to say that representations are thick with individual content; … Thus applying the point I stated above, how things appear to a rational animal will necessarily depend upon the kind of language user that it is; or, to put it another way, on the kind of concepts that it has. … Along with the development of language and rationality there develops in the human soul a third faculty in addition to those of representation and impulse, the power of giving or withholding ‘assent’ (sunkata&qesij) to representations. … The representations that we receive as individuals from external and internal stimuli are powerfully determined by a wide range of factors – our natures as human beings, our experience as particular persons, our beliefs, desires, foibles, education, and so forth” (Long 1996a, 272-74).
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The range of phenomena that could be the objects of direct seeing was, of course, restricted, but when that which was actually seen was evaluated against the beliefs that made up the perceiving person’s mind, it could function as a sign. By the aid of rational inferences, the sign could generate representations of still more complex scenes. In this case, the tensional field of the mind was extended beyond the point of reach of the visual cone in order physically to grasp unobservable macro-phenomena like Nature and the Whole and micro-phenomena like the elements and their transformations. Due to the semiotic character of perception, sense perception and reasoning became poles in a cognitive continuum.138 Was this omniscient mind ever to be found among human beings, this consciousness would be characterized as divine. In An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy, Johnny Christensen described how the cognitive development of the mind corresponded to this continuous extension of the tensional field of the mind: Although direct sense perception – which is extension of the tensional motions – has definite limits, presentations may be constructed ad infinitum under the constant supervision of rules of rational thought. And presentations, like sense perception, can be conceived as extensions of the tensional field. Even a presentation of an unobservable or something abstract represents the ending-point of highly intricate causal chains connecting the motions of the external world with motions in the mind. It is thus (logically) possible to imagine a man whose knowledge and understanding is co-extensive with the complete structure of the Universe, the “objective content” (the lekto&n) of his systems of cognitions being identical with the objective content of an ideal account of Nature. (Christensen 1962, 68)
In general, the capacity to operate with absent and unobservable phenomena forms the basis of linguistic representations. It is the ability to use language that makes man a rational being who differs from animals and children in his more developed manner of having presentations. Linguistic, propositional representation enables man to evaluate and judge his perception of the present situation and, in the long run, to develop a stable criterion of truth.139 The ability to form and recall representations without the presence of the concrete phenomenon also 138 When the Platonic dichotomies are reinterpreted within the framework of Stoic monism, they become poles in a continuum. 139 In the essay “Discovering the Imagination: Platonists and Stoics on phantasia” (1988), G. Watson traces the sources for the surprisingly positive attitude to imagination or fantasi/a that is found in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius. Fantasi/a is here understood as the faculty of producing images of what it has not seen (232) – that is, “fantasy” in the modern sense of the term. The Stoic concept of fantasi/a metabatikh/ kai\ sunqetikh/, which made the human fantasi/a differ from that of animals, is mentioned. Watson refers his analysis of the Stoic concept to the doxographer Sextus Empiricus Math. 8.275-76.
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constitutes the basis for the soul’s capacity to form concepts (e1nnoia), both of actually observable phenomena and also of logically unobservable entities. To the latter belong the principles: the passive prime matter and the active logos, God or Fate; the ideas of space, time, gravity and sequence, and on top of it, an abstract idea of the good. iv. kra~sij and the rationality of the Stoic soul The Stoic claim about man’s rationality was understood in a three-fold manner. In the first sense, every grown-up man is rational in a formal and functional manner, because he is capable of representing his perceptions linguistically and evaluating these according to the rules of logic. In a second sense, he is rational, too, because his soul is a thoroughly rational entity. Against the Academics and their partitioning of the soul into rational and irrational parts, the Stoics insisted on the unity and full rationality of the human soul (Brennan 1998, 23-26). The physical basis for this claim was, again, found in the phenomenon of blending (kra~sij). It is impossible to separate an irrational part of the soul from the rational one due to the fact that tensional fields wholly pervade the bodies, which they provide with form, and leave no space devoid of their presence (Christensen 1962, 68). When reason supervenes, it pervades and transforms all the powers of the soul (at least in principle).140 Whereas these two first ideas of rationality hold good for every man, who may then be described as rationality in a minimal sense, the third idea of man’s rationality concern the sage alone. He is rational in a maximal sense, since he – besides having grasped the truth – also has “a huge store of knowledge, including the knowledge necessary for perfectly virtuous behaviour” (Brennan 1998, 22). He is therefore able to do the right thing in every situation. 2.2.4 God, principles and pneu=ma in the Stoic sign As already mentioned, the sources from which the Stoic doctrines must be reconstructed differ with regard to the ontological status of the principles (see the discussion in note 114). We have seen that different 140 The Stoics said that reason supervened at the age of fourteen. But in order to account for the phenomenon of a)krasi/a, the Stoics operated with the possibility of a reminiscence of this childish/animalistic pre-rational mode of cognition. J. Gosling suggests this in his essay “The Stoics and a)krasi/a” (1987, 196), and T. Engberg-Pedersen develops the idea in his book The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis (1991, 193-200). We shall return to this pre-rational “scar” in the discussion of Seneca’s pre-emotion (propa&qeia) in paragraph 4.3.3.2.
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sources have different versions of Diogenes Laertius’ description of the principles (7.134); one source claims the principles to be “bodies without form [a)lla_ kai\ sw&mata ei]nai ta_j a)rxa_j a)mo&rfouj]”, another that they are “incorporeal and destitute of form [a)lla_ kai\ a)swma&touj ei]nai ta_j a)rxa_j a)mo&rfouj]”. The first version was approved by Sambursky and Long and Sedley; the latter by the LCL-edition and Johnny Christensen. Since the Stoic God is identified with the active principle, lo&goj – and here the sources agree – the discussion also concerns the ontological status of the Stoic God. Long and Sedley (1987, 274) draw attention to the fact that most of the known sources render God a bodily being. This understanding follows logically from the claim that “no incorporeal interacts with a body, and no body with an incorporeal, but one body interacts with another body” (Nemesius 78.7-79.2, translation LS 45C). Consequently, the active principle must be a bodily being (274). In the writings of Aëtius and Origen quoted below, God is identified, during the conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), with the element of constructive fire (pu=r texniko&n), in which the seminal principles (spermatikou\j lo&gouj) of everything that will come into being reside, and, during the constructive phase of the world cycle (diako&smhsij), with the pneu=ma which is the formative force of everything that in fact comes into being. In the first case, God is identified with the Whole, in the latter, He is said to participate in the Whole: The Stoics made god out to be intelligent, a designing fire [pu=r texniko&n] which methodically proceeds towards creation of the world, and encompasses all the seminal principles [spermatikou\j lo&gouj] according to which everything comes about according to fate, and a breath pervading the whole world [pneu=ma me\n e0ndih=kon di’ o#lou tou= ko&smou], which takes on different names owing to the alterations of the matter through which it passes. (Aëtius 1.7.33; translation LS 46A) The god of the Stoics, in as much as he is a body [a#te sw~ma tugxa&nwn], sometimes has the whole substance as his commanding-faculty [o(te\ me\n h9gemoniko_n e1xei th\n o#lhn ou0si/an]; this is whenever the conflagration is in being; at other times, when world-order exists, he comes to be in a part of substance [o(te\ de\ e0pi\ me/rouj gi/netai au0th=j, o#tan h|] diako&smhsij]. (Origen, Contra Celsus 4.14, translation LS 46H)
The tension may of course be solved easily by the rejection of the textual variant used in LCL’s version of Lives of Eminent Philosophers, but since principles of textual criticism favour the choice of a)swma&touj, we should hesitate to reject the ambiguity. Instead we may ask: Is it possible to reconcile or explain the doxographers’ differing reports? Maybe, but it will be a speculative reconciliation. The fragment from Origen hints at a solution. Long and Sedley’s translation of Origen’s exposition
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of Stoic theory may be misleading in as much as the term tugxa&nwn in fact belongs to the Stoic theory of the linguistic sign. Here it has a distinct and technical meaning. My claim is that if God, lo&goj and pneu=ma are situated in the Stoic sign, we have an explanation of the various statements. In Adversus Mathematicos Sextus Empiricus presents the Stoic theory of the sign in a passage where he discusses the disagreements among philosophers concerning the proper use of the predicates true and false: … but there was also another controversy, and in this some placed truth and falsity [to_ a)lhqe/j te kai\ yeu=doj] in the things signified, others in the sound, others in the motion of the intellect [oi9 me\n peri\ tw~| shmainome/nw| … oi9 de\ peri\ th|= fwnh|=, oi9 de\th|= kinh/sei th=j dianoi/aj]. The champions of the first opinion were the Stoics who said that “Three things are linked together, the thing signified and the things signifying and the thing existing [to& te shmaino&menon kai\ to_ shmai=non kai\ to_ tugxa&non]”: and of these the thing signifying is the sound [w{n shmai=non me\n ei]nai th\n fwnh/n] (“Dion,” for instance); and the thing signified is the actual thing indicated thereby, and which we apprehend as existing in dependence on our intellect [shmaino/menon de\ au0to_ to_ pra&gma to_ u(p’ au0th=j dhlou&menon kai\ ou[ h9mei=j me_n a)ntilambano&meqa th|= h9mete/ra| parufistame/nou dianoia|], whereas the barbarians although hearing the sound do not understand it; and the thing existing is the external real object [tugxa&non de\ to_ e)kto_j u(pokei/menon], such as Dion himself. And of these, two are bodies [sw&mata] – that is, the sound and the existing thing – and one is incorporeal [a)sw&maton], namely the thing signified and expressible [w{sper to_ shmaino&menon pra~gma, kai\ lekto_n], and this too is true or false. (Math. 8.11-12, emphasis added)
In his Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy, Johnny Christensen situates the term tugxa&nwn in the three pole model of the Stoic sign: To the Stoics the world is made of matter-in-motion. So, the elements of our experience are primarily events. Therefore the general term for denotatum is ‘that which happens’ (to_ tugxa&non), and, since happenings are corporeal, we may equally well use the term ‘objects’. The linguistic sign which is ‘about’ an event is a statement (lo&goj), and the meaning of a statement is a proposition (a)ci/wma). (Christensen, 46-47).141
Consequently, Origen’s tugxa&nwn may differ from the simple copula between subject and predicate. When understood in light of the Stoic sign, Origen’s statement is on a par with that of Diogenes Laertius quoted above (7.134-36). On the basis of Christensen’s analysis of the Stoic sign (45), we may summarize the relation between God, principles and the pneu=ma in the following manner. See next page. 141 See also A. A. Long, “Language and Thought in Stoicism” (1971b, 76-77).
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1.
The sign-relation
Ontological status
The semiotic relation between God, principle and pneu=ma
The linguistic sign to_ shmai=non
Uttered/written word fwnh/ or grafh/ (ta_ sw&mata)
God’s various names: “God”, “Fate”, “Zeus”
Proposition (Sayable) to_ lekto&n to_ a)ci/wma (a)sw&maton)
The active principle to_ poiou=n or lo&goj
An event
The external object, a body, or a region of matter-in-motion
to_ tugxa&non
to_ e0kto&j, to_ u(pokei/menon (ta_ sw&mata)
The pneumatic continuum in its different states during the world cycle: as pneu=ma or as pu=r texniko&n
which is said to signify: 2.
The meaning to_ shmaino&menon
of which the denotatum is: 3.
However, to handle the theoretical sign-relation in a proper way seems to have been just as difficult for ancient doxographers as for modern scholars. The result is that the active principle – lo&goj and God – is sometimes said to be a)sw&maton and is sometimes identified with the constructive fire and the forceful pneu=ma, which are sw&mata. In his book Physics of the Stoics, Sambursky draws attention to the fact that the principles – lo&goj and God – were not only occasionally made corporeal and identified with constructive fire and pneu=ma, the opposite tendency to dematerialize the pneu=ma in terms of pure power was found as well: We must remember that, although the Stoics believed in the corporeal nature of the pneuma, they came to regard it as something not akin to matter, but rather to force. It was their conception of a continuous field of force interpenetrating matter and spreading through space, and thus being the cause of physical phenomena, which formed the central idea of pneuma. This was a real innovation in the physical philosophy of the Greeks. … This idea of the existence of forces continuous in space and time merged in Stoic doctrine with the conception of the ever-present and all-permeating Deity. Pneuma became a concept synonymous with God, and either notion was defined by the other (36, emphasis added). … Sometimes the term dynamis is used to denote this force, by virtue of which matter acts and moves. (Sambursky 1959, 36-37)
In the doxographical account of classical Stoic positions, this tendency to dematerialize the pneu=ma in terms of powers (duna&meij) and causes
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(ai0ti/ai) is documented. In Sextus Empiricus’ treatise Adversus mathematicos, the pneu=ma seems to have been wholly absorbed into the concept of power: The substance of existing things being of itself, they say, motionless and shapeless must be put in motion and shaped by some cause [u(po& ai0ti/aj o)fei/lei kinei=sqai/ te kai\ sxhmati/zesqai] … so … when we behold the matter of the Universe moving and existing in definite shape and orderly arrangement we shall naturally look for the cause which moves it and shapes it into various forms. And it is probable that this is nothing else than some power which pervades it, even as our soul pervades ourselves [tou=to de\ ou0k a!llo ti piqano&n e0stin ei]nai h@ du&nami/n tina di’ au0th=j pefoithkui=an, kaqa&per h9mi=n yuxh\ pefoi/thken]. … There exists, therefore, a power which is of itself self-moving, and this will be divine and eternal. … Consequently this power will be God. (Math. 9.75-76)
Philo’s criticism of the Stoics, who are represented by the Chaldeans in his treatises, may be understood in light of the scholarly discussion of the character of God’s being. Philo accuses the Chaldeans/Stoics of identifying God with the world, that is, the Creator with the created.142 Philo himself identifies God with the formative power in the world: God is like “a charioteer and pilot presiding over the world”:143 The migrations as set forth by the literal text of the scriptures are made by a man of wisdom, but according to the laws of allegory by a virtue-loving soul in its search for the true God… [T]he Chaldeans … concluded that the world itself was God, thus profanely likening the created to the Creator. In this creed Abraham had been reared and for a long time remained a Chaldean. Then opening the soul’s eye [dioi/caj to_ th=j yuxh=j o!mma] as though after profound sleep, and beginning to see the pure beam [kaqara_n au0gh/n] instead of deep darkness, he followed the ray and discerned what he had not beheld before, a charioteer and pilot presiding over the world and directing in safety his own work [tou\ ko&smou tina_ h9ni/oxon kai\ kubernh/thn e0festw~ta kai\ swthri/wj eu0qu/nonta to_ oi0kei=on e1rgon], assuming the charge and superintendence of that work and of all such parts of it as are worthy of the divine care. (Abr. 68-70)
When evaluated in the light the semiotic relationship that I have suggested between the Stoic concepts, God, lo&goj and pneu=ma, Philo’s criticism fails. Philo tears the Stoic sign apart, ascribes one slanderous aspect of the sign to the Stoics and keeps another for himself. The Stoics are left with a materiality which does not do their complex thinking justice.
142 Philo’s accusation of the Stoics corresponds to the Long & Sedley/Sambursky reading of Diogenes Laertius (7.134). 143 Philo’s own position corresponds to the reading of Diogenes Laertius (7.134) which we find in the LCL-edition.
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2.3 Stoic ethics 2.3.1 The Stoic doctrine of oi0kei/wsij We are now in a position to return in a more informed manner to the discussion of the good and the end of man briefly touched on earlier.144 According to the Stoics, Nature – considered as the Whole – was fully actualized, perfect, and good. For a perfect being like this, the end cannot be anything but to uphold its present constitution. Consequently, the purpose and end of every partial being must be to preserve itself (to_ threi=n e9auto&n) and uphold the constitution (h9 au(tou= su&stasij) given to it by Nature. The primary impulse (prw&thn o(rmh/n) of any being is to uphold its constitution by shunning that which is alien to it and pursuing and welcoming that which belongs to it. For every living being – from plants to rational beings like humans – the end is to live in accordance with its specific nature, which is simultaneously to live in accordance with Nature in general. For plants, the end is to grow and produce seed; for animals the law of Nature prescribes them to follow their natural and instinctive impulse. In the case of human beings, whose animal constitution is endowed with the faculty of reasoning, the end is to become a craftsman of rational impulse, that is, an impulse which is, in the maximal sense of rationality, shaped by the idea of Nature’s sumpa&qeia. It must be informed by “a huge store of knowledge” and directed towards the sustenance of this Whole of which man himself forms a conscious part. The belief that triggers off the impulse in the unreflective child, in the falsely reflective fool and in the wise man does not differ in its basic structure; they are all motivated in a Socratic manner by what they presume will be a good thing for them to obtain personally (Long 1996c, 278, 280).145 What differs is their conception of the self or of the sphere that is to benefit from the particular action. In the case of the wise man, the constitution that he intends to preserve transcends his body-bound self; his sphere of interest is developed beyond the sphere of family, friends and fatherland in order finally to encompass the Whole. Still his idea of the good and his concept of the self are not abstract ideas. On the contrary, due to the fact that the wise man’s self no 144 My brief exposition of the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij and the end of man refers to what is generally agreed on among scholars of Stoic ethics. I draw on discussions of the theory in J. Christensen, An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy (1962), S. G. Pembroke, “Oikeiôsis” (1971), T. Engberg-Pedersen, The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis (1991) and “Discovering the Good, oikeiôsis and kathêkonta in Stoic Ethics” (1986). 145 See, Plato, Prot. 353c-360e.
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longer concerns an artificial part that is falsely separated out or abstracted from the sympathetic Whole, his all-embracing self represents the only true, concrete being. Nor can the wise man be said to be less selfish than the child or the fool. However, the self for which he cares is no longer tied to his intimate, bodily sphere. Nor do his desires arise less from bodily motivations than those of the fool. Rather, his bodily awareness coheres with the only substance that truly is, namely Nature or the Whole.146 To the sage there is no contradiction between what appears to benefit him personally and what benefits the All. It is this development of the primary impulse of self-preservation from the child’s pre-rational (animalistic) behaviour to that of the sage’s rational care for Nature that the Stoics called oi0kei/wsij. The end of this process is the appropriation of the Whole to the individual self or, stated differently, the fitting of oneself into the Whole. Diogenes Laertius’ exposition of the Stoic theory is a key passage in the scholarly discussion of the theory: An animal’s first impulse [prw&thn o(rmh/n], say the Stoics, is to self-preservation [to_ threi=n e9auto&n], because nature from the outset endears it to itself [oi0keiou&shj au(tw|~ th=j fu&sewj a)p’ a)rxh=j], as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his work On Ends; his words are, “The dearest thing to every animal is its own constitution and its consciousness thereof [prw~ton oi0kei=on le/gwn ei]nai panti\ zw&w| th\n au(tou= su&stasin kai\ th\n tau&thj sunei/dhsin]”; for it was not likely that nature should estrange the living thing from itself or that she should leave the creature she has made without either estrangement from or affection of its own constitution [mh/t’ a)llotriw~sai mh/t’ oi0keiw~sai]. We are forced then to conclude that nature in constituting the animal made it near and dear to itself [susthsame/nhn au0to_ oi0keiw~sai pro_j e9auto&]; for so it comes to repel all that is injurious and give free access to all that is serviceable or akin to it [ou3tw ga_r ta& te bla&ptonta diwqei=tai kai\ ta_ oi0kei=a prosi/etai]. … And nature, they say, made no difference originally between plants and animals, for she regulates the life of plants too, in their case without impulse and sensation, just as also certain processes go on of the vegetative kind in us. But when in the case of animals impulse has been superadded, whereby they are enabled to go in quest of their proper aliment, for them, say the Stoics, Nature’s rule [to_ kata_ fu&sin] is to follow the direction of impulse. But when reason by 146 See also J. Christensen, who describes this extended and divine self in the following way: “The mind of such a man certainly still has its centre or focus in his own body, but the process of adaptation (oi0kei/wsij), of fitting himself into the Whole, has gone beyond his own body, beyond his own family or nation, to become all-inclusive; he is, in a sense, God. He is really living consistently with himself and with Nature, having “knowledge of whatever happens by nature”, because he is Nature. Such a man is good, because his mind is identical with the only thing that can be called good” (1962, 68).
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way of a more perfect leadership has been bestowed on the beings we call rational [tou= de\ lo&gou toi=j logikoi=j kata_ teleiote/ran prostasi/an dedome/nou],147 for them life according to reason rightly becomes the natural life [to_ kata_ lo&gon zh=n o)rqw~j gi/nesqai toi=j kata_ fu&sin]. For reason supervenes to shape impulse scientifically [texni/thj ga_r ou[toj e0pigi/netai th=j o(rmh=j].148 (D. L. 7.85-86)
To summarize: the end of man is that his psychic faculties of receiving sense perceptions (fantasi/ai) and generating impulses (o(rmai/) are wholly transformed and completely subsumed under right reasoning. Since man’s faculty of assent is subjected to his reasoning powers (that is, rationality in the formal and minimal sense), he is always responsible for his deeds. But in the case that he has reached his end and lives in harmony with Nature, the Stoics may also say that the universal Reason acts through him or that his actions are determined by Nature. Rational impulses of this kind result in actions that are right (ta_ katorqw&mata). When judged from this maximal point of view, all other actions are sins (h9marth/mata) motivated by false and passionate beliefs. Thus, according to the Stoics, justice, law and right reason exist by Nature, not by convention.149 Diogenes Laertius draws attention to the Stoics’ categorical manner of thinking: … sins are all equal; so Chrysippus in the fourth book of his Ethical Questions. … For if one truth is not more true than another, neither is one falsehood more false than another, and in the same way one deceit is not more so than another, nor sin than sin. For he who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus and he who is only one furlong away are equally not in Canopus, and so too he who commits the greater sin and he who commits the less are equally not in the path of right conduct [ou3tw kai\ o( ple/on kai\ o( e1latton a(marta&nwn e0pi/shj ou0k ei0si\n e0n tw|~ katorqou=n]. (D. L. 7.120)
Since the idea of the first impulse, as the most basic form of motivation, was intimately related to the end of man, the character of the first impulse became an issue of debate among philosophers of different schools. The Epicureans, for instance, claimed the primary impulse to be the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain (D. L. 7.85-86), and, in accordance with this understanding, pleasurable living became the end of all being.150 The Stoics, however, subsumed and integrated 147 The meaning is that when reason supervenes, the end result is a better leadership (kata_ teleiote/ran prostasi/an) among human beings. 148 A more precise translation of the latter sentence is: “For reason supervenes (or is superadded) as a craftsman of the impulse”. The translation is Troels EngbergPedersen’s and was kindly suggested to me. 149 See D. L. 7.128: Fu&sei te to_ di/kaion ei]nai kai\ mh\ qe/sei, w(j kai\ to_n no&mon kai\ to_n o)rqo_n lo&gon, kaqa& fhsi Xru&sippoj e0n tw~| Peri\ tou= kalou=. 150 See also the discussion in J. Brunschwig, “The Cradle Argument in Epicureanism and Stoicism” (1986).
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the Epicurean position into their ideas of the natural impulse; pleasure was, physically understood, the feeling that accompanied the situation when the constitution was in harmony with Nature. Living in accordance with Nature was the pleasurable life. It was also the virtuous life since every particular virtue presupposed the moral insight that Nature taught: “courage is prudence in things to be endured, sobriety is prudence in things to be chosen, prudence in the specific sense is prudence in things to be performed, and justice is prudence in things to be distributed, the implication being that virtue is really single“ (Plutarch, Stoic. Rep. 1034C). It was the happy or blessed life, too, because the sage always got what he wanted. This was a consequence of his moral development; his initial preconception of the good in the end accorded with Nature. To the wise man, there was no split between his personal wish and that which happened according to Nature. To have Nature as guide even led to a healthy life since bodily diseases were understood to have their origin in excessive behaviours: “health was found to attend upon and be co-extensive with the intellectual virtue of temperance [th|= ga_r swfrosu&nh| teqewrhme/nh| u(parxou/sh| sumbai/nei a)kolouqei=n kai\ parektei/nesqai th\n u(gi/eian]” (D. L. 7. 90).151
2.3.2 The Stoic doctrine of the emotions 2.3.2.1 Emotions and the theory of oi0kei/wsij We are now in a position to understand why the notion of a)pa&qeia gained such a central position in Stoic philosophy. The framework in which the doctrine of emotions should be situated is the theory of oi0kei/wsij or the adaptation of the self to Nature. In this context, passions become man’s failures to comply with his natural development. Whereas right actions (katorqw&mata) were generated by an impulse that had right reason as its craftsman and Nature as its end, sinful ac151 In the essay “How ought we adjust our preconceptions to individual instances?” (Discourses 2.17), Epictetus recommends a friend to use his impressions of what he wishes to obtain in specific situations to test and evaluate his preconceptions of the good. The pre-conceptions should be tested by the argument that if a situation makes us unhappy, it is because our concept of happiness or our expectations concerning the good are wrong. See also A. A. Long “Representation of the Self in Stoicism”: “If happiness is a consistent life, free from disappointment and frustration, and if happiness is everyone’s long -term goal, it makes excellent sense to invite unhappy persons to interrogate their representations and ask whether their impulse to pursue this or that objective matches up with their desire for happiness” (1996a, 280).
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tions (h9marth/mata) had their origin in a false use of reason and false conceptions of the good. What was wrong was first and foremost the understanding of the self that was to benefit from the particular action, subsequently, the value ascribed to the pursued phenomenon. Only a body-bound understanding of the self would value externals as something truly good. According to the Stoics, the passions (ta_ pa&qh) were nothing but these falsely made evaluations and judgements, and it was in this maximal sense of rationality that they were called irrational. The theory of pa&qh was a “theory of the motivations of vicious behaviour” (Brennan 1998, 33, emphasis added), and in the ideal state of mind (a)pa&qeia) these would, of course, be extinguished. The so-called “stoical” calmness was not itself the goal of detachment from passions, but a secondary and, indeed, welcomed side-effect. Grief, for instance, is problematic because in all its various subspecies it is “rasping and hindering us from viewing the situation as a whole (a)poknai/ousan kai kwlu&ousan ta_ paro&nta sunora~n)” (D. L. 7.112). Calmness is alone to be pursued for the sake of the true end, namely the life that accords with Nature. In order to grasp the relation of the doctrine of a)pa&qeia to the doctrine of Nature, we must, however, first come to terms with the Stoic understanding of the emotions.
2.3.2.2 Chrysippus. Emotions as judgements The Stoic doctrine of emotions was not accepted among philosophers. The problem was not the claim that the emotions had a cognitive element. Neither was it that this cognitive element was understood as a belief or judgement that interpreted and evaluated the situation from a personal perspective in terms of good or bad. Nor was it that this judgement, due to its subjective aspect, implied an impulse to pursue or avoid a highly valued object in accordance with its beneficial or damaging appearance. Nor was it that this belief or judgement was capable of being influenced by rational argumentation. All of this was claimed by the Platonists, the Peripatetics and the Epicureans, too. What to the ancients appeared to go against commonsense was Chrysippus’ reduction of the emotion to this judgement: a passionate belief or judgement was not only necessary for, nor a constituent element of, or indeed sufficient for, emotional behaviour, the judgement was identical with the emotion. Therefore the action implied by the passionate belief would straightaway be carried out if the mind assented to it. No additional desire or desiderative impulse was needed for the belief to lead to action, as had been claimed by Aristotle in De motu animalium. Nor
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would an irrational desire empower or impede the rational impulse as it had been claimed by Plato in the Phaedrus – and also by some later Stoics.152 According to the Old Stoa there were no forces in the soul capable of generating impulses, or just of empowering these, apart from the judgement itself. There was no passive affection of the soul, only the affection caused by false beliefs (Nussbaum 1987, 140-44).153 2.3.2.3 a)krasi/a and e0gkra&teia in the Stoic doctrine Often the unity and rationality of the Stoic soul is explained teleologically through references to the goal of ethical responsibility. This was, indeed, a valued effect, but the foundation for the assertion was to be found in their physics. We have already seen that because of the unification of Nature through the pneumatic continuum it was impossible to uphold the idea of man as a being whose existence could be set apart from the All. He perceives by means of the tensional movements of the surrounding medium, and he communicates by those means, too. He is himself affected by every happening in space and time, and every action that he engenders affects the Whole, too. Another important implication of the idea of the unification of pneumatic bodies is that a borderline between man’s inner emotional life and the external world cannot be upheld either, man’s emotions certainly concern the world. In Long’s discussion of the Stoic soul in his article “Soul and Body in Stoicism”,154 he demonstrates how, in the Stoic discourse, the two higher powers of the soul – reason (lo&goj) and the animal psyche (yuxh/) – are unified in the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n) which constitutes a single unit that is rational through and through. Due to the co-extension (kra~sij) and cohesion (su&mfusij) of the two pneumatic bodies, activity in one power is immediately reflected in the other. If the mind assents to the judgement presented to it by sense perception, the impulse (o(rmh/) is immediately present in the yuxh/ and the action is carried out by the aid of the body. The only faculty that possesses the power to inhibit an action from being carried out is the assent to an opposing belief that contradicts the previous one and renders it false.
152 See Sorabji, “Chrysippus – Posidonius – Seneca: A High-Level Debate on Emotions” (1998). The debate on the doctrine among Stoic philosophers is discussed below. 153 See also “Essay 3: The Sumphuton Pneuma and the De Motu Animalium’s Account of Soul and Body” in M. C. Nussbaum’s Aristotle’s De Motu Animalium (1978, 143-64). 154 See note 125.
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Like Socrates, the Stoics emphatically denied the possibility of the psychological states of a)krasi/a and e0gkra&teia (Plato, Prot. 353c-360e). It was simply impossible to act against what one genuinely considered as good and worth pursuing (Frede 1986, 96). Instead, the state of a)krasi/a, which was traditionally explained as a conflict between a rationally considered wish and an irrational desire, was understood as oscillations between, on the one hand, a true, but weak belief about something truly valuable and, on the other hand, a belief in something that appeared, however falsely, to be good.155 In his essay De virtute morali, Plutarch summarizes the Stoic theory of passions as follows: Yet all of these men [the Stoics] agree in supposing virtue to be a certain disposition of the governing portion of the soul and a faculty engendered by reason [dia&qesi/n tina kai\ du&namin gegenhme/nhn u(po_ lo&gou], or rather to be itself reason which is in accord with virtue and is firm and unshaken. They also think that the passionate and irrational part of the soul is not distinguished form the rational by any difference or by its nature [to_ paqhtiko_n kai\ a!logon diafora|~ tini kai\ fu&sei tou= logikou= diakekrime/non], but is the same part, which, indeed, they term intelligence [dia&noian] and the governing part [h9gemoniko&n]; it is, they say, wholly transformed and changes both during its emotional states and in the alterations brought about in accordance with an acquired disposition or condition [e1n te toi=j pa&qesi kai\ tai=j kaq’ e3cin h@ dia&qesin metabolai=j] and thus becomes both vice and virtue; it contains nothing irrational [that is, in the minimal sense] within itself, but is called irrational [that is, in the maximal sense] whenever, by the overmastering power of our impulses [tw|~ pleona&zonti th=j o(rmh=j i0sxurw~|], which have become strong and prevail, it is hurried on to something outrageous which contravenes the convictions of reason. Passion, in fact, according to them, is a vicious and intemperate reason, formed from an evil and perverse judgement which has acquired additional violence and strength. (Plutarch, Virt. Mor. 441B-D, square brackets added)
True, but weakly considered beliefs were prone to give in to appearances which appealed to a more primitive or childish and pre-reflective 155 This is the answer that Engberg-Pedersen gives in his book The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis to the question of why a true belief may give in to a false one: “… if a true synkatathesis has actually been given with respect to the particular object in question, and if furthermore, as we know, this synkatathesis represents the person’s considered view, then how is it possible that the other belief may assert itself in such a way that it becomes action-guiding?” (1991, 193-94). The Stoics pointed to the “freshness” of the belief. Whereas this “freshness” is often understood, then as now, in terms of time (see e.g. Nussbaum 1994, 381-82), Engberg-Pedersen attempts, in what he himself designates a speculative manner, to develop an understanding of the concept in more objective terms. Engberg-Pedersen turns to the theory of oi0kei/wsij and suggests that the idea of “freshness” (or “impact”) refers to the childish, pre-reflective and more animalistic mode of approaching and appropriating the world (1991, 197). Engberg-Pedersen’s solution accords with Seneca’s reflections on pre-emotion. See below.
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way of relating to the good. In this way, weakness of mind makes a person sensible to what happens by mere accident; his impulses are ultimately determined by fate, not by reason. What may be perceived as e0gkra&teia is nothing but a balance of or vacillation between opposing impulses, the net result of which appears to the eye as passions held in check. That situation was unstable, since any accidental change of the situation may turn the impeded impulse into a sinful action. It was this implosion of the Academic soul – that is, the collapse of the chasm between the morally and reasonably motivated wish and the irrational and impulsive desire – that caused the Stoics to charge passionate beliefs with moral failure. The assent to a passionate belief was itself the beginning of an action which would be carried through to the end unless another and competing belief happened to impede it. The inner passionate impulse was the “birth” of an action; the external action was nothing but its “afterbirth”. Cicero’s reflections in De finibus on the relationship between desire and action are essential to an understanding of the moral blame that the Stoics placed on the passions (Nussbaum 1994, 364-66): But in the other arts when we speak of an ‘artistic’ performance, this quality must be considered as in a sense subsequent to and a result of the action; it is what the Stoics term epigennêmatikon (in the nature of an aftergrowth). Whereas in conduct, when we speak of an act as ‘wise,’ the term is applied with full correctness from the first inception of the act. For every action that the Wise man initiates must necessarily be complete forthwith in all its parts; since the thing desirable, as we term it, consists in his activity. As it is a sin to betray one’s country, to use violence to one’s parents, to rob a temple, where the offence lies in the result of the act [in effectu], so the passions of fear, grief and lust are sins, even when no extraneous result ensues [sic timere, sic maerere, sic in libidine esse peccatum est etiam sine effectu]. The latter are sins not in their subsequent effects [in posteris et in consequentibus], but immediately upon their inception [in primis]; similarly, actions springing from virtue are to be judged right from their first inception, and not in their successful completion. (Fin. 3.32)
In conclusion, from a physical point of view the passions become problematic because the movements of the pneu=ma in to_ h9gemoniko&n occasioned by passionate beliefs already interfere with the universal pneu=ma and affect the Whole.
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2.3.3 The contemporary debate on the Stoic emotion 2.3.3.1 Stoic criticism of Chrysippus’ theory As already mentioned, Chrysippus’ identification of the emotions with value judgements appeared non-commonsensical. An irrational element seemed also to be involved in the development of an emotional reaction. Even among the Stoics themselves, the doctrine remained an issue of debate. The Stoic philosopher Posidonius (ca. 135-50 B.C.E.) argued that Chrysippus’ passionate judgement was neither sufficient nor necessary in order for an emotion to develop. Like Chrysippus’ writings, Posidonius’ treatise on the emotions is also lost, but the contours of his argument may be reconstructed on the basis of Galen’s De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (De Lacy 1978).156 In this treatise, Galen aims at demonstrating that Chrysippus’ teaching was characterized by contradictions and that, in order to solve these problems, Chrysippus had to have recourse to Plato’s partition of the soul into rational and irrational parts. Galen substantiates his argument by referring to Posidonius’ discussion of Stoic theory. Scholars disagree in their evaluations of Galen as a source for reconstructing the Stoic debate. Some find that Galen distorts Chrysippus’ and Posidonius’ statements,157 but at least one scholar takes Galen’s criticism serious, namely Richard Sorabji in the essay “Chrysippus – Posidonius – Seneca: A High-Level Debate on Emotion” (1998). According to Sorabji, it was Posidonius’ objections that led to the development of Chrysippus’ theory which climaxed in Seneca’s De ira. Here Seneca attempts to rescue the basic ideas of the original doctrine while solving the obvious problems. By referring to everyday experience, Posidonius had challenged the sufficiency of Chrysippus’ judgement as an explanation of the development of emotions: How were the Stoics to account for the abatement of an emotion in time – e.g. grief – when the judgement of an irreplaceable loss remained unchanged? Or how were they to account for the postponement of fear in the case of emergency and an immediate call for action? In both cases the judgement is present, but the emotional response to the situation is not. Posidonius also questioned the necessity of judgements and demonstrated his claim by pointing to examples where emotional reactions were present, but without corresponding 156 Galen was a medical doctor and philosopher of the second century C.E (ca. 129-199 C.E.). 157 This is the case with Christopher Gill in his essay, “Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions?” (1998).
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judgements. Weeping e.g. may occur spontaneously as-if the person was in distress, although he is personally aware that he is not. Animals that are incapable of rational judgements may express something like emotions, too. Finally, music without words – and therefore without any judgement – is able to bring forth an emotional response (Sorabji 1998, 155-58). In order to explain these phenomena, Posidonius invoked the idea of emotional movements (paqhtikai\ kinh&seij) which – without being identified with judgements themselves – were able to control and generate emotions in the soul (156). Galen identified Posidonius’ movement with Chrysippus’ tonal movements and saw these as an irrational power that either enforced or inhibited the impulse implied by the rational judgement. In this way, a partition was introduced into the Stoic soul and their doctrine of the emotions was Platonized: Now Chrysippus himself admits not once or twice but very many times that some power in men’s soul other than the rational is the cause of the affections [ai0ti/an tw~n paqw~n]. We may see this in such passages as those wherein he gives ‘softness’ and ‘weakness’ of soul as the cause of incorrect actions [e0n oi[j ai0tia~tai tw~n prattome/nwn ou0k o)rqw~j a)toni/an te kai\ a)sqe/neian th=j yuxh=j]. These are the names he gives them, and he calls their opposites ‘firmness’ and ‘strength’ [kaqa&per ge kai\ ta)nanti/a to_ me\n eu0toni/an to_ d’ i0sxu&n]. Some of men’s incorrect actions he refers to faulty judgment [ta_ me\n ei0j moxqhra_n kri/sin], others to softness and weakness of soul, just as right judgment together with firmness of soul guides them to correct actions [w#sper ge kai\ w{n katorqou=sin h9 o)rqh\ kri/sij e0chgei=tai meta_ th=j kata_ th\n yuxh\n eu0toni/aj]. In persons of the latter sort, as the judgment is the work of the rational power, so the firmness is the strength and virtue of a power other than the rational. This power Chrysippus himself calls ‘tone’ [h4n au0to_j o( Xru&sippoj o)noma&zei to/non]; and he says that there are times when we abandon correct judgments because the tone of the soul yields and does not persist to the end or carry out fully the commands of reason. (PHP IV 6.1-3, translation De Lacy (1978, 271)
If the tonal tension was firm (eu0toni/a) and strong (i0sxu&j), the emotional power would back up the rational judgement; if it lacked tension (a)toni/a) and was weak (a)sqe/neia), the rationally intended action would be weakened and even impeded. Whether or not an action would be carried out to its end ultimately depended on the character and intensity of this power. In general, scholars agree that Galen got Chrysippus wrong (Frede 1986; Engberg-Pedersen 1991, 187-191; Gill 1998). The ki/nhsij tonikh/ of the affected soul is not an irrational power that is added to the rational judgement – in the manner of Plato’s e1rwj in the Phaedrus. The problem is that Galen mixes up the two parallel and non-reductive descriptions of emotions in Stoic theory: the physical and the cognitive. Galen equates the activity and importance of the physical description with
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that of the cognitive one, seeing them as co-working or opposing powers – as it is the case in the Platonic description of the soul. But still the problems outlined by Posidonius remain; their solution must await Seneca’s contribution to the debate (Sorabji 1998, 150).
2.3.3.2 Seneca’s introduction of the pre-emotion According to Seneca, bodily reactions like those involved in Posidonius’ examples were not to be understood as real passions. In order to speak properly about an emotion, a willful act must intercede. Pushed to its extremes, even the sage may turn pale at an apparent danger, shed tears at others crying and be aroused sexually – all without being subjected to emotions. A sudden psychological disturbance of this kind does not necessarily affect the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia (De Ira 2 3.1-2). In his book On anger, Seneca wrestles with the question whether anger is a wilful and calculated response to an unjustified offence or it is an instinctive reaction in which emotions carry the consciously reflective self away (De Ira 2 4.1-2). Seneca sets out to explain Posidonius’ examples and to counter Galen’s challenge to Chrysippus’ logic. In order to achieve that, Seneca distributes the three analytical elements of Chrysippus’ understanding of emotions – appearance (fantasi/a), assent (sugkata&qesij) and impulse (o(rmh/) – along a temporal axis as three successive events. He discusses how emotions arise (first step: incipiant), grow (second step: crescant) and finally, dispense with reason (third step: efferantur), which entails a full-blown emotion. The initial sting (primus motus) in the soul accompanies the spontaneous representation of the situation in the mind. The sting effects physical reactions like paling, crying or the blushing of excitement. These reactions constitute the beginning of an emotion, but neither the immediate perception of the situation nor the physical reaction, which accompanies it, should be taken for a proper emotion. The preemotional response takes place spontaneously and is shared by nonrational animals, pre-rational children and rational adults alike. The pre-emotion thus accounts for Posidonius’ cases of emotion-like reactions without judgements. However, in the case of human beings, these reactions call for rational judgement. The strength of the immediate response may be influenced, Seneca suggests, by good habits and continuous, psychological awareness.158 Scholars have identified the physi158 The strength of Seneca’s first impulse accounts for the Stoic idea of “freshness”, see note 155.
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cal reactions involved in Seneca’s first move with Posidonius’ emotional movements (Sorabji 1998, 156). In the second step, the belief and action implicit in an appearance – e.g. the thought that an offence against oneself was inappropriate and the corresponding idea that revenge is appropriate – are subjected to conscious deliberation. The second move, which is the result of reflection, can also be dissolved by reflections (iudicio nasciture, iudicio tollitur). It is the presence of this deliberative gap between the pre-emotion and the full-blown emotion that makes therapeutic intervention possible. But if the mind assents to the belief immanent in the first appearance, the emotion is once more physically beyond control, and the implied action will be carried out, no matter what, which is the third move. According to Seneca, it is the character of the deliberation that decides at what price an action will be carried out. When a person’s beliefs concerning the right thing to do are weak, he soon gives in to the desired object of the pre-emotion, and the inward pre-emotion is turned into a true emotion and a corresponding outward act. But if the truth is well-founded and strong, as in the case of the sage, the preemotion will be distinguished quickly. The momentary psychological unrest is nothing but a scar from his former pre-rational being. In the case of the intermediate person, the deliberation keeps the pre-emotion alive and the person oscillates between the desire of the pre-emotion and the conviction that giving in is not the right thing to do. In this case, the person appears to be in a state of e0gkra&teia that may turn into a)krasi/a by mere chance.159 Seneca’s reinterpretation of the doctrine of the Old Stoa and his introduction of the idea of pre-emotions account for the irrational element that was intuitively felt to be involved in the emotions. But he does this without compromising Chrysippus’ claim that the emotions were to be identified with rational judgements. Rational assent is still necessary for an emotion to develop. But, strictly speaking, a judgement is no longer sufficient for an emotion to occur; it depends on the presence of a pre-emotion in the mind.
159 J. Gosling suggests in his 1987 essay ”The Stoics and a)krasi/a” that the co-existence of the pre-rational ‘scar’ of the propa&qeia and the rational modes of cognition may occasion a state in the likeness of the Academic a)krasi/a, in which the rational part of the mind was in conflict with the irrational desire (196).
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2.3.3.3 The charge of the Stoic sage with inhumanity In antiquity, as well as in modern times, the Stoics’ aspiration to a)pa&qeia is often understood exclusively in psychological terms and identified with the so-called Stoic attitude of lofty calmness and an absence of all feelings. This definition has some truth in it; the scandalous Stoic attitude was, for instance, captured perfectly in the words with which, according to Cicero, the Stoic sage would receive the message of a child’s death: “I was already aware that I had begotten a mortal” (Tusc. 3.30). Modern scholars have been at pains to protect the Stoic sage from the charge of insensibility and inhumanity. Martha Nussbaum defended the Stoic doctrine of a)pa&qeia by placing it in its proper cosmological framework. If the Stoic notion of a)pa&qeia was isolated from the context of physics, Nussbaum argued, it inevitably became a “stingy” way of relating to one’s fellow beings and the world. In her essay “Eros and the Wise: The Stoic Response to a Cultural Dilemma” (1998, 297), she discusses the question where the Stoic sage fits among the various types of relationship to young men that Socrates outlines in the Phaedrus: Will his relation be based on virtue without passion, as in the case of Lysias, or on a passion controlled and guided by virtue, as endorsed by Socrates himself? According to Nussbaum, none of these possibilities really fits the Stoic ideal, in which the beloved is seen and loved as a part of Nature: One can indeed see something fine and awe-inspiring in the spiritual intensity of a person whose first devotion is to the universe as a whole, and to rationality as a whole; and one can see great attractions in being the boyfriend or girlfriend of such a person, whose vision of humanity and of the universe would indeed lift one beyond oneself, and beyond the narrow obsessions of a passion in which one is oneself turned into a divinity. In this sense, the Stoic lover is not “Lysias”; for the non-lover of “Lysias” though he did make a claim based on arête, offered no clear picture of a vision or understanding of the world towards which he would intend to lead his beloved. He has Stoic apatheia without Stoic physics, and that can indeed seem a cramped and stingy sort of union. The Stoic, by contrast, offers an understanding of life so awe-inspiring in itself that it claims to transcend the merely personal; inhabiting it, both lovers will feel reverence and awe for the logos, and that, they claim, is more exhilarating than feeling it for one another. (Nussbaum 1998, 297, emphasis added)
Another defence is found in T. H. Irwin’s essay “Stoic Inhumanity” (1998). Irwin focuses on the intermediate categories between good and bad:
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The argument that the Stoic will not feel sympathy is perfectly correct, if sympathy requires passion. But it leaves out of account the ways in which the Stoic can react. Sages recognize that we are liable to suffer significant non-preferred indifferents, and they have vivid and insistent appearances of these sufferings in other people. These appearances give them a good reason for doing something to relieve the sufferings of others. (Irwin 1998, 237-38)
As long as “the good” is reserved for virtue and knowledge, external phenomena may be valued correctly as “preferred or non-preferred”. In such cases, sympathy will be present with the Stoic sage, too. The development of the theory of right sensibilities (eu0pa&qeiai) may be seen as the Stoics’ own strategy to counter the accusation against inhumanity in their ideal sage. 160 Hellenistic expositions of Stoic theory stress repeatedly that the sage’s a)pa&qeia is not to be confused with the apathy of the fool. In his Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laertius reports the Stoic view that whereas the wise man is passionless due to the fact that he is not prone to false and passionate beliefs, the absence of feelings in the fool takes the form of callousness and relentlessness.161 Plutarch, too, is aware that the state of a)pa&qeia is not to be mistaken for insensibility; a)pa&qeia does not destroy the emotional life of temperate persons, but puts the emotional life in order. Instead of insensibility, the state of a)pa&qeia denotes the right sensibility represented by the eu0pa&qeiai of joy (xara&), volition (bou/lhsij) and precaution (eu0la&beia).162 The sage values only that which is truly good; to everything else he remains indifferent, although he does welcome that which is preferable. The definition of the three species of right sensibility mirrors the four standard types of emotions in Stoic doctrine: pleasure (h9donh/), desire (e0piqumi/a), fear (fo&boj) and pain (lu/ph). The sage feels joyful 160 In his essay, “The Stoic Doctrine of the Affections” (1986) M. Frede makes a distinction between “emotions” which designate affections of the soul in general – eu0pa&qeia as well as pa&qh – and “passions” which are used for pa&qh in the proper sense. The distinction forms part of Frede’s defence of the Stoic sage from the charge of being without any feelings and thus inhuman. Most scholars, including me, use the terms interchangeably. 161 Diogenes Laertius, 7.117: ei]nai de\ kai\ a!llon a)paqh= to_n fau=lon, e0n i1sw| lego&menon tw~| sklhrw~| kai\ a)te/gktw|. 162 In De virtute morali Plutarch accounts for the Stoic phenomenon of right sensibilities: ”And yet these very men, to cite another instance, call those ‘joys’, ‘volitions,’ and ‘precautions’ of theirs ‘right sensibilities to emotion,’ not ‘insensibilities,’ in this case using the terms correctly (eu0paqei/aj kalou=sin ou0k a)paqei/aj, o)rqw~j e0ntau=qa xrw&menoi toi=j o)no&masi). For a ‘right sensibility’ does not destroy the emotion, but composes and sets it in order in the souls of temperate persons (gi/netai ga_r eu0pa&qeia tou= logismou= to_ pa&qoj ou0k a)nairou=ntoj a)lla_ kosmou=ntoj kai\ ta&ttontoj e0n toi=j swfronou=sin)” (449B, translation LCL).
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and elated when he knows that something is happening which is truly good, that is, something good which concerns the Whole. The fool feels elated too when he judges, however falsely, that the pleasure he personally experiences should be pursued as something good.163 The sources agree that eu0pa&qeiai corresponding to pain (lu/ph) do not exist. Diogenes Laertius notes the fact: “Nor indeed will the wise man ever feel grief (luphqh/sesqai)” (D. L. 7.118, translation LCL). Cicero argues: And since we naturally desire good in the same manner as we naturally turn away from evil, and such a turning away, when rational, would be called precaution, and is consequently found in the wise man only; but when dissociated from reason and associated with mean and abject pusillanimity, it would be named fear; therefore fear is precaution alien from reason. The wise man, however, is not subject to the influences of present evil … And consequently the first definition of distress is that it is shrinking together [noteLCL: contraction … answers to Greek sustolh/] of the soul in conflict with reason. Thus there are four disorders, three equable states [noteLCL: eu0pa&qeiai in Greek], since there is no equable state in opposition to distress.164 (Cicero, Tusc. 4.14)
The absence of a virtuous and rational form of pain follows logically from the Stoic definition of the eu0pa&qeia: of course the Stoic sage will never know of any vice or evil being present in himself. By definition he is free from them; “thus, there can be no fourth eupatheia” (Brennan 1998, 35).165 Inevitably, the absence of a fourth eu0pa&qeia – corresponding to pain – challenges a philosophical interpretation of Jesus’ crying in John 11 and, in turn, of a Stoic interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Philo faced the same challenge; he had to account for Moses’ and the Israelites’ biblical crying in face of the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia. However, as we shall see in Chapter Eight, Philo succeeded in justifying his fellow citizens’ crying within the framework of the Stoic eu0pa&qeiai. Of course, the Stoic sage will “never have the knowledge that some evil was present to him” personally, but he may be aware of the presence of some evil with his fellow citizens that will be the proper and, I claim, legitimate cause of lamentation. 163 For an exposition of the Stoic eu0pa&qeiai see S. K. Strange (2004), Brennan (1998), Frede (1986), Engberg-Pedersen (1991), and Nussbaum (1987, 1994). 164 See the discussion in Margaret Graver’s Stoicism and Emotion, chapter 9: “The Tears of Alcibiades (2007, 191-211). 165 Brennan’s argument runs like this: “The corollary of pain would have to be the knowledge that some present thing is an evil. Now knowledge entails truth; so some evil thing would have to be present to the Sage. But vice and folly are the only evil things there are, and the Sage by definition is free from them. So by definition, the Sage could never have the knowledge that some evil [of vice and folly] was present to him; thus, there can be no fourth eupatheia” (Brennan 1998, 35, emphasis added).
Chapter 3
Philo’s Divine Generation. The Safer Way to Truth
In Questions on Genesis 4.12, Philo discusses the deeper meaning of the biblical passage in which Abraham’s servant praises his master’s God, because He has given Abraham a “safe and successful way to truth”.166 Philo asks: “What is ‘the way of truth’, for he says, ‘in the way of truth’?” and gives the following answer (emphasis added): “[This means] that truth is a wonderful and divine virtue and a force destructive of falsehood, which is (so) called in reprobation, while truth (is so called) because of unforgetfulness, since virtue is worthy of remembrance. Now the way which leads to it, so far as it rests with us, is knowledge and wisdom, for through these is it found. But by an involuntary principle (it is found) through prophecy. And since that which is proportioned and equal is a safe road, it leads to truth more evenly, briefly and smoothly than the former”.167 In the Timaeus 28C, Plato deplores the fact that among the few who are capable of discovering “the Maker and Father of All”, only few will be able to communicate their discovery to others: “Now to discover the Maker and Father of this universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible”.168
3.1 Introduction. The discourse on the way to virtue It is well known that the Fourth Gospel differs considerably from the Synoptic Gospels. John’s Gospel employs motifs which we do not find in the tradition of the Synoptics, and even those we recognize seem twisted in another direction. In this study, I argue that that these differences are inspired by the tradition that is known to us through Philo of Alexandria: The physical world view of the Fourth Gospel with its theology of the spirit is best understood when placed in a Philonic con166 Gen 24:48LXX: o$j eu0o&dwse/n moi e0n o(dw|~ a)lhqei/aj. 167 Translation LCL. 168 Translation LCL: to_n me\n ou]n poihth\n kai\ pate/ra tou=de tou= panto_j eu(rei=n te e1rgon kai\ eu(ro&nta ei0j pa&ntaj a)du&naton le/gein.
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text; the Christology of the incarnation and the ascension is illuminated when it is read in light of Philo’s cosmology and anthropology; and finally, Philo’s ethical anthropology adds to our understanding of basic soteriological categories in the Gospel, primarily the idea of a generation a!nwqen (John 3:3). It is, however, not simply the case that Philo’s treatises function as a lexical source from which the Evangelist has drawn for inspiration. The Fourth Gospel appears at the same time to react against the way proposed by Philo to an otherwise agreed upon truth and a commonly pursued goal. Thus, I argue that our understanding of the Fourth Gospel presupposes awareness of the discussions shared by John and philosophical Judaism as well as the rhetorical strategy at work in the Gospel. When the Fourth Gospel is read in this context, its esoteric language makes sense. As I shall argue in the exegetical chapters, many motifs in the Gospel obtain their meaning from their relationship with and manipulation of the same motifs in Philo’s writings. The same may be said about Philo and his relation to Greek philosophy. It is generally recognized that in his writings Philo makes extensive use of motifs from Plato’s treatises on 1Erwj. Philo’s idea of a “second generation”, which we shall discuss quite extensively, is modelled on the motif of the double 1Erwj in Pausanias’ speech in the Symposium. From the Phaedrus, he takes the themes of the chariot of the tripartite soul, the maddening longing for eternal beauty, the divine intoxication and ecstasy caused by the drink of eternal truth offered by Zeus, etc. Often the acknowledgement of Philo’s debt to Plato is confined to tracking down the sources for Philo’s motifs. In this way, Philo’s works are situated in an un-mediated dialogue with the Platonic precursor which by-passes four hundred years of discussion and interpretation of Plato’s works.169 However, the Plato with whom Philo is in dialogue is mediated through the Stoic doctrines of physics, emotions and epistemology. During this span of time, Plato’s myths became the 169 This is also the thesis and conclusion of the study of Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Demiurge and Providence. Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato’s Timaeus (1999): “The line of my argument is (1) that the Timaeus was influential for the development of some core concepts of Stoicism … and (2) that the Stoics in turn helped to set the agenda for subsequent Platonist treatments of the Timaeus. … Hence a genuine merging is what I am about to examine (13). … The task at hand, then, is to prove not only that Stoic and Platonist readings of Plato’s Timaeus reveal such a discussion of assimilation, but also that it displaced Plato’s own work. Later interpreters and readers did not focus on its content alone, but included other interpretations as well, often as though they belonged to the original text. Thus this tradition … is a prime example of the ‘hermeneutical circle’ in the strong sense: the Timeaus after the Stoics was significantly different from what it had been previously” (16, emphasis added).
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battleground for the philosophical discussions of the best way to truth. In order to come to terms with the rhetorical strategy at work in Philo’s use of Plato’s motifs, it is necessary also to take the Stoic reception of Plato into consideration. So where should one begin? How may one avoid being caught in a never-ending regress of knowledge that must be taken into consideration? A suitable place to start is the “grand revolution” in ancient thought that Greek philosophy brought abour. The designation belongs to Dale B. Martin’s and it is borrowed from his book Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians (2004). Accoring to Martin, the invention of philosophy constituted a “revolution”, because it profoundly changed the understanding of the relationship between man and the gods. The philosophers claimed that man, through his reasoning power, participated in or sided with – or was at least meant to participate in and side with – the divine. However, this was not the way that ordinary men experienced the world. Consequently, Martin also characterizes the philosophical world view as “the grand optimal illusion” (226).170 Here our ways part. The philosophers’ world view was teleological and that made the state of the world contingent on man’s behaviour. Whether the philosophers’ world view became an illusion ultimately depended on the way that man exercised the reasoning power bestowed on him. Whereas Dale Martin, from his point of view, sees the new interest in ethics as a matter of mere etiquette and social exclusion, I find that the “revolution” is intimately related to the development of ethics as the philosophical discourse.171 The new task and responsibility placed on man call for a therapy of desire.172 Discussions of the best way to make man a virtuous citizen and a worthy representative of the divine force bestowed on him now came into the philo170 The follow quotation from Martin’s book summarizes his thesis: “More telling, though, is the way Plato mixes up [in the Timaeus] what we might differentiate as intellectual qualities and moral or affective qualities. … From a modern point of view, it appears odd to assume a match between intellectual power and moral rectitude. … In any case, in order to understand Plato’s logic about the morality of the gods, we must put asunder what Plato has, perhaps unconsciously, joined together: the hierarchies of ontology, intellect, morality, aesthetics, gender, and space. The important revolution in ancient thinking that Plato here represents (I do not believe he invented it) is … the assumption that the different hierarchical scales match one another: that superior beings are superior with regard to morality as well as intellect, power, and beauty. Ontological hierarchy is matched by axiological hierarchy. It was a profound revolution in ancient thought. … And … it was never proven; it was assumed” (Martin 2004, 59-60, emphasis added). 171 See Dale Martins’s discussion of “Ethics or Etiquette?” (2004, 27f). 172 … the title of Martha C. Nussbaum’s influential book, The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Philosophy (1994).
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sophers’ focus. In the Hellenistic period, the discourses of the qerapei/a of the soul and the qerapei/a of the gods merged into ethics.173 The philosophical quest for the truth was never separated from the sacred matter of religion and from the pragmatism of ethics. This is the discourse in which Philo is engaged throughout his writings.
3.1.1 Philo’s ambiguity with regard to Stoicism Although Platonism certainly gets its due in Philo’s writings, it is Stoicism that is in focus and Stoic epistemology that constitutes the primary target of his polemics. Nevertheless, Philo’s world view shares several ideas with the Stoics: concerning cosmology, Philo’s cosmos accords with Stoic physics, and with regard to ethics, he also pursues the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia. A tension should be recognized here: How may Philo’s ambiguous attitude to Stoicism be explained? One issue of dispute concerns the best way to reach the common goal of virtuous living. This we shall soon return to. But the divergence of opinion between Philo and the Stoics also had more profound reasons: it concerned the basic understanding of an otherwise shared cosmology. Let us first look at their disagreements on cosmology – from the viewpoint of Philo. If we follow in the footsteps of Philo’s righteous man, Noah, who inquired into the nature of all that is and who reached the highest step on the ladder of knowledge, we are introduced to the difference between the Stoics’ world view and Philo’s own – as Philo sees it. In an elegant exegesis of Gen 6:8: “Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord”, Philo twists the meaning of “finding favour” (xa&rin eu(rei=n) from being “well-pleasing” to the Lord to the “surprising discovery” that Noah makes (eu(ri/skei a!riston eu3rhma), namely, … that all things are a grace of God, and that creation has no gift of grace to bestow, for neither has it any possession, since all things are God’s possession, and for this reason grace too belongs to Him alone as a thing that is His very own [dio_ kai\ mo&nou th\n xa&rin oi0kei=on]. Thus to those who ask what the origin of creation is [ti/j a)rxh\ gene/sewj] the right answer would 173 For the punning on qerapei/a, see Philo Contempl. 2: “The vocation of these philosophers is at once made clear from their title of Therapeutae (qerapeutai\) and Therapeutrides, a name derived from qerapeu/w, either in the sense of ‘cure’ because they profess an art of healing better than that current in the cities which cures [qerapeu/ei] only the bodies … or else in the sense of ‘worship,’ because nature and the sacred laws have schooled them to worship [qerapeu/ein] the Self-existing who is better than the good, purer than the One and more primordial than the Monad”.
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be, that it is the goodness and grace of God, which He bestowed [e0xari/sato] on the race that stands next after Him. For all things in the world and the world itself is a free gift and act of kindness and grace on God’s part [dwrea_ ga_r kai\ eu0ergesi/a kai\ xa&risma qeou= ta_ pa&nta o#sa e0n ko&smw| kai\ au0to_j o( ko&smoj e0sti/]. (Leg. 3.78)
Noah’s exceptional finding does not challenge the philosophers’ teleological world view, nor does it place Philo outside the “grand revolution” in ancient thought. Human beings still participate in the divine reign and providence through their rational faculties. What is changed is the status of this order. Philo claims that it is a gift and this, in turn, influences his ethics radically. The person who recognizes that all he has, including his reasoning power, is a gift graciously bestowed on him, cannot but put his faculties into the service of the giver. A right understanding of truth will automatically bring about a right moral attitude. This understanding leads to a reversal of the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij.174 The end of moral development is not the sage’s appropriation of Nature as his true self, but the attribution of everything – including man’s reasoning power and self – to God as the gracious giver and first cause of all that has come into being (Post. 123). Throughout his writings, this understanding characterizes Philo’s attitude to Greek philosophy. In the end, Philo cannot be described as a Platonist or as a Stoic. Nevertheless, he incorporates important elements of both Platonism and Stoicism into his Judaism in such a way that Greek philosophy is subordinated to his own biblical world view. Philo reduces philosophy to a partial aspect of the truth and describes it as a journey that has become stagnated on its way to truth. Philo’s discourses on cosmology, anthropology and ethics are – however philosophical they may be – subsumed under his discussion of the divine gift.175 While Philo may subscribe to the Stoic claim that knowledge of Nature (fusiologi/an) 174 Thus, in the case of Moses – as witnessed in “the sacred oracle” of Scripture – “the richness of the mind was recognized as God’s gift and appropriated to Him (w(j th=j kata_ me\n dia&noian pio&thtoj a)naferome/nhj e0pi\ qeo_n kai\ oi0keioume/nhj au0tw~|)” (Post. 123, Loeb’s capital; emphasis added). 175 In Migr. 128, Philo argues that he who “follows God” already lives “in accordance with right reason” and “follows nature”, that is, in accordance with the Stoic paradigms: “We are told next that ‘Abraham journeyed even as the Lord spoke to him’ (Gen. xii.4). This is the aim extolled by the best philosophers, to live agreeably to nature [to_ a)kolou&qwj th=| fu&sei zh=n]; and it is attained whenever the mind, having entered on virtue’s path, walks in the track of right reason and follows God [o#tan o( nou=j ei0j th\n a)reth=j a)trapo_n e0lqw_n kat’ i1xnoj o)rqou= lo/gou bai/h| kai\ e3phtai qew~|], mindful of His injunctions, and always and in all places recognizing them all as valid both in action and in speech”.
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constitutes the highest form of knowledge (Her. 98), living kata__ xa&rin remains the highest virtue. However, he who lives in accordance with God’s will simultaneously lives in accordance with the Stoic notion of “following nature”.
3.1.2 Philo’s rhetorical strategy. First take In principle, Philo claims, the way recommended by the Stoic philosopher may well lead to truth: “Now the way which leads to it, so far as it rests with us, is knowledge and wisdom, for through these is it found” (QG 4.125). This way, however, is not without obstacles. The problem that may prevent a person, who follows in the footsteps of a Stoic philosopher, from reaching the desired goal resides primarily in the senses, apart from which, according Stoic epistemology, nothing enters the original tabula rasa of the mind.176 But sense perception is a twoedged sword. On the one hand, the senses are the faculties through which the beautiful order of the cosmos is recognized. This may lead to the identification of a rational power within the universe and, in turn, to an acknowledgement of the creator and his goodness. On the other hand, each step in the mind’s journey towards truth threatens to impede the movement. The pleasure that accompanies sense perception may seduce the reasoning powers of the mind and trap it in a manic pursuit of pleasure as being itself the ultimate good. The fascination with heavenly beauty may end up in a sky-lore, in which creation is made the object of worship at the expense of the creator (Her. 98). Even man’s intellectual power may in the end lure him into worshipping his own mind and its virtues as the source of ultimate goodness, an ungodly attitude which Philo describes as one of self-love (Leg. 1.49, Sac. 56-58: filauti/a). The latter is the vice of the philosophers. Thus, the way to truth is – “so far as it rests with us” – filled with obstacles. Philo is aware of another and safer way, namely that of prophecy: “But by an involuntary principle (it is found) through prophecy. And since that which is proportioned and equal is a safe road, it leads to truth more evenly, briefly and smoothly than the former”. Divine inspiration is a short cut to truth that bypasses the otherwise unavoidable dangers of pleasure. Inasmuch as everything does not, after all, rest with us, Philo disagrees with the Stoics on the issue of epistemology. To the question, whether something which has not initially been in the 176 In the previous chapter, we saw how the most basic concepts of organizing the world, time and space, were derived from sense-perception. In the end, even the process of conceptualization derives from the senses.
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senses may enter the mind, Philo’s answer is yes: it may happen through inspiration in which God’s spirit provokes dreams and prophetic oracles. But this is an experience which only happens to extraordinarily virtuous men. Help is, however, also provided for those men who do not receive the divine revelation themselves. In Quis rerum divinarum heres, Philo rejoices in the good news that this “wisdom, which cannot be received by sense, but only by a pure and unmixed/alloyed mind, now is to be inherited (Her. 98, my translation)” – namely through the prophetic oracle of Scripture.177 Philo’s Stoic Phoenix, his Platonic medium of divine frenzy, the prophet of prophets, the great Moses has in the law voiced and written down the knowledge he received when he was called up on Mount Sinai. Scripture is the testament that Moses prepared for those who are eager for virtue, but not yet perfect. What the soul must by itself ascend to receive according to the myths of the Republic and the Phaedrus, is offered to the beginner in virtue by the Jewish scriptures. The mind hungry for truth and wisdom who follows the way recommended by Moses and who lives in accordance with Jewish laws, in fact already “feeds upon [Plato’s] eternal verities” (Phaedr. 246E, 247E). Inevitably, Plato’s complaint about the difficulties involved in the communication of truth in the Timaeus (28C) opens him up to serious criticisms. Throughout his treatises, Philo accuses philosophers – Platonists as well as Stoics – of not providing help to the beginner in virtue.
3.1.3 The structure of the present chapter The present chapter aims at situating Philo within the ancient discussion of the way to truth and virtuous living. As such the chapter provides the framework for my claim that the Fourth Gospel embodies the teleological “revolution” of ancient thought and, furthermore, lays claim to possess the best way to that truth. First, the chapter presents and interprets Philo’s anthropology including his discussion of the “two men” and the enigmatic “intermediary woman”. This presentation forms the basis for the second part, which exposes Philo’s rhetorical strategy and his demonstration of the shortcomings of philosophy. Special attention will be given to Philo’s exploitation of the mythical language of the Phaedrus. In the third part, I turn to an analysis of the safer way to truth and virtuous living that Philo recommends. Fourth 177 Her. 98: to_ de\ ne/on a)gaqo_n klhronomh=sai sofi/an th/n a!dekton me\n ai0sqh/sei, nw|~ d’ ei9likrinesta&tw| katalambanome/nhn.
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and finally, Philo’s understanding of the way in which the prohibitions of the Jewish law served as valuable teachers and guides in the pursuit of virtue is discussed and evaluated in light of the contemporary discussion of the value of giving moral advice in philosophical ethics. In this way, the chapter provides a basis and context for the introduction of more specific aspects of Philo’s textual world in my exegesis of the Fourth Gospel. In Chapter Four special attention is given to Philo’s idea of the second generation (deute/ra ge/nesij). In Chapter Six, Philo’s reflections on the prophetic voice are in focus. Finally, in Chapter Seven Philo’s ideas about a translation in place of death are used in order to make sense of Jesus’ a)na&basij to the Father.
3.2 Philo’s anthropology. The quandary of the two men – and the enigmatic woman Philo’s knowledge of “a safe road”, which “leads to truth more evenly, briefly and smoothly” by means of “the involuntary principle of prophecy” (QG 4.125), is embedded in his anthropology and the discussion of the two types of men: the earthly or moulded man of Gen 2:7 who received God’s breath, and the heavenly man of Gen 1:27 who is generated according to the image of God. The discourse on the two men is a recurrent theme throughout Philo’s treatises. Platonically minded scholars understand the relation of the moulded man (Gen 2:7) to the heavenly man (Gen 1:27) in terms either of (i.) the relationship of a particular man to his eternal form, (ii.) the antagonistic relation of the irrational parts of the soul to the rational mind, or else (iii.) a body-soul dualism. However, it is also a matter of scholarly debate whether it is possible to find an anthropological formula that suits all the passages of the two men and their respective generations. In his 1983 book The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation, Thomas H. Tobin argues against the various scholarly attempts to put Philo’s interpretation of the Genesis traditions into a single formula. Tobin’s work will be discussed in length for two reasons; first, his book is a classic within Philonic studies; second, it produces the strongest argument against my solution to the enigma of the two men. I shall argue that the charge of inconsistency is due to the Platonic framework within which Philo’s two men are often placed and that the more dynamic approach that Stoicism offers us constitutes a better explanation.
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3.2.1 Philo’s two men in the scholarly debate 3.2.1.1 Tobin. Philo and the history of interpretation Although Thomas H. Tobin in The Creation of Man argues that the Genesis traditions in Philo’s writings do not fit into one formula, he does not find that Philo is inconsistent or eclectic as interpreter. The inconsistencies are due to the fact that, out of reverence for the inspired interpretations of Scripture, Philo often quotes his Jewish exegetical predecessors. Sometimes Philo explicitly indicates that he refers to the interpretation of others, but most often he just quotes them, presupposing that his readers will themselves be aware of the origin of the various traditions. Tobin explains: Philo, then, was not only an exegete within a tradition. He did not stand alone but was the representative of a tradition of interpretation. This means that when one talks about Philo’s exegesis or Philo’s exegetical methods without first trying to sort out what is Philo and what is traditional material, one risks throwing together under the name of Philo the work of several generations of interpreters. (1983, 5)
Tobin’s project is diachronic in nature. Taking Philo’s writing as his starting point, Tobin wants to reconstruct the history of interpretation of the biblical creation narratives in the philosophically minded, Jewish milieu of Alexandria. He applies the following method. As the first step, he identifies “the various conflicting interpretations of the creation of man” in Philo’s writings (8). Next, the patterns of dependence between these layers are analyzed in order to give an outline of the various stages in the historical development of the tradition. The analysis allows Tobin to decide which of the interpretations present in Philo’s writings that belong to Philo’s predecessors and which that are genuinely Philonic. Finally, the reconstructed history of interpretation is juxtaposed to the historical changes in the philosophical agenda of intellectual Alexandria. Since the latter is reconstructed from other sources, the comparison functions as a check on Tobin’s analysis. Referring to John Dillon’s work on Middle Platonism (Dillon 1977), Tobin is able to make a sketch of the prevailing thought patterns in philosophical Alexandria in the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era. During these centuries a more Stoically oriented agenda was replaced by the revival of Platonism in the form of Middle Platonism, a term coined by Dillon. Middle Platonism was characterized by the restoration of the idea of transcendence and, as a corollary of this, by the establishment of an intermediate sphere that enabled communication between the divine, ultimate being and the world of becoming
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(Tobin, 15). With regard to ethics, the Stoics’ maxim “living in accordance with Nature” was replaced by “[t]he standard Middle Platonic formulation of the purpose of life, the goal of ethics”: “likeness or assimilation to God (o(moi/wsij qew~|)” (18). Tobin suggests that intellectual Judaism played an important role in this development: Jewish interpreters must have found such speculation very attractive. The fact that such speculation once again emphasized the transcendence of the supreme deity must have come as a welcome alternative to the prevailing Stoic monism. (18)
Whereas the interpretive practice of Stoically oriented exegesis had been the substitution of the blatant anthropomorphisms of sacred texts with cosmological phenomena, Platonism inspired a new and more systematic, allegorical practice. Thus at the beginning of the Common Era, “especially…Alexandria” was “deeply affected by a Platonism in which cult myths and mystery rites … [were] reinterpreted and allegorized” (19). As an Alexandrian philosopher and exegete, Philo must have been acquainted with the changes in the exegetical practice that the new philosophical agenda brought about. In Philo’s writings, one can “find Stoic, peripatetic, Pythagorean, Platonic, and even Skeptical philosophical positions” (10). Consequently, Tobin claims, Philo is one of our “main witnesses to the philosophical trends of the late Hellenistic period as well as of the period of the early Empire” (10). Yet, Philo subjects these various traditions to his own Middle Platonic outlook. Mutually exclusive interpretations of the biblical accounts of man’s creation in Gen 1:27 and 2:7 are found, even within the same treatise. In De opificio mundi 69-71, Gen 1:26-27 is interpreted as the creation of man’s mind. Since God does not have a body, it is man’s mind alone that is created in accordance with God’s image. Man’s body is the work of the divine helpers (model iii.; see above). Later in the same treatise (Opif. 134-135), Gen 1:26-27 now represent the creation of man’s heavenly idea (Philo’s heavenly man), whereas Gen 2:7 here refers to the creation of the sensible copy (the earthly man) (20). The idea-copy tradition (model i.) is also at work in Legum allegoriae 1.31-32. Nevertheless, in the clarifying questions and answers in the following passage (Leg. 1.39-40), we find an interpretation of Gen 2:7 that speaks of the singular creation of man, which took place when God breathed the divine spirit into the dominant part of man’s soul (21). According to Tobin, the two strands of interpretation belong to Platonism and Stoicism, respectively: Within a structure of interpretation, then, that recognizes only a single creation of man, two interpretations exist: One, rooted in Gen 1:26-27, em-
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phasizes man as an image (ei0kw&n); the other, rooted in Gen 2:7, emphasizes the divine spirit (pneu=ma qei=on) as the central element in man’s creation. The philosophical affinities of each of these two interpretations are quite different. The interpretation of the term “image” (ei0kw&n) in Gen 1:26-27 is Platonic while the term “spirit” (pneu=ma) in Gen 2:7 receives a Stoic interpretation. (21)
Yet, within the Platonically inspired interpretation of Gen 1:27 that refers to a single creation of man, various traditions also exist: Man’s mind may either be an image of God or an image of this image, that is, the intermediary lo&goj. Also, the double creation of man may have different referents. In Legum allegoriae 1.31-32, Gen 1:27 corresponds to man’s eternal idea and Gen 2:7 to the sensible man (model i.), but later in the same book, in 1.55 and 1.90, the heavenly man and the earthly man represent two different minds or mind-sets (24): Within those interpretations of the creation of man as a double creation, we have two quite distinct interpretations, one that maintains a double creation of man and the other that maintains a double creation of mind (24, emphasis added).
Here the heavenly man or “the man made according to the image no longer plays the role of archetype or paradigm for the earthly man but becomes the personification of perfect wisdom” (139). The heavenly man now constitutes “the guiding power by which the human mind is enabled to ascend towards God” (141). In other words, the function of this figure is anagogic: The pattern is not uniform … On the contrary, there is a great deal of variety in the allegorical interpretations of the biblical texts … But what seems constant in these patterns is the attempt to interpret the events of the external world described in the biblical texts in terms of the conflicts within the human soul in its striving towards virtue and wisdom or in its corruption by vice. This particular allegory of the soul also involves the sense of an almost mystical enlightenment of the soul by God through the medium of the Logos or Wisdom. (146)
In order to systematize the many interpretations into a chronological development, Tobin sets up some rules. First, from a logical point of view, the anti-anthropomorphic interpretations must belong to the oldest part of the history of interpretation. The development of intermediary figures – the lo&goj in the case of Platonism; spiritual fragments in the case of Stoicism – makes the anthropomorphic arguments superfluous. Next, also from a logical point of view, the idea of dualism presupposes the idea of monism; an original unity must exist before it can be divided into opposites. Consequently, the idea of a single creation is antecedent to the double creation. This implies that the Platonically inspired interpretation of a double creation of man must be se-
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condary to the Stoically inspired tradition of God’s inbreathing of man. Finally, and still logically, the literal interpretation of man’s creation must precede the allegorical interpretation of man as mind. On the basis of these three principles, Tobin offers a chronological sketch of the interpretations of the Genesis traditions in Alexandria. The history had the anti-anthropomorphic interpretations, Platonically or Stoically inspired, as its beginning. Over time, these interpretations were replaced by interpretations – Platonic or Stoic – of a single creation that safeguarded the divine from contagiously human contact by the introduction of intermediary agents or substances. The interpretations of a singular creation of man then gave way to the double, primarily Platonically inspired, creation of the two men, the eternal idea of man and man as a sense perceptible being. According to Tobin, these strands of interpretation belong to the Jewish exegetical tradition that precedes Philo. The allegory of the soul is Philo’s contribution to the tradition. Tobin only ascribes to Philo those fragments that explicitly indicate an allegorical interpretation. Methodologically, The Creation of Man: Philo and the History of Interpretation belongs to the tradition of source criticism. Tobin identifies the various traditions at work in the text and situates them diachronically in their philosophical context; a synchronic analysis of Philo’s allegory of the soul is postponed to another book. Yet Tobin’s historical analysis provides the framework for his understanding of Philo’s theory. The careful reconstruction of the history of interpretation functions as a filter that separates fragments of Philo’s own genius from those parts of his writings which we, when interested in Philo’s own stance, do not have to take into consideration. Consequently, Tobin’s historical reconstruction must be subjected to methodological scrutiny. i. First criticism: The status of the tradition; indifferent reverence versus rhetorical re-inscription. The major problem in Tobin’s analysis of the history of interpretation and his use of it as a template for the reconstruction of Philo’s own interpretation is the fact that Philo does not overtly distance himself from these traditions. Tobin is aware of the problem: “All of the interpretations that have been mentioned appear in Philo, and none of them are openly rejected by him” (32). However, this fact does not seem to challenge Tobin’s analysis. The apparent contradiction is solved by the reverence that Tobin imagines Philo must have felt for the Jewish tradition of Scriptural interpretation: Philo is a traditional interpreter. He feels responsible not only to the biblical text but also to the interpretations of that text by his predecessors …
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Philo feels bound by their work. That work has a certain “canonical” value for him. (32)
Philo quotes his predecessors’ exegesis without integrating the traditions into his own work on the allegory of the soul: Philo thought that all of these interpretations were inspired, all of them could be accepted as valid interpretations. … Yet his own allegory of the soul, for instance, is not a critique of previous interpretations. It is rather an additional interpretation that can be set side by side with other interpretations. (162, emphasis added)
Further, the perseverance of the literal interpretations also plays an important role in Philo’s allegorical practice. The literal level of Scripture and the non-allegorical interpretations constitute a bulwark against the allegorizing of Jewish culture that Philo’s allegorical practice may invite (157). Tobin explains: “Philo is the earliest example that we have of a writer who tries to maintain the validity of both the allegorical and the non-allegorical levels of interpretation” (155). Tobin’s idea of Philo’s reverence for the tradition simultaneously constitutes the key stone and, in my opinion, the stumbling block within the whole analysis. One cannot help getting the impression that Philo in Tobin’s analysis has got a Catholic glow. In the end, it is a matter of scholarly choice whether those traditions that Philo does not overtly distance himself from should be taken into account in the analysis of Philo’s stance or not. Tobin’s diachronic analysis of the history of Alexandrian biblical interpretation may be right without having any bearings on the synchronic analysis of Philo’s writings. Against Tobin, I think that we should not restrict the allegory of the soul to those passages that Philo explicitly describes as allegorical interpretations. The allegory of the soul is at work everywhere in Philo’s writings and cannot, as Tobin notices himself (179), be restricted to Philo’s interpretation of the Genesis traditions. As an alternative to Tobin’s diachronic explanation, which relegates Philo’s inconsistencies to the history of interpretation, I want to suggest another model, which has the advantage that it is capable of preserving the integrity of the text. In the first chapter of this book, the literary theory of New Criticism was introduced. The New Critics made a distinction between the text as signifier and the signified story to which the written text refers. The textual surface as signifier did not need to be complete or even consistent in order to represent a unified signified story. We may say that Philo’s allegory of the soul – the cosmic universal soul as well as the individual – constitutes the signified story or ‘deep grammar’ within Philo’s whole oeuvre.
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In the end, the diachronic analysis reduces meaning to reference. Through the identification of technical terms, e.g. the Stoic pneu=ma and the Middle Platonic lo&goj, Tobin is able to situate the various interpretations in their original tradition. Yet, classification does not expound the function and meaning of the traditions within Philo’s narrative. I shall argue that Philo incorporates and re-inscribes these traditions into his own master narrative of the soul, in which a second and divine generation of the heavenly man (mind) is superimposed onto the first and ordinary generation of the earthly man (mind). In this way, Platonism and Stoicism are incorporated into Philo’s religious scheme, but displaced to the second and third best position. ii. Second criticism. Determining history: Diaeretic logic versus philosophical problems. The second major criticism is directed against the principles that Tobin uses in order to reconstruct the history of interpretation. Tobin argued that, from a logical point of view, the idea of a double creation presupposed the idea of a singular and unified creation; the splitting needed something to split. This argument is probably inspired by the conceptual diaeresis that Plato developed in the Phaedo and which Philo endorsed in Quis rerum divinarum heres. The argument has important bearings on Tobin’s interpretation, because it automatically places Platonism as the end point in the Alexandrian history of interpretation. In turn, this history becomes a measure of the value that various interpretations may have had for the exegetical community in Alexandria in general and for Philo in particular. Yet, from the view point of the history of ideas, Stoic monism was introduced in order to account for the ontological problems that Plato’s dualism posed. In the end, the scholar’s standpoint – be it diaeretic logic or the history of ideas – determines the sequence of historical development. This is not said in favour of a development that turns Tobin’s version of the Alexandrian philosophical and interpretive history upside-down. The purpose is just to complicate the picture; in the development of ideas different principles may be at work simultaneously. Tobin’s analysis of the important passage of Legum allegoriae 1.31-42 demonstrates how Stoic traditions are marginalized in his interpretation. On the one hand, Tobin admits that the passage Leg. 1.33-41 alludes to Stoic philosophy (164). On the other hand, the introduction to this passage (Leg. 1.31-32), which refers to the “creation of the earthly man as distinct from the heavenly man of Gen 1:27” (163), gives us a Platonist perspective on the whole passage. Tobin concludes: “The main interpretation … is Platonic. Stoic interpretations, on the other
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hand, such as L. A. 1.36-38, 39-41 … are in subordinate positions” (164f). Tobin’s argument is based on the presupposition that a monistic perspective must be prior to a dualistic one, and that Stoicism is an antecedent to the Platonic development. If this precondition cannot be upheld, Tobin’s analytical template falls apart. Tobin consequently refers the idea of a double creation to the various Platonic dualisms. But, even from a logic point of view, the Platonic divisions of man are not the only valid explanations with regard to Philo’s two men and their generations. In what follows, I shall argue that Stoicism also has inspired Philo, and that the addition of pneumatic bodies (kra=sij), which makes up the Stoics’ ontological hierarchy, is basic to Philo’s development of the double creation. In this model, the prevailing philosophical positions are placed on a lower ontological and axiological level than the truth offered through Moses’ guidance and prophecy. My explanation incorporates Tobin’s observation, quoted above, that “[t]his particular allegory of the soul also involves the sense of an almost mystical enlightenment of the soul by God through the medium of the Logos or Wisdom” (146). iii. Third criticism. Philo’s allegory of the soul: Stoic form versus Stoic content. My final criticism is directed towards Tobin’s use of Stoic allegory. In Tobin’s rejection of Stoic influence on Philo, he appears to conflate form and content. The fact that Philo’s allegorical practice differs from that of some Stoics does not have as its corollary that an influence from Stoic ethical theory must be rejected. The practice of allegory documented in the work of Heraclitus and Cornutus had substitution as its main principle; unacceptable anthropomorphic features of the gods were by substitution changed into statements about either cosmos or virtue. Tobin rightly notices that Philo’s allegory of the soul differs from that tradition. This fact, however, does not exclude the possibility that the signified story in Philo’s allegory of the soul may have been influenced by Stoic theory of the soul’s intellectual development towards virtue and truth. The a priori rejection of Stoic influence on Philo in Tobin’s analysis cuts off Philo from the most obvious explanations of some of his texts – e.g. Philo’s tripartite division of the soul into mind (nou=j), sense perception (ai1sqhsij), and the passions (ta_ pa&qh). Tobin notices himself that this “is not a common Platonic formulation, not even in the Timaeus” (148), and he adds that this division is “not common among Middle Platonists either” (149). Fortunately, one example exists. In Albinus’ interpretation in his Didaskalikos of the Timaeus 42a-b, a tripartite division of the soul that resembles Philo’s division is found. Tobin
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is aware that it is an inference drawn on a feeble basis, yet he concludes: Philo’s interpretation of man as mind, woman as sense perception, and the serpent as pleasure, then, is the allegorical equivalent of an acceptable, although not common, Middle Platonic a interpretation of Plato’s Timeaus. (149)
In my analysis, I intend to demonstrate how Philo’s allegory of the soul simultaneously presupposes Stoic theory and constitutes a critique of it. To summarize: I approve of Tobin’s conclusion that Philo’s contribution to Alexandrian exegesis was the allegory of the soul. But I disagree with Tobin on two points: in his restriction of the allegory to the passages that are described explicitly as allegorical by Philo, and in his interpretation of this allegory in exclusively Platonic terms. As already mentioned (note 5), Dodd described this era as characterized by a “platonizing Stoicism or [a] stoicizing Platonism” (Dodd 1953, 11). One of the major contributions of Stoicism to Middle Platonisms was its theory of psychological development. I intend to demonstrate that also Stoic physics played an important role in Philo’s allegory of the soul. But let us first have a look at Richard Baer’s and David Runia’s interpretation of Philo’s two men. As they are critical of the prevailing Platonic interpretation in terms of the idea-copy dichotomy, they will take us a step further towards a solution.
3.2.1.2 Baer’s and Runia’s wrestling with Philo’s men In his stimulating study, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female (1970), Richard Baer discusses Philo’s anthropology of the two men in a chapter on “The categories male and female in relationship to Philo’s understanding of the nature of man”. Baer rejects the prevailing interpretation of Philo’s two men in terms of the Platonic dichotomy of idea and particular, in which “the man of Gen 1:27” is equated with the ideal man, i.e. with the idea of man in the technical Platonic sense, and “the man of Gen 2:7” is held to be his earthly counterpart (model i.). Instead, Baer argues that: … in reality Philo most frequently uses Gen 1:27 for the purpose of establishing the close likeness of empirical man’s rational soul with the Logos and thus ultimately with God – not in reference to the idea of man, a concept which as such does not appear in Philo’s writings at all. … It is clear that Philo here employs Gen 1:27 not to refer to the idea of man but to the higher nous in empirical man. That “the nous in each of us” was created “after the image of God” means that man’s higher nature is essentially like the divine nature. (22f, emphasis added)
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For his own understanding, Baer remains within a Platonic framework and interprets Philo’s two men in terms of the Platonic division of the soul into a rational and an irrational part (model ii.). This solution, however, still causes Baer problems. He notes that, on the one hand, Philo operates with some kind of relation or continuity between the “man according to the image” of Gen 1:27 and the “moulded man” of 2:7. After all, even the earthly moulded man is himself endowed with the spirit or breath of God: In summary, then, it may be said that Philo generally uses both Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 2:7 to establish the essential kinship between the rational soul of man and God. With respect to Gen. 1:27 he argues on the basis of the assertion that man was created kat’ ei0ko&na tou= qeou=. In Gen. 2:7 he refers to the divine inbreathing of pneu=ma (or pnoh\ zwh=j). In a number of passages, he quotes both texts together as his authority. (25f)
On the other hand, Baer finds passages – like e.g. Opif. 135 and Leg. 1.31 – in which a clear distinction between the two is made, and the heavenly man of Gen 1:27 is obviously “to be identified with the rational soul in actual (empirical) man” (26). Therefore Baer infers that, at least in these passages, the “moulded man” must refer to the irrational soul. In the end, the Platonic framework does not provide Baer with a satisfactory solution. I, nevertheless, find that Baer is on the right track in his excellent analysis of Philo’s gendering of the soul and its development. As I intend to demonstrate, the solution to the problem is found precisely in the soul’s enigmatic transformations of gender. In his book Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (1986), the Philo-specialist David Runia draws attention to the role played by Plato’s Timaeus in Philo’s writings. According to Runia, it was the account of the double creation of man in the Timaeus which inspired Philo’s interpretation of the redoubling of the creation of man in Genesis. Runia concludes: The Timaeus, which furnishes the clearest account of Plato’s anthropology and moreover places it in a creationistic framework, played a role of major importance in Philo’s resolution of the interpretative problems of the double account of man’s creation. … The contrast between the man kat’ ei0ko&na qeou= and the man nu=n plasqei=j is essentially that between the divine and leading part created by the demiurge (41d) and man the sunamfo&teron created when the ‘younger gods’ place the divine part in the body which they have constructed [model iii.] (and also add the irrational part of the soul [model ii.]). (Runia 1986, 338, square brackets my addition)
Runia follows Baer in his conclusion that the two men should not be understood in terms of the Platonic dualism of idea and phenomenon: Despite appearances to the contrary Philo does not import into his reading of the two texts in Opif. the conception of the paradigmatic Idea of man,
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whether this be identified with the Logos or considered separate from him. Here we agree with Baer … but run counter to the opinion of most scholars. (335, emphasis added)
Nor has the notion of a gnostic or proto-gnostic Primal Man any influence on Philo’s interpretation. But then Runia’s and Baer’s ways part. Although the analogy found in the Timaeus leads to an interpretation of the two men that is a mixture of model ii. and iii., Runia rejects Baer’s identification of the two men with the rational and the irrational parts of the soul, respectively (model ii.). God’s inbreathing of the earthly moulded man found in Leg. 1.31-32 cannot be understood as the endowment of man with the “heavenly man” – alias the rational mind. In spite of the fact that it is God, who has breathed this mind into man, it is capable of being corrupted by the desires of the body. Consequently, the divine inbreathing must concern something weaker than the divine ideal of the heavenly man. Runia therefore argues in favour of a more dynamic understanding of the two men. They are, so to say, ethical positions: As we noted above, Philo, though elsewhere tending to reconcile Gen. 1:2627 and 2:7, in his more detailed exegesis does not regard the nou=j created in the former text as the rational or divine part of the composite man created in the latter text. The reason for this, we must surmise, is the recognition that, when man’s god-like part is stationed in the body, it is so distracted by its corporeal entanglements that it becomes a shadow of its true self. The ‘man according to the image’ is thus man as he really is, i.e. as he should and can be when the cares of the body have entirely fallen away. This man can be seen as an idealization, but not in the sense of being a paradigmatic exemplar and part of the noetic world. (Runia, 337-38, emphasis added)
According to Runia, “the heavenly man” or the “man according to the image” refers to man as he is meant to be, and not to one or another part in him. Although man is by the divine inbreathing endowed with “the power of real life” (Leg. 1.32: du&mamin a)lhqinh=j zwh=j), his physical existence in the body prevents him from reaching his intended being. To most men, the ideal life, which belongs to the heavenly man, is an eschatological possibility alone. It is realized when the higher part of the soul is separated from the mortal body (and the lower soul) in order to become enrolled in the noetic realm: How are we to understand this depiction of the ‘true man’? It is best to regard it in eschatological terms, i.e. man as he is when he has left the body and all earthly cares behind and as an a)sw&matoj fu&sij is able to contemplate divine things without ceasing. … It is possible to approach this condition to a greater or lesser degree while still in the body (the theme of e1kstasij, cf. Her. 263-265). (Runia 1986, 337)
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Runia’s understanding of the two men as ethical positions solves the tension between continuity and difference with which Baer was wrestling. The earthly and moulded man, who receives God’s breath, has the potential to become the heavenly man. No matter which of the three Platonic models that is chosen, it will fail in explaining the continuity between the two men. The Platonic dualisms set up waterproof dividing walls between the categories involved; a transformation of one part into the other is a priori excluded. The corporeal body cannot be turned into an incorporeal soul, the irrational part of the soul cannot be convinced by rational arguments, and the particular can never turn into an idea. Philo was without doubt inspired by Plato’s account of man’s creation. In the Timaeus, the highest part of the soul, the reasoning mind, came into being first and was the work of the Demiurge; then the lower parts of the soul and the body were made by the lower gods. Yet Philo uses the motif of the double creation in a different, more dynamic – and I will add: more Stoic way – but also, as we shall see in a quite polemical way. Philo’s knowledge of a better way (or short cut) to truth provided through prophecy (QG 4.125) is expressed in a hierarchy of multiple generations. In this hierarchy, the divine generation of nou=j in ordinary man, which we also find in the Timaeus, is displaced to the position of the first generation and identified with the event of Gen 2:7, in which moulded man has God’s breath blown into him. Prophecy is understood as a second and higher form of generation (deute/ra ge/nesij), and it is through this that the heavenly mind-set, which is in accordance with God’s image (Gen 1:27), comes into being. In this way, the two men demarcate the range of human possibilities.
3.2.2 Philo’s two men and the Stoic powers Although scholars disagree in their understanding of Philo’s interpretation of the two men, they – apart for Tobin – agree that the allegorical exposition of Gen 2:7 in Legum allegoriae 1.31-42 is a key text for our understanding of Philo’s anthropology. Due to its importance, the introduction to the passage (Leg. 1.31-32) will here be quoted in full: “And God formed the man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul [kai\ e1plasen o( qeo_j to_n a!nqrwpon xou=n labw_n a)po_ th=j gh=j, kai\ e0nefu&shsen ei0j to_ pro&swpon au0tou= pnoh\n zwh=j, kai\ e0ge/neto o( a!nqrwpoj ei0j yuxh\n zw~san].” There are two types of men; the one a heavenly man, the other an earthly [ditta_ a)nqrw&pwn ge/nh. o( me\n ga&r e0stin ou0ra&nioj a!nqrwpoj, o( de\ gh/ïnoj]. The heavenly man, being made after the image of God, is altogether with-
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out part or lot in corruptible and terrestrial substance [fqarth=j kai\ suno&lwj gew&douj ou0si/aj a)me/toxoj]; but the earthly one was compacted out of the matter scattered here and there, which Moses calls “clay” [o( de\ gh/ïnoj e0k spora&doj u3lhj, h4n xou=n ke/klhken, e0pa&gh]. For this reason he says that the heavenly man was not moulded [ou0 pepla&sqai], but was stamped with the image of God; while the earthly is a moulded work of the Artificer, but not His offspring [to_n de\ gh/ïnon pla/sma, a)ll’ ou0 ge/nnhma, ei]nai tou= texni/tou]. We must account the man made out of the earth to be mind mingling with, but not yet blended with, body [nou=n ei0skrino&menon sw&mati, ou!pw d’ ei0skekrime/non]. But this earthlike mind is in reality also corruptible, were not God to breathe into it a power of real life [o( de\ nou=j ou[toj gew&dhj e0sti\ tw~| o!nti kai\ fqarto&j, ei0 mh\ o( qeo_j e0mpneu&seien au0tw~| du&mamin a)lhqinh=j zwh=j]; when He does so, it does not any more undergo moulding, but becomes a soul [to&te ga_r gi/netai, ou0ke/ti pla&ttetai, ei0j yuxh/n], not an inefficient and imperfectly formed soul, but one endowed with mind and actually alive [ou0k a)rgo_n kai\ a)diatu&pwton, a)ll’ ei0j noera_n kai\ zw~san o!ntwj], for he says, “man became a living soul”. (Leg. 1.31-32)
On the basis of the scholarly discussion of the “men”, we may now outline the conditions that a satisfactory interpretation of Philo’s men must meet: (1) It must be a dynamic model that is able to account for the continuity as well as the difference between the two men. (2) The solution must take into account that what is inbreathed into the earthly, moulded man of Gen 2:7 must be something that is weaker than the ideal of the heavenly man. (3) A third condition must also be taken into consideration. Instead of automatically having recourse to Platonism, I suggest that the text should be read in the context in which Philo himself situates the discussion of the two men in this specific treatise, namely the Stoic account of the powers that make up man’s mind: ta_ … e3cei, ta_ de\ fu&sei, ta_ de\ yuxh=|, ta_ de\ logikh|= yuxh=| (Leg. 2.21-23), which was quoted and discussed in Chapter Two. (4) Finally, the solution should be capable of integrating the more specific features of Philo’s anthropology, for instance, the second generation that may happen to prophets, the translation in place of death which may befall worthy and holy men and also the enigmatic, but definitely more ordinary phenomenon that Philo calls “moulding”. With these considerations in mind, we are now in a position to propose a solution to the enigma of the two (in fact, three) “men”. I suggest that Philo’s two men (in fact, two men, an animal and a woman) represent the Stoic powers of Leg. 2.21-23. The proposal will be argued with reference to Philo’s exegesis of the two men (3.2.2.1 & 2) – and the enigmatic woman (3.2.3).
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3.2.2.1 Philo’s exegesis of the two men i. The hierarchy of the “two men” within the creation The first argument introduced in order to substantiate the thesis that Philo’s men are Stoic powers is the observation that Philo distributes the creation of his men – and their associates, the animal and the female – over the different days of creation. In this way, a hierarchy is constructed that matches the Stoic hierarchy of powers. The animal yuxh/ is ascribed to the fifth day, which is the day of the creation of the animals in Genesis. The endowment of man with reasoning power belongs to the work of the sixth day, which is the day of God’s creation of man. The seventh day is reserved for God’s Sabbatical work; this day God perfects the human soul, either through a second generation (deute/ra gene/sij) or through the regeneration (paliggenesi/a) of man’s mind. We shall later return to the creation of the female. God’s work on the sixth and the seventh day is introduced in the beginning of Legum allegoriae: “He rested therefore on the seventh day from all His works which He had made” (Gen. ii.2). This is as much as to say that God ceases moulding the masses that are mortal, whenever He begins to make those that are divine and in keeping with the nature of seven. But the interpretation of the statement in accordance with its bearing on human life and character is this, that, whenever there comes upon the soul the holy Reason of which Seven is the keynote, six together with all mortal things that the soul seems to make therewith comes to a stop. (Leg. 1.16)
The same distinction is found in Questions on Exodus: “Why is the mountain covered with a cloud for six days, and Moses called above on the seventh day? [Ex 24:16b]” … But the calling above of the prophet is a second birth better that the first … [T]he divine birth [deute/ra ge/nesij] happened to come about for him in accordance with the ever-virginal nature of the hebdomad. For he is called on the seventh day, in this (respect) differing from the earth-born first moulded man, for the latter came into being from the earth and with a body, while the former (came) from the ether and without a body. Wherefore the most appropriate number, six, was assigned to the earth-born man, while to the one differently born (was assigned) the higher nature of the hebdomad. (QE 2.46)
Philo’s moulded or earthly man made out of clay viewed apart from the divine inbreathing is not the work of God Himself, but is the “moulded work of the Artificer” and therefore not to be counted as God’s offspring in the proper sense (Leg. 1.31: to_n de\ gh/ïnon pla/sma, a)ll’ ou0 ge/nnhma, ei]nai tou= texni/tou). The moulded man, put together of bits of clay and dust, should be identified with the lower mental powers which the foetus receives from its earthly parents. These powers encompass the power of holding together (ta_ … e3cei), the power of
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growth (ta_ de\ fu&sei), both of which (as we shall later see) the foetus has received from its mother and the power of receiving impressions and generating impulses, that is the animal yuxh/, which is received from the father. In De opificio mundi, the creation of the animal yuxh/ is as well assigned to the fifth day and ascribed to the Artificer (texni/thj): But nature, or growth, like an artificer [h9 d’ oi{a texni/thj], or (to speak more properly) like a consummate art, forms living creatures [zw|oplastei=], by distributing the moist substance to the limbs and different parts of the body, the substance of life-breath to the faculties of the soul, affording them nourishment and endowing them with perception [th\n de\ pneumatikh\n ei0j ta_j th=j yuxh=j duna&meij, th/n te qreptikh\n kai\ th\n ai0sqhtikh/n]. We must defer for the present the faculty of reasoning, out of consideration for those who maintain that it comes in from without, and is divine and eternal [th\n ga_r tou= logismou= tanu=n u(perqete/on, dia_ tou\j fa&skontaj qu&raqen au0to_n e0peisie/nai, qei=on kai\ a)i/dion o!nta]. (Opif. 67, emphasis added)
In his account of the work of the fifth day, Philo follows Aristotle almost verbatim in his theory of epigenesis as it is described in the treatise De generatione animalium.178 Philo also endorses Aristotle’s idea that, in the case of man, reason supervenes from the outside: It remains, then that Reason alone enters in, as an additional factor, from outside (qu&raqen), and that is alone divine, because physical activity has nothing whatever to do with the activity of Reason. (Gen. an. 736b25-29)
With regard to Philo, that which comes “qu&raqen” has a sender, namely God, who breathes His spirit into man. It is this formal faculty of reasoning (ta_ de\ logikh|= yuxh=|) that transforms man from “an inefficient and imperfectly formed [animal] soul” to a “living soul” truly “endowed with mind” (Leg. 1.32). God’s inbreathing of the moulded man concerns the ordinary process through which every man, as far as he is a reasoning man, comes into being. ii. The two men as rationality in the minimal and the maximal senses In order to account for both the continuity and difference between the two men, I will suggest the following explanation: on the sixth day, the man of the first generation receives the formal faculty of reasoning – that is, reasoning in the minimal sense (cf. Chapter Two), whereas the heavenly man has the whole truth – reason in the maximal sense – revealed to him through the second generation, which takes place on the seventh day. The second generation brings about a firm grasp of the truth which is the ultimate goal of the formal faculty of reasoning. 178 Philo’s use of Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.
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Philo’s two men thus represent the poles in the spectrum of man’s intellectual development. I shall substantiate this idea by three examples from Philo’s exegesis of the two men. First argument: Genesis 2:8 and 2:15 Philo uses the different wording of Gen 2:8 and 2:15 to spell out the difference between formal reasoning and the proper use of reason. According to Gen 2:8, God placed the man He (not the Artificer!) had formed (cf. Leg. 1.43: to_n a!nqrwpon o$n e1plase) in the pleasaunce that He planted in Eden. According to Gen 2:15, God took the man He had made (cf. Leg. 1.53: to_n a!nqrwpon o$n e0poi/hse) and placed him in the garden to till and guard it. Philo thus splits the two scenes and interprets them in terms of the two men (two mind-sets), to which he has just introduced the reader: “two men are introduced into the garden, the one a moulded being, the other after the image” (Leg. 1.53). While the latter is received in the garden, the first is cast out after having been introduced into it. Philo describes the difference between the two men in the following way: And He [God] confers on him whom He receives three gifts, which constitute natural ability [h9 eu0fui5a], facility in apprehending, persistence in doing, tenacity in keeping. … But the “moulded” mind neither keeps in mind nor carries out in action the things that are noble, but has facility in apprehending them and no more than this [mo/non de\ eu!qikto&j e0sti]. Accordingly after being placed in the garden he soon runs away and is cast out. (Leg. 1.55, emphasis added)
The text confirms the idea that the mind with which the moulded man is endowed only concerns the formal faculty of reasoning. He is gifted with “facility in apprehending”. The mind-set of the “heavenly man” represents the right use of this faculty; consequently, he has “persistence in doing, tenacity in keeping”. Second argument: Why was it the earthly man who was gifted with God’s breath? The same understanding is confirmed by Philo’s answer to the question of why “God deemed the earthly and body-loving mind (to_n ghgenh= kai\ filosw&maton nou=n) worthy of divine breath at all, but not the mind which had been created after the original, and after His own image”. According to Philo, this happened because “God loves to give, and so bestows good things on all, even those who are not perfect (o#ti filo&dwroj w@n o( qeo_j xari/zetai ta_ a)gaqa_ pa~si kai\ toi=j mh\ telei/oij)” (Leg. 1.34). God’s generosity in bestowing reasoning power on every human being is not affected by the fact that “the exercise of it be to
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some impossible”. As part of the answer to the same question, Philo discusses the divine intention behind the inbreathing. The purpose is to bring about the preconditions that enable every man to reach – or in Philo’s language to receive (la&bwmen) – an idea of God: “Breathed into,” we note, is equivalent to “inspired” or “be-souled” the soulless [to& ge mh\n “e0nefu&shsen” i1son e0sti\ tw~| e0ne/pneusen h@ e0yu&xwse ta_ a!yuxa]. … Yet the expression clearly brings out something that accords with nature. For it implies of necessity three things, that which inbreathes, that which receives, that which is inbreathed: that which inbreathes is God, that which receives is the mind, that which is inbreathed is to_ pneu=ma. What, then, do we infer from these premises? A union of the three comes about, as God projects the power that proceeds from Himself through the mediant breath till it reaches the subject. And for what purpose save that we may obtain a conception of Him? [e3nwsij gi/netai tw~n triw~n, tei/nantoj tou= qeou= th\n a)f’ e9autou= du&namin dia_ tou\ me/sou pneu&matoj a!xri-tou= [a!xri tou=]179 u(pokeime/nou180 – ti/noj e3neka h@ o#pwj e1nnoian au0tou= la&bwmen;]. For how could the soul have conceived of God, had He not breathed into it and mightily laid hold of it? (Leg. 1.36-37, emphasis added)
Philo’s answer demonstrates that even the moulded man of Gen 2:7 is provided with a reasoning faculty; consequently, the text puts an end to at least two of Platonizing interpretations of Philo’s moulded man. The moulded man cannot represent the irrational part of the soul (model ii.) or the body of flesh (model iii.). With regard to the identification of the moulded man with the Platonic particular exemplar of the heavenly idea, Runia had in his book Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (1986) demonstrated that this idea did not play any role in Philo’s interpretation of the Genesis traditions. Philo’s exegesis in this passage of Gen 2:7 explains his ambiguous relation to philosophy, especially Stoic philosophy. Leg. 1.37 reveals the logical basis for Philo’s critique of the Stoic idea of oi0kei/wsij and demonstrates how he turns the Stoic idea upside-down. As we saw in Chapter Two, in the process of oi0kei/wsij, the pneu=ma of the sage’s mind was stretched (eu0toni/a) to encompass the whole world. Throught this development, an appropriation (oi0kei/wsij) of the world to the sage self took place. Philo, however, reverts the direction of this movement. Through His inbreathing of mind into man, it is God who has stretched the power of His pneu=ma (tei/nantoj tou= qeou= th\n a)f’ e9autou= du&namin) and who through His pneu=ma encompasses the individual man or his mind. In this way, a unity between God, His pneu=ma and man’s mind is established. Consequently, whenever man recognizes the source of his mental power and discerns the truth, it is always the work of God. 179 LCL’s hyphen. 180 u(pokeime/noj is the Stoic term for the so-called carrier-field (LS 27 & 28).
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Philo’s wise man therefore ascribes everything to God as the gracious giver and first cause of all that has come into being, inclusive of man’s reasoning faculties (cf. Post. 123). Third argument: God’s breath and His spirit This interpretation of the two men is also confirmed by the distinction between “breath” and “spirit” that Philo makes in his exegetical comment on Gen 2:7LXX. Philo wonders why Moses says “breath” here instead of “spirit” (pnoh=j nu=n a)ll’ ou0xi\ pneu&matoj) when he has clearly demonstrated that he knows the word “spirit”, for instance in the cosmological statement in Gen 1:2, in which Moses says: “and the Spirit of God was borne above the water”. The reason is, Philo explains, that the term pneu=ma is reserved for the god-like mind of the heavenly man, whereas the “breath” is what the moulded man receives: He uses the word ‘breath’ not ‘spirit,’ implying a difference between them; for ‘spirit’ is conceived of as connoting strength and vigour and power [to_ de\ pneu=ma neno&htai kata_ th\n i0sxu\n kai\ eu0toni\an kai\ du&namin], while a ‘breath’ is like an air or a peaceful and gentle vapour. The mind that was made after the image and original might be said to partake of spirit [o( … nou=j pneu&matoj a@n le/goito kekoinwnhke/nai], for its reasoning faculty possesses robustness [r(w&mhn ga_r e1xei o( logismo_j au0tou=]; but the mind that was made out of matter [o( de\ e0k th=j u3lhj] must be said to partake of the light and less substantial air, as of some exhalation, such as those that rise from spices [a)rwma&twn]: for if they are kept and not burned for incense there is still a sweet perfume from them. (Leg. 1.42)
Philo’s comparison of “breath” and “spirit” tells us much about the two types of men’s character. Two explanations of the difference between the men are given, one physical and one ethical. From a physiological point of view, the difference between the two types of men concerns the quality or motional pattern of their pneu=ma. The heavenly man partakes of the divine spirit, the tonus or motional pattern of which is characterized by strength and vigour, being “kata_ th\n i0sxu\n kai\ eu0toni/an”. As we saw in Chapter Two in the text quoted from Galen’s De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 6.1-3, it was precisely these terms that were used to characterize the pneu=ma of the wise man who had the truth in a “strong” manner. Compared with this, the “breath” with which the moulded man is endowed is less tensed; it resembles air. From a cognitive or emotional point of view, the difference is epitomized by Philo’s punning. The reasoning faculty that partakes of the divine pneu=ma possesses robustness: r(w&mhn ga_r e1xei o( logismo_j au0tou=; the moulded mind by contrast, which partakes in the less substantial air, may be likened to the pleasing aroma from spices: a)rwma&twn. The first possesses strength: r(w&mh; the latter is – due to his orientation to-
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wards phenomena that please the senses of the body – lacking in it: a)rwma&-twn. The mind of the moulded man is deficient physically in pneumatic tension and ethically in his knowledge of the good, which, as we saw in Chapter Two, are two sides of the same coin.
3.2.2.2 The moulded man in Philo’s ethical discourse The analysis of Philo’s men from within the perspective of the Stoic powers (Leg. 2.21-24) leads us to Runia’s understanding of Philo’s two men in terms of ethical positions. Although I have identified three positions or powers, corresponding to the fifth, sixth and seventh day of creation, Philo only speaks of two men, the moulded man of the sixth day and the heavenly man of the seventh. This is probably due to the fact that only the work of the sixth and seventh day concerns “man” in the strict sense as a reasoning creature; the fifth day is devoted to the generation of animals – or to the animal soul in man. Furthermore, in Philo’s exegesis we see in the character of the moulded or earthly man a tendency to mix up the animal part of the fifth day and the man of formal reasoning of the sixth day. This is due to the fact that the man of formal reasoning is prone to falling or, as Philo calls it, to “undergo moulding”. He is an intermediate being: o( me/soj; he is not good as o( spoudai=oj, nor bad as o( fau=loj (Leg. 1.93). Often the moulded man is also designated the “not yet perfect man” (Leg. 1.34: o( mh/pw teleiwqei/j). On the one hand, he has been given the potential for intellectual and emotional development. At least in principle – or “as far as it rests with us” (QG 4.125) – he has the possibility for coming to terms with truth and becoming a god-like, heavenly man; thus, a continuity between the two exists. On the other hand, he is inclined to fall, which prevents him from reaching his destination. The neutral mind of the sixth day, o( me/soj, is framed by two possibilities: he may either choose the passionate service of the body-bound self, in which case his mind, “shall die the death” (Leg. 1.105f). When choosing the body, the mind sinks to the level of the animal yuxh/. The intermediate man undergoes “moulding” (Leg. 1.32) and becomes the earthly man. Or he may choose the service of the universal soul, God, in which case the different faculties of the soul all become mind, and “true life” is brought to the whole soul including the animal soul. The intermediate or neutral type of mind is therefore a border-line figure, a mixture (Her. 45: to_ de\ meqo&rion, mikto_n a)mfoi=n). This understanding of Philo’s two men accords with the double orientation that he gives the son of Masek, Abraham’s bondswoman as
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he provides him with a double name: Eliezer Damascus. The etymological meaning of the name Damascus is according to Philo “blood of a sackcloth robe”. The name is a symbol of the psychic blood-borne life that is oriented towards the body and pursues the pleasure of flesh.181 The second name Eliezer is interpreted “God is my helper” (Her. 58) and is the sole name of Moses’ second son (o( deu&teroj tw~n ui9w~n o(mwnumei= tou&tw|) (Her. 59). As such, the name alludes to Moses’ deute/ra ge/nesij. Nevertheless, the name is also given to the son of Masek. When applied to Damascus, the name Eliezer has a twofold meaning. First, even as Damascus the son of Masek is upheld by God’s powers: … for this mass of clay and blood, which is in itself dissoluble and dead, holds together and is quickened as into flame by the providence of God, who is its protecting arm and shield, since our race cannot of itself stand firmly established for a single day. (Her. 58)
As such the name Damascus refers to the powers of yuxh/. But of more importance is the fact that, as the Eliezer, the son of Masek is offered the help which God as the only saviour can give, namely “that he may be (re)generated in the soul (gennhqh=nai to_n )Elie/zer e0n yuxh|=)” (Her. 60). Throughout Philo’s writings, the interpretive framework of the two “men” is what Martha C. Nussbaum in her influential 1994 book has called the Therapy of Desire. Although it is the life of the heavenly man that, as o( te/leioj, represents the goal of this development, it is the mixed life of o( me/soj and the way he is moved on the axis of perfection that primarily concerns Philo. This is all the more so since this type represents ordinary human beings. In Philo’s world, Moses is the only truly perfect being. Consequently, different things take place on the Sabbath: “Now”, Philo claims, “wise men take God for their guide and teacher, but the less perfect take the wise man” (Her. 19).182 Just as a suitable therapy of the physical body must take the condition of the “patient” into consideration, so, too, it is with regard to the healing of the soul. On Mount Sinai, the wise man Moses received God’s lo&goj in a single dose and was here subjected to Philo’s second generation (QE 2.46). However, the dose that Moses tolerated would inevitably “kill” the man who has just recognized his sickness and begun the cure: “[T]herefore the Children of Israel say “Talk thou to us, and let not God talk to us lest we die” (Ex. xx.19)” (Her. 19). 181 According to Aristotle, the powers of the psychic soul – itself residing in the heart – act through the blood (Gen. an. 740a15-23). 182 Her. 19: sofoi\ me\n ou]n u(fhghth=| kai\ didaska&lw| xrw~ntai qew~|, oi9 d’ a)tele/steroi tw~| sofw~|.
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Before we turn towards the guidance that the wise man Moses offers to the not yet perfect mind, let us look at the corruption of the mind that prevents man from developing the divine powers with which he is endowed. Man’s failure to fulfil his destiny is due to his fatal interaction with the woman.
3.2.2.3 The female intermediary and the hierarchy of powers In the discussion of Philo’s exposition of the soul in Leg. 1.31-32, I identified two men (or rational positions) and an animal (irrational) one. Actually, Philo seems also to have a place for the woman in his hierarchy of psychological powers. In Legum allegoriae 1.31-32, Philo considers a part of the soul, which belongs to the work of the Artificer and his moulding of the animal yuxh/ on the fifth day, but which is, in contrast to the rest of the Artificer’s work, “not yet blended with body” (Leg. 1.31: nou=n ei0skrino&menon sw&mati, ou!pw d’ ei0skekrime/non). We are told that, if God had not breathed the power of reasoning and “real life” into the earth-like moulded man, this free surplus of the soul would also “undergo moulding (pla&ttetai)” and become corrupted. The question is now how we are to understand this intermediary part of the mind, which is suspended between the animal power of the fifth day, yuxh/, and the male power of reasoning of the sixth day. I suggest that this intermediate aspect of the soul in risk of moulding corresponds to the faculty or use of sense perception to which we are presented in Philo’s sophisticated exegesis of the creation of woman from Adam’s ribs (Gen 2:21: pleura&j) in Leg. 2.19-20. Philo’s use of the story of the fall of Adam through Eve as the basis for an allegorical exposition of his moral psychology inevitably genders his exposition of the soul and its faculties as well as the positions or steps on the soul’s way to perfection. The immediate context of the exegesis is Leg. 2.21-24, that is, the text presented in Chapter Two, in which Philo expounds man’s mind in terms of the Stoic hierarchy of psychic powers. Among these he identifies yet another power that he calls “active sense-perception (e0ne/geian ai0sqh/sewj)”. The deeper and allegorical meaning of the biblical message in Gen 2:21 then becomes: Out of Adam – that is, out of the powers that constitute the (male) mind – female sense perception was taken. Since Leg. 2.21-24 is here accentuated differently part of it will be quoted again: “Sides“ is a term in ordinary life for “strength” [pleura_j o( bi\oj o)noma&zei ta_j duna&meij]. … Having said this, we must go on to remark that the mind … has many powers [polla_j … duna&meij]. It has the power of holding to-
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gether, of growing, of conscious life, of thought, and countless other powers, varying both in species and genus. … Conscious life [yuxh/] is the power to grow, with the additional power of receiving impressions and being the subject of impulses [yuxh\ de\ e0sti fu&sij proseilhfui=a fantasi/an kai\ o(rmh/n]. This is shared also by creatures without reason. Indeed our mind contains a part that is analogous to the conscious life of a creature without reason. Once more, the power of thinking is peculiar to the mind [pa&lin h9 dianohtikh\ du&mamij i0di/a tou= nou= e0sti], and while shared, it may well be, by beings more akin to God, is, so far as mortal beings are concerned, peculiar to man. … Well, there is also another power or faculty in the soul, closely akin to these, namely that of receiving sense-impressions, and it is of this that the prophet is speaking. For his immediate concern is just this, to indicate the origin of active sense-perception [ou0de\n ga_r a!llo nu=n u(pogra&fei h@ ge/nesin th=j kat’ e0ne/geian ai0sqh/sewj]. (Leg. 2.21-24, emphasis added)
In non-human, non-reasoning animal beings, “receiving impressions (proseilhfui=a fantasi/an)” is an instinctive and passive affair that unambiguously belongs to the faculties of yuxh/. But as we saw in Chapter Two, in the Stoic discussion of the development of the human mind, the case is different with human beings. When reason supervenes, the primitive impression develops into sense perceptions, and the faculty of rational assent is introduced as an intermediate authority between the initial perception and the potential action. In the discussion of the emotions, we saw how this initial presentation of the situation to the mind was identified by the later Stoics with the first movement in the case of Posidonius and the pre-emotion in Seneca’s case. Human sense perception thus has an intermediary status between the male powers “more akin to God” of nou=j and the animal yuxh/. Therefore, as a gendered category, it fits the female. Where this intermediate faculty ultimately belongs depends on how the ruling male mind puts female sense perception into action. If it is used in service of the Universal Mind, sense perception is lifted to the status of male mind. But when it is used in the passionate pursuit of individual and body-bound pleasures, both mind and sense are dragged down and resolved into the inferior order of flesh (to_ sarko_j ge/noj), and thus rendered female. The intermediate status of sense perception and the sliding of the mind on the axis of powers and gender are perfectly demonstrated by the following quotation: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and the twain shall be one flesh” (Gen. ii.24). For the sake of sense-perception the Mind, when it has become her slave, abandons both God the Father of the universe, and God’s excellence and wisdom, the Mother of all things, and cleaves to and becomes one with sense-perception and is resolved into sense-perception so that the two become one flesh and one experience [i3na ge/nwntai mi/a sa_rc kai\ e4n pa&qoj oi9 du&o]. Observe that
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it is not the woman that cleaves to the man, but conversely the man to the woman, Mind to Sense-perception. For when that which is superior, namely Mind, becomes one with that which is inferior, namely Sense-perception, it resolves itself into the order of flesh which is inferior, into sense-perception, the moving cause of the passions. But if Sense the inferior follow Mind the superior, there will be flesh no more, but both of them will be Mind. (Leg. 2.49-50, emphasis added)
When the reasoning power is put into service of pleasure, man behaves like an animal, the actions of which are guided by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain alone. The role of sense perception and pleasure in man’s psychological development is further examined in Philo’s allegorical exposition of the scene between Eve and the serpent in Legum allegoriae. This scene will be discussed in the next section.
3.3 The shortcomings of philosophy 3.3.1 The femme fatale of sense and pleasure Apart from allegorical interpretation in terms of epistemology, Philo also has another agenda in his exegesis of the fall of man in Genesis 2 and 3. In fact, this may very well be the primary one. In his exegesis, Philo takes issue with pagan philosophy. However, the discussion does not have the form of a logical argument. Instead, the shortcomings of pagan philosophy are demonstrated by Philo’s play with well-established images and a punning on key-words from Greek philosophical discourse. It is generally recognized that Legum allegoriae abounds with allusions to Plato’s Phaedrus and the image of the soul as a chariot. The image is developed in an intriguing way that may be seen at first as a criticism of Plato’s Phaedrus and, then, of the Stoics’ reinterpretation of Medea, which may be read as a Stoic comment on the Phaedrus.183 In the Phaedrus, Plato discusses the epistemological value of passions. Here we find Socrates’ famous recantation (palinwdi/a) of the charm against the poets in the Republic (Book X 606E: e0pw|dh/) and Plato’s recommendation of their expulsion from the city. But, when bridled by reason, the passion of 1Erwj becomes the motivational power that leads Socrates to recommend young men (e0rw&menoj) to take a rational lover (e0rasth/j) rather than a dispassionate friend. In the Phaedrus, Plato illustrates his new position through the famous myth 183 My exposition is based on M. C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (1994), especially ch. 12: “Serpents in the Soul: A Reading of Seneca’s Medea”.
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and image of the soul’s journey in a chariot pulled by two horses towards heavenly knowledge. Persuaded by the young and promising Phaedrus, Socrates enters the poetic landscape outside the walls of the city for the very first time. When reason (as charioteer) holds the reins and controls the horsepower of the two irrational parts of the soul (emotions and appetites) the soul will ascend to heavenly and divine truth. Also Aristotle valued the emotional attachments within family and friendship as an important part of the flourishing life (eu0daimoni/a). Thus, to the Academics passions, when controlled by reason, were valuable helpers in the soul’s moral striving. The Stoics strongly opposed the Academic attitude towards the emotions, and they employed the tragedy of Medea as a paradigm of their own position. As we saw in Chapter Two, the Stoics claimed that all passions originated in a mistaken judgement according to which worldly phenomena were evaluated as personal goods and hence as worth pursuing and possessing. Different emotions were seen as expressions of the fatal relation to a desired object. Delight or pleasure prevailed when the object was possessed, grief when lost, jealousy when someone else had it, anger when it was unjustly denied etc. Whether the emotion took the form of fertile love or disastrous anger depended on fortune alone; the passionate person had based his eu0daimoni/a on mere chance. Consequently, the Stoics understood eu0daimoni/a as the state of mind in which the soul was able to choose and do the right thing unhindered by passionate beliefs and false values. Any passion – even love for a specific person – was seen as a threat to true happiness. In his reinterpretation of Euripides’ tragedy, Seneca led his Medea leave behind the disastrous result of her passionate love for Jason in a manner that ironically mimics Plato’s chariot. In a wagon pulled by two of the furious serpents that Medea has invoked in her anger, she is lifted towards heaven accompanied by Jason’s words: “Go aloft through the deep spaces of heaven and bear witness that where you travel there are no gods” (Seneca, Med. 433). The rule of passions has established a world of counter-order that challenges the divine order, the lo&goj of Nature. To the Academics, passions were, when controlled, horsepower for the soul. To the Stoics they were devilish poisons; accordingly, perfection of the soul presupposed their extirpation (a)pa&qeia). In Philo’s exposition of Genesis 2 and 3 in Legum allegoriae, the furious, snake-borne Medea of pagan philosophy is replaced by another woman’s interlude with a serpent, that of Eve. According to Philo’s allegorical interpretation of Gen 2:19, the helpers offered to the Adamic mind of the sixth day, with which every man qua man is endowed,
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were of two kinds: the wild beasts, which symbolize the passions, and the woman, who symbolizes sense perception (Leg. 2.9). Let us first look at the female helper, sense perception. Apart from being an intermediary in the hierarchy of psychic powers between the animal yuxh/ and the manly and more divine power of reasoning, Philo also describes sense perception as an intermediary through which mind and world communicate. Female sense perception (ai1sqhsij) is taken from the reasoning male mind (nou=j) and stretched towards the objects of the world. Like the craftsman, the male mind uses female sense perception as an instrument to elaborate the material presented to him (it) by the world. But since the creation of the world, including woman, is God’s good creation, sense perception must not be understood in any denigrating (Platonic) way. Philo sees the objects of sense as God’s “nourishment” of or “gentle and fertile raining” on the mind that enables it to bring forth sprouts and thoughts of true insights. Thus, at least in principle – “so far as it rests with us” – we may by contemplating nature come to terms with the existence of an intelligible and good creator. Apart from God’s direct intervention with outstandingly virtuous minds through an “involuntary principle” of prophecy, female sense perception is the medium through which the man (mind) and God communicate. In this “mating” of male reasoning and female sense perception, Philo alludes to an idea which he has developed elsewhere (e.g. in Somn. 1.187-88), namely that sense perception is the gate to the true heaven. The Stoic theory of tabula rasa reverberates between the lines; there is nothing in the mind which has not initially been in the senses: See then, how, like links in a chain, the powers of the living creature hold on to each other; for mind and ‘sense-perception’ and object of sense being three, ‘sense-perception’ is in the middle, while mind and object of sense occupy each extreme. But neither has the mind power to work, that is, to put forth its energies by way of ‘sense-perception,’ unless God send the object of sense as rain upon it; nor is any benefit derived from the object of sense, when so rained down, unless, like a spring, the mind, extending itself to reach the ‘sense-perception,’ stir it out of its repose to grasp the object presented to it. Thus the mind and the object of sense are always practising a reciprocity of giving, the one lying ready for sense-perception as its material (w(j a@n u3lh), the other, like a craftsman, moving sense-perception in the direction of the external object, to produce an impulse (o(rmh/) towards it. (Leg. 1.28-29)
So much for Adam’s female helper, sense perception. But the Adamic mind was also given beastly helpers, namely the passions. Among these the snake, representing bodily pleasure, “was the most subtle of
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all the beasts on the earth, which the Lord God had made” (Leg. 2.71).184 What makes pleasure such a sneaky phenomenon is that no living being can avoid experiencing it. Actually, according to Philo, man is even not meant to avoid it! Bodily pleasure was brought about by God as a suitable helper and guide in human life, first of all in procreation, since “[i]mpregnation and birth takes place through its agency” (Opif. 161). Philo here alludes to the prevailing theory of conception in antiquity according to which impregnation was understood as being impossible without the experience, on both parts, of orgasm and physical pleasure.185 As Philo states, “[a] created being cannot but make use of pleasure” (Leg. 2.17). What really matters is how the mind welcomes pleasure. Philo concludes his exegesis of Adam’s naming of the passionate wild beasts in a very Stoic way: “No wonder that God wishes to see and ascertain how the mind (nou=j) invites and welcomes each of these whether as good, or as indifferent, or as bad – but at all events as serviceable” (Leg. 2.17).186 Thus, bodily pleasure is a Stoic indifferent, although a very cunning and subtle one. According to Philo, it is in no way accidental that it is the female character of the narrative that is beguiled by the serpent, because “the woman is of a nature to be deceived rather than to reflect greatly” (QG 1.46). The allegorical meaning of the deceptive character of woman refers to the indifferent and automatic way in which the sight perceives phenomena presented to it: It “[c]lings to all that is born and perishes, stretching out its faculties like a hand to catch blindly at what comes its way” (Spec. 3.178). Unable itself to discriminate and, in addition, unable to attach itself to other phenomena than material externals, blind, female sense perception becomes the source of the fatal emotions. In Legum allegoriae, Philo introduces the Platonic chariot in order to describe the danger of sensual pleasure: Pleasure, then, has cheated poor maimed sense of the power of apprehending matters, in as much as, when it [sense] could have had recourse to mind and have secured it for its charioteer, it [pleasure] has prevented it, leading it to what can be perceived externally only, and by giving it a craving for that which produces pleasure, to the end that sense, being a maimed thing, may follow a blind guide, namely that which sense can perceive, and that the mind, led by this pair of blind guides, may be brought to the ground and robbed of self-control. (Leg. 3.109, emphasis added)
184 Leg. 2.71: o( de\ o!fij h]n fronimw&tatoj pa&ntwn tw~n qhri/wn tw~n e0pi\ th=j gh=j, w{n e0poi/hse ku&rioj o( qeo&j. 185 Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex. Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Chapter Two: “Destiny Is Anatomy” (1990, 25-62). 186 Leg. 2.17: ei1te w(j a)gaqa_ ei1te w(j a)dia&fora h1 w(j kaka_ me/n, xreiw&dh de\ a!llwj.
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The senses beguiled by pleasure “[do] not report the object to the mind such as it is, but artfully falsify it, representing as something advantageous that which is of no benefit at all” (Leg. 3.61). The mind that has subjected itself to female sense perception has mounted a chariot drawn by two blind horses, pleasure in conjunction with sense perception, and sets off for a dangerous ride. Instead of the ascent towards heavenly truth, the chariot of the soul comes crashing down towards the ground. As the chariot of Seneca’s Medea, which was drawn by the serpents of passionate love, took the Platonic philosopher of the Phaedrus to a godless void in the universe, Philo’s Adamic pleasurelover is also carried away from his proper destination by a serpentine invasion of his soul. But in Philo’s version, this is first of all a risk facing the Stoic philosopher, who cannot evade the use of sense.
3.3.2 The safer way to truth. The law as guide and antidote According to Philo, Moses offers the not yet perfect man a safe way to virtue: he should live in accordance with the law. In order to illustrate this claim, four examples from Philo’s allegorical exegesis will be provided here. i. Moses’ rod as an Asclepian tool The progressing soul that still suffers from bites of serpentine pleasure is by Moses offered a cure and remedy. Philo turns the brazen serpent that Moses lifted up on a pole in the desert (Num 21:6-9) into an Asclepian symbol of the antidote to Eve’s poisonous serpent, namely the self-control provided through obedience to the law. In accordance with the distinction between the sage’s guide and the guide for the not-yet perfect mind, there are two kinds of antidote, one is symbolized by a golden serpent, another by a brazen one (Leg. 2.80f). Whereas the perfect man, who has God as his teacher and guide, studies complete freedom from passion (Leg. 2.100, 102; 3.129, 131: a)pa&qeia), mere control (e0gkra&teia) or moderation of passions (Leg. 3.129, 132, 144: metriopa&qeia) – which is what Moses teaches in the law – suits the progressing mind: You observe how the perfect man always makes perfect freedom from passion his study [o(ra|j ~ pw~j o( te/leioj telei/an a)pa&qeian ai0ei\ meleta~]| . But Aaron, the man who is making gradual progress, holding a lower position, practises moderation, as I have said [a)ll’ o# ge proko&ptwn deute/roj w@n 0Aarw_n metriopa&qeian, w(j e1fhn, a)skei=]; for his power does not go so far as to enable him to cut out the breast and the high-spirited element but he
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brings to it, as charioteer and guide, reason with the virtues attached to it [fe/rei d’ e0p’ au0to_n to_n h9ni/oxon su\n tai=j prosfue/sin a)retai=j lo&gon], and this is the oracle on which is Clear-showing and Truth. (Leg. 3.131-132, emphasis added)
Those who have just begun recovering and, due to the temptations from the body-bound passions, are still weak should only follow the brazen remedy in order that the cure itself may not kill them (Her. 19). ii. The shovel in the belt – a tool of self-mastery For the mind in training, Moses’ “Sacred Words” in the law constitute an appropriate aid that may help the trainee to “curb and bridle the impetuous rush of the passion” (Leg. 3.156, emphasis added). The appetites of the body and the pleasures that they engender are symbolized by the land outside the desert camp.187 This is a dangerous place to stay for the soul in training; it ought only to be visited in case of urgency – and then only through observation of severe precautions; the reins must be kept tight. Yet, this happens automatically when the person observes Moses’ law and lives in accordance with the prescriptions for the regulation of appetites. The injunctions concerning food, drink and sex train the mind in self-control. In this way, a lull is provided for the progressing mind, which should be used for the training of its own reasoning power. This is the symbolic and paradigmatic message hidden in Moses’ injunction to man always to wear a shovel in his belt (Deut 23:13). The shovel is used by man to gird up his clothes when he “sits down abroad” and lowers himself because of bodily necessity. The allegorical meaning of this very handy advice is that when man, tied to a body as he is (Leg. 3.151), complies with bodily requirements and his mind “relaxing from the strain of its own objects, lowers itself to the passions and ‘sits down abroad’, giving itself up to be drawn by bodily necessity” (Leg. 2.28), he should take appropriate precautions against the passions and “gird up” – that is, curb his passions through the exercise of self-mastery. iii. Punning on pter-. Rhetoric and the way to truth The patriarch Jacob, whom Philo names “the supplanter of the passions (o( pternisth\j tw~n paqw~n)”, has taken notice of this advice. In language that reverberates with motifs from the Phaedrus, it is recommended that Jacob’s progressing soul compensate for its deficiency in reasoning power and have recourse to Moses’ powers. Jacob should 187 Like the area outside the city in the Phaedrus, the land outside the camp here symbolizes the dangerous area of passion.
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leave the reins in Moses’ hands. Jacob crosses the river Jordan, a symbol of the passions, by means of Moses’ pole or rod, which is a symbol of schooling founded upon the commandments of the law: Jacob, “Supplanter” that he is, acquiring virtue with great toil by wiles and artifices, his name having not yet been changed into “Israel” (Leg. 3.15). … So Jacob … the supplanter of passions [o( pternisth\j tw~n paqw~n], says, “For in my rod I crossed this Jordan” (Gen. xxxii.10). The meaning of Jordan is “descent” or “coming down.” And to the nature that is down below, earthly, corruptible, belongs all that is done under the impulse of vice and passion. Over these Mind, the disciplined One crosses in schooling himself. (Leg. 2.89) Jacob, therefore, the mind in training [o( a)skhth\j ou]n 0Iakw_b nou=j], when he sees passion grovelling low before him, awaits its onset calculating that he will master it by force, but when it is seen to be lofty, stately, weighty, the first to run away is the mind in training, followed by all his belongings, being portions of his discipline [a)skh/sewj], readings, ponderings, acts of worship [qerapei=ai], and of remembrance of noble souls, self-control [e0gkra&teia], discharge of daily duties [kaqhko&ntwn e0ne/rgeiai]; he crosses the river of objects of sense, that swamps and drowns the soul under the flood of the passions, and, when he has crossed it, sets his face towards the lofty high-land, the principle of perfect virtue. (Leg. 3.18)
When considering the many allusions in Legum allegoriae to the Phaedrus, it is difficult not to hear in the epithet with which the heelborne Jacob is characterized – supplanter and wrestler of passions (o( pternisth\j tw~n paqw~n) – an echo to, a punning on and an ironical commentary on the Phaedrus.188 Philo here appears to continue Plato’s punning in the Phaedrus. In his final speech in the Phaedrus, Socrates praised 1Erwj as the winged God with punning words borrowed from “the spurious poems of Homer”: “Mortals call him winged Love, but the immortals call him The Winged One, because he must needs grow wings (to_n d’ h!toi qnhtoi\ me\n 1Erwta kalou=si pothbo&n, a)qa&natoi de\ Pt-e/rwta, dia_ pterofu&tor’ a)nagkhn)” (Phaedr. 252C). Furthermore, when at the end of his speech on love Lysias asks the young Phaedrus whether he misses anything in Lysias’ rhetorically brilliant treatment of the subject, the final remark and (Plato’s) answer merge ironically. What has been missing in Lysias’ speech and rhetoric – as well as in Plato’s earlier work and treatises – is the motivational force of erotic madness, 1Erwj:189
188 See M. Nussbaum’s analysis of Plato’s Phaedrus in The Fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, especially ch. 7: “’This story isn’t true’: madness, reason, and recantation in the Phaedrus” (1986, 200-230). 189 The punning pattern reverberates on the syllable pter: Heal/vessel: pte/rnh; supplanter: o( pternisth/j; wings: Pt-e/rwta; love: !Erw&ta.
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“But if you feel any lack or think anything has been omitted [ei0 de\ ti su\ poqei=j, h9gou&menoj paralelei=fqai] then ask questions! [e0rw&ta]”. (Lysias in Phaedr. 234C)
But as we saw in Philo’s ironical staging of the Platonic chariot, the winged God of passion 1Erwj is not expected to lift up the soul towards heavenly truths. On the contrary, if the soul does not receive “help from God” and like Philo’s biblical Eliezer Damascus is “begotten in the soul”, it will be dragged down and “undergo moulding”. Instead, Jacob’s heel (pte/rnh), with which at birth he supplanted Esau, will crunch the serpent of passion (Leg. 3.188-191). Esau is yet another of Philo’s symbols of passionate living. iv. Obeying the law: Feeding on divine verities Whereas in the Phaedrus the soul had to ascend in order to “feed on eternal verities” (Phaedr. 246E; 247E), Moses has brought “heavenly food” down to the many souls in need. On Mount Sinai, where Moses “listened to the divine communications made by God as He declared His laws”, he was himself “fed by the contemplation of things divine” (Leg. 3.140). Subsequently, Moses has apportioned his knowledge in the law in accordance with the capacities of ordinary souls. Philo repeatedly emphasizes how important it is that the soul-food of knowledge is portioned according to the digestive power of the mind. This is the deeper, pedagogical meaning of God’s restrictions and rules concerning the gathering of manna: 190 That the food of the soul is not earthly but heavenly, we shall find abundant evidence in the Sacred Word. “Behold I rain upon you bread out of heaven, and the people shall go out and they shall gather the day’s portion for a day, that I may prove them whether they will walk by My law or not” (Exod. xvi. 4). You see that the soul is fed not with things of earth that decay, but with such words as God shall have poured like rain out of the lofty and pure region of life to which the prophet has given the title of “heaven.” To proceed. The people, and all that goes to make the soul, is to go out and gather and make a beginning of knowledge, not all at once but “the day’s portion for a day.” For to begin with it will be unable to contain all at once the abundant wealth of the gracious gifts of God, but will be overwhelmed by them as by the rush of a torrent … (Leg. 3.162-163)
According to Philo, the predominant tendencies in philosophy, Platonism and Stoicism, provide no help to the beginner and the progressing soul in its pursuit of a virtuous life: “’because they did not meet us with 190 In Philo’s treatises, the source of the motif of heavenly food is easily recognized, but it is not so easily discerned in the Fourth Gospel, in which the origin of the motif in the myth of Plato’s Phaedrus is less obvious. Whereas Philo’s primary target was Plato, the primary target in John is philosophical Judaism as represented by Philo.
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bread and water’ (Deut. xxiii. 3 f.) when we came out from the passions of Egypt” (Leg. 3.81). Regarding Stoicism, we have already seen the problems that a philosophy which has sense perception as its startingpoint inevitably occasions. Concerning Platonism, Philo uses Plato’s own words to describe awaiting the beginner. Although the mind may, at least in principle, come to terms with the Maker and Father of the All, it is after all only a possibility for the few. Add to this that if someone should reach the truth, it cannot be communicated to ordinary men: “Now to discover the Maker and Father of this universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible” (Tim. 28C). In the text quoted below, the Stoics seem to be represented by the Ammonites, who have sense perception as their mother, and the Platonists by the Moabites, who see the mind as their (eternal) father. Both groups refused to offer any help, any bread or water, to the soul coming out of Egypt – that is, the soul struggling to leave the passions behind: Melchizedek, too, has God made both king of peace, for that is the meaning of “Salem,” and His own priest (Gen. xiv. 18) … For he is entitled “the righteous king,” and a “king” is a thing at enmity with a despot [basileu\j de\ e0xqro_n tura&nnw|], the one being the author of laws, the other of lawlessness … for he brings bread and wine, things which Ammonites and Moabites refused to supply to the seeing one, on which account they are excluded from the divine congregation and assembly. These characters, Ammonites deriving their nature from sense-perception their mother and Moabites deriving theirs from mind their father [ 0Ammani=tai ga_r oi9 e0k th=j mhtro_j ai0sqh/sewj kai\ Mwabi=tai oi9 e0k tou= patro_j nou= fu&ntej tro&poi], who hold that all things owe their coherence to these two things, mind and sense-perception [du&o tau=ta tw~n o!ntwn sunektika_ nomi/zontej nou=n kai\ ai0sqhsi/n], and take no thought of God [qeou= de\ mh\ lamba&nontej e1nnoian], “shall not enter,“ saith Moses, “into the congregation of the Lord [“ou0k ei0seleu&sontai” fhsi\ Mwu"sh=j “ei0j e0kklhsi/an kuri/ou], because they did not meet us with bread and water” (Deut. xxiii. 3 f.) when we came out from the passions of Egypt [e0ciou=sin e0k tw~n paqw~n Ai0gu&ptou]. (Leg. 3.79-81)
Boiled down to its essence, the problem of the prevailing philosophies is that they do not have a law like that of Moses. The law offers the wrestling souls more than plain “bread and water”. Through his law, Moses invites the Israelites to “breakfast” – that is, with bread dipped in undiluted wine – on “eternal verities”: But let Melchizedek instead of water offer wine [a)ll’ o( me\n Melxisede\k a)nti\ u3datoj oi]non prosfere/tw], and give to souls strong drink [kai\ potize/tw kai\ a)kratize/tw yuxa&j: let him offer bread dipped in pure wine], that they may be seized by a divine intoxication, more sober than sobriety itself [i3na kata&sxetoi ge/nwntai qei/a| me/qh| nhfalewte/ra| nh/yewj au0th=j]. For he is a
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priest, even Reason, having as his portion Him that Is [i9ereu\j ga&r e0sti lo&goj klh=ron e1xwn to_n o!nta] and all his thoughts of God are high and vast and sublime [kai\ u(yhlw~j peri\ au0tou= kai\ u(pero&gkwj kai\ megaloprepw~j logizo&menoj]; for he is priest of the Most High [tou= ga_r u(yi/stou e0sti\n i9ereu&j] (Gen. xiv. 18).191 (Leg. 3.82)
In contrast to those who serve sense and mind, Melchizedek – i.e. Moses – serves as a priest of the Most High, the only God, He that Is. Due to his oneness of mind – as opposed to the mixed character of ordinary human beings’ minds – Moses’ soul is characterized by peace. But through the regime of the law, this peaceful mind-set is transposed to his subjects. Although these subjects do not themselves possess right reason, through Moses they indirectly have the right principle as pilot for their lives, and their bodily vessels journey successfully through life. The food that the subjects of this reign are offered is full of “joy and gladness” (Leg. 3.81) and, by means of the bread that Moses offers, they sip the strong wine of wisdom, too. This, according to Philo is the safer way. But the king in the first place resorts to persuasion rather than decrees [o( de\ basileu\j prw~ton me\n ou0k e0pita&ttei ma~llon h@ pei/qei], and in the next place issues directions [e1peita toiau=ta paragge/llei] such as to enable a vessel, the living being I mean, to make life’s voyage successfully [di’ w{n w{sper ska&foj to_ zw~|on eu0ploi/a| th=| tou= bi/ou xrh/setai], piloted by the good pilot, who is right principle [kubernw&menon u(po_ tou= a)gaqou= kubernh/tou, ou[toj de/ e0stin o( o)rqo_j lo&goj]. (Leg. 3.80)
In summary: the safest way that Philo can recommend for the beginner in virtue is to consult Moses as an oracle and use his writings, the Jewish Scriptures, as a guide. Consequently, in Quis rerum divinarum heres Philo rejoices in the good news that the crucial step to wisdom, namely that from “the world to its Maker and Father”, can now be inherited. Through Moses’ testament – that is, Scripture – the last step towards truth has become safe and certain (bebaiou=tai). The new good is that the wisdom which cannot be received by sense, but which can only be grasped by the pure and unmixed/alloyed mind is now to be inherited [to_ de\ ne/on a)gaqo_n klhronomh=sai sofi/an th\n a!dekton me\n ai0sqh/sei, nw~| d’ ei0likrinesta&tw| katalambanome/nhn]. As a consequence of this, the best of the migrations, namely that which belongs the migration of the soul [di’ h[j a)poikiwn h9 a)ri/sth … metanistame/nhj th=j yuxh=j] from astronomy to knowledge of physics [a)po_ a)stronomi/aj e0pi\ fusiologi/an] from insecure conjectures to solid knowledge [a)po_ a)bebai/ou ei0kasi/aj e0pi\ pa/gion kata&lhyin] 191 See LSJ: a!kratoj: 1. of liquids, unmixed, neat … pure wine; a)krati/zomai: drink neat wine; hence, breakfast, because this consisted of bread dipped in wine.
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or to say it in a more precise way [kai\ kuri/wj ei0pei=n] from the created to the uncreated [a)po_ tou= gegono&toj pro_j to_ a)ge/nhton] from the world to its Maker and Father [a)po_ tou= ko&smou pro_j to_n poihth\n kai\ pate/ra au0tou=] becomes firm [bebaiou=tai]. (Her. 98, my translation and layout)
Philo’s joy must be read as his comment on the Tim. 28C, according to which the difficulties of communicating “the Maker and Father of the All” surpassed even the task of discovering him. The followers of Moses are guided safely to the gate of heaven and the highest form of knowledge, namely the true fusiologi/a, which concerns “the goodness and grace” of the First Cause or the Maker and Father of the All (cf. Noah’s find in Leg. 3.78). From the oracles in Scripture we may learn how the faculties of our minds are gifts from Him who is the Maker and Father of the All. Those who acknowledge this gift no longer “lay up as treasure for themselves”, but dedicate in gratitude the gifts of “thinking, purposing, apprehending … to Him Who Is the source of accurate thinking and unerring apprehension” (Her. 74).
3.4 Moses’ law and Stoic philosophy 3.4.1 The law’s guidance of the not-yet perfect man Let us have a look at the kind of guidance that the law – which is a testament, as well as being a stand-in for the wise man Moses – offers to the mind that is not yet made perfect (mh\ telei/oj; mh/pw teleiwqei/j). Philo’s exegetical inquiry into the character of the moulded mind provoked the question of why “God deemed the earthly and body-loving mind (to&n ghgenh= kai\ filosw&maton nou=n) worthy of divine breath at all, but not the mind which had been created after the original, and after His own image?” (Leg. 1.31-41). It happened, Philo answers, because “God loves to give, and so bestows good things on all, even those who are not perfect (o#ti filo&dwroj w@n o( qeo_j xari/zetai ta_ a)gaqa_ pa~si kai\ toi=j mh\ telei/oij)” (Leg. 1.34). No, human soul is created barren of virtue, even “if the exercise of it be to some impossible”. However, through Moses God has provided suitable means for its exercise.
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3.4.1.1 Gardening as exhortation The situation of the not yet perfect mind is developed in Philo’s allegorical interpretation of the biblical motif, already touched on, of the garden which God planted in Eden, and into which He introduced the man He had made (Gen 2:15). God’s planting of a pleasaunce must, Philo claims be understood allegorically; God is in no need of an orchard, neither for food nor for pleasure. Instead, the garden symbolizes the mind of man, and the plants of Eden are symbols of the different virtues available to man. It is with “deliberate care”, Philo emphasizes, “that the lawgiver says, not of the man made after God’s image, but of the man fashioned out of earth, that he was introduced into the garden (a)lla_ to_n peplasme/non ei0saxqh=nai/ fhsin ei0j to_n para&deison)”, because … the intention of the inspired Word is that we too who are not yet perfected, but are still classified as in the preliminary and undeveloped stages of what are called natural duties, should make husbandry our serious business [bou&letai de\ o( i9ero_j lo&goj kai\ toi=j mh/pw teleiwqei=sin h9mi=n, e1ti de/ e0n me/soij a)riqmoi=j tw~n legome/nwn kaqhko&ntwn e0cetazome/noij, diaponhqh=nai ta_ gewrgika&]. (Plant. 94)
It is the middle or neutral mind (o( me/soj), neither truly good, nor really bad (Leg. 1.93), that is placed in the garden in order to till and guard it (Leg. 1.53). But in case this mind does not exercise good husbandry, it immediately receives, as a symbol of its “moulding”, the name of “earth” – that is, Adam – and is cast out (Leg. 1.55). In his various treatises on husbandry, in Legum allegoriae, in De agricultura, and in De plantatione, it is the situation of the not yet perfect man that is on Philo’s mind. According to Philo, the command of Gen 2:16f: “From every tree that is in the garden thou shalt feedingly eat (brw&sei fa&gh|), but of the tree of knowing good and evil ye shall not eat of it: and in the day that ye eat of it ye shall surely die” (Leg. 1.90) is given explicitly to the mind not yet made perfect (Leg. 1.92). Whereas the fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil is reserved for the sage, the prohibition is meant as a protection of the not yet perfect mind from demands that it is incapable of meeting, cf. the statement in Her. 19: “Now wise men take God for their guide and teacher, but the less perfect take the wise man; and therefore the Children of Israel say ‘Talk thou to us, and let not God talk to us lest we die’ (Ex. xx.19)”.192 Philo makes the command of Gen 2:16f a kind of paradigm of the paraenesis by means of which God 192 Philo’s exegesis of 2:16 may be seen as an apology of an otherwise idiosyncratic prohibition: Why should God prohibit man form eating of the tree of knowledge?
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moves man and his soul towards perfection (Leg. 1.97: 4A de\ parainei=, tau=ta e0stin:).193 The command urges man “to eat not from a single tree or from a single virtue but from all the virtues; for eating is a figure of soul-nourishment (to_ ga_r fagei=n su&mbolo&n e0sti trofh=j yuxikh=j)” (Leg. 1.97). The plants of Eden – “the trees fair to behold and good for food as well as the tree of life in the midst of the garden” – represent the different kinds of admonition from which a soul may benefit in its psychological development. The plants are, Philo explains, “the several particular virtues, and the corresponding activities, and the complete moral victories, and what the philosophers call common duties (kai\ ta_ lego&mena para_ toi=j filosofou=si kaqh/konta)” (Leg. 1.56).194 Philo himself draws attention to the fact that he here employs the technical vocabulary of contemporary philosophy, which we may identify as the Stoic discourse on paraenesis. Whether Philo also uses the words with the distinct Stoic connotations is discussed by Troels Engberg-Pedersen in the essay “Paraenesis Terminology in Philo” (2003). Engberg-Pedersen concludes that the LCL-translation does not always meet the technical accuracy with which Philo actually uses the terms. The key-text for EngbergPedersen’s analysis is Leg. 1.92-94; a text which I also feature as an example of the way that the obedience to the law moves the soul towards perfection.195 Although Philo emphasizes that the paradigmatic command of Gen 2:16f is given specifically to the neutral mind of moulded man (o( me/soj), the text of Leg 1.92-94 demonstrates how every mind-set, apart from the perfect mind (o( te/leioj), may in different ways benefit from that of the commandments of Scripture.
3.4.1.2 Philonic exhortation. The law as guide and helper In Legum allegoriae 1.92-94, Philo outlines a psychological hierarchy and depicts how different types of mind-sets may benefit from the commandments of the law: Now it is to this being, and not to the being created after His image and after the original idea, that God gives the command [e0nte/lletai ~ decrees or 193 Leg. 1.97: 4A de\ parainei=, tau=ta e0stin: “a)po_ panto_j cu&lou tou= e0n tw|~ paradei/sw| brw&sei fa&gh|” (Gen. ii.16). protre/pei th\n tou= a)nqrw&pou yuxh\ … 194 Leg. 1.56: e1sti de\ tau=ta ai3 te kata_ me/roj a)retai\ kai\ ai9 kat’ au0ta_j e0ne/rgeiai, kai\ ta_ katorqw&mata, kai\ ta_ lego&mena para_ toi=j filosofou=si kaqh/konta. 195 My analysis is indebted to Engberg-Pedersen’s 2002 article. I basically agree with his analysis and conclusion, although my understanding of o( spoudai=ouj and o( te/leioj as representing two different steps on Philo’s ladder of psychological development differs from Engberg-Pedersen’s.
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ordains196]. For the latter, even without urging, possesses virtue instinctively [e0kei=noj me\n ga_r kai\ di/xa protroph=j e1xei th\n a)reth\n au0tomaqw~j]; but the former [the moulded mind], independently of instruction, could have no part in wisdom [ou[toj d’ a!neu didaskali/aj ou]k a@n fronh/sewj e0pila&xoi]. There is a difference between these three – injunction [pro&stacij], prohibition [a)pago&reusij], command accompanied by exhortation [e0ntolh\ kai\ parai/nesij~ counselling and guidance197]. For prohibition deals with wrongdoings and is addressed to the bad man, injunction concerns duties rightly done [h9 de\ pro&stacij
katorqwma&twn], and exhortation is addressed to the neutral man, the man who is neither bad nor good [h9 de\ parai/nesij pro_j to_n me/son to_n mh/te fau=lon mh/te spoudai=on]: for he is neither sinning, to lead anyone to forbid him, nor is he so doing right as right reason enjoins [ou!te katorqoi= kata_ th\n tou= o)rqou= lo&gou pro&stacin], but has need of exhortation [counselling and guidance198], which teaches him to refrain from evil things [a)lla xrei/an e1xei paraine/sewj th=j a)pe/xein me\n tw~n fau/lwn didaskou/shj], and incites him to aim at things noble [protrepou&shj de\ e0fi/esqai tw~n a)stei/wn]. There is no need then, to give injunctions or prohibitions or exhortations [counselling] to the perfect man formed after the (Divine) image [tw|~ me\n ou]n telei/w| kat’ ei0ko&na prosta&ttein h@ a)pagoreu&ein h@ parainei=n ou0xi\ dei=], for none of these does the perfect man require. The bad man has need of injunction and prohibition [tw|~ de\ fau&lw| prosta&cewj kai\ a)pagoreu&sewj], and the child of exhortation and teaching [tw|~ de\ nhpi/w| paraine/sewj kai\ a)pagoreu&sewj xrei/a]. Just so the master of music or letters requires none of the directions [para&ggelma] that apply to those arts, whereas the man who stumbles over the subject of his study [tw|~ sfallome/nw| peri\ ta_ qewrh/mata] does require what we may call laws or rules with their injunctions and prohibitions [w(sanei/ tinwn no&mwn prosta/xeij kai\ a)pagoreu&seij e0xo&ntwn], while one who is now beginning to learn [o( a!rti manqa&nwn] requires teaching [didaskali/a]. (Leg. 1.92-94, emphasis added)
Let us inquire into the different psychological dispositions that are described in Philo’s text in order, first, to discern the motivation that characterizes the actual step, and second, to find out how the commandments of the law function in relation to the different stages. As repeatedly noticed, any action was, from Socrates and on, seen as initiated and motivated by a selfish pursuit of the good. What differed was – according to the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij – the ideas about the self that was to benefit from the action; the concept of the good was secondary and adjusted to the notions of the self. Let us therefore try to identify how the conceptions of the good, the law and the self interact in the different psychological dispositions. First, we have the bad man (o( fau=loj). He is not bad in the sense that 196 My translation. 197 My translation. 198 My translation.
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he does not obey the law’s injunctions and prohibitions; this he does. His badness resides in the motive that he has for observing the commands; he obeys because this is the best thing for him to do. Thus, his concept of the good is in no way related to the content of the law, but concerns his personal benefits alone. To the bad man, the law functions as law only. The bad man constitutes the first main category in the psychological development described here. On the borderline between the bad and the intermediary or neutral man, we find the mind that stumbles in the study of theoretical principles concerning the good (tw|~ sfallome/nw~| peri\ ta_ qewrh/mata), and has to give up. To him the commandment of the law acts as a tutor or castigator that protects him from going astray and being overturned like a vessel without ballast and pilot (Det. 144f). The man who is willing to learn differs from the bad one in that he is motivated to do honourable things for their own sake, and he takes the decrees of the law as valuable guidelines in order to achieve this goal. Philo often puns on the intermediary man (Leg. 1.93: o( me/soj), his classification as belonging to the intermediary classes in his pursuit of virtue (Plant. 94: e0n me/soij a)riqmoi=j) and the indifferents of natural duties that characterize his actions (Plant. 100: ta_ me/sa tw~n kaqhko&ntwn). The punning outlines an intimate relation between the three concepts. In De plantatione 100, Philo resumes the theme of gardening from Legum allegoriae: the plants of “natural duties (ta_ me/sa tw~n kaqhko&ntwn)” are especially suited to the husbandry of beginners. Scripture invites the intermediary mind-set to make husbandry of these duties his serious business and continually to prune his soul for harmful growths: Natural duties which are indifferent seem to me to correspond to garden or orchard trees [ta_ me/sa tw~n kaqhko&ntwn h9me/rwn futw~n e1xein moi dokei= lo&gon]: for in each case most wholesome fruits are borne, for bodies in one case, for souls in the other. But may harmful shoots that spring together with the trees of the preliminary stage and many harmful growths that come on them have to be cut away, to save the better parts from being injured. (Plant. 100)
The intermediary mind may benefit from the commandments of the law in two ways: as an incitement to an honourable act, but also as a source of psychological development through the inquiry into the motives behind the decree. The examination may, first, convince the intermediary mind that the advice of the law is good, and that he should therefore follow it. Second, the inquiry may gradually lead him to a higher and more abstract concept of the good and of the self. When in this way the commandment of the law leads to a development of the
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individual soul, the mind complies with the invitation to “eat feedingly” (brw&sei fa&gh|) from the plants of Eden. To this man, the law functions as a guide and teacher. The law functions as stand-in for the wise man, whom “the less perfect” is recommended as his guide (Her. 19). The intermediate man constitutes the second main category of man’s development.199 Philo’s concept of the eager and excellent man (o( spoudai=oj) is difficult to understand. It is the terminology, with which this person’s use of the law is characterized in Leg. 1.92-94, that gives rise to problems: o( spoudai=oj is “doing right as right reason enjoins (katorqoi= kata_ th\n tou= o)rqou= lo&gou pro&stacin)”. He has right reason, indeed; therefore the “injunction” is defined as “duties rightly done (h9 de\ pro&stacij peri\ katorqwma&twn)”. However, if we presume that Philo’s wording accords with Stoic terminology, we may wonder how the so-called “complete moral victories” (katorqwma&ta), which by definition presupposes an intellectual grasp of the right principle, can also be the result of an injunction? Of course, if one assumes that Philo’s terminology is arbitrary and idiosyncratic, the problem is removed a priori. But since, in precisely this part of Legum allegoriae, Philo demonstrates his acquaintance with the Stoic vocabulary of parai/nesij and oi0kei/wsij, it seems reasonable to speculate concerning this apparent clash of meaning. One solution may be that in his ideas about o( spoudai=oj and o( telei=oj, respectively, Philo operates with some fine nuances which were acknowledged in contemporary moral philosophy. It was generally recognized that the mind which had just come to terms with the truth might still be in need of some help in order to implement his newly gained theoretical insight in concrete situations. In this way, the pieces of advice, from which the intermediate man would benefit in his strivings towards honourable deeds, may also serve the man who has grasped the right principle. To the good, but still inexperienced man, the law functions as a pool of collective experience from which also he may benefit. When Philo seems to claim that in the mind of o( spoudai=oj an element of injunction and of urging remains, it is in accordance with Stoic theory. This position is here contrasted with that of o( te/leioj, who does the right thing instinctively and possesses virtue automatically (e1xei th\n a)reth\n au0tomaqw~j). Only he has no need of the law. Philo reserves this position for his lawgiver, the only truly wise man, Moses – of course; the lawgiver has no need of the law. The eager 199 An excellent demonstration of how the command may teach the soul and develop its concept of the good is found in Philo’s exposition of the injunction to honour one’s parents in Leg. 1.99. See also Engberg-Pedersen, “Paraenesis Terminology in Philo” (2002).
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and excellent man constitutes the third main category. In the text, it is possible to discern an idea of a process of ethical or emotional or motivational progression where the commands of the law serve different purposes:200 Emotional and motivational progression in Legum allegoriae 1.92-94 1. The child ............... benefits from ......... counselling & guidance concerning o( nh&pioj the right thing to do (parai/nesij), but requires also .... prohibitions (a)pago&reusij) ______________________________________________________________________ 2. The bad man ......... requires ................. injunctions and prohibitions o( fau=loj
(pro&stacij kai\ a)pago&reusij). He would sin if nobody were to forbid him.
Moral and
The good he pursues is that
emotional attitude: which benefits and pleases himself. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Stumbling man ...... benefits not from ... the contemplation of the right o( sfallo&menoj thing to do: qewrh&mata, but requires help ... from rules/laws with injunction and prohibition (ti/nwn no&mwn prosta/ceij kai\ a)pagoreu&seij). ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4. Intermediary man .. requires ................. the command and o( me/soj or benefits from ......... the counselling and guidance earthly man
(e0ntolh_ kai\ parai/nesij),
200 For the continuous need of exhortation, even when the concept of the good is grasped, see the discussion in Engberg-Pedersen’s Paul and the Stoics (2000, 72). See also his treatment of Cicero, Fin. 3.16-21 in “Discovering the Good: oikeiôsis and kathêkonta in Stoic Ethics”: “… then although kathêkonta will still, as Cicero has it, play a rôle in the deliberation of the un-wise man (who has not yet reached insight into the why – Cicero’s final stage), they will also play a rôle in the deliberation of the person who has reached Cicero’s final stage, viz. in his progressive deliberative clarification of what, in detail, the end and the good consists in. This person, too, will build on kathêkonta when making the final and complete discovery of the good” (1986, 182f, emphasis added).
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teaching the evil that should be avoided (th=j a)pe/xein me\n tw~n fau/lwn didaskou/shj), and incites to aim at honourable things (protrepou&shj de\ e0fi/esqai
He is identical with him who has already
tw~n a)stei/wn).
begun to learn and requires …………... teaching and directions/guidelines o( a!rti manqa&nwn (didaskali/a and para&ggelma). Moral and emotional attitude:
The good to be pursued is honourable law deeds.
______________________________________________________________________ 5. The eager man ...... receives ................. his guidance from the injunctions o( spoudai=oj
which his mind – having grasped the truth – ordains for him (h9 de\ pro&stacij peri\ katorqwma&twn katorqoi= kata_ th_n tou= o)rqou= lo&gou pro&stacin).
Moral and emotional attitude:
The good to be pursued is that which is in accordance with
the right principle (o)rqo_j lo&goj). …………………………………………………………………………………………… 6. The perfect man .... requires ................. none of these, o( te/leioj after the (divine) image
neither injunctions nor prohibitions nor exhortations,
kat’ ei0ko&na
(prosta&ttein h@ a)pagoreu&ein h@ parainei=n ou)xi\ dei=). Without incitement, he has virtue automatically (di/xa protroph=j e1xei th_n a)reth_n au)tomaqw~j).
He is like the master who ..... requires no ............ directions concerning his art (para&ggelma).
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Moral and emotional attitude:
The good to be pursued is that which expresses gratitude towards God.
To summarize: on the one hand, the psychological and emotional development that Philo sketches in Leg. 1.92-94 matches the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij, as I have presented it in the previous chapter. Step by step, from (o( fau=loj via) o( me/soj to o( spoudai=oj, the concept of the good is developed from an orientation towards the body-bound self to an idea that concerns the Whole. On the other hand, Philo also appears to displace the pursued goal of Stoic philosophy to a second place. In Philo’s discussion of Noah’s surprising finding – quoted at the beginning of this chapter (Leg. 3.78) – a polemical note was heard that was directed against the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij. Philo’s goal is not that man should consider everything as belonging to his sphere of interests, or that he should conceive of the world as his own house, or that he should identify the whole with his own self (Post. 123); instead the goal was to come to terms with the fact–which is the surprising finding of Noah–that everything “is His very own (oi0kei=on)”, and that everything which we may consider as belonging to us is always received from God and consequently belongs to Him. The theology of the divine gift is superimposed on the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij. Thus, to the man who has found the right answer to his quest for the true nature of things, only God is truly good. Consequently, the only good thing to be pursued is thankfulness as the appropriate act that acknowledges God’s gift. According to Philo, this insight makes man do right things automatically.
3.5 Evaluation of Philo’s rhetorical strategy 3.5.1 The turn towards pragmatism So, how are we to evaluate Philo’s recommendation of a life in accordance with the Moses’ law as the safer and more direct road to virtue? First, Philo’s quest for a compassionate and responsive philosophy that complied with the situation of the individual person was a general concern of contemporary philosophy. Actually, this is the key point in Martha Nussbaum’s study The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (1994). Nussbaum emphasizes the attention that the three major schools of Hellenistic philosophy – the Epicureans, the
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Sceptics and the Stoics – paid to the pragmatic dimension of philosophy. The Epicurean definition of philosophy: “Philosophy is an activity that secures the flourishing life by arguments and reasonings” was generally accepted (Sextus Empiricus, Math. 11.169; Nussbaum 1994, 15). An involvement with philosophy that did not see human life as the specific matter of philosophy and living well as its ultimate goal was regarded as empty and vain. An argument might be perfect from a syllogistic point of view, yet it would fail if it was not able to move its audience. Nussbaum draws attention to Cicero’s censure of the Stoics for failing precisely in that respect:201 Cleanthes it is true wrote a treatise on rhetoric, and Chrysippus wrote one too, but what are they like? … they furnish a complete manual for anyone whose ambition is to hold his tongue; … ‘But,’ you will say, ‘think how vast are the themes that they essay! for example, that this entire universe is our own town.’ You see the magnitude of a Stoic task, to convince an inhabitant of Circeii that the whole vast world is his own borough! ‘If so, he must rouse his audience to enthusiasm.’ What? A Stoic rouse enthusiasm? He is much more likely to extinguish any enthusiasm the student may have had to begin with … but how bald are those very maxims, on the lips of the Stoics, when they talk about the potency of virtue, – virtue which they rate so highly that it can of itself, they say, confer happiness! Their meagre little syllogisms are mere pin-pricks; they may convince the intellect, but they cannot convert the heart, and the hearer goes away no better than he came. What they say is possibly true, and certainly important; but the way in which they say it is wrong; it is far too petty. (Cicero, Fin. 4.7, translation LCL)
We may thus conclude that Philo’s criticism of philosophy was on a par with philosophy’s criticism of itself. Next, Nussbaum also demonstrates how the analogy with physical science and medicine characterized Hellenistic ethics.202 In the same way that a medical cure for a sick body had to take the patient’s situation into consideration, philosophy – as the medical art of the diseased and disordered soul – should be responsive to the individual case, too. Galen, himself a medical doctor, cites and agrees with the Old Stoa and Chrysippus’ description of philosophy: It is not true that there exists an art called medicine, concerned with the diseased body, but no corresponding art concerned with the diseased soul. Nor is it true that the latter is inferior to the former, in its theoretical grasp and therapeutic treatment of individual cases” (Galen PHP V.2; SVF III.471).203 201 The quotation should be read with Cicero’s own admiration of Stoic philosophy in mind. See Chapter Two, Fin. 3.74. 202 See also see Philo Contempl. 2 quoted in the beginning of this chapter, note 173. 203 The translation of Galen’s text is Nussbaum’s (1994, 13).
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Philo’s description of the law as an antidote (Leg. 3.129: fa&rmakon) against pleasure also fits into the contemporary discourse on ethics.204
3.5.2 The discourse on intermediaries When Philo features a discussion of intermediaries – as happens in his punning on the intermediary man (Leg. 1.93: o( me/soj), his classification as belonging to the intermediate classes (Plant. 94: e0n me/soij a)riqmoi=j), in which the indifferents of natural duties are the subject to be studied (Plant. 100: ta_ me/sa tw~n kaqhko&ntwn) – Philo situates himself within the discussion in contemporary philosophy about the value of these intermediary categories. In his article on “Stoic Intermediates and the End for Man” (1971), I. G. Kidd describes late Stoicism as characterized by a growing interest in intermediary phenomena such as the person in progress (o( proko&ptwn) and his appropriate acts (ta_ kaqh/konta). In the contemporary philosophy (as well as the modern history of ancient philosophy), the turn towards pragmatism was seen as a challenge to basic Stoic truism, namely that only virtue was good and that the only true virtue was perfect knowledge. This new direction in Stoicism was initiated by Panaetius (died 129 B.C.E.), who argued that the so-called indifferents (ta_ a)dia&fora) of the Old Stoa should not be looked at with indifference. Instead, they ought to be evaluated as objects of more or less value, and the actions pursuing these as more or less appropriate. A new literary genre of moral advice saw the light, examples being Panaetius’ own Peri\ kaqh/konta and Cicero’s De officiis. In Seneca’s Moral Epistles, the genre is called paraeneticen in Greek and praeceptiva in Latin, and the reflection on the genre itself was called the preceptorial department of philosophy (Ep. 95.1). The literary genre outlined precepts for appropriate behaviour in specific types of situations. This innovation of Stoicism was characterized by two pragmatic tendencies: first, the cosmic aim of living kata_ fu&sin was supple204 See also Sacr. 70: “When anything befalls them which they would not, since they have never had any firm faith in God the Saviour, they first flee to the help which things created give, to physicians, herbs, drug-mixtures, strict rules of diet, and all the other aids that mortals use. And if one say to them, “Flee, ye fools, to the one and only physician of soul-sickness [e0pi\ to_n mo&non i0atro_n yuxh=j] and cast away the help, miscalled as such, of the created and the mutable”, they laugh and mock, and all their answer is “tomorrow for that”, as though, whatever may befall, they would never supplicate God to save them from the ills that beset them”.
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mented by an interest in human nature, that is, man kata_ fu&sin, and the orientation towards perfect knowledge in the moral system of the Old Stoa was substituted for a realistic approach to human appetites and desire. Second, whereas the so-called right acts (ta_ katorqw&mata) were indifferent with regard to the content of the specific act and were right because the motivation of the agent was right, the precepts (ta_ kaqh/konta) were indifferent with regard to the agent’s motivation and prescribed what was seen in general as the appropriate thing to do in a particular situation. To summarize: categorical Stoicism was supplemented by an interest in relative phenomena. The Stoics had more to offer the figure of Medea than Epictetus’ recommendation to her in his Arian Discourses: “in a word, give up wanting anything but what God wants”. 205 There was a way to attain this goal. The thesis argued in Kidd’s essay is that the new interest in intermediaries in no way represented a break within Stoicism. The hallmark of Stoicism – the claim that virtue, and virtue alone, was good – was maintained throughout this development. But as a supplement to the description of the (rare) wise man, an interest in ordinary men’s psychological progress was added. Nevertheless, the innovation gave rise to discussions. Did the Stoics after all compromise with regard to their radical construct of the wise man? Kidd draws attention to the pains that Cicero took in order to emphasize that the subject of De officiis not is perfectum honestum, but only something resembling, similitudines honesti (Kidd 1971, 161): And yet moral goodness, in the true and proper sense of the term, is the exclusive possession of the wise and can never be separated from virtue; but those who have not perfect wisdom [sapientia perfecta non est] cannot possibly have perfect moral goodness [perfectum honestum nullo modo], but only a semblance of it [similitudines honesti esse possunt], and indeed these duties [official] under discussion in these books the Stoic call “mean duties” [media] … (Off. 3.13-14, translation LCL)
Seneca dedicated several of his moral epistles to the discussion of the value of advice, for instance, the famous pair of Epistulae Morales XCIV: “On the Value of Advice” and XCV: “On the Usefulness of Basic Principles”. The limited value of mere advising was generally recognized and it remained an object of critique. Due to lack of information about the present situation, the recommended behaviour may turn out to be wrong. In addition, the cleft between the objective content of the precept and the subjective motivation opened up the possibility that the right thing was done for the wrong reason. Thus, to the wise man pre205 See Epictetus’ discourse, “How ought we adjust our preconceptions to individual instances”.
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cepts were superfluous; to the man whose wisdom was imperfect, they were insufficient. Precepts alone did not improve the agent’s attitude of mind. In order to be truly right, an action presupposed the right attitude of mind (95.57): … precepts [praecepta] will perhaps help you to do what should be done; but they will not help you to do it in the proper way; and if they do not help you to this end, they do not conduct you to virtue. I grant you that, if warned, a man will do what he should; but that is not enough, since the credit lies, not in the actual deed but in the way it is done. (Seneca, Ep. 95.40, translation LCL)
Nevertheless, Seneca was an advocate of precepts, provided that they were given rightly, that is, accompanied by instruction. Between the attitude of mind (habitus animi) and the mere advice of appropriate conduct there existed a reciprocity that justified the practice of admonition or paraínesis. In the long run, the training of the mind in moral behaviour through instructions served the metamorphosis of attitude: Furthermore what you mention is the mark of an already perfect man, of one who has attained the height of human happiness. But the approach to these qualities is slow and in the meantime, in practical matters, the path should be pointed out for the benefit of one who is still short of perfection, but is making progress [imperfecto sed proficient]. Wisdom [sapientia] by her own agency may perhaps show herself this path without the help of admonition [sine admonition]; for she has brought the soul to a stage where it can be impelled only in the right direction [ut moveri nequeat nisi in rectum]. Weaker characters [imbecillioribus], however, need someone to precede them, to say: “Avoid this”, or “Do that”. Moreover, if one awaits the time when one can know of oneself what the best line of action is, one will sometimes go astray, and by going astray will be hindered from arriving at the point where it is possible to be content with oneself. … Such facts as these prove that this department (paraínesis or preceptorial) of philosophy is not superfluous [Haec sunt, per quae probatur hanc philosophiae partem supervacuam non esse]. (Ep. 94.50-51, translation LCL)
Seneca’s epistles demonstrate that the Stoics differed in their attitude to the so-called “preceptorial department” of philosophy. Some, in Seneca’s Epistula 94 represented by Aristo the Stoic, claimed that the giving of precepts was either in vain or superfluous and that the literary genre of advising was best characterized “as old wife’s precepts”. Instead, Aristo argued that the … greatest benefit is derived from the actual dogmas of philosophy and from the definition of the Supreme Good (summum bonum). When a man has gained a complete understanding of this definition and has thoroughly learned it he can frame for himself a precept directing what is to be done in a given case. (Ep. 94.2f)
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Consequently, the only legitimate department of philosophy should be the teaching of dogmas and basic principles. Aristo compared the ignorant person who had not yet come to terms with truth to a blind man; it was waste of time to point out directions and advise him which way to walk. As long as false opinions prevented him from perceiving rightly, no piece of advice would be of any use to him: “you will merely be showing the sick man what he ought to do if he were well, instead of making him well” (94.5). But the man who has come to see and has grasped the idea of the highest good “will not need a monitor for every separate action, to say to him: Walk thus and so, eat thus and so” (94.8).
3.5.3 Summary. Philo’s rhetorical strategy. Take two The discussion of advice in Seneca’s epistles gives us a platform from which we can now evaluate Philo’s rhetorical strategy. Philo splits the Stoic agenda in two and assigns to himself the nuanced position represented by Seneca, whereas the Stoics are simply lumped together and identified with the stance represented by Aristo the Stoic. On the one hand, Philo claims that, in the end, virtuous behaviour presupposes the right attitude of mind, and this, he argues, is found with the mind-set that recognizes Noah’s find, namely that “all things in the world and the world itself is a free gift and acts of kindness and grace on God’s part” (Leg. 3.77f). The person who acknowledges that his whole being and faculties are God’s gift and who acts out of gratitude in whatever he does will always act rightly. On the other hand, the commandments in Moses’ law are identified with the “preceptorial department” of philosophy – or, in Philo’s designation, the intermediary classes, where the study of the indifferents of natural duties may help the intermediary mind of the progressing man and, step by step, guide him on his way to virtue. The analysis of Philo’s rhetorical strategy brings us to the Gospel of John. The Fourth Gospel should be seen in continuation with Philo’s rhetorical strategy as it is explained here. Again, we will see a splitting into two of the Stoic discourse on the value of giving advice. But now the nuanced position represented by Philo will be banished to the department of preceptorial philosophy, whereas the Fourth Gospel takes up the position of Aristo the Stoic and claims to possess the only truth that will change the attitude of the believer and make him a “seeing” man (cf. John 9). Or, as the Gospel says in the Prologue: “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came into being through Christ” (John 1:17).
Chapter 4
The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit as Jesus’ Divine Generation
4.1 Introduction to the exegetical section 4.1.1 The new meta-story. Textual signifiers, signified story In Chapter One, the methodology of Adele Reinhartz’ semiotic approach to the narratives or “tales” of the Fourth Gospel was discussed. I suggested that the semiotics of New Criticism were subjected to the post-structuralist revision of the sign-relation found in New Historicism. According to New Historicism, no textual signifiers are immediately available at the surface of the text; they first come into being through the grid of categories that, as a “vision device”, is applied to the text, in this case Stoic physics. The Stoic perspective on John allows new textual signifiers to be discerned and combined. In turn, these signifiers come to represent a new signified story. It is the Stoic theory of pneu=ma and matter-in-motion that allows us to see the Johannine pneu=ma as a unified agent and as the protagonist of the signified story. The dynamic character of Stoic physics, furthermore, redirects our attention towards pneumatic transformations. The relocations of or within the divine pneu=ma constitute the events that make up the plot of the signified story. With this adjustment, Reinhartz’ distinction between textual signifier and signified story is still valid.
4.1.1.1 Discerning textual signifiers The textual signifiers which enter the visual field when the Fourth Gospel is read from a pneumatic point of view are the following:
160 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 1.
Explicitly narrated events that involve the pneu=ma: The motions in Jesus’ pneu=ma related to his emotional upheaval caused by mourning over Lazarus’ death and by the prospect of Judas’ betrayal
1.1
11:33:
0Ihsou=j ou]n w(j ei]den au0th\n klai/ousan kai\ tou\j sunelqo&ntaj au0th|= 0Ioudai/ouj klai/ontaj, e0nebrimh/sato tw|~ pneu&mati kai\ e0ta&racen e9auto_n kai\ ei]pen: pou= teqei/kate au0to&n;
13:21: tau=ta ei0pw_n o( 0Ihsou=j e0tara&xqh tw|~ pneu&mati kai\ e0martu&rhsen kai\ ei]pen: a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw u(mi=n o#ti ei[j e0c u(mw~n paradw&sei me.
2.
1.2
Jesus’ giving up of the spirit on the cross at the moment of his death 19:30: o#te ou]n e1laben to_ o!coj o( 0Ihsou=j ei]pen: tete/lestai, kai\ kli/naj th\n kefalh\n pare/dwken to_ pneu=ma.
1.3
The infusion of the Holy Spirit into believers by the ascending Jesus 20:22: kai\ tou=to ei0pw_n e0nefu&shsen kai\ le/gei au0toi=j: La&bete pneu=ma a#gion:
Discourse on the pneu=ma: 2.1 2.1.1
Witnessing discourse: John the Baptist’s witness to the descent of the spirit on Jesus and its abiding with him 1:32:
1:33: 3:34: 2.2 2.2.1
kai\ e0martu&rhsen 0Iwa&nnhj le/gwn o#ti teqe/amai to_ pneu=ma katabai=non w(j peristera_n e0c ou0ranou= kai\ e1meinen e0p’ au0to&n. e0f’ o$n a@n i1dh|j to_ pneu=ma katabai=non kai\ me/non e0p’ au0to&n, ou[to&j e0stin o( bapti/zwn e0n pneu&mati a(gi/w|. o#n ga_r a)pe/steilen o( qeo_j ta_ r(h/mata tou= qeou= lalei=, ou0 ga_r e0k me/trou di/dwsin to_ pneu=ma.
Jesus’ own sayings: The discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus on the necessity of being generated a!nwqen by water and pneu=ma a)pekri/qh 0Ihsou=j: a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi, e0a_n mh/ tij gennhqh|= e0c u3datoj kai\ pneu&matoj, ou0 du&natai ei0selqei=n ei0j th\n basilei/an tou= qeou=. 3:6: to_ gegennhme/non e0k th=j sarko_j sa&rc e0stin, kai\ to_ gegennhme/non e0k tou= pneu&matoj pneu=ma& e0stin. The relation of voice to the generation of pneu=ma 3:5:
2.2.2
3:8:
to_ pneu=ma o#pou qe/lei pnei= kai\ th\n fwnh\n au0tou= a)kou&eij, a)ll’ ou0k oi]daj po&qen e1rxetai kai\ pou= u(pa&gei:
Introduction to the exegetical section
2.2.3
2.2.4
2.2.5
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The discourse between Jesus and the Samaritan woman on the pneumatic character of God, which somehow motivates his wish for worshippers who worship in spirit and truth 4:23f: a)lla_ e1rxetai w#ra kai\ nu=n e0stin, o#te oi9 a)lhqinoi\ proskunhtai\ proskunh/sousin tw|~ patri\ e0n pneu&mati kai\ a)lhqei/a|: kai\ ga_r o( path\r toiou&touj zhtei= tou\j proskunou=ntaj au0to_n. pneu=ma o( qeo&j, kai\ tou\j proskunou=ntaj au0to_n e0n pneu&mati kai\ a)lhqei/a| dei= proskunei=n. The discussion between Jesus and the disciples who murmur at his “hard sayings”, a discussion that leads to Jesus’ enigmatic statement about the future ascent of the Son of Man and the usefulness of the spirit in comparison with flesh because of its lifegiving power 6:63: to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n, h9 sa_rc ou0k w)felei= ou0de/n: Jesus’ Farewell Discourses with the intimate circle of disciples, which introduces the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth. 14:16f: ka)gw_ e0rwth/sw to_n pate/ra kai\ a!llon para&klhton dw&sei u(mi=n, i3na meq’ u(mw~n ei0j to_n ai0w~na h|], to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj, o$ o( ko&smoj ou0 du&natai labei=n, o#ti ou0 qewrei= au0to_ ou0de\ ginw&skei: 14:26: o( de\ para&klhtoj, to_ pneu=ma to_ a#gion, o$ pe/myei o( path\r e0n tw|~ o)no&mati/ mou, e0kei=noj u(ma~j dida&cei pa&nta kai\ u(pomnh/sei u(ma~j pa&nta a$ ei]pon u(mi=n [e0gw&]. 15:26f: 3Otan e1lqh| o( para&klhtoj o$n e0gw_ pe/myw u9mi=n para_ tou= patro&j, to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj o$ para_ tou= patro_j e0kporeu/etai, e0kei=noj marturh/sei peri\ e0mou=: kai\ u9mei=j de\ marturei=te, o#ti a)p’ a)rxh=j met’ e0mou= e0ste. 16:7: a)ll’ e0gw_ th\n a)lh/qeian le/gw u(mi=n, sumfe/rei u(mi=n i3na e0gw_ a)pe/lqw. e0a_n ga_r mh\ a)pe/lqw, o( para&klhtoj ou0k e0leu&setai pro_j u(ma~j. e0a_n de\ poreuqw~, pe/myw au0to_n pro_j u(ma~j. 16:13: o#tan de\ e1lqh| e0kei=noj,to_ pneu=ma th=j a)lhqei/aj, o(dhgh/sei u(maj e0n th|= a)lhqei/a| pa&sh|. ou0 ga_r lalh/sei a)f’ e9autou=, a)ll’ o#sa a)kou&sei lalh/sei kai\ ta_ e0rxo&mena a)naggelei= u(mi=n.
2.3 2.3.1
Authorial comments In relation to Jesus’ invitation to the thirsty to come to him in order to have their thirst quenched, the authorial voice relates Jesus’ invitation to the future coming of the spirit which must await the glorification of Jesus 7:39:
tou=to de\ ei]pen peri\ tou= pneu&matoj o$ e1mellon lamba&nein oi9 pisteu&santej ei0j au0to&n: ou!pw ga_r h]n pneu=ma, o#ti 0Ihsou=j ou0de/pw e0doca&sqh.
162 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 4.1.1.2 The plotted, signified story On the basis of exegesis of the Fourth Gospel that has these signifiers in focus, I see three – or perhaps four – events that constitute the plot of the signified story. The first three have already been mentioned: The first pneumatic transformation concerns the descent of the pneu=ma from above on Jesus and its abiding with him, which will be treated in the present chapter on his divine generation. The penultimate pneumatic event concerns Jesus’ translation (13:1: meta&basij) or ascent to (20:17: a)na&basij) the divine Father, the God who is pneu=ma (4:24). These are metaphorical expressions for the transformation of his crucified and risen body and soul into pneu=ma and will be treated in Chapter Seven. The end of Jesus’ mission is the provision of a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” or, as it is subsequently called, a “(re-)generation a!nwqen” (3:3, 5) which constitutes the ultimate pneumatic event. The implications of this event are discussed in Chapter Eight. Behind these three pneumatic events, a fourth may be discerned which concerns the beginning of them all. In Chapter Eight, a conjecture is made with regard to the question of how the God with whom the lo&goj was in the beginning (1:1) came to be identified with pneu=ma (4:24). In Chapter Six, the relationship between the epistemology and the physics of the pneumatic events is discussed in the framework of the Johannine sign.
4.1.2 The textual quality of John. Paradigmatic structures As part of the introduction to the exegetical analysis of the Fourth Gospel, a few remarks on the textual quality of the Gospel are necessary. Many exegetes have noted the static – repetitive, circular, spiral-like – character of the Fourth Gospel: in each part, the whole is somehow present. In his 2006 essay, “The Cubist Principle in Johannine Imagery: John and the Reading of Images in Contemporary Platonism”, Harold D. Attridge compared the composition of the Gospel to a cubist painting.206 In every part of the text, the focal point remains the same, although viewed from different (sometimes even distorting) perspectives, namely the death on the cross in Jerusalem. The German scholar 206 Attridge as well as Zimmermann both presented descriptions of the textual quality of the Fourth Gospel in a conference on Bildersprache im Johannesevangelium, Eisenach, August 2005. Zimmermann’s thesis is developed in his book, Christologie der Bilder im Johannesevangelium, especially, in ch. 14: “Das Mosaik der Christusbilder (literarästhetische Aspekte)” and ch. 15: “Die Wirkung der Christusbilder (rezeptionsästhetische Aspekte) ” (Zimmermann 2004, 407-446).
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Robert Zimmermann has described the Gospel as a mosaic of images, a jigsaw or more poetically as Bilderreden eines Gedichtes. Half a century ago Dodd characterized the composition of the Fourth Gospel as a fugue. In each section, several of the main themes are developed simultaneously. And before Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code made cryptograms public property, Dodd described the images of the Fourth Gospel as “cryptograms”, the code word of which was Christ: “Christ is the real subject of all the statements made, and shepherd and gate are cryptograms” (Dodd 1953, 135). More than a hundred years ago, Harnack described the Prologue as a kind of zoom lens. The Prologue did not tell us about a development that takes place in the course of time; instead, the same story is told again and again, but at a still more concrete level. The zooming or concretizing movement finally focuses on the narrative body of the Gospel and the story of Jesus.207 Scholars thus agree that in order to grasp the agenda of the Fourth Gospel, we must engage with non-syntactical, non-logical, non-argumentative, nonplotted paradigmatic or poetic structures of the text.208 The distinction between a syntagmatic and paradigmatic approach to language belongs to linguistic Structuralism. According to struc207 See Harnack’s essay from 1892 “Über das Verhältniss des Prologs des vierten Evangeliums zum ganzen Werk”: “Er [the Evangelist] kommt in seiner Schilderung V. 114 nicht der Gegenwart immer näher, sondern dem Concretum, welches er von Anfang an im Auge hat” (219). Recently Harnack’s thesis of zooming concretization has been resumed by Moloney in his book Belief in the Word. Reading the Fourth Gospel, John 1-4 (1993). 208 The German exegete Klaus Koch has given a good description of the two modes of reading in an excursus “Sprachverwendung (parole) und Einzelsprache als Sprachkompetenz (langue)” (1974) to his original 1964 book Was ist Formgeschichte? “Sprachwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen setzen naturgemäß bei der Sprachverwendung ein; denn die Kompetenz und also die Gesamtstrukturierung einer Einzelsprache entzieht sich direktem Zugriff. Vorliegende Äußerungen als Rede oder Text lassen sich in zweierlei Weise untersuchen. Einmal als zeitlich verlaufende lineare Ketten, wobei Sinn und Funktion der einzelnen Bestandteile der Sprache sich aus Betrachtung der vorhergehenden und nachfolgenden ergeben. Dies ist die syntagmatische Untersuchung, sie bleibt bei der Beobachtung der Sprachverwendung stehen. Doch lässt sich jeder Bestandteil einer sprachlichen Einheit auch auf die nicht ausdrücklich werdenden, aber für das Sprachgefühl vom Sprecher (Schreiber) und Hörer (Leser) naheliegenden Bezüge und Assoziationen hin befragen. Damit wird von der Sprachverwendung auf die zugrunde liegende Sprachkompetenz geschlossen in einer Untersuchungsart, die paradigmatisch heißt. Das geschieht, indem z. B. ein Wort mit Wörtern derselben Wortart und verwandter oder entgegengesetzter Bedeutung zusammengeordnet wird. Dann ergibt sich keine sprachlichte Kette, sondern ein assoziatives Feld” (Koch 1964/74, 295, emphasis in original). For the distinction between syntagmatic (plot) and paradigmatic (poetic) signifying structures, see also the analysis in H. Kvanvig’s Historisk Bibel and bibelsk historie. Det Gamle Testamentets teologi som historie og fortelling (1999), ch. 8: ”Poetiske mønstre i gammeltestamentlige tekster”. Kvanvig also refers to Koch’s definition.
164 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation turalists, the meaning of words is always contextual. However, this context may be constructed in two different ways. The meaning of a word is decided either syntagmatically through the grammatical position in a sentence or paradigmatically through the construction of patterns between words independently of their morphology and the syntax of sentences. The distinction may also be applied to higher levels of linguistic utterances such as sentences, plots, genres etc. In their development of the field of narratology, French and Russian formalists have concentrated on the syntagmatic structures of narratives. In general, the dynamics of paradigmatic structures are less examined, which is probably due to the fact that these structures remain by definition less formalistic and, consequently, imply the work of the reader. Zimmermann speaks of die rezeptionsästhetische Aspekte that is involved in this kind of reading (2004). However, in the Fourth Gospel engagement with paradigmatic structures seems mandatory. In Chapter Five, I analyse the testimony of John the Baptist as a chiasm, which is one example of how paradigmatic patterns may influence the meaning of words. In Chapter Eight, I will examine the semantic filed (in German: assoziative Feld) that I identify between the different “places” that the figure of Thomas inquires about (14:2f → 20:25Nestle 25). Apart from die rezeptionsästhetische Aspekte, I think that the form of the Gospel also has a substantial meaning. The form mirrors the world view and agenda of the Gospel: namely to make known the God, whom “no one has ever seen” (1:18),209 and the lo&goj, who “was with God” and who was to be identified with God “in the beginning” (1:1) and through whom “everything has come into being”, but without anyone having gained knowledge of Him (1:3, 10).210 As already noticed by Origen, the Johannine identification of God with lo&goj and pneu=ma points to an influence from Stoicism. In Chapter Two, I drew attention to the fact that in Stoicism “God” as the name for the active principle lo&goj was incorporeal and non-demonstrable – and as such invisible. Although “God” or lo&goj was sometimes given a referent in the dynamic continuum of the universal pneu=ma, in Nature (h9 fu&sij), or in the All (h9 o#lh), He remained invisible to the eye. Knowledge of God’s creative powers, whether these were called lo&goj or pneu=ma, had to be gained from the visible effects that the work of these powers left in matter. I also called attention to the epistemology that followed from the radical particularism of Stoicism. The description of truth required 209 John 1:18: Qeo_n ou0dei\j e9w&raken pw&pote <:monogenh\j qeo_j> o( w@n ei\j to_n ko&lpon tou= patro_j e0kei=noj e0chgh/sato. 210 John 1:3: pa&nta di’ au0tou= e0ge/neto, kai\ xwri\j au0tou= e0ge/neto ou0de\ e4n o$ ge/gonen John 1:10b: o( ko&smoj di’ au0tou e0ge/neto, kai\ o( ko&smoj au0to_n ou0k e1gnw.
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one never-ending sentence with an infinite network of subordinate clauses. On the one hand, no finite sentence can be anything but an approximation to the truth. It only accounts for a part of the Whole. On the other hand, the Whole is, due to the dynamic continuum, present in every part and may be deduced from it by the sage. In analogy with Stoic theory, the Gospel claims that it is impossible to observe the creative principle in abstracto: nobody has ever seen God (1:18). Knowledge of qeo&j, of lo&goj or of the pneu=ma must be derived from their growth into or formation of matter, that is, in accordance with the basic meaning of concretum. The Fourth Gospel claims that in a specific part of this Whole, namely in Jesus of Nazareth, God was present in a manner in which He could, as it were, be seen (14:7). The signs that Jesus performed, and which are told in the Gospel (20:30f), are events that expose to us that which cannot be seen directly. The anagogic movement towards a conceptual truth that we know from Plato’s writings211 and from the Stoic philosopher’s inquiry into Nature seems in the Fourth Gospel to be replaced by Jesus’ own uphill journey – that is, his a)na&basij to Jerusalem, his being lifted-up on the cross, and his subsequent a)na&basij to the Father (20:17) – all of which culminates in the regeneration a1nwqen (3:3) and the a)na&stasij of believers (6:39, 44). In this way, the Johannine community becomes the embodiment of the Spirit of Truth in the world. The events and actions of the spiritual community testify to the truth (15:26). Stoically spoken, the community continues the never-ending speech of the lo&goj. The final sentence of the extended Gospel thematizes an infiniteness (21:25) that matches the infinity of the Stoic language of truth: “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were to be written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written”.
4.1.3 The descent of the spirit in the scholarly tradition In this chapter on the first pneumatic event, namely the descent of the spirit on Jesus, I shall take issue with five exegetical problems, all of which are generally recognized as cruces by Johannine scholarship: 1.
The relation of the incarnation of the lo&goj (1:14) to the descent of the spirit on Jesus as this is reported by John the Baptist (1:19-34).
211 E.g. from the parable of the cave in the Republic and from Diotima’s speech referred to by Socrates in the Symposium.
166 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 2.
The relation of Jesus to his apparently two fathers, Joseph (1:45; 5:42) and God (5:17f). 3. The relation of the “Son of God” to the “generation a!nwqen” (3:3) of “water and spirit” (3:5), which is made a presupposition of seeing as well as entering the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus. 4. The relation of the “Son of God” to the “children of God” (1:12) who are “begotten without blood(s), without the will of flesh and without the will of man, but by God” (1:13). 5. The relation of Jesus’ reception of the descending spirit to his commission to baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:32ff).
It is a major tendency in Johannine scholarship, most radically represented by Protestant Johannine exegesis, to insist that the general answer to all these questions is that no relation exists. Instead, it is argued, to use a phrase of Hans-Christian Kammler, that the “ontological and soteriological difference” is accentuated throughout the Fourth Gospel.212 In Chapter One, the potential objections, especially from the German quarter, to the present project were presented, discussed and refuted. Here, I would like instead to discuss some of the scholarly works to which the present project is indebted in a more positive way. I shall feature, once more, the work of Wayne A. Meeks and Adele Reinhartz; the latter will now be seconded by yet another representative of Johannine feminist scholarship, Turid Karlsen Seim. In The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and Johannine Christology (1967), Meeks’ comparison of the Johannine depiction of the figure of Christ with Philo’s construct of Moses opens up, as I see it, a new perspective on Johannine Christology, which Meeks in his book desisted from adopting. In each their own way, Reinhartz’ 1999 article “’And the Word Was Begotten’: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John” and Seim’s “Descent and Divine Paternity in the Gospel of John: Does the Mother Matter?” (2005) challenge mainstream Christology.213 Reinhartz opens the hitherto impenetrable mystery of incarnation up for philosophical questioning and reasoning, and forwards the provocative thesis that 1:14a of the Prologue (kai\ o( lo&goj sa_rc e0ge/neto) should be understood quite literally 212 The second part of Kammler’s study “Jesus und der Geistparaklet” features an argument in favour of “der bleibende ontologische und soteriologische Unterschied zwischen Jesus und seinen Jüngern“ (1996, 107). 213 Both scholars attended in Autumn 2004 a seminar on Body and Gender in the Gospel of John arranged by the Department of Biblical Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen, and generously placed their knowledge and works at the seminar’s disposal.
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in terms of Aristotle’s theory of generation, in scholarship called the epigenesis. The question of parenthood in the Fourth Gospel is by Seim situated within the ancient cultural discourse on family. Both argue in favour of an understanding of the Johannine incarnation that corresponds to the virgin birth as it is depicted in the Gospel of Luke. In these readings, the ontological difference between Jesus and believers is maintained. Only Jesus has literally God as his Father. As for believers, their status as children of God remains a metaphorical designation. In my understanding of the first pneumatic event, I intend to combine Meeks’ Philonic and Reinhartz’ Aristotelian perspectives. I shall argue that it is the reduplication of the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis, which I find in Philo’s conception of a deute/ra ge/nesij, that should be applied to the generation of Jesus as Son of God. In continuation of this thesis, I shall also argue that it is the same phenomenon that befalls believers when they are (re-) generated a!nwqen (3:3, 5) through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22) and become children of God (1:13). In both cases, the new generation must be understood literally, that is, as an event that is simultaneously cognitive and physical. Accordingly, I find that the discourse with Nicodemus on generation a!nwqen (3:1-8) also interprets Jesus’ double origin. More than by exegesis proper, the presentation of my understanding of Jesus’ divine generation is shaped by the discussion with Johannine scholarship. Although Meeks’, Reinhartz’ and Seim’s understandings of Johannine matters are extraordinarily well-informed (in comparison with traditional Johannine scholarship) with respect to contemporary ideas of philosophy, worship, rituals etc., I go further in insisting on identity where they come to a stop and they sense a difference between the Fourth Gospel and its contemporary symbolic world.
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4.2 Meeks. Moses traditions and Johannine Christology Jesus’ description of the man who, born “again” or “from above” (a!nwqen), is able to enter/see the Kingdom of God is at the same time and even primarily a description of himself – in Johannine terms. The life of such a man is the life of the Spirit (ou3twj, verse 8), but of the Spirit it is said that one “hears his voice”, men do not know “where he comes from and where he goes” – precisely the language which John uses for Jesus himself [7:27; 8:14]. In short, the life of the Christian, through the mediation of the Spirit, participates in the movement of Jesus’ own life. But applied to Jesus the ambiguous term a!nwqen clearly means “from above”. Meeks, The Prophet-King (1967, 298)
4.2.1 Meeks’ exegesis of John 3:8 Meeks’ position in the quotation above represents in many ways a minority view in the scholarly tradition of Johannine exegesis. First, whereas most exegetes find that Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus about generation refers exclusively to the spiritual rebirth of believers; Meeks is convinced that Jesus’ speech also, indeed primarily, concerns himself.214 In general, the ontological and soteriological difference between Christ (the Son of God) and believers (God’s children) is emphatically maintained in Johannine exegesis: Christ is the uniquely incarnated eternal lo&goj, believers become God’s children through faith in the Word. Yet, also in Meeks’ study, a tension exists between, on the one hand, the paradigmatic status that he ascribes to Jesus and, on the other hand, his claim that Jesus – as a divine being who has descended from heaven – is unique.215 214 An exception is J. Ashton. In Understanding the Fourth Gospel, Ashton refers to and follows Meeks’ interpretation. According to Ashton, it was first through the editorial addition of 3:31-36 that the traditional Christological interpretation of the dialogue with Nicodemus was ensured (1991, 374-77, 531-36). 215 In his 1996 essay Kammler confronts some of his German colleagues who, in his view, reduces Johannine Messianism to a quantitative “Überbietung” of the Old Testament prophets’ inspiration. They make Jesus “der ‘Pneumatiker par Excellence’” (160). Although Jesus has the spirit abiding in him (1:32-33) and, in addition, has the spirit in its entire fullness (3:34b), these interpreters, according to Kammler, reduce Jesus to “purus homo, ein a!nqrwpoj e0c a)nqrw&pwn geno&menoj” (163): “Denn nicht wenige Ausleger finden in diesen beiden Texten ausgesagt, daß Jesus hier als der eschatologisch-messianische Geistträger und Gottessohn gekennzeichnet sei, der als solcher – im Unterschied zu den alttestamentlichen Propheten – bleibend (1,32.33) und in unerschöplicher Fülle (3,34b) mit dem Geist begabt ist und er erst aufgrund dieser ihm selbst zuteil gewordenen Geistbegabung anderen den Geist spenden kann” (155).
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Second, the parallel between John 3:8, which speaks about the voice of the spirit, and 7:27; 8:14, which speaks of Christ, leads Meeks to see the spirit as prime mover in Jesus’ life. This idea also stands out in Johannine scholarship. As we saw in my discussion of German exegesis in Chapter One, a long tradition exists for contrasting the Christology of the lo&goj with the Christology of the spirit. Third, the understanding of John 3:8 leads Meeks to see Jesus’ voice as the place where the spirit guiding his life articulates itself.216 The recognition of a relationship between Jesus’ voice and the spirit forms part of the main thesis of Meeks’ study, namely that the Fourth Gospel understands and depicts Jesus as the prophet whose coming Moses had predicted in Deut 18:15, 18. Meeks draws attention to the understanding of the prophet in Philo’s writings: “the name [prophet or interpreter] only befits the wise (sofo&j), since he alone is the vocal instruinstrument of God, smitten and played by his invisible hand” (1967, Kammler also argues against exegetes who claim that the Old Testament tradition of the coming one constitutes the model for the Johannine Jesus. True enough, Kammler admits, Isa 11:2 LXX speaks of the spirit who abides with God’s chosen one (11:2LXX: kai\ a)napau/setai e0p’ au0to\n pneu=ma tou= qeou=), but in the Old Testament God’s bestowal of His spirit is understood in a manner that differs radically from the way that the Johannine Jesus has the spirit. The Old Testament tradition of God‘s bestowal of His spirit upon chosen individuals is a charismatic one, which for Kammler means an event that happens in history. However, the Fourth Gospel depicts Jesus as the one who, as God’s lo&goj, is equipped with the spirit from eternity. On the basis of this differentiation, Kammler distinguishes between a relative and an absolute “Sachverhalt”: “Jes 11,2 handlet von einer sich geschichtlich ereignenden charismatischen Ausrüstung mit Geist, die den Messias zu einem bestimmten Tun befähigt; im Unterschied dazu geht es in Joh 1,32f. um die bleibende und exclusive Bindung des Geistes an Christi Person und Werk und damit um einen absoluten und ewig gültigen Sachverhalt” (158, emphasis added). 216 The tendency in the scholarly tradition to ignore the semantic relation between “voice” and “spirit” in 3:8 can be seen as part of the general anti-prophetical thrust of Protestant exegesis (see Kammler, the note above). The interpretations of the “howling wind” place the Fourth Gospel in a Protestant framework – cf. the following quotation from U. Schnelle’s book Antidoketische Christologie im Johannesevangelium: “Für die dualistische Verarbeitung der Schultraditionen Joh 3,3.5 durch den Evangelisten ist zweierlei kennzeichnend: Einerseits wird die Notwendigkeit der Geburt von oben betont (V.7), andererseits zeigt V. 8 deutlich, dass die Zeugung aus dem Geist nicht in der Verfügungsgewalt des Menschen steht. Insbesondere der weisheitlich geprägte V. 8a (vgl. Spr 30,4; Pred 11,5; Sir 16,21) hebt die Unverfügbarkeit der Neugeburt hervor; sie ist nicht menschliche, sondern ausschließlich göttliche Möglichkeit. Wie der Wind nicht vom Menschen beeinflusst werden kann, so ist auch Gott in seinem Handeln souverän. Johannes wahre damit das extra nos des Heilsgeschehens und gibt zugleich den Ort an, wo der Mensch des Heils teilhaftig werden kann: in der Taufe der joh. Gemeinde” (Schnelle 1987, 205f, emphasis added).
170 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 128, Meeks quotes Her. 259). Meeks’ understanding of Jesus as a spiritually gifted prophet sets him on a collision course with especially German mainstream exegesis of the Fourth Gospel. When commenting on 3:8, interpreters in general compare the spirit with the howling wind and in this way avoid the problematic issue of voice and prophecy. Fourth, the claim that the Christian life is expressis verbis mediated through the spirit is also extraordinary within Meeks’ own study. The spirit-guided life constitutes a paradigm that can be applied to Jesus as well as subsequent generations of believers. Fifth, Meeks’ study of the Prophet-King is the result of an approach to the Fourth Gospel which was unique in the Johannine scholarship of the previous century. Meeks subjects the Gospel to a comparative study in which Johannine Christology and various Jewish traditions of the Moses figure are juxtaposed. By his methodological choice, Meeks a priori challenged the status of sui generis so often ascribed to the Gospel.217
4.2.2 Methodological considerations. First take The starting-point for Meeks’ study of the Prophet-King is again Bultmann’s identification of the descent/ascent pattern and the related Johannine puzzle.218 However, Meeks wants to avoid the criticisms that were levelled against Bultmann’s identification of the pattern, his de217 Meeks’ study mediates between two contemporary positions: On the one hand, the exegesis, represented by the Oxford theologian Hoskyns, which maintains the sui generis character of the Fourth Gospel and its theology, which “is not to be ‘explained’ by means of the elements which fed into it, but must be regarded as a novum, the result of creative reflection upon the Christian tradition” (Meeks 1967, 3, Meeks’ emphasis). On the other hand, we have Bultmann’s Johannine puzzle of the empty revelation which can be solved through the addition of external traditions alone, namely the knowledge of the sectarian baptism tradition rooted in ancient Iranian myths of primeval man: Jesus, not John the Baptist, represented this manfrom-heaven. Either all meaning is inside the Gospel or all meaning is outside. Meeks takes a stance in between: “The Fourth Gospel is not so constructed that the reader, in order to understand it, would have to perceive that Jesus, the ‘Son of Man’ is like Moses – that is the error of the numerous typological treatments of John that have proliferated in recent years. On the other hand, its form and content are such that, if the reader were acquainted with those Moses-traditions described above [in The Prophet-King], he would recognize (1) that Jesus fulfils for the believer those functions elsewhere attributed to Moses and (2) that the Christian claims he does this in a superior and exclusive way, so that Moses is now stripped of those functions and made merely a “witness” to Jesus (like John the Baptist)” (Meeks 1967, 319, Meeks’ emphasis, my square bracket). 218 See Chapter One.
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mythologised, existentialist interpretation of it and, finally, against his historical conclusions. Meeks charges Bultmann’s methodology with the so-called structural fallacy of subjecting structures to comparison by the aid of an analysis that strips them of their particulars. The manoeuvre presupposes what it is meant to prove, namely that commonly shared (existential) structures exist which are invested differently in different cultural settings. Even the most diverse phenomena may through abstraction be reduced to the level where they seem identical.219 Meeks therefore insists that it is the particulars of any given structural motif which should be the object of comparison (1967, 14-16). Meeks notices that the descent/ascent motif in the Fourth Gospel is intimately bound up with the depiction of Jesus as prophet and king. When the general pattern is connected with these particulars, Bultmann’s Mandaean writings no longer match the Fourth Gospel. Instead, Meeks suggests that the historical phenomenon of a Mosespiety, which he finds documented in different traditions of Second Temple Judaism, may be a suitable case for a comparative study and a plausible suggestion for a cultural setting of the Fourth Gospel. In order to reconstruct the Jewish Moses-piety, Meeks scrutinizes the texts of Philo and Josephus, the Qumran scrolls, the Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical writings, Rabbinic Haggada and Samaritan sources. Meeks’ solution to the Johannine puzzle remains, however, ein blosses Dass. But it is no longer, as originally proposed by Bultmann, the historical figure of John the Baptist and his Baptism-sect with its inspirations from Eastern rituals that is superseded by Christ and the Johannine community. It is Moses who is no longer the Prophet-King and Christ who is by the Fourth Gospel predicated with the title: “the supreme prophet, God’s emissary and revealer, and the defender in the heavenly court of the true Israelites who trusted him” (Meeks 1967, 295). Like Bultmann’s Baptist, the figure of Moses is stripped of his previous glory and dethroned by the Gospel to the status of Jesus’ witness. But the Johannine Jesus does not simply replace Moses and the gifts once given through him: the Torah, the manna and the protecting bronze serpent. Jesus’ gifts are superior to Moses’ gifts. The bread that Jesus offers is true bread, the water is living water – it is Jesus’ food that satisfies for eternal life (292). Yet, Meeks never explains in which way Jesus’ gifts are superior to Moses’ gifts. That Jesus is the place of God’s
219 As another example of the structural fallacy Meeks mentions the Johannine dualism, which has been the basis for situating the Fourth Gospel within the milieu of Qumran. Meeks finds that dualism in itself is too abstract a phenomenon to be the occasion for a comparative study with historical conclusions (Meeks 1967, 12).
172 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation revelation and gifts remains in Meeks’ reading of the Fourth Gospel an unexplained blosses Dass. Although the Fourth Gospel draws on the traditions of Jewish Moses-piety for inspiration, it also remoulds it. When it comes down to the particulars, Meeks claims, the depiction of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel differs significantly from the figure of Moses in the Jewish traditions. On the one hand, Moses’ enthronement as king and his prophetical equipping, which took place when he ascended Mount Sinai, finds a parallel in “an essential aspect of the ascension of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel” (Meeks 297). When Jesus was lifted up at the cross, it was “his enthronement as King of Israel, as the trial and crucifixion narratives demonstrate” (297). But on the other hand, the manner of Jesus’ enthronement, namely his death on the cross, finds no parallel in the Moses tradition: [t]he most striking aspect of the Johannine description of Jesus’ ascension, however, is paralleled neither in the Gnostic myths nor in the Moses legends. This is the central paradox that Jesus’ “being lifted up”, his “glorification”, takes place in and through his death on the cross. … The Johannine paradox is the exclusive product of Christian interpretation of the passion tradition … Comparison of the legends of Moses’ ascen[s]ion with the Johannine theme of the exaltation of the Son of Man thus leads to negative results. The notion of Jesus’ paradoxical enthronement is not dependent on the Moses traditions or its fundamental structure. (297)
The scenes that Meeks compares in his study are Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai and Jesus’ being ”lifted-up” on the cross, which is understood by Meeks as the place of Jesus’ ascension and glorification. Meeks’ interpretation here mirrors mainstream Johannine exegesis in two ways; first, it includes the ascension in the “lifting-up” on the cross and, second, it reserves the glorification for his death alone. But if Jesus’ ascension to the Father is seen as an event in its own glorious right, new parameters for a comparison between Philo’s Moses and the Fourth Gospel suggest themselves. First, the translation that befell Moses in place of death as depicted by Philo in Mos. 2.288 and QG 1.86 should be compared with Jesus’ ascension to the Father. In fact, Meeks briefly touches on this possibility. But the comparison of Jesus’ ascension in the Fourth Gospel with Moses’ assumption in Philo’s writings must be rejected since “Moses’ assumption clearly depicts the apotheosis of a divine man, not the return of an incarnate deity” (105, Meeks’ emphasis). Meeks’ focus on the particulars thus leads to the rejection of the second comparison that I would suggest, namely Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai, which is conceived by Philo as a deute/ra ge/nesij (QE 2.46), and Jesus’ divine generation. I shall, nevertheless, argue that Meeks’ observations in The
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Prophet-King in fact may support that comparison. But, of course, this comparison questions the sui generis character of the Johannine paradox. I shall now discuss this aspect of the comparison, the discussion of the ascent, in both Philo and in John, is postponed to Chapter Seven. 4.2.3 Jesus’ divine generation and Moses’ deute/ra ge/nesij 4.2.3.1 Problems inherent in Meeks’ reading According to Meeks, Philo’s writings offered no parallel to Jesus’ paradoxical enthronement in the Fourth Gospel; nor was a parallel to be found in Philo’s Moses for Jesus’ incarnation and descent from heaven (301). However, this conclusion may cause surprise when seen in light of Meeks’ interpretation of John 3:8. In the quotation given above on the Nicodemus chapter (Meeks 1967, 298), Meeks argued that when Jesus spoke of the precondition of seeing and entering the Kingdom of God, he referred primarily to his own experience of being “generated a1nwqen” (3:3) and being “generated of water and pneu=ma” (3:5).220 Meeks reads these verses as a reflection on 3:13, that is, in light of Jesus’ exceptional access to heaven: “Verses 3, 5, and 13 thus in effect say the same thing: only the Son of Man has ascended to heaven, ‘entered’, and ‘seen’ the Kingdom of God. No one else has ascended or can ascend, enter, and see, except through him” (299). Jesus’ statement that the Son of Man will ascend to the place where he was before (6:62: o#pou h[n to_ pro&teron;) implies to Meeks that Jesus must once have descended. Jesus has somehow come into being up there, and has somehow descended from above (a!nwqen) into flesh. In Meeks’ reading, being “generated from above” becomes being “generated above” without any explanation. Consequently, no connection is ever drawn between Jesus’ being “generated a!nwqen” and his so-called spiritually monitored life (298) and the witness of John the Baptist to the descent of the spirit on Jesus. I find Meeks’ rejection of any parallel in Philo’s Moses to Jesus’ generation and descent the more remarkable since Meeks in fact draws attention to the way in which Moses’ “mystic ascent” of Mount Sinai is repeatedly interpreted in family terms in Philo’s writings. The prophetic ecstasy and mystical translation constitute an event in which 220 John 3:3: a)pekri/qh 0Ihsou=j kai\ ei]pen au0tw|~: a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi, e0a_n mh/ tij gennhqh|= a!nwqen, ou0 du&natai i0dei=n th\n basilei/an tou= qeou=. John 3:5: a)pekri/qh 0Ihsou=j: a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi, e0a_n mh/ tij gennhqh=| e0c u3datoj kai\ pneu&matoj, ou0 du&natai ei0selqei=n ei0j th\n basilei/an tou qeou=.
174 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation Moses is regenerated by God and comes “near God in a kind of family relation”. Meeks explains: Exodus 24.2 says “Moses alone shall come near to God”, explains Philo, because prophetic ecstasy changes the duality of the ordinary human mind to resemble the “monad”. But he who is resolved into the nature of unity, is said to come near God in a kind of family relation, for having given up and left behind all mortal kinds, he is changed into the divine, so that such men become kin to God and truly divine [QE 2.29, my brackets] The “calling up” of Moses to God on Sinai is explicitly called “divinization”: This [Exodus 24.12a, Meeks’ brackets] signifies that a holy soul is divinized by ascending not to the air or to the ether or to heaven (which is) higher than all but to (a region) above the heavens. And beyond the world there is no place but God [QE 2.40, my brackets]. Again, it is called “a second birth [deute/ra ge/nesij, brackets added] better that the first”, in a passage that implicitly identifies the reborn Moses with the “heavenly man” created in God’s image [QE 2.46, my brackets]. (Meeks 1967, 123-24)
The Johannine text privileges Jesus’ relation to heaven at the expense of Moses’ (3:13f). Maybe it is the Johanine text that prevents interpreters from finding suitable parallels to Jesus’ generation in the Moses traditions?
4.2.3.2 Developing the potentials in Meeks’ works In the quotation above on Moses’ “divinization” (Meeks 1967, 123-24), Meeks related the two generations of which it was claimed that the “second birth [was] better than the first” to Philo’s idea of the two types of men, the heavenly man and the earthly. For his understanding, Meeks refers to the text of Legum allegoriae 1.31 (124 note 3). Precisely this text was discussed intensively in the previous chapter, where I reached the same conclusion. According to Philo, the make-up of the human soul was the result of a continual generation that was symbolically distributed on the different days of creation. Since this idea will be discussed below, a short summary must suffice for now. The Adamic, earthly mind, with which every man is endowed in his first generation, represents the mind in its abstract and neutral faculty of reasoning. In Chapter Two, I described this state of mind as a rational one in the minimal sense. Philo’s heavenly man or the man according to the divine image represents the mind-set that has come to terms with the truth. The man with this mind-set lives in accordance with the pious
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fact that everything that has come into being, including his own mental faculties, has its origin in God’s grace. In Chapter Three, I claimed that the latter was Philo’s twisted version of Stoic ideal of o)rqo&j lo&goj and their idea of the oi0kei/wsij. The pious mind is rational in the maximal sense. I presented my understanding of the rhetorical strategy at work in Legum allegoriae: in principle, the formal, intellectual power, with which every man is endowed, gives him access to the truth, but – due to the unavoidable pleasures that man encounters in his God-given life – most men will fail in the end. In opposition to the pagan philosophers, Philo claimed to know of an alternative and safer way (or even a short cut) to truth, which was provided through the prophecy that may befall extraordinarily devout men. This was precisely what happened to Moses when he, on Mount Sinai, was subjected to a “second generation, better than the first … which has no mother but only a father, who is (the Father) of all” (QE 2.46). The difference between the two mindsets is constituted by the imprint on the soul of the divine image, which is always, but more clearly in the case of prophecy, the work of the divine spirit (cf. Plant. 19, 24). Although according to Philo, a second generation like that which befell Moses was a unique event, men may benefit from his insight and virtue through Scripture since Moses has here portioned it for ordinary men. As Philo states it: “Now wise men take God for their guide and teacher, but the less perfect take the wise man” (Her. 19). By the aid of Moses’ wisdom, the rational seed, which was planted by God in the soul of man in his first generation, is now “fostered with a fresh sweet stream of wisdom” and “shoots up and improves” in what Philo called a regeneration (Post. 124: paliggenesi/a). As will become clear in my detailed exegesis of the Nicodemus discourse (3:1-10) in Chapter Six, I agree with Meeks that Jesus should be included among those who are regenerated from above (3:3) of “water and spirit” (3:5).221 Consequently, the descent of the spirit on Jesus, to which John the Baptist testifies, should be understood as Jesus’ own divine generation a!nwqen from above and for the second time. If this is accepted, Philo’s theory of the two generations suggests itself as the key to our understanding of the Johannine discourse of the generation a!nwqen (3:3). It corresponds to Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij and brings about 221 The principal line of the argument goes like this: The relation between voice and the regenerative pneu=ma is brought to the fore in 3:8, as it is also recognized by Meeks. Verse 3:8 constitutes the link between, on the one hand, the section of the revelatory speech of 3:11ff, which certainly includes the voice of Jesus, and on the other hand, the section on regeneration by the pneu=ma 3:3-7. It therefore seems reasonable to claim that Jesus, too, should be included in the group of regenerated people. For full argumentation, see Chapter Six.
176 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation “heavenly men”. When understood in light of Philo’s theory, the huge discussion in Johannine scholarship whether the idiom of 3:3: gennhqh=nai a!nwqen means being born anew or begotten from above is resolved in favour of the ambiguity of a!nwqen meaning both from above and for the second time. But in the case of the verb gennhqh=nai, Philo’s strong emphasis on the fact that in the case of the deute/ra ge/nesij “no mother” is involved, “but only a father, who is (the Father) of all” (QE 2.46) brings the discussion to a conclusion in favour of the male begetting. In my discussion with feminist Johannine scholarship, I shall return to the gendered aspects of this discussion and argue my case more thoroughly. For the moment, I just want to point to one of the advantages of this interpretation. It takes the references in the Gospel to Jesus’ earthly parents seriously, especially the fact that an earthly father Joseph from Nazareth exists, too (1:45, 6:42).222
4.2.3.3 Meeks’ methodology. Take two In The Prophet-King, Meeks does not combine the generation a!nwqen of the Fourth Gospel with the idea so prominent in Philo’s treatises of the two men (mind-sets) and their corresponding generations. This may be explained by the fact that it is not Meeks’ aim to compare the Moses figure in Philo’s writings with the Christ of the Fourth Gospel. Instead, it is the historical phenomenon of a Moses-centred mystical piety in Judaism which constitutes the other pole in the comparison.223 In order 222 The Johannine irony of misunderstandings is a sophisticated phenomenon in which a person – in this case a disciple in 1:45; the Jews in 6:42 – actually states the truth. The very truth becomes the reason for rejecting the truth; this is what makes the situation ironic – and tragic. The true statement is situated in a false discourse which makes the meaning absurd. In this way, the Johannine irony plays with and destabilizes the prevailing discourse on the truth. Often the Johannine irony is, however, used by scholars as a means of bending language in order to adapt the text to their interpretation. They claim that the statement in concern is false and that that is what makes the situation ironic. 223 Inevitably, this methodological issue poses some questions to my own project of comparing the text of the Fourth Gospel with Philo’s writings. Meeks chose to feature a multiplicity of sources in order to make it historically plausible that a Jewish Moses-piety existed in the climate in which the Fourth Gospel came into being. Confronted with this kind of thinking, my survey, which privileges one source, namely Philo, will inevitably be confronted with the claim that it must be made historically, even materially, likely that the author of the Fourth Gospel knew and had read Philo: Is it credible that a particularly Alexandrian intellectual taxonomy was at work in Asia Minor? But Alexandrian philosophy was not geographically restricted; the ideas that we meet in Philo’s writing were floating around in the Mediterranean intellectual milieu of the 1st century C.E.
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to make the comparison valid, and that means historically plausible, Meeks wants to reconstruct the mystical piety with its most general and commonly shared features.224 Accordingly, the historical witnesses included in the study must be stripped of their individual and most specific interpretations of the phenomenon. Meeks is most interested in those ideas about Moses in Philo’s treatises which do not form a logically integrated part of Philo’s arguments and philosophical outlook, since the “unexplained” and unintegrated features are more likely to represent traditional material, “drawn from the common stock of Jewish views and exegesis” (Meeks 1967, 130). Although at the outset of his study, Meeks insisted that structures cannot be abstracted from the particulars in which they are embedded, the focus of his survey on the historical phenomenon behind the texts somehow ends up in reintroducing the structural fallacy through the back door. The net result is that the pursued particulars are once more set aside. It is probably this methodological razor that has erased Philo’s idea of the double generation from the general picture of the Jewish Moses-centred piety. I shall argue that it is precisely Philo’s more idiosyncratic constructs – his ideas of the deute/ra ge/nesij and the translation – that are, not only valuable, but even necessary, for a proper understanding of the Fourth Gospel.
4.3 Reinhartz and Seim. Aristotelian epigenesis and John The thesis which is to be argued here is that the generation a!nwqen (3:3) of water and pneu=ma (3:5) in the Fourth Gospel should be understood in light of Philo’s concept of a deute/ra ge/nesij and that this renewed begetting accounts for Jesus’ divine sonship as well as believers’ generation as children of God. The thesis was originally inspired by Adele Reinhartz’ work presented in her 1999 essay “’And the Word Was Begotten’: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John”. Turid Karlsen Seim’s 2005 essay “Descent and Divine Paternity in the Gospel of John: Does 224 Throughout his study Meeks discusses Goodenough’s survey By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (1935). According to Meeks, Goodenough goes too far concerning the question “whether such a Jewish religion might have taken the form of an organized ‘mystery’” (Meeks 1967, 286, note 1). Nevertheless, Meeks finds that the results of his own survey can be harmonized with Goodenough’s general theory: “In particular, it shows that the kind of piety Goodenough postulates was not limited to certain ‘Hellenized’ Diaspora Jews, but was known in Palestine, by Samaritans as well as Jews, even in circles whose traditions have been preserved in the literature of ‘normative’ Judaism” (Meeks, 286 note 1).
178 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation the Mother Matter?” is indebted to Reinhartz’ work, too. But whereas Reinhartz focuses primarily on the incarnation in the Prologue, Seim takes the whole discussion of parenthood in the Gospel into consideration. With regard to the precise understanding of the “divine epigenesis in the Gospel of John” our ways, nevertheless, part. Reinhartz and Seim claim that it is the Aristotelian idea proper that is at work in Jesus’ divine generation, but I shall argue that it is the redoubling of the Aristotelian model of generation, which we find in Philo’s treatises, that constitutes the correct parallel.
4.3.1 Reinhartz. Incarnation as divine epigenesis Reinhartz’ exegetical starting-point is her observation that there is a change of register in the Prologue’s explanation of God’s relationship with Jesus. At the end of the Prologue, the initial account of God’s relationship with his lo&goj is replaced by the familiar code of father-son language. The latter code is continued throughout the narrative body of the Gospel, and it also characterizes Jesus’ discussion of his own identity. Reinhartz notes that the transition from the first code to the second takes place in 1:14, which is traditionally understood as the verse that introduces the incarnation. The Prologue thus implies that the incarnation somehow transformed the nature of the relationship between God and his lo&goj (86). However, the transition from the logos asarkos to the logos ensarkos, is no mystery; it may be explained in terms of contemporary theories of generation. Thus, the “father-son” language of the Gospel should to be taken literally. Among the competing discourses on generation in antiquity, Reinhartz finds that Aristotle’s theory of generation (known as the theory of epigenesis among scholars), which is discussed in his treatise De generatione animalium, matches the Fourth Gospel best. This is due, in part, to the prominent role that the theory ascribes to the father as the ultimate source of the formative and life-generating powers, and, in part, to the vocabulary shared by the theory and the Prologue, specifically, the Gospel, more generally (87-90).225 Since the epigenesis differs 225 Reinhartz mentions the term a(rxh/ (John 1:1) which in the Aristotelian theory represents the main “principles” at work in the process of generation, the passive and active principle, respectively (Gen. an. 716b3; Peck 1942, xlv). The latter principle is designated the lo&goj in Aristotle’s theory (John 1:1; 14), and it refers to the formative power of the male (92). Furthermore, the pneu=ma, in which the formative powers of the paternal lo/goj are situated, is said to have its ultimate origin a!nwqen (Gen. an. 731b24) – cf. John 3:3, 5. The relationship between Aristotle’s theory and the Stoic theory of the pneu=ma should also be noticed.
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considerably from our present day understanding of generation, Aristotle’s theory will be summarized here.
4.3.1.1 The epigenesis. Aristotle’s theory of generation I want here to draw attention to three aspects of Aristotle’s theory which are of importance for my discussion with feminist scholarship: (i.) the one-sex model, (ii.) the role of gender in generation and (iii.) the multiplicity of fatherhoods. i. The one-sex model Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis is intimately related to his theory of the causes. In fact, generation is taken as a proof case of his metaphysical analysis of being; thus more than generation simpliciter is at stake here. Consequently, Aristotle’s understanding of the two sexes is determined by his theory of the four causes. The female principle is identified with the passive, material cause; the male accounts for the three active causes: The female always provides the material, the male provides that which fashions the material into shape [a)ei\ de\ pare/xei to_ me\n qh=lu th\n u!lhn, to_ d’ a!rren to_ dhmiourgou=n]; this, in our view, is the specific characteristics of each of the sexes: that is what it means to be male or to be female. Hence necessity requires that the female should provide the physical part, i.e., a quantity of material, but not that the male should do so, since necessity does not require that the tools should reside in the product that is being made, nor that the agent which uses them should do so. Thus, the physical part, the body, comes from the female, and the Soul from the male. (Aristotle, Gen. an. 738b20-28)
To Aristotle only one sex exists, the male. The female sex is the outcome of a disproportion in the generative process between the formative forces inherent in the paternal semen and the matter provided by the mother (Gen. an. 767b10).226 Basically, the female is nothing but a defective, even monstrous male (767b5-10) characterized by her lack of vital 226 For a discussion of the “one-sex/one-flesh” model of antiquity, see Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (1990), Chapter Two: ”Destiny is Anatomy”. Here Laqueur writes “about the corporeal theatrics of a world where at least two genders correspond to but one sex, where the boundaries between male and female are of degree and not of kind, and where the reproductive organs are but one sign among many of the body’s place in a cosmic and cultural order that transcends biology” (25). According to Laqueur, the one-sex model prevailed in philosophy and science until the end of the 17th century.
180 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation heat. According to Aristotle, the vital heat resides in the connate pneu=ma, which constitutes the powers of the sentient soul (yuxh/). The soul with its heat and pneumatic powers permeates the heart and the area around it. From a macroscopic perspective, the connate pneu=ma is involved in sense perception and the instinctive impulse; perceived microscopically, the pneu=ma empowers the processes of bodily growth and development – in adults as well as in the embryo.227 The vital heat residing in the pneu=ma provides energy for the digestive processes in which the food of the stomach is transformed into the blood that nurtures the various parts of the body. After further concoction and refinement of the blood, various residues are left which must be discharged for the sake of the health of the body. However, some of the residues serve important purposes, i.e. the semen in generation and the (seminal) milk that feeds the baby (Solmsen 1957; Boylan 1082). Consequently, Aristotle concludes that gender is situated in the heart (766a32ff).228 The level of heat accounts for the features that characterize the two sexes: the female’s weakness and paleness are due to her lack of vital heat. ii. The role of gender in generation Despite the fact that femaleness is maleness that has fallen short of its natural completeness (te/loj), it is, according to Aristotle, a deficiency 227 See Peck’s “The connate Pneuma. An Essential Factor in Aristotle’s Solution to the Problems of Reproduction and Sensation” (1953). See also Peck’s introduction to the Loeb edition of De generatione animalium (Peck 1942, lix). 228 See the extremely important passage at Gen. an. 766a32ff, where Aristotle first defines the male and female as principles and next on the basis of this definition identifies the life-process that is the origin and cause of sex differentiation, namely the ability to concoct blood, which is in turn determined by the vital heat residing in the heart (LCL’s numbers): “Let us assume then: (1) that ‘the male’ is a principle and is causal in its nature [a!rren a)rxh/ tij kai\ ai1tion]; (2) that a male is male in virtue of a particular ability, and a female is female in virtue of a particular inability; (3) that the line of determination between the ability and the inability is whether a thing effects or does not effect concoction of the ultimate nourishment (in blooded animals this is known as blood … ); (4) that the reason for this lies in the ‘principle’, i.e. in the part of the body which possesses the principle of the natural heat [tou&tou de\ to_ ai1tion e0n th|= a)rxh|= kai\ tw|~ mori/w| e1xonti th\n th=j fusikh=j qermo/thtoj a)rxh/n]. From this it follows of necessity that, in the blooded animals, a heart must take shape and that the creature formed is to be either male or female sexes. … As far, then, as the principle and the cause of male and female is concerned, this is what it is and where it is situated …”
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that is natural (a)naphri/a) (Gen. an. 767b5-10; 775a15; Peck 1942, xlv).229 This is due to its role in generation. The semen, which Aristotle claims that both parents ejaculate, belongs to the natural residues produced by the body (726a29-b18; Preuss 1970, 7-9). But because of their different digestive capacities, the male and female semen differ in quality and therefore in their generative functions. The male semen is a watery and foamy solution of the father’s pneu=ma, which serves as a vehicle for the transport of paternal form (lo&goj) to the offspring (735b10-36a30; Peck 1942, xv; Preuss 1970, 26-28). Because of her lack of vital heat, the female is not capable of bringing this process of concoction to the end; her semen maintains the bloody features of the nourishment and is identified with her menstrual blood. But nature, wise as she is, has ascribed a function even to this unfinished and defect creature (738a33ff; Peck 1942, xliii).230 The female provides matter for the formative forces inherent in the paternal semen. Without her blood, the generative process would be like cheese-enzymes without milk (729a10-12) or like a carpenter with a good design in mind but without any timber (729b19; 730b13-15). The female menstrual blood is, however, not prime matter in the sense that it completely lacks form: it possesses the nutritive (plant) soul, but lacks the sentient soul, which must be provided from the outside, namely by the male semen (Peck xiii). Since the female possesses matter endowed by a minimum of form, she is of bringing forth a kind of foetus by her own forces. Aristotle mentions the mola uteri as an example of female autogenesis. Due to her 229 See Gen. an. 767b5-10 where Aristotle discusses the origin of monstrosity, which is defined as any derivation from the generic type: “… anyone who does not take after his parents is really in a way a monstrosity [te/raj], since in these cases Nature has in a way strayed from the generic type. The first beginning of this deviation is when a female is formed instead of a male [a)rxh\ de\ prw&th to_ qh=lu gi/nestai kai\ mh\ a!rren], though (a) this indeed is a necessity required by Nature [a)ll’ au3th me\n a)nagkai/a th|= fu&sei] since the race of creatures which are separated into male and female has got to be kept in being; and since it is possible for the male sometimes not to gain the mastery either on account of youth or age or some other such cause, female offspring must of necessity be produced by animals”. 230 See 738a33ff, where Aristotle describes how Nature works for the best: “Thus the product of this residue by females is, on the one hand, the result of necessity [e0c a)na&gkhj], and the reasons have been given: The female system cannot effect concoction, and therefore of necessity residue must be formed not only from the useless nourishment, but also in the blood-vessels, and when there is a full complement of it in those very fine blood vessels, it must overflow. On the other hand, in order to serve the better purpose [e3neka de\ tou= belti/onoj kai\ te/louj], the End, Nature diverts it to this place and employs it there for the sake of generation, in order that it may become another creature of the same kind as it would have become, since even as it is, it is potentially the same in character as the body whose secretion it is”.
182 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation lack of vital heat, this formless, lifeless, fleshy mass is that which the female is capable of engendering (775b25-776a8).231 But neither is the male semen pure form; the formative force of the sentient soul needs a material vehicle by the aid of which it may be transported into the maternal womb where it exercises its formative power.232 However, as we shall see, it is of crucial importance for Aristotle’s theory that the male does not contribute anything material to the foetus. iii. The multiplicity of fatherhoods In the treatise, Aristotle takes issue with the Hippocratics and their theory of pangenesis. According to the Hippocratics, both parents contributed equally to the child by their semen, which in both sexes contained generative seeds from every part in the body. Aristotle’s argument against his opponents goes like this: 1. If the male and female, as claimed by the Hippocratics, contributed equally to the foetus, it would be impossible to have several fathers. In that case, the offspring would have had too many members, etc. 2. Nature – Aristotle has poultry farming in mind – demonstrates to us that multiple fatherhoods are in fact a possibility. The method does not only provide sound offspring, it is also used in order to improve it. 3. Accordingly, it is impossible that the father(s) should provide matter for the offspring through the(ir) semen. 4. Inference 1: The theory of the Hippocratics must be wrong. 5. Inference 2: The paternal forces inherent in the semen must have a dynamic form that allows the formative powers to be added successively to the same matter. Due to its odd character, the argument deserves being quoted in full: 231 See the passage in Gen. an. 775b25-33 in which the mola uteri is described: “We now have to treat the mola uteri. … It has been known to happen, in the case of a woman who has had intercourse and thinks she has conceived … But when the time for her delivery was at hand, she has neither brought anything to birth nor yet has the size of her girth decreased; instead, she has continued in that condition for three or four years, till she was seized with dysentery which brought her to a dangerous pass, and then she has produced a fleshy mass (e1teke sa&rka h#n kalou=si mu=lhn), known as a “mola”. Sometimes also, this condition (to_ pa&qov) lasts on to old age and persists until death. In such instances, the objects which make their way out of the body are so hard (sklhra_) that it is difficult to cut them in two even by means of an iron edge …” 232 The theme of Aristotle’s treatise is the generation of animals and among these the human being is also included. But it is only the sentient soul and its work in generation and more generally in development and growth that is the subject of the treatise. Therefore the origin of the rational soul, which only human beings have, is not subjected to scrutiny.
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However, it is the behaviour of birds and the group of oviparous fishes which provides us with the strongest proof (a) that the semen is not drawn from all the parts of the body, and (b) that the male does not emit any part such as will remain situated within the fetus, but begets the young animal simply by means of the dynamis residing in the semen. … Here is the evidence. Supposing a hen bird is in the process of producing wind-eggs, and then that she is trodden by the cock while the egg is still completely yellow and has not yet started to whiten: the result is that the eggs are not windeggs but fertile ones. And supposing the hen has been trodden by another cock while the eggs are still yellow, then the whole brood of chickens when hatched out takes after the second cock. Some breeders who specialize in first-class strains act upon this, and change the cock for the second treading. The implication is (a) that the semen is not situated inside the egg and mixed up with it, and (b) that it is not drawn from the whole of the body of the male; if it were in this case, it would be drawn from both males, so the offspring would have every part twice over. No; the semen of the male acts otherwise; in virtue of the dynamis which it contains it causes the material and nourishment in the female to take on a particular character; and this can be done by the semen which is introduced at a later stage, working through heating and concoction, since the egg takes in nourishment so long as it is growing. (Gen. an. 729a33-30a18)
In the generative process, the female provides the material and passive cause, while the male provides the three active causes, form (lo&goj), purpose (te/loj) and the initial motion (effect) (Gen. an. 715a1-10; Preuss 1970, 3). Thus, with regard to generation, the female may either be defined as the passive part or the creature in which generation takes place; the male is the active part or the creature that begets outside his own body (716a15; 729b14; 732a1-10). In this way, the child becomes a physical and psychic extension of the father. The more well-proportioned the relationship is between the paternal forces and the female matter, the greater the resemblance between father and son (766b15-16; 767b1-768a8). But in the case that the balance between the forces is illproportioned, the offspring may ultimately turn out as a daughter (767b10; 768a10). Consequently, when the female conceives a male child, then – by the aid of the paternal pneu=ma – she (and her matter) is in her son brought to a state of perfection that she cannot herself provide. 4.3.1.2 Divine epigenesis in John Reinhartz finds it plausible that the circles out of which the Fourth Gospel emerged knew and approved of the Aristotelian theory of generation, and she points to the traces of the theory that she has come across in the writings of both Second Temple Judaism and Early Chris-
184 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation tianity. As I have already mentioned, Philo – in his treatise De opificio mundi (67) – refers explicitly to Aristotle’s treatise in his account of how the animal world came into being on the fifth day. Philo also uses the theory in an analogical form, e.g. in De cherubim, where it functions as the template onto which God’s role in the human achievement of virtue is modelled: man or his mind assumes the female position, while God is the male begetter. When His seed – that is, the divine wisdom – is introduced into the human mind, it brings forth virtue as the divine offspring. Reinhartz describes this latter use as an analogous and metaphorical one (Reinhartz 1999, 91): Man and Woman, male and female of the human race, in the course of nature come together to hold intercourse for the procreation of children. But virtues whose offspring are so many and so perfect may not have to do with mortal man, yet if they receive not seed of generation from another they will never of themselves conceive. Who then is he that sows [spei/rwn] in them the good [seed] [ta_ kala&] save the Father of all, that is God unbegotten and begetter of all things? (Reinhartz quoting from De cherubim 43f)
That the Aristotelian theory in its general form may have entered the circles round the Fourth Gospel is confirmed by the explicit reference to divine epigenesis in 1 John 3:9: “Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God” (91).233 The survey allows Reinhartz to challenge the exegetical tradition that does not hear any generative connotations in the Prologue. She draws attention to the term monogenh/j, which has often been understood as a reference to Christ’s unique character: Reading the Prologue’s use of terms, such as a)rxh/, lo&goj, and various forms of the verb gi/nomai, as allusions to epigenesis supports the argument in favour of monogenh/j as “only begotten”. Thus the first few verses of the prologue, when read against the background of Greek notions of generation, declare that God is the first principle of generation, whose logos, or rational principle, was given human life and form and sent into the human world as Jesus, the divine father’s only begotten son. This reading provides the content for the assertion that the Word became flesh by alluding to the process of epigenesis through divine seed. (Reinhartz 1999, 93)
Reinhartz also suggests that the theory of epigenesis provides the key to our understanding of the claim made in the Fourth Gospel that Jesus as the Son of God reveals the Father in and to the world. According to the Aristotelian theory, the son was – in the literal sense of the word – an extension of the father. The son was the place in which the father re233 1. John 3:9: Pa~j o( gegennhme/noj e0k tou= qeou= a(marti/an ou0 poiei=, o#ti spe/rma au0tou= e0n au0tw|~ me/nei, kai\ ou0 du&natai a(marta&nein, o#ti e0k tou= qeou= gege/nnhtai.
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produced himself. Thus, as the embodiment of the divine lo&goj, brought about by the instrumental forces of the divine pneu=ma, Jesus as Son reveals God, his Father. When the Johannine disciples demand to see the Father, Jesus refers to himself (14:8f).234 In this way, the Aristotelian theory offers a new and very physical perspective on the Gospel’s language of the mutual indwelling of the Father and His Son. “What, then, of Jesus’ mother?” Reinhartz must ask. On the one hand, since in the theory of epigenesis the maternal contribution of matter does matter, the theory “implies a scene that does not differ greatly from Matthean and Lukan presentations of Jesus’ conception through the Holy Spirit and his foetal development within his mother’s womb” (94). On the other hand, and again in accordance with the theory, Jesus’ mother does not really matter, which is implied by the estrangement involved in Jesus’ repeated, anonymous way of addressing his mother: “Woman” (John 2:4; 19:26). According to Aristotle, the purpose (te/loj) of generation is the perpetuation of the species (Gen. an. 731b35). When read within this perspective, Jesus’ mission, which has the gathering of “God’s dispersed children into one” as its goal (11:52), can be seen as the generation of a new and unique species, of which Jesus is the first exemplar (95). However, this generation is, in contrast to the divine begetting of Jesus, not to be understood literally. Although Reinhartz notes “the striking parallel” in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus to the Aristotelian vocabulary of epigenesis (96), she understands the generation a!nwqen that is promised believers as metaphorical language. Whereas “from the Johannine perspective, Jesus’ special relationship with God as well as his revelatory function stem precisely from the claim that Jesus is literally and uniquely God’s son”, it is rather true and dedicated belief in Jesus as the Son of God that transforms the disciples into children of God (98). Therefore, the generation a!nwqen, which befalls Jesus’ own disciples when they receive the Holy Spirit (20:22) from Jesus’ breath, is only a “begetting” in quotation marks (97). In the autumn of 2004, A. Reinhartz participated in a seminar on Gender and Body in the Gospel of John at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen. Here she proposed a paper on the implications of Aristotle’s theory for believers in the Johannine community: “Aristotelian Epigenesis in the Gospel of John: The Next Generation”.235 In her paper, Reinhartz made a further distinction, namely between the disci234 John 14:8f: Le/gei au0tw|~ Fi/lippoj: ku&rie, dei=con h9mi=n to_n pate/ra, kai\ a)rkei= h9mi=n. le/gei au0tw|~ o( 0Ihsouj: tosou&tw| xro&nw| meq’ u(mw~n ei0mi kai\ ou0k e1gnwka&j, Fi/lippe; o( e9wrakw~j e0me\ e9w&raken to_n pate/ra: 235 Reinhartz’ paper is published in Gender and Body in the Gospel of John (2006).
186 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation ples, who received the spirit from the breath of the risen Lord (20:22), and later generations of the Johannine community, who, as it were, received the spirit from the Paraclete, that is, through the words of the Fourth Gospel. If the first generation was a “begetting” in quotation marks, the latter is a purely metaphorical enterprise. Although no mother is physically involved in the generation a!nwqen of the new species of God’s children, the narrative still assigns a role to women as spiritual mothers who bring forth new spiritual children for the Lord. The Samaritan woman and Mary Magdalene are examples of this spiritual maternity. Thus, in the case of subsequent generations the ways of Aristotle and the Gospel of John part. The manner in which Jesus was generated as the divine Word, namely through God’s infusion of His spirit into the vessel of Jesus’ earthly mother, is never repeated. Only Jesus has God as his one and only, literal Father, whereas subsequent generations are generated in the traditional way through earthly parents. As a spiritual family, the Johannine community does not reproduce itself through physical procreation, but through the conversion and baptism of new members. In the Johannine community, the divine generation has been stripped of all its physical features.236 In spite of her new and challenging perspective on the Fourth Gospel, in the end Reinhartz’ reading turns out to be in line with the German tradition as represented, for instance, by Hans-Christian Kammler (see Chapter One). Although the mystery of the incarnation – which in previous scholarship has been impenetrable to reason – now has been explained in terms of the divine epigenesis, the traditional, ontological difference between Jesus, his disciples and the believers is maintained. Jesus remains the uniquely mono-begotten Son of God.
4.3.2 Seim. Divine paternity in John. Does the mother matter? In her 2005 article, Turid Karlsen Seim analyses the role of Jesus’ mother in the Fourth Gospel, and she approaches issues of Christology and ecclesiology from this perspective. With regard to Jesus’ mother, 236 While being fully aware of the methodologically dangerous step from the Johannine narrative to the social history of a community, to which we have no other access, Reinhartz also tentatively asks what the community behind the text may have looked like. The growth of the community through spiritual rebirth seems indicative of an ascetic community, and perhaps it was the lower priority given to biological motherhood that allowed women a position as spiritual leaders who bred new children for the Lord.
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Seim identifies a tension in the Gospel. On the one hand, the Gospel marginalizes Jesus’ physical mother; she is quite literally displaced to the margins. On the other hand, a prominent position is given to the mother as present at the foot of the cross and as the address of Jesus’ final words. Seim’s essay is inspired by Reinhartz’ work on John and Aristotle, but her approach to gender and generation is broader. Seim is also interested in the social and symbolic staging of parenthood in antiquity. Seim takes her starting-point in the ancient discourse on generation according to which the father alone provided life. As the receptacle of and nurse for the male seed, the mother was not seen as a parent; parenthood was synonymous with fatherhood. The mother only mattered in so far as she provided matter for the formative power of the male seed. Paternity was established through a symbolic discourse on cosmogonies, medical science, post-natal rites and art, through which the female experience of giving birth and the evident link between mother and child were displaced and subsumed under the system of male descent. An artistic representation of a male giving birth neither denotes a post-structuralist “gender-bending” nor a “renegotiation of maleness”; instead, it expresses the “male completion and omnipotence” and the usurpation of the female contribution to life (375). Seim refers to Reinhartz’ 1999 essay as an analysis that demonstrates the manner in which patriarchal culture has “impregnated” the Fourth Gospel with the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis (362). The question therefore invites itself: “Does the Mother Matter” at all in the Fourth Gospel? In the Gospel, the problematic motherhood is trapped between two apparently competing claims regarding Jesus’ origin (363). He is the incarnated lo&goj of the Prologue, who has his eternal origin with God, but he is also the son of a family from Nazareth, whose members we either encounter as characters in the narrative (as it is the case of Jesus’ mother and his brothers), or else just hear of (as it is the case of Jesus’ father, Joseph).237 Scholars have intensively discussed how these competing claims can be reconciled or explained. Is the claim to an earthly origin a priori rejected by John’s docetic irony? Or is the double origin realized in the mystery of the virgin birth as is the case in Luke and Matthew? Or is the explanation to be found in the genesis of the Gospel, where conflicts in the Johannine community have left editorial seams on the text’s surface? And if the latter is the case: Did the Christology of the Gospel 237 The mother: John 2:5, 12; 6:42; 19:26, 27. The brothers: John 2:12; 7:5. The father: John 1:45; 6:42.
188 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation react to docetic tendencies or did it give rise to docetic interpretations? According to Seim, all these questions are summarized in the scholarly discussion of the textual witnesses to the divine offspring in verse 1:13 of the Prologue: Which reading is the more original? Is it the plural: oi3 ou0k … e0gennh/qhsan, which attributes the non-physical generation to the children of God in verse 1:12? Or is it the singular: “qui non et natus est”, witnessed by the Latin Fathers, which attributes the non-physical generation to the incarnation of the lo&goj of 1:14? It is well known that the Church Fathers’ singular version has its setting in the anti-gnostic polemic, in which the uniqueness of God’s mystery in the virgin birth was invented in order to oppose gnostic ecclesiology. Nevertheless, some scholars have argued that it is the singular version which is the oldest.238 According to Michael Theobald, the singular version represents a purely docetic Christology and the present plural was introduced in order to counter precisely this kind of theology. The plural of blood, e0c ai9ma&twn, was understood in light of ancient theories of generation (e.g. Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis) as a reference to the semen, which was a residue of concocted blood in the case of the father as well as the mother. Consequently, John 1:13 became a statement that excluded the male as well as the female parental contribution to Christ. Seim finds that none of these discussions captures the ambiguity of the Gospel with regard to Jesus’ mother. Seim reacts, on the one hand, to the up-grading of motherhood that we find in the mariological attempts to import a Lukan idealized picture of the mother into the Fourth Gospel: “Mary’s maternal role is converted prototypically to a motherhood constituted exclusively by the fruitful reception of the word of God” (370, note 30). In these readings, Jesus’ mother becomes the mother of all believers, the new Eve of the new creation, and is as such installed as a symbol for the Church. But the mariological readings ignore the fact that reborn believers are expressis verbis said to be children of God, begotten and born by the Father. Furthermore, the ecclesiologically prominent position ascribed to the mother in these readings does not correspond to the marginal role that the Gospel ascribes to her. She only appears at the beginning and at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry: at the wedding feast in Cana and at the foot of the cross. Between these poles – that is, in the main body of the Gospel – motherhood is superseded by the divine fatherhood. Often the mariological readings try to smooth over the harshness of tone and the dissociative anonymity with which Jesus addresses his mother (2:4; 19:26). 238 In an excursus on John 1:13 in Die Fleischwerdung des Logos (1988), Theobald argues that the singular should be seen as the original.
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On the other hand, Seim also reacts to readings which reduce the role of the mother to an anti-docetic sign of Jesus’ humanity. These readings are not able to account for the appearance of the mother in the crucial hour of Jesus’ crucifixion or for Jesus’ solicitude for her in the act in which he entrusts her to the care of the beloved disciple. But again, in spite of her presence at the foot of the cross, the important role as witness to the resurrection – and in John as well to the ascension to the Father – is not given to the mother, but to Mary Magdalene. So Seim asks: Why is she there at all? What takes place in the scene in which, just before he expires, Jesus entrusts his mother to another son, who is not a biological one? According to Seim, the solution to the ambiguity surrounding the mother is found “at the foot of the cross”. In this ceremonial act of mutual entrustment, a new familia dei is established. It is begotten (the male role) and given birth (the female role) symbolically from above in a quite literally way, since Jesus is exalted on the cross (373). Here “kinship”, represented by the mother, is blended with “friendship”, represented by the beloved disciple, in such a manner that both types of relation are redefined and re-qualified. In the new familia dei, the ties of traditional kinship are transcended by the spiritual indwelling of God the Father and His divine lo&goj. Accordingly, the disciples – who were no longer designated slaves (dou=loi), but friends (fi/loi) (15:12-17) – are from now on further qualified as brothers (a)delfoi/). Through the spiritual rebirth from above, the friends whom Jesus loves become his brothers and sisters. Because the risen Lord calls Mary Magdalena by her name (20:16), Seim infers that women also must have been counted among the sheep whose names the good shepherd knew (10:3-4). In conclusion, the answer to the question: “Does the mother matter?” remains ambiguous. It is a “Yes”, in so far as the mother provides and represents kinship by blood. It is a “No”, because – through Jesus’ death – this kinship is transformed into that of a new and spiritual community.
4.4 Generation in the exegesis of the Fourth Gospel 4.4.1 Feminist scholars. Divine epigenesis or deute/ra ge/nesij? Two gendered features in the Fourth Gospel have convinced Adele Reinhartz and Turid Karlsen Seim that ancient ideas about generation, as depicted in Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis and expressed in the social practice of rites, have “impregnated” the text of the Fourth Gospel (Seim 2005, 362). The two features are the Johannine Jesus’ exposition
190 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation of his relation to God in terms of a father-son relationship and the corresponding marginalization of the role of Jesus’ mother in the Gospel. Both scholars argue that the incarnation should be understood in terms of a divine epigenesis in which Jesus’ mother was fertilized by the divine spirit. In this way, the lo&goj, which was in the beginning with God, became begotten in the womb of Jesus’ mother. Thus, the epithet monogenh/j, when applied to Jesus, should be read “only begotten” (Reinhartz 1999, 93) and understood as a reference to a virgin birth in the manner of the Gospel of Luke (Reinhartz, 99). Reinhartz’ and Seim’s idea of a divine epigenesis indirectly becomes a statement concerning the “competing claims” regarding Jesus’ origin in the Fourth Gospel (Seim 2005, 363). The family from Nazareth, of whom the Jews, and also the disciple Philip, claim to have knowledge, is not Jesus’ family. Joseph is not Jesus’ father, and his mother does not really matter, as an epigenetic fact she only provides matter. Exposed to the Johannine irony, the Jews fail: that Jesus is from God is the only substantial truth. According to Seim, the silencing of the maternal origin in the Fourth Gospel is due to the transformation of values at work in the Gospel. In opposition to the Jewish identity, which was a matter of physical kinship, the new familia dei replaces and transcends the physical ties by spiritual relations. The depiction of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel as a guy who distancing himself brutally from his mother by an anonymous address: “Woman!” should be understood in light of this program. The physicality of Jesus’ relation to his mother must be eclipsed. In Reinhartz’ and Seim’s work, theological ideas that as part of God’s mystery had precluded further discussion were situated in the ancient discourse on body, gender and generation and subjected to scrutiny. The simple question was asked: What may these phrases have meant to an ancient audience? When by means of the theory of epigenesis, Reinhartz and Seim crack the mystery of the incarnation, it does not do away with the abiding “ontological and soteriological difference” between Jesus and subsequent generations of believers, but it explains it.239 Although Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus seems to allude to the theory of epigenesis, the seemingly generative language is here only used metaphorically. The generation a!nwqen of God’s children by means of the constituents of the paternal sperma, water and spirit, must be understood spiritually. In summary: whereas, in relation to Jesus, God’s parenthood is real and physical, it remains metaphorical and spiritual in the case of God’s children.
239 The expression is Kammler’s. See “Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet“ (1996, 107).
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Although I follow in Reinhartz’ and Seim’s footsteps and seek an answer to the simple question of the ancient meaning of the text, in the end our ways part. Using the same contextual material, namely Aristotle and Philo, I propose that some adjustments be made in the way it is applied to the Fourth Gospel. First, when John is read in light of Philo, I find the idea of a virgin birth in the Fourth Gospel unconvincing. Instead, I shall argue that it is Philo’s idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij that constitutes the key to our understanding of Christological as well as soteriological issues in the Gospel. As originally claimed by Meeks, I find that Jesus also speaks about himself in the conversation with Nicodemus on generation, but that believers are included in this description, too. However, the abiding ontological difference between Jesus, as Son of God, and believers, as children of God, is not lost; as I shall demonstrated in Chapter Seven, it is re-established through Jesus’ ascension to the Father. Second, I would like to emphasize that Philo’s idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij is simultaneously physical, spiritual, and very real. At stake in the different interpretations is the methodological question concerning which supplement should be added to the Gospel in order to (re-) construct the historical meaning: philosophical Judaism (the criteria of context) or biblical Christianity as represented by the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (the criteria of difference)?240
4.4.1.1 Virgin birth in Philo? In her 1999 essay, Reinhartz drew attention to two different ways that Philo employs the Aristotelian theory of epigenesis. Philo quotes almost verbatim from Aristotle’s treatise De generatione animalium in his exposition of the biblical account of the creation of the animals in De opificio mundi (67). In De cherubim (43f), an analogous use of the theory was found, too. Philo’s approval of the theory makes it probable that it was known in Johannine circles as well. However, when it comes down to the particulars, Jesus’ generation in the Gospel of John differs from both these models. A divine epigenesis in which the fleshly, physical womb of a concrete woman is fertilized by the divine spirit is not found in Philo. I, for my part, find that the analogical use of the theory of epigenesis, to which Reinhartz rightly draws attention, corresponds to Philo’s idea 240 See the discussion of the two principles that Stanley Stowers calls “the criteria of context” and “the criteria of difference” in his essay “The Social Sciences and the Study of Early Christianity” (1985).
192 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation of a deute/ra ge/nesij. Yet, in order to juxtapose Reinhartz’ and Seim’s solution with my own, we need to inquire a bit further into Philo’s discourse on generation. In Chapter Three on Philo, I demonstrated how the idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij formed part of an overall and pervasive pattern in Philo’s writings, namely the allegorical exposition of the two types of men, the earthly man (mind-sets) and the heavenly man (mind-sets) and their correspondingly different manners of generation. The two generations of man (mind) formed part of a dynamic continuum or hierarchy of generative processes which constitutes the development of man from seed to fully born virtuous being. Each step in this process is shaped according to the structure of epigenesis, in which a (female) body of matter is continually reshaped and refined by the work of different formative (male) forces that supervene successively. In each step, the female position is taken by the offspring of the previous step. The so-called literal epigenesis of the generation of be-souled animals that Philo describes in De opificio mundi (67) is found at the one pole of this spectrum, at the other pole we find the generation of man as a rational being. The latter pole is concerned with that part of the generation of man with which Aristotle was expressis verbis not engaged in De generatione animalium: “It remains, then, that Reason alone enters in, as an additional factor, from outside, and that is alone divine, because physical activity has nothing whatever to do with the activity of Reason” (736b25-29).241 Let us therefore concentrate on the rational pole here. In accordance with Aristotle’s description of reason as something divine that somehow supervenes from the outside, Philo interprets Gen 2:7 allegorically as the act in which God be-souls the leading part of the soul with the reasoning faculty of mind: 242 The breathing “into the face” is to be understood both physically and ethically: physically, because it is in the face that He set the senses; for this part of the body is beyond other parts endowed with soul: but ethically, on this wise. As the face is the dominant element in the body, so is the mind the dominant element of the soul [ou3twj yuxh=j h9gemoniko&n e0stin o( nou=j]: into this only does God breathe, whereas He does not see fit to do so with the other parts, whether senses or organs of utterance and of reproduction; for these are secondary of capacity [Deu&tera ga&r e0sti th|= duna&mei]. (Leg. 1.39)
In fact, Philo splits the event of God’s inbreathing of reason into man into two separate events. He distinguishes between the generation of 241 Aristotle Gen. an. 736b27: lei/petai dh\ to_n nou=n mo/non qu&raqen e0peisie/nai kai\ qei=on ei]nai mo&non. 242 Gen 2.7LXX: Kai\ e1plasen o( qeo_j to_n a!nqrwpon xou=n labw_n a)po_ th=j gh=j, kai\ e0nefu&shsen ei0j to_ pro&swpon au0tou= pnoh\n zwh=j, kai\ e0ge/neto o( a!nqrwpoj ei0j yuxh\j zw~san.
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the (potentially) earthly, Adamic mind, in which the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n) is be-souled by God’s breath (h9 pnoh/) and the generation of the heavenly man (mind-set) according to God’s image, in which God’s spirit (pneu=ma) is the fertilizing agent (Leg. 1.42). In the first case, man becomes a formally rational being, but right reason is only established in the deute/ra ge/nesij through inspiration and prophecy (QG 4.125). Whereas every human being becomes rational in the first sense, the latter type of rationality is only reached by Philo’s outstanding, ever-virginal natures (QE 2.46). Both mind-sets have their origin in God, but only the mind which brings forth virtuous deeds may truly be called God’s offspring (Leg. 1.31) and the heir of divine things (Her. 68-70). With regard to the human soul, Philo establishes what we may call an epigenetic hierarchy: first, the maternal matter, which possesses the nutrient soul in itself (fu/sij), is endowed with the sentient soul (yuxh/) through the paternal semen. The living body of the foetus is the work of the sentient soul (Opif. 67). Next, at birth, the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n) is brought alive by being be-souled by God’s breath. Reason supervenes and transforms the sentient soul, and it becomes man’s neutral mind (o( nou=j). Finally, God’s spirit may in extra-ordinary cases of inspiration and prophecy be-soul and give form to man’s mind. About this final divine impregnation of the mind by God’s spirit, Philo says that it is a kind of generation that has “no mother, but only a father who is (the Father) of all” (QE 2.46). In fact, the deute/ra ge/nesij is a divine autogenesis in which the mind created by God’s inbreathing is further fertilized by His spirit. In this sense, it is also a monogenesis. The epigenetic ladder is a gendered hierarchy. As mentioned in the paragraph on Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, sex is defined relatively according to the two positions necessary in generation: the male position belongs to him who generates outside himself and actively applies form to the foetus; the female position belongs to her who generates in her own body and passively provides material for the male formative forces. When seen in this light, God becomes the ultimate male who only has the role as begetter; o( nou=j, to_ h9gemoniko&n and h9 yuxh/ assume differently gendered positions depending on whether they receive or impart “soul”. In the first case, they hold the female position, in the latter the male. In summary: human beings become fully born through a continual development in which the maternal matter is subjected to the formative forces of the male sentient soul, the divine breath of reason, and ultimately the divine spirit of prophetic inspiration. The decisive step in man’s development is neither his conception, nor his birth, but his com-
194 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation ing to terms with the truth. Only when man reaches his final end and lives in accordance with God’s will and imagination, then he may be designated as a fully born human being. 243 The hierarchy is also established through the days that Philo ascribes to each of these generations. The animal, sentient soul is the work of the fifth day (Opif. 67); the (potentially) Adamic, earthly mind of formal reasoning belongs to the sixth day (Leg. 1.31f); finally, the perfection of the mind through God’s intervention is the work of the seventh day, that of the Sabbath (QE 2.46; Leg. 1.5). In relation to the present discussion with feminist scholarship it is noteworthy that in antiquity the reproductive faculties were not seen as a bodily parts, but as part of the soul, albeit its most inferior part. According to Philo God expressis verbis involves neither his breath nor his spirit with this lowgrade part of the soul (Leg. 1.39). We are now in a position to approach Philo’s ideas of parthenogenesis in a more qualified way and to discuss how they fit into the Fourth Gospel.244 In fact, Philo does speak of miraculous births, either of a virgin or a barren woman, most often the latter. The discourse is intimately related to the way that Philo depicts the psychological development of the soul in gendered categories. The first step, the training of the mind in self-control, emphasizes man’s own activity and is described as a transformation of gender. The female must become male by stripping off the passionate beliefs that value the pleasures of the 243 Philo may even speak of the womb of the soul. See Migr. 34 where Philo speaks of inspiration as a fertilization of the mind by God: “On some occasions, after making up my mind to follow the usual course of writing on philosophical tenets, and knowing definitely the substance of what I was to set down, I have found my understanding incapable of giving birth to a single idea [a!gonon kai\ stei=ran eu(rw_n th\n dia&noian a!praktoj a)phlla&ghn], and have given it up without accomplishing anything, reviling my understanding for its self-conceit, and filled with amazement at the might of Him that Is to Whom is due the opening and closing of the soul-wombs [par’ o$n ta_j th=j yuxh=j a)noi/gnusqai/ te kai\ sugklei/esqai mh/traj sumbe/bhken]”. 244 R. A. Baer’s book, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female (1970) has proved very valuable for the present study. Baer’s dissertation was written in the sixties before the advent of liberal feminism and long before the post-structuralist interest in gender as a way of thinking with la différance. Baer’s aim was to argue against the prevailing trend in the Philonic studies of his time according to which Philo’s “heavenly man” was understood in terms of the myth of the androgyne primordial man found in Hermetic literature. Instead, Baer, as we know, argued that “the moulded mind of Adam” and the “heavenly mind” were best understood in terms of Plato’s division of the soul into an irrational and a rational part (Baer 1970, 65). Although our ways here part, the high heuristic value of Baer’s work, especially his survey of gender matters in the Philonic corpus, remains. Of special value is Chapter Three: “The Categories Male and Female in Relationship to Soteriology and Prophetic Inspiration”.
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body as something good and worth pursuing. But the male position is not the final goal. In order to receive the divine impregnation, the soul must once more be ranked a virgin. In relation to God, the soul must resume its female epigenetic passiveness, but now in a new and qualified way. This qualified inertness is intimately related to Philo’s subversion of the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij. As we saw in Chapter Three, the wise man ascribes his intellectual and virtuous achievements to the God who originally endowed man with his intellectual faculties. In other words, man must be stripped of the male vice of self-love (filauti/a), in which he values his intellectual achievements as something good and worth pursuing for their own (philosophical) sake (QE 2.3). Philo’s favourite example is Abraham’s wife Sarah, who beyond the menopause conceived Isaac by seeds from heaven (e0c ou0ranou ta_ spe/rmata) (Det. 60). According to Philo, the name Isaac stands for happiness, which is here defined as the exercise of perfect virtue that characterizes the fully born life (eu0daimoni/an de\ xrh=sin a)reth=j telei/an e0n bi/w| telei/w| neon&hka). Philo’s comment on Sarah’s sterility in De cherubim 50 perfectly captures both of these gender transformations:245 The union of human beings that is made for the procreation of children turns virgins into women. But when God begins to consort with the soul, He makes what before was a woman into a virgin again, for he takes away the degenerate and emasculate passions which made it womanish (e0qhlu/neto) and plants instead the native growth of unpolluted virtues. Thus He [God] will not talk with Sarah till she has ceased from all that is after the manner of women (Gen 18:11), and is ranked once more a virgin.
Whereas the offspring produced, when ignorance prevailed and the female element dominated, were soul-defiling passions, the offspring and heir of a virginal soul impregnated by God’s spirit was the virtuous life.246 Thus, Philo’s virgins are not real women, but allegorical representations of the male mind when, in relation to God, it assumes the female position. In the scheme below, Philo’s application of Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis to his ethical theory of the two men is demonstrated. Here the first generation of the neutral man and the subsequent generations of the perverse female autogenesis (the moulding of the soul) and the perfect divine and male autogenesis (the perfection of the soul), respectively, are structured according to the pattern of the Aristotle’s theory of the epigenesis. 245 See also QE 2.3. 246 Accordingly, the miscarriage of passions corresponds to the Aristotelian mola uteri. See note 231.
196 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 4.4.1.2 The epigenesis in Philo’s theory of the two men Steps in generation
Generation of animals
First generation: ordinary man
Day in Genesis
The fifth day
The sixth day
…………………………………………………………………………………… Positions in the theory of epigenesis: The active and formative source (male)
The soul of the earthly father
God
The active and formative power (instrument)
The semen, a watery solution of the psychic pneu=ma of the earthly father
God’s breath h9 pnoh/
The passive and material element (female)
The menstrual blood of the earthly mother
The animal soul of the foetus (h9 yuxh/)
The offspring, physically seen
The animal soul of the foetus (h9 yuxh/)
The power of formal reasoning (o( nou=j)
………………………………………………………………………………….... Philo’s ethical positions
o( me/soj
Philo’s theory of the two men
The moulded man of Gen 2:7, who has received God’ breath
The offspring, ethically seen
The moulded man of Gen 2:7
Duties (ta_ kaqh/konta)
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Secondary de-generation: female auto-genesis
Secondary generation: divine auto-genesis
The fall
The seventh day: Sabbath
……………………………………………………………………………………
Absence of formative powers
God
God’s spirit pneu=ma tou= qeou=
The power of formal reasoning (o( nou=j) inbreathed by God
The power of formal reasoning (o( nou=j) inbreathed by God
Reasoning undergoing moulding and becoming the passionate mind
Right reasoning (o)rqo&j lo&goj)
…………………………………………………………………………………… o( fau=loj
o( spoudai=oj; o( telei=oj; o( sofo&j
Mola uteri
The man according-to the-image of Gen 1:27: The heavenly man
Sons of Hagar
Sons of Sarah
Passions and passionate behaviour
Virtue and right deeds (ta_ katorqw&mata)
198 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation 4.4.1.3 Virgin birth in John? The difficult question that we now face is whether we should situate the Christ of the Fourth Gospel within a world view like the one we know from Philo, according to which the interaction of the divine spirit with the female reproductive faculty was simply unthinkable. Or whether we should see the fourth Evangelist as inspired by a new and distinct Christian tradition of divine epigenesis, which was soon to be articulated in the Gospel of Luke and the theology of the future Church? Which criteria should we use for determining the meaning of the Fourth Gospel: the determinateness of contemporary, ancient discourse or the difference of the original invention of a genius? Does the Prologue, as claimed by Harnack, put an end to philosophical speculations about the lo&goj? Or does John speak the language of Alexandria? In order to answer these questions, we must ask whether there is something in the Gospel itself that points to one solution in favour of the other. Both interpretations are obviously possible. Nevertheless, three arguments speak in favour of the contextual, Philonic solution.247 First, I would like to draw attention to the simple fact that the story of a virgin birth is not told, whereas the descent of the spirit from above as the source of Jesus’ second generation a!nwqen is overtly witnessed by John the Baptist in the opening scene of the Gospel. According to Seim, the silencing of the narrative of Jesus’ birth was due to the transformation of values that took place in the Fourth Gospel from a familia dei based on physical blood ties to the spiritual relationship of a family 247 Baer draws attention to the fact that, according to Philo, the biblical birth narratives should not be read historically and taken at face value. Instead, the birth stories belong to those texts in Scripture the meaning of which is only found at the allegorical level. Therefore Philo warns against these stories. They are for the initiate alone and one should be cautious when this kind of knowledge is presented to the un-initiated. Baer summarizes: “Philo is not interested in the actual historical lives of the Patriarchs as reflected in these passages [e.g. Sarah and Leah in Cher. 44-46, my note], and, as far as I know, no recent scholar has argued that Philo really believed in a virgin birth of the Patriarchs. … His sole concern is to indicate the origin of virtue and wisdom and the attitude of soul in which man must be if he is to receive these gifts of God’s grace. Philo was well aware of the danger of being misunderstood in his teaching about God’s intercourse with the soul. After mentioning the divine begetting of Isaac, he warns the reader that “this saying is not for all to hear, so strongly does the evil tide of superstition (deisidaimoni/a) flow in our minds and drown unmanly and degenerate souls” (Mut. Nom. 138). Likewise in Cher. 48 he cautions those who have been initiated into these “holy mysteries” not to babble of these sacred things to any of the uninitiated (oi9 a)mu&htoi). See also Leg. All. III:219. Apparently he felt that the ignorant and uninstructed could easily confuse his allegorizing with pagan myths that told of the gods mating with mortal beings” (Baer 1970, 61f, note 2).
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based on conversion and faith. But if, for the sake of the argument, we assume that, in the case of Jesus’ divine generation, the Fourth Gospel features a deute/ra ge/nesij (in the manner of Philo) and postpones the establishment of the ontological difference until the ascension, when Jesus is translated into life-engendering pneu=ma (John 6:63), and also assume a deute/ra ge/nesij for the disciples by his spirit (20:22) – in short, the meta-story of pneumatic transformations – the problem with which Seim was wrestling and to which the silencing of the physical difference was a solution, does not even appear. The ties on which the new familia dei is based are simultaneously, physical, spiritual and, as we shall see, very real. A second argument in favour of taking Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij as the proper model for our understanding of Jesus’ divine generation may be borrowed from Michael Theobald’s excursus on the early reception of John 1:13 in Die Fleischwerdung des Logos (1988, 238-247), to which Seim, too, draws attention. According to Theobald, it was the singular of the generation in 1:13 (e0gennh/qh) that represented the most original reading. The singular, which anticipated the incarnation in the following verse (1:14), stood for a docetic understanding of Christ, in which no human blood (in the plural: e0c ai9ma&twn) – neither the male semen nor the female blood – were involved in his generation. According to this reading, Jesus was a (Käsemannian) God in human disguise. In Theobald’s account of the genesis of Fourth Gospel, the singular of e0gennh/qh was soon changed into the plural e0gennh/qhsan, and now 1:13 came to refer metaphorically to the generation of the children of God in the preceding verse 1:12. However, if we leave the discussions of docetism aside, another solution may be found that simultaneously refers forwardly to Christ and backwardly to believers, namely Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij. Here, too, neither the male semen of the earthly father nor the blood of the earthly mother, that is blood in plural, are involved, but expressis verbis only God in an act of divine autogenesis. Third, the idea of the deute/ra ge/nesij is capable of making sense of the repeated references to Jesus’ family from Nazareth. Jesus has a father, Joseph, a mother and siblings, who are well known to the disciples as well as the Jews. But still it is the spiritual family regenerated a!nwqen that in a specific sense constitutes Jesus real family.
4.4.1.4 But what is really real? Reinhartz and Seim both make a distinction between a literal understanding of the divine epigenesis, which is applied to Jesus, and a meta-
200 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation phorical understanding of the generation a!nwqen of water and spirit, which happened to subsequent generations of believers (Reinhartz 1999, 92). However, I shall argue that from a contemporary, ancient point of view the use of the epigenesis in the case of a divine virgin birth is in no way more literal and real than the so-called analogous use, with which I have identified Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij. In my analysis of Philo’s discourse on generation in the present chapter, I have shown how generation takes place in a dynamic continuum. At the one pole, we find the generation of the animal soul through the male seed; at the other pole, we have the deute/ra ge/nesij of the perfect man (mind) though the divine spirit. It is the latter fullborn man who accords with God’s image. Between these, the generation of the ordinary reasoning neutral mind is found. Formative forces are successively added to the matter provided by the mother: the nutritive soul by the mother herself; the sentient soul by the father; reason comes “from without”, that is form God; and finally, right reasoning, which is also from God, may be achieved. The understanding of generation as a continuing process coincides with the phenomenon of multiple fatherhoods described by Aristotle in his argument with the Hippocratics.248 As part of this dynamic continuum, the event of the deute/ra ge/nesij becomes no less physical, spiritual or real than the work of the male semen in the maternal womb. Quite the opposite may in fact be the case, namely if we consider how Philo’s ideas about the deute/ra ge/nesij were moulded from Plato’s idea of the double 1Erwj or the two Aphrodites who were found in Pausanias’ speech in the Symposium. Just as the deute/ra ge/nesij in Philo’s writings does not involve any mother, the 0Afrodi/th Ou0ranou=, who represents the true 1Erwj, is generated from heaven without the participation of a mother; this 1Erwj is a)mh/twr (Symp. 180). Furthermore, in the Timaeus Plato describes three different ways in which the male may respond to his connate daemon – that is, his 1Erwj – and meet the innate longing for his celestial and immortal origin.249 Each man’s quest for immortality corresponds to the part of the tri-partite soul that is the strongest in him. The highest and truest way of gaining immortality is through the conception of eternal ideas and virtuous acts. The lowest way in which man may respond to his 1Erwj is through the physical desire which leads to the generation of children. In this case, the desire for immortality is realized through the establishment of a family of blood ties. Between these positions, we find the 248 See Aristotle’s observations concerning poultry farming (Gen. an. 729a33-30a18). 249 See Francis M. Cornford’s commentary on the Timaeus 89D-90D: “The care of the soul” and 90E-92C: “Differentiation of the sexes” (Plato & Cornford 1997, 352-59).
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man that seeks immortality through fame. According to Plato, the completion of one’s 1Erwj through the begetting of physical offspring is nothing but a mimetic parody of the highest form of 1Erwj. In this hierarchy, it is the exercise of the highest form of 1Erwj which is seen as true and original, and in this sense, real. The lower ones are nothing but perverted reproductions of the first. Consequently they are false and unreal. In modern discourse, it is the physical world and our experience of physical, body-bound processes that are considered real. However, this way of thinking does not match the intellectual world view of ancient philosophy.250 We have already seen how a body-bound orientation was deemed false by the Stoics in favour of an extended understanding of the body that transgressed the boundary of the individual body. The cognitive theories of Lakoff and Johnson presented in, for instance, Metaphors We Live by (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) and The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (Johnson 1987), according to which our conceptual thinking is based in a metaphorical use of everyday experience of being a body-bound human, represent an experientialism which is, from an etic point of view, foreign to the intellectual milieu of antiquity. The way that we automatically couple the physical with the real and literal and the cognitive with the metaphorical and spiritual is the result of post-ancient, Cartesian categorizing. But the predicates of the real and the image-metaphorical-spiritual are not a priori connected with the experience of the physical world and cognitive activities, respectively. Instead, the distribution of these predicates is the result of a discursive struggle about how to interpret and evaluate our experience. This is the conclusion drawn by David Dawson in his Foucault-inspired book, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (1992). Here Dawson reflects on the categories of literal/real and allegorical/metaphorical in relation to texts. However, his reflections pertain to cultural phenomena more generally: Consequently, although the “literal sense” has often been thought of as an inherent quality of a literary text that gives it a specific and invariant character (often, a “realistic” character), the phrase is simply an honorific title given to a kind of meaning that is culturally expected and automatically recognized by readers. It is the “normal”, “commonsensical” meaning, the product of a conventional customary reading. The “literal sense” thus stems from a community’s generally unself-conscious decision to adopt
250 The discussion of the incomparability of modern theories of the body bound metaphor and the world view of ancient texts was introduced to me by Virgina Burrus at a seminar on bodily metaphors in ancient religious texts in Oslo, November 2004, arranged by the Norwegian LOKA research project.
202 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation and promote a certain kind of meaning, rather than from its recognition of a text’s inherent and self-evident sense. (Dawson 1992, 7f, emphasis added)
4.4.1.5 Disussion. Generation in feminist scholarship Although Adele Reinhartz and Turid Karlsen Seim have for decades manifested themselves as representatives of feministic exegesis, their Aristotelian perspective on the issue of generation in the Fourth Gospel has led them on a collision course with traditional feminist readings of the Fourth Gospel. In general, the Fourth Gospel is a text cherished among feminist exegetes and theologians. This attitude is due to the prominent role that the Gospel seemingly ascribes to its female characters. Martha is seen as the first person to make a full confession of Jesus’ identity (John 11:27), and the Samaritan woman (4:28) and Mary Magdalene (20:18) are claimed to be the first apostles.251 Consequently, the issue of women’s (leading) positions in the Johannine community has been the subject of much speculation; even a female authorship to the Gospel has been suggested.252 Other feminists have argued that the Johannine Jesus is the embodiment of a traditional female figure, namely Lady Wisdom or Sophia.253 Yet others have argued that the 251 See, for instance, Dorothy A. Lee, “Partnership in Easter Faith: The Role of Mary Magdalene and Thomas in John 20” (1995). 252 See the survey on feminist scholarship on John in A. Reinhartz’ contribution to Searching the Scriptures. Vol Two: A Feminist Commentary (Fiorenza 1994, 561-600). 253 The work of Elizabeth A. Johnson hinges on the grammatical gender of Sophia, see e.g. her book Consider Jesus. Waves of Renewal in Christology (1990). Elisabeth Schlüssler Fiorenza sees the Fourth Gospel as a text in which an original identification of God with the female figure of Sophia is replaced by the masculine Logos: “By introducing the ‘father-son’ language in the very beginning and using it throughout the Gospel, the whole book reinscribes the metaphorical grammatical masculinity of the expressions ‘logos’ and ‘son’ as congruent with the biological masculine sex of the historic person of Jesus of Nazareth. The Fourth Gospel thereby not only dissolves the tension between the grammatical feminine gender of Sophia and the ‘naturalized’ gender of Jesus but also marginalizes and ‘silences’ the traditions of G*d as represented by Divine Woman Wisdom” (Fiorenza 1995, 153). Against this feminist appropriation of the figure of Sophia, Judith Lieu argues in “Scripture and the Feminine in John” (1996) that wisdom imagery need not in every case carry a gender connotation. Quite interesting are Richard A. Baer’s reflections on the gender of Sophia in Philo’s writings. Baer discusses and opposes readings that in light of Hermetic literature stress the bisexuality of Sophia in Philo’s writings – e.g. Goodenough’s By Light, Light (1935). Although the agenda has changed during the last three decades, Baer’s detailed analysis of gender categories in Philo’s writings still gives topical input into the ongoing discussions of gender-bending, gender anti-apartheid, gendertransgression/transformation and therefore deserves full quotation:
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Johannine Jesus is depicted with traditional feminine attributes as the labouring woman giving birth and life.254 However, when the Fourth Gospel is read from Aristotle’s perspective on gender and generation, new aspects of the female lot emerge from the text and it becomes very difficult to uphold the impression of an egalitarian text. In her 1999 essay, Reinhartz noticed that the prominence of the female actors was countered by the fact that none of these women ever entered the intimate circle of disciples around Jesus. She concludes: “In all of these texts [references to Philo’s writings], God is shown to be the source of all goodness and virtue. Man is as nothing before God. The attitude of soul required of man is one of humility, receptivity, passivity. The male-female terminology, with God as male and the human soul as female, appears to be particularly apt for expressing this kind of relationship between God and man. It is most likely this active-passive polarity and not the influence of some mythological androgynous figure that is chiefly responsible for the alternation between male and female that we find in Sophia and Areté. Sophia and Areté are never portrayed as bisexual, i.e. both male and female at the same time. They are represented as female-passive in relationship to God and male-active in relationship to man. Sophia and Areté exhibit the deeds and powers of truly perfect men (a)ndrw~n teleiota&twn), but because they occupy a second place in relationship to God they have feminine names. “Let us, then”, Philo concludes, “paying no heed to the discrepancy in the gender of the words, say that the daughter of God, even Wisdom, is not only masculine but father, sowing and begetting in souls aptness to learn, discipline, knowledge, sound sense, good and laudable actions” (Fug. 51-52). The maleness or femaleness of Sophia and Areté is not to be understood in terms of actual sexuality at all but rather in terms of the more or less ad hoc demands of each individual passage. … The real issue in these texts is the contrast between active and passive, primary and secondary, God and man” (Baer 1970, 61f). Although the active-passive positions play a crucial role in Baer’s reading of Philo, he does not couple his observations with Aristotle’s theory of gender and generation. 254 Readings of this kind of “gender-bending” and “gender anti-apartheid” are prominent in the two volumes of A Feminist Companion to John (Levine 2003a; 2003b). See especially Ingrid Rosa Kitzberger’s “Transcending Gender Boundaries in John” (2003); Adeline Fehribach’s “The ‘Birthing’ Bridegroom: The Portrayal of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel” (2003); Deborah Sawyer’s “John 19.34: From Crucifixion to Birth, or Creation?” (2003). But the opposite stance is also represented. Colleen Conway argues in her contribution “Gender Matters in John” that no subversion of gender dualism is found in the Fourth Gospel. On the contrary, the Johannine figure of Jesus is “consistent with the characteristic of the ideal male figure” (Conway 2003b, 101). Conway’s point of view is further developed in her contribution to New Testament Masculinities (Moore & Anderson 2003), “’Behold the Man!’ Masculine Christology and the Fourth Gospel” (Conway 2003a). Two prominent representatives of the idea that the Johannine Jesus is depicted as a birthing woman are Dorothy A. Lee in her books The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel. The Interplay of Form and Meaning (1994), Flesh and Glory. Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John (2002) and Massyngbaerde J. Ford’s Redeemer – Friend and Mother. Salvation in Antiquity and in the Gospel of John (1997).
204 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation This presentation raises the question of whether, from the Johannine perspective, women, who in Aristotelian terms are defective males, were fully children of God. The positive representation of women in the Gospel as followers of Jesus suggests that the Gospel does not adopt this aspect of Aristotelian anthropology, but this conclusion is at odds with the absence of any explicit indication that women were among Jesus’ immediate disciples.255 (99)
Furthermore, as a historical reading of the Fourth Gospel, the idea that Jesus is depicted as a woman in labour – with reference partly to the image of the woman in birth-pangs in 16:20-22 and partly to the amniotic fluid floating from the wound in Jesus’ side (19:34)256 – now appears untenable. First, in John 16 it is the disciples who assume the female position in relation to the ultimate, male unity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The disciples are in labour; Jesus, the translated pneumatic seed, is not. Second, as Seim has brilliantly explained in her 2005 essay, the idea of combining the amniotic fluid with life-giving powers is basically wrong – or out of context – when situated within the ancient discourse on gender and generation: A male, human or divine, who was portrayed as giving birth in antiquity – and that did happen – was therefore not necessarily bent towards a feminine quality or represented in androgynous terms; he might equally well express male completion and omnipotence, having consumed the female. (Seim 2005, 375)
Women gave birth, but it was the father and his semen – the foamy watery solution of pneu=ma – that possessed the life-giving power.257
4.4.2 German scholars. Wiedergeburt or Zeugung von oben? In this chapter, I have argued that Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus about generation a!nwqen (3:3) of water and pneu=ma (3:5) should be understood in light of Philo’s concept of a deute/ra ge/nesij and that this 255 In Chapter Six, I shall present my explanation of the ambiguity of the female lot in a discussion of the two dimensions of the Johannine shmei=on. 256 See note 254. 257 But, of course, the possibility always remains that the fourth Evangelist was opposed to prevailing values and, with the cross as a template of inverted glory, in fact aimed at subverting these. This is e.g. Henrik Tronier’s interpretation of the hermeneutical function of the cross in the Pauline letters. See his “Åbenbaring, himmelrejse og opstandelse hos Paulus: En skitse til et afmytologiseringsprogram” (2000) and “The Corinthian Correspondence between Philosophical Idealism and Apocalypticism” (2001). However, I find that the cross serves a different function in the Fourth Gospel. Here the cross is but one step in the continuous ascent of Jesus to the Father that reveals Him to the world.
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discourse referred to Jesus’ divine generation as well as that of believers. Within this perspective, a!nwqen kept its double entendre of meaning both “for the second time” or “again” and “from above”. By contrast, gennhqh=nai was fixed on having a single meaning, namely that of being begotten in the male sense of the word. In turn, this understanding influenced our understanding of “water and pneu=ma” as an allusion to the constituents in the male semen (Gen. an. 735b10-36a30; Peck 1942, xv; Preuss 1970, 26-28). However, this reading is opposed by a strong tradition in German, especially Protestant, Johannine exegesis which argues that the proper and historical meaning of the Johannine expression is “born anew” and that precisely this understanding was polemically directed against the docetic and gnostic idea of being begotten from above.258 In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Bultmann argues in favour of the interpretation born anew or again and refers to the so-called misunderstanding of Nicodemus. Nicodemus certainly gets Jesus’ words right, namely that they mean “born again”, but he situates the words in the wrong context of ordinary, physical generation, in which the statement becomes absurd.259 In the right context, Jesus’ statement refers to the experience of a spiritual rebirth and the new life in faith. Bultmann is convinced that the gnostic source, which he imagined was at the fourth Evangelist’s disposal, used the same expression, but with a different meaning: being begotten from above (von oben Gezeugtwerdens). However, in the Fourth Gospel the meaning of the idiom was changed as part of its anti-gnostic agenda: Thus we may conclude that the Evangelist has here transformed the idea of “being begotten from above [von oben Gezeugtwerdens]”, which was suggested by the source and is elsewhere readily utilised by him … into the idea of “rebirth [Wiedergeburt]”, and that surely because the latter idea was already common in the Christian tradition. … This need not have made any material difference. Admittedly, as originally understood by the Gnostics, “begetting from above [Zeugung von oben]” probably referred to the pre-existent origin of the spiritual ones [den präexistentiellen Ursprung der Pneumatiker]. They are fu/sei swzo&menoi … because their fu/sij comes from above (a!nwqen) … . (Bultmann 1941, 96 note 5, translation Bultmann 1971, 136 note 4)
In his essay “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt. Jesu Gespräch mit Nikodemus Joh 3,1-21” (1996), Otfried Hofius follows the general outline of 258 An interpretative line goes from Luther via Bultmann (1941) to the more recent readings of Hofius (1996), Schnelle (1998, 68f) and Wengst (2000, 120f). For the Lutheran roots of the Protestant interpretation, see Hofius (1996, 76f). 259 “Das Mißverständnis erkennt die Bedeutung der Wörter richtig, wähnt aber, daß sie sich in der Bezeichnung irdischer Sachverhalte erschöpfe“ (Bultmann 1941, 95f).
206 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation Bultmann’s argument. The new life in faith is experienced as a rebirth.260 But in accordance with Johannine scholarship in general, Hofius has given up Bultmann’s pre-gnostic source (Quelle). Instead, Hofius finds the source of the Johannine wording in the Jesus-logion that we know from the Synoptic Gospels in which Jesus claims that in order to enter the Kingdom of God one must becomes like a child again (Mk. 10:15; Matt. 18:3). The metaphorical meaning of the Jesus-logion was then transferred from the Synoptics to the Fourth Gospel. In general, Hofius rejects generative and bodily connotations of the language in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus. The reference to “water and spirit” (3:5), out of which the believer is “reborn” to an eschatological life in faith, is by Hofius construed as a hendiadyoin that refers to the cleansing power of the spirit (die reinigende Kraft des pneu=ma) which generates faith through the words of the Gospel (Hofius 1996, 154, note 292). No ritual, no baptismal water is involved. The Hellenistic flavour, which is unmistakably added to the Jesus-logion in the Fourth Gospel, is due to the same polemical agenda that Bultmann once imagined: “Der vierte Evangelist ist kein Gnostiker!“ (Hofius 1996, 42, note 50). For nearly half a century, it has been recognized that “gnosticism” did not belong to the sources of the Fourth Gospel. For more than a decade, scholars have agreed that “gnosticism” must not be cast in the anti-gnostic mould of the Church Fathers’ polemics, but should rather be placed in quotation marks.261 Yet, Gnosticism as a unified (and capitalized) phenomenon keeps haunting German exegesis. Within this agenda, only two translations of gennhqh=nai a!nwqen are accepted: either the female birth is coupled with a!nwqen in the sense of again, in which case the idiom is understood metaphorically; or the male begetting is cosmologically coupled with from above in the sense of a Divine generation.262 In principle, the latter expression “need[s] not have made any material difference”, as Bultmann claimed, but if it is claimed to denote something real, Gnosticism (capitalized) and its cognates lie ahead. Other possible meanings, for instance, a birth from above or a second begetting, are a priori ruled out as non-sense. 260 “[die] Wiedergeburt … ereignet [sich darin], daß ein Mensch zum Glauben an Jesus Christus kommt” (Hofius 1996, 59). 261 See Michael A. Williams, Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (1996). 262 A German advocate of the interpretation “being begotten from above” is Schnackenburg, who argues with reference to the frequent use in the Gospel of a!nwqen with the plain meaning of “from above:” “Nach der sonstigen Verwendung von a!nwqen bei Joh (3,31; 19,11, 23) und seiner Lehre von der ‘Zeugung aus Gott’ (1,13; 1 Joh 2,29; 3,9; 4,7; 5,1) ist die Übersetzung ‘von oben her’ allein gerechtfertigt” (Schnackenburg 1979, 381).
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In my exposition of Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, I drew attention to the seemingly observable biological fact of multiple fatherhoods, from which chicken breeders benefited, and which was featured by Aristotle as the ultimate argument in favour of his thesis against the Hippocratics’ pangenesis. A second begetting was thus considered a real possibility. Furthermore, I find it very difficult to classify the exegetical output of reading the Fourth Gospel from the perspective of Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij, with respect to Christology, in terms of docetism or, with respect to ecclesiology, in terms of “gnosticism”. First, the idea that it is a real human being who receives the second begetting wards off both the docetic charge inherent in the Käsemannian idea of “[der] Johanneische Christus” as “[der] über die Erde schreitende Gott” (Käsemann 1971, 26) and the Gnostic (capitalized) suspicion according to which, in Bultmann’s terms, “the ‘begetting from above [„Zeugung von oben“]’ probably referred to the pre-existent origin of the spiritual ones [den präexistentiellen Ursprung der Pneumatiker]” (Bultmann 1941, 96 note 5, translation Bultmann 1971, 136 note 4). Second, the Stoic phenomenon of blending (kra~sij) – which Philo apparently employs in his theory of the soul – implies that no area, however small, can be identified which is void of one of the two previously separated bodies. In Chapter One, I showed how the ideas of naive docetism, real docetism, pre-gnosticism, Gnosticism (capitalized) etc. constitute the imagined other or outside that safeguards and upholds a reading of the Fourth Gospel that marginalizes the Johannine spirit. Thus, it seems that Protestantism in its North European version upholds the phenomenon of Gnosticism. By this manoeuvre, the Philonic idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij is kept out of the exegetical agenda of the Fourth Gospel. In Bultmann’s argumentation for his understanding of the topic and meaning of Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus, the phenomenon of Johannine irony played a decisive role: an ignorant person states the truth without being himself aware of the range of his words. His objection, on the contrary, articulates the puzzlement that arises as a consequence of the fact that the words are situated in the discourse, which the Fourth Gospel deems wrong and counters. With regard to the figure of Nicodemus, I want to take a step beyond Bultmann. When read in light of Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij, we may claim that Nicodemus certainly gets all Jesus’ words right, namely that no mother is involved in the second begetting from above. Nicodemus’ objection is to the point, but – since he situates Jesus’ statement in the context of the first generation – that which it is stated rightly becomes nonsensical to him. As a statement concerning the deute/ra ge/nesij, Nicodemus’ objection is certainly
208 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation true; no mother is expressis verbis involved (cf. QE 2.46: “But the calling above of the prophet is a second birth better than the first. For … [it] has no mother but only a father, who is (the Father) of all”). The Johannine irony seemingly plays on the second generation and refers to the meta-story of pneumatic transformations.
4.4.3 Anglo-American scholarship. Generation sui generis? The notion of supernatural begetting plays a very important part in this passage (vv. 3-8); it occurs in the Prologue (1:12f.), and perhaps also in 11:52. … Such language was not drawn directly from the Old Testament or from Judaism. … The idea of generation is absent. … The novelty of John’s thought when compared with Judaism is not accidental, since the point of this paragraph is to bring out the fact that the Old Testament religion and Judaism, which Nicodemus, the Pharisee and ruler of the Jews, the teacher of Israel, represents, is inadequate; it cannot move forward continuously into the Kingdom of God. … The novelty and discontinuity are admirably enforced by the new terminology. … Language of this kind Judaism had rigidly avoided because it spoke in direct terms of the invasion of present human life by the power of God and thus annihilated the distinction between this age and the age to come …263 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (1955, 206-7, emphasis added)
In contrast to their German colleagues, Anglo-American exegetes of the Fourth Gospel in general do not hesitate to speak of divine generation and even of a “supernatural begetting”. In fact, it is precisely this terminology and “the invasion of present humane life by the power of God” which it represents that mark out the difference between emergent Christianity and contemporary Judaism. According to Barrett the concept paliggenesi/a has its origin in philosophically inspired pagan religion. It is used in the Corpus Hermeticum, especially in the tractate of the same name: peri\ paliggenesi/aj (XIII) (Barrett 1955, 207). The whole Corpus is considered Gnostic (capitalized) by Barrett. Judaism and Hellenistic religion provided the fourth Evangelist with the language that enabled him to express an event with was completely new: It is not suggested in this note that John plagiarized the notion of salvation and regeneration current in the Hellenistic world of his day, or that he effected a syncretism of Jewish and pagan ideas. He set out from an exceptionally clear perception of the two ‘moments’ of Christian salvation, that of the work accomplished and that of the work yet to be consummated; 263 Barrett’s point of view is quoted more recently by Craig R. Koester in his Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Meaning, Mystery, Community (1995, 47)
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and he perceived that the language of Judaism (the Kingdom of God) and the language of Hellenism (gennhqh=nai a!nwqen) provided him with a unique opportunity of expressing what was neither Jewish nor Hellenistic but simply Christian. (207, emphasis added)
But as we have seen, in his writings Philo – who is a Hellenistic philosopher and a Jew – reinterprets the idea of regeneration in terms of the revelation and prophetic inspiration that are brought about by God’s word and His spirit (QE 2.46; Post. 124). By this reinterpretation, Philo manages to short-cut the original, pagan idea: the regeneration of the soul, which takes place by means of inspired and revealed truth, constitutes the safest and most reliable way to wisdom and virtue (QG 4.125). However, Barrett does not mention Philo and the bridge that Philo managed to establish between Judaism and Hellenism. The watertight bulkhead, which Barrett upholds between the two traditions, becomes the means that prevent contemporary, ancient traditions from floating into the Fourth Gospel. As a consequence, the Evangelist’s concepts can be claimed unique; they are sui generis. Throughout his 1966 commentary, Raymond Brown makes a distinction between “begetting in an earthly sense” and the “begetting from above” which is provided through the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives (141). In order to find the roots of the Johannine idea of a begetting a!nwqen, Brown asks the question whether it is really true, as Jesus presumes in 3:10, that “Nicodemus [could] have understood this begetting of Spirit?” (140). Brown scrutinizes the scriptures, with which a Jewish teacher and Pharisee was expected to be acquainted, for traces of the idea: the Old Testament writings, the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha. Brown points to the prophets’ promises of a future outpouring of God’s spirit that would take place as part of the restoration of postexilic Israel and he notices the way that cleansing through water and spirit, respectively, are joined in these writings (Ezek 36:25f; Isa 44:3). In Jubilees (1:23-25), he also finds a link between spirit, cleansing and fatherhood: “I will create in them a Holy Spirit and I will cleanse them … I will be their Father and they shall be my children”. Nevertheless, the inquiry leads Brown to the conclusion that, although Jesus’ words meant “that the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit was at hand”, Nicodemus would probably not have understood “the particular aspect of the Spirit that is proper to Jesus’ teaching”, namely “this begetting of Spirit” (141f). In the end, although expressing himself more modestly, Brown subscribes to Barrett’s idea that in relation to Judaism the “notion of supernatural begetting” represents an admirable “novelty” from the hand of the fourth Evangelist. But again this point of view can only
210 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation be upheld if Philo’s ideas are excluded from the traditions that a learned Jew would have had known. Raymond Brown, for his part, does not ignore Philo, but he remains sceptical concerning the influence of Philo’s thoughts on John. In his posthumously published new Introduction to the Gospel of John (2003), Brown endorses a statement made by a colleague that “if Philo had never existed, the Fourth Gospel would most probably not have been any different from what it is” (2003, 130). The statement is supported by several arguments. Brown, first, rejects the possibility of a direct dependence of the Fourth Gospel upon Philo, because he finds it historically implausible that the intellectual milieu of Alexandria should have influenced the location where the Gospel was written, whether it be first-century Palestine or Ephesus in Asia Minor (129). Second, a looser relation is also rejected on the basis of the fact that the concept of lo&goj, so important to Philo, plays no role in the Fourth Gospel apart from the Prologue. Third, John’s notion of the divine word differs significantly from Philo’s “use of the term as a figurative expression of right reason (o)rqo_j lo&goj)” (130). Fourth, Brown notes that “the overwhelming philosophical colouring found in Philo does not appear in John” (130). Fifth and finally, Brown draws attention to the differences in methodology: “[T]he elaborate Philonic allegories have little in common with the Johannine use of Scripture” (130). The first argument concerns the ideological infrastructure of antiquity. Apparently geographical distance did not pose any hindrance to intellectual influence in the Roman Empire: Intellectuals were travelling, books were copied, promising youth from all over the Empire joined the schools of the major cities etc.264 The second objection has been intensively countered in this chapter.265 In the so-called body of the Gospel, the lo&goj language of the Prologue is replaced partly by the pneu=ma, which is the vehicle for the 264 In his 1995 article ”’Wisdom among the Perfect:’ Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and Corinthian Christianity”, Gregory Sterling argues in favour of a link between the Alexandrian traditions witnessed in Philo’s writings and Early Christianity. He features the Alexandrian apostle Apollos mentioned in First Corinthian as indicative of this connection. 265 Reinhartz found that the shift from the abstract lo&goj language to the language of family took place already in 1:14 and she ascribed the shift in register to the fact of the incarnation: “Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, therefore, describes the act of generation as being set in motion by the male sperm, which is the lo&goj, that is, the motive and final causes of the reproductive process, and is the vehicle for the male pneu=ma that determined the form and characteristics of the offspring (90, emphasis added). … As the one who is begotten by the divine spe/rma, Jesus is the embodiment of the divine lo&goj (word) and the divine pneu=ma (spirit)” (1999, 94).
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paternal lo&goj, and partly by the figure of Jesus, who becomes the embodiment of this lo&goj through his divine begetting by the pneu=ma from above. This inevitably brings us back to Philo and his writings, in which the patriarchs were persons whose lives were guided by the lo&goj, and in which the divine pneu=ma was the force by means of which God drew people towards himself.266 It is this movement towards knowledge and virtue which is conceived by Philo in terms of generation, either the deute/ra ge/nesij or the paliggenesi/a.267 In the Fourth Gospel, it is Jesus who states that “when I have been lifted up from the earth, I shall draw everyone to me (12:32: ka)gw_ e0a_n u(ywqw~ e0k th=j gh=j, pa&ntaj e9lku&sw pro_j e0mauto&n)”. In other words, when Jesus is translated into spirit, he will perform precisely the functions that are ascribed to the divine spirit in Philo’s writings: Drawing and regenerating.268 If, instead of being dazzled by the Prologue’s lo&goj, we focus on concepts and ideas like pneu=ma and generation, the result of the comparison between Philo and the Fourth Gospel may turn out quite dif266 See e.g. De plantatione (23-24): ”This is why those who crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence are said in the Sacred Oracles to have been called upwards (a)nakeklh=sqai); for it accords with God’s ways that those who have received His down-breathing should be called up to Him [pro_j ga_r to_ qei=on a!nw kalei=sqai qe/mij tou\j u(p’ au0tou= katapneusqe/ntaj]. For when trees are whirled up roots and all, into the air by hurricanes and tornadoes. … it is strange if a light substance like the mind is not rendered buoyant and raised to the utmost height by the native force of the Divine spirit, overcoming as it does in its boundless might all powers that are here below [th=| de\ tou= qei=ou pneu&matoj kai\ pa&nta dunatou= kai\ ta_ ka&tw nikw~ntoj fu&sei kou=fon o( nou=j w@n ou0k e0pelafri/zetai kai\ pro_j mh/kiston u3yoj e0cai/retai]”. 267 It is precisely this “calling up” that is conceived elsewhere in Philo’s writings in terms of a second and divine generation. See e.g. QE 2:46 which discusses Moses’ ascent of Mount Sinai: “But the calling above [a)na&klhsij] of the prophet is a second birth [deute/ra ge/nesij] better than the first. … Wherefore the calling above or, as we have said, the divine birth …” See also Post. 124. 268 In a passage from Quis rerum divinarum heres, the movement towards truth is epitomized in the idea of the soul being drawn upward by He That Is. The passage also illustrates Philo’s subversion of the Stoic idea of oi0kei/wsij; namely that in the highest form of knowledge the soul renounces the self (becomes a fugitive from the self) and leaves the space open for God’s spirit. Frenzy is therefore a suitable designation for this situation: “Therefore, my soul, if thou feelest any yearning to inherit the good things of God … be a fugitive from thyself also and issue forth from thyself. Like persons possessed and corybants, be filled with inspired frenzy, even as the prophets are inspired. For it is the mind which is under the divine afflatus, and no longer in its own keeping, but is stirred to its depths and maddened by heavenward yearning, drawn by the truly existent and pulled upward thereto [kai\ u(po_ tou= o1ntwj o1ntoj h0gme/nhj kai\ a!nw pro_j au0to_ ei9lkusme/nhj], with truth to lead the way and remove all obstacles before its feet, that its path may be smooth to tread [i3na kata_ lewfo&rou bai/noi th=j o(dou=] – such is the mind, which has this inheritance” (Her. 69-70).
212 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation ferently. Whether there has been any “direct” influence from Alexandria on the fourth Evangelist or not, in no way changes the heuristic value of Philo’s writings for our reading the Fourth Gospel. To ignore this context, only serves Barrett’s purpose of placing the Fourth Gospel in a superior position in relation to Judaism. Concerning Brown’s third objection, it is important to notice that the ultimate starting-point (a)rxh/) of Philo’s physics and the end point of his epistemology are not an abstract lo&goj, but God’s goodness and generosity (xa&rij) (cf. Leg. 3.78). Philo is first and foremost a philosopher of God’s xa&rij. In the case of Philo, a distinction between philosophy and religious piety cannot be upheld. According to Philo himself, “right reason” is ascribed to him who appropriates everything to God: Thus to those who ask what the origin of creation is the right answer [o)rqo&tata] would be, that it is the goodness and grace of God [o#ti a)gaqo&thj kai\ xa&rij tou= qeou=], which He bestowed on the race that stands next after him. For all things in the world and the world itself is a free gift and act of kindness and grace on God’s part [dwrea_ ga_r kai\ eu0ergesi/a kai\ xa&risma qeou= ta_ pa&nta o#sa e0n ko&smw| kai\ au0to_j o( ko&smoj e0sti/]. (Leg. 3.78)
From this perspective, the distance between Philo’s “figurative expression of right reason (o)rqo_j lo&goj)” and the “divine word” of the Fourth Gospel inevitably diminishes. The notion of God’s xa&rij also plays a crucial role in John’s Prologue, “because that which came into being through Jesus was h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia” (John 1:17). The issue of identity (likeness) or difference ultimately depends on the categories that the scholar focuses on for his or her comparison. This is the important point of Jonathan Z. Smith’s methodological considerations in Drudgery Divine (1990). Categories constitute the third factor – the “Z” – in any comparison: X is like Y with regard to Z. When the categorical “Z” is stated, the result of the comparison can be subjected to negotiation. But often the “Z” is ignored and the outcome of the comparison becomes categorical. As we have seen, the result of a comparison of Philo and John turns out differently when the “Z” in focus is God’s spirit and His grace. The most serious objection by Brown is his claim that Philo’s writings simply taste differently than the Fourth Gospel. By the aid of allegory, Philo makes philosophy out of the biblical narratives while John writes a gospel. If John knew Philo’s writings, he deliberately chose not to write an allegorical commentary on the Jesus tradition that he had at his disposal. However, no genre should a priori be judged as more philosophical than the other, but the choice of genre may be bound up
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with an underlying philosophical position.269 Philo speaks of God’s motive and emotions (Leg. 3.78); John puts God’s motive and emotions into display in the figure of Jesus. In this way, the otherwise shared truth is communicated in the Fourth Gospel in a form that involves emotional identification: God’s love for the world is like losing a beloved friend (John 11). But to this we shall return in Chapter Eight.
4.5 Summary Taking as starting-point Meeks’ comparative analysis in the The Prophet-King of Johannine Christology and the Moses-tradition of Philo, it was argued that the negative outcome of Meeks’ comparison was due to his choice of the two events which he juxtaposed as scenes for the enthronement: the ascent of the Sinai for Philo’s Moses and the up-lifting on the cross for the Johannine Christ. It was suggested that the result would have turned out quite differently if the comparison was split up into a bipolar focus with Moses’ ascension of Mount Sinai as the one focal point and his ascension and translation into a position near God in place of death as the other. The first event concerns Moses’ divine generation by God through the so-called deute/ra ge/nesij, the second event is Moses’ transformation from his being in body and soul to a being of pure nou=j. The first event might then be compared with the descent of the divine spirit on Jesus, as it is witnessed by John the Baptist (1:32), which then becomes Jesus’ divine begetting a!nwqen. The second event might be related to Jesus’ ascent to the pneumatic Father (4:24), a process during which Jesus becomes life-generating spirit (6:63 → 20:17). In this chapter, I have focused on the first part of this comparison: Jesus’ divine generation. Although Meeks argues differently, his notion that in the discourse with Nicodemus on generation a!nwqen Jesus is also, and indeed primarily, speaking about himself remains 269 No one would probably say that Plato’s recantation in Socrates’ second speech in the Phaedrus of his project in the Republic – the banishment of the poets from the city – should be considered less philosophical than the Republic itself. In the Phaedrus, Plato introduces a “new” philosophy of the emotions, namely that they – as horses of the soul’s chariot – constitute the motivational energy or horse power in the soul’s strivings towards truth. In the Phaedrus, Plato, as it were, plots the new philosophy onto narrative space. Socrates is seduced by the young, beautiful and promising Phaedrus to leave the city (the domain of Socrates’ rival, the rhetor Cephalus – and of reason without any taint of emotions or erotic madness) and enter into the poetic landscape outside the city to which the poets formerly present in the Republic had been exiled. See Martha Nussbaum’s interpretation of the Phaedrus in The Fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986), ch. 7: “‘This story isn’t true’: madness, reason, and recantation in the Phaedrus”.
214 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation perfectly meaningful within the perspective of the deute/ra ge/nesij. Jesus’ divine generation through the descent of the spirit was identified as the first event in the Johannine story of pneumatic transformations. This understanding of Jesus’ re-generation a!nwqen through the descent of the spirit was then tested against the understanding of a divine epigenesis in the manner of the virgin birth of Luke, which is an interpretation that has recently featured in feminist scholarship on John. The analysis concluded that the idea of a divine deute/ra ge/nesij in the Fourth Gospel was a more satisfying thesis than the idea of a “divine epigenesis in the Gospel of John”. This was due to a number of facts: first, the idea of a virgin birth, in which God’s spirit was implanted in the reproductive part of the female soul, was unthinkable within contemporary philosophical discourse; second, the theory of a divine deute/ra ge/nesij in the Fourth Gospel needs less subsidiary explanations in the form of “irony” and “silencing” and other ways of bending language than the idea of a “divine epigenesis in the Gospel of John;” and third, from the etic viewpoint of philosophy, Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij was considered truer and more real than ordinary generation. We are now in a position where the five exegetical problems outlined at the beginning of this chapter may be reconsidered in light of the idea of a divine deute/ra ge/nesij in the Fourth Gospel: 1. The relation of the incarnation of the lo&goj (1:14) to the descent of the spirit on Jesus as this is reported by John the Baptist (1:19-34). 2. The relation of Jesus to his two apparent fathers, Joseph (1:45; 5:42) and God (5:17f). 3. The relation of the “Son of God” to the “generation a!nwqen” (3:3) of “water and spirit” (3:5), which is made a presupposition of seeing as well as entering the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus. 4. The relation of the “Son of God” to the “children of God” (1:12) who are begotten without blood(s), without the will of flesh and without the will of man, but by God (1:13). 5. The relation of Jesus’ reception of the descending spirit to his commission to baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:32ff). ad. 1 & 3 Through the descent of the pneu=ma on Jesus, he received the begetting a!nwqen that made him the true offspring and Son of God. Just as the semen, in the case of the begetting of the sentient soul, was the vehicle for the paternal lo&goj, the divine spirit was the vehicle when divine reason supervened.
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ad. 2 The idea of a deute/ra ge/nesij means there is no need to explain Joseph away; he is the father of Jesus’ first begetting. When the divine pneu=ma supervenes, Jesus’ soul is reshaped according to the divine lo&goj. From this point onwards, the earthly parents no longer matter. Through His pneu=ma, God – who is Himself pneu=ma (4:24) – is truly present in Jesus and does his work (14:10). ad. 4 Believers are as well subjected to a deute/ra ge/nesij. By the infusion of the Holy Spirit they are begotten a!nwqen. The disciples simultaneously become Jesus’ brothers (20:17) and they receive his Father as their new Father. They are, as Jesus promised them, not left as orphans (14:18). The abiding ontological difference between Jesus and believers is established in the Fourth Gospel through Jesus’ ascent to and translation into the pneumatic Father. ad. 5 With regard to the relationship between Jesus’ reception of the descending spirit to his commission to baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:32ff) we have to anticipate slightly my discussion in Chapter Seven. According to Jesus, the coming of the Paraclete – also known as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Truth – depends on Jesus’ going away (16:7), that is, on his translation into the pneumatic Father. He must ascend to the Father (20:17) in order to be capable of infusing the Holy Spirit into the disciples (20:22). This is an act that simultaneously constitutes the promised “baptism in the Holy Spirit” (1:34) and their “generation a!nwqen” (3:3). I have suggested that Jesus’ translation should be explained in terms of the Stoic idea of a)nastoixei/wsij, which is the only theory that is capable of explaining a transformation of a fleshly element into the swifter elements that make up the pneu=ma. According to the Stoics, this process needs heat, that is, the presence of swift pneumatic movements. It seems reasonable therefore to claim that the translation is worked out by God’s spirit itself. Thus, a causal link exists between Jesus’ reception of the spirit and his ability to provide a baptism in the spirit. Inevitably, this understanding of Jesus’ divine sonship in terms of a divine deute/ra ge/nesij, which is established through the descent of the spirit on Jesus (1:32-34), reintroduces the testimony of John the Baptist as the opening narrative of the Gospel. Years of scholarly occupation with competing groups whose spearhead was John the Baptist and who were meant to be silenced through the Gospel’s denigration of John and his baptizing practice have rendered the message of John the Bap-
216 The First Pneumatic Event. The Descent of the Spirit. Jesus’ Divine Generation tist nearly inaudible. In the next chapter, I shall show how the testimony of John the Baptist introduces the central plot of the Gospel by outlining the mission that Jesus has been given to carry out as God’s chosen emissary in the world. The question that drives the plot is not the recognition of Jesus’ identity, but whether and especially how Jesus will manage to solve the task bestowed on him.
Chapter 5
John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord
5.1 The testimony of John the Baptist In the previous chapter, I argued in favour of an understanding of the Johannine Jesus’ divinity as the result of a deute/ra ge/nesij. As it was the case with Philo’s Moses, this generation was the work of God’s spirit. It took place when, as witnessed by John the Baptist, the spirit descended on Jesus (1:32-34). This understanding of Jesus’ divinity puts a strong emphasis on John’s testimony, which corresponds to the prominent position that it receives in the Gospel as the opening of the whole story. However, this is not the way that the testimony is traditionally treated in Johannine scholarship.
5.1.1 John the Baptist in the scholarly tradition In the wake of Bultmann’s exegesis of the Fourth Gospel, the interest in the testimony of John the Baptist has been directed primarily towards the history behind the text. The present text of the Gospel has been seen as an attempt to subdue the beliefs of an imagined group around John the Baptist (Bultmann) or a group within the Johannine community that was represented in the text by the figure of the Baptist, namely those standing for the so-called Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- or Trennungschristologie (Klauck and Wengst).270 Scholars have drawn attention to four issues that characterized the depiction of Jesus’ encounter with John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel: 1. John the Baptist is deprived of the epithet o( bapti/zwn given to him in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 1:4; Matt 3:1; Luke 7:20).271 270 See the discussion in Chapter One. 271 In order to distinguish between “John” as a designation for the Gospel text and “John the witness”, I – for the sake of convenience – use the name “John the Baptist”.
218 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord 2. No baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist is mentioned. 3. The recognition of Jesus as the Son of God is placed in the mouth of John the Baptist and not – as it is the case in the Synoptic Gospels – stated directly from heaven (Mark 1:11; Matt 3:17; Luke 3:22). 4. The identification of John the Baptist with Elijah is expressly repudiated.272 These narrative features have been seen as precautions taken by the Evangelist in order to counter the opponents’ adoption Christology. The descent of the spirit was reduced to the status of a sign that enabled John the Baptist to single out Jesus as the incarnate lo&goj to the public; Michael Theobald called it a recognition scene (1990, 132).273 The figure of John the Baptist and the function of his testimony were reduced to that of an index finger. The whole meaning of the scene was cut down to the correction of a misunderstanding: it was Jesus who was the Son of God, not the Baptist; it was the Johannine community or the group around the fourth Evangelist that possessed the truth, and not the followers of the Baptist or the group represented by him and his practice. In Johannine scholarship, this understanding became the key to the puzzling empty revelation: Jesus revealed nothing apart from the fact that he (and no one else) was the divine revealer. However, what took place historically in the practice of John the Baptist or between rival groups behind the text is one thing; what takes place in the narrated world of the Fourth Gospel is a different matter. In this chapter, I shall concentrate on the textual function which John the Baptist per272 Barrett’s commentary represents this tradition. See also Kammler (1996, 156) and Schnelle (1998, 48). “The identification of John the Baptist with Elijah is expressly repudiated; the baptism of Jesus is not mentioned; whereas in the synoptic account of the baptism a voice from heaven declares that Jesus is the Son of God, in John this assertion is made by the Baptist himself. John’s rewriting of the synoptic material … may have been due in part to a desire to counteract an excessive veneration of the Baptist” (Barrett 1955, 170). 273 In German exegesis, the idea that the testimony of John the Baptist constitutes “eine Erkennungs- und Offenbarungsszene” is embedded in the scholarly discussion of the Johannine hiatus between the Christology of the incarnation and the Christology of spirit/baptism/adoption etc. In the semiotically oriented tradition of AngloAmerican Johannine exegesis, the scene is inscribed in a different agenda, namely the study of the ancient genre of recognition scenes. On the basis of a study of the function and structure of recognition scenes in ancient literature, especially tragedies and romances, the function of the genre is analysed in the Gospel of John. Alan Culpepper (1995, 1998) is a representative of this tradition. In these studies, attention often is paid to the conscious bending of the reader’s expectations. The bending of the genre becomes the locus where meaning is produced. See Harold D. Attridge’s “Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel” (2002) and also Kasper Bro Larsen’s Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John (2006, 2008).
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forms in the Fourth Gospel, and the symbolic world or “dispensation” that he is made to represent in that textual world.
5.1.2 The Baptist’s narrative function. Marker and mediator The testimonies of John the Baptist (1:6-8; 1:15; 1:19-34; 3:25-35) function as textual markers that structure the whole introduction to the Gospel, which I shall argue extends as far as 3:36.274 The structuring of the text demonstrates the zooming effect that I spoke of in the introduction to Chapter Four. John’s witness to the light (1:6-8), to which we were briefly introduced in the Prologue, successively becomes more detailed, specific and concrete, and in this way guides us from the shortest version of the story of the lo&goj/light in the world (1:1-5) to the more extended version constituted by the so-called body of the Gospel. The same story of the lo&goj/light in the world is in this recycling, spiralling manner retold from different perspectives: first from an abstract and cosmological perspective in 1:1-5 (6-8); then from a worldly and historical perspective in 1:6-14 (15); in 1:16-18 from a specific Jewish perspective; and in 1:19-3:36, the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is told, and this section is expanded into the rest and main part of the Gospel.275 John’s testimony frames the whole introductory section of 1:19-3:36. The section provides (1) an introduction to the problem to which the Fourth Gospel constitutes an answer and solution, and (2) the hermeneutical key to the entire Gospel. The background against which the plot of the Gospel is played out is related to the frame of the section, which is introduced (1:19-34) and summarized (3:22-30/36) by the testimonies of John the Baptist. The Baptist’s initial witnessing (1:19-34) has as it effect that followers of John (and his “baptism in water”) shift to Jesus (and his “baptism in the spirit”). The change of allegiance is commented and recommended by the Baptist in the metaphorical remark that it is necessary that Jesus, and what he (as the groom) represents, grows, while John the Baptist, and what he (as the groom’s friend) represents, diminishes (3:30: e0kei=non dei= au0ca&nein, e0me\ de\ 274 In Johannine scholarship, it is discussed intensively whether the summary of the introduction in 3:31-36 belongs to the Baptist, to Jesus or to the authorial voice of the Evangelist. I, for my part, presuppose that the section (3:31-36) continues John the Baptist’s speech in 3:27-30. However, the exact identity of the speaker is not of crucial importance for my argument. 275 See the introduction to the exegetical section in Chapter Four, which refers to Harnack (1892). Harnack’s model of a continuous concretization has recently been reintroduced by F. Moloney in Belief in the Word: Reading the Fourth Gospel. John 1-4 (1993).
220 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord e0lattou=sqai). John the Baptist is a transitory figure; he represents an inferior dispensation characterized as a “baptism in water” and calls for, awaits and recommends a superior and coming dispensation characterized as a “baptism in the spirit”. His transitory position is also symbolized geographically by his place, he baptizes on the border between the desert and the land of Judea, at the other side of the river Jordan. The text enclosed by John the Baptist’s two testimonies (1:35-3:21) provides us with the hermeneutical key to the Gospel. This section consists of the first two signs performed by Jesus (2:11; 2:18) and Jesus’ first extended discourse, which is occasioned by the Jewish leader and teacher Nicodemus puzzled interest in these signs (3:2). Both signs are concerned with the displacement that Jesus somehow occasions: water and shortage of simple wine is displaced by an abundance of precious wine (2:1-11), and the sacrificial cult in the Jerusalem temple is displaced by Jesus’ body (2:13-22). In response to Nicodemus’ initial puzzlement, Jesus explains that the precondition of decoding these signs is that one has become re-generated “from above” by “the spirit” (3:3, 5). As an answer to Nicodemus’ question of how all this may come about (3:9), Jesus, next, points to the enigmatic uplifting and ascent of the Son of Man (3:14-15). The regeneration from above by the spirit, which must take place through a descent of the divine spirit, somehow presupposes Jesus’ ascent. The signs performed by Jesus are ultimately about the intimately related events of his ascent and descent. No one will be capable of interpreting these signs before the events, to which the signs refer, have come into being. In the Fourth Gospel, the discussion of the regeneration replaces the discussion of the parables of the Kingdom of God in the Synoptics, especially in Mark’s Gospel. In John, the apocalyptic Kingdom of the Synoptics is reinterpreted in terms of the hermeneutical competence that the believer receives through his regeneration. In the Fourth Gospel, the Kingdom of God is discerned (3:3) and entered (3:5) through a decoding of the Johannine signs. Traditionally, the Prologue has been seen as the hermeneutical key to the Fourth Gospel. 276 However, this understanding left us puzzled with a revealer who had nothing to reveal and a companion and friend who was represented by his index finger alone. 277 The displacement of the hermeneutical outlook from the Prologue (1:1-18) to the narrative introduction (1:19-3:36), which concretizes the Prologue, inevitably 276 In Theobald’s and Kammler’s readings of the Fourth Gospel, presented in Chapter One, the Prologue’s hermeneutical function was in particular emphasized. 277 In the Gospel of Mark, the hermeneutical key to the Gospel is also not found in the introduction, but in the section on the parables of the Kingdom of God (Mark 4).
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yields a different result. When John the Baptist’s testimony is brought into dialogue with the discourse on the signs, the divine revealer as well as his witnessing friend have, after all, a lot to say. John’s testimony becomes a request for something new to happen, and the discourse on the signs explains how this appeal will be met. The tendency – again in the wake of Bultmann – to denigrate the Baptist’s testimony and to degrade the faith brought about by the Johannine signs has occasioned that the point and message of the Gospel were lost.278 In summary: when John the Baptist is rehabilitated in his role as a witness to the first pneumatic event in the Fourth Gospel, and when his testimony is given its appropriate due, new aspects of John’s figure appear to the reader: 1. The figure of John the Baptist plays a role as a marker in the signifying text. 2. In the signified story, John the Baptist becomes a transitory figure who mediates between the dispensation of “baptism in water” and the dispensation of “baptism in the spirit”. 3. John the Baptist may be said to have a transitory function also on the meta-level: he serves as a vehicle for a transformation of Matthew’s and Mark’s world view. The Baptist is the figure in whom the expectations of macro-cosmological changes involved in the apocalyptic outlook of the Synoptics are changed in favour of the micro-cosmological changes involved in the ethical/psychological outlook of the Fourth Gospel.279 Although in the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist alludes to the same prophetic quotations as in the Synoptics, minor changes in the signifying text effect major changes in its meaning. 278 In Bultmann’s understanding of the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist becomes the paradigmatic ma&rtuj who points out that the eternal lo&goj is present in Jesus from Nazareth. In Bultmann’s reconstruction of John’s testimony, 1:29-30 is singled out and placed at the end of the testimony as its climax. Bultmann’s description of the scene is emblematic of his understanding of the testimony. The index finger, which in Lucas Cranach the Elder’s and the Younger’s painting of the crucifixion identifies John the Baptist, becomes a symbol of das Dass: “There now follows in vv. 29-30 a second, shorter scene, which … like an old stylised picture, which omits all superfluous detail – show the reader the man to whom the marturi/a has been born. … The delegates from Jerusalem have disappeared; there is no mention of any public present; John alone stands there, pointing to Jesus, and Jesus comes walking towards him; the reader knows neither whence nor why he comes, and may not even ask. Jesus appears, only so that John may point to him. Nor do the words by which he points Jesus out have any immediate consequences” (Bultmann 1941, 65f; 1971, 94f). 279 This change is often described as a change from a future-oriented eschatology to a realized eschatology.
222 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord In this chapter, the framing testimony of the Baptist will be analysed; in Chapter Six, the discourse of the signs will be the subject of my exegesis.
5.1.3. The wilderness as the symbolic place of Judaism Scholars generally agree that, in comparison with the Gospel of Mark, topography is without symbolic meaning in the Fourth Gospel. In Mark, geography is used to mediate between the Gentile and the Jewish world, and the Jerusalem-Galilee axis is re-oriented in a way that empties Jerusalem of divine significance and installs Galilee in Jerusalem’s lost position.280 In the Fourth Gospel, the significance of Jerusalem is dissolved by making it a station on Jesus’ ascent to the Father. Heaven is the goal of the pious journey, not Jerusalem. The temple in Jerusalem is replaced by Jesus’ ascended and translated body (2:21), in whose spirit true worship takes place alone (4:23). The fact that, in John, worship in the spirit replaces place-bound worshipping – in Jerusalem as well as “on this mountain” (4:21) – seems a priori to have divested Johannine place of potential semantic value. 281 I shall, nevertheless, argue that, in the Fourth Gospel, the wilderness of the desert represents contemporary Judaism. The Pentateuch tells how Moses, on behalf of the Lord, provided the desert generations with the means that secured their survival in the wilderness, for instance, the serpent on the pole that healed the biting by serpents, the water from the rock for the thirsty and the bread from heaven, manna, for the hungry generations. In contemporary Judaism – as it is represented by the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo’s writings – the wilderness period and the events associated with it became a symbol of God’s care for His chosen nation and, in turn, of the dispensation of the Mosaic law. The Israelites’ years in the desert were seen as an interim in which the heart or soul was trained and prepared for the truly godly life symbolized by the entrance into the Holy Land, the place of God. In Philo’s writings, the ascent from Egypt through the desert to the Promised Land was interpreted allegorically in terms of the cleansing of the heart (soul) from its ungodliness. In the Wisdom of Solomon as well as in Philo, the wilderness was the place of God’s angry, but merciful chastisement and guidance of the ungodly soul. This 280 See e.g. E. S. Malbon’s Narrative Space and Mythic Meaning in Mark (1986) and H. Tronier’s “Philonic Allegory in Mark” (2007). 281 See Johannes Nissen’s essay “Stedets og rummets betydning i Johannesevangeliet” (2001).
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chastisement took place through the biting by serpents and scorpions. However, if the soul was responsive to the remedy and cure that the law offered, God’s anger would not abide with him (Wis 16:5) and the biting would not lead to death.282 The brazen serpent, which was lifted up on a standard by Moses in accordance with the Lord’s instruction (Num 21:4-9), became a symbol of the Lord’s gracious attempt to rescue his chosen nation through the remedy of the law. Moses’ symbol and sign served as a reminder of the law, which was, in turn, a reminder of God’s mercy. In the contemporary tradition, no magic was associated with the desert symbols; it was God and his Word who were the ultimate sources of healing. In the Septuagint (NumLXX 21:9), Moses’ standard is called a shmei=on; in the Wisdom of Solomon (Wis 16:6), it is called a su&mbolon; and in Philo (Leg. 2.79), a shmei=on, too. In the Fourth Gospel, the healing remedies provided by Moses are seen as incapable of curing “what is in man” (John 2:25) – that is, his “love of darkness” and “his pursuit of evil” (3:19). In spite of the healing symbol of the brazen serpent on the pole made by Moses in the wilderness (3:14); in spite of the manna provided in the desert by the Lord through Moses (John 6); and in general, in spite of the law that these symbols came to represent in contemporary Judaism, the Fourth Gospel states as a matter of fact that the fathers in the wilderness died (6:49). The law given through Moses (1:17) was incapable of preventing that. Even good Jews like Jesus’ beloved friend, Lazarus, were not exempted from dying (John 11). The pattern from the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo’s Legum allegoriae is repeated in the Gospel’s narrative of the Baptist: he introduces himself by the (Isaianic) outcry in the wilderness for a better and passable way to the Lord, he rejoices as he hears the approaching voice of the groom, and finally he warns against God’s anger which will abide on him who does not obey the Son. In Wisdom and Philo’s writings, it was promised that those who looked to the symbol or sign of Moses (shmei=on) would be freed of God’s anger (Wis 16:5) and obtain eternal life (Leg. 2.81, 93). Now the Fourth Gospel claims that it is those who believe in the Son and look to the signs (shmei=a) that Jesus has done, and which are written in this book, who will have life (cf. John 20:30-31). But those who do not obey the Son will stand under God’s abiding anger (3:36). The Fourth Gospel objects to the necessity of a psychological interim in which the soul cleanses and prepares itself for the encounter with God. Instead, the Gospel demonstrates a short cut through the desert to the desired land: the signs provided by Jesus (20:30-31) com282 See Wis 16:5: ou0 me/xri te/louj e1meinen h9 o)rgh/ sou. Compare also Wis 16:11; Leg. 1.87.
224 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord bined with the hermeneutical competence inherent in his “baptism with the Holy Spirit” (1:33) constitute new and effective means of rescuing and healing. He who believes that Jesus is the anointed one and the Son of God (20:31) is brought quickly and safely to the pursued goal. The immediacy of transformation to which Jesus’ signs and sayings refer is emblematic of the new way to the Lord provided by Jesus. Those who welcome (the risen and translated) Jesus in their (souls’) vessels are taken straight away to the land for which they were heading (cf. 6:16-21).283 Those who have the Word that Jesus has spoken abiding in them are already cleansed (15:3). The hitherto known order of the old dispensation, with preparation as a presupposition for reaching the goal, collapses in the new dispensation. In the Fourth Gospel, the toil of ascending is performed by Jesus and by him alone (cf. 4:38). It is Jesus who goes up to Jerusalem, who is lifted up on the cross, and who finally ascends to the pneumatic Father and in this way, speaking retrospectively, makes the Father known (1:18). In other words, Jesus is himself the (high) way (cf. 14:6) that through faith leads his followers directly to the Father (14:7).
5.1.4 The testimony of John the Baptist 5.1.4.1 The content of John’s testimony. Jesus’ mission In comparison with the interpretation of John the Baptist in the scholarly tradition of the previous century, I have upgraded the Baptist’s testimony from “an index finger” to a testimony from which we may gain knowledge about the first pneumatic event in the signified story of pneumatic transformations. John testifies to Jesus’ divine generation through the descent of the spirit. If John’s testimony is not merely a recognition scene, in which Jesus’ hidden identity is made known, but a testimony to a divine commissioning, the question is displaced from the identity of Jesus to the purpose Jesus’ divine equipment: What is the task that he given to carry out? Will he at all succeed? And if so: How? Compared to the Synoptics, the interest in Jesus’ identity is displaced by an interest in his function or, in the language of Johannine scholarship, from the claim that Jesus is the revealer, to the question of what he actually reveals. In the discourse with the Samaritan woman, 283 John 6:21: h!qelon ou]n labei=n au0to_n ei0j to_ ploi=on, kai\ eu0qe/wj e0ge/neto to_ ploi=on e0pi\ th=j gh=j ei0j h4n u9ph=gon.
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Jesus explains that “the Father seeks worshippers who worship in spirit and truth” (4:23) and that he has himself been given the task of carrying out the will of Him who has sent him and of fulfilling His work (4:34).284 Thus, the question that drives the plot of the Gospel is whether and, if so, how Jesus will succeed in carrying out his mission. In the historical tale of the Gospel, the plot concerns the recognition of Jesus’ heavenly identity: Was he the Son of God, as he himself maintains? Or was he a false and blasphemous prophet, as claimed by his Jewish opponents? What were his first followers, the disciples, to believe? However, at the ecclesiological level in the Gospel – that is, in the dialogue between the implied author and the implied reader – this question is not repeated; Jesus’ identity and heavenly origin is throughout the Gospel presupposed. Instead, it is the name, identity and character of the hitherto unknown Father (1:18; 17:3) that is at stake and, in turn, the identity and character of God’s children (1:12-13). It is the believers’ understanding of God and of themselves that is developed in this gospel.285 The scholarly recognition that some kind of role-exchange takes place between John the Baptist and Jesus is very much to the point, although, as I shall argue, it turns out to be the opposite of what the commentaries generally propose. The problem is not a Baptist who historically was claimed to possess the identity that the Johannine community reserved for Jesus, namely to be the Son of God. Instead, the Fourth Gospel deprives John the Baptist of the functions that has been ascribed to him in the Synoptic Gospels. It is not the Baptist who will baptize, but Jesus – albeit with the spirit.286 It is not John the Baptist, but Jesus, who is to prepare the Israelites’ hearts for the coming of the Lord and the eschatological judgement. It is Jesus who prepares believers for the joint coming of Father and Son (14:23). The opening scene of the Gospel is a presentation of the mission that Jesus as “God’s chosen one” is given to carry out. According to John the Baptist’s testimony, Jesus will do two things, he will provide a new kind of baptism which in contrast to his own baptism in water will be “a baptism in the 284 John 4:34: e0mo_n brw~ma& e0stin i3na poih/sw to_ qe/lhma tou= pe/myanto&j me kai\ teleiw&sw au0tou= to_ e1rgon. 285 The referent of the Johannine signs is continuously postponed. The signs initially refer to the cross, which as a new sign refers to the love of God, which again determines the identity of God’s children. Whereas Protestant exegetes are prone to stop the quest for the referent at the cross, see Frey (1994), Reformed exegetes proceed to God, see Wengst (2000); few, however, follow the semiotic movement to God’s children, as I shall do. 286 Thus, a simple reason for depriving John the Baptist of his epithet “the Baptist” may be that his “baptism in water” is replaced by Jesus’ “baptism in the spirit”.
226 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord Holy Spirit” (1:33), and he will “take away the sin of the world” (1:29).287
5.1.4.2 The structure of John’s testimony. The chiasm John’s testimony is provoked by the interrogation of him by emissaries from the authorities in Jerusalem: Levites, priests and Pharisees. The scene is staged in Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, that is, in the desert land outside of Judea where John baptizes, and it takes place over three days. During the first day (1:19-28), it is the identity of John the Baptist himself that is at stake. John denies that he is the man whom the emissaries are looking for. During the second day (1:29-34), John testifies concerning the qualifications and reliability of the man they search for, and he identifies him. It is, however, unclear whether the emissaries themselves are present; the testimony is addressed to the Israelites. On the third day, we watch the effect of John’s witnessing: his testimony is sanctioned by his disciples’ change of allegiance in favour of Jesus, of whom they now become followers (1:35-51). The correspondence between the references to John’s testimony in the Prologue and the structure of his actual witnessing in 1:19-34 is generally recognized. The negative description of John’s identity in the Prologue’s verses 1:6-8: John “is not the light, but testifies concerning the light”, is repeated and concretized in response to the inquiry concerning John’s identity by the Jerusalem authorities (1:19-28). In a similar way, John’s positive, but enigmatic statement about Jesus in the Prologue’s verse 1:15: “he, who comes after me, is ranked higher than me, because he actually was before me”, is elaborated in 1:29-34 in John’s response to his encounter with Jesus. That the two days of John’s testimony mirrors each other is also commonly accepted: The negative and indirect witnessing of the first day is mirrored in the positive and direct testimony of the second day. In this way, John’s negative testimony with regard to himself indirectly becomes a positive testimony to 287 In the studies of the recognition genre in the Fourth Gospel that are oriented towards semiotics, a taxonomy based on Greimas’ and Courtés’ Sémiotique is introduced: a distinction is made between recognition as identification of the “denotative signified” and recognition as acknowledgement of the “connotative signified”. The latter is also designated the “thematic role”. See Kasper Bro Larsen’s discussion in “The Semiotics of Recognition; Aspects of Recognition: Identification and Acknowledgement” (2006, 49-52). Using this terminology, I claim that in the Fourth Gospel, the “denotative signified” is presupposed, and that it is the “connotative signified” which is at stake. In the beginning of the Gospel, in John the Baptist’s testimony, the thematic roles which are decided for Jesus are described.
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Jesus. The parallelism is constructed by corresponding themes, contrasts, catchwords, answers that pick up on a question etc.288 However, in spite of the fact that the parallelism is generally recognized, it has not led scholars to read the two parts of the testimony in light of each other. No one has, as far as I know, suggested that the scene of John’s testimony should constitute a chiasm. In the high era of redaction criticism, the recognized parallelism became an opportunity for a cut and paste restructuring of the text. 289 Today, the temporal sequence of John’s testimony causes the days to be treated separately. 290 Furthermore, the near consensus among scholars to choose the textual witness that for 1:34 reads “ou[to&j e0stin o( ui9o_j tou= qeou=” inevitably leads us to see the final words of John’s testimony as the climax. However, in spite of the fact that the consensus/Nestle follows the vast majority of Greek witnesses, Raymond Brown finds that the textual version of the original reading of Codex Sinaiticus ()*אּ: “o#ti ou[to&j e0stin o( e0klekto&j tou= qeou=” is the original one. Brown’s argument hinges on the criterion of plausibility (lectio difficilior): On the basis of theological tendency, however, it is difficult to imagine that Christian scribes would change “the Son of God” to “God’s chosen one”, while the opposite direction would be quite plausible. Harmonization with the synoptic account of the baptism, which has: “You are [This is] my beloved Son” (Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22) would also explain the introduction of “the Son of God” into John …” (Brown 1966, 57)291
The *אּversion sustains the concentric structure, since o( e0klekto&j is a general designation for the identities refused by John for himself: the anointed one, the Elijah, and the prophet.
288 See Brown’s commentary on 1:30-31: “It should be noted that vs. 30, with its variant in vs. 15, matches to some extent vs. 27 (just as 31 matches 26 in the theme of not recognizing Jesus)” (1966, 63). Brown does not, however, ascribe any significance to his observation. The coupling of vv. 31 and 27 corresponds to the fifth concentric circle in the chiastic structure that I shall propose; the coupling of vv. 31 with 26, to the fourth concentric circle. 289 Indirectly, Bultmann’s argument for restructuring the text recognizes the concentric structure of the text: “Further traces of the redaction are also to be found in what follows. For v. 26 should clearly be followed by v. 31; only when vv. 26 and 31 are taken together do they give the answer to the question in v. 25” (Bultmann 1941, 58; 1971, 84). 290 See K. Wengst, who structures 1:19-2:12 according to a weekly scheme: “Diese Gliederung nach den Tagen einer Woche am Anfang der Erzählung entspricht dem, dass auch an ihrem Ende einer Woche steht” (2001, 77). 291 Compare also Bultmann, who ascribes o( e0klekto&j to the early redaction (1941, 64); Barrett, who opposes the choice of the Nestle25 text and suggests that “instead of ui9o&j should perhaps be read e0klekto&j” (1955, 149), and Ashton who without argument features o( e0klekto&j (1991, 257).
228 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord 5.1.4.3 The chiastic structure of John’s testimony A1
1:19-22
The negative testimony of John concerning his identity Asked about his identity by priests and Levites from Jerusalem, John the Baptist confesses negatively and emphatically that he is not the anointed one (o( xristo&j), not Elijah (redivivus), and not the prophet.
B1
1:23
The expectation of the coming one: he must provide a wellguided way to the Lord When asked what he says about himself, John the Baptist identifies himself with the voice that calls from the desert for a reliable and well-guided way to the Lord that will be in accordance with (kaqw&j) what the prophet Isaiah has said.
C1
1:24-26a
The questioning of John’s commission to baptize: ti/ ou]n; The reticent, negative answer concerning his own identity (A1) has the result that John’s baptizing activity is called into question by those who are sent from the Pharisees to inquire about his practice. Their scepticism (ti/ ou]n;) concerns primarily the Baptist’s qualifications for his activity. John clears up the case and justifies his activity by referring to the medium with which he baptizes: it is (just) water.
D1
1:26b
The unknown identity of the coming one John tells the emissaries that in their midst someone is standing whom they do not know (me/soj u9mw~n e3sthken o$n u9mei=j ou0k oi1date).
E1
1:27
The status of the expected one In spite of the fact that the stranger comes after John (o)pi/sw mou), John is not worthy even of unbinding his sandals.
Centre: 1:29
The goal of the coming one: the removal of the world’s sin John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God who carries or takes away the sin of the world (i1de o( a)mno_j tou= qeou= o( ai1rwn th\n a(marti/an tou= ko&smou).
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1:34
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John’s positive witness concerning the identity of Jesus In light of the things that he has seen and heard, John the Baptist concludes his testimony by identifying Jesus as the one whom God has selected. (1:34 *אּ: o#ti ou[to&j e0stin o( e0kle/ktoj tou= qeou=).
B2
1:32-33
The solution to the task asked for: baptism in the Holy Spirit However, he that comes will be empowered in a special way: John testifies that he saw the spirit descending on Jesus from heaven and that it remained over him. John explains that he who sent him in order to baptize in water has informed him that this was the man who would provide the baptism in the Holy Spirit. (1:33: e0f’ o$n a@n i1dh|j to_ pneu=ma katabai=non kai\ me/non e0p’ au0to&n, ou[to&j e0stin o( bapti/zwn e0n pneu&mati a(gi/w|).
C2
1:31b:
The purpose of John’s baptism: dia_ tou=to In spite of the fact that John is not especially empowered, his baptism in water still serves a purpose. He baptizes in order that the unknown one in their midst may be revealed to Israel.
D2
1:31a
The unknown identity of the coming one John admits that he did himself not know the man before.
E2
1:30
The status of the expected person John continues his riddle-like characterization of Jesus as the man of whom he spoke before, and of whom he said that after him a man will come who has come into being before him, because he was before him. (o)pi/sw mou e1rxetai a)nh\r o$j e1nprosqe/n mou ge/gonen, o#ti prw~to/j mou h]n).
Centre: 1:29
The goal of the coming one: the removal of the world’s sin John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God who carries or takes away the sin of the world (i1de o( a)mno_j tou= qeou= o( ai1rwn th\n a(marti/an tou= ko&smou).
230 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord A chiasm is a textual form that produces meaning in a poetic or paradigmatic way by the aid of connections that textual markers, e.g. themes and catchwords, bring about.292 As a concentric structure around a climactic focal point, the form brings the parallel, concentric sections into play with one another and with the centre. This different way of structuring the text displaces the concluding climax form the end to the centre of the chiasm. The chiasm of John’s witness has its focal point in 1:29 in the recognition of Jesus as the Lamb of God, who will remove the sin from the world. In this chapter, I shall demonstrate how the chiastic structure of John the Baptist’s testimony perfectly brings out the points already emphasized here: (1) the testimony of John the Baptist is, apart from the identification of the divine servant, also concerned with the task bestowed on him (the thematic role). In the focal point of the chiasm, Jesus is not presented as the incarnated lo&goj or Son of God, but as the one who as the Lamb of God shall remove sin from the world. (2) Consequently, the functions ascribed to the Baptist in the Synoptics are transferred to Jesus.
5.2 First circle. The role prescribed for God’s anointed A1
1:19-22
The negative testimony of John concerning his own identity Asked concerning his identity by priests and Levites from Jerusalem, John the Baptist confesses negatively and emphatically that he is not the anointed one (o( xristo&j), not Elijah (redivivus), and not the prophet.
A2
1:34
John’s positive witness concerning the identity of Jesus In light of the things that he has seen and heard, John the Baptist concludes his testimony identifying Jesus as the one whom God has selected. (1:34 *אּ: o#ti ou[to&j e0stin o( e0kle/ktoj tou= qeou=).
In the first concentric circle of John’s testimony, the previously mentioned zooming effect of the Fourth Gospel is at work: the scheme from the Prologue is repeated, elaborated and concretized. In the Prologue, the negative identification of John the Baptist, who was not the light 292 For meaning produced by poetic or paradigmatic structures, see K. Koch’s reflections on “das assoziative Feld” in Was ist Formgeschichte? Methoden der Bibelexegese (1974, 294f) presented in the introduction to the exegetical part of the dissertation in Chapter Four.
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(1:6-8), functioned indirectly as a witness for Him who was the light of the world (1:9, 10; 8:12). When asked by the delegates from Jerusalem concerning his identity, John emphatically denies that he is the anointed one,293 the Elijah or the expected prophet (1:20-22). On the basis of the descent of the spirit on Jesus, which he has previously seen (1:32-34), John concludes his testimony by pointing to Jesus (ou[to&j) as the one chosen by God (o( e0kle/ktoj tou= qeou=).294 The chiastic structure of the testimony, which brings opposing sections into dialogue, shows that the various titles and roles denied by John for himself are designations for God’s chosen one and represent the functions that he is given to carry out. This reading is confirmed by the narrative about the third day. The first disciples are motivated to follow Jesus by their identification of Jesus with these predicates and even more titles are added (1:35-51). Andrew claims that he has found the Messiah, which the author interprets as the “anointed” (1:41); Philip finds that he has met the one whom Moses wrote about (1:45), which must refer to the promised “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, 18. Only Elijah is not alluded to here. The titles and the traditions represented by these designations are not competing proposals for Jesus’ identity. The fourth Evangelist reinscribes a multiplicity of Jewish expectations for the future as well as early Christian ideas about Christ in his own narrative of Jesus and reinterprets these according to his own program. In the first concentric circle of John’s testimony, three issues claim attention: 1. In the Gospel of John, the predominant use of “Christ” is with the article, o( xristo&j. The article reinvests the proper name with the lexical meaning: “the anointed one”. 293 In the Fourth Gospel, the anointed one with the article (o( xristo&j) is found in: 1:20, 25; 2:25; 3:28; 4:25, 29; 7:26, 27, 31, 41, 42; 10:24; 11:27; 12:34; 20:31. Special attention should be drawn to the concluding remark of the Gospel in 20:21 in which “the anointed one” stands in parallel with “the Son of God”: “This is written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the anointed one, the Son of God (20:31: tau=ta de\ ge/graptai i3na pisteu&[s]hte o#ti 0Ihsou=j e0stin o( xristo_j o( ui9o_j tou= qeou=)”. “The Son of God” here stands as an explaining apposition to “the anointed one”. The article is omitted in the Prologue 1:17: “Grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ”; also in 1:41 & 4:25 in which the name Messi/aj is translated “anointed” (1:41: eu9rh/kamen to_n Messi/an, o# e0stin meqermhneuo&menon xristo&j); in the decision of the Jews in 9:22 that those who confess him (Jesus) as being “anointed” will be excommunicated (i3na e0a&n tij au0to_n o(mologh/sh| xristo&n, a)posuna&gwgoj ge/nhtai); and finally in Jesus’ own prayer 17:3: “This is the true life, that they know You, the only true God and him who You have sent, Jesus Christ ( 0Ihsou=n Xristo&n)”. In conclusion, verses 1:17 and 17:3 are the only places where “Christ” is used in the sense of a proper name. 294 See Brown’s argument presented above. See also note 291.
232 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord 2. In the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist explicitly denies the identity claimed for him in the Synoptics, namely that he is the Elijah redivivus (Matt 11:14; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:17). The functions carried out by the returning Elijah is transferred to Jesus. 295 3. The delegates sent out from Jerusalem are “priests and Levites” (1:19). The appearance of Levites on the scene is unique to the Fourth Gospel.296 Apart from their interest in the identity of John the Baptist, they do not play any further role in the Gospel. As marginal characters they are not given much attention in the commentaries. It is suggested that the Levites may have replaced the political party of Sadducees in the Synoptics, since the political agenda of 1st century Jerusalem is of no interest to the Fourth Gospel. However, after the fall of the temple in Jerusalem, the tribe of Levites as employees in the sacrificial cult lost their religious function. So why are they brought on stage in the Fourth Gospel? What does their presence signify? In The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, Wayne Meeks demonstrated how the expectations of a prophet like Moses based on Deut 18:14-22 played a significant role in the Fourth Gospel. I shall therefore concentrate on the traditions represented by the two other figures: o( xristo&j and Elijah.
5.2.1 The reinvestment of Christ with the Isaianic program Although many scholars are aware of John’s preference for o( xristo/j with the article, they do not ascribe any special function to it. However, since the use of the article emphasizes the lexical meaning of the term, the mere identification of the referent is postponed, while attention is drawn to the meaning and thematic role designated by the term. One is
295 In the reconstruction of the so-called sign source, which was a matter of importance in the era of source and redaction criticism, J. L. Martyn introduced the sentence “We have found the Elijah, who will restore all things” in 1:43 in order to restore the indirectness of calling also in the case of Philip and to bring out the parallelism between the negative witness of John concerning his own identity and the disciples’ positive identification of Jesus. R. Bultmann, Robert T. Fortna and E. Boismard have also contributed to the reconstruction of the sign source. See Ashton (1991, 252, 284291). See also Bultmann’s argument (1941, 68; 1971, 98) and U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs (1989). 296 One exception is Luke who mentions a by-passing Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan (10:32).
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encouraged to inquire about the character of the anointing and the task for which the anointing has taken place.297 This inquiry leads us to a text in (Trito-) Isaiah, namely 61:1-3LXX (for translation see below), which is quoted verbatim in Luke (4:18), but seldom mentioned in commentaries on the Fourth Gospel.298 In the manner of the Hebrew poetical parallelism (parallelismus membrorum), Isaiah 61:1-3 juxtaposes anointing with the descent and abiding of God’s spirit (61:1); the anointing medium is God’s spirit (pneu=ma kuri/ou). The language of anointing (xri/ein) here becomes a metaphor for the election, commissioning and empowering of God‘s emissary through His spirit. In Isaiah, the anointing is linked with the program that God’s chosen one is given to carry out (61:2-3). When the testimony of John the Baptist to the descent of the spirit from above on Jesus and its abiding over him (1:32-33) is understood against the background of the text of Isaiah, it becomes an act of anointing which installs Jesus as the divine servant commissioned to carry out the restoration of God’s people, and which justifies the designation of Jesus as the anointed one, o( xristo&j.299 Isaiah 61:1-3LXX in my translation. See next page.
297 By the aid of the article, o( xristo&j is reinvested with the lexical meaning: “the anointed one”. The situation in the Fourth Gospel, thus, seems to be precisely the opposite of what was claimed by Kammler in his essay “Jesus und der Geistparaklet”. Kammler argued that in the Fourth Gospel we saw a radical reinterpretation of the Old Testament Messianic tradition. Kammler spoke of “die alttestamentlichfrühjüdische Messianologie [die] durch die johanneische Wesenschristologie unvergleichlich überboten und transzendiert wird” (158). As part of this reorientation, Kammler drew attention to “die semantische Umformungsprozeß” (162) in which God’s anointed servant, o( xristo&j, became 0Ihsou=j Xristo&j. The Old Testament tradition of the anointed servant was in „die johanneische Wesenstheologie“ subsumed under the idea of the incarnation in which “der metaphysische Logos asarkos” in God’s mystery becomes the “Logos ensarkos” (163): “Der “Messias” im johanneischen Sinne des Wortes stammt nicht wie der in alttestamentlich-frühjüdischer Tradition erwartete und erhoffte Messias seinem Wesen und Ursprung nach aus der Welt; er gehört vielmehr als der eine und einzige präexistente Gottesohn ganz auf die Seite Gottes, seines himmlischen Vaters. … Der Begriff o( xristo&j … bezeichnet … nicht einen zum Sohne Gottes adoptierten Menschen, sondern streng und ausschlißlich den von Ewigkeit her mit dem Vater in engster personaler Gemeinschaft lebenden und als Mensch in die Welt gekommenen Gottessohn, dem selbst die wahre Gottheit zukommt” (159f). 298 Even in G. M. Burge’s The Anointed Community. The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (1987) Isaiah 61:1-3 plays no role. 299 The resistance against hearing an echo of Isa 61:1 in John 1:20 may also be due to the Christological implications inherent in the idea of anointing, namely that it represents a Christology of adoption. See Kammler’s position in the note above.
234 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord Isa 61:1: a. pneu=ma kuri/ou e0p’ e0me& The spirit of the Lord is over me b. ou[ ei3neken e1xrise/n me7 for the sake of this (the following) he has anointed me: c.
eu0aggeli/sasqai ptwxoi=j a)pe/stalke/n me He has sent me … in order to bring good news to the poor
d. i0a&sasqai tou\j suntetrimme/nouj th=| kardi/a| in order to heal those whose heart has been crushed e. khru&cai ai0xmalw&toij a!fesin in order to announce… the release for the captives f.
kai\ tufloi=j a)na&bleyin and the recovery of sight for the blind
Isa 61:2: g. kale/sai e0niauto_n kuri/ou dekto_n (He has sent me … ) in order to claim the cycle/period of the Lord inaugurated h. kai\ h9me/ran a)ntapodo&sewj as well as the day of retribution i.
parakle/sai pa&ntaj tou\j penqou=ntaj in order to comfort the mourning
Isa 61:3: j.
doqh=nai toi=j penqou=sin Ziwn do&can (He has sent me … ) in order that glory may be given to Zion’s mourning ones
k. a)nti\ spodou= that, instead of ashes, m. a!leimma (anything used for anointing) eu0frosu&nhj toi=j penqou=sin an ointment of merriment (will be provided) for the mourning ones n. katastolh\n do&chj a)nti\ pneu&matoj a)khdi/aj (and) an equipment of glory, instead of a spirit of carelessness, o. kai\ klhqh/sontai geneai\ dikaiosu&nhj fu&teuma kuri/ou ei0j do&can so that they will be called offspring of justice, the Lord’s plants (and they will be to the Lord’s) glory
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The suggestion that the first concentric circle in John’s testimony alludes to Isa 61:1-3 may be reinforced by three additional arguments: 1. Among the few explicit references in the Fourth Gospel to the Old Testament, Isaiah is singled out as a preferred source: The figure of John the Baptist is introduced (1:23) with a quotation, although a modified one, from Isa 40:3. Also the first section of the Gospel (12:37-43) is concluded with several quotations from Isaiah (53:1 LXX; 6:9-10).300 The relationship between Isaiah’s words and Christ in John 12:38 is described as a fulfilment of a previously given prophecy.301 The prophet Isaiah spoke as he did, “because he [Isaiah] saw his [Jesus’] glory and spoke about him (John 12:41).302 2. The conclusion of the section in Isaiah that is introduced by 61:1-3, namely 62:10-12, seems to play a role in the modification of Isa 40:3 at work in John the Baptist’s self-identification in 1:23; John’s statement appears to be a blending of elements from both Isaianic traditions. The modification is important because it profoundly changes the message of John the Baptist; to this, I shall return in the discussion of the next concentric circle (B1: 1:23 ~ B2: 1:32-33). 3. Almost every commentator agrees that the identification of Jesus with the Lamb of God (1:29) inscribes the motif of the Lord’s suffering servant from Deutero-Isaiah into the Fourth Gospel. Although Isaiah 61:1-3 is now placed in Trito-Isaiah and formally a part of the post-exilic reflection, the text is today seen as belonging to the same tradition as the servant songs in Deutero-Isaiah which look forward to a restoration of Jerusalem and of the Lord’s people.303 The program of restoration in Isa 61:1-3 is the work of the Lord’s servant. Striking parallels are found between the sequence of promises given in Isaiah’s prophecy (61:1-3) and the symbols and signs that in the Fourth Gospel represent the salvation brought about by Jesus. Seemingly, the prophecy-fulfilment scheme described in John 12:38 is at work in the composition of the Gospel. The parallel sequences shall be demonstrated here.
300 The first quotation is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel; the latter is shared with the Synoptics. 301 John 12:38: i3na o( lo&goj 0Hsai5ou tou= profh/tou plhrwqh|=, 302 John 12:41: tau=ta ei]pen 0Hsai5aj o#ti ei]den th\n do&can au0tou=, kai\ e0la&lhsen peri\ au0tou=. 303 See the article on Trito-Isaiah by Knud Jeppsen in Gads Bibelleksikon (Hallbäck & Lundager Jensen 1998).
236 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord 5.2.1.1 Parallel sequences. Isaiah 61:1-3 and John The message of the divine emissary is described as “good news” to the poor (Isa 61:1). The Isaianic messenger outlines a program of the approaching salvation which promises: d. the healing of the crushed hearts e. the release for those in captivity f.
the recovery of sight for the blind
g. the inauguration of the Lord’s cycle/period h. the coming of the day of retribution i.j. the para&klhsij of the mourning m. an ointment of merriment for the mourning n. the replacement of the spirit of carelessness by the equipment of glory o. a new identity or life as offspring of justice and plants of the Lord d. The healing (i0a~sqai) of crushed hearts (h9 kardi/a) → John 4 and 5 The second sign (according to the counting of the Fourth Gospel, 4:54) performed by Jesus is the healing (4:47: i0a~sqai) of the kingly official’s sick/weak son (4:46: a)sqenei=n). It is followed immediately by the healing of the cripple (5:10: qerapeu&ein), which is yet another person suffering from weakness (5:7: o( a)sqenw~n). Also Lazarus suffers from weakness (11:1: a)sqenw~n; 11:2, 3, 4, 6). The Stoic term for the weakness of will was, as already mentioned, a)sqe/neia. When Jesus stops acting in parables and speaks directly in the Farewell Speech (cf. 16:29), the Fourth Gospel describes this healing as a transformation of the heart or of that which fills it: peace (14:27; 20:20: ei0rh/nh) will take the place of anxiety and fear (14:1, 27: Mh/ tarasse/sqw u9mw~n h9 kardi/a); happiness or joy (16:22: xara&) will replace pain (16:6: lu&ph); and endurance (20:23: a!n tinwn krath=te kekra&thntai) will drive out weakness (4:46; 5:3, 5, 7; 6:2; 11:1-6: h9 a)sqe/neia). In the Fourth Gospel, the heart is the organ towards which Jesus’ healing power is ultimately directed. e. The liberation of captives → John 8 The confrontation with the Jews occasioned by Jesus’ healings climaxes in the discussion of freedom and slavery. It is in accordance with the psychological understanding of Jesus’ healings given above that Jesus
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here argues that the freedom brought by the Son is truly freedom, because it liberates from slavery to sin and sinning (8:34-36). f.
The blinds’ (oi9 tufloi/) recovery of sight (a)na&bleyij) → John 9
Immediately after the discussion with the Jews, Jesus restores the sight (9:11, 15, 18: a)na&bleyij) of the man born blind (tuflo&j). Apart from the traditional meaning of recovering sight, a)na&bleyij may also denote the simple literal meaning of looking upward. 304 Symbolically interpreted the man-born-blind’s gain of sight is a literal a)na&bleyij, since the salvific knowledge in the Fourth Gospel concerns the Father (17:3), whose symbolic place in the Fourth Gospel is above, in heaven. g. & h. The inauguration of the Lord’s cycle/period (e0niauto&j kuri/ou) and the coming of the day of retribution (h9 h9me/ra a)ntapodo&sewj) In the Fourth Gospel, the term o( e0niauto&j is used technically for the high priest’s period of service (11:49-51; 18:13). Although the sign performed in the temple (2:13-22) indicates that Jesus replaces the cult, the office or title of high priest is not ascribed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel as it is the case in Hebrews. Instead, Jesus is identified with the sacrificial animal: it is as the Lamb of God that Jesus takes away the sin of the world (1:29). If Jesus’ mission succeeds, the Day of Judgement will be superfluous. Accordingly, the day of retribution does not play any major role in the Fourth Gospel. Later in this chapter, we shall return to the theme of judgement. i. & j. The para&klhsij of the mourning (penqou=ntaj) → John 14-16 The Fourth Gospel does not use the term mourning, but speaks of those whose hearts are filled with pain (16:6: lu&ph) and dismay (14:1, 27: mh\ tarasse/sqw u9mw~n h9 kardi/a). This pain is intimately related to Jesus’ impending departure. The Johannine Paraclete is primarily a teacher and guide (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). Yet, his coming will restore the hearts of the disciples in a manner that is superior to the situation they are in now when Jesus is still with them in flesh and blood (14:16-17; 16:7: sumfe/rei u9mi=n). Therefore the Farewell Discourses’ promise of another Paraclete also consolates the disciples. m. & n. The ointment of merriment for the mourning and a replacement of a spirit of carelessness by an equipment of glory → John 20
304 See Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell, Scott and Jones (LSJ).
238 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord The Isaianic program for restoration was announced as “the good message for the poor (eu0aggeli/sasqai ptwxoi=j)”. Although in an indirect manner, the Fourth Gospel also links poverty and the promise of spiritual ointment, namely in the narrative of the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet. At the meal at Bethany celebrating Lazarus’ resurrection, Lazarus’ sister Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with an expensive ointment. Judas objects to her extravagant use of ointment and suggests that it should be sold in order to benefit the poor with the money. Jesus, however, defends Mary’s prodigal act. Jesus’ reaction is, if not provocative, at least enigmatic. He suggests that the (rest of the) precious ointment be kept – not for the poor as suggested, although falsely, by Judas – but for his own burial. Jesus argues for this because of the fact (ga&r) that – while the disciples always will have poor people with them – he will not be among them (12:8). The story has a parallel in the Synoptics, but in the Fourth Gospel it exhibits features of its own. In the Synoptics, the ointment is poured out on Jesus’ head in the manner of the ritual used for enthronements of kings and priests. In the Fourth Gospel, it is Jesus’ feet that are anointed. Why this difference? Maybe it is because Jesus has already been anointed. When the spirit descended on him above, Jesus was anointed by God as His prophet and king in an Isaianic manner. However, in the Gospel of John, no women preparing to anoint Jesus’ corpse are encountered at the grave; and the rest of Mary’s ointment is never used. Instead, in yet another extravagant act, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus care for Jesus’ dead corpse. So if Mary’s anointing is neither a kingly one, nor a burial anointing, what is it then? The scene may be seen as a prophetic act or sign, in which Jesus predicts the events related to his death. Mary’s ointment is kept for his corpse, but no corpse is left in the cave. Instead, Jesus’ risen body is translated into life-giving spirit. The corpse for which the ointment was spared becomes itself ointment – in the Isaianic sense.305 Through Jesus’ death, an ointment is provided for “the poor” and Judas’ proposal becomes an ironic prophecy. The narrative that at first glance appeared scandalous is a sign that anticipates the infusion of the Holy Spirit. In this way, anointing becomes a metaphor for the (re-) generation from above of the children of God (1:12-13). Here, too, we find a parallel to Isaiah: the offspring of justice (o) is generated through
305 Compare Isa 25:6, where an anointing with myrrh (xri/sontai mu&ron) forms part of the restoration scene. The ointment used by the Johannine Mary is a mu&roj na&rdou (12:3).
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differently spiritual equipment (n), which is also understood as an anointing with happiness (m).306 o. A new identity or life as … plants of the Lord → John 15/20 According to Isaiah, the ointment or equipment of the mourning with a new spirit will result in a generic status as “offspring of justice” and “plants of the Lord”. The spirit of the Lord, with which the prophetic messenger was initially invested, also forms part of the restoration of the Lord’s people. The task given to the divine servant is to prepare a situation in which the anointing that initially befell him alone may be applied generally.307 In the Fourth Gospel, we find the same spiritual arch anticipated in John the Baptist’s testimony: Jesus’ receives the spirit in order that he may provide a baptism in the spirit for his followers (1:33). In the Gospel, it is Jesus who is the plant of God, namely his wine, whereas believers are the branches grafted onto it (15:1-8). 306 In 1 John, the reception of the divine pneu=ma (3:24) is described both as the (re-) generation of divine children (3:1-10) and as a divine anointing (2:20-27). The believer is fertilized by God’s seed: 1 John 3:9: pa~j o( gegennhme/noj e0k tou= qeou= a(marti/an ou0 poiei=, o#ti spe/rma au0tou= e0n au0tw~ me/nei. and he is anointed by God’s ointment: 1 John 2:27: kai\ u9mei=j to_ xri=sma o$ e0la&bete a)p’ au0tou=, me/nei e0n u9mi=n kai\ ou0 xrei/an e1xete i3na tij dida&skh| u9ma~j, a)ll’ w(j to_ au0tou= xri=sma dida/skei u9ma~j peri\ pa/ntwn kai\ a)lhqe/j e0stin kai\ ou0k e1stin yeu=doj, kai\ kaqw_j e0di/dacen u9ma~j, me/nete e0n au0tw~|. 307 The idea of a divine anointing that forms part of the restoration is made explicit in Isa 25:6-10LXX. The restoration does not concern the people of God alone, but also the nations: Isa 25:6: On this mountain the Lord will make a Sabbath for all the nations (kai\ poih/sei ku&rioj sabawq pa~si toi=j e1qnesin e0pi\ to_ o!roj tou=to,) they shall drink merriment, they shall drink wine, (pi/ontai eu0frosu&nhn pi/ontai oi]non,) and they will receive an anointing with myrrh (xri/sontai mu&ron.) Isa 25:9: On this day everyone will say (kai\ e0rou=sin th=| h9me/ra| e0kei\nh|,) Behold, our God ( 0Idou\ o( qeo_j h9mw~n,) due to Him we had hope, felt joy and happiness concerning our salvation (e0f’ w|{ h0lpi/zomen kai\ h0galliw&meqa kai\ eu0franqhso/meqa e0pi\ th|= swthria~| h9mw~n.) Isa 25:10: On this mountain God provided a repose (o#ti a)na/pausin dw&sei o( qeo\j e0pi\ to\ o!roj tou=to.) The text links the motif of wine with anointing in a manner that also is found in the Fourth Gospel. The first sign performed by Jesus concerns the provision of wine (2:1-11), and the sign links wine to a future coming of the spirit (7:37-39).
240 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord The wine is a metaphor for the situation that will be established through the spirit: through the spirit, believers will participate in the translated Jesus. Although the motifs shared by the text from Isaiah (61:1-3) and the Gospel are taken from the pool of traditional, biblical themes, it is remarkable that the two texts share the sequence in which the motifs occur. Consequently, Isaiah’s program of restoration appears to be fulfilled in Jesus.
5.2.1.2 John’s testimony and Isaiah 42:1 In relation to the second part of the concentric structure (A2), I have argued in favour of choosing the version “God’s chosen one” (1:34). The designation “God’s chosen one”, which corresponds to the “the anointed” in the concentric structure A1-A2, refers verbally to Isa 42:1. The Hebrew Bible as well as the Septuagint speaks of “the elected one”. 42:1aLXX has: “Jacob, my servant (o( pai=j), I have laid hold on you for myself. Israel, my elect one (o( e0klekto&j), my soul has received you favourably”.308 The text continues in 42:1bLXX: “I have placed my spirit over you, in order that you will bring the judgement to the nations”. In Isaiah, God’s elected servant (Jacob) as well as His elected people (Israel) are empowered by God’s spirit and commissioned to bring the judgement to the nations.309 The Synoptics follow Isaiah with regard to the speaking subject and ascribe the recognition of Jesus as “the beloved son of God” to the voice resounding from heaven during Jesus’ baptism. The Johannine quotation, however, is closer to the wording of the biblical source, but places the statement in the mouth of John the Baptist. By alluding to this tradition of Isaiah, the Fourth Gospel installs Jesus in the role as the expected saviour who is anointed to carry out the program; the Johannine community in the role as the restored holy people ransomed by the Lord himself;310 and Judaism as the present place of their exile. In summary: by allusions, the outer concentric circle of John the Baptist’s testimony installs Isaiah’s prophecies about the restoration of God’s nation as the background against which we should understand the task given to Jesus as God’s anointed (A1: John 1:20: o( xristo&j → 308 Isa 42:1aLXX: Iakwb o( pai=j mou, a)ntilh/myomai au0tou=. Israhl o( e0klekto&j mou, prosede/cato au0to&n h9 yuxh/ mou. 309 Isa 42:1bLXX: e1dwka to_ pneu=ma mou e0p’ au0to_n, kri/sin toi=j e1qnesin e0coi/sei. 310 See Isa 62:12 LXX which concludes 61:1-3: kai\ kale/sei au0to_n lao_n a#gion lelutrwme/non u9po_ kuri/ou.
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Isa 61:1) and His chosen one (A2: John 1:34: o( e0lekto&j → Isa 42:1). In both prophecies, the divine spirit plays an important part; it is the ointment with which the chosen one of God is equipped (61:1: pneu=ma kuri/ou e0p’ e0me/; 42:1: e1dwka to\ pneu=ma& mou e0p’ au0to&n). The intertextual allusions interpret the descent of the spirit on Jesus (1:33: e0f’ o$n a@n i1dh|j to_ pneu=ma katabai=non kai\ me/non e0p’ au0to&n). In Isaiah as well as in the Fourth Gospel, this restoration first and foremost concerns the instalment of a new spirit in the nation(s). The question that the outer concentric circle leaves to the reader is not: Who is Jesus? But this: How will all this come about? In fact, this is the question that Nicodemus repeats in John 3:9: pw~j du&natai tau~ta gene/sqai;
5.2.2 The enigma of Elijah redivivus in the Fourth Gospel The second feature which attracted attention in the first concentric circle (A1-A2) was John the Baptist’s overt denial that he should be the returning Elijah. That contrasts with the Synoptics who explicitly identified John the Baptist with the eschatological forerunner of Mal 3.311 Commentators note the difference, but most refer the difference to the imagined historical conflict behind the text between the Evangelist’s community and the followers of the Baptist.312 It is true, indeed, that in its present form the Fourth Gospel does not claim explicitly that Jesus is the returning Elijah. However, the structure of indirect witnessing, according to which titles and functions denied for the Baptist were claimed for Jesus, applied to o( xristo&j and o( profh/thj. It seems reasonable to suggest that this, too, holds true for 0Hli/aj, which is situated between o( xristo&j and o( profh/thj. Therefore
311 Mal 3:1 → Mark 1:2; Matt 11:10; Luke 1:76; 7:26. Mal 3:23-24 → Matt 11:14; 17:10-11; Luk 1:17 312 See e.g. Schnelle (1998, 48), who is a typical proponent of this tradition. See also Schnackenburg, who finds that the Baptist’s denial of the role of Elijah redivivus in the Fourth Gospel, when viewed against the background of the Synoptics, in fact constitutes a problem (1979, 277). Raymond Brown, however, finds that there is no problem, since the Fourth Gospel simply states the truth, namely that the historical figure of the Baptist, as well as his followers, never thought of the Baptist as the Elijah redivivus: “As for those passages cited above which identify John the Baptist and Elijah, this is not the view of John the Baptist himself but the view of early Christian theology which saw in the role of Elijah the best way to interpret the relation of John the Baptist to Jesus, namely John the Baptist was to the coming of Jesus what Elijah was to have been to the coming of the Lord” (1966, 48).
242 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord a glance at the tradition of Elijah redivivus is of interest.313 What functions were ascribed to the figure? First it must be noted that the Septuagint version of Mal 3:22-23 and the interpretation of the redivivus tradition in the Sirach (48:10) differ from that of the Hebrew Bible (quoted almost verbatim in Luke 1:17) in which John the Baptist is depicted as forerunner in the spirit of Elijah: Luke 1:17: kai\ au0to_j proeleu&setai e0nw&pion au0tou= e0n pneu=mati kai\ duna&mei 0Hli/ou, e0pistre/yai kardi/aj pate/rwn e0pi\ te/kna, kai\ a)peiqei=j e0n fronh/sei dikai/wn, e0toima&sai kuri/w| lao_n kateskeuasme/non. MalLXX 3:22-23: 22 Kai\ i0dou\ e0gw_ a)poste/llw u9mi=n 0Hli/an to_n Qesbi/thn pri\n e0lqei=n h9me/ran kuri/ou th\n mega&lhn kai\ e0pifanh=, 23 o$j a)pokatasth/sei kardi/an patro_j pro_j ui9o_n kai\ kardi/an a)nqrw&pou pro_j to_n plhsi/on au0tou=, mh\ e1lqw kai\ pata&cw th\n gh=n a!rdhn. Sir 48:10 (my translation): You are the one of whom it is said in accordance with Scripture that in the future (o( katagrafei\j e0n e0legmoi=j ei0j kairou\j) he will weary the agitation before it turns into anger (kopa&sai o)rgh\n pro_ qumou=) and turn the heart of the father towards the son (e0pistre/yai kardi/an patro_j pro_j ui9o_n) and restore the tribes of Jacob (kai\ katasth=sai fula_j Iakwb.) 313 Wengst rejects the identification of Jesus with Elijah redivivus because he finds no tradition in the available material that confirms the identification (80). The denial of the status of forerunner for the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel is according to Wengst a statement about John the Baptist and about him alone. The only function that John the Baptist performs in the Fourth Gospel is that of witnessing: “Die damit verbundene Absicht ist wohl die, ihn [Johannes] ganz und gar und ausschließlich auf die Rolle des Zeugen festzulegen.“ (80) Raymond Brown finds that in Luke Jesus is depicted as the Elijah-like figure: “Luke seeks to hold a middle position [between, on the one hand, Mark and Matthew and, on the other, John], for outside of the reference in the infancy narrative, the Gospel of Luke proper never identifies John the Baptist as the Elijah. In fact, Luke seems deliberately to omit passages in Mark which would abet such identification. Jesus is the Elijah-like figure for Luke (cf. iv 24-26, vii 11-17 with I Kings xviii 38” (1966, 48).
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The difference between Luke 1:17-MalHeb and Sir 48:10-MalLXX only concerns the change of the plural of the fathers and the sons for the singular, Luke 1:17-MalHeb 3:24: kardi/aj pate/rwn e0pi\ te/kna Sir 48:10-MalLXX 3:24: kardi/an patro_j pro_j ui9o&n Yet, the effect is significant: the referent is changed. The parallelismus membrorum of Sir 48:10 identifies “the son” with “the tribes of Jacob”, that is, Israel. Consequently, the singular father must be identified with God, who is the one to whom the anger belongs. In contrast to MalachiHeb, the Sirach and the Septuagint clearly bring out that the returning Elijah is a mediator between God and Israel. His task is to modify God’s anger towards His son, Israel. In the Septuagint, the restoration of the relation between the generations found in the Hebrew Bible is replaced by the restoration of the paternal heart towards the son and of the human heart – not towards the father – but towards the neighbour. In conclusion, in the Sirach and in the Septuagint, the figure of Elijah redivivus represents a mediator between Israel/humanity and God. He is sent by God (MalLXX 3:22) in order to restore inter-human relations and thereby – and the sequence is very important – to intervene in the relationship of God with Israel/humanity and modify the impending anger of the Day of the Lord. It is this mediating function that is explicitly denied to John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel, but which seems indirectly to be claimed for Jesus. We saw that, in the tradition of the anointed servant of God found in Isa 61:1-3, the restoration of the “crushed hearts” with “a careless spirit” played a role as well. The tradition of the MalachiLXX and Sir 48:10 links this restoration with the reconciliation of God’s anger. The combination of these traditions brings us closer to the Fourth Gospel, where God’s anger (3:36) also constitutes the horizon for Jesus’ sending. In the Synoptics, John the Baptist should – “in the spirit of the Elijah” (Luke 1:17) – prepare the hearts through confession of sins and knowledge of salvation (Luke 1:77) for the coming anger and judgement (Matt 3:7). In the Fourth Gospel, this function is transferred completely to the figure of Jesus. The two eschatological events: preparation of the hearts and judgement, which are separated in the apocalyptic outlook of the Synoptics and distributed between the Baptist and Jesus, collapse in the Fourth Gospel into one single event and are bestowed wholly on the figure of Christ. This is confirmed by the next concentric circle, B1-B2, which concerns the way that this restoration will take place. But before we enter into the second concentric circle, we must have a look at the Levites: What interest would priests or Levites, em-
244 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord ployees of the cult, take in an eschatological figure like John the Baptist? What does their presence in the opening scene of the Gospel indicate with regard to Jesus’ mission?
5.2.3 Philo. The Levitical manner of ransoming The Johannine staging of the “priest and Levites”, who act as interlocutors of John the Baptist on behalf of the Jews in Jerusalem, has perplexed Johannine scholars. Some ignore their presence and concentrate on oi9 0Ioudai=oi (e.g. Bultmann 1941, 59; Wengst 2001, 79). C. K. Barrett finds it “doubtful whether John was intimately acquainted with the Levitical institutions, and it may be that he has simply borrowed a familiar Old Testament phrase … to describe Jewish functionaries” (1955, 143). Raymond Brown sees a thematic link between the baptizing practice of John the Baptist and the priestly and Levitical delegates who are specialists in ritual purification (1966, 43). Udo Schnelle suggests a link between the priests and Levites as representatives of the official cult and Jesus’ challenge of the sacrificial cult in the temple in 2:14-22.314 Philo’s symbolic treatment of the Levitical office integrates the question of ritual purity raised by Brown and the question of the legitimacy of the sacrificial cult raised by Schnelle. Yet, neither Brown nor Schnelle are aware of Philo’s work. Writing in and for the Jewish Diaspora, Philo’s interest in the Levites is based exclusively on their representation in Scripture. Since the allegorical significance ascribed to the Levitical institution by Philo is independent of the actual service in the temple, his interpretation may be of interest beyond the existence of the temple itself and of relevance for the Fourth Gospel as well. Philo’s interpretation of the Levite office is intimately related to his general world view and forms part of his discussion with – and opposition to – Stoic philosophy and its core idea of oi0kei/wsij. As we saw in Chapter Two, the Stoic sage was characterized by an intellectual and emotional appropriation (oi0kei/wsij) of the world to his self. Philo, however, did not speak of the appropriation of the world to the wise man’s self. Instead, “the richness of the mind was recognized as God’s gift and appropriated to Him (w(j th=j kata_ me\n dia&noian pio&thtoj a)naferome/nhj e0pi\ qeo_n kai\ oi0keioume/nhj au0tw~|)” (Post. 123). This is the Levite mind-set. 314 See Schnelle: “Die Zusammensetzung der Gesandtschaft aus Priestern und Leviten und damit aus Vertretern des Kultpersonals berührt das mit dem Offenbarungsanspruch Jesu eng verbundene Problem des legitimen Kultes, das in Joh. 2,14-22 explizit wiederaufgenommen wird“ (1998, 47).
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In his treatise De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini (118-132), Philo includes a lengthy section on the Levites, which takes Num 3:12-13 as its exegetical starting-point: “And behold I have taken from the midst of the sons of Israel, in place of every first-born that opens the womb from among the sons of Israel. They shall be their ransom and the Levites shall be mine, for every first-born is mine. On the day when I smote every first-born in the land of Egypt, I hallowed to myself every first-born in Israel” (Sacr. 118, LCL’s translation).
In his exegesis, Philo expounds the family relations of the patriarch Jacob in terms of his understanding of Stoic theory. He splits the figure of Jacob into two persons in accordance with his two biblical names, Jacob and Israel: “Jacob” represents the soul in training and progress (po/nou kai\ prokoph=j) that is naturally endowed with a good disposition (to_ eu0fue\j a)rxh/). Jacob’s first-born son, Reuben, receives his name after his father’s state of mind and becomes a representative of the paternal mind-set.315 “Israel” represents the human goal and “only wise being”, that is, the devotion to the contemplation and service of God (phgh\ to_ qerapeutikw~j e1xein au0tou=). Levi is the first-born of Israel and a symbol of the practice that corresponds to the Israelite mind-set (qerapei/aj de\ o( Leui/ e0sti shmei=on). Just as Jacob once received the privileges of the first-born from his elder brother Esau, Reuben, too, must now yield the rights of the elder to Levi. It is Philo’s theory of the two men that is at stake in the interpretation of Jacob Israel’s offspring. As the first-born in time, Reuben represents the Adamic mind naturally endowed by God with reason in the minimal and formal sense. Since reason is also in this sense a gift from God, it is “a good disposition”. Levi, who is the second-born in relation to time, represents the heavenly man (mind-set) that as a deute/ra ge/nesij supervenes on the Adamic mind. But since the Levitical mind is rational in the maximal and truest sense of the word, Reuben must resign himself to be guided by him who is truly first-born. The Levitical mind-set represents the perfect virtue that has taken “refuge with God” (Sacr. 120). Therefore, among the tribes of Israel, the Levites received no earthly, but only a heavenly possession. They received the Lord as their lot and portion, that is, the pre-eminent privilege of priesthood: … for in reality the mind, which has been perfectly cleansed and purified, and which renounces all things pertaining to creation, is acquainted with
315 With regard to etymology involved in Reuben’s name, scholars are puzzled. A suggestion may be that the “eu” of 0Reube/n reverberates in prefix in to_ eu0fue\j a)rxh/.
246 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord One alone and knows but One, even the Uncreate, to Whom it has drawn nigh, by Whom also it has been taken to Himself. (Plant. 64).316
In Philo’s exegesis, true priesthood is disentangled from the historical service in the temple and made accessible to everyone who, as it were, sacrifices his self by devoting it to the service and interests of God. The renunciation or vindication of desire for earthly things is “the primary meaning of the price which the soul that craves liberty pays for its deliverance and ransom (Tau=t’ e0sti kuri/wj ei0pei=n ta_ yuxh=j e0leuqeri/aj e0fieme/nhj sw~stra& te kai\ lu&tra)” (Sacr. 121). However, the Levites’ ransoming for the sons of Israel also has another meaning:317 But it may be that the prophet also means to show another truth and one that we could ill spare, namely that every wise man is a ransom for the fool, whose existence could not endure for an hour, did not the wise provide for his preservation by compassion and forethought. The wise are as physicians who fight against the infirmities of the sick, alleviate them or altogether remove them … (Sacr. 121)
In this quotation, Philo plays with the double meaning of qerapei/a: the priestly service to God and the physicist’s healing. In the Levitical service, the two aspects converge: the healing of one’s own soul as well as those of others is priestly service to God. Philo accordingly urges everyone to follow the example of the good physician “who, though they see that there is no hope for the patient, yet render their services gladly (prosfe/rousi th\n qerapei/an o#mwj a!smenoi)” (Sacr. 123). By removing the infirmities – that is, false and passionate beliefs – from individual souls, the ransoming and sacrificing Levite strives to remove evil from the world. The Levite is a minister of the part of the law that concerns “the rites that belong to that perfect priesthood, by which mortality is commended to and recognized by God, whether it be through burnt-offering or peace-offering or repentance of sins” (Sacr. 132). However, in his treatise De plantatione, Philo warns against “the parasitic growth” by which the “sacred ministrations” easily become tainted: offering is, indeed, a fair plant to be cultivated, but its tendency to generate suckers of superstition calls for continuous and careful pruning:
316 Plant. 64: tw~| ga_r o!nti o( telei/wj e0kkekaqarme/noj nou=j kai\ pa&nta ta_ gene/sewj a)poginw&skwn e4n mo&non oi]de kai\ gnwri/zei to_ a)ge/phton, w|{ proselh/luqen, u9f’ ou[ kai\ prosei/lhptai. 317 Sacr. 121: Concerning h9 sw~stra LSJ lists the following connotations: “the reward for saving one’s life”, “the thank-offering for deliverance from a danger” and “the physician’s fee” and especially “thank-offering to Asclepius” for being healed. The medical connotations are of interest here, since Philo here play with the relation of “service to God” and “the healing” of the soul.
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Again, sacred ministrations and the holy service of sacrifices is a plant most fair, but it has a parasitic growth that is evil, namely superstition [deisideimoni/a], and it is well to apply the knife to this before its green leaves appear. For some have imagined that it is piety to slaughter oxen, and allot to the altars portions of what they have got by stealing. … Thinking, in their gross defilement, that impunity for their offences is a thing that can be bought. “Nay, nay”, I would say to them, “no bribes, O foolish ones, can reach God’s tribunal”. He turns His face away from those who approach with guilty intent, even though they lead to His altar a hundred bullocks every day, and accepts the guiltless, although they sacrifice nothing at all. God delights in altars beset by a choir of Virtues, albeit no fire burn on them. He takes no delight in blazing altar fires fed by the unhallowed sacrifices of men to whose hearts sacrifice is unknown. (Plant. 107-8)
Although Philo supports cultic practices based on the ritual laws, he deems them naught if they do not correspond with the heart and mirror the attitude of mind. In summary: in Philo’s writings, the Levite represents the truly wise and perfect mind-set of the secondarily generated (deute/ra ge/nesij), but truly first-born. The Levite knows and acknowledges that everything has its beginning with God and His goodness; consequently, the Levite dedicates his whole being to God. The ransoming and priestly Levitical soul renounces and defeats the desire for worldly phenomena and sacrifices the worldly life for the sake of true freedom, his own as well as that of others. In his priestly devotion to and service of God (qerapei/a), the Levite as a psychological physician guides and heals the less than perfect soul (qerapei/a). The understanding of the Levitical institution found in Philo’s writings illuminates a number of issues in the Fourth Gospel. First, in a striking manner, Philo’s description of the Levitical mind-set corresponds to the narrative staging of the figure of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. The Johannine Jesus, too, sacrifices his own life (10:17-18; 15:13) in order to bring “freedom to those who are captives and slaves of sin” (8:34: dou=lo&j e0stin th=j a(marti/aj). He heals those who suffer from (psychological) weakness (4:46; 5:3, 5, 7; 6:2; 11:2, 3, 4, 6). Throughout the Gospel, Jesus is depicted as the physician who serves God through his healings. The Johannine Jesus counters the evil forces of falseness and lies in the world (8:44; 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). As it is the case in Philo’s writings, the freeing and healing power, which leads to the qualified eternal life in the Fourth Gospel, is found in the knowledge of the Father that in this case Jesus brings (17:3). Second, in Philo’s discourse, the idea that a sin-offering may atone for sin while leaving the sinner un-affected is censured and characterized as a parasitic growth of superstition; ritual purity ultimately
248 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord depends on psychological purity. In the case of Philo, this reinterpretation of sacrifice does not make the cult superfluous, but Philo’s discussion with the allegorizing Jews in De migratione 89-91 demonstrates that this inference was a possibility within Jewish circles. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ sacrifice renders the cult superfluous, which is indicated by the sign that Jesus performs in the temple (2:14-22). Third, in Philo’s treatise, the Israelite mind-set and the Levitical practice represent the deute/ra ge/nesij. In the Fourth Gospel, according to the reading presented in Chapter Four, the Johannine Jesus is the first representative of the generation a!nwqen, and through his sacrifice, he brings the generation a!nwqen to others. This may throw light on verse 1:31 in John the Baptist’s testimony, according to which the revelation brought by Jesus is explicitly directed to “the Israelites”. Thus, in the Fourth Gospel, regeneration and the Israelites are linked as well. Fourth, a reversal of hierarchy is involved in Philo’s discussion of the two men. Although the person subjected to the deute/ra ge/nesij is second born in relation to time, it is he who counts as the truly firstborn and elder whom the first-born with regard to time must take as his guide. This role reversal throws light on the Baptist’s enigmatic statement in 1:15, which is repeated in 1:27 and 1:30. The Fourth Gospel seems to cast the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus in the mould of Philo’s two men; in this case, the pattern of Reuben-Levi and Jacob-Israel. This is a point, however, to which I shall return in my exegesis of the fourth concentric circle. Fifth, we may now have an answer to the question of why the Levites are staged as interlocutors of John the Baptist at the outset of the narrative body of the Gospel. To a reader acquainted with the interpretation of the Levitical office represented by Philo, the presence of the Levites indicates that which is at stake in the figure of Jesus: he is the one to whom the task has been given to be a ransom for the Israelite soul, to heal it from sin and give it freedom. Sixth and finally, in relation to the scholarly reception of the Fourth Gospel, Philo’s discussion of the Levite is of special interest, because it represents an understanding of the idea of ransoming that differs from the prevailing understanding of the death of Christ as an atoning offering or ransom literally paid for human sins. A sin-offering that atones for sin while leaving the sinner un-affected is unacceptable to Philo – and probably to antiquity in general. When understood against the background of the Levite institution, Jesus’ sacrifice will aim at removing sin from the world, which is the task prescribed for him by John the Baptist in the centre of the chiasm (1:29). Simul justus et peccator is not a Johannine option.
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5.2.4 Summary In relation to the first and outer concentric circle, I have drawn attention to three different features each of which served the description of the task (thematic role) that Jesus as God’s anointed (1:20) and chosen one (1:34) was given to carry out. First, the use of the article in o( Xristo&j reinvests the proper name with the lexical meaning and as such directs the reader’s attention to the program for the restoration of God’s nation that “the anointed one” (Isa 61:1) and “the chosen one” (Isa 42:1) was to carry through. The ultimate goal of this restoration was the healing of the crushed hearts of the mourning ones and the establishment of a new spirit in the nation(s) (Isa 61:1-3). Also the indirect identification of Jesus with Elijah redivivus pointed in the same direction: the thematic role that the returning Elijah was meant to carry out was the restoration of the human heart by turning it towards the neighbour in order to reconcile God’s anger (MalLXX 3:22-24). Finally, the presence of the Levites as interlocutors of John the Baptist was elucidated through Philo’s discussion of the priestly and Levitical office. Attention was drawn to Philo’s ideas of the Levite’s ransoming for Israel (Num 3:12-13). The Levite represents the sage that ransoms for freedom by sacrificing his own worldly desires in order to cure his nation of the infirmities of evil. In the Levitical office, the priestly service to God (qerapei/a) and the physician’s healing of the affected souls (qerapei/a) converge. It was argued that the Fourth Gospel casts the figure of Jesus in Philo’s Levitical mould: Jesus fulfils the promise implicit in the Levitical institution. As the outer frame of the chiastic structure, the first concentric circle is in dialogue with the centre where the task given to God’s anointed and chosen one is described as the removal of sin from the world (1:29). Jesus’ sacrifice is, in the Levitical manner, directed towards this goal.
250 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord
5.3 Second circle. A well-guided way to the Lord B1
1:23
The expectation of the coming one: he must provide a wellguided way to the Lord When asked what he says about himself, John the Baptist identifies himself with the voice that from the desert calls for a reliable and well-guided way to the Lord that will be in accordance with (kaqw&j) what the prophet Isaiah has said.
B2
1:32-33
The solution asked for: baptism in the Holy Spirit He that comes will be empowered in a special way: John testifies that he saw the spirit descending on Jesus from heaven and that it remained over him. John explains that he who sent him in order to baptize in water has informed him that this was the man who would provide the baptism in the Holy Spirit. (1:33: e0f’ o$n a@n i1dh|j to_ pneu=ma katabai=non kai\ me/non e0p’ au0to&n, ou[to&j e0stin o( bapti/zwn e0n pneu&mati a(gi/w|).
In general, Johannine scholarship is aware that in the Fourth Gospel the quotation from Isa 40:3LXX, with which John the Baptist identifies himself, is employed in a way that differs from the Synoptics. The Synoptics follow Isa 40:3LXX almost verbatim: fwnh\ bow~ntoj e0n th=| e0rh/mw| e9toima&sate th\n o(do_n kuri/ou eu0qei/aj poiei=te ta_j tri/bouj [au0tou=] Only the last sentence is different in the Septuagint: eu0qei/aj poiei=te ta_j tri/bouj tou= qeou= h9mw~n In the Fourth Gospel, it is John the Baptist himself who voices the Isaianic prophecy, albeit in a short version: [e0gw_] fwnh\ bow~ntoj e0n th=| e0rh/mw| eu0qu&nate th\n o(do_n kuri/ou In spite of the fact that no less than five displacements may be registered, the extent as well as the significance of the changes are seldom discussed. First, in the Synoptics, the tradition of Isa 40:3LXX is combined with Mal 3:1HEB: i0dou\ a)poste/llw to_n a!ggelo&n mou pro_ prosw&pou sou, o$j kataskeua&sei th\n o(do/n [sou]. In Mark 1:2-3, Isa 40:3LXX is added to and follows Mal 3:1HEB. However, both quotations
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are in the Gospel of Mark ascribed to Isaiah (Mark 1:1). The reference to Mal 3:1 is left completely out in the Fourth Gospel. 318 Second, in the Synoptics, Mal 3:1HEB and Isa 40:3LXX are quoted by the narrator, and the narratives subsequently demonstrate that the prophecy of Malachi and Isaiah is fulfilled in the figure of the Baptist. In the Fourth Gospel, the words from Isaiah are placed in John the Baptist’s mouth. Thus, his role shifts from having been the object of whom the prophets spoke in the Synoptics to the speaking subject in the Fourth Gospel. Third, in the Gospel of John, the quotation from Isaiah is slightly manipulated and shortened in comparison with its form in the Synoptics. In John 1:23, the parallelismus membrorum of Isa 40:3LXX implodes into a single sentence, in which the verb ‘prepare’ (e9toima&sate) and the notion of the Lord’s paths (ta_j tri/bouj [au0tou=]) are left out. Fourth, the adjective ’straight’ (‘wide’ or ‘open’) found in Isa 40:3LXX and the Synoptics, eu0qei/aj, is replaced in the Fourth Gospel by the verb eu0qu&nai. Although the verb shares the root of the adjective, eu0qu&j, it has different connotations. The verb eu0qu&nai is used of the proper and competent – straight and straightforward – management of different means of transportation, either the navigation of a vessel or the management of a chariot through the reins. In Philo’s writings, eu0qu&nai attains the status of a technical term that denotes the course (life) of a vessel (soul) that has lo&goj onboard as pilot. Fifth and finally, in the Nestle-Aland27-edition the modified quotation of Isa 40:3LXX is separated out from the text and printed in italics whereas the subsequent subordinate clause: kaqw_j ei]pen 0Hsai5aj o( profh/thj is set in standard typing indicating that it belongs to the main text. Inevitably, this leaves the reader with the impression that the kaqw&j-clause does not belong to John’s statement concerning himself, but is an editorial comment of the implied author. The kaqw&j-clause seemingly modifies John’s whole self-identification, which is then seen as the fulfilment of the saying of the prophet Isaiah as it is the case in the Synoptics. Most, if not all, commentators read the text in this way. However, the kaqw&j-clause may also belong to John the Baptist’s statement concerning himself. In this case, the adverbial clause modifies what is stated by John, more precisely the introduced verb, eu0qu&nai, and not his act of stating something. John the Baptist’s presentation of 318 In Mark, “my way” of Mal 3:1HEB is changed for “your way”. Matthew and Luke split the two quotations: Matt: 3:3 (Isa 40:3 LXX) & 11:10 (Mal 3:1HEB); Luke 1:76 (Isa 40:3LXX & Mal 3:1HEB) & 3:4-5 (Isa 40:3LXX). It is the Septuagint version of Isa 40:3 that is quoted, but the Hebrew Bible version that is chosen in the case of Mal 3:1 (which was the case, too, with Mal 3:23-24 in Luke).
252 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord himself then becomes: “I am the voice in the desert who asks for a guidance of the Lord’s way as it was announced by the prophet Isaiah”. In this way, John the Baptist’s statement makes explicit the relation between the prophecy or program of salvation found in Isaiah and the task which will be performed by Jesus (cf. 12:38, 41).
5.3.1 John the Baptist’s self-presentation In general, the commentaries do not see the changes that characterize the presentation of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel as significant: no meaning is ascribed to the displacements in Isa 40:3LXX. In contrast to this tendency, I find that the changes, although minor at the signifying level, imply major changes in the signified story. The changes listed above all point in the same direction: the apocalyptic herald of the Synoptics, who announces the immediacy of the Day of Judgement and summons to repentance, is replaced in the Fourth Gospel by a representative of the old dispensation who cries out for a new and better guidance of the Lord’s way. The collapse of the parallelismus membrorum of IsaLXX 40:3 has as its effect that the remaining words are no longer restricted and interpreted by those which are omitted, that is, the verb for prepare (e9toima&sate) and the notion of the Lord’s paths (ta_j tri/bouj [au0tou=]). In the Synoptic Gospels, the verbal phrase, eu0qei/aj poiei=te ta_j tri/bouj [au0tou=], was interpreted and explained by the verb of first sentence: e9toima&sate, and the meaning of both sentences became a call for preparation and repentance. The juxtaposition of th\n o(do_n kuri/ou with ta_j tri/bouj au0tou=, furthermore, fixed the meaning of the Lord’s way on the literal level, and the coming of the Lord was prophesied. The erasure of ta_j tri/bouj in the Fourth Gospel means that the connotations of guidance implicit in eu!qu&nate are brought into play and that h9 o)do&j kuri/ou also receives a metaphorical dimension as the course or way of life which is in accordance with the will of God (subjective genitive) and which accordingly leads to the Lord, even God (objective genitive). The result is that the accent is displaced from the person whose coming is announced by the Baptist to the task that is now called for from the place in the wilderness on the other side of the Jordan: a proper and competent guidance of the Lord’s way which may lead to the Lord more safely: Eu0qu&nate th\n o(do_n kuri/ou. This interpretation is confirmed by the prominent position that the discussion of h9 o)do&j receives in the Farewell Discourses. Jesus’ final speech is introduced by the statement
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that in order to prepare a place for the disciples in his Father’s house,319 he will soon leave them (14:2). When this is done, he will return in order to fetch them (14:3). Jesus concludes that his disciples are sufficiently informed about the way to the place for which he leaves (14:4: th\n o(do&n), but Thomas objects: they know neither the place nor the way to it (14:5: th\n o(do&n).320 In his answer to Thomas, Jesus enigmatically declares that he is himself the way, the truth and the life and that nobody comes to the Father unless it happens through him (14:6: e0gw& ei0mi h9 o(do&j).321 Furthermore, when Mal 3:1 is removed from Isa 40:3LXX, the event to which Isa 40 and Deutero-Isaiah as a whole look forward, namely the Lord’s restoration of his people on Mount Zion, once more comes to the fore. Deutero-Isaiah awaits the coming of the Lord who will himself fetch his exiled people and bring them back through the wilderness to Jerusalem.322 However, as already noted in the discussion of topography in the Fourth Gospel, Jerusalem is here replaced by the spirit. In this way, a link is established between the two parts of the second concentric circle, B1: the outcry from the wilderness for a well-guided way to the Lord (1:23), and B2: the request for the Holy Spirit (1:32-33). Both requests are met by – what we may call – Jesus’ absorption of the way. In the Fourth Gospel, the toil of travelling is done by Jesus alone (4:6: o( 319 John 14:2: o#ti poreu&omai e9toima&sai to&pon u9mi=n. 320 John 14:5: ku&rie, ou0k oi1damen: pou= u9pa&geij, pw~j duna&meqa th\n o(do_n ei0de/nai; 321 John 14:6: e0gw& ei0mi h9 o(do_j kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia kai\ h9 zwh/. Ou0dei\j e1rxetai pro_j to_n pate/ra ei0 mh\ di’ e0mou=. 322 Although K. Wengst argues differently, he also finds that the quotation of Isa 40:3 in the Fourth Gospel is accentuated differently in comparison with the Synoptics: “Dass der Evangelist ein anderes Verb als die Septuaginta bietet, das dem im hebräischen Text gebrauchten näher kommt, spricht für Beeinflussung durch diesen. Auch dessen Zuordnung der Angabe ‘in der Wüste’ zum Bahnen des Weges und nicht zum Rufer liegt für ihn näher, da er sich das Auftreten des Johannes nicht in der Wüste vorstellt. Der will hier also nichts sonst sein als ‘die Stimme des Rufers’, die dazu auffordert, Gott den Weg zu bahnen. Mit kýrios im Zitat meint der Evangelist nicht Jesus, so dass er die Umschreibung des Gottesnames der Bibel auf Jesus übertrüge. Er identifiziert nicht Gott und Jesus. Er differenziert zwischen kýrios ohne Artikel als Entsprechung zur Umschreibung des Gottesnamens mit ‘Adonaj’ und kýrios mit Artikel als Bezeichnung für Jesus, was dem aramäischen mará entspricht.“ (81) It is a matter of dispute whether the fourth Evangelist used the Septuagint or the Aramaic/Hebrew Bible. J. Frey (1994) argues convincingly that the fourth Evangelist demonstrates acquaintance with both. I also think that the text of the Fourth Gospel is much more ambiguous than Wengst allows it to be. Thus, it may be that a voice in the desert understood in the Septuagint manner may as well be a call for a way through the desert in the Hebrew manner. The same pertains to the o(do_n kuri/ou; it may simultaneously denote the coming of God and the coming of Christ, and the way to both. In John 14, believers’ way to the Lord (14:2-7) is suddenly changed for the joint coming of Father and Son (14:23).
254 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord ou]n 0Ihsou=j kekopiakw_j e0k th=j o(doipori/aj … ). Once and for all, Jesus has ascended to God: first up to Jerusalem,323 then up on the cross,324 and finally, during the ascent, he was translated into the pneumatic Father and became himself pneu=ma.325 Thus, the end of Jesus’ upward travelling is the provision of the Holy Spirit (B2). Consequently, Jesus may announce to his disciples that only harvesting is left for them; through faith they will benefit from the toils of others (4:38: … o$ ou0x u9mei=j kekopia&kate: a!lloi kekopia&kasin kai\ u9mei=j ei0j to_n ko&pon au0tw~n ei0selhlu&qate). The faith which believes that Jesus is the anointed one, the Son of God (20:31), bypasses any measure of preparatory cleansing and brings the believer directly and safely to the pursued goal. In this way, Jesus can truly be said to have straightened and facilitated the Lord’s way and the way to the Lord: Eu0qu&nate th\n o(do_n kuri/ou. The collapse of the Isaianic outcry in which the necessary preparation (e9toima&sate) for the coming of the Lord is left out corresponds to the implosion of “the way” into Jesus: He is the way (14:6). 5.3.2 Philo on the well-guided life (eu0qu&nein) In Philo’s writings, Abraham becomes a paradigmatic figure, because he “journeyed even as the Lord spoke to him” (Gen 12:4). The person who walks in accordance with the word spoken by God simultaneously lives in accordance with His will as it – in the future will be – expressed in the law given through Moses and in accordance with nature since God’s lo&goj is the creative and maintaining force of the All. The deeds of a wise person, who like Abraham lives this kind of well-guided life (eu0qu&nein), can be said to be divine words resounding in the world: We are told next that “Abraham journeyed even as the Lord spoke to him” (Gen. xii.4). This is the aim extolled by the best philosophers, to live agreeably to nature [to_ a)kolou&qwj th=| fu&sei zh=n]; and it is attained whenever the mind, having entered on virtue’s path, walks in the track of right reason and follows God [o#tan o( nou=j ei0j th\n a)reth=j a)trapo_n e0lqw_n kat’ i1xnoj o)rqou= lo/gou bai/h| kai\ e3phtai qew~|], mindful of His injunctions, and always and in all places recognizing them all as valid both in action and in speech. For ”he journeyed just as the Lord spoke to him”: the meaning of this is that as God speaks – and He speaks with consummate beauty and excellence – so the good man does everything, blamelessly keeping straight the path of life, so that the actions of the wise man are nothing else than the words of God [ou3twj o( spoudai=oj e3kasta dra~| th\n a)trapo_n eu0qu&nwn 323 See a)nabai/nein: 2:13; 5:1; 7:10, 14 324 See u9ywqh=nai: 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34 325 See a)nabai/nein: 1:51; 3:13; 6:62; 20:17
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a)me/mptwj tou= bi/ou, w#ste ta_ e1rga tou= sofou= lo&gwn a)diaforei=n qei/wn]. (Migr. 128-29)
Voicing God’s words through his deeds, the man of the well-guided life (eu0qu&nein) is God’s companion or attendant (o)pado&j) in the world. Since God is the almighty king of the world, he follows “the kingly road”: For he is called Abraham … Such a reasoning has the one and only God for its owner [o( de\ toiou=toj tw|~ e9ni\ mo&nw| proskeklh/rwtai qew~|]; it becomes God’s companion and makes straight the path of its whole life [ou[ gino&menoj o)pado_j eu0qu&nei th\n a)trapo_n tou= panto_j bi/ou], treading the true “King’s way”, the way of the one sole almighty king, swerving and turning aside neither to the right nor to the left [basilikh=| tw~| o!nti xrw&menoj o(dw~| th=| tou= mo&nou basile/wj kai\ pantokra&toroj, e0pi\ mhde/tera a)pokli/nwn kai\ e0ktrepo&menoj]. (Gig. 64)
The faith of Abraham (in God or the Existent One), which guides his life along a safe and unshaken path, is praised by Philo as “the queen of virtues”. Due to the possession of this outstanding virtue, Abraham is spoken of as both the “elder” and “first of the human race”, in spite of the fact that before him there were generations who surpassed him in years. True age and pre-existence are ascribed to him – or the principle – who guides and make straight the path of fellow human beings. Faith in God, then, is the one sure and infallible good [mo/non ou]n a)yeude\j kai\ be/baion a)gaqo_n h9 pro_j qeo_n pi/stij]. … For, just as those who walk on a slippery road are tripped up and fall, while others on a dry highway tread without stumbling, so those who set the soul travelling along the path of the bodily and the external are but learning it to fall, so slippery and utterly insecure are all such things; while those who press onward to God along the doctrines of virtue walk straight upon a path which is safe and unshaken [oi9 de\ dia_ tw~n kata_ ta_j a)reta_j qewrhma/twn e0pi\ qeo_n speu/dontej a)sfalh= kai\ a)kra&danton o(do_n eu0qu/nousin]. … But not only do the oracles attest his possession of the queen of virtues, faith in the Existent, but he is also the first whom they speak of as elder, though those who lived before him tripled or many times multiplied his years. … For indeed the wise man is the first of the human race, as a pilot in a ship [tw~| ga_r o!nti prw~toj o( sofo_j tou= a)nqrw&pwn ge/nouj, w(j kubernh/thj me\n e0n nhi/]. … So, then, the man of worth is elder and first, and so must he be called [presbu&teroj me\n ou]n kai\ prw~toj e1sti te kai\ lege/sqw o( a)stei=oj] … (Abr. 268-74)
According to Philo, the well-guided life has God as pilot or charioteer. The person characterized by this life is God’s voice in the world; he is God’s companion and therefore the truly elder one: God’s deeds are done through him. In the Fourth Gospel, this is what Jesus demands of his followers, but also that which is provided for them through faith in Jesus. In the discourse with Nicodemus, Jesus states that he who believes in the Son, does the truth, and that God’s deeds in the world are
256 John’s Call from the Wilderness for a Better Guidance of the Way to the Lord done through him (3:21: i3na fanerwqh|= au0tou= ta_ e1rga o#ti e0n qew|~ e0stin ei0rgasme/na). In his writings, Philo argued that life in accordance with God’s injunctions given in the law constituted a safer and more wellguided way to the goal pursued also by philosophers. Now the Fourth Gospel claims that faith in Jesus surpasses the Mosaic way as an even better way. Johannine faith constitutes a short cut that leads the believer directly to the goal of the well-guided, virtuous life.
5.3.3 Summary In relation to the first concentric circle, it was argued that the focus of John the Baptist’s testimony was on the task that God’s chosen one (1:34) was to carry out, namely to fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy of a future restoration of God’s nation through the provision of a new spirit. The same focus is present in the second concentric circle. Small changes in the Isaianic outcry from the wilderness (Isa 40:3) have major implications for the meaning of the Baptist‘s statement. The implosion and collapse of the prophecy in the Baptist’s words (John 1:23) displaces the accent from the identity of the coming one to the task that is called for, namely a provision of a well-guided way. Through the concentric structure the provision of the way was linked to the provision of the Holy Spirit. The link is constituted by Jesus’ journeying, the goal of which is the provision of the spirit. However, this answer – but not the identity of Jesus – is at the outset of the Gospel hidden to the reader. The changes effect that the Synoptics’ apocalyptic announcement of the impending judgement gives way in the Fourth Gospel to a more philosophical agenda. In a typical Stoic manner, this new agenda has simultaneously a mental or ethical aspect (concerning the way) as well as a physical aspect (concerning the spirit).
5.4 Third circle. John’s baptism C1 1:24-26a
The questioning of John’s commission to baptize: ti/ ou]n; The reticent, negative answer concerning his own identity (A1) has the result that John’s baptizing activity is called into question by those who are sent from the Pharisees to inquire about his practice. Their scepticism (ti/ ou]n;) concerns primarily the Baptist’s qualifications for his activity. John clears up the case and justifies his activity by referring to the medium with which he baptizes: it is (just) water.
Third circle. John’s baptism
C2 1:31b:
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The purpose of John’s baptism: dia_ tou=to In spite of the fact that John is not especially empowered, his baptism in water serves a purpose. He baptizes in order that the unknown one in their midst may be revealed to Israel.
It was the obvious relationship between these two sections of John’s testimony that provoked the scholarly generation of redaction criticism to restructure the present text.326 Instead, I have suggested that the parallelism functions as a textual marker in the chiastic structure. The question – ti/ ou]n; – posed by the emissaries from the Pharisees has two aspects (C1): it does not concern the purpose (why) of John’s baptism alone, but asks more broadly about the prerequisites (how) of his activity. If John is not commissioned and empowered in the way that the three figures, whom the emissaries’ interest was directed towards – the anointed, the Elijah redivivus and the prophet – presumably were, how is he at all capable of baptizing? The indirect questioning of the legitimacy of John’s practice is parried off by a reference to the medium with which he baptizes: it is (just) water (C2). The dialogue, however, indicates that something different and more lies in wait. The answer to the former question is postponed to the next day. John baptizes in water in order that he who actually provides this superior baptism may be revealed to Israel. The commentaries mention that the different envoys from Jerusalem represent groups especially engaged in cleansing and purity; in the case of the priests and Levites, it is the purity of the temple that is involved; in the case of the Pharisees, it is the purity of the individual bodies safeguarded by the law and the oral tradition.327 In fact, the discussion of purification frames the whole introduction to the Gospel: in the testimony of John (1:19-34) baptism in water is juxtaposed with baptism in the spirit and this opposition is reintroduced in 3:22-30, where the issue of purification (3:25: peri\ kaqarismou=) causes the Baptist’s disciples to quarrel with a Jew. A glance at the situation narrated in John 3 may be illuminating for our understanding of John 1. In the presentation of the problem to their master, a link between purification and baptism is made (3:26). The discussion concerns the relation of Jesus’ baptism to John’s. The narrative setting of the scene indirectly makes it clear that, again, it is the baptism in water versus baptism in spirit that is at stake: John baptizes at a place where there is expressis verbis a lot of water (3:23); Jesus baptizes in the land of Judea where 326 According to Bultmann the reconstructed “original text” (der ursprüngliche Text): 19– 21; 25-26; 31, 33, 34, 28; 29-30 (1941, 58; 1971, 85). 327 Compare Raymond Brown (66, 43).
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there is no water. Consequently, it must be the baptism in the spirit that is anticipated and hinted at here. John the Baptist concludes that the groom (Jesus and the baptism that he offers) must grow, while he as his friend (that is, himself and the baptism in water that he represents) must diminish (3:30: e0lattou=sqai). The statement picks up on the inferiority of the first wine (2:10: e0la/ssw) in the first sign performed by Jesus. In the presentation of the ransoming Levite above, I have shown how the priestly discussion of ritual purity and the Pharisaic discussion of personal purity merged and were reinterpreted in terms of the discourse on ethics in the philosophically oriented Judaism contemporary with the Fourth Gospel. Cleansing concerned the soul, and the impurities, which were to be removed, were the false and passionate beliefs, which were the source of all evil. In Philo’s writings, the most efficient purgative was knowledge and acknowledgement of the fact that everything that had come into being had its beginning with God’s grace (Leg. 3.78). I also drew attention to the way that Philo made the Israelite a representative of the pious soul grasped by the truth. The link in the third concentric circle between the discussion of purity and the Israelites suggests that this reinterpretation is at stake in the Fourth Gospel as well. In the third concentric circle, it is again the thematic role, which Jesus is to perform, more than his identity that is in focus. Again the question left for the reader is how Jesus will provide the medium for this superior kind of baptism. And again, just as in the discourse concerning the way, the solution will be surprisingly subversive: Jesus simply puts an end to the discussion of purity, since those who have his word abiding in them are already clean (15:3: h!dh u(mei=j kaqaroi/ e0ste dia_ to_n lo&gon o$n lela&lhka u(mi=n:).
5.5 Fourth circle. The hitherto unknown D1 1:26b
The unknown identity of the coming one John tells the emissaries that in their midst someone is standing whom they do not know (me/soj u9mw~n e3sthken o$n u9mei=j ou0k oi1date).
D2 1:31a
The unknown identity of the coming one John admits that he did not himself know the man before.
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No one, neither the envoys from Jerusalem nor John the Baptist, knew the identity of the man who as the one anointed and chosen by God was to fulfil their expectations and bring about the Holy Spirit. But now John has himself seen the man on whom God’s spirit descended and he is able to point out God’s chosen one to Israel. Often the commentaries refer the theme of the unknown saviour in John’s testimony to the tradition of the hidden Messiah and draw attention to the irony at work in the Jews’ rejection of Jesus (7:27): “But we know where this man is from; but when the anointed one comes, no one will know where he is from”.328 However, the Fourth Gospel seems not apt to endorse one understanding of the Messiah in favour of another; in John 7, different Messianic traditions are played out against one another: Is Jesus the hidden Messiah whose origin is unknowable (7:27)? Or is he the Davidic Messiah who is to be identified through his birth in Bethlehem (7:42)? None of these are rejected, but they are problematic in so far as they separate people from the truth, namely that Jesus as the one chosen by God is anointed with His spirit and therefore God’s revelatory instrument in the world. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus speaks of the commission, which he has been given to carry out, as the revelation of the Father. This is most clearly stated in Jesus’ final address to God in which he reports on the results of his work (17:3-4): And this is the eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ (i3na ginw&skwsin se\ to_n mo&non a)lhqino_n qeo_n kai\ o$n a)pe/steilaj 0Ihsou=n Xristo&n). I have glorified you on earth and in this way fulfilled the work that you have given me to carry out (to_ e1rgon teleiw&saj o$ de/dwka&j moi i3na poih/sw).
Jesus continuously points to himself as the place in the world where the hitherto unseen and unknown Father may finally be seen and known (1:18). Because Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in him (14:10: e0gw_ e0n tw|~ patri\ kai\ o( path\r e0n e0moi/ e0stin), knowing Jesus is to know the Father (8:19) and to see Him (14:7). Accordingly, nothing of what Jesus has said or done has its origin in his own initiative, but the Father, who abides in him and never leaves him alone, does His work (8:28f; 14:10). Due to the immanent theology of the Fourth Gospel, “the unknown one standing in their midst” (1:26b), whom John did not know before (1:31a), is, true enough, Jesus, but the statement also refers to the divine lo&goj, which is generated in Jesus through the indwelling of the divine spirit. Consequently, it also refers to God Himself, because “God is 328 See Schnelle (1998, 48) and Brown (1966, 53). The tradition of the hidden Messiah is known from the Jew Trypho’s argument with Justin (2nd century C. E.): “Messiah, even if he be born and actually exist somewhere, is an unknown” (Dial. 8.4).
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(this) spirit” (4:24). In the Fourth Gospel, acknowledgement of Jesus’ divine origin and knowledge of God and His lo&goj cannot be separated. In this way, the testimony of John the Baptist can be said to pick up on, elaborate – and concretize – the theme of the unknown raised in the Prologue: in spite of the fact that the world has come into being “di’ au0tou~, the world did not know Him” (1:10: o( ko&smoj au0to_n ou0k e1gnw) – that is, the lo&goj or God. However, in the figure Jesus Christ the neverseen God has been exposed (1:18). In the Fourth Gospel, knowledge and sin are intimately related. Since sin is defined as the rejection of the knowledge that Jesus offers, the possibility of sinning first came into the world with the true light. In the Farewell Discourses, Jesus states that if (ei0 mh/) he had not come and spoken to the world, and if he had not done the deeds that no one else did, no one would have had sin (a(marti/an ou0k ei1xosan) (15:22-24), but because his words have now been heard and his deeds seen, no excuse exists for their (that is, the world’s) sins (15:22). Those who now – in spite of Jesus’ teaching in word and deed – refuse to believe in Jesus and still claim to see, will “remain in darkness” (12:46: i3na pa~j o( pisteu&wn ei0j e0me\ e0n th=| skoti/a| mh\ mei/nh|), and “their sin will remain”, too (9:41: h9 h9marti/a u9mw~n me/nei). Accordingly, they will have “God’s anger remaining over them” (3:36: h9 o0rgh\ tou= qeou= me/nei e0p’ au0to&n) and they shall finally die in their sins (8:24: e0n tai=j a(marti/aij). After the encounter with Jesus’ revelation, there are only two possibilities: either one has God’s word (5:38) and love abiding (5:42) in one, or one remains in darkness (12:46), sin (9:41) and God’s anger (3:36).
5.6 Fifth circle. The status of Jesus E1 1:27
The status of the expected one In spite of the fact that the stranger comes after John (o)pi/sw mou), John is not worthy even of unbinding his sandals.
E2 1:30
The status of the expected person John continues his riddle-like characterization of Jesus as the man of whom he spoke before, and of whom he said that after him a man will come who has come into being before him, because he was before him (o)pi/sw mou e1rxetai a)nh\r o$j e1nprosqe/n mou ge/gonen, o#ti prw~to/j mou h]n).
The locus classicus for the idea of the pre-existence of the incarnated lo&goj is John 1:30, which picks up the Baptist’s testimony in 1:15 in the
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Prologue.329 Yet another interpretation of this verse is also possible. As already suggested, a solution to John’s riddle may be found in Philo’s writings. In the account of the ransoming Levite given above, we saw how the second born in relation to time, that was Levi, as representative of the deut/era ge/nesij was the true heir to the privileges of the elder and first-born (Sacr. 118-132). When seen in this perspective, the Fourth Gospel recasts the relation of Jesus to John the Baptist in the mould of Philo’s theory of the two “men” – or mind-sets. The same reinterpretation of age was repeated in the case of Abraham. As we saw in the text quoted above from De Abrahamo (268-73), true age was not a matter of the span of actually lived years, but of growth in wisdom and knowledge. He who is able, due to his own wisdom, to guide the life of others in the right direction, just like a competent pilot in a ship, counts as the elder: For indeed the wise man is the first of the human race, as a pilot in a ship … a mind in a soul [tw~| ga_r o!nti prw~toj o( sofo_j tou= a)nqrw&pwn ge/nouj, w(j kubernh/thj me\n e0n nhi/ … nou\j d’ e0n yuxh|=]. … So, then, the man of worth is elder and first, and so must he be called; [presbu&teroj me\n ou]n kai\ prw~toj e1sti te kai\ lege/sqw o( a)stei=oj]. (Abr. 271-74)
From the perspective of Philo’s concept of age, the riddle-like statements of John the Baptist (1:15, 30) concern the value of the guidance that Jesus provides in comparison with his own. Thus, the riddle is just another statement about the value of Jesus’ baptism in the spirit in comparison with John’s own baptism in water. The comparison anticipates the conclusion to the discussion on cleansing that closes the introduction to the Gospel, namely that Jesus or what he represents and offers must grow, while John or what he represents must diminish (3:22). Philo’s concept of true age may also provide a solution to Jesus’ enigma concerning Abraham in his discussion with the Jews on descent (8:58): a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw u9mi=n, pri\n 0Abraa_m gene/sqai e0gw_ ei0mi/. Philo
329 In Bultmann’s reading, John 1:29-30 are emblematic of the kerygma as testimony. See note 278. See also Barrett: “At first Jesus was an unknown character in comparison with John’s fame, but the time has now come for him to step forward and take the place which his pre-existence calls for – he must increase, John must decrease (3:30)” (1955, 147, emphasis added). R. Brown claims: “The theme of the pre-existence of Jesus is found in the Prologue [1:15] … therefore … we find unacceptable the attempts to avoid an implication of pre-existence here [1:27, 30]” (1966, 63, emphasis added). The problem that Brown confronts is the attempts to adapt the saying to that which the real, historical Baptist may have said. My suggestion that the saying should be understood in light of Philo’s subversive theory concerning true age is neither mentioned, nor rejected by the commentaries.
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concludes his treatise De Abrahamo with a characterization of Abraham as the embodiment of the law: Such was the life of the first, the founder of the nation, one who obeyed the law [no&mimoj], some will say, but rather, as our discourse has shown, himself a law and an unwritten statute [no&moj au0to_j w@n kai\ qesmo_j a!grafoj].
In light of Philo’s subversion of age, Jesus’ claim to be “before Abraham” becomes a statement that characterizes the knowledge of and faith in God that Jesus offers as being superior even to that of Abraham. Since Abraham (like the Baptist) felt joy by the prospect of Jesus’ coming (8:56), true descendants of Abraham should of course act in the same way and definitely not seek the death of Jesus (8:40).330
5.7 The centre. The removal of sin from the world Centre: 1:29
The goal of the coming one: the removal of the world’s sin John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God who carries or takes away the sin of the world (i1de o( a)mno_j tou= qeou= o( ai1rwn th\n a(marti/an tou= ko&smou)
In the focal point of the chiasm, John the Baptist introduces Jesus as the Lamb of God who removes the sin of the world. The introduction is John’s reaction to his recognition of Jesus who is coming towards him (1:29). The concentric framework of the chiasm encircles the centre and determines its meaning. The thematic roles and functions, which are assigned by the concentric circles to him who is chosen and commissioned by God (A2: 1:34) and anointed and equipped with the spirit from above (A1: 1:20), are focused in the statement with which John finally indicates the person who is to carry out this program. As the anointed, Isaianic servant of God (A1-A2), he is meant to bring about the restoration of God’s nation and provide the nation(s) with a new spirit, and as the Elijah redivivus he shall restore the human hearts towards their neighbours in order to reconcile God’s anger. He is the one who will answer the Isaianic outcry from the wilderness placed in the mouth of the Baptist by offering guidance that in a safe way will lead to the life that is in accordance with the Lord’s will (B1-B2). He is the one who will fulfil the priestly envoys’ expectations for a procedure of ablution. In line with the contemporary discourse on cleansing, he will 330 In the commentaries, the “I Am” of Jesus’ statement makes it an epiphany of Jesus’ divine origin. See e.g. Brown (1966, 360) and Barrett: “Before Abraham came into being, I eternally was, as now I am, and ever continue to be” (1955, 292).
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effectively remove the impurities of false beliefs that impede the soul from being grasped by the truth and living the way that the Lord desires (C1-C2). The realisation of this program is linked to the recognition of the presence of God and His lo&goj in Jesus (D1-D2). It is this knowledge that ultimately qualifies the nation as Israelites. To summarize: the task that God’s chosen one must carry out has two aspects: a cognitive one, he is to provide knowledge about God; and a physical one, he is to bring about the Holy Spirit. The two aspects converge in the fact that in the Fourth Gospel “God is pneu=ma” (4:23). The coming one is described as older than or prior to John the Baptist, because the knowledge that he possesses, on which his guidance is based, is superior to that of John (E1-E2). The divine servant’s devotion to the appointed task may be said – in a Levitical manner – to be a sacrifice for the sake of nation(s). The outlining of the mission bestowed on him is now focused in the statement that he as “the Lamb of God” is capable of “removing the sin of the world”. The designation and title, Lamb of God, which is applied by John the Baptist to the one chosen and anointed by God, is framed and subsumed under this commission, of which it becomes an emblem. Accordingly, John’s presentation of Jesus as the Lamb of God immediately causes his disciples to change their allegiance in Jesus’ favour (1:37).
5.7.1 The Lamb of God in the scholarly tradition The discussion in the commentaries of the phrase with which John the Baptist identifies Jesus (1:29): i1de o( a)mno_j tou= qeou= o( ai1rwn th\n a(marti/an tou= ko&smou, centres on two questions. First and foremost, the source of the title “Lamb of God” is discussed. As C. K. Barrett has said (1955, 146): “It is certain that this phrase has an Old Testament background, less certain what that background is”.331 We may therefore ask: 1. Does the phrase refer to the suffering servant of Deutero-Isaiah 53:7, whose continuous obedience and powerlessness in the face of the nation’s sinning are compared with a sheep facing slaughter, a lamb waiting to be sheared? 2. Or is it the paschal lamb and the celebration of the Exodus that are in the author’s mind? The paschal lamb whose blood protected the Israelites and their first-born in Egypt against the Destroyer (ExLXX 2:23: o( o)leqreu/wn)? 331 See Raymond Brown, who has a lengthy exposition of the different possibilities and the arguments related to them (1966, 58-63).
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3. Is it rather the animals (goats) that carried the sin of the nation into the wilderness on the Atonement Day?332 4. Or the lambs offered twice a day to the Lord in the temple? 5. Or the lamb conquering evil known from the animal allegories in Jewish apocalyptic traditions? (Dodd 1953, 230-238) The meaning of the term ai1rein is also discussed: Does it mean “carry” in the sense of “taking something upon oneself”, which implies a forensic, sacrificial economy? If this is the case, it is God who is reconciled by Jesus’ vicarious suffering, and the sin of the world is forgiven for Jesus’ sake. Or does the term imply the “removal of the possibility of sinning” from the mind of human beings through Jesus’ teaching activity in words and deeds?333 Often the answer to the second question is determined by the answer to the first question and the identification of the proper intertext for the Lamb of God.
5.7.1.1 Intertextual proposals for the Lamb of God With regard to the contextual understanding of the Lamb of God, few commentators feel themselves under any obligation to choose between the different possibilities.334 The Johannine Lamb is claimed to be “a blended lamb” in which several traditions are re-inscribed. In practice, however, one interpretation is usually chosen and the others subsumed 332 Wengst is a proponent of the scapegoat tradition, which in his reading absorbs and subsumes the other traditions of the Lamb of God: “Die Aussage, die Johannes über Jesus in V. 29 macht, enthält durch die möglichen biblischen Anspielungen mehrere Aspekte. Einmal legt sich ein Bezug auf Lev 16,12f nahe: Und Aaron stütze seine beiden Hände auf den Kopf des Lebendigen Bockes und bekenne über ihm alle Verfehlungen der Kinder Israels und alle ihre Vergehen samt all ihren Sünden; und er gebe sie auf den Kopf des Bockes und schicke ihn durch einen Bestimmten Mann in die Wüste. … Dass in Joh 1,29 nicht von einem die Sünden tragenden Bock gesprochen wird, sondern von einem Lamm, ist aber allem dadurch bedingt, dass Jesus im Johannesevangelium als endzeitliches Passachlamm verstanden wird. … Als endzeitliches Passachlamm trägt Jesus ‘die Sünde der Welt’, vermittelt er allen Gottes barmherzige Zuwendung. Die niederschmetternde Erfahrung, dass hier ein Unschuldiger in einem Prozessverfahren zum Tode verurteilt und elend hingerichtet wurde, verwandelt sich mit Hilfe dieser biblischen Kategorien in die Aussagen: Er ist der Sündenbock; er ist der wie ein Lamm zur Schlachtbank geführte Gottesknecht, er ist das endzeitliche Pessachlamm” (2001, 83f). 333 In dogmatic terminology, the sacrificial economy in which it is God, who is reconciled by Jesus’ vicarious suffering, is called objective atonement. When it is the believer, who is transformed and reconciled by Jesus’ death, the term used is subjective atonement. 334 See Jesper Tang Nielsen’s analysis in his 2006 essay: “The Blended Lamb. Cognitive Grounding of the Johannine Lamb of God”.
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under this, but the interplay between the different traditions is seldom explored. In general, those who feature a forensic (objective) atonement of God by Jesus’ vicarious sacrifice accentuate the traditions of the suffering servant from Deutero-Isaiah or of the scapegoat from Leviticus, whereas those who argue in favour of the subjective atonement and transformation of the believer draw attention to the paschal lamb of Exodus. In the first case, the sacrifice is understood in literal and ritual terms; in the latter case, the sacrifice is understood symbolically – we may allude to Philo and say Levitically – and stands for the efforts made in order to transform believers.335 The two understandings of Jesus’ death demarcate the spectrum of scholarly interpretations of the cross.336 It is undeniable that the Fourth Gospel intentionally casts Jesus’ death in the tradition of the paschal lamb (Wengst 2001, 84): the judgement and death of Jesus takes place on the Day of Preparation during the hours when the slaughter of the Passover lambs is carried out by the priests in the temple. The seemingly accidental avoidance of having Jesus’ legs crushed by the soldiers also fulfils the image of Jesus as the Lamb whose blood and flesh will protect the Israelites against death and destruction (John 19:36; Ex 12:46; Num 9:12). In the literary tradition of the bible, the paschal lamb is not understood as a sin-offering. Nevertheless, the proponents of the forensic interpretation of Jesus’ death are capable of subordinating the paschal lamb to the sacrificial traditions. They refer to the prescriptions in the Exodus for the celebration of Easter in subsequent generations in which the Lamb is described as a sacrifice to the Lord, although it is eaten by the Israelites themselves (Ex 12:27LXX: qusi/a to_ pa&sxa). They also draw attention to the fact that in the 1st century C.E. the paschal lambs were slaughtered by the priests in the temple, which, in practice, caused the lamb to be seen
335 A proponent of this tradition is C. Koester in his essay “The Death of Jesus and the Human Condition: Exploring the Theology of John’s Gospel”. In his interpretation of the significance of Jesus’ death, Koester does not even mention the Isaianic servant: “When the love of God, revealed through the death of Jesus, overcomes the sin of unbelief by evoking faith it delivers people from the judgement of God by bringing them into true relationship with God. This is atonement in the Johannine sense” (2005, 147). 336 The objective sacrificial understanding of Jesus’ atoning death is the predominant interpretation in German Johannine exegesis. Jesper Tang Nielsen’s dissertation, Korsets kognitive dimension. En studie i Johannesevangeliets forståelse af Jesu død (2003; in German: Die cognitive Dimension des Kreuzes. Eine Studie zum Verständnis des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium) counters this tradition by claiming that it is the (cognitive) transformation of the believer by faith which is the ultimate goal of Jesus’ death.
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as a kind of sacrifice.337 In this way, the paschal lamb is controlled hermeneutically by the tradition of the suffering servant. To proponents of the “subjective” interpretation of Jesus’ death, the problem is solved more easily, since in the Fourth Gospel only allusions to the suffering servant of Deutero-Isaiah are found. As mere hints, these may simply be ignored.338 However, the intimate link in the Fourth Gospel between “elevation” (cf. 3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34: u9you=n; u9you=sqai) and “glorification” (cf. 7:39: doca~n; doca~sqai) inevitably calls attention to the fourth servant song, which is introduced by a combination of exactly these words.339 Furthermore, I have argued that the explicit reference to Isa 40:3 in John 1:23 (kaqw_j ei]pen 0Hsai5aj o( profh/thj) modified John the Baptist’s statement and not, as traditionally claimed, the witnessing act of John. In this case, the allusions to the servant songs cannot be ignored, although the precise wording of John 1:29 (i1de o( a)mno_j tou= qeou= o( ai1rwn th\n a(marti/an tou= ko&smou) is not identical with the phrases found in the Septuagint version of the fourth servant song of Deutero-Isaiah: Isa 53:4LXX: ou[toj ta_j a(marti/aj h9mw~n fe/rei kai\ peri\ h9mw~n o)duna~tai Isa 53:11LXX: kai\ ta_j a(marti/aj au0tw~n au0to_j a)noi/sei340 Isa 53:12LXX: kai\ au0to_j a(marti/aj pollw~n a)nh/negken kai\ dia_ ta_j a(marti/aj au0tw~n paredo&qh. If none of the traditions – neither that of the paschal lamb with its idea of a protection against destruction nor that of the suffering servant with its idea of a vicarious sacrifice for the delivery of others – should be dispensed with, the question becomes: How do these traditions interact in the Fourth Gospel?
337 Raymond Brown confirms that the paschal lamb not was understood as a sacrifice in the beginning, but then explains: “… by Jesus’ time the sacrificial aspect had begun to infiltrate the concept of the paschal lamb because the priests had arrogated to themselves the slaying of the lambs. In any case, the difference between the lamb’s blood smeared on the doorpost as a sign of deliverance and the lamb’s blood offered in sacrifice for deliverance is not very great” (1966, 62). See also the discussion of the paschal lamb in Jane Webster’s 2003 book, Ingesting Jesus: Eating and Drinking in the Gospel of John. 338 This is the case in C. Koester’s essay (see note 335), which only mentions Isaiah 53 in a subsidiary clause. Morna Hooker (1959) draws attention to the fact that the Servant Songs as an exegetical phenomenon first came into being in the 19th century, and she finds that Johannine exegetes stress the tradition beyond what it may sustain. 339 Isa 52:13: “Behold, my servant will understand and he will be elevated and glorified exceedingly ( 0Idou\ sunh/sei o( pai=j mou kai\ u9ywqh/setai kai\ docasqh/setai sfo&dra)”. 340 The verb is a)nafe/rw.
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5.7.1.2 The discourse on atonement in John’s Gospel A quick glance at the discourse on sin in the Fourth Gospel demonstrates that the issue of atonement is more complicated than the traditional schemes are capable of capturing: either an objective atonement of God through Jesus’ forensic sacrifice or a subjective atonement of the believer through Jesus’ teaching. Although the ultimate goal of Jesus’ mission is announced by John the Baptist as the removal of the sin of the world (1:29), somehow ironically, the possibility of sinning only enters into the world with Jesus himself. If Jesus had not said the things he said; if he had not done the things that no one else did, then the world would not have been in sin (15:22), but now they have no excuse for their sin (15:23: nu=n de\ pro&fasin ou0k e1xousin peri\ th=j a(marti/aj au0tw~n). The ambiguity concerning sin matches the ambiguity that exists in the Fourth Gospel in relation to judgement. On the one hand, we are told explicitly that Jesus did not come in order to judge, but to save the world (3:17; 12:47). We are also told that he who believes in Jesus will not be subjected to judgement (3:17; 5:24); because of his faith in Jesus and him who has sent him, he has already passed over from death to life (5:24). Since his deeds are done in God (3:21) and as such are God’s deeds (6:28f: ta_ e1rga tou= qeou=) and therefore good, he will not be raised to judgement, but to the life which he in fact already possesses (5:29). On the other hand, he who rejects Jesus and his word has already met his judge, namely Jesus’ word, which will judge him on the last day (3:18; 12:48). Because of his practice of evil deeds, he will be raised to judgement (5:29: oi9 de\ ta_ fau=la pra&cantej ei0j a)na&stasin kri/sewj). Two criteria seem to be involved in the judgement: the attitude towards Jesus and actually performed deeds. The dispensation from judgement that happens to believers on the last day ultimately rests on the fact that their deeds have been done in God and are good (5:29). Since good deeds of necessity follow from faith in Jesus, judgement is, as it were, anticipated in the response to Jesus. True sin follows from disbelief in Jesus (16:9: peri\ a(marti/aj me/n, o#ti ou0 pisteu&ousin ei0j e0me/) and is inexcusable and counted. Whether the sins that were committed before the encounter with Jesus are counted depends on the person’s attitude to Jesus: Sinning is excusable and not counted, if the person comes to faith, but if he rejects Jesus’ claims, they are counted. In this way, sin can be said to come into being retrospectively through Jesus. Forgiveness of previous sins as well as protection from future sinning ultimately depends on the right attitude
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to Jesus and his teaching in word and deed. According to the Fourth Gospel, there are only three modes of being: 1. Being unacquainted with Jesus and his teaching, in which case sin is not counted. This state corresponds to the case of congenital blindness in John 9. 2. Having rejected Jesus and his teaching, which results in inexcusable (15:23) and abiding sin (9:41), and accordingly in God’s abiding anger (3:36). This corresponds to the Jews in John 9, who claim to see in spite of their blindness. 3. Accepting Jesus as the anointed Son of God and remaining in his word, which implies a change of attitude. This attitude becomes the source of a life lived in practice of God’s deeds. This new faithful life is sanctioned by the remission of previous sin. The Fourth Gospel does not do away with the judgement on the last day, but the result is anticipated in the decision for or against Jesus. It is the effects which faith has on the practice of actual deeds that in the end account for the collapse of preparation and judgement in the Fourth Gospel. When faith in Jesus is said to yield protection against sin, judgement, death and destruction, this effect must be taken into account. This interpretation of the judgement in which two steps are involved, forgiveness of previous sinning and endurance or sinlessness in faith, corresponds to the two aspects of the mandate that the risen Jesus gives to his disciples when he infuses the Holy Spirit into them (20:23: a!n tinwn a)fh=te ta_j a(marti/aj a)fe/wntai au0toi=j, a!n tinwn krath=te kekra&thntai).341 In Johannine scholarship, John 20:23 is, in general, interpreted in light of Matt 16:19 (and 18:18). However, the wording of John 20:23 differs from Matthew’s text. In Matt 16:19 we read: “And I 341 In her 2005 essay, “The Resurrection (of the Body) in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Johannine Spirituality”, Sandra Schneiders takes issue with the Tridentine interpretation of John 20:23 which made it the injunction on which the sacrament of Penance was based. Schneiders questions Raymond Brown’s translation of 20:23, which is in line with Matthew and the official church teaching: “If you forgive people’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you hold them they are held fast”. According to Schneiders, the problem is that Brown “takes it for granted that ‘them’ refers to sins, which is not really what the text suggests since there is a real textual parallel between a!n tinwn in 23a, which he reads as ‘people,’ and a}n tinwn in 23b, which he reads as ‘sins’ (implied)”. Schneiders refers to the fact that during the first three centuries C.E. when the possibility of forgiveness of sins committed after baptism “… was a hotly debated issue, there is no references to John 20:23 as warrant for such a practice, even by those Fathers who held adamantly to this possibility. This argues strongly that John 20:23 was not understood by those closest to its composition as having anything to do with the sacrament of Penance” (2005, 198). Schneiders’ argument supports our request for a more Johannine interpretation of John 20:23.
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will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”.342 Instead of Matthew’s pair of contrasting verbs, de/ein and lu&ein, the Fourth Gospel has a)fie/nai and kratei=n, which cannot be said to constitute a pair of opposites; kratei=n does not share the connotations of the verb lu&ein. So, what is at stake in John 20:23 and how should we instead translate 20:23b? Again, Philo may provide us with a solution. In Philo’s writings, the verb peri-krath=sai is used for the mastering of passions and sin.343 When understood in this light, the sentence in the Fourth Gospel no longer concerns the power of the keys; it is taken in another direction, which matches the overall understanding of sin in the Gospel better. The translation of 20:23 then becomes: “If you take away [active] their sins, [their sins] will be forgiven [passive] for them; if you are capable of mastering [active: your own sins], their [sins] will be mastered [passive], too”. The statement now functions as a commissioning of power and a demand of self-mastering. In conclusion, a too hasty exegesis of 1:29 based on the identification of a single source for the Johannine Lamb of God, may lead to a too simplistic (and too dogmatic) interpretation. The reader as well as the scholar must be patient and wait for the Gospel’s own development and encircling of themes and titles. The Fourth Gospel does not know of an objective atonement of God by a vicarious sacrifice of Christ and it does not see the believer as a figure who is simul justus et peccator. Although forgiveness of (previous) sins is a result of faith, it is the good deeds of which this faith is the source that, in the end, explain the dispensation from judgement. Thus, the right translation of 1:29 is: See, the Lamb of God who takes away sin from the world. It is taken away because it is forgiven, but it is also taken away because Johannine believers do not sin. Sinlessness is a live possibility for the believer. It is ai1rein that determines the meaning of “Lamb of God” and not the other way around.
342 Matt 16:19: dw&sw soi ta_j klei=daj th=j basilei/aj tw~n ou0ranw~n, kai\ o$ e0a_n dh/sh|j e0pi\ th=j gh=j e1stai dedeme/non e0n toi=j ou0ranoi=j, kai\ o$ e0a_n lu&sh|j e0pi\ th=j gh=j e1stai lelume/non e0n toi=j ou0ranoi=j. 343 See e.g. the quotation from Leg. 2.93 given below in this chapter.
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5.7.2 The open heaven 5.7.2.1 The open heaven. Philo on atonement The understanding of atonement in the Fourth Gospel presented here finds a parallel in Philo’s understanding of “the day of vengeance”: on the one hand, remission of sin and sentencing depends on the return to the right way; on the other hand, God has in His goodness provided the means as well as time for the healing and setting right of the stumbled soul. The retention of justified anger, as well as the means provided for healing, is a gesture of the goodness that characterizes God’s sublime reason. God’s anger and goodness are both stored up in what Philo calls God’s heavenly treasury. Philo therefore urges his reader to join Moses’ prayer that “God may open to us his own treasury”, which is an appeal to God that He may reveal his mind-set (lo/goj) to us. Philo’s important text is here quoted fully: … let us offer a noble and suitable prayer, which Moses offered before us, “that God may open to us His own treasury [i3n’ h9mi=n a)noi/ch| o( qeo_j to_n e9autou= qhsauro&n]” (Deut. xxviii. 12) and that sublime reason pregnant with divine illumination [kai\ to_n meta&rsion kai\ e0gku&mona qei/wn fw&twn lo&gon], to which he has given the title of “heaven”; and that He may close up the treasuries of evil things. For there are with God treasuries as of good things so also of evil things, as He saith in the great Song, “Are not these laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries in the day of vengeance, when their foot shall have slipped? [ou0k i0dou\ tau=ta sunh=ktai par’ e0moi/, kai\ e0sfra&gistai e0n toi=j qhsauroi=j mou, e0n h9me/ra| e0kdikh/sewj, o#tan sfalh=| o( pou\j au0tw~n;]” (Deut. xxxii. 34 f) … But here too observe the goodness of Him who Is [a)lla_ kai\ e0n tou&tw| sko&pei th\n tou= o1ntoj a)gaqo&thta]. The treasure of good things He opens, those of evil things He closes [to_n me\n tw~n a)gaqw~n qhsauro_n a)noi/gei, tou\j de\ tw~n kakw~n e0pisfi/ggei]. For it is God’s property to hold out good things and to be beforehand in bestowing them, but to be slow to inflict evil things [qeou= ga_r i1dion ta_ me\n a)gaqa_ protei/nein kai\ fqa/nein dwrou&menon, ta_ de\ kaka_ mh\ r(a|di/wj e0pa&gein]. But Moses, magnifying God’s love of giving gifts and granting favours [to_ tou= qeou= filo&dwron kai\ xaristiko&n], says that the treasuries of evil things are sealed up not only at other times, but also when the soul fails to direct its steps in keeping with the right principle [a)lla_ kai\ o#tan h9 yuxh\ sfalh=| kata_ th\n ba/sin tou= o)rqou= lo&gou]; and yet then it might justly have been deemed worthy of punishment. For he says that the treasuries of evil things were sealed in the day of vengeance, the sacred word thus showing that not even against those who sin will God proceed at once, but gives time for repentance and for the healing and setting on his feet again of him who had slipped [o#ti ou0de\ toi=j a(marta&nousin eu0qu\j e0pe/ceisin o( qeo&j, a)lla_ di/dwsi xro&non ei0j meta&noian kai\ th\n tou= sfa&lmatoj i1asi/n te kai\ e0pano&rqwsin]. (Leg. 3.104-106)
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Repeatedly, Philo pinpoints the attitude that enables the soul to stay safely on the track and progress in moral doings (ta_j pra&ceij kai\ prokopa_j a(pa&saj), namely knowledge of and acknowledgement of God’s pro-. God’s being beforehand in bestowing good things (cf. Leg. 3.105 quoted above: qeou= ga_r i1dion ta_ me\n a)gaqa_ protei/nein) and in outstretching His hand (cf. Leg. 2.93 quoted below: pro/teron e0ktaqei/h h9 xei/r) represents God’s guidance that keeps the soul on the right track. It is this insight that enables the soul to master (perikrath=sai) the passionate desire which is, in Philo’s philosophical outlook, the ultimate source of all evil: It would be impossible to lay hold of pleasure and get the mastery of it [labe/sqai de\ kai\ perikrath=sai h9donh=j a)du&naton] if the hand were not first stretched out [ei0 mh\ pro/teron e0ktaqei/h h9 xei/r], that is to say, if the soul were not first to acknowledge that all its achievements and successes are due to God’s impelling force and to refer nothing to itself [toute/stin ei0 mh\ ta_j pra&ceij kai\ prokopa_j a(pa&saj o(mologh/seien h9 yuxh\ kata_ qeo_n ei]nai kai\ mhde\n ei0j e9auth\n a)naga&goi]. (Leg. 2.93)
In Philo’s interpretation, Moses’ appeal to God for an opening of His heavenly treasury became a prayer for a revelation of God’s gracious mind-set. To Philo, knowledge of God’s love of giving gifts and granting favours (Leg. 3.105: to_ tou= qeou= filo&dwron kai\ xaristiko&n) prevents the soul from stumbling and is the healing remedy which will save the soul from God’s justified anger on the day of vengeance when, after all, it has gone astray.
5.7.2.2 The open heaven in John (1:51) Jesus’ meeting with the Baptist concludes in the promise to Nathaniel (and the other disciples) that he (they) shall see the heaven open (1:51). In light of Philo’s interpretation of the open heaven, the promise becomes yet another statement of the task that Jesus is commissioned to fulfil, namely that of bringing knowledge of God’s grace (1:17). In this way, Jesus’ final remark answers John the Baptist’s prayer for a wellguided way to the Lord. Jesus’ statement in John 1:51 is emphasized in Nestle27: Most assuredly, I say to you, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.
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a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw u9mi=n, o!yesqe to_n ou0rano_n a)new|go&ta kai\ tou\j a)gge/louj tou= qeou= a)nabai/nontaj kai\ katabai/nontaj e0pi\ to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou.344 The saying consists of two statements: the promise of (1) a vision of the open heaven and of (2) a vision of the angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. In most commentaries, however, the two aspects of the promised vision are fused into one, and the vision of the open heaven is subsumed into the vision of the angels, which is then understood as an intertextual reference to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. Jacob’s recognition that he has dwelled in God’s presence (Gen 28:16) turns the dream into a predicate of God’s presence. When applied to the Son of Man, the fragment of the dream becomes a statement about God’s presence in Jesus, that is, about the incarnation.345 The typography of the Nestle-Aland27 supports this interpretation: the italics of “heaven” identify it as a fragment from Jacob’s dream in Gen 28:12. In this way, the idiom of “the open heaven” is split and destroyed, and potential allusions to the idiom prevented. The reference to the open heaven in general perplexes the commentators. Since some early scribes (A,Q,Y) have adapted the text to Matt 26:64, the judgement scene in Matthew exerts an influence on the interpretation,346 but then this understanding leads a scholar like Raymond Brown to see the whole verse as an out of place insertion.347 However, when read in light of Philo, the promise of an “open heaven” becomes a self-contained statement with a meaning of its own which is both to the point at precisely this place in the Gospel and also makes good sense in combination with the second part of the vision. In Legum allegoriae the “open heaven” referred to God’s revelation of His lo&goj which was understood as the mind-set that motivates His interactions with the world. In Chapter 8, I shall argue in detail that this understanding corresponds to the content of Jesus’ revelation, and in Chapter 7, I shall demonstrate that this revelation has its focus in Jesus’ or the Son of Man’s ascent to the Father (20:17; 6:63), in which he becomes life-giving spirit and unites with the Father. The pneumatic meta-story is a story about the open Heaven and the ascending and descending pneumatic movements upon the Son of 344 Italics belong to Nestle-Aland27. 345 See Wengst. “Mit der Anspielung auf Gen 28 gibt der Evangelist Jesus als ‘das Haus Gottes’ (vgl. 2,19-22) zu verstehen, als Ort der Gegenwart Gottes” (2001, 96). 346 See e.g. Barrett (1955, 155). 347 Brown: “Our first question must be whether i 51 has always been associated with the context in which it is now found. There are certain indications to the contrary” (1966, 88). Brown ends up seeing the promise of the open sky as a reference to Jesus’ baptism, due to the parallel found in Luke 3:21, where before he is baptized Jesus prays for an opening of heaven.
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Man. Thus, in contrast to the prevailing tendency in the commentaries, I do not see Jesus’ saying as a reference to the incarnation, but rather to his ascension.
5.7.3 Summary In this chapter, the prevailing tendency in the scholarly tradition to understand John the Baptist’s testimony as a recognition scene was drawn into question. Instead, it was argued that the testimony should be understood as a commission scene with the focus on the task bestowed on God’s anointed and chosen one. It was demonstrated how, by the aid of minor adjustments in the quotation of Isa 40:3 in John 1:23, the apocalyptic setting of the Synoptics was changed in favour of a more philosophical – that is, ethical and cosmological – agenda in the Fourth Gospel. When placed in the mouth of John the Baptist, the Isaianic cry from the wilderness no longer announced the impending judgement, but became a call for a well-guided way to the Lord. The preparation of the heart for the coming of the Lord was no longer in the hands of John and his baptism of repentance, as was the case in the Synoptic Gospels. In the Fourth Gospel, the transformation of the heart was entrusted to Jesus and his provision of a baptism in the Holy Spirit. This understanding of the scene was confirmed by a reading of John the Baptist’s testimony that saw it as a chiasm consisting of concentric circles around the focal point of verse 1:29. The circles described and alluded to the expectations that God’s anointed and chosen one was to meet. At the focal point of the chiasm, the mission was summarized in the words with which John the Baptist identified the man who was to carry through this program: As the Lamb of God, he was to remove sin from the world. The meaning of the enigmatic statement in John 1:29 was determined by the concentric circles; the statement was simultaneously a promise of forgiveness and a demand for sinlessness. The mission that Jesus is given to carry out had two aspects: from an ethical point of view (h0qikw~j), the goal was described as the removal of sin from the world (1:29); from a physical point of view (fusikw~j), the goal was the provision of a baptism which was, in contrast to John’s baptism with plain water, a baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:33). Thus, the fulfilment of the mission was intimately linked to a recirculation of the spirit: Jesus’ commission took place through the descent of the spirit, which remained over him until he gave it over to the next generation at his death (19:30; 20:23); in other words, to the meta-story of pneumatic transformations.
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The question with which John’s testimony leaves the reader is this: Will Jesus succeed in carrying through this program? And if so: How will all this come into being? The answer to the latter question is postponed to Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisee, Nicodemus, who supplies a voice for the question (3:9). The discussion with Nicodemus resumes the theme of the spirit from John’s testimony, but instead of featuring the Old Testament discourse on “anointing” and “cleansing”, the spirit will now be inscribed into the Hellenistic discourse on regeneration.
Chapter 6
Regeneration as Hermeneutical Competence. The Johannine Signs and the Meta-Story of Pneumatic Transformations
6.1 Introduction. The signs and the meta-story The concentric circles of John the Baptist’s testimony (1:19-34) outlined the task that Jesus as God’s anointed (1:20) and chosen one (1:34) was committed to carry out. The testimony leaves the reader with the allimportant questions of whether and how Jesus will succeed. The inauguration of Jesus’ public ministry does not provide the curious reader with any straightforward answer, since, according to the authorial voice, Jesus’ work has the character of signs (2:11). When the Jewish leader and Pharisee, Nicodemus, seeks contact with Jesus in the middle of the night, it is because he is provoked and puzzled by the signs performed by Jesus (3:2). The “how” left for the reader by the Baptist’s testimony is articulated by Nicodemus in his question, “how can all these things come into being” (3:9: pw~j du/natai tau=ta gene/sqai;). In the dialogue by night, Jesus responds to Nicodemus’ puzzled interest by giving a thorough explanation of the signs. The discourse first identifies the precondition for decoding the signs (3:3-7), then explains how this necessary key will be provided (3:8-15), and finally reveals the deeper meaning and the ultimate reference of the signs performed by Jesus (3:16-21). An arch is established from Jesus’ first extended discourse to the final statement of the Gospel, which also concern the signs (20:30-31):348 “Summing up: all these (signs) – as well as many other signs that are not described in this book – Jesus performed among his disciples. But those (signs which are described in this book) have been written in order that you may (1) understand that Jesus is the anointed, 348 I take 20:31 to be the final remark of the original Gospel and John 21 to be an attempt to articulate the inferences that a reader must draw from his reading of the Gospel. The fact that these inferences seem necessary does not with necessity make it a part of the Gospel; John 21 is not the work of the original author, but of a reader.
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the Son of God, and that, when believing this, you may (2) have life in his name”. The source of (eternal) life is hidden in the signs performed by Jesus and retold by his believers in this gospel. Jesus’ first extended discourse therefore becomes the hermeneutical introduction and guide, not to the signs alone, but to the whole Gospel.349 Traditionally, it is the Prologue that is claimed to provide the hermeneutical key to the Gospel.350 In that case, the Prologue’s mythical language of light and darkness introduced a strongly dualistic perspective on the narratives of the Gospel, and other conceptual pairs – e.g. heavenly things-earthly things (3:12f); God-world; pneu=ma-sa&rc (3:6); Jesus-Moses (1:17; 3:14) – are understood antithetically. However, if the hermeneutical key is postponed to the discourse with Nicodemus, some of the traditional antitheses are deconstructed while others are resolved in favour of a more positive, though still hierarchical, relationship.351 My analysis of 3:1-21 is divided into two main sections. The first part concerns the scholarly discussion of the Johannine sign. Initially, Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus is situated within the Gospel’s own discussion of the meaning and function of the signs. Having demonstrated the seemingly ambiguous attitude of the Gospel to the signs, some distinctive scholarly positions wrestling with the status of the Johannine sign are presented: First, the Bultmann-Käsemann controversy is discussed: Are the signs to be understood as testimonies of faith or tokens of Jesus’ divinity? Next, Dodd’s discussion of the status of the Johannine sign between biblical typology and Philonic allegory is analyzed. The discussion with Johannine scholarship shape the understanding of the Johannine sign that shall be presented here: Corresponding to the two steps towards the eternal life outlined in the concluding remark to the Gospel (20:30-31, see above), the signs are to be understood at two levels, first as tokens of Jesus’ divine identity, next as allegories – in Philo’s technical use of the term – that refer to the meta-story of pneumatic transformations. 349 In his essay on John 3: “Wie Moses die Schlange in der Wüste …” (1994), Jörg Frey also argues that in favour of understanding Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus as the interpretive key to the Gospel. Later in this chapter, Frey’s informative essay will be discussed in relation to the exegesis of 3:14. 350 This holds true of the German tradition presented in Chapter One which saw the lo&goj-Christologie of the Prologue as the evangelist’s reaction to the Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptions- oder Trennungschristologie of the opponents (Klauck 1988; Theobald 1990; Wengst 1982). 351 This displacement or postponement of the hermeneutical key puts the Fourth Gospel on a par with the Gospel of Mark, in which Jesus’ discussion of parables and their hidden meaning also awaits the inauguration of Jesus’ public ministry and is first given in Mark 4.
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In the second part, this understanding will be substantiated by the exegesis of the Nicodemus discourse. Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus contains a chain of reasoning, which may be divided into three sections: 1. In John 3:1-7, the presupposition of coming to terms with the signs is discussed, namely that one must (3:7: dei=) be regenerated from above. 2. In John 3:8-15, the presupposition of being regenerated from above is outlined, namely that the Son of Man must (3:14f: dei=) be lifted up. 3. Finally, in John 3:16-21 the presupposition of the uplifting of the Son of Man is identified, namely the love for the world that motivated God to give His Son, the only-begotten one, in order to save the world from perishing. Thus the divine love simultaneously constitutes the first cause in the chain of events and is the ultimate reference of the Johannine signs.
6.2 The Johannine discourse on the signs 6.2.1 The Johannine discourse on the shmei=on (3:1-2) 6.2.1.1 The Nicodemus dialogue. The rhetorical situation Nicodemus is presented as a Pharisee, a leader of the Jews (3:1), and he is later addressed by Jesus as one who is counted among the teachers of Israel (3:10). For his part, Nicodemus addresses Jesus as Rabbi. Echoing Moses’ speech to the desert generation in Deuteronomy (Deut 3:24), Nicodemus acknowledges Jesus as a teacher sent from God: no one is able to perform the signs that he does without God being with him (John 3:2).352 The signs performed by Jesus during Easter in Jerusalem have called many Jews to faith (2:23) and stirred others, among them 352 Deut 3:24LXX (my translation): “Mighty Lord, from the beginning you have by the aid of your wonders (tw~| sw~| qera&ponti) demonstrated your strength and your power and your powerful hand and your raised arm; who is this God in heaven or on earth who is capable of doing the kind of things that you have done and of having your strength? (ti/j ga&r e0stin qeo_j e0n tw~| ou0ranw~| h2 e0pi\ th=j gh=j, o3stij poih/sei kaqa_ su\ e0poi/saj kai\ kata_ th\n i0sxu/n sou;)”. The echoing of Deut 3:24 in Nicodemus’ statement (John 3:2: ou0dei\j ga_r du/natai tau=ta ta_ shmei=a poiei=j a$ su\ poiei=j, e0a_n mh\ h]| o( qeo_j met’ au0tou=.) may be seen as yet another instance of Johannine irony. Although Nicodemus echoes the truth, he is unaware of the fact that his choice of words predicates Jesus as God.
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Nicodemus. Nicodemus is used by the author to resume the puzzlement provoked by Jesus’ expulsion of the traders and their animals from the temple. The Jews had asked about the meaning of the performed sign (2:18): “What about this sign … what do you intend to show us by doing these things?” In a manner typical of the Johannine Jesus, Jesus had explained the meaning of his performance with reference to yet another enigmatic sign, namely that if they pulled down the temple, he would erect it again within three days (2:19).353 In light of the fact that the temple had been under construction for more than 46 years, the Jews were again mystified. The authorial voice privileges the reader with information about the meaning of the signs: the temple of which Jesus speaks and which his signifying action concerns is his own body (2:21), but the narrator admits that this understanding only came to the disciples after Jesus had been risen (2:23). Until then Nicodemus, as well as every other character in the Gospel, is left with puzzlement.354 Although it is the situation in Jerusalem that draws Nicodemus to Jesus, the reader knows of yet another sign, namely the miracle performed during the wedding feast in Cana, Galilee, which inaugurated Jesus’ public ministry (2:11). In response to the sudden shortage of wine which arose during the feast, Jesus had transformed the water meant for purification into precious wine. The reader was informed by the authorial voice that this act was the beginning of the signs by the aid of which Jesus would reveal his glory and call forth faith among his disciples (2:11).355 By the aid of the authorial comments on the signs that accompany the inauguration of Jesus’ public ministry, information is provided concerning the function of the signs in the Johannine discourse: 1. The signs are events through which Jesus’ divine glory is revealed (2:11). 2. The signs performed by Jesus are meant to and, in fact, do evoke faith (2:11, 23).
353 John 2:19: lu/sate to_n nao_n tou=ton kai\ e0n trisi\n h9me/raij e0gerw~ au0to&n. 354 This very positive understanding of the figure of Nicodemus is shared with mainstream Protestant exegesis, represented by Luther, Bultmann and Hofius. In their readings, Nicodemus is “der Mensch in seinen höchsten – und hier gerade auch in seinen höchsten religiösen – Möglichkeiten” (Hofius 1996, 77). Nicodemus’ capacity for knowledge contrasts God’s incompressible mystery, which can only be grasped in faith. The Protestant tradition at least demonstrates that the figure of Nicodemus is not cast negatively in the text. 355 John 2:11: tau/thn e0poi/hsen a)rxh\n tw~n shmei/wn o( 0Ihsou=j e0n Kana_ th=j Galilai/aj kai\ e0fane/rwsen th\n do&can au0tou=, kai\ e0pi/steusan ei0j au0to&n oi9 maqhtai\ au0tou=.
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3. The full and precise meaning of the signs, including Jesus’ enigmatic statements, will only be available after Jesus’ resurrection (2:17, 23).356
6.2.1.2 The Johannine ambiguity towards the signs Throughout the Gospel, the signs – as well as the faith they evoke – are represented with ambiguity. On the one hand, the Johannine Jesus expresses a critical attitude towards the faith evoked by his signs. He has no confidence in the Jews’ faith (2:24), because “he knows what is hidden at the bottom of the human heart (2:25: au0to_j ga_r e0gi/nwsken ti/ h]n e0n tw~| a)nqrw&pw|)”. Furthermore, when asked to heal the son of the royal official, Jesus reproaches the audience of not having faith without his performance of signs (4:48: e0a_n mh\ shmei=a kai\ te/rata i1dhte, ou0 mh\ pisteu/shte). Again, Jesus withdraws from the multitude when they – in reaction to the miraculous feeding from five small loaves and two fish – confess him as the expected prophet and want him to be their king (6:14f). Finally, in the conclusion to the whole Gospel, it is those who have not seen (any signs) and yet believe who are praised by Jesus (20:29). On the other hand, the signs are express verbis said to reveal Jesus’ glory (2:11). Furthermore, in the discourse on bread from heaven, Jesus rebukes the audience for not having grasped the deeper meaning 356 Scholars often note the structural parallel between the question in 2:18 and 6:30: John 2:18: ti/ shmei=on deiknu/eij h9mi=n o#ti tau=ta poiei=j; John 6:30: ti/ ou]n poiei=j su\ shmei=on, i3na i1dwmen kai\ pisteu/swme/n soi; The parallel legitimizes the idea that 2:18 be read in light of 6:30 and be interpreted as a demand for a sign to authorize Jesus as prophet and teacher. The translations of 2:18 and 6:30 by Raymond Brown perfectly bring out the prevailing scholarly understanding of the Johannine Jews’ interest in signs: “What sign can you show us, authorizing you to do these things?” (2:18, emphasis added) and “So that we can put faith in you … what sign are you going to perform for us to see” (6:30) (Brown 1966, 114, 260). However, this understanding of 2:18 and 6:30 is probably influenced by Mark 11:28 in which the cleansing of the temple occasions a discussion of Jesus’ mandate to do the things he does. The fact that John holds together in one story what Mark splits into two – the accounts of cleansing of the temple (11:15-17) and of the Jewish authorities’ reaction (11:27-28) – suggests to Brown that a common source existed and that the Johannine version is closer to the original tradition (119). The idea of a common source legitimizes that the Markan meaning is transposed into John’s Gospel. This transposition, however, violates the development of the plot in the Fourth Gospel. In the Gospel of Mark, the temple scene constitutes the culmination of the conflict between Jesus and the Jews. In the Fourth Gospel, the scene is part of the stirring beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In spite of the difficulties of decoding Jesus’ signs, the Jews’ sanction is, so far, one of faith in his name (2:23) or a curious, but positive interest, as in the case of Nicodemus; for the present, no scepticism is felt. At this stage of the story, no one questions Jesus’ authority.
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of his performances; they only search for him in order to benefit – to be fed and satiated – from his signifying actions (6:26).357 At the end of Jesus’ public ministry, the fact that the multitude have not come to faith in spite of the many signs performed by Jesus is lamented by the narrator and explained with a reference to Isaiah’s idea of the hardened heart (12:37).358 Finally, the Gospel is concluded by the statement (20:3031) that the source of the recognition of Jesus’ identity and, in turn, of the eternal life it is the signs performed by Jesus. The Gospel’s ambiguity with regard to the signs is epitomized in the discourse on the Kingdom of God. The performance of signs belonged to the expectations that the Jews associated with the eschatological figure of the Messiah and the inauguration of the Kingdom of God (7:31; 9:16), but Jesus withdraws from the multitude when, on the basis of his signs, they want to make him king (6:14f). However, in the Nicodemus discourse, the ability to interpret the signs and the Kingdom of God are positively related. Jesus conditions seeing and entering the Kingdom of God on generation a!nwqen, which is again a precondition of interpreting the signs. 6.2.2 The Bultmann-Käsemann controversy on ta_ shmei=a The Johannine Jesus’ ambiguity concerning the signs has puzzled scholars of the Fourth Gospel and divided scholarship of the Fourth Gospel on several questions: Is it possible to solve the Johannine quandary in such a way that the seemingly opposing attitudes to the signs are explained as aspects of one and the same point of view? And if so, what do the signs represent and how are the positive and negative reactions to be understood within this view? Is a generic source of the Johannine sign to be found? And if so, does knowledge of this genre help us to understand the meaning and function of the signs? Previously, the quandary was more or less univocally explained by the hypothesis of a shmei=a-Quelle in which Jesus was depicted as a divinely equipped wonder-worker (qei=oj a)nh/r).359 The sign-source represented an indispensable part of the tradition, but the fourth Evangelist used it 357 John 6:26: a)mh\n, a)mh\n le/gw u(mi=n, zhtei=te/ me ou0x o#ti ei1dete shmei=a, a)ll’ o#ti e0fa&gete e0k tw~n a!rtwn kai\ e0xorta&sqhte. 358 John 12:37: tosau=ta de\ au0tou= shmei=a pepoihko&toj e1mprosqen au0tw~n ou0k e0pi/steuon ei0j au0to&n, 359 See Bultmann, who was the one who introduced the idea of three principal sources behind the Gospel: die shmei=a-Quelle, die Offenbarungsreden, die Passion Geschichte (1941). See also Brown (1966, xxviii-xxix).
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for his own purpose. However, how he reworked it became an issue of ongoing debate, especially, in the Bultmann-Käsemann controversy on the Johannine signs. Although the thesis of the sign-source was abandoned several decades ago, the Bultmann-Käsemann divide still sets the agenda for the discussion of the signs. Bultmann, for his part, accentuated the negative stance to the signs. In his reconstruction of the un-edited gospel, the rebuke of 4:48 (e0a_n mh\ shmei=a kai\ te/rata i1dhte, ou0 mh\ pisteu/shte) became the headline that determined the meaning of the miraculous healings in John 4 and 5 and of the feeding of the multitude in John 6. 360 The addition of 4:48 to the miraculous stories from the shmei=a-source destroyed the qei=oj a)nh/r Christology of the source in favour of a brand new understanding of the signs: in the Fourth Gospel, the signs do not cause faith, but are symbolic representations that testify to faith and communicate the world view involved in this faith. The Johannine signs became testimonies. In his treatise on “Die Herrlichkeit Christi” published in Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (1971), Käsemann stressed the positive attitude to the signs and emphasized the rebuke found in 6:26 of the Jews who had missed Jesus’ semiotic behaviour and consequently sought him for the wrong reasons. The signs were tokens of Jesus’ divinity. Basically, the Bultmann-Käsemann controversy on the signs is a matter of Christology. The interpretive conflict is epitomized in their different accentuation of the Prologue’s verse 14: “And the Word became flesh”.
6.2.2.1 “And the Word became flesh”. Incarnation as paradox In his reading of the Fourth Gospel, Bultmann argues that the incarnation of the divine lo&goj in human flesh (1:14a) should be understood as a metamorphosis that left no sensuous token of Jesus’ divine origin. Consequently, the recognition of the paradox – that, in the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, the divine had entered the human sphere – must be based exclusively on Jesus’ own words and, in turn, the testimony of the Gospel to his identity. In this way, Bultmann’s theology met the premises of the modern world view, according to which the 360 Cf. Bultmann: “V. 48 is uncalled for by the story and has no effect on it; it … must be attributed to the Evangelist; v. 48, however, has suppressed an original dialogue, which must have corresponded to Mt. 8.7-10. By this alteration the Evangelist has destroyed the original point of the story in order to make it illustrate the motif of “die pi/stij und die shmei=a” (Bultmann 1941, 152; 1971, 206).
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supernatural intervention in the chain of cause and effect is an illegitimate enterprise. Bultmann’s solution to the ambiguity concerning the signs in the Fourth Gospel is indebted to his demythologization of the New Testament as inspired by Heidegger.361 In their quest for a sign that may prove Jesus’ claim to be the divine Revealer (2:18; 6:30), the Johannine Jews become symbols of humanity’s demand for a rational and reliable foundation on which existence may at least appear as predictable and safe. According to Heidegger’s philosophical reflections on das Dasein, this foundation does not exist, nevertheless Bultmann finds a kind of foundation in der Entwurf of the belief that, behind everything that happens, a divine purpose exists. Yet, no objective sign of this purpose is ever given; the only signs that this purpose leaves in history are the subjective testimonies of lives lived in the confidence that this is the truth. The belief that a purpose exists, although hidden with God, enables the life that, in Bultmann’s view, counts as real; but how this life ought to be lived in order to accord with the divine will or purpose, is hidden with God, too. The fact that, according to Bultmann, the Fourth Gospel is stripped of ethics confirms his existential interpretation. No message is ever given of the precise character of the true life; the divine Revealer is devoid of any divine traits and the divine messenger is silent about his divine message. The Revealer only reveals that (das Dass) he is the Revealer; the messenger only brings the message that (das Dass) he is himself the message. The signs are, according to Bultmann, construed by the Evangelist as symbolic representations of the faith which the divine Revealer has aroused by his word (Bultmann 1941, 83; 1971, 119). Jesus’ do&ca does not concern the divine power of a miracle worker; instead, the do&ca has its origin in and represents the transforming power of a faith caused by the recognition that in the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth a divine revelation took place. The real locus of the miracle is the believer’s mind, not Jesus’ historical ministry. The signs may be approached in two different ways; either they are seen merely as miracles and demonstrations of divine power as it is the case in the naive understanding found in the imagined shmei=a-source, or the signs are rather to be understood as testimonies that communicate the transforming power of faith. A faith that does not understand the miracles as shmei=a in this very specific Johannine manner is no faith at all. As testimonies, the 361 See Bultmann’s “Neues Testament und die Mythologie“ (1951), “Das Problem der Hermeneutik“ (1952a) and “Zur Problem der Entmytologisierung“ (1952b). See also Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Bultmann 1953).
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signs may provoke the audience – in the narrative itself as well as the readers – to take a stand for or against Jesus as a divine Revealer. No clear cut dividing line exists between the faith caused by the visual miraculous sign and the faith called forth by the spoken testifying word: the stirrings which the signs effect lead people to Jesus and the personal encounter with him gives rise to true faith. Jesus’ words are the place where his divine origin is revealed. The Johannine signs are testimonies and the testimonies are revelations of God’s transforming power and do&ca. It is clear that the conclusion of the Gospel 20:30f. also comes from this source [i.e. shmei=a-source], of which it originally was the conclusion. … Now if the Evangelist dared to use this ending as the conclusion of his book, it shows not only that the shmei=on is of fundamental importance for him, but at the same time – if he can subsume Jesus’ activities, as he portrays it, under the concept of shmei=on! – that this concept is more complex than that of the naïve miracle story. Rather it is clear … that the concepts shmei=a and r(h/mata (lo&goi) both qualify each other: shmei=on is not a mere demonstration, but a spoken directive, a symbol; r(h=ma is not teaching in the sense of the communication of a set of ideas, but is the occurrence of the Word, the event of the address. (Bultmann 1941, 78; 1971, 113f)
6.2.2.2 “And we saw his glory”. Incarnation as communication When the fourth Evangelist wrote that “we saw his glory” (1:14c), he referred, according to Käsemann, to the community’s experience of Jesus as a “God going about on the Earth” ([der] über die Erde schreitenden Gott).362 The Johannine signs were seen as testimonies also by Käsemann, but now they testified to the experience of Jesus as the stranger (der Fremde) in whom God was uniquely present and revealed Himself: John is, to our knowledge, the first Christian to use the earthly life of Jesus merely as a backdrop for the Son of God proceeding through the world of man [als Folie des durch die Menschenwelt schreitenden Gottessohnes] and as the scene of the inbreaking of the heavenly glory. … The Son of Man is neither a man among others, nor the representation of the people of God or of 362 The famous phrase belongs to Käsemann’s criticism of the attempt to read the Fourth Gospel in light of the Synoptics: “What customary scholarship endeavours methodologically, namely to show that John approximates to or complements the Synoptic tradition, is then expressed in practice, quite remarkably, through the almost universal attempt to find a christology of humiliation even in the Fourth Gospel. It is typical that a discussion based on the kind of liberal interpretation which characterizes the Johannine Christ as God going about on the earth is generally omitted, or confined to comments on exegetical details” (English version 1968, 8; German third edition 1971, 26, emphasis added).
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the ideal humanity, but God, descending into the human realm and there manifesting his glory [und dort epiphan werdend]. (Käsemann, 1968, 13; 1971, 35)
Käsemann objected to Bultmann’s claim that the presence of the divine in the human sphere and in a specific body was a paradox, and that this paradox itself constituted the object of the transforming belief. The “backdrop” of “the earthly life of Jesus” was nothing but the necessary means of communication: The disguise, the hiding, of a divine being in lowliness may appear paradoxical, but it is not really paradoxical at all. Such concealment, in the last analysis, is to make communication possible between what is unequal and therefore separate, between heaven and earth, God and man. As the possibility of communication [Kommunikationsmöglichkeit] such hiding is something very proper and very purposeful and quite rationally under-standable. It indicates condescension [Herablassung], but not antinomy. (1968, 12; 1971, 32f)
According to Käsemann, the sign-source offered the fourth Evangelist a perfect collection of stories that enabled him to symbolize the experience of and belief in the unique presence in Jesus of the God of creation: “Through him God is glorified, because only through him does it become clear who God is, namely our Creator” (1968, 23; 1971, 55). The miracle stories of the sign-source were reinterpreted and enhanced in such a way that they no longer referred to a divine mandate of e0cousi/a bestowed on a qei=oj a)nh/r (der hellenistischen Wundermann), but to the presence of God Himself: “On the other hand His glory cannot be without miracles, and the greater and the more impressive they are, the better” (1968, 22; 1971, 54).363 However, when man tried to grasp the divine stranger in his own worldly categories, the signs were not unambiguous: at best, Jesus was seen as a divine emissary; at worst, as an agent of demonic powers. The negative stance found in the Gospel against a faith based on signs is explained by Käsemann on the basis of Jesus’ rebuke of the Jews in John 6:26: “Truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled”. The problem is that the Jews do not recognize 363 Contemporary advocates of Käsemann’s position are found in the semiotic analyses of the Fourth Gospel made by Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition in the Gospel of John (2008) and by Jesper Tang Nielsen, Die cognitive Dimension des Kreuzes. Eine Studie zum Verständnis des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium (2003, unpublished dissertation) and Tang-Nielsen’s “’And the flesh became word’: An Aristotelian Reading of the Resurrection Scenes in the Gospel of John” (2006, unpublished paper). In these works, Käsemann’s position is elaborated into a more complex understanding of the sign, which is seen – in Bro Larsen’s terminology – as a “hybrid” characterized by a play between the “camouflage”, that is Jesus’ appearance in flesh (his Schein), and the “mark” of his divine glory (his true Sein).
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the symbolic character of Jesus’ behaviour, but take it on face value. When God is searched for His gifts alone and not for the love that motivates these gifts, the faith is unqualified: “The Johannine criticism of miracles begins and ends where Jesus himself is sought or forgotten for the sake of his gifts” (1968, 22; 1971, 54).
6.2.2.3 Deconstructing the Bultmann-Käsemann divide For Bultmann, the do&ca revealed by the Johannine signs was a reference to the subjective experience of the transforming and life-engendering power of a faith that believed in God’s paradoxical involvement with the world; for Käsemann, it was a reference to the unique and objective presence of God and His creational power in Jesus. Although the Christologies of the two proponents are diametrically opposed to one another, they have one feature in common, namely the radical opposition of the human and worldly sphere to the heavenly eternity of the divine. The spheres do not mix: for Bultmann, Jesus is a human being through and through; for Käsemann, He is a God in the disguise of human flesh. The human-divine dichotomy as well as the dualistic world view that it represents belongs to the premises of modern theological discourse. In his 2007 book, All That Is: A Naturalistic Faith for the Twentyfirst Century, the Oxford scholar Arthur Peacocke challenges the modern idea that God’s transcendence is cognate with a dualistic world view. In his attempt to develop a panentheistic theology, Peacocke drew attention to the way that the modern concept of substance has influenced the world view: … Western classical theism … often conceived of God as a necessary substance with attributes and with a space “outside” God in which the realm of the created was, as it were, located. Furthermore, one entity cannot exist in another and retain its own (ontological) identity if they are regarded as substance. Hence, if God is also so regarded God can only exert influence “from outside” on events in the world. (Peacocke 2007, 21)
According to Peacocke, the dualistic world view in which God is placed outside the world is conditioned on the Cartesian concept of substance. In order to develop a non-dualistic concept of transcendence, Peacocke is inspired by modern philosophy of the mind, e.g. of Putnam’s reflections on personal intentionality and agency: In contrast to classical philosophical theism, with its reliance on the concept of necessary substance, the form of panentheism I am espousing here takes embodied personhood as a model of God. It also places a much stronger
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stress on the immanence of God in, with, and under the events of the world while nonetheless retaining the ultimate transcendence of God, analogously to the way human persons experience their transcendence over their bodies … our intentions and purposes seem to transcend our bodies, yet in fact they are closely related to brain events and can only be implemented in the world through our bodies. Our bodies are indeed ourselves under one description and from one perspective. (Peacocke 2007, 23)
The Cartesian cogito situated the intentional subject outside the body and separated it from its actions, but according to contemporary philosophy it need not be so. In light of these considerations, the modern thinking about substance and subject is revealed as one perspective among others; it is not universally applicable – neither in the present nor in the past. Peacocke’s panentheism has a lot in common with the Stoic monism. First, as we saw in Chapter Two, the Stoics also claimed that mentally based intensions (emotions) could not be separated from the acting body and from the world in which the action took place. Their understanding rested on their understanding of the world as organised by one dynamic, pneumatic continuum. Second, in Chapter Two we also saw how the Stoic concept of substance was met with mistrust by ancient thinkers more in line with modern thinking; Plutarch e.g. objected to the Stoics’ concepts of bodies and blending (kra~sij). To Plutarch, the Stoic claim that pneumatic bodies of different qualities were capable of occupying the same material space appeared to be nonsensical. We have also seen how, according to Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Eminent Philosophers, the Stoics identified God with the active, intentional and formative non-bodily principle in the world, that is “reason (lo&goj) inherent in … substance” (D. L. 7.134),364 while at the same time being capable of ascribing the world – or “all that is” – to God’s being (D. L. 137).365 In the Stoic world view, transcendence and immanence did not preclude each another. In opposition to the modern concept of transcendence, which forces God out of the word, the Stoic concepts of pneu=ma and kra~sij, so to speak, force God into “all that is” leaving no place, however small, void of His presence. Philo’s idea of deute/ra ge/nesij offers us a way of thinking about the relation of the divine to the human that differs from what can be grasped in modern categories of substance. We have seen how Philo’s description of the human soul and its various capacities rested on the 364 D. L. 7.134: to_ de\ poiou=n to_n e0n au0th=| lo&gon to_n qeo&n. 365 D. L. 7.138: “The term universe or cosmos is used by them in three senses: (1) of God himself, the individual being whose quality is derived from the whole of substance. (le/gousi de\ ko&smon trixw~j: au0to&n te to_n qeo_n to_n e0k th=j a(pa&shj ou0si/aj i0di/wj poio&n …)
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idea of a continuous (epigenetic) generation which was based on the Stoic concept of kra~sij. In Chapter Four, it was demonstrated how the model of generation was extrapolated in order to encompass Philo’s idea of a divine ge/nesij. On this basis, it was argued that Philo’s second generation constituted a mental and spiritual as well as a physical and very real event. In the ordinary generation of animals, the paternal semen and the maternal blood had different functions in the generation of the offspring: the male semen provided the female matter with form. However, in the offspring it was impossible to separate the parents’ contribution from each other. Against the Platonists, it was emphatically argued by the Aristotelians as well as the Stoics that the separation of the active and formative forces from the passive material was a matter of pure abstraction. When this is applied to Philo’s spiritual and physical deute/ra ge/nesij, we must say that the divine pneu=ma-borne male form cannot be separated from the human mind, which in this case takes the female position, either. When the language of regeneration and indwelling in the Fourth Gospel is understood in light of Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij, the humandivine boundary appears to be penetrated several times in the Gospel: first, in descent of the spirit from above on Jesus as witnessed by John the Baptist (1:32f), which in Chapter Four was interpreted as Jesus’ divine generation; second, in Jesus’ Passover (13:1) and ascent to the Father (20:17), which, as I shall argue in Chapter Seven, constitutes his translation into the divine life-giving spirit (6:63), and finally in the regeneration a!nwqen of believers through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (3:3, cf. 20:22). In short, the meta-story of pneumatic transformations is a story about divine and worldly interactions. In the Gospel, this mutual involvement is epitomized in the language of mutual indwelling (17:23: e0gw_ e0n au0toi=j kai\ su\ e0moi/, i3na w}sin teteleiwme/noi ei0j e3n). In light of the pneumatic meta-story, the idea of docetism, which has haunted Johannine scholarship for a century or more, is dissolved;366 the pneu=ma-borne divine presence cannot be located and separated out from the human being that it indwells. 366 This understanding of the divine indwelling challenges Käsemann’s position in the essay “Die Herrlichkeit Christi”: “One can hardly fail to recognize the danger of his [the fourth Evangelist’s] christology of glory [Herrlichkeitschristologie], namely the danger of docetism. It is present in a still naïve, unreflected form and it has not yet been recognized by the Evangelist or his community. The following Christian generations were thoroughly enchanted with John’s christology of glory. Consequently the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ remained alive among them. But those generations also experienced the difficulties of this christology of glory and had to unfold and deepen its problems and, in so doing, had to decide for or against docetism” (1968, 26; 1971, 61f).
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In my analysis of Jesus’ ascension in Chapter Seven and Chapter Eight, I shall argue that the ascension consists of two events. This is in accordance with Jesus’ enigmatic statement in the Farewell Discourses that he will “leave and come” (return) simultaneously (14:28: u9pa&gw kai\ e1rxomai pro_j u9ma~j). In the pneumatic meta-story, Jesus’ “leaving” corresponds to the translation, in which Jesus becomes life-giving spirit (cf. 6:63); his “coming” matches the regeneration of believers that takes place through the infusion of the same life-giving Holy Spirit (20:22). Through these transformations, the pneu=ma becomes the vehicle that, first, allows us to trace the love which is explicitly symbolized by Jesus’ death (15:13) back (or upwardly) to the Father, the God of creation, and to see (14:9: o( e9wrakw_j e0me\ e9w&raken to_n pate/ra) the motivation that was the beginning of God’s gracious involvement with the world. Next, through the regenerative downward movement of the spirit, we see what it means to be regenerated a!nwqen: to become a child of God (1:12f) is to have God’s reason or mind-set (5:38: lo&goj) or love abiding in one (5:42: h( a)ga&ph tou= qeou=).367 In light of these two aspects of Jesus’ ascension – the upward translation and the downward regeneration – we can see that Käsemann and Bultmann’s positions each represent an aspect of the physical/cognitive movement of the spirit. In Käsemann’s case, it is the upward (a)na&basij) movement, by the aid of which God’s nature is revealed, that is accentuated; in Bultmann’s case, it is the downward (kata&basij) movement, in which believers are transformed, that is stressed. By integrating Bultmann’s and Käsemann’s insights, the meta-story of pneumatic transformation solves their mutual tension. The pneumatic meta-story simultaneously confirms Käsemann’s understanding of the signs as epiphanies and corrects his idea of the “über die Erde schreitenden Gott”. The God moving through the world both is and is not Jesus; it is rather the divine spirit, which has descended upon him, moves and motivates him (cf. 14:10). This understanding matches the allusions in the sign of Jesus’ walking upon the sea (6:16-21) to Gen 1:2 in which it is the spirit of God that moves upon the face of the waters. 367 Philo speaks of the down-blowing (katapnei=n) of the divine spirit which is at work when the soul is called upward towards God: “This is why those who crave for wisdom and knowledge with insatiable persistence are said in the Sacred Oracles to have been called upward [a)nakeklh=sqai]; for it accords with God’s ways that those who have received His down-breathing should be called up to Him [pro_j ga_r to_ qei=on a!nw kalei=sqai qe/mij tou\j u(p’ au0tou= katapneusqe/ntaj] … it is strange if a light substance like the mind is not rendered buoyant and raised to the utmost height by the native force of the Divine Spirit [th=| de\ tou= qei/ou pneu/matoj kai\ pa&nta dunatou= kai\ ta_ ka&tw nikw~ntoj fu/sei], overcoming as it does in its boundless might all powers that are here below” (Plant. 23-24).
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The pneumatic meta-story also matches Bultmann’s understanding of the signs as testimonies, since the physical regeneration by the spirit (3:3, 5) is a cognitive event as well. The regenerated person has the Spirit of Truth indwelling (14:17); he worships “in spirit and truth”. The signs also represent the transformation of the mind-set caused by the knowledge of the Father’s love that the spirit has brought about.368 In a paper “Cognition in John: The Johannine Signs as Recognition Scenes” given at a New Testament Research Seminar at the University of Aarhus on “John and Cognition. Narrative and Epistemology in the Gospel of John” (September 2006), Alan Culpepper argued in favour of a two-level understanding of the Johannine signs. In his paper, Culpepper tried to synthesize his own more Bultmannian understanding of the signs as scenes of recognition in the sense of coming to faith (Culpepper 1998), with the more Käsemannian understanding put forward in Kasper Bro Larsen’s dissertation, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John (2006, 2008), in which the signs are understood as tokens of Jesus’ divine origin and identity. In his paper, Culpepper demonstrated how the signs change their status during the narrative from being primarily tokens (sh/mata), by which Jesus is recognized as the one sent by God, to becoming true Johannine shmei=a, the meaning of which it is left for the readers to investigate. It is the involvement with the signs’ intertextual allusions to the Hebrew Bible and related scriptures (cf. John 2:22) that will in the end lead to eternal life. Culpepper succeeds in mediating between two major positions on the Johannine sign, that of Käsemann and that of Bultmann. Although Culpepper does not himself draw this conclusion in his paper, I find that his analysis matches the description of the two steps in coming to faith outlined by the Gospel in its final statement: first, the signs, as recently described by Bro Larsen (and in the past by Käsemann), lead to a recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, Son of God (20:31a); next, the same signs call for a deeper interpretation that will lead to eternal life (20:31b). The first aspect of the signs corresponds to the Messianic Secret of the Gospel of Mark; the second aspect concerns the Johannine surplus of meaning that I have ascribed to the meta-story of pneumatic transformations.
368 In Chapter Eight, I shall discuss how the sign of the disciples at sea may be understood within this perspective.
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6.2.2.4 Gendering the Johannine signs In Chapter Four, the ambiguous attitude to women in the Gospel of John was discussed. It was observed how the prominence of the female characters was countered by the fact that none of these women ever entered into the intimate circle of disciples around Jesus. The ambiguity of the female lot may be illuminated by the two dimensions of the Johannine shmei=on outlined by the concluding remark of the Gospel (20:30): First, the signs must give rise to the faith that Jesus is the anointed one and the Son of God (20:31a). This is what the Fourth Gospel has in common with the Synoptics, and this is what the women of John’s Gospel assent to (4:29; 11:27). Next, this belief must lead to the “life qualified by the name” (20:31b), which is the result of an inquiry into the symbolic meaning of the signs that will ultimately lead to knowledge of the Father (17:3-4). This concerns the Johannine surplus. The Johannine women provide the initial knowledge, from which the truth must be inferred. Again the pattern is epigenetic: through their messages, the women provide the preliminary material that is only endowed with a minimum of form and knowledge, but which, when subjected to the formative forces of the Holy Spirit, will conceive the truth. In the Fourth Gospel, knowledge of the Messianic secret, which is the goal of faith in the Synoptic Gospels, is displaced into the female position and must be reworked by the male spirit of the Fourth Gospel in order to bring forth the fully borne male faith of eternal life. This is the lot of the Samaritan woman, whose fellow-citizens first understand that Jesus is the saviour of the world when Jesus himself abides with them (4:39-42), and of Martha, whose confession does not lead her to see God’s glory (11:40), and of Mary Magdalene, who is asked by Jesus to bring the message of his ascent to his brothers (20:17), who are subsequently identified with the disciples (20:18). In the Fourth Gospel, gender is used as an epistemological category and the hermeneutics of the Gospel are “impregnated” with epigenesis. What this may have meant for the historical women of the Johannine community is a question fraught with methodological problems, the answer to which shall not be attempted here.
6.2.3 Dodd and the typology-allegory divide In Anglo-American scholarship on the Johannine shmei=on, the German agenda of Christology has never played any important role. Instead, the interest has been directed towards the generic roots, the formal
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structure and the functions of the sign. Although written more than half a decade ago, Dodd’s analysis of Johannine symbolism in his book Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953) is still worth discussing for two reasons: first, the positions described in his analysis are still part of the scholarly Johannine agenda; second, the categories and dichotomies at work in his analysis are easily identified. Dodd discusses Jülicher’s parable-allegory dichotomy and the distinction between biblical/prophetic typology and philosophical/Platonic allegory.369
6.2.3.1 The parable-allegory discussion Taking his starting point in Jülicher’s discussion of New Testament symbolism in Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (1899), Dodd concludes that, in comparison with the parables of the Synoptics, Johannine symbolism should be designated as allegory. First, what makes the Johannine images or signs resemble allegory is the “fluctuating series of symbols” that constitute their make-up (Dodd 1953, 135). According to Dodd, these symbols refer to “various aspects of the work of Christ” (emphasis added). In contrast to the parable which, according to Jülicher’s definition, had only one point of comparison, Johannine symbolism is multidimensional. Second, in Johannine symbolism the literal and the metaphorical levels tend to blur: “The language indeed changes to and fro between the literal and the metaphorical in a way which would be bewildering, if the reader were not conscious all through that all the statements made really refer to Christ and His disciples” (136).370 The effect of this blurring is that “the symbol is almost absorbed into the thing signified” (137). Third, Dodd notices that in the Fourth Gospel no straight line can be drawn between the Johannine symbolism and the narratives that seem to be historical: “It is however evident that in each case the incident, though it is related as an historical occurrence, is no less symbolic, and that the relation of symbol to thing symbolized, where the symbol is an historical event, is not essentially different from the relation where 369 As we shall see, the typology/allegory divide are categories at work in Jörg Frey’s discussion of John 3:14 in “‘Wie Mose die Schlange in der Wüste erhöht hat … ’ Zur frühjüdischen Deutung der ‘ehernen Schlange’ und ihrer christologischen Rezeption in Johannes 3,14f”. Frey’s essay will be discussed below in this chapter. 370 By this multidimensionality, Dodd is capable of holding together what Käsemann and Bultmann separate: According to Käsemann, the signs refer literally to Christ; according to Bultmann, they refer symbolically to the disciples and the process of coming to faith.
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the symbol is invented for the purpose” (140). Consequently, the whole history of Jesus should be interpreted symbolically, which, however, does not make his life less historical. Fourth and finally, in the synoptic parables, the tertium comparationis for the Kingdom of God was the everyday experience of the bread that fed the hungry, of the water that quenched the thirsty, of viticulture and shepherding, but in the make-up of the imagery in the Fourth Gospel these daily life experiences play no role. In spite of the fact that Johannine images are fetched from everyday life, the symbols in John’s Gospel “derive their significance from a background of thought in which they had already served as symbols for religious conceptions” (137). The proper context of Johannine symbolism is the contemporary religious discourse, and the Gospel participates in the struggle about the true referent of commonly shared signifiers, e.g. the heavenly bread. As the true bread or the bread from heaven, Jesus is indirectly claimed to supersede the Torah, which was in contemporary Jewish literature also seen as divine food. In Chapter Three, we saw how, in a similar manner, Philo insisted that Moses was the one who had brought “heavenly food” down to the soul in need. Philo polemized against Plato, who had claimed in the Timaeus that the truth was incommunicable (28C), and, as a consequence, that each soul had to ascent in order to “feed on eternal verities” (Phaedr. 246E; 247E). Inevitably, the understanding of the Gospel’s narratives as historical events with symbolic meanings reminds Dodd of Philo. In Philo’s writings, the history of the patriarchs’ life and journeying was also subjected to allegorical exposition.
6.2.3.2 The typology-allegory divide According to Dodd, different discourses of the sign mingle in the Johannine shmei=on: Old Testament prophecy and the allegorical practice of Hellenistic Judaism. As a prophetic sign, the Johannine signs are more than a signifying incident; due to “God’s unchanging purpose” the signs also participate in the course of events that ultimately lead to the foreshadowed and signified event. … the act performed by the prophet is a significant act, which corresponds with something divinely ordained to happen in the real world. Prophets appear to have thought of such symbolic acts as more than mere illustrations. They were inspired by God, and in his unchanging purpose formed the necessary prelude to that which He had determined to perform. (Dodd 1953, 141)
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It is this “prelude” that the scholarly tradition has designated typology. Whereas the prophetic sign moves on a horizontal and temporal axis and remains within the sphere of history, in “Philo, the shmei=on, or su/mbolon, points to a hidden meaning, on the abstract, intellectual level” (Dodd 1953, 142) and moves on a vertical and spatial axis between the mundane sphere of representation and the heavenly locus of eternal ideas. Consequently, the two manners of signification are often opposed to one another by scholars. Dodd, nevertheless, finds that in Johannine symbolism the two principles interact: The Johannine shmei=on is nearer to the prophetic; only it refers, in the first instance, to timeless realities signified by the act in time. Yet not wholly so. As we shall see, while in the first intention the feeding of the multitude signifies the timeless truth that Christ, the eternal Logos, gives life to men, and the healing of the blind that He is the Bearer of light, yet in the development of the argument we discover that Christ’s work of giving life and light is accomplished in reality and in actuality, by the historical act of His death and resurrection. In that sense, every shmei=on in the narrative points forward to the great climax. (141)
The vertical and eternal aspects of the Johannine sign concern the “timeless truth” of the divine lo&goj which comes into being in “the historical act of Christ’s death and resurrection”, the “great climax” to which every sign in a prophetic and horizontal manner points. Yet Dodd concludes that the Johannine shmei=on is rooted primarily in the Old Testament discourse on prophecy and only secondarily in Philo’s Platonic cosmology and epistemology. The designation allegory should therefore be used only with reservation; Dodd speaks of the so-called allegories (134, emphasis added) and places “allegory” in quotation marks (135).
6.2.3.3 Deconstructing the typology-allegory divide Dodd’s highly Platonically flavoured understanding of Philo’s allegorical practice is open to some objections, which may in the end question Dodd’s quotation marks and his reservations concerning the relation of the Johannine shmei=on to Philo’s allegory.371 It is a misunderstanding 371 For a deconstruction of the typology-allegorical dichotomy see the works of my Copenhagen colleagues, Henrik Tronier, “The Corinthian Correspondence between Philosophical Idealism and Apocalypticism” (2001), Finn Damgaard, “Hinsides typologisk og allegorisk fortolkning. En rekonstruktion af antikkens fortolkningsparadigme” (2003, translation: ”Beyond the Typology-Allegory Divide: A Reconstruction of Antiquity’s Paradigm of Interpretation”), Stefan N. Svendsen, “Philonic Allegory in Hebrews” (2006).
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that the symbolic readings performed by Philo only concern eternally “timeless truths” in the sense of static ideas. According to Philo himself, the biblical text may either be expounded physically (fusikw~j) and in that case it refers to the structure of the cosmos, or it may be understood ethically (h0qikw~j), in which case it refers to the structures of the human soul and its endeavours to come to terms with truth. 372 Philo’s allegorical expositions of the patriarchs’ journeys are descriptions of the soul’s journeying towards truth.373 Consequently, Philo’s allegorical practice is influenced not only by Platonic epistemology, but also – and maybe even more – by Stoic ethics. The end point of the allegorical exposition, whether it be done physically or ethically, is the grasp of the goodness and generosity that characterize God in His interactions with the world. Of course God is unchangeable and His grace eternal, but His goodness is embodied in the worldly powers by the aid of which He, physically, upholds the creation and, ethically, leads human beings towards truth and virtuous living. In light of this dynamic perspective, the similarity between Philo and the Fourth Gospel no longer concerns the formal structure of the symbolism alone, but also the subject matter itself. As a matter of fact, my comparison of Philo and the Gospel of John meets the criteria that the American school of comparative religion demands of a methodologically valid comparison: in order to avoid the structural fallacy, the comparison of two phenomena must involve the particulars, too.374 This is the case here: first, both Philo and John are involved in the process of coming to terms with the truth; a truth, that in the end turns out to be the same, namely God’s xa&rij (Philo, Leg. 3.78; John 1:16f). The Fourth Gospel even seems aware of the parallel (cf. 1:16f). Second, within the shared framework of truth, the fourth Evangelist and Philo link ideas of regeneration and new era in the same way. In Philo’s writings, the impact of the transforming knowledge is expounded in ideas of a new and second generation of the individual mind and in the renewed world cycle that is inaugurated by the accessibility of truth to human beings. Both aspects go into the Philonic con372 See for instance Leg. 1.39 373 See Henrik Tronier, “Åbenbaring, himmelrejse og opstandelse hos Paulus: En skitse til et afmytologiseringsprogram” (2000, translation: Revelation, Heavenly Journeys, and Resurrection in Paul’s Letters). 374 A representative of this tradition is Jonathan Z. Smith. See his discussion of the methodology of comparison in Drudgery Divine. On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (1990). The discussion of the structural fallacy was touched on in Chapter Four in relation to Meeks’ analysis of Bultmann’s comparison of the descent/ascent pattern in the Fourth Gospel with the redeemer myth of Mandaean writings.
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cept of paliggenesi/a. The renewed post-deluge era is inaugurated by the insight of the righteous Noah, who “found grace in the sight of the Lord” (Gen 6:8), that is, when Noah made the surprising “find” that the beginning of creation (a)rxh/ gene/sewj) was the goodness and grace of God (a)gaqo&thj kai\ xa&rij tou= qeou=) (Leg. 3.78). The new era, which in Philo’s writings is a re-interpretation of the Stoic conflagration, is a cognitive construct that is established in minds transformed by the truth, that is the divine lo&goj. In this era, the ruling king is the right principle (Leg. 3.80: o( o)rqo_j lo&goj) symbolized by the figure of Melchizedek, who feeds the soul that is hungry for wisdom on bread and wine and offers it wine instead of water (Leg. 3.82). Consequently, this mind walks on the kingly road (Gig. 64: h9 o(do&j h9 tou= mo&nou basile/wj). In the discourse with Nicodemus, the same symbols of (re-) generation and new era are brought into play. During Pilate’s inquiry, Jesus explains that his Kingdom is not of this world (18:36). What this enigmatic statement refers to is not explained to Pilate, but in the dialogue with Nicodemus it is demonstrated how the coming of the Kingdom depends on the pneumatic events related to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension and the cognitive transformation that these events occasion, namely the revelation of the hitherto unknown God to believers (1:18). In the Fourth Gospel, the apocalyptic idea of God’s Kingdom and its intrusion into the world in the figure of Jesus Christ, to which the Markan parables refer, is in John’s Gospel replaced or reinterpreted physically and cognitively in terms of the new generation. In the Gospel of Mark, the healings are the result of the intrusion of the heavenly powers, present in the figure of Jesus, into the earthly and demonic sphere. In the Fourth Gospel, the healings are signs that anticipate and illustrate the transforming power of the truth revealed in Jesus. Jesus’ Kingdom is not a kingdom according to the standards of this world (18:36), it is a renewal of this world brought about by the renewal of its inhabitants. In the sign which programmatically inaugurates Jesus’ ministry in Fourth Gospel, the renewal of the world is described as Jesus’ provision of wine in place of water. When read in light of Philo’s discourse on Melchizedek (see above), the sign performed in Cana installs Jesus as the lo&goj-king who will rule in accordance with the xa&rij (1:16-17) and love of God for the world (3:16).375 In the end, the way to truth recommended by the Fourth Gospel differs significantly from that of Philo. Although in Philo’s writings, the individual person is well-guided by Moses and his law, each soul must 375 For the interpretation of the Cana story in light of Philo’s interpretation of Melchizedek (Leg. 3.82), see Barrett (1955).
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still toil and struggle in order to reach the ultimate truth. In the Fourth Gospel, the anagogic journey is once and for all made by Jesus, who ascended to the Father and in this way provided the truth (14:6) as well as the regenerative Holy Spirit (3:3, 5 cf. 20:22). The work is done (5:17), the seed is sown (4:38f), only harvesting is left for the believers. In spite of the final difference, I find it justifiable to remove the quotation marks, which represent Dodd’s reservation, and to characterize the signs in the Fourth Gospel as allegories in the technical sense that we find in Philo.
6.2.4 Summary The blurring of the borderlines between signs and words, in the case of Bultmann, and between symbolism and narration/history, in the case of Dodd, pushed us towards the conclusion that the Johannine shmei=a could not be restricted to seven or any other distinct number of welldefined signs. Instead, Jesus’ whole ministry consists in signifying behaviour (12:33; 18:32: shmai/nein), which takes place in deeds as well as in words, and in well-defined powerful acts as well as in non-miraculous behaviour. In turn, the discussion with the Anglo-American tradition, represented by Dodd, led us to the conclusion that it is justified to see the Fourth Gospel as an allegorical composition.376 The discussion with – and the deconstruction of – the various positions in the German discussion of the Johannine shmei=on demonstrated that the signs are best understood as representations of the interlaced events of Jesus’ ascension to the Father: his transformation into pneu=ma (20:17: a)na&basij) and the (re-) generation a!nwqen of the disciples (which then becomes a kata&basij) through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22). This understanding was confirmed by the multidimensionality with which Dodd characterized Johannine symbolism. 376 In a research seminar arranged by the project Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity in September 2006 at The Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, the thesis of seeing the Gospels of Mark and John as allegorical compositions occasioned an intensive debate. The issue at stake was the step from seeing allegory as a reading strategy to seeing it as a rhetorical principle. The critics found that the step was taken without the necessary reflections on contemporary genres that might justify the move. Two answers may meet this objection. First, one could, as Dodd in fact does, see the signifying practice of the Fourth Gospel in continuation with the wellestablished genre of Old Testament prophecy, but now being bent and blended with Philonic allegory. Another solution is to see the Fourth Gospel not as a new composition, but as a re-reading of a more or less fixed Jesus-tradition, which through the allegorical composition is bent, renewed and enriched.
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To summarize: the signs refer to what I have called the meta-story of pneumatic transformations. This understanding accords with the way that the Gospel in John 12 concludes Jesus’ public ministry. In his final public discourse, Jesus announces that the time has now come when the ruler of this world will be cast out. When Jesus has been lifted up from the earth, he will draw everyone to himself (12:32: ka)gw_ e0a_n u9ywqw~ e0k th=j gh=j, pa&ntaj e9lku/sw pro_j e0mauto&n). Again, the authorial comment guides the reader towards a second-level understanding (12:33): “In saying this, Jesus gave a sign concerning the kind of death that he was going to die (tou=to de\ e1legen shmai/nwn poi/w| qana&tw| h!mellen a)poqnh|&skein)”.377 The comment explains to the reader what Jesus’ signifying behaviour is about, namely his very special kind of death. The statement is traditionally understood as a reference to the cross, and exclusively the death on the cross. However, the latter part of the sentence, namely that through this (very special kind of) death he will draw everyone to himself, demonstrates that something more than mere dying is at stake in his “kind of death”. In order to get a chance to elaborate on this issue, the author lets the Jews react to Jesus’ saying with puzzlement (12:34):378 the law has taught them that, when the anointed comes, he will stay with them forever so how can Jesus speak about the necessity of the Son of Man’s being-lifted-up? In other words, how can he simultaneously stay forever and leave? The solution to this enigma is hidden in the very special “kind of death” that Jesus is heading for, which includes the whole Johannine cluster of events related to the Son of Man’s uplifting culminating in the interlaced events of his ascension to the Father, his transformation into pneu=ma (Jesus’ ascent: his leaving) and the regeneration of believers (Jesus’ descent: his return and coming).
6.3 The Nicodemus discourse. The structure of the text Most exegetes divide the discourse with Nicodemus into two sections on the basis of its external form. First, we have the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus on regeneration (3:1-9) and then Jesus’ monological answer to Nicodemus’ final question of how all this will be possible (3:9: pw~j du/natai tau=ta gene/sqai;). Generally, the dividing line is placed between v. 8 and v. 9. However, many see vv. 9-12 as a bridging 377 The basic meaning according to LSJ of the verb shmai/nein is that of showing by a sign, giving a sign, making signals and hence to indicate. 378 John 12:34: h9mei=j h0kou/samen e0k tou= no&mou o#ti o( xristo_j me/nei ei0j to_n ai0w~na, kai\ pw~j le/geij su\ o#ti dei= u(ywqh=nai to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou;
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passage between the two sections.379 The semantically flexible character of vv. 11-12 is highlighted by the difficulties involved in discerning, first, the referents of the sudden plural involving both the speaker and the addressee of the speech, and second, what is meant by heavenly things (ta_ e0poura&nia) and earthly things (ta_ e0pi/geia), respectively. A French tradition also exists which identifies three sections in the discourse on the basis of the development of the subject matter. The argument evolves in a Trinitarian manner: vv. 3-8 are concerned with the role of the spirit; vv. 11-15 concern the Son of Man, and vv. 16-21 concern God, the Father.380 The topic of the whole conversation, and therefore also the flow of the argument, also remains an issue of ongoing debate. The problem is that the dialogue is not inaugurated by any direct question that may have motivated Nicodemus’ coming to Jesus (Barrett 1955, 202).381 Additionally, Nicodemus’ sincerity is often questioned due to the fact that his visit occurs at night: is he intentionally portrayed as belonging to the sphere of darkness and selfishness?382 As already argued, the context, in which Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus is situated, clarifies the topic; Nicodemus is puzzled by the 379 R. Schnackenburg includes v. 12 in “[d]as Nicodemus Gesprach” (Schnackenburg 1979a, 377). U. Schnelle, too, claims that “[d]ie Begegnung mit einem Lehrer Israels“ should be extended as far as v. 12 (1998a, 67). F. Moloney speaks of vv. 11-12 as a bridging passage closing vv.1-12 and opening vv. 11-21 (1998, 90). 380 This tradition is represented by F. Roustang (1956, 341) and I. de la Potterie (1962), and noticed by R. Brown (1966, 136). 381 The night-time setting of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus is interpreted in the most diverse ways. K. Wengst sees it as indicative of Nicodemus’ thoroughly weak character: “Er geht nicht am Tage zu ihm, weil es nicht bekannt werden soll, dass er hier Kontakte knüpft, die ihn in der öffentlichen Meinung diskreditieren könnten” (2000, 119). Bultmann, however, rejects the idea that the nightly encounter should be motivated by cowardly fear: “Vielmehr soll wohl sein Eifer dadurch charakterisiert werden, wie denn nächtliches Studium bei den Rabbinen empfohlen wird” (1941, 94). Moloney, too, interprets the figure of Nicodemus favourably: “The movement of Nicodemus … coming from the darkness of the night into the light, is a significant movement towards believing, receiving the one sent to make God known … There is no conflict or rejection from this leader of ‘the Jews’, only an approach to Jesus that cannot reach beyond the limitations of the ‘definitions’ he ‘knows too exactly’. The exchange that follows develops from Nicodemus’ limited – but positive – understanding of Jesus” (1998, 91). 382 In German exegesis, a strong tradition exists of being favourably disposed towards the figure of Nicodemus. Probably this tradition is rooted in Luther’s exegesis of the text: Nicodemus represents the highest eagerness for truth that humanity is able to present. This eagerness is, however, a priori restricted by human categories. In a way that is hardly distinguishable from central ideas in Protestant theology, Nicodemus is incapable of imagining God’s initiative in Christ, and more seriously his own need for this initiative. See e.g. Hofius, “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt” (1996). See also Bultmann (1941, 93ff; 1971, 133ff). For a newer Anglo-American approach that argues along the same lines, see C. Koester (1995, 47).
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powerful signs that Jesus performs. Apart from this open-minded mystification and the awareness of the fact that these signs must hold a divine message (3:2),383 noting urgent seems to be at stake.384 When this puzzlement is taken to define the rhetorical situation, the argument evolves in three steps that successively trace the meaning of the signs back to the ultimate referent and first agent: 3:1-2:
The rhetorical setting: The puzzling signs
3:3-7:
The presupposition of coming to terms with the signs: You must (3:7: dei=) be (re-) generated a!nwqen … which will take place through water and spirit (3:5)
3:8-15:
The presupposition of being regenerated from above: The Son of Man must (3:14f : dei=) be lifted up
3:16-21:
The presupposition of the uplifting of the Son of Man: Because (3:16: ga&r) God so loved the world
This understanding of the argument and its structure differs, as already noted, from that of most exegetes. Especially my identification of a distinct central section in vv. 8-15, which includes v. 8 and the murky area of semantically flexible, bridging verses, is controversial. The division is first and foremost motivated by the flow of the argument, but it is supported by the formal structure of the text, too. First, each of the first two sections (3:3-7 & 3:8-15) is concluded by a statement of a necessary premise (3:7; 3:14f: dei=) the provision of which is discussed in the following section. Second, the two first sections are introduced by Jesus’ semantically ambiguous statement: 3:3-7 by a statement about the gennhqh=nai a!nwqen needed in order to enter the Kingdom of God, 3:8-15 by a description of to_ pneu=ma … kai\ … th\n fwnh\n au0tou= that characterizes him who has been generated from above. In both cases, the statement has a double meaning that bewilders Nicodemus and he asks, “pw~j du/natai …” (3:4 and again in 3:9) which, in turn, occasions an extended, although still enigmatic, explanation by Jesus. The double entendre of the whole sentence of 3:8 is, however, seldom noticed. Instead, it is read as a comparison that hinges on the word pne=uma and its two meanings, wind and spirit. The commentaries argue that the spiritual rebirth is here likened to the unpredictable behaviour of the wind and
383 Nicodemus’ statement echoes Deut 3:24. See note 352. 384 Retrospectively, we will learn that an urgent issue was at stake in the Nicodemus discourse. The concluding remark of the Gospel (20:30f) tells us that eternal life depends on the ability to decode the signs performed by Jesus and written down in “this book” by one of his retrospectively enlightened disciples.
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therefore claimed to be beyond human reach.385 According to these readings, “[t]he voice of the pneu=ma that you hear (3:8: th\n fwnh\n au0tou= [→ to_ pneu=ma] a)kou/eij)” is reserved exclusively for the howling wind; in relation to the spirit, the statement carries no meaning.386 If, however, as argued by W. Meeks in The Prophet-King (1967, 298), the voice is also related to the spirit, the sentence achieves a new meaning and the subject matter of the statement is changed.387 Instead of speaking abstractly about predestination and spiritual rebirth, the sentence now focuses on the perceptible effects that the (re-) generation a!nwqen has on the individual person. The regenerated person becomes the instrument that, so to speak, voices God’s lo&goj in the world – and this is, first and foremost, valid in the case of Jesus. In the exegesis of the section 3:8-15, we shall see how Meeks’ twist of the text throws light on some of the cruces that vv. 11-12 have raised in the scholarly community. Finally, the repeated occurrence of the particle ga&r (3:16, 17, 19, 20) marks out the third section vv. 16-21 from the two preceding ones. The particle demonstrates the explanatory force of the final section. Verses 16-21 thus represent the conclusion to the argument and the answer to the issue raised by Nicodemus: These signs, what about them? In this section, the ultimate referent of the signs is identified. The structure of the argument proposed here brings it close to the French tradition mentioned above, but whereas they spoke of a (preTrinitarian) development of thoughts that moved from the spirit (3:5), via the Son of Man (3:14), to God (3:16), I shall argue that all three sections refer to the spirit and accentuate different aspects of its work. That generation a!nwqen is effected by the spirit is said expressis verbis in 385 In other words, it is a statement about the inability of human beings in the face of God to help themselves. This reading dominates Protestant as well as Catholic readings of John. See Barrett: “The Spirit, like the wind, is entirely beyond both the control and the comprehension of man: it breathes into this world from another” (1955, 211). U. Schnelle has: “Wiederum unterstreicht Johannes, dass die Zeugung aus dem Geist nicht in der Verfügungsgewalt des Menschen steht” (1998a, 71). See also Bultmann (1941, 101; 1971, 142); Moloney (1998, 93); Wengst (2000, 126). 386 See K. Wengst (2000, 126): “Die Bildseite über den Wind enthält drei Aussagen: 1. Er weht, wo er will. 2. Man hört seine ‘Stimme’. 3. Man kennt weder seine Herkunft noch sein Ziel. Dass alle drei in den Vergleich einbezogen werden sollen, ist im Blick auf die erste nicht gerade wahrscheinlich. … Schon hier scheint Johannes mit der Doppelbedeutung von pneûma zu spielen: Nicht nur der Wind weht, wo er will, sondern auch der Geist. Er, Gottes Geist, ist souverän. Sein Wirken kann von Menschen nicht festgelegt werden – auch nicht durch die Taufe”. R. Brown also accentuates the opaqueness, from a human perspective, of why some persons come to Jesus and others not (1966, 141). 387 See the presentation and discussion of Meeks’ outstanding exegesis of 3:8 in Chapter Four.
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3:5, and that God is pneu=ma is stated in 4:24, but what then about the Son of Man? “Who is this Son of Man?” the Jews ask in 12:34. Is he also somehow related to the spirit? Indeed, he is. In line with Wayne Meeks’ interpretation of 3:8 (1967, 298), I shall argue in Chapter Seven that the spirit is the agent involved in Jesus’ continuous a)na&basij towards Jerusalem, which culminates in his translation from a flesh-and-blood mode of being into a purely pneumatic mode that finally unites him with the pneumatic Father. Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus mirrors what I have called the meta-story of pneumatic transformations. Successively, the argument leads us backward through the chain of causes. The hermeneutical ability to interpret the signs depends on the regeneration of believers through (water and) spirit. Verses 3-7 concern the ultimate pneumatic event. The provision of the spirit, however, must await Jesus’ glorification (7:38f) which takes place in Jesus’ a)na&basij to the Father (3:13) as the culmination of the uplifting of the Son of Man (3:14f). Verses 8-15 are about Jesus’ translation into spirit – that is the penultimate pneumatic event. This event concludes the work of God, who abides in Jesus (14:10).388 It therefore presupposes that God (who is spirit) has somehow become present in Jesus; in other words, the first pneumatic event of the descent of the spirit on Jesus (1:32-34). Verses 16-21 identify both the starting-point which, from a physical point of view, put this chain of pneumatic events into motion, and the ultimate referent (epistemologically speaking) of the Johannine signs. The love of God (3:16) is simultaneously the beginning of the pneumatic events and the final goal of the epistemological decoding of the signs.
6.4 The presupposition for understanding the signs. Regeneration a!nwqen (3:3-7) In Chapter Four, the new generation was treated intensively. Only the conclusions of the discussion are summarized here: First, the discussion of generation a!nwqen in the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus is best understood in light of Philo’s idea of a second and divine generation from above effected by God’s spirit (deute/ra ge/nesij or paliggenei/a). Second, no ontological difference exists between (the flesh-andblood) Jesus as the Son of God and subsequent generations of believers 388 John 14:10: ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ le/gw u(mi=n a)p’ e0mautou= ou0 lalw~, o( de\ path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=.
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as God’s children. In accordance with their first flesh-and-blood generation, they have all earthly parents; according to their second and divine generation, God is their sole true parent. Consequently, Jesus is himself among the spirit-born persons. In his particular case, the regeneration happened when, as witnessed by John the Baptist, the spirit descended from above and came to abide on him (1:32). The regeneration of believers must await the time when the pneu=ma is physically available to believers – that is, when Jesus has been glorified (7:39). In other words, the generation must await the sequence of events related to the cross: Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension to the Father. Third, any regenerated person is made an instrument who articulates the truth revealed by the pneu=ma; he, as it were, voices God’s lo&goj in the world. His work is done through God (3:21), or God does his work through him (14:10).
6.4.1 Generation and Johannine irony Convinced that a divine message is communicated by Jesus through the signs he performs, Nicodemus pays Jesus a night-time visit (3:1-2), which occasions Jesus’ first extended discourse. In a manner that will prove typical of the Johannine Jesus, the quest for an explanation is not answered directly, but brings about yet another enigmatic statement by Jesus. In what seems to be a discussion at cross-purposes, Nicodemus asks about the signs and gets an answer concerning the precondition of entering the Kingdom of God: One must gennhqh=| a!nwqen. The idiom is semantically flexible: genna~n may simultaneously refer to the female birth and the male begetting; a!nwqen means both “from above” and “anew” or “again”. Jesus refers to the divine begetting, which is both from above and for the second time. Nicodemus, however, understands Jesus’ meaning differently and states the impossibility of returning to the womb in order to be born again (3:4: mh\ du/natai ei0j th\n koili/an th=j mhtro_j au0tou= deu/teron ei0selqei=n kai\ gennhqh=nai;). In spite of Nicodemus’ own puzzlement, the statement is on target. In fact, no womb is involved in the regeneration from above when believers become children of God (1:12f; 11:52). The Johannine irony, seen in Nicodemus’ humorous rejection of the possibility of re-entering the womb, only achieves its full sting in the course of the narrative when it becomes clear that it is the paternal bosom into which believers enter through the second and divine begetting. While still in flesh-and-blood, Jesus participates in God through the spirit, but through his translation into spirit he enters fully into the bosom of the ultimate male, God the
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Father (1:18: o( w@n ei0j to_n ko&lpon tou= patro&j). Translated into lifegiving spirit (6:63), Jesus is capable of entering believers. Jesus refers to this situation in his final address to the Father (17:22f): “I have forwarded the glory that You gave to me in order that they may be one just as we are one: I in them and You in me in order that they may be made perfectly into one (i3na w}sin teteleiwme/noi ei0j e3n)”. The statement is repeated and continued in (17:26): “I declared to them Your name, and I will declare it in order that the love with which You loved me may be in them, and I in them”. This situation is anticipated symbolically when, during the last common meal, the beloved disciple dwells in Jesus’ bosom (13:23: e0n tw~| ko&lpw| tou= 0Ihsou=). The situation is like a male babushka: believers rest in Jesus’ ko&lpoj (13:23), Jesus rests in God’s ko&lpoj (1:18).389 That it is the deute/ra ge/nesij which is referred to in these verses is confirmed by Jesus’ attempt to clarify his initial statement (3:3) further: the kind of generation of which he speaks takes place through “water and spirit” (3:5). Again the statement represents an example of a Johannine double entendre. “Water and spirit” alludes to the constituents of paternal semen, but the expression also picks up the Baptist’s testimony in which Jesus is pointed out as the one who provides a baptism (water) in the Holy Spirit (1:33). A link is established between the discourse on “(re-) generation a!nwqen” in John 3 and the discourse on “baptism in the Holy Spirit” in John the Baptist’s testimony.390 The idea of two qualitatively different generations seems also to be present in the following verse (3:6), in which Jesus states that “what is generated out of flesh is flesh, whereas that which is generated out of spirit is spirit”. This is a simple statement of matters of fact, with no disparaging judgement involved.391 The statement accords with what is said in the Prologue about the divinely begotten children (1:13). They are begotten “without the involvement of blood (pl: -s) (oi4 ou0k e0c ai9ma&twn)”, which – when read in light of the theory of epigenesis – refers to the 389 For a graphic illustration of the principle of the “male babushka”, see Schnackenburg’s drawings, which illustrate the principle of indwelling in relation to John 17:23. Schnackenburg speaks of “[die] Einbeziehung in die Gemeinschaft mit Gott” and “[die] Einsenkung göttlicher Einheit” (1979b, 219). 390 Whether or not the text refers to the early Christian rite of baptism as the act in which the new generation took place cannot be determined on the basis of the text itself, pace Moloney (1998, 92). R. Brown is more modest: “The baptismal motif that is woven into the text of the whole scene is secondary …” (1966, 143). 391 This understanding accords with R. Brown: “‘Flesh’ refers to man as he is born into this world; and in this state he has something both of the material and of the spiritual, as Gen ii 7 insists. The contrast between flesh and Spirit is that between mortal man … and a son of God, between man as he is and man as Jesus can make him by giving him a Holy Spirit” (1966, 141).
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parental, male and female semen out of which the foetus as soul-filled flesh comes into being. God’s children are also begotten “without the involvement of the will or desire of flesh and of man (ou0de\ e0k qelh/matoj sarko_j ou0de\ e0k qelh/matoj a)ndro&j)”. The statement probably alludes to the general understanding of conception in antiquity according to which a successful conception presupposed the pleasure (orgasm) of both parties.392 The “flesh” of John 1:13 probably refers to the female part who, according to the theory of epigenesis, provides the foetus with fleshly matter. The existence of earthly parents for Jesus (1:45; 6:42) does not cause any problems for the fourth Evangelist; it is the second generation that matters. The double (earthly and divine) fatherhood, however, troubles the Jews. This is due to the fact that, although the deute/ra ge/nesij is a physical event, it is also a mental phenomenon that leaves no unequivocally external signs. The first part of the argument is concluded by Jesus’ repeated claim about the necessity of being regenerated a!nwqen.
6.5 The presupposition for regeneration. “The Son of Man must be lifted up” (3:8-15) The next section (3:8-15) follows the structure of the preceding one. It is introduced by yet another enigmatic, equivocal statement by Jesus, in which he accentuates a new aspect of what it means to be begotten by the pneu=ma (3:8, cf. 3:3). Once more Jesus’ statement leaves Nicodemus puzzled, and Nicodemus inquires for the way that all these things may come about (3:9, cf. 3:4). After a rebuke in which Jesus censures Nicodemus for his lack of knowledge concerning these things – which is made more culpable by his being a teacher of Israel (3:10) – an extended exposition is given of “all these things” and how they will happen. Again, as in the preceding section, the explanation is introduced by the solemn “amen-amen” (3:11, cf. 3:3, 5).
392 This understanding accords with Philo’s description of sexual pleasure – and the desire for it – as a divinely ordained guide to procreation (Leg. 2.71). See the discussion of orgasm and conception in antiquity in Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (1990, 43, 45-46).
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6.5.1 Spiritual regeneration and the prophetic voice (3:8) 6.5.1.1 The comparison between wind and regeneration The next part of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus is introduced by Jesus’ comparison (ou3twj) of the behaviour of the wind (pneu=ma) with the behaviour of him who is begotten by the spirit (e0k tou= pneu/matoj) in John 3:8: to_ pneu=ma o#pou qe/lei pnei= kai\ th\n fwnh\n au0tou= a)kou/eij, a)ll’ ou0k oi]daj po&qen e1rxetai kai\ pou= u9pa&gei: ou3twj e0sti\n pa~j o( gegennhme/noj e0k tou= pneu/matoj. i. Meteorology and cognition in the writings of antiquity The parallel between, on the one hand, the macro-cosmological meteorological phenomenon of wind and, on the other hand, the divine spirit’s effect upon the micro-cosmos of the soul is a well-known topos from Wisdom literature, to which commentators frequently draw attention.393 Philo, too, juxtaposes the two phenomena in De gigantibus, but this is seldom noticed. Contrary to the wisdom tradition, Philo does not just compare the divine spirit with the everyday experience of the wind. Instead, he speaks of the two aspects that characterize the work of the divine spirit. It is the same spirit that upholds the cosmos as a living organism by the aid of meteorological phenomena and that imparts knowledge to man and draws him near to God:394 Now the name of the “spirit of God” is used in one sense for [le/getai de\ qeou= pneu=ma kaq’ e3na me\n tro&pon] the air which flows up from the land, the third element [tri/ton stoixei=on] which rides upon the water, and thus we find in the Creation-story [kosmopoii/a] “the spirit of God was moving above the water” (Gen. i.2), since the air through its lightness is lifted and rises upwards [a!nw], having the water for its base. In another sense it is the pure knowledge in which every wise man naturally shares [kaq’ e3teron de\ pro&pon h9 a)kh/ratoj e0pisth/mh, h[j pa~j o( sofo_j ei0ko&twj mete/xei]. The prophet shows this in speaking of the craftsman and artificer of the sacred works. God called up [a)neka&lesen] Bezaleel, he says, and “filled him with 393 See Schnelle: “vgl. Spr. 30,4; Pred. 11,5; Sir. 16,21” (1998a, 71). See also R. Brown, who draws attention to Eccles 11:5: “As you do not know the way of the wind or how bones grow in the womb, so you do not know the work of God who does all things” (1966, 141). 394 The distinction corresponds to Philo’s two ways of interpreting the biblical text: fusikw~j and h9qikw~j. See for instance Leg. 1.39 and Plant. 120: lo&gon ga_r kai\ fusikw&taton kai\ h0qikw&taton e1xei. See also Dreams 1.144-46 in which we find a cosmological as well as an ethical exposition of Jacob’s ladder.
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the divine spirit, with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge to devise in every work [e0ne/plhsen au0to_n pneu/matoj qei/ou, sofi/aj, sune/sewj, e0pisth/mhj]” (Exod. xxxi.2 f.). In these words we have suggested to us a definition of what the spirit of God is [w#ste to_ ti/ e0sti pneu=ma qei=on o(rikw~j dia_ tw~n lexqe/ntwn u9pogra&fesqai]. (Gig. 22-23)
In both cases, the upward movement of the spirit’s work is emphasized.395 Cosmologically, the divine spirit is at work in the upward movement in which earth (as the base of water) is rarefied into water, and water (as the base of air) is evaporated into air, and air is finally rarefied into constructive fire, ether or the divine spirit itself. Philo here refers to the Stoic phenomenon described in Chapter Two as the a)nastoixei/wsij. Psychologically or ethically speaking, the upward movement refers to the divine spirit as the vehicle for knowledge. The divine spirit is able to lift up the soul and draw it near to God. Ethically speaking, this movement of the soul consists in a reorientation of the desires away from earthly things towards a desire for heavenly things. Physically speaking, the upward movement of the mind constitutes the final step on the cosmological ladder of a)nastoixei/wsij.396 The parallel between Philo’s writings and Jesus’ statement in John 3:8 becomes clear when one takes into consideration that Philo’s idea of “calling up” is also conceived in terms of a deute/ra ge/nesij, as I have already pointed out with reference to QE 2.46. In both cases, regenera395 See the parallel text in Dreams 1.144-47 in which the ladder from Jacob’s dream is explained in terms of the uphill transformation of the elements from earth to ether and in terms of the word of God that descends into the soul of man in order to move his desires upward, that is away from the orientation towards lower and mortal things: “It is a fine thought that the dreamer sees the air symbolized by a stairway as firmly set on the earth; for the exhalations given forth out of the earth are rarefied and so turned into air, so that earth is air’s foot and root and heaven its head. Do they not tell us that the moon is not an unmixed mass of ether, as each of the other heavenly bodies is … Such then is that which in the universe is figuratively called stairway. If we consider that which is so called in human beings we shall find it to be soul. Its foot is sense-perception, which is as it were the earthly element in it, and its head, the mind which is wholly unalloyed [o( kaqarw&tatoj nou=j], the heavenly element, as it may be called. Up and down throughout its whole extent are moving incessantly the “words” of God … condescending out of love for man and compassion for our race, to be helpers and comrades, that with the healing of their breath they may quicken into new life the soul [yuxh\n swth/rion pne/ontej a)nazww~si] which is still borne along in the body as in a river”. See also Aet. 94 & 110, where the uphill and downhill transformations of the elements in the creation is explicitly linked to the Stoic theory of the interchangeability of the elements (a)nastoixei/wsij). Although Philo rejects the Stoics’ conflagration, he upholds their understanding of the dynamic forces at work in the creation. 396 I shall return to this in Chapter Seven in my discussion of the phenomenon of a)nastoixei/wsij in Philo’s writings.
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tion and windy phenomena are juxtaposed. Philo may also prove illuminating for another aspect of Jesus’ statement in John 3:8, namely the prophetic voice of him who is generated a!nwqen. ii. The wind and the voice in John In his commentary on the Fourth Gospel, Klaus Wengst understands the comparison between wind and voice as a metaphor in which the vehicle of the wind contains three statements: “1. Er weht, wo er will. 2. Man hört seine ’Stimme’. 3. Man kennt weder seine Herkunft noch sein Ziel” (2000, 126). Most exegetes see the spirit as the tenor of the metaphorical comparison. This leads to an accentuation of the first aspect of the vehicle: “Er weht, wo er will” and, in turn, to the conclusion that the ways of Christ and his spirit are inscrutable and that the rebirth is a divine mystery beyond human reach and understanding. However, from a strictly syntactical point of view, the tenor cannot be the spirit: the ou3twj of the statement modifies “anyone regenerated by the spirit (3:8: ou3twj e0sti_n pa~j o( gegennhme/noj e0k tou= pneu/matoj)”. Consequently, the tenor must be the regenerated person. When the tenor is shifted from the spirit in itself to the regenerated person and his behaviour, the other aspects (2 & 3) of the windy vehicle come into view as well. The second aspect: “Man hört seine Stimme” now tells us that the voice (h9 fwnh/) and speech of the person who has been generated a!nwqen by the spirit are affected: the pneu=ma articulates itself in the person’s voice or uses his organ of speech as an instrument. The third aspect: “Man kennt weder seine Herkunft noch sein Ziel” draws attention to the fact that the speech affected by the divine spirit does not give away its true origin. No univocal and visible sign or token exists that betrays from where this voice speaks: no one knows from where this speech comes or to whom it is addressed (3:8: a)ll’ ou0k oi]daj po&qen e1rxetai kai\ pou= u9pa&gei).
6.5.1.2 The prophetic voice in Philo and John In The Prophet-King, Wayne Meeks argued that the Johannine Christ was cast deliberately in the role of a prophet (128). He drew attention to a text on prophecy in Philo’s treatise Quis rerum divinarum heres, which he found very illuminating for our understanding of the Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Now with every good man it is the holy Word which assures him his gift of prophecy [panti\ de\ a)stei/w| profhtei/an o( i9ero_j lo&goj marturei=]. [My
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translation: The holy word testifies in the prophecy of every good man]. For a prophet (being a spokesman) has no utterance of his own [profh/thj ga_r i1dion me\n ou0de\n a)pofqe/ggetai], but all his utterance came from elsewhere, the echoes of another’s voice [a)llo&tria de\ pa&nta u9phxou=ntoj e9te/rou]. The wicked may never be the interpreter of God [fau/lw| d’ ou0 qe/mij e9rmhnei= gene/sqai qeou=], so that no worthless person is “God-inspired” [e0nqousia~|] in the proper sense. The name only befits the wise, since he alone is the vocal instrument of God, smitten and played by His invisible hand [mo&nw| de\ sofw|~ tau=t’ e0farmo&ttei, e0pei kai\ mo&noj o!rganon qeou= e0stin h0xei=on, krouo&menon kai\ plhtto&menon a)ora&twj u9p’ au0tou=]. Thus, all whom Moses describes as just are pictured as possessed and prophesying. (Her. 259) This is what regularly befalls the fellowship of the prophets. The mind is evicted at the arrival of the divine Spirit, but when that departs the mind returns to its tenancy [e0coiki/zetai me\n ga_r e0n h9mi=n o( nou=j kata_ th\n tou= qei/ou pneu/matoj a!ficin, kata_ de\ th\n metana&stasin au0tou= pa&lin ei0soiki/zetai]. Mortal and immortal may not share the same home. … For indeed the prophet, even when he seems to be speaking, really holds his peace, and his organs of speech, mouth and tongue, are wholly in the employ of Another, to shew forth what He wills [o!ntwj ga_r o( profh/thj, kai\ o(po&te le/gein dokei=, pro_j a)lh/qeian h9suxa&zei, kataxrh=tai de\ e3teroj au0tou= toi=j fwnhthri/oij o)rga&noij, sto&mati kai\ glw&tth|, pro_j mh/nusin w{n a@n qe/lh|]. Unseen by us that Other beats on the chords with the skill of a master-hand and makes them instruments of sweet music, laden with every harmony [te/xnh| de\ a)ora&tw| kai\ pammou/sw| tau=ta krou/wn eu!hxa kai\ panarmo&nia kai\ ge/monta sumfwni/aj th=j pa&shj a)potelei=]. (Her. 265-66)
In these fragments from Quis rerum divinarum heres, Philo alludes to the Stoic paradox that only the wise man possesses the gift of divination. In Stoicism, divinisation rests on the wise man’s extended self and awareness; in Philo, however, prophecy is seen as the gift of God’s extended, indwelling spirit. The common idea that oracular speech presupposes the “sleep of reason” is reinterpreted by Philo in light of his reversal of the Stoic idea of oi0kei/wsij.397 The mutual exclusiveness of the divine
397 In his 1989 article ”Two Types of Mosaic Prophecy According to Philo”, David Winston describes a tendency in Middle Platonism to leave behind the ecstatic prophecy of divine possession in favour of a hermeneutical or noetic prophecy. Whereas the former was mediated through possession and presupposed the displacement, inactivity or sleep of the prophetic mind, the latter consisted in the prophet’s rational – “noetic” – response to the divine voice” (Winston, 50). According to Winston, it is the latter kind of prophecy that Philo ascribes to Moses as the divine lawgiver: “Philo does indeed say that the divinely possessed Moses was no longer in himself … and this expression is sometimes used of one whose mind is displaced (Plato Ion 534B; QG 3.9 cf. Her. 264), but it is also used of the state of philosophical frenzy, and may simply indicate that the mind is completely absorbed in the Deity (e.g. Her. 70)” (54). In Winston’s reading, Philo’s noetic prophecy becomes a metaphor for the intuitive vision of the truth that surpasses even philosophical reasoning:
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spirit and the human mind refers to the incompatibility of, on the one hand, the philosophical and manly stance that ascribes intellectual achievements to man’s own reasoning powers, and on the other hand, the devout stance of Philo’s biblical heroes who ascribe everything, including their own reasoning power to God as the ultimate source of all that is. When seen in this perspective, prophecy becomes the wise man’s mode of living: he is God’s voice and instrument in the world; he “In the light of the general trust of Philo’s philosophic thought, it is very likely that he understands ‘noetic’ prophecy to refer to the activation of man’s higher mind or his intuitive intellect, by means of which he grasps the fundamental principles of universal being viewed as a unified while [whole? my comment]” (56). A key text in Winston’s analysis of the noetic prophecy is De decalogo 35, in which Philo interprets the lawgiving on the Sinai: “But the new miraculous voice was set in action and kept in flame by the power of God which breathed upon it and spread it abroad on every side and made it more illuminating in its ending than in its beginning by creating in the souls of each and all another kind of hearing far superior to the hearing of the ears. For that is but a sluggish sense, inactive until aroused by the impact of the air, but the hearing of the mind possessed by God makes the first advance and goes out to meet the spoken words with the keenest rapidity” (Dec. 35). The point here is that the vision in the prophetic mind becomes a hearing. Rather than being preempted or rendered inactive, the inspired soul becomes “extraordinarily quickened and sharpened” (Winston, 54) and is capable of grasping the universal truth. Thus, true thoughts are nothing else than God’s words or speech (57); consequently noetic prophecy may be described as a communication with the divine. Winston draws attention to a characteristic trait of Philo’s mystical vision, namely: “its inherently bipolar perspective, which consistently allows two alternative modes of describing human intellectual activity. From the divine perspective, the higher workings of the human mind, when it has assimilated itself to the Logos, may aptly be ascribed to the divine power which is their true source and it may be said that God is promoting them from within, though from the human perspective they may reasonably be assigned to the human individual human mind that appears to be producing them” (57). Philo’s noetic prophecy (in Winston’s interpretation) to a large extent accords the Stoic idea of the wise man as the only true prophet. According to Philo, the prophetic mind is not displaced or inactive, but wholly absorbed in the deity. The Stoics would say that the sage’s mind is extended to encompass the All. Yet, a difference exists. I find that Philo is himself aware of the bipolar perspective related to the mystical or intuitive vision of the truth; the tension between the two perspectives is played out in Philo’s reversal of the Stoic theory of oi0keiw&sij. In Chapter Three, I analyzed Philo’s rhetorical strategy and identified the hindrances that impair man from developing his reasoning potential to a safe and strong concept of truth. However, Winston understands this tension differently. In Winston’s view, Philo’s “conservatism” leads him “to preserve much of the scriptural idiom of divine interventionism in preference to the integrationist approach of the philosopher, though this ought not deflect the astute reader from a correct assessment of his true intentions” (Winston, 59). Winston appears to reduce the religious element in Philo’s text to a formal “conservatism” that is left for the reader to demythologize.
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is the interpreter of God’s position in the world (Her. 259: qe/mij e9rmhne[u/j] gene/sqai qeou=).398 Two aspects of Philo’s discussion of prophecy are relevant to our understanding of John 3:8. The first concerns the invisibility and secrecy (“unseen by us”) that Philo ascribes to the phenomenon of prophecy. The wise man’s voice is an instrument played by God’s invisible hand (Her. 259); his organs of speech are wholly in the employ of another (Her. 265). This description matches the character ascribed to the voice of him who is begotten by the spirit in John 3:8, namely that “no one knows from where it comes and where it goes”. The statement becomes a kind of predicate that characterizes Jesus as the organ of God’s lo&goj and the instrument played by His spirit. The Jewish conception of the Messiah as it is represented by the Fourth Gospel – namely that when the Anointed (Messiah) comes, no one will know from where (7:27: o( de\ xristo_j o#tan e1rxhtai ou0dei\j ginw&skei po&qen e0sti/n.) – is reinterpreted in prophetic terms. The Jews, however, doubt Jesus’ sayings and dismiss them as false and blasphemous on the basis of the simple fact that Jesus (also) comes from Nazareth and has Joseph as his (first) father (6:42; 7:27). In reaction to their scepticism, Jesus testifies to his own identity by applying the prophetic predicate to his own person (8:14): “Even if I bear witness (marturw~) to myself, my witness (h9 marturi/a) is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going (o#ti oi]da po&qen h]lqon kai\ pou= u9pa&gw. u9mei=j de\ ou0k oi1date po/qen e1rxomai h@ pou= u9pa&&gw:)”. Jesus’ self-referential statement accords with Philo’s claim that in the speech of the good man the holy word testifies to itself (Her. 259: profhtei/an o( i0ero_j lo&goj marturei=). When seen in this light, Jesus’ testimony becomes a meta-discourse that installs him as the organ of revelatory and prophetic speech.399 The second aspect concerns Philo’s conception of the divine inspiration in terms of generation. This is the case for instance in Migr. 34f. where the conception of true ideas is never brought forth by the mind itself, but follows from God’s “opening … of the soul-womb” and His sowing of the ability of interpretation and explanation (e9rmhnei/a) in its formal ability of thinking (e0nqu/mhma). In an epigenetic manner, God’s 398 Cf. John 1:18, in which Jesus is declared to be the Father’s interpreter: Qeo_n ou0dei\j e0w&raken pw&pote <:monogenh\j qeo_j> o( w$n ei0j to_n ko&lpon tou= patro_j e0kei=noj e0cegh/sato. 399 It was precisely this identification of the prophetic voice in 3:8 with the statements in vv. 7:27 & 8:14, that led Meeks to the conclusion that Jesus should be included among those who are begotten by the spirit (3:8) and that Jesus here speaks primarily of himself (Meeks 1967, 298).
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Word imposes order on the existing material and brings forth new insights (eu3resij): I feel no shame in recording my own experience, a thing I know from its having happened to me a thousand times. On some occasions, after making up my mind to follow the usual course of writing on philosophical tenets, and knowing definitely the substance of what I was to set down, I have found my understanding incapable of giving birth to a single idea, and have given it up without accomplishing anything, reviling my understanding for its self-conceit, and filled with amazement at the might of Him that Is to Whom is due the opening and closing of the soul-wombs [a!gonon kai\ stei=ran eu9rw_n th\n dia&noian a!praktoj a)phlla&ghn, th\n me\n kaki/saj th=j oi0h/sewj, to_ de\ tou= o!ntoj kra&toj kataplagei/j, par’ o$n ta_j th=j yuxh=j a)noi/gnusqai/ te kai\ sugklei/esqai mh/traj sumbe/bhken]. On other occasions, I have approached my work empty [keno&j] and suddenly become full, the ideas falling in a shower from above and being sown invisibly [e0pinifome/nwn kai\ speirome/nwn a!nwqen a)fanw~j tw~n e0nqumhma&twn],400 so that under the influence of the Divine possession I have been filled with corybantic frenzy and been unconscious of anything … [w(j u9po_ katoxh=j e0nqe/ou korubantia~n kai\ pa&nta a)gnoei=n …]. For I obtained language, ideas, an enjoyment of light, keenest vision … [e1sxon ga_r e9rmhnei/an, eu3resin, fwto_j a)po&lausin, o)cuderkesta&thn o!yin … (My translation: For I obtained the ability to interpret and expose, new insights …)]. (Migr. 34f)
According to Philo, “reasoning … is the father of voice” (Gig. 64). Thus, prophecy is the outward articulation of an inspired and regenerated thinking. Philo’s linking of inspiration, prophecy and generation constitutes a parallel to the understanding of John 3:8 forwarded here: the voice is a mark, although an ambiguous one, of the generation a!nwqen of water and spirit (3:3).401 400 In the Fourth Gospel, the imagery of sowing also plays an important role. As the prophet and interpreter of God, Jesus is not only generated from above, he is also the grain (12:24: o( ko&kkoj tou= si/tou) that must die in order to bring forth much fruit. In an enigmatic way, he is simultaneously the sower (4:36-38) and the seed (12:24). Through this image, the recirculation of the spirit brought about by and through Jesus is anticipated. 401 Although R. Brown sees no relation between voice and pneu=ma in his interpretation of v. 8, he accentuates the revelatory character of Jesus’ speech in his interpretation of 3:11. Revelatory speech is linked technically to the verb lalei=n: “This is the first time the verb lalein appears on Jesus’ lips in John. It is the Koinê Greek word ‘to speak’ … it was used in LXX for the transmission of the revealed word by the prophets. … in John it is the verb par excellence for Jesus’ revelation of the truth from God” (Brown 1966, 131f). According to LSJ, a distinction was made in classic Greek between the act of speaking itself and saying something: lalw~n me\n … le/gwn de\. As noted by Brown, the Fourth Gospel seems to use the term lalei=n in accordance with this technical distinction. When Brown’s insight is combined with that of Meeks, an intimate link is established between the presence of the spirit and revelatory speech. This becomes important for our reading of 3:8-15, especially the difficult verses 3:1113.
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To summarize: the excursion into Philo’s discussion of prophecy and divine inspiration has led to an important conclusion, namely that the Johannine Jesus should be included among those who are begotten from above by the spirit. As an instrument played by the divine spirit, Jesus’ organs of speech are at the disposal of the holy lo&goj, which articulates itself in his words. This understanding accords with Jesus’ own statement in the Farewell Discourses about the status of his speech (14:10): “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The things about which I have spoken to you I have not said out of myself, but the Father who abides in me, does His work (ta_ r(h/mata a$ e0gw_ le/gw u9mi=n a)p’ e0mautou= ou0 lalw~, o( de\ path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=)”. This insight has, in turn, two implications; first, it retrospectively throws light on the event reported by John the Baptist of the descent of the spirit on Jesus and its abiding with him. This should be understood in analogy with Philo as “the arrival of the divine spirit” (Her. 265) and the “opening of the soul-womb” in which “from a!nwqen the seed of reasoning” and truth is sown (Migr. 34). Second, the intimate link between generation a!nwqen and prophetic speech helps us to interpret the difficult verses of 3:9-15.402
6.5.2 Verses 3:9-15. Four cruces The difficulties of 3:9-15 are generally recognized. On the basis of the scholarly commentaries, no less than four cruces may be identified.
6.5.2.1 Crux 1. The plural of speaker and addressee (3:11) In verse 3:11, Jesus, although still addressing Nicodemus (3:11: “Truly I say to you (sg.)”), suddenly makes a shift from the singular to the plur402 Philo’s understanding of prophecy as the holy Word’s testifying to itself in the wise man’s speech (Her. 259) and of the prophetic speech as “harmonies” brought forth by an instrument smitten and played by the divine spirit throws new light on the difficult passage of John 3:31-34, too. The problem with which scholars struggle is the identification of the persons to whom the different speeches refer. Perhaps it is precisely this way of asking that causes the problem. In Philo’s discussion of prophecy, it is the holy Word or the divine spirit that is the testifying subject in prophetic speech. Does that also give sense with regard to John 3:31-34? If so, “he” who has his origin in heaven and who testifies concerning the things that “he” has seen and heard must be identified with the divine spirit. Actually, this understanding accords perfectly with 3:34, in which it is said that the spirit is given in full measure to him whom God has sent and who articulates God’s words – namely Jesus.
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al. Only two persons take part in this night-time encounter. Yet, Jesus unexpectedly speaks on behalf of a group addressing another group (3:11: we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you (pl.) do not accept our testimony): a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi o#ti o$ oi1damen lalou=men kai\ o$ e9wra&kamen marturou=men, kai\ th\n marturi/an h9mw~n ou0 lamba&nete. The question is now what groups the plural speaker and addressee, respectively, represent. The majority of commentaries find that the sudden plural of the speaker represents a shift to the post-Easter perspective in which, in the words of Klaus Wengst: “[D]as “Wir” der Gemeinde im Munde Jesu erscheinen” (2000, 129).403 Others claim that, in accordance with the similar saying in 12:50 and 14:10,404 Jesus includes the Father.405 Raymond Brown, however, denies that the plural should represent a group, because “any suggestion that Jesus is joining others in speaking founders on the emphasis on Jesus’ uniqueness in vs. 13”. He therefore concludes that Jesus speaks on behalf of himself, but ironically picks up Nicodemus’ “we know” (1966, 132). The plural of the addressee does not cause similar problems; in general it is understood as the group represented by Nicodemus, the Jews.406 6.5.2.2 Crux 2. 3:12. ei]pon: 1st person sg. or 3rd pl.? It may be a mistake to designate the person of the verb ei]pon in John 3:12 as a crux: 403 See also Schnelle: “Die nachösterliche Perspektive tritt in der Vordergrund” (1998a, 72). See also Schnackenburg who speaks of “ein ‘Pluralis ecclesiasticus’” (1979a, 389) and Barrett who speaks of the dialogue between “church” and “synagogue” (1955, 176). 404 John 12:49-50: “For I have not spoken on my own authority (o#ti e0gw_ e0c e0mautou= ou0k e0la&lhsa): but the Father who sent me instructed me about what I should say and to which I should lent my voice (ti/ ei1pw kai\ ti/ lalh/sw). And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, I speak just as the Father told me (a$ ou]n e0gw_ lalw~, kaqw_j ei1rhke/n moi o( path/r, ou3twj lalw~)”. John 14:10: “The things that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works (ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ le/gw u(mi=n a)p’ e0mautou= ou0 lalw~, o( de path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=)”. For a discussion of the intimate interplay in Jesus’ sayings between lalei=n and le/gein, see note 401. 405 For a survey of the different scholarly positions, see R. Brown (1966, 132 & 149). 406 Bultmann, however, finds that the plural of speaker and addressee lifts the dialogue from the level of the particular to the universal: In the plural, the testifying voice (marturi/a) confronts the world (ko&smoj) (Bultmann 1941, 103; 1971, 145).
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ei0 ta_ e0pi/geia ei]pon u9mi=n kai\ ou0 pisteu/ete, pw~j e0a_n ei1pw u9mi=n ta_ e0poura&nia pisteu/sete; since it is not recognized as such by the scholarly community. The commentaries univocally agree that the subject behind ei]pon is the first person singular: “If you do not believe when I tell you about earthly things …” (Brown 1966, 128).407 This reading implies a shift of speaker from the preceding verse, unless Jesus is claimed to be the sole speaker in 3:11, a claim that Raymond Brown makes. However, grammatically ei]pon may also represent the third person plural. In this case, the group represented by the plural of the speaker of 3:11 is now divided into two. On the one hand, we have those who have spoken to the Jews about earthly things in the past, but without succeeding in bringing anyone to faith. On the other hand, we have Jesus who is about to tell them of heavenly things. Since the two situations are clearly separated on this reading, it matches better the KalWaChomer (a minore ad maius) argument that characterizes the relation of the distant past to the present.408 The first part of the sentence, the minor case, represents an established fact (modus realis); the latter and major case awaits validation and is thus represented by an eventualis. The translation of 3:12 then becomes: “If you have not come to faith as a consequence of the fact that they told you about earthly things, how shall you come to faith if I were to tell you about heavenly things?” This reading picks up Jesus’ rebuke of Nicodemus in 3:10: as a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus ought to have been prepared for Jesus’ teaching. Consequently, the crux of ei]pon is bound up with the meaning of the pair ta_ e0pi/geia–ta_ e0poura&nia. 6.5.2.3 Crux 3. The referents of ta_ e0pi/geia–ta_ e0poura&nia The traditional identification of Jesus with the subject of ei]pon, who consequently spoke also about ta_ e0pi/geia, situates the referents of the pair of ta_ e0pi/geia–ta_ e0poura&nia in the present discourse. Jörg Frey states this quite clearly: “… die irdischen [Dinge] müssen vorher im Dialog, die himmlischen nachher behandelt sein” (1994, 180, emphasis
407 The first person singular is taken for granted by Bultmann (1941, 105), Schnelle (1998a, 67), Moloney (1998b, 89, 100), Wengst (2000, 114). Moloney, however, finds that the sudden change from the plural of 3:11 to the singular of 3:12 needs some kind of explanation: “This change may reflect different sources…” (1998b, 100). 408 For the Kal-WaChomer of John 3:12, see Wengst (2000, 129).
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added).409 Francis Moloney, however, asks a question that challenges this understanding: “The logic of the narrative demands that the ‘earthly things’ (ta epigeia) that Jesus has told look back to vv. 1-10. Given the significance of Jesus’ words concerning rebirth in the spirit it can be asked how such issues are regarded as ‘earthly things’?” (1998, 100).410 Moloney connects Jesus’ censuring of the Jewish teacher Nicodemus in 3:10 with Jesus’ rebuke in 3:12 of those who have not come to faith as a consequence of ta_ e0pi/geia in 3:12 and suggests that ta_ e0pi/geia may refer to “the best of Israel’s tradition” (1998, 94), but he does not identify what these “best”, but still “earthly”, things of Judaism may refer to.411 The choice of the third person plural of ei]pon in favour of the first person singular changes the nature of the problem significantly, since the ties between Jesus and ta_ e0pi/geia are now cut. The problem is shifted to identifying those who, according to 3:11, speak of what they have seen and truly know, and who are, therefore, capable of joining Jesus in his revelatory and witnessing speech, but who, according to 3:12, have communicated their knowledge in an “earthly” form, which might, and indeed ought to have occasioned faith, but which in the end failed.
6.5.2.4 Crux 4. “Who is this Son of Man?” (3:13f) The fourth crux is related to John 3:13:
409 R. Brown reads like Frey: “It is difficult to determine what these two terms refer to. The simplest explanation is that what Jesus has already said comes under ‘earthly’ and what he is going to say comes under “heavenly” (1966, 132). See also Bultmann: “It is presupposed that Jesus has already spoken of the e0pi/geia…” (1941, 105; 1971, 147). 410 See also Barrett who is an earlier ‘advocate’ of Moloney’s position: “It is not easy to determine precisely the contrast conveyed in this verse. The best possibilities among those usually suggested are the following. (a) The e0pi/geia are events, such as the new birth, which take place on earth though they are of divine origin and meaning, while the e0poura&nia are the events of heaven itself, such as the Father’s sending of the Son into the world. To this it may be objected that begetting a!nwqen is essentially an e0poura&nion” (1955, 177). 411 Bultmann offers a solution to the problem which has survived in various versions, especially in Protestant exegesis: it is not the rebirth as such that represents the earthly things, but the impossibility of human beings of imagining the need for it: “Thus the argument of vv. 12-15 runs as follows: If you find the sklhro_j lo&goj of rebirth incredible, how much less will you be able to believe when I speak of the descent of the ‘Son of Man’, his exaltation and the salvation wrought by it!” (1941, 108; 1971, 151). See also Schnackenburg (1979a, 390) and Hofius (1996, 53-55).
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kai\ ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j, o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou. Throughout the Gospel, in reaction to Jesus’ statements concerning the Son of Man, the Jews repeatedly ask about the identity of “this Son of Man” (9:35; 12:34).412 From a diachronic point of view, the Jews’ question is justified, since the Fourth Gospel alters the apocalyptic tradition of Daniel (7:13f), featured by the Synoptics, according to which the “Son of Man will come in clouds in great power and glory” (Mark 13:27) (Wengst 2000, 131). In contrast to this tradition, the Fourth Gospel accentuates the opposite motion, namely the ascent of the Son of Man (6:62).413 The Johannine Jesus censures his disciples because they grumble at his sklhro&j lo&goj. Their grumbling pinpoints the reversal and subversion of the apocalyptic Son of Man tradition (6:62): “But what then if you should see the Son of Man ascend to the place where he was before?” Jesus asks. In the Fourth Gospel, the destabilization of the tradition is brought about by the blending of the apocalyptic tradition from Daniel (Dan 7:13) with Isaiah’s prophecy of a redeemer for captive Israel whose servile suffering will be rewarded (Isa 53:4-12) through his final exaltation (Isa 52:13 LXX: u9ywqh/setai kai\ docasqh/setai).414 The Johannine sayings about the necessity of the up-lifting of the Son of Man substitute for the predictions of the necessity of the Son of Man’s suffering and death in the Synoptics: John 3:14: ou3twj u9ywqh=nai dei= to_n ui9o_n a)nqrw&pou, John 12:34: o#ti dei= u9ywqh=nai to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou; (cf. 8:28; 12:23) Mark 8:31: dei= to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou polla_ paqei=n In the scholarly tradition, the link to Mark has led to the understanding that the Isaianic “uplifting and glorification” refers to the cross – and the cross alone. In John, Jesus’ statement that the upward movement comprises a restoration to a previous mode of being (6:62; 17:5) indicates that the death on the cross is not the ultimate goal of the Son of Man.415 Something more is at stake. What this more involves is hinted at 412 John 9:35: kai\ ti/j e0stin, ku/rie, i3na pisteu/sw ei0j au0to&n; John 12:34: ti/j e0stin ou[toj o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou; 413 In his 1972 essay “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism”, Wayne Meeks demonstrated convincingly that the notion of the Son of Man in the Fourth Gospel was intimately linked to what he called the descent-ascent motif. He noticed that in John the “ascent” takes precedence over the “descent” (62). 414 Isa 52:13LXX: 0Idou\ sunh/sei o( pai=j mou kai\ u(ywqh/setai kai\ docasqh/setai sfo&dra. 415 John 6:62: e0a_n ou]n qewrh=te to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou a)nabai/nonta o#pou h]n to_ pro&teron;
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in 6:63, in which Jesus explains that it is the spirit that brings forth life, whereas flesh benefits nothing. The statement suggests that the more concerns the provision of the life-giving spirit.416 Here, too, it is difficult to speak of a scholarly crux in the proper sense, since the question: ti/j e0stin ou[toj o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou; (12:34) is answered univocally by an identification of the Son of Man with Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Son of God, the mysterious incarnation of the eternal lo&goj. This is true enough, but only the truth in part. As noticed by Wayne Meeks, it is not the descent or incarnation that is accentuated in this Gospel, but rather the ascent through which Jesus returns to the Father and is restored to his previous glory. In the next chapter, I shall argue that the ultimate goal of Jesus’ journey and ascent – in its full extent as the journey up to Jerusalem, the up-lifting onto the cross, and finally the ascent (20:17: a)na&basij) or transposition (13:1: meta&basij) to the Father – is his translation from the flesh-and-blood mode of being into the purely pneumatic mode of being which is also that of the Father (4:24). In the Fourth Gospel, faith in the Son of Man (9:35: su\ pisteu/eij ei0j to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqpw&pou;) cannot be separated from all this. Faith in the Son of Man entails more than the simple identification of the referent, it also encompasses the whole dynamic story bestowed on this person.
6.5.2.5 Premises for a solution to the cruces On the basis of the scholarly discussion, we can now identify the issues that must be addressed with regard to the four cruces: 1. The rebuke of Nicodemus must be justified; Jesus must speak of something which a teacher of Israel is expected to be acquainted with. Moloney is right when he links 3:10 to 3:12: ta_ epi/geia must belong to the repertoire that Nicodemus as a teacher of Israel possesses. John 6:63: to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n, h9 sa_rc ou0k w)felei= ou0de/n. Ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ lela&lhka u(mi=n pneu=ma& e0stin kai\ zwh/ e0stin. 416 Hofius uses the link to Mark in his argument that the “uplifting and glorification” is a reference to the cross – and the cross alone: “Schon von daher [viz. John 3:14] ist deutlich, dass mit dem Verbum u(ywqh=nai an unserer Stelle dezidiert die ‘Erhöhung’ Jesu an das Kreuz, d.h. sein Kreuzestod gemeint ist. Das wird durch eine weitere Beobachtung nachdrücklich bestätigt: Der Satz u(ywqh=nai dei= to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou, der noch einmal in 12,34 erscheint, entspricht – wie insbesondere das dei= zeigt – der Erwähnung des Getötetwerdens in der Leidens- und Auferstehungsankündigung Mk 8,31 (dei= to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou … a)poktanqh=nai)” (Hofius 1996, 62).
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2. In order for the Kal-WaChomer argument of 3:12 to function, ta_ epi/geia – and the faith that these earthly things may, at least potentially, have brought about – must represent a positive and true attitude towards God. 3. Verse 3:12 concerns more than the comparison involved in the a minore ad maius argument, it is also a conditional clause in which belief in heavenly things is somehow conditioned on belief in earthly things. 4. In John 3:8, we were introduced to the prophetic voice of the person who is generated a!nwqen. Through the prophet’s organs of speech, in Philo’s words, God voices His will and the lo&goj testifies concerning itself (Her. 259-66). It is these kinds of witnessing voices (in the plural) that we meet in John 3:11-15. The questions we must address are, first, the identity of the speakers of 3:11-12; and second, the subject matter of the earthly and heavenly discourse, respectively (3:12). The verses may be translated in the follow way: John 3:11: Truly I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but our testimony still you do not accept.
a)mh\n a)mh\n le/gw soi o#ti o$ oi1damen lalou=men kai\ o$ e9wra&kamen marturou=men kai\ th\n marturi/an h9mw~n ou0 lamba&nete
John 3:12: Once they told you about earthly things (modus realis) and still you do not have faith. How shall you – if I were now to tell you about heavenly things – (modus eventualis) come to faith?
ei0 ta_ e0pi/geia ei]pon u9mi=n kai\ ou0 pisteu/ete pw~j e0a_n ei1pw u9mi=n ta_ e0poura&nia pisteu/sete;
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6.5.3 Solution to the cruces 6.5.3.1 Solution to crux 1 and 2 In order to determine the identity of those who spoke about “earthly things” in the past (3:12) and whose witnessing Jesus joins (3:11), we must initially scrutinize the Gospel for similar statements. John 3:11 has traditionally been read in light of the Prologue’s verse 1:14 and the community’s confession of having seen the glory of the lo&goj-in-flesh. However, Jesus’ juridical defence of his own testimony in John 5, in which he refers to other persons’ testimony, suggests itself as another suitable starting-point. In this speech, we find extensive parallels to the discourse in John 3, but in John 5 the witnessing voices of the past are, fortunately, identified. The parallels between 3:11 and 5:39 and between 3:12 and 5:46f are especially noteworthy: John 5:39 (cf. 3:11): You scrutinize the scriptures for you think that in them (and by their means) you have the eternal life but precisely these (writings) testify to me.
e0rauna~te ta_j grafa&j, o#ti u9mei=j dokei=te e0n au0tai=j zwh\n ai0w&nion e1xein, kai\ e0kei=nai/ ei0sin ai9 marturou=sai peri\ e0mou=:
John 5:46-47 (cf. 3:12): To summarize (ga&r): if you had believed Moses (modus irrealis) you would also have believed me, since it was about me that he wrote. But now when, as a matter of fact, you do not believe in his writings, (modus realis) how shall you ever come to a belief in my words?
ei0 ga_r e0pisteu/ete Mwu"sei= pisteu/ete a@n e0moi/ peri\ ga_r e0mou= e0kei=noj e1grayen ei0 de\ toi=j e0kei/nou gra&mmasin ou0 pisteu/ete pw~j toi=j e0moi=j r(h/masin pisteu/sete;
When 3:11 is informed by 5:39, the plural of witnessing subjects comes to represent the voices of the Jewish scriptures, that is, of Moses and the prophets. Jesus can join the chorus of inspired voices of the past (3:8, 11), because the scriptures testify to him (5:39). Add to this that, according to John, the fate of having one’s testimony rejected is shared by
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Moses, the prophets and Jesus (3:11: kai\ th\n marturi/an h9mw~n ou0 lamba&nete). The quotation from Isaiah given at the conclusion of Jesus’ public ministry in John 12:37-33 simultaneously refers to the prophets’ fate in the past and prophesies about Jesus. In addition, the wording of John 12:37: “In spite of these signs that he had done in front of them they did not come to faith in him”, although referring to Jesus’ ministry, also alludes to Moses’ censuring of Israel given at the conclusion of his leadership (Deut 29:2-4): “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes … the signs and the wonders. Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day”. In John 12:37-40, Moses’ and Isaiah’s censuring of Israel is joined by the use of the principle of Gezerah shawah.417 The attribution of the voice of ei]pon in 3:12 to the group of witnesses from the past is supported by these considerations.
6.5.3.2 Solution to crux 3 When John 3:12 is read in light of 5:39-47, the “earthly things” refer to Moses’ and the prophets’ writings, Scripture (h9 grafh/). This understanding is confirmed by the fact that Moses is featured in 3:14. Add to this that Jesus’ testimony in John 5 picks up on the claim made by Philip in order to bring Nathaniel to Jesus: Philip argued that they have found him of whom “Moses in the law and also the prophets” wrote (1:45). The question is now what the “earthly things”, about which Moses and the prophets spoke, and the “heavenly things” (3:12), of which Jesus is about to speak, more specifically refer to. How can it be that they may witness in unison (3:11) and yet speak about different things (3:12)? The solution to this riddle is given in the following verses, 3:13-15, in which the relation between the two ways of witnessing – about ta_ e0pi/geia and ta_ e0poura&nia, respectively – is developed. Let us first have a look at 3:13, in which Jesus opens up the subject matter by introducing the Son of Man. The kata&basij mentioned in 3:13 is almost always understood as a reference to the incarnation: nobody has ascended apart from him “who once descended from heaven”. Several commentaries find that here the Gospel addresses the Jewish tradition of Moses’ ascension to 417 John 12:37: Tosau=ta de\ au0tou= shmei=a pepoihko&toj e1mposqen au0tw~n ou0k e0pi/steuon ei0j au0to&n. DeutLXX 29:2-4: 9Umei=j e0wra&kate pa&nta, o#sa e0poi/hsen ku/rioj … ta_ shmei=a kai\ ta_ te/rata ta_ mega&la e0kei=na. For the parallel between John 12:37 and Deut 29:1-4 see Brown (1966, 485).
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God in a polemical way: only the incarnated has ascended. This interpretation seems to exert such an influence on Johannine scholarship that it prevents the commentators from seeing the ambiguity hidden in the aorist participle kataba&j.418 However, the perfect tense of a)nabe/bhken situates the statement in the post-Easter outlook, and when the kata&basij is seen from this perspective, it may refer to two different pneumatic events. The kata&basij may either denote the event which I have designated the first pneumatic event, that is the descent of the spirit on Jesus (1:32), or it may refer to the event that I have called the ultimate pneumatic event, namely the return of the ascended and transformed Jesus in company with the pneumatic Father (14:23, 28), which takes place in the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the disciples (20:22). Or even both.419 John 3:13: And no one has ascended to heaven apart from him who descended from heaven or who are to descend from heaven, the Son of Man.
kai\ ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j, o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou.
As was the case with Jesus, the new generation of the disciples also takes place through the descent of the spirit. Although it is not ex418 See K. Wengst who states about 3:13: “Zum anderen steht in beiden Verben das Perfekt” (2000, 130). 419 See K. Wengst (2000, 131) for a discussion of Moses’ ascension in later rabbinic sources. As I have already noted, the ascension of Moses also plays a prominent role in Philo’s writings and concludes his description of Moses’ life (Mos. 288-292, QG 1.86). See also the discussion in W. Meeks’ The Prophet-King, in which John 3 is understood in light of a “throne-mysticism” which was, according to Meeks, practised in first century Palestine: “Alongside the apocalyptic concept of God’s reign, which has dominated gospel research in this century, it is necessary to postulate the existence in some circles of Judaism of a mystical notion of God’s kingship, in which the individual’s relationship to the basilei/a was expressed pre-eminently in terms of ‘ascending’ and ‘seeing’. This notion is the one connected with the notions of Moses’ kingship …” (299). According to Meeks, the Fourth Gospel is polemically directed against this tradition. The heavenly kingship does not belong to Moses, but to Christ (1967, 295301): “Verses 3, 5, and 13 thus in effect say the same thing: only the Son of Man has ascended to heaven, ‘entered,’ and ‘seen’ the Kingdom of God. No one else has ascended or can ascend, enter, and see, except through him” (1967, 299).
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plicitly described as such, the direction of the spirit (3:5) is implicitly indicated by the adverb a!nwqen, which modifies the regeneration in verse 3:3: the spirit comes from above. In other words, it descends. When read in this way, the proof of Jesus’ ascension and his translation into life-giving spirit is conditional on the existence of a community of believers regenerated a!nwqen, which is again conditioned by the existence of a community living in mutual love (13:35; 15:26f). Suddenly, verse 3:13 is understandable: it is primarily a statement about the future regeneration of believers, and only secondarily a statement about Jesus’ incarnation. It is noteworthy that in this reading “the generation a1nwqen” no longer belongs to a discourse on ta_ e0pi/geia, which the “logic” of the text has previously forced commentators to conclude, but instead is at home in the context of ta_ e0poura&nia. In this way, the ascent of Moses is indirectly denied, because Moses did not provide the spirit and because the Jews do not have God’s love abiding in them (5:42). Moses only left the law, the demands of which the Jews, according to Jesus, do not meet (7:19).420 Having been introduced in 3:13 to the “heavenly things” related to the Son of Man’s ascent and descent, the comparison between “earthly things” and “heavenly things” given in v. 12’s a minore ad maius argument is spelled out in verse (3:14) in a comparison in which an episode from the history of the desert generations is juxtaposed with the necessity of the uplifting of the Son of Man: John 3:14: And just as Moses (once) lifted up the serpent in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up
kai\ kaqw_j Mwu"sh=j u3ywsen to_n o!fin e0n th|= e0rh/mw| ou3twj u9ywqh=nai dei= to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrwpou
John 3:15: in order that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him (or by the aid of him).
i3na pa~j o( pisteu/wn e0n au0tw~| e1xh| zwh\n ai0w&nion
420 In Hellenistic philosophy, “heavenly things” would refer to a discussion of the physics of heavenly bodies. In the Fourth Gospel, this discourse is displaced by the story of pneumatic transformations. The “heavenly things” are brought down to earth and embodied in Jesus and, subsequently, in believers.
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The referent of the “earthly things” is here specified by the allusion to the tradition of Numbers 21:4-9. According to this story, the shortage of bread and water during the years in the desert was the cause of the Israelites’ grumbling and resistance against God’s plans and Moses’. In order to punish the Israelites for their disbelief, the Lord sent poisonous serpents whose biting caused the death of many. The punishment occasioned repentance and a plea to Moses for help. On behalf of the people, Moses interceded with God. The Lord commanded Moses to make a serpent of copper and place it on a pole. If an Israelite was bitten, and then looked towards the serpent, he would live. NumLXX: 21:7-9 (my translation) And the people came to Moses and said: Kai\ parageno/menoj o( lao_j pro_j Mwu"sh=n e1legon o#ti We have sinned because we have spoken against the Lord and you. 9Hma&rtomen o#ti katelalh/samen kata_ tou= kuri/ou kai\ kata_ sou=. Pray therefore to the Lord on behalf of us, Eu]cai ou]n pro_j ku/rion, that he shall take away the serpent from us. kai\ a)fele/tw a)f’ h9mw~n to_n o!fin. And Moses prayed to the Lord concerning the people. Kai\ hu!cato Mwu"sh=j pro_j ku/rion peri\ tou= laou=. And the Lord said to Moses: Kai\ ei]pen ku/rioj pro_j Mwu"sh=n Make you a serpent and place it upon a pole, Poi/hson seautw~| o!fin kai\ qe\j au0to_n e0pi\ shmei/ou, and it will be like this: kai\ e1stai when a serpent bites a human being, everyone who has been bitten, e0a_n da&kh| o!fij a!nqrwpon, pa~j o( dedhgme/noj – if he glaces at it – he will live. i0dw_n au0to_n zh/setai And Moses made a serpent of copper and he placed it upon a pole. kai\ e0poi/hsen Mwu"sh=j o!fin xalkou=n kai\ e1sthsen au0to_n e0pi\ shmei/ou, And whenever a serpent bit a human being kai\ o#tan e1daknen o!fij a!nqrwpon, kai\ and he then glanced at the serpent of copper, he lived. e0pe/bleyen e0pi\ to_n o!fin to_n xalkou=n kai\ e1zh.
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How the juxtaposition in John 3 of the necessary uplifting of the Son of Man with the desert episode from the Pentateuch is to be understood is a matter of dispute among exegetes of the Fourth Gospel. Jörg Frey’s interpretation represents a strong tradition in Johannine scholarship. It differs from the one for which I shall argue. Consequently, it will be presented and discussed here.
6.5.4 Frey. Moses and the hermeneutics of typology (3:14) Jörg Frey has examined the motif of Moses’ serpent in John 3:14-15 in a study from 1994, “‘Wie Mose die Schlange in der Wüste erhöht hat …’ Zur frühjüdischen Deutung der ‘ehernen Schlange’ und ihrer christologischen Rezeption in Johannes 3,14f”. In order to determine the function of the motif in the present Gospel, Frey inquires into the literary background of the motif. His survey leads to the conclusion that the motif is an integrated, if not essential, part of the anti-docetic agenda of the Gospel. Frey’s sophisticated argument hinges on the peculiar use of Scripture in the Fourth Gospel: the relation between the events in the wilderness and the cross is not depicted as a juxtaposition of two signs with the same eternal, heavenly referent, but constitutes a typological relation between a prefiguration (einem Vorbild) and its historical fulfilment in Jesus’ cross. Reacting against Käsemann’s naïve docetism, in which the cross was reduced to a necessary step in the glorification of the Lord, it becomes of crucial significance to Frey that the cross is not seen as yet another signifier, but as the ultimate and historical signified towards which every word and sign in the Old Testament as well as in the Fourth Gospel points. No significance is given to anything beyond the cross. The introduction of the sign that in contemporary Judaism came to symbolize God’s goodwill towards and care for Israel in Jesus’ first extended discourse indicates to Frey that the dialogue with Nicodemus should be seen as an introduction to the Johannine hermeneutics of signs, their formal structure and their meaning: “This verse [3:14f] is intimately related to the beginning of the dialogue with Nicodemus … [in addition] 3,2 is by the aid of catchwords related to the shmei=a poiei=n of 2,23 …” (1994, 177 note 121, my translation). … “The introduction to the Gospel climaxes in Jesus’ first extended discourse (John 3:11-21) and within this passage V. 14 constitutes the first focal point …” (180).
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6.5.4.1 Moses’ serpent in Jewish literature First, the motif of Moses’ serpent in the Hebrew Bible is analysed. Frey notices that the inscription of the cultic object – the existence of which is archeologically documented – in the Pentateuch’s narrative of the desert generations (Num 21:4-9) effectively countered any magicsacramental understanding of the object of worship that ascribed healing power to it: “a homeopathic magic according to the principle of similia similibus” (158, my translation). Instead, the serpent on Moses’ pole became a symbol that represented God’s goodwill towards Israel (ein Zeichen der göttlichen Gnade) (159): Once the motif of Moses’ serpent is situated in the desert tradition with its other motifs – the disobedience of the desert generations, the repentance of the nation, Moses’ intercession – that is, in a narrative of sin and salvation, of death and life, the serpent motif is placed in a comprehensive, theological discourse. The expectation of Jahve’s gratuitous intervention and rescue precedes the repentance of the nation and Moses’ intercession (cf. Num 11:2; 12:11f.). (158, my translation)
The transformation of Moses’ serpent from a cultic object to a symbol of God’s goodwill towards His chosen nation persists in the reception of Num 21:4-9 in the Septuagint, in the wisdom tradition (including Philo) and in rabbinic literature. It is in accordance with this development that the Septuagint designates the standard on which the serpent is placed a sign: shmei=on. As soon as the serpent on Moses’ pole is established as a symbolic representation of God’s forbearance, a tendency to expand the serpent’s symbolic meaning to encompass the whole episode is observed. The Wisdom of Solomon interprets the serpents’ biting as God’s means of pushing the disobedient people back to His healing words in the law.421 The biting is only a punishment in passing; to those who respond favourably to the admonition, the serpents are just “ei0j nouqesi/an” (Wis 16:6).
6.5.4.2 Philo and Moses’ serpent The tendency found in the Wisdom of Solomon is developed even further by Philo. Frey, however, finds that Philo’s moral universe is very far from the world view of the Fourth Gospel. Consequently, he gives no attention to Philo’s exposition of the motif (164). A short introduction to the theme in Philo will therefore be given here. 421 “Die Schlangebisse bzw. -stiche warden so zur … zur pädagogisch orientierten Heilsveranstaltung Gottes für seine Kinder“ (Frey 1994, 164).
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In line with the tendency mentioned above to expand the symbolic meaning, Philo makes the Pentateuch’s narrative of the desert generations’ life a symbol of God’s care for the not-yet perfect mind. As topographical space, the wilderness represents an interim between the domain of passions, represented by Egypt, and the promised land of insight and truth. As historical epoch, the wilderness represents the situation in which the soul will benefit from Moses’ leadership on its journey towards the truth. As a place that is separated from the temptations of civic life, the wilderness is a suitable place for the mind to be trained (QG 2.49). In Legum allegoriae, Philo explains why God’s wisdom is too strong to imbibe for the mind that has just come out of Egypt; it is like undiluted wine (Leg. 3.82). Intellectual and emotional challenges must be adjusted to the mind’s process of growth. Therefore the not-yet perfect mind (o( a)tele/steroj) is offered the wise man as a guide, whereas God recommends Himself as “guide and teacher” to the wise man (Her. 19). In other words, the medicine must be adjusted to the patient’s situation (Leg. 3.129). In Philo’s interpretation of the episode, the poisonous serpents become symbols of the passions, which he sees – in accordance with Hellenistic ethics – as the source of all sin and evil. The appearance of the serpent that God asked Moses to make depends on the character of the person who looks at it.422 To the perfect soul, the serpent appears as a golden one; a symbol of God’s wisdom. To him who is in need of train422 In an exegesis of the relation of Aaron to Moses in Leg. 3.118, 124, 129, 131, Philo describes the two paths towards wisdom. Whereas Aaron needs the healing power of the sacred Word in the injunctions of the law, Moses is capable of managing without antidote and medicine. The two ways correspond to the brazen serpent and the golden one presented in the same treatise: “For look now: the Sacred Word [o( i9ero_j lo/goj] knowing how strong is the impulse of either passion, of both high spirit and lust, puts a curb on each of them, by setting over them reason as a charioteer and pilot [h9ni/oxon kai\ kubernh/thn e0fista_j to_n lo&gon]” (118). … “These are antidotes [a)lecifa&rmaka] of the region of anger; reason, clearness of speech, truth of speech [lo&goj, safh/neia lo&gou, a)lh/qeia au0tou=]” (124). … “Well, Aaron, as I have said, having this passion, attempt to cure it by the saving medicines that have been mentioned [i0a~sqai au0to_ peira~tai toi=j lexqei=si swthri/oij farma&koij]. Moses, on the other hand, thinks it necessary to use the knife on the seat of anger in its entirety, and to cut it clean out of the soul, for no moderation of passion can satisfy him; he is content with nothing but complete absence of passion [ou0 metriopa&qeian a)lla_ suno&lwj a)pa&qeian a)gapw~n]” (129). … “You observe how the perfect man always makes perfect freedom from passion his study. But Aaron, the man who is making gradual progress, holding a lower position, practises moderation, as I have said [o(ra|~j pw~j o( te/leioj telei/an a)pa&qeian ai0ei\ meleta~|. a))ll’ o# ge proko&ptwn deu/teroj w@n 0Aarw_n metriopa&qeian, w(j e1fhn, a)skei=]” (131, emphasis added).
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ing, God’s Word appears in the form of a brazen serpent, which is a symbol of Moses’ guidance. In Philo’s writings, the brazen serpent on the pole – as well as the water from the rock and the manna from heaven – are representations of the law with its concrete injunctions, by means of which the wise man Moses guides the soul in training (o( a)skhth/j) and heals its suffering. The soul having its glance directed towards the brazen serpent is enabled to live in the metriopa&qeia of self-mastery, whereas he who contemplates the golden serpent lives in a)pa&qeia. Consequently, the pole on which Moses placed the serpent turns out to be the “rod” by means of which Jacob, himself a symbol of o( a)skhth/j, crosses the river Jordan (the current representing the impulse of vice and passion) towards the land of truth (Leg. 2.79-93). Again, it is not the sign as such that possesses healing power, but the truth represented by the sign, namely the goodness of Him who provided the cure and the medicine for the soul: “For if the mind, when bitten by pleasure, the serpent of Eve, shall have succeeded in beholding in soul the beauty of self-mastery, the serpent of Moses, and through beholding this, behold God himself, he shall live; only let him look and mark well” (Leg. 2.81).423 To summarize: the serpent is a symbol of the law, which is again a symbol of God’s goodwill towards Israel. The law offers concrete – Philo calls it “bodily” – pieces of advice concerning the right thing to do in particular situations, or in Philo’s Stoic language, the law offers
423 See also Leg. 2.79-93: “How, then, is a healing of their suffering brought about? By the making another serpent, opposite in kind to that of Eve, namely the principle of self-mastery” (79). … “Moses loves excellences [a)retw~n] without bodily form, whereas our souls, being unable to get out of our bodies, crave for excellence in bodily shape. But the principle of self-mastery [o( kata_ swfrosu/nhn lo&goj], being forcible and unyielding, is likened to the strong and firm substance of brass, perhaps also because, whereas the self-mastery found in the man beloved of God [e0n tw|~ qeofilei=] is most precious and like gold, that which is found in him who has absorbed wisdom by gradual progress holds the second place. Everyone, then ‘whom a serpent shall have bitten, when he looks on it shall live’ [Numb. xxi.8]” (80-81). … “Note now a difference between him who turns aside in the wilderness and him who does so in Egypt [ 1Ide nu=n diafora_n tou= e0n e0rh/mw| trepome/nou kai\ tou= e0n Ai0gu/ptw|]. The one has experience of deadly serpents, that is to say insatiable pleasures inflicting death; but the disciplined one [o( d’ a)skhth\j] is only bitten and scattered, not done to death, by pleasure. And while the one is cured by self-mastery [swfrosu/nh|], even the brazen serpent made by the wise Moses, the other is caused by God to drink a draught most excellent, even wisdom [sofi/an] out of the fountain which He drew out from His own wisdom” (87).
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“intermediaries” that serve the “intermediary” situation of the soul (Plant. 94).424
6.5.4.3 Typology and the Gospel’s anti-docetic agenda Although Frey finds that it is as shmei=on that Moses’ serpent is introduced in the Nicodemus discourse, it is not the signifying function that constitutes the tertium comparationis between the desert episode and the Son of Man’s fate. In the Fourth Gospel, the cross is not compared with Moses’ standard, nor Jesus with the copper serpent. The kaqw_j – ou3twj relation between Moses’ serpent and John’s Son of Man is not a simple comparison, in which one sign and signifier of God’s gracious interventions is juxtaposed with another signifier, but a typological and temporal relation of a historical pre-figuration and its historical fulfilment. Consequently, Frey argues that the reception of the desert episode found in the Septuagint and in the wisdom tradition plays no role in the Fourth Gospel (184). In a vertical manner, these writings refer Moses’ sign to an eternal truth that concerns God’s character and general way of acting (eine allgemeine Wahrheit des göttlichen Handelns). In contrast to these traditions, the referent of the Moses episode in the Fourth Gospel is the concrete and specific history of the cross. In spite of the fact that early interpreters understood the cross as the final and all-inclusive sign, the shmei=on par excellence, this development is, according to Frey, not present in the Fourth Gospel (192). The Evangelist certainly knows the Septuagint, and he also seems acquainted with the Wisdom of Solomon, but still he does not apply the term shmei=on to the cross (194). Instead, the cross is the ultimate referent of every Johannine sign. Although the authorial commentator speaks of the “uplifting” as a sign that Jesus gives concerning the kind of death that he will die (12:32; 19:32: shmai/nwn), this remains a sign in “quotation marks” (194). As soon as the typology between the Old Testament prefiguration (das Vorbild) in Moses’ uplifting of the serpent and the eschatological fulfilment in the cross is in place, a semantic field is established into 424 See Philo’s treatise De plantatione in which he puns on the intermediate stages of the mind and its need for the intermediaries of concrete pieces of advice: “But the intention of the inspired Word [o( i9ero_j lo&goj; i.e. Moses’ words] is that we too who are not yet perfect [toi=j mh/pw teleiwqei=sin], but are still classified as in the preliminary and undeveloped states of what are called natural duties [e0n de\ me/soij a)riqmoi=j tw~n legome/nwn kaqhko&ntwn], should make husbandry our serious business” (94). … “Natural duties which are indifferent [ta_ me/sa tw~n kaqhko&ntwn] seem to me to correspond to garden or orchard trees …” (100).
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which the Fourth Evangelist may bring a mosaic of scriptural references in order to develop and compose his image of the uplifting of the Son of Man, e.g. the vindication of Isaiah’s suffering servant in his “uplifting and glorification” (Isa 52:13). The semantic field establishes a new interpretation of the cross: the “uplifting and glorification” is no longer, as it was in Paul and Acts (Phil 2:9; Acts 2:33; 5:31), seen as the award or rehabilitation that follows the humiliation of the cross, but is linked to the cross itself as the place of God’s paradoxical restoration of His relation to the world (188). The typology cuts the semantic link between the a)nabai/nein of 3:13 and the u9you=sqai of 3:14. In this way, an effective barrier is erected against any kind of docetic interpretation that understands the cross as the gate to heavenly glory (Durchgangsstadium und … Teilaspekt der Erhöhung). Instead, the believer’s glance is stopped at the cross as the place and conclusion of God’s redemption (der universalen Heilswirksamkeit). Behind the cross, nothing is to be seen (201). The link between the cross and the coming of the spirit is also torn apart. The ascent and translation of the Son of Man that brings about the life-giving spirit (6:62-63) does not form part of the reading of the Gospel that Frey represents.
6.5.4.4 Discussion of Frey’s typology Frey situates the Johannine signs in the typological field between the Old Testament’s signifying pre-figuration and the fulfilment in the cross, which is the ultimate signified. Nevertheless, it shall be argued here that the so-called vertical interpretation, strongly rejected by Frey, in which both the cross, and in parallel fashion, Moses’ pole, are seen as shmei=a that refer God’s salvific initiatives in history to a shared divine signified constitutes the better solution. First, the hermeneutical principle of the vertical figure which relates a divine phenomenon to different events in history is presented to the reader already in the Prologue’s description of the relation of Moses to Christ (1.16f): “Of what filled him we have all received, one act of goodwill (or gift) has replaced another (e0k tou= plhrw&matoj au0tou= h9mei=j pa&ntej e0la&bomen kai\ xa&rin a)nti\ xa&ritoj), because the law (first gift) was given through Moses, but through Christ goodwill and truth came into being (o#ti o( no&moj dia_ Mwu"se/wj e0do&qh, h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou= e0ge/neto)”. The parallel use of the preposition, dia_ Mwu"se/wj and dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou=, draws attention to the shared giver behind the gifts that are mediated by Moses and Christ,
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respectively.425 It is precisely the eternal, heavenly goodwill (or the vertical signified) that holds the two historical events (as the horizontal temporal differentiated signifiers) together.426 It is because Jesus also embodies God’s eternal lo&goj and love that the Gospel repeatedly states that the law and the scriptures, which also tells about God’s goodwill and care for His people, speak of Jesus, too (1:45; 5:39, 46). The voices of the past, Moses’ and the prophets’, join Jesus in a testimony to God’s goodwill (3:11), and yet their voices sound in the Scriptures, where they speak of “earthly things”, whereas Jesus speaks of “heavenly things”. According to the fourth Evangelist, it is the mode in which God’s goodwill is represented that differs: indirectly in the letters and injunctions of Moses’ law as against being put directly on display in Jesus’ life; compare: “Through Jesus Christ goodwill and truth came into being (1:17b: h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou= e0ge/neto)”.427 The difference between Frey’s horizontal/typological interpretation and the vertical one argued here is captured perfectly in the different textual testimonies to John 3:15. The vertical interpretation is in accordance with Nestle-Aland27’s choice (P 75 B T Ws): “everyone who has faith by means of him (pa~j pisteu/wn e0n au0tw~|) shall have eternal life”. This formulation brings out that, in principle, there are different means of coming to (the same) faith. However, many – even – strong witnesses have “e0p’ au0tw~|” (P 66 L) or “ei0j au0to&n” (P 63vid אA Q Y), in which case the faith that leads to eternal life is qualified as a specific faith in him. Many commentators, among them Frey, in practice choose the latter. A reading of 3:14f that takes the interpretation of the desert episode in the wisdom tradition (including Philo) into consideration inevitably 425 For the interpretation of xa&rin a)nti\ xa&ristoj in terms of “an unsolicited gift” see the discussion in Moloney (1993, 46-47): “As v. 16 closed, the narrator told the reader that from the Word’s fullness the believing community received a gift that replaced a gift. The two gifts are now described. ‘For the Law was given through Moses’ (v. 17a). There can be no lessening of the importance of the former gift. It was from God and it was fundamental for the people of God. Moses was its mediator; however, it was the former gift. There is now another gift which has taken its place…” (47). See also R. Brown, who substantiates the reading that he favours by reference to the Greek Fathers’ reading of the passage: “Several meanings are possible for it here: (a) ‘Love in place of love.’ This idea of replacement, as held by the Greek Fathers (Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom), connotes the hesed of a New Covenant in place of the hesed of Sinai. Verse 17 seems to support this” (1966, 16). 426 For a deconstruction of the typology-allegorical dichotomy see note 371. 427 Anticipating my interpretation of John 11 in Chapter Eight, God’s affection for the world in danger of dying is put on display in Jesus’ tears, which the Jews interpret as an indication of God’s love (11:36: e1legon ou]n oi9 0Ioudai=oi: i1de pw~j e0fi/lei au0to&n.
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faces the question of how Moses’ law is understood in the Fourth Gospel. It must be explained why Jesus is a better representation of God’s goodwill than the giving of law. To categorize the law as Vorbild or Präfiguration is an answer that is too formal and too abstract to have any explanatory value. In Chapter Eight, we will explore the question in detail. The vertical solution proposed redirects our attention towards the eternal signified. In this way, we are introduced to the following section beginning in 3:16, which takes a step further backward from the event of the Son of Man’s uplifting to the love of God for the world which is explicitly said to motivate this act. Second, Frey’s whole argument is directed against, and in this sense determined by, Käsemann’s claim that the Fourth Gospel features a naïve docetic Christology (Käsemann 1968, 26; 1971, 61f). Frey’s argument hinges on the formal use of Scripture in the Fourth Gospel, namely that it is characterized by typology as opposed to allegory, although Frey does not himself use the latter term.428 As already argued, the employment of the ideas that we find in Philo’s discourse on pneu=ma deconstructs the body-soul dualism on which docetism is based. Of special importance is Philo’s idea of the “translation” (a)na&basij) in place of death, grounded in the Stoic idea of a)nastoixei/wsij, which implies a transformation of the whole bodily being into the heavenly pneumatic mode of being. When applied to the a)na&basij of Christ, the problems inherent in the docetic charge are dissolved and solved. The pneu=ma becomes the physical vehicle that, firstly, leads us from the cross to the eternal Father in order to grasp the rationality that characterizes his involvement with the word: eternal love (a)ga&ph), his affection (fili/a) and his goodwill (xa&rij); and, secondly, back into history again through the regeneration of believers a!nwqen. The pneu=ma mediates between the heavenly signified and its historical manifestations.
6.5.5 Summary The major (and controversial) move in the reading of 3:8-15 that I have presented was the identification of the voices with the Jewish Scriptures. These voices joined Jesus in his testimony (3:11) and, yet, they spoke differently. While Jesus spoke about heavenly things, they spoke about earthly things (3:12). The manoeuvre was motivated by the at428 Cf. the title of the book in which Frey’s essay is found, Schriftauslegung im antiken Judentum und im Urchristentum (Hengel & Löhr 1994).
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tention that 3:8 drew to the prophetic voice as an instrument played by God’s spirit: God’s word reverberated, too, in Moses’ and the prophets’ testimonies. Within this perspective, 3:8-15 became a thematic unity that juxtaposed different representations of God’s goodwill. On the one hand, we had the discussion of “earthly things” found in Moses’ law, which were epitomized in the symbol of the serpent that Moses lifted up on a pole in the wilderness (NumLXX 21:8: shmei=on). On the other hand, we had the discussion of “heavenly things” which referred to the enigmatic uplifting of the Son of Man (3:14f). Is it possible to identify some of the presuppositions that may have prevented Johannine scholarship from recognizing this solution to the cruces of 3:8-15? Some possible explanations may be suggested. First, the strong accentuation of the incarnation as the event that established the ontological difference between Jesus and God’s other messengers, Moses and the prophets (1:45) has prevented scholars from associating Jesus with the former prophets.429 The reading presented here of 3:8 as a statement about the intimate relation of prophecy to regeneration upgrades the testimony of the prophets and downgrades the uniqueness of the flesh-and-blood Jesus, who is included among those regenerated a!nwqen by the divine spirit. Certainly, a difference is established in the course of events, namely in Jesus’ extended a)na&basij to the Father, in which he simultaneously ascends and descends. From that point, it may truly be claimed that only he has ascended who subsequently descended as life-giving spirit (3:13). Second, often the light and darkness dualism found in the Prologue serves as the prototype from which other relational pairs in the Fourth Gospel are modeled:430 for instance, the relation between the law, which 429 See the discussion in Kammler (1996, 155-58), in which the claim that Jesus should be a prophet from God is counted among the misunderstandings of inadequate faith. 430 See the analysis of the rhetorical function of the dualism in Reinhartz’ Befriending the Beloved Disciple. The dualistic metaphors constitute one of the means through which the implied author transfers his world view to the reader: “… any powerful cluster of metaphors will provide a basis from which we can infer the world of the one who has created the cluster. Through reading the book we experience and absorb the metaphors and in turn are shaped by them … the cosmological tale use[s] the rhetoric of binary opposition to express the Beloved Disciple’s soteriology” (2001, 66). … “The Beloved Disciple uses metaphorical language to express his gift. Through paired metaphors he guides the reader towards accepting his gift and thereby towards complying with his view of the cosmos. He does so by employing two sets of dichotomies. One set consists of metaphors that describe contrasting states of being, such as light/darkness, life/death, from above/from below. … The other set comprises contrasting activities, such as believing/not–believing, accepting/not accepting … doing good/doing evil, loving/hating” (67). Reinhartz, however, notes that the depiction of the compassionate Jews in John 11 challenges this view (40-48).
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was given through Moses, and h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia, which came into being through Jesus (1:17). However, throughout the Gospel, the Johannine Jesus sides with Moses against impious Jews (3:14; 5:46f; 7:1923). The a minore ad maius relation between the “earthly things” communicated through Moses and the “heavenly things” that are communicated through Christ suggests some kind of hierarchical relation and not a binary opposition. The character of this relation is discussed in the final and concluding section of the discourse 3:16-21.431
6.6 The presupposition for the uplifting of the Son of Man. God’s love (3:16-21) 6.6.1 First cause and ultimate referent. God’s love The structure of the present discourse has led us backward through a chain of causes. As the Evangelist states in the conclusion of the Gospel, (eternal) life presupposes the ability to interpret Jesus’ signs (“which are written down in this Book”) (20:30f). This hermeneutical competence, in turn, depends on the (re-) generation a!nwqen by the pneu=ma (3:1-7: the ultimate pneumatic event). This generation presupposes the availability of the spirit (cf. 7:39),432 which again presupposes the uplifting and glorification of the Son of Man (3:14; 8:28; 12:32-34). The last step in Jesus’ continuous ascent towards the Father (20:17) involves his translation from a flesh-and-blood mode of being into life-giving spirit (6:62-63 & 20:17: the penultimate pneumatic event). As the work of the divine spirit, Jesus’ translation presupposes that the divine spirit has become present with him. John the Baptist’s testimony that he saw the pneu=ma descending from heaven and abide on Jesus (1:32: the first pneumatic event) confirmed that this was the case. The regress is 431 Sometimes Jesus’ attribution of the law to the Jews – for instance in 7:19-23, in which he speaks of the law which Moses has given them, and again in 10:34 where he speaks of their law – is used by the scholars to dissociate Jesus from Moses, from the law, and from the Jews. However, in the case of John 7, the logic of the argument presupposes a positive relation between the law and Jesus. The a minore ad maius argument found in John 7 presupposes a positive relation between the rules of circumcision prescribed by Moses and Jesus’ healing. The discourse on the law will be analysed in Chapter Eight. In the case of John 10, the scriptural justifications of Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God also presuppose the unabated authority of the law. The notion of “your law” just echoes the Jews’ own claim to be Moses’ disciples (9:28). See Brown (1966, LXXII) and Reinhartz (2001, 52 & 63). 432 John 7:39: tou=to de\ ei]pen peri\ tou= pneu/matoj o$ e1mellon lamba&nein oi9 pisteu/santej ei0j au0to_n: ou!pw ga_r h[n pneu=ma, o#ti 0Ihsou=j ou0de/pw e0doca&sqh.
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brought to an end in God’s love for the world.433 God’s love is the first cause, which, from a physical and pneumatic point of view, put the whole chain into motion, and that, from an epistemological point of view, constitutes the ultimate referent of all the signs. In John 3:16, we are informed about the motive that God had for giving up His only-begotten son, namely His love for the world. We also hear about the goal and purpose of this act, namely that this world which is in danger of perishing may have eternal life through faith in his son. The idea is developed in 3:17-21 in a manner in which each verse explains and expands on the preceding one.434 John 3:16: ou3twj ga_r h0ga&phsen o( qeo_j to_n ko&smon, w#ste to_n ui9o_n to_n monogenh= e1dwken, i3na pa~j o( pisteu/wn ei0j au0to_n mh\ a)po&lhtai a)ll’ e1xh| zwh\n ai0w&nion. John 3:16 is traditionally understood in terms of the incarnation of the eternal lo&goj and has become emblematic of a forensic/sacrificial interpretation of the cross:435 in place of the world, God offered His son.436 433 The discourse on pneu=ma and the discourse on motivation and action merge in the Stoic theory of emotions, which is the theory that I shall bring into play in my analysis of Jesus’ pneumatic (11:33) and emotional upheaval in story of the Lazarus in Chapter Eight. 434 Jean Zumstein has designated this meditative writing “der Relecture in der johanneischen Literatur”: the theme is developed through encircling repetitions through which new aspects are added continuously See Zumstein’s 1996 essay of the same name. 435 In German exegesis it has been discussed intensively whether the so-called “Simplex” version of “die Dahingabeformel” in 3:16 refers to the incarnation or the cross or to both (Wengst 2000, 136). The problem is that the “Formel” of 3:16 does not explicitly link the gift of the son to the atoning death on the cross. Käsemann’s understanding of 3:16 is hovering in the background. According to Käsemann 3:16 is an out-of-place insertion: “Man hat nach dem Kontext allen Anlaß, in ihr eine traditionelle und von dem Evangelisten aufgegriffene urchristliche Formel zu erblicken. So dient sie als Summarium und Überleitung auch nur dazu, die Herrlichkeit der Sendung Jesu zu betonen, also das Wunder der Fleischwerdung” (Käsemann 1971, 124). Schnelle argues in favour of an understanding that includes the whole sending, the purpose of which, however, remains the cross: “Gottes Liebe zur Welt kulminiert im einmaligen geschichtlichen Akt der Sendung des Sohnes, die Sendung ans Kreuz vollzieht sich als ein Akt der Liebe, Johannes lenkt damit die Hörer/Leser auf Kap. 1,14 zurück, denn die Sendung ereignet sich nicht in einem zeitlosen Auf- und Abstieg, sondern es ist der Inkarnierte, der am Kreuz seine Sendung vollendet. Wie in Joh. 1,18 qualifiziert der Evangelist das besondere Verhältnis des Sohnes zum Vater mit monogenh/j, womit wiederum die Einheit von Präexistenz, Sendung und Kreuz betont wird” (Schnelle 1998a, 75). Hofius argues emphatically that the giving of the son in John 3:16 exclusively refers to the death on the cross:
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However, the meaning of 3:16 must not be isolated from the flow of the present argument. The ou3twj ga&r links the present section (3:16-21) to the preceding one (3:8-15); 3:16-21 expand on and explain 3:8-15. When 3:16 is situated in the present argument, God’s love stands behind the regeneration as well as the events that the regeneration presupposes. God’s gift to the world is the life-giving spirit into which His onlybegotten son, Jesus, is translated after his death. In the Prologue, in verse 1:18, the epithet “only-begotten” is intimately related to Jesus in his glorified, that is, his transformed state. It is through the ascension and translation that Jesus comes to reside in the paternal interior (1:18: <:monogenh\j qeo_j> o( w@n ei0j to_n ko&lpon tou~ patro&j …) and receives the name of “monogenh\j qeo&j”. Just as it was the case with the concept of “Son of Man”, the epithet “mono-begotten” is semantically flexible and represents Jesus in his various modes of being. The theme of 3:16 is developed in 3:17: “Because (ga&r) God did not send His son into the world in order to judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (di’ au0tou=)”. John 3:17: ou0 ga_r a)pe/steilen o( qeo_j to_n ui9o_n ei0j to_n ko&smon i3na kri/nh| to_n ko&smon, a)ll’ i3na swqh|= o( ko&smoj di’ au0tou=. The proclamation overtly distances the Fourth Gospel from the apocalyptic tradition of the Son of Man found in Daniel and thereby also “Das Wort e1dwken bezieht sich streng und ausschliesslich auf den Kreuzestod Jesu, nicht dagegen lediglich auf die Inkarnation bzw. die Sendung Jesu in die Welt und auch nicht sowohl auf die Inkarnation wie auf den Kreuzestod” (Hofius 1996, 65). That the giving of the spirit may be included in the salvific act of God is not at issue. This possibility is effectively barred by the separation of the uplifting on the cross from the ascent to the Father (Frey 1994, 201) and (Hofius 1996, 62). 436 Many commentators notice the parallel between the tradition of Abraham’s willingness to offer his beloved and only son Isaac (Gen 22:2, 12) and John’s statement in 3:16 on God’s love for the world (Brown 1966, 147; Wengst 2000, 137). The parallel between the Morija tradition and the Fourth Gospel supports an interpretation of the cross as altar and the death of Jesus as (atoning) sacrifice. See Wengst, who argues that in spite of the fact that “[s]tatt der Wendung ‘für uns’ bzw. ‘für unsere Sünden’ steht ein Finalsatz, der im Johannesevangelium geläufige Motive enthält” then “[a]us dieser Ersetzung ist nicht zu schliessen, dass Johannes die Vorstellung von der stellvertretenden Sühne für die Sünden vermeiden wollte, da er sie ja an anderer Stelle bietet (vgl. 1,29; 11,50)” (Wengst 2000, 137). See also Hofius, who understands the cross as the place where Jesus atones vicariously for the sin of the world: “Theologisch bringt die Bezeichnung der Kreuzigung als ’Erhöhung’ die Heilsbedeutung des Todes Jesu zum Ausdruck: dass eben dieser Tod – als ein Geschehen heiligender Sühne – die rettende Machttat des Gekreuzigten ist, die den dem Tod verfallenen sündigen Menschen seiner Verlorenheit entreißt und ihm das ewige Leben eröffnet. In der ‘Stunde’ seines Sterbens nimmt das ‘Gottes’ die Sünde der Welt hinweg (1:29; vgl. 19,34.36)” (1996, 63).
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from the conception of the judging Messiah in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The statement of the purpose of the son’s sending, namely that the world may be saved “through him” (di’ au0tou=), picks up the Prologue 1:17. In the Prologue, we were informed about what actually came into being “through Jesus Christ (dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou= e0gw/neto)”, namely “goodwill and truth (h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia)”. The parallels between the discourse in John 3 on “God’s love” and the discourse on the paternal “goodwill and truth” in the Prologue suggests that in the Fourth Gospel “love” and “goodwill” are used interchangeably. In conclusion, “through him” (3:17) or “through Jesus Christ” (1:17) we are led back to the motive and the emotion that motivated God in His interactions with the world: in the creation (1:1-5), in His giving of the law (1:16f), and ultimately in His giving his son. Moving backward through the chain of causes allows us to identify the content of the saving “faith in him” which is the source of eternal life (3:16). This faith concerns the knowledge of and the acknowledgement of the divine motive. The gift of the son constitutes a kind of meta-discourse on God’s actions. The theme of judgement from 3:17 is expanded in 3:18: “He who believes in him is not judged (kri/netai, grammatically, a present and a future act), whereas he who does not believe has already been judged (h!dh ke/kritai, an already completed act), because he has not come to faith in the name of the mono-begotten son of God”. John 3:18: o( pisteu/wn ei0j au0to_n ou0 kri/netai: o( de\ mh\ pisteu/wn h!dh ke/kritai, o#ti mh\ pepi/steuken ei0j to_ o!noma tou= monogenou=j ui9ou= tou= qeou=. How this actualization or anticipation of the judgement actually works through the coming of the light into the world is explained in 3:19-21.437 On the one hand, we have the person who loves the darkness and pursues evil things; he hates the light and does not seek it in order to avoid the wickedness of his deeds (ta_ fau=la) being brought to light (3:20). This character is unaffected by the coming of the light; on him God’s anger remains (3:36). On the other hand, we have the person who already does the truth; he comes to the light, but not, as the antithesis might suggest, in order that the goodness of his deeds may be known. Instead, the person acts in order that it may be revealed that his deeds are carried out “by means of” or “in God” (3:21: e0n qew~|). Indirectly, the
437 I have already dealt with the issue of sin and judgement in Chapter Five.
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asymmetric antithesis emphasizes the notion of acting “e0n qew|~”, but what does the phrase mean? In a way that is incompatible with Protestant thinking, 3:21 seems to claim that some kind of positive pre-motivation is necessary for a favourable response to the light. In fact, this idea pervades the Fourth Gospel: It is the person who already does the truth who comes to the light (3:21); it is the person who already does good things who is called forth to a resurrection of life (5:29); it is the person who is already taught by the Father who is drawn to Jesus (6:44-45). Often this kind of pre-motivation is understood in terms of the predestination of believers. However, the hierarchical relation of “earthly things” to “heavenly things” stated in the a minore ad maius argument of 3:12 throws light on these sayings.438 In line with contemporary interpretations of Moses’ serpent in the Septuagint, in the Wisdom of Solomon and in Philo, it was argued that the faith caused by knowledge of “earthly things” implied the acknowledgement of God’s motive in giving the law. The law was an expression of God’s goodwill and care for His people (1:16f). In comparison with faith in “heavenly things”, namely faith that God has given His Son as the ultimate expression of His goodwill and love for the world in order that this gift (4:10) may prevent the world from going astray (3:16-17), faith in “earthly things” remains a minor thing.439 A person who does not know the Father (8:19) and who does not see the law as a divinely ordained gift will have serious problems in coming to terms with God’s new gift which comes into being through Christ 438 Hofius is a proponent of “[das] prädestinatianischen Denken des vierten Evangelisten” (1966, 66): “Von diesem doppelten Aspekt der Sendung Jesu – von ihrem allein heilvollen Sinn und Ziel einerseits und ihrer unausweichlichen unheilvollen Folge andererseits – ist in den Versen 18-21 die Rede, mit denen die Nikodemus-Perikope abgeschlossen wird. … In Wahrheit wird nämlich noch einmal scharf herausgestellt, was bereits die Verse 1-7 dargelegt haben: zum einen, dass vom Menschen her prinzipiell keine andere Möglichkeit gegeben ist als die der Zugehörigkeit zur sa&rc, und das heißt; zu der dem Verdammungs- und Todesgericht verfallenen massa perditionis; und zum andern, dass Rettung einzig und allein von Gott her gegeben ist: als das Wunder der den Prädestinierten im Glauben widerfahrenden Neugeburt” (68). The fact that in the Fourth Gospel, God’s salvific initiative is directed towards the world (1:29, 3:16 etc.) is understood by Hofius as an indirect statement about the character of God’s act: He atones for the world’s sin. The act itself, as well as its salvific implications, does not depend on any initiative on the part of human beings: “Die scheinbar heilsuniversalistischen Aussagen wie 1,29; 3:16f … haben … die Funktion … das in der ungeschuldeten Liebe Gottes begründete Wunder der iustificatio impiorum zur Sprache zu bringen” (67). 439 John 4:10: ei0 h|!deij th\n dwrea_n tou= qeou= John 1:17: h9 xa&rij kai\ a)lh/qeia dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou= e0ge/neto.
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(1:17). By contrast, the person who believes in God’s good motive in giving the law and who wants to serve the truth through his doings will be attracted by the light (3:21). He has already been taught by the Father and is drawn towards Jesus by the same Father (6:44-45). In accordance with the conventions of gift-giving in antiquity, the only appropriate response to a gift was an acknowledgement of the giver’s motive (Engberg-Pedersen 2005). It is knowledge of this motive that is given through Christ as a meta-gift. The believer, who acknowledges the gift, credits God by his good behaviour: he acts e0n qew~| (3:21). The Fourth Gospel does not feature a Protestant iustificatio impiorum; instead, it brings good news to those who are already in search of truth (3:21; 5:46f; 6:45). In Stoic terms, that which the believer obtains through Christ is a firm and “strong” knowledge of what he has previously only known through Moses in a “weak” manner. In Chapter Eight, in my exegesis of John 11, I shall elaborate on that. The relation between “earthly” and “heavenly things” is staged in the scene that follows immediately upon Jesus’ first extended discourse. I have previously argued that the introduction to the Gospel should be extended until 3:36 and that the figure of John the Baptist and his testimony frame the introduction (1:19-34 & 3:22-36).440 John’s testimony constitutes the background against which the new situation which comes into being through Jesus should be understood. The section 1:19-3:36 presents to us what we may call the rhetorical situation of the Fourth Gospel. First, in 1:19-34 John the Baptist calls for and presents the different aspects of the task for which Jesus is anointed by God: he is to provide a new and better way to the Lord (1:23), to take away the sin of the world (1:29) and to provide the baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:33). 440 The person behind the voice of 3:31-36 represents an issue of continuous debate. Do the concluding remarks belong to the last part of the Baptist’s discourse? (Barrett 1955, 182f). Or should the verses be cut out from the present context and moved to Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus in continuation of 3:21 (Schnackenburg 1979a, 393-403)? Or do they represent a summary to the whole section of 1:19-3:36 made by the authorial voice? Wengst argues strongly in favour of seeing 3:31-36 in continuation with the Baptist’s last testimony and censures “[die] Literarkritiker, die klüger sind als der Text, [die] zerschlagen diesen sinnvollen Zusammenhang” (2000, 143. Note 103). Moloney, however, concludes: “In the end, whether the speaker be the Baptist, Jesus, or the narrator, the point of view of the author is being expressed” (1993, 122). In agreement with Wengst, I find that the text is meaningful in its present position as a summary of 1:19-3:36. The author of the Fourth Gospel is in the habit of using the voices of his characters to summarize the sections: in 12:44-50 Jesus himself summarizes his public ministry. As a mediator between the old dispensation of Moses and the new one in Christ, it seems appropriate to place the conclusion in the mouth of John the Baptist. In fact, there is no indication of a change of speaker in the present text.
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Second, Jesus’ signifying behaviour is introduced. The two first signs illustrate symbolically the inadequacy of the present situation and hint at the solution provided by Jesus (2:1-11 & 2:13-22). Finally, in his first extended discourse, Jesus comments on these signs and explains their hermeneutical function and meaning. As a mediator between the old dispensation of Moses and the new one in Christ, it seems appropriate to place the conclusion in the mouth of John the Baptist.
6.7 John the Baptist’s summary of the introduction (3:22-36) In his final statement, John the Baptist expresses his unreserved joy at the coming of the event that he has called for in his Isaianic out-cry in the first part of his testimony (1:23). John’s last testimony is occasioned by Jesus’ inauguration of his baptizing activity. The seemingly competing baptismal practices of John in Salem and of Jesus in Judea (3:23f) give rise to a quarrel about purification (3:25: peri\ kaqarismou=) between John’s disciples and a man who has come down from Judea. Provoked by this discussion, John’s disciples confront their teacher with the success of Jesus’ baptizing: “everybody comes to him” (3:26). John, however, corrects his disciples, no competition is involved and he explains the relationship between himself and Jesus to them.441 The answer is given in three parts, which pick up different parts of the preceding material in the Gospel. The first part (3:27-28) refers to John’s previous testimony (1:19-34). The second part (3:29-30) is a metaphor, which thematically picks up the sign performed by Jesus during the wedding feast in Cana (2:1-11). The third part (3:31-36) exhibits extensive parallels to Jesus’ extended discourse with Nicodemus (3:1-21). In a manner which is typical of the Fourth Gospel, the referents behind the statements are difficult to identify, but when John’s last 441 In his commentary, R. Brown approaches the dispute about purification from the perspective of history. The conflict may either concern the value of a baptism of repentance as practised by the historical figure of John in comparison with standard (Pharisee) rules of purity, which are introduced in the wedding scene (2:6). Or else it may concern a comparison of the historical practices of John and Jesus, respectively (1966, 151). Moloney, who argues from a literary point of view, states: “It is on the basis of the information provided in vv. 22-24 that the reader understands the discussion between John’s disciples and a Jew over ‘purifying’ (v. 25). Whatever the historical origins of the discussion over ‘purifying’, it must be read as a discussion over the issue of baptism” (1993, 124). Wengst draws attention to the literary function of the “man from Judea” who mediates geographically between the place of Jesus’ baptizing and the place of John’s and thus serves the purpose of juxtaposing the two (2000, 144).
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testimony is read in light of these earlier texts, the problems may be solved.
6.7.1 The gift of the spirit (3:27-28) John 3:27: a)pekri/qh 0Iwa&nnhj kai\ ei]pen: ou0 du/natai a!nqrwpoj lamba&nein ou0de\ e4n e0a_n mh\ h|] dedome/non au0tw|~ e0k ou0ranou=. John 3:28: au0toi\ u9mei=j moi marturei=te o#ti ei]pon o#ti ou0k ei0mi\ e0gw_ o( xristo&j, a)ll’ o#ti a)pestalme/noj ei0mi\ e1mprosqen e0kei/nou. The saying may anticipate the statement in 6:65, according to which the privilege of being called and of coming to Jesus is given to the believer by God (6:65: ou0dei\j du/natai e0lqei=n pro&j me e0a_n mh\ h|] dedome/non (neuter) au0tw|~ e0k tou= patro&j). Or it may allude to the recurring theme that believers are given to Jesus by the Father (6:37: pa~n o$ (neuter) di/dwsi/n moi o( path\r pro_j e0me\ h#cei).442 However, when 3:27 is read in light of the following statement, in which John reconfirms that he is not the anointed one (3:28), another meaning of v. 27 may be discerned. In John’s first testimony, negative statements concerning his own identity (1:20-21) indirectly functioned as sayings about Jesus (1:20; cf. 1:33). In this way, John pointed out that it was Jesus who had been anointed through the descent of the pneu=ma and who would, in turn, provide the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This event meant to John that his own baptizing practice had lost its intrinsic value. Instead, he drew attention to Jesus and recommended that his disciples follow him. Now he explains the incomparability of his own and Jesus’ baptism to his disciples. When read in light of John’s first testimony, 3:27 states that it is not John to whom the spirit (neuter) is given; but, as claimed in 3:28, John is sent in order to announce the coming of him who is anointed with the spirit. This reading accords with 3:34b, which speaks about the privileged gift of the spirit (3:34b: ou0 ga_r e0k me/trou di/dwsin to_ pneu=ma). In the subsequent section, the relation between John and Jesus is depicted in the wedding image, where the groom’s best man is him who prepares the feast (Brown 1966, 152; Wengst 2000, 145).
442 For a survey of different scholarly positions, see R. Brown (1966, 155).
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6.7.2 The voice of the groom (3:29-30) John 3:29: o( e1xwn th\n nu/mfhn numfi/oj e0sti/n: o( de\ fi/loj tou= numfi/ou o( e0sthkw_j kai\ a)kou/wn au0tou= xara|~ xai/rei dia_ th\n fwnh\n tou= numfi/ou. au3th ou]n h9 xara_ h9 e0mh\ peplh/rwtai. John 3:30: e0kei=non dei= au0ca&nein, e0me\ de\ e0lattou=sqai. John compares his relation to Jesus with that of the groom’s best man, who does not envy the groom his bride. Instead, as friend he rejoices when he hears the voice of the approaching groom. It is this voice that makes his joy perfect (3:29: au3th [that is: fwnh/] ou]n h9 xara_ h9 e0mh\ peplh/rwtai). John concludes that while the groom (e0kei=non, masculine), and what he represents, must (dei=) grow, he himself, and what he represents, must become of lesser influence (3:30: e0me\ de\ e0lattou=sqai). In the wedding image, it is the sound of the groom’s voice that makes his friend rejoice. The featuring of the voice here picks up 3:8, in which the voice of him who was begotten a!nwqen was said to be influenced by the pneu=ma. In the discussion of 3:8, attention was drawn to Philo’s description of the phenomenon of prophecy. God employs the prophet’s tongue for His own purposes by using his organs of speech like an instrument. By the aid of the divine pneu=ma, the chords of the prophet’s tongue are struck and God’s words sound in the world. A link is established between “that which was given from heaven” (3:27), which I above suggested was the spirit, and the wedding image, in which the groom’s voice is the cause of joy. It seems to be this idea that manifests itself in the following section of John’s discourse.443 Here it is stated that the person whom God has sent speaks the words of God, 443 The reading presented here is emphatically rejected by H. C. Kammler in his 1996 essay “Jesus Christus und der Geistparaklet”. Because of the lack of an overt subject as well as a dative object in 3:34b, two meanings are at least in principle possible. Kammler, however, is not in doubt about the author’s intention: “Wenn o( qeo&j das grammatikalische Subjekt ist, ist das zu ergänzende Dativobjekt der von Gott gesandte Jesus Christus … Setzt man dagegen Jesus Christus als das Subjekt des Satzes voraus, kann das aus dem Kontext zu erschließende Dativobjekt nur in denjenigen, die seine marturi/a annehmen (V. 33), und also in den Glaubenden gesehen werden. … Lässt sich aber überhaupt eine exegetisch fundierte Entscheidung treffen? Durchaus! Denn dafür, dass Jesus das Subjekt und die Glaubenden das Dativobjekt von V.34b sind, sprechen neben zahlreichen sprachlich-philologischen Gründen auch gewichtige sachlich-inhaltliche Argumente” (1996, 170f, Kammler’s emphasis). Contrary to Kammler, I find the ambiguity of the whole passage 3:31-34 intentional; the ambiguity encompasses the parallel situation of Jesus as the Son of God and the subsequent generations of divine children.
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since He (God) does not give the spirit in parts (3:34b: ou0 ga_r e0k me/trou di/dwsin to_ pneu=ma). The question is now what the subject matter, to which the groom’s organ of speech lends its voice and which makes his friend rejoice, is. John’s statement regarding the perfection of his joy (3:29: au3th ou]n h9 xara_ h9 e0mh\ peplh/rwtai) anticipates Jesus’ words that in his Farewell Discourses accompany the giving of the new commandment of love in 15:9-17: “These things I have said to you in order that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be fulfilled (tau=ta lela&lhka u9mi=n i3na h9 xara_ h9 e0mh\ e0n u9mi=n h|] kai\ h9 xara_ u9mw~n plhrwqh|=)”. Jesus here refers to the love with which the Father has initially loved him and with which he now loves his disciples. The statement is concluded by Jesus’ admonition of the disciples to love each other the way that Jesus has loved them (15:12). We are now in a position to decide what it is that must grow in the believer: it is the love or word of God. This interpretation accords with Jesus’ accusation of the Jews who, for their part, charge him with blasphemy because of the statement about his and his Father’s continuous Sabbatical work (5:17f). The Jews do not have God’s word (5:38: to_n lo&gon au0tou= ou0k e1xete e0n u9mi=n me/nonta) or love (5:42: th\n a)ga&phn tou= qeou= ou0k e1xete e0n e9autoi=j) abiding in them. Add to this that God’s word is also inscribed in the discourse on purification in the Farewell Discourses. Here Jesus declares that his disciples are already cleansed because of the word he has spoken to them (15:3: h!dh u9mei=j kaqaroi/ e0ste dia_ to_n lo&gon o$n lela&lhka u9mi=n). Thus, the cleansing agent provided by Jesus is, from a physical point of view, the Holy Spirit, and from a cognitive point of view, his love for his disciples. The next question concerns what it is that John the Baptist represents. Although it is something positive, it must diminish (3:30b: e0me\ de\ e0lattou=sqai). The cross-references between John’s wedding image and the first sign performed by Jesus during the wedding feast in Cana may be helpful. The wine, which was served first but ran out during the feast, was here characterized as the lesser one (2:10: to_n e0la&ssw) in comparison with the wine provided by Jesus from those water jars, which were present in accordance with Jewish rites of purification (2:6: kata_ to_n kaqarismo_n tw~n 0Ioudai/wn). The quarrel concerning purification (3:25: peri\ kaqarismou=), into which John’s disciples got involved, was occasioned by the competing baptisms of John and Jesus. Combining the information given in the two scenes, we have, on the one hand, John’s baptism in water, symbolized by the first and inferior wine, which represents the Jewish rites of purification. On the other hand, we have Jesus’ baptism, symbolized by the new and better wine,
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which represents the baptism in the spirit. The prophetic voice of the anointed one, which makes John rejoice, speaks of two necessary things: one must be begotten a!nwqen by water and pneu=ma (3:1-7) and one must abide in God’s word and love (15:1-15).444 The information may be schematized as follows: John’s testimony (1:19-34; 3:22-36) John: Baptism in water Jesus: Baptism in the Holy Spirit
The wedding feast in Cana (2:1-11) First and lesser wine Symbolic value: Jewish institutions Second and superior wine Symbolic value: Physics: the second begetting a!nwqen Ethics: the spoken word about God’s love and the new commandment
The testimony of John the Baptist frames the section which introduces the rites of purification (2:1-11), the sacrificial cult of the temple (2:1322), and Jewish teaching in general (3:1, 10) – in other words, institutions rooted in Moses’ and the prophets’ writings. As divinely ordained means of upholding the proper relationship with God, they were represented in contemporary Jewish exegesis by the symbol of Moses’ serpent (3:14). However, the Fourth Gospel seems to claim that although these institutions are rooted in Scripture and represent God’s goodwill towards His people, they must diminish. Why? In distinction from the Gospel of Mark and the Pauline letters, Pharisaic purity – as well as legal boundaries separating Jews and Gentiles – plays no role in the Fourth Gospel. The problem seems to be that the way God’s goodwill is represented by these institutions does not, after all, lead to the 444 Although the commentaries note the cross-references between the final witness of John and the first sign performed by Jesus, this awareness does not influence their interpretations. Brown concludes: “Thus, there are three parallels between iii 22-30 and the Cana scene: (a) ‘purification’ in 25; (b) the marriage theme; and (c) this vocabulary similarity [the decreasing of John is related to the adjective ‘inferior’ used to describe the ordinary wine at Cana. My comment]. It seems adventurous, however, to regard these rather incidental parallels as theologically significant. They are interesting, however, in view of the possibility that the material in iii 22-30 once immediately preceded the Cana scene” (1966, 153). Barrett finds that Jesus’ sign and the parable of John, although they represent different sources, share the Old Testament tradition of speaking of Israel’s privileged relation to God in terms of a marriage (1955, 186). It seems as if the idea of different sources for Jesus’ sign (die shmei=a-Quelle) and John’s parable (the history of John the Baptist) has prevented scholars, even literary critics like Moloney (1996), from exploring the cross-references.
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worshippers that the Father desires. The Gospel states it quite clearly: in spite of the saving power of Moses’ serpent, the fathers in the wilderness died (6:49, 58: oi9 pate/rej … kai\ a)pe/qanon). To this we shall return in Chapter Eight.
6.8 Summary Following Jörg Frey, I have argued that Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus constitutes a hermeneutical introduction to the Fourth Gospel in general and to the Johannine signs specifically. The Johannine signs are multidimensional in at least three ways. First, according to the two steps outlined in the conclusion of the Gospel, we may speak of two levels in them: they function simultaneously as tokens of Jesus’ divine mandate and as symbolic narratives that point towards the story of pneumatic transformations. Second, they refer to the whole story of pneumatic transformations, from the (first) descent of the spirit on Jesus to the ultimate regeneration a!nwqen of believers (as the second descent). Third, quite often the signs, as it were, condense several aspects of the signified story into one symbol, e.g. the uplifting which may denote several steps on Jesus’ upward journey towards the Father, but may also have the cross as its sole focus. The “Son of Man” may, too, represent Jesus in different stages of being. The same pertains to the “mono-begotten son”. This more dynamic approach to the Johannine signs led to a deconstruction of well-known dichotomies in the scholarly discussion of the Johannine signs: first and foremost the Bultmann-Käsemann divide (and its replication in Bro Larsen’s and Culpepper’s discussions of the recognition theme), but also the typology-allegory divide discussed by Dodd and featured by Frey. According to Frey, the reception by the Fourth Gospel of the episode in Num 21 differed significantly from the Septuagint and the wisdom tradition, in which Moses’ serpent became a sign that referred to God’s eternal goodwill for His people in a vertical manner. As Frey sees it, to the fourth Evangelist, the episode in the wilderness constituted a historical and temporal/horizontal pre-figuring of God’s ultimate manifestation in history of His goodwill and love for the world, namely the gift of His only-begotten and beloved Son. The death on the cross was understood by Frey as a vicarious sacrifice on behalf of the world, in which God, through His Son, atoned for the sins of the world. However, as demonstrated by Dodd in his discussion of Johannine symbolism, in the end it becomes very difficult to uphold a purely typological,
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temporal relation between historical events without having recourse to God’s will as the eternal and divine signified. Contrary to Frey, I find that there is a parallel between the Johannine hermeneutics of the signs and the contemporary reception of the serpent on Moses’ pole. But instead of focusing on one specific image or aspect in the Nicodemus discourse, I have followed the structure of Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus’ questions about the signs and their meaning. This approach led to a regress that traced the presuppositions for understanding the signs back to their first cause and ultimate referent. In order to decode the signs one must be regenerated a!nwqen through water and pneu=ma, which in turn presupposes the uplifting and ana&basij/kata&basij of the Son of Man, which ultimately depends on, and expresses, God’s love for the world. I have argued that Jesus’ uplifting on the cross formed part of Jesus’ continuous a)na&basij engendered by the descent of the spirit, which led him up to Jerusalem, up onto the cross, and which culminated in his translation into the pneumatic Father. This translation was the presupposition for the return to and regeneration a!nwqen of believers.445 Thus, the Johannine signs do not have a single referent, but rather refer in a multidimensional and dynamic manner to all the events that make up the signified story of pneumatic transformations. This story, in turn, expresses God’s goodwill and love, as its first cause and ultimate referent.
445 Scholars have often noticed that in the Fourth Gospel we find no parallel to the spirit-driven journey into the wilderness that befalls the synoptic Jesus after his baptism. But if, as I have suggested, the wilderness in the Fourth Gospel represents Judaism, then Jesus’ spirit-driven ascent to Jerusalem takes up the same idea.
Chapter 7
The Penultimate Pneumatic Event. “It Is the Spirit That Gives Life” (6:63). Jesus’ Ascent and Translation into the Father
7.1 Introduction. The preconditions for the spirit’s coming What then if you see the Son of Man ascend to the place where he was before? It Is the Spirit That Gives Life, the flesh benefits nothing; the subjects about which I have spoke to you are spirit and life.446 (John 6:62-63)
It is generally recognized that the Fourth Gospel differs from the Synoptics in that the narrative of Jesus’ life and death is told from the perspective of the glorified Christ, or more precisely, from a consciousness that has received the spirit from the exalted, ascended and glorified Christ. The fourth Evangelist has supplemented the Markan narrative of the crucifixion and the empty tomb with a series of encounters between the risen Christ and his disciples.447 These meetings climax, from a physical point of view, in the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the disciples (20:22), and from a cognitive point of view, in Thomas’ recognition that now he is simultaneously facing his Lord and his God (20:28). I have argued that this change mirrors the fact that, in the Fourth Gospel, the most important issue for the audience is not the identity of Christ as the Son of God,448 but the identity of the next generation of the children of God (1:12-13). I have pointed to the spirit as the vehicle for this transition. 446 John 6:62-63: 0Ea_n ou]n qewrh=te to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou a)nabai/nonta o#pou h]n to_ pro&teron; to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n, h9 sa_rc ou0k w)felei= ou0de/n: ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ lela&lhka u9mi=n pneu=ma& e0stin kai\ zwh/ e0stin. 447 See the reflections on the supplement in the section on New Historicism in Chapter One. 448 See also Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17: “The basic problem is no longer the sense in which the crucified one is the Son of God, but rather the reason why God came into the flesh and gave himself to death” (1968, 20; 1971, 50).
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Throughout the Gospel, the coming of the spirit is intimately, but also enigmatically linked to the departure of Christ from the world to the Father. First, in the Farewell Discourses Jesus comforts his anxious disciples: in the end, his departure will benefit them (16:7).449 In fact, the coming of the Paraclete is conditioned on Jesus’ departure (modus eventualis: e0a_n de\ poreuqw~). Second, the same idea is expressed in the authorial comment to Jesus’ outcry during the Feast of Tabernacles when Jesus promised to quench the thirst of the thirsty (7:39).450 The narrator explains the reader that Jesus spoke about the spirit which those who believe in him will receive in the future (e1mellon lamba&nein) and that the coming of the spirit awaits Jesus’ glorification (7:39: e0doca&sqh). Third, the discussion of the bread from heaven in John 6 is concluded by Jesus in a statement that links the ascent of the Son of Man to the life-giving spirit. The disciples are provoked by Jesus’ saying that only the person who consumes Jesus, eats his flesh and drinks his blood will have eternal life and be raised up by him on the last day (6:54); he alone shall abide in Jesus and have Jesus abiding in him (6:56).451 In response to the disciples’ reaction Jesus asks:452 “What then (e0a_n ou]n) if you see the Son of Man ascend to the place where he was before?” The question has the form of a disjointed conditional clause without apodosis, which makes it difficult to decide whether Jesus increases the shock-value of the speech or takes the edge off it. Scholars disagree, but I shall argue that the latter is the case. In the following verses, Jesus explains his riddle-like statement: that which he spoke about was “spirit and life” (6:63). It is the spirit that generates life, the flesh benefits nothing.453 The enigmatic statements of 6:63, 7:39 and 16:7 may be understood in light of one another: Jesus’ staying in “flesh” will not benefit the disciples, whereas his departure (from the flesh) will result in the coming of the life-engendering spirit – or the Paraclete (in 449 John 16:7: a)ll’ e0gw_ th\n a)lh/qeian le/gw u9mi=n, sumfe/rei u9mi=n i3na e0gw_ a)pe/lqw. e0a_n ga_r mh\ a)pe/lqw, o( para&klhtoj ou0k e0leu/setai pro_j u9ma~j. e0a_n de\ poreuqw~, pe/myw au0to_n pro_j u9ma~j. 450 John 7:39: Tou=to de\ ei]pen peri\ tou= pneu/matoj o$ e1mellon lamba&nein oi9 pisteu/santej ei0j au0to&n. ou!pw ga_r h]n pneu=ma, o#ti 0Ihsou=j ou0de/pw e0doca&sqh. 451 John 6:54: o( trw&gwn mou th\n sa&rka kai\ ti/nwn mou to_ ai]ma e1xei zwh\n ai0w&nion, ka)gw_ a)nasth/sw au0to_n th|= e0sxa&th| h9me/ra|._ John 6:56: o( trw&gwn mou th\n sa&rka kai\ ti/nwn mou to_ ai]ma e0n e0moi\ me/nei ka)gw_ e0n au0tw|~. 452 John 6:62: e0a_n ou]n qewrh=te to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou a)nabai/nonta o#pou h]n to_ pro&teron; 453 John 6:63: to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n, h9 sa_rc ou0k w)felei= ou0de/n: ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ lela&lhka u9mi=n pneu=ma& e0stin kai\ zwh/ e0stin.
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John 14:26, the Paraclete is identified with the Holy Spirit; in John 14:16f; 15:26; 16:13, the Paraclete is identified with the Spirit of Truth). John 6:62-63 then hint at Jesus’ ascent as the event that brings the spirit. Fourth, when read in this way, the saying of 6:62-63 picks up the discourse on generation of believers a!nwqen by water and pneu=ma (3:3, 5). Puzzled by Jesus’ statements about the “generation a!nwqen” by “water and spirit”, Nicodemus demanded to know how all these things were possible (3:10). In his answer, Jesus referred to the necessary (dei=) uplifting of the Son of Man and his enigmatic a)na&basij and kata&basij (3:13-14).454 The description of the generation a!nwqen as taking place out of “water and spirit” picks up the prediction of a “baptism (water) in the Holy Spirit” (1:33) that Jesus, as the person anointed and chosen by God, was commissioned to bring about. To summarize: the availability of the life-giving spirit (6:62: to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n) – as the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete and the Spirit of Truth – for the next generation is conditioned on Jesus’ departure (16:7), the uplifting of the Son of Man (3:14), his ascent (3:13, 6:62) and the glorification of Jesus (7:39). Inevitably, this prompts the curious reader’s question of how the coming of the spirit is related to Jesus’ departure and ascent. What did the fourth Evangelist have in mind? Were there any ideas at his disposal in the milieu of Judaism and early Christianity which might have inspired his imagination? Or did he come up with something brand new? I have anticipated the solution to these questions in my thesis that the Fourth Gospel adopts an early Christian idea – with which we became acquainted in 1 Cor 15:45, namely that “the last Adam became life-giving spirit (o( e1sxatoj 0Ada_m ei0j pneu=ma zw|opoiou=n)”. In the article “The Material Spirit: Cosmology and Ethics in Paul” (2009), Troels Engberg-Pedersen argues that in order to answer the question of the character of the resurrection body of believers, Paul employs the Stoic idea of the conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij). During this process, heavier elements were transformed into lighter ones in order to end up as the lightest element of all, constructive fire. Engberg-Pedersen’s argument hinges on the claim that Paul’s discussion of the resurrection body in First Corinthians deeply embedded in the Stoic discourse on physics. How the individual resurrection of Christ as the paradigmatic “first fruit” (1 Cor 15:23: a)parxh/) fits into this scheme is not discussed in Engberg-Pedersen’s article. 454 John 3:13: kai\ ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j, o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou. John 3:14: Kai\ kaqw_j Mwu"sh=j u3ywsen to_n o!fin e0n th|= e0rh/mw|, ou3twj u9ywqh=nai dei= to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&tou i3na pa~j o( pisteu/wn e0n au0tw|~ e1xh| zwh\n ai0w&nion.
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In order to inquire into the meaning of the “first fruit”, I want to pick up another of Paul’s intertextual allusions in First Corinthians 15.455 455 In his 1995 article ”’Wisdom among the Perfect:’ Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and Corinthian Christianity”, Gregory Sterling also suggests a link between the Alexandrian traditions witnessed in Philo’s writings and Early Christianity. Yet, it was not Paul, but his opponents in Corinth, who were influenced by philosophical Judaism. According to Sterling, the opponents’ anthropology is discernable in Paul’s unusual vocabulary in First Corinthians: “Paul has co-opted the Corinthians’ categories but qualified them” (372). The opponents’ anthropology appears to be inspired by the philosophical exegesis of Gen 1:27 and Gen 2 of intellectual Alexandrian Jews. Sterling suggests that the Corinthians may have become acquainted with this kind of exegesis either in the synagogue or adopted it from the Alexandrian apostle Apollos, who is depicted as Paul’s main rival in First Corinthians. In spite of the fact that Paul and his opponents shared the belief in the reception of the spirit through the Christian baptism, many of the problems in Corinth hinges on the conception of the spirit. So, how did Paul’s opponents understand this reception? Although their understanding is never spelled out in the letter, we may get an idea about the opponents’ stance from the traditions attested in Philo’s writings. Sterling explains: “… Philo attests two traditions which have different philosophical backgrounds: the Platonizing tradition which distinguishes between the heavenly anthropos made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27) and the molded earthly anthropos (Gen 2:7) and the Stoicing tradition which identifies the immortal nature of humanity with the spirit and the mortal with the body (Gen 2:7). The question now arises whether the two are compatible. For Philo they are: the image of God is what is breathed into the face of humanity” (364, emphasis added). Inspired by the Platonic tradition, the Corinthians may have understood the reception of the spirit in baptism as “a quickening or enlivening of the divine spirit which was inbreathed into humanity at creation.” (371f). In fact, it was this Platonized anthropology that was the source of the various problems in the Corinthian congregation. Probably, the opponents’ denial of a future bodily resurrection was due to the fact that the Platonic element in their anthropology devalued corporeal existence (366f). Paul counters the Corinthians’ identification with the “the second anthropos” of Gen. 1:27 and 2:7b by situating their idea in an eschatological framework in which it is Christ who as the last Adam – and the heavenly anthropos and image of God – represents the true second anthropos: “For Paul ‘mind’ [as well as the spirit; my addition] is the eschatological gift of God; for the Corinthians it is a constitutive component of humanity created in the image of God” (372). Through the reception of the spirit, Christians belong to the heavenly human being (1 Cor 15:48) and are guaranteed that in the future they will carry his image (15:49). In his attempt to identify the stance of Paul’s Corinthian opponents, Sterling consults texts in the Philonic corpus to which I have also, to a large extent, drawn attention to in my attempt to reconstruct Johannine pneumatology. I agree with Sterling that in 1 Cor 15:48f Paul has Christ in mind when he speaks about the heavenly human being, but the Christ who concerns Paul (here as elsewhere) is the transformed “first fruit” (15:15f), who has already become “life-giving spirit” (15:45). Whether or not the Philonic traditions inspired the Corinthian opponents, Paul seems to have integrated these traditions in his own arguments. This is e.g. the case in Rom 6-8; in these chapters, Paul claims that the spirit already is at work in the transformation of believers simultaneously causing their bodily death and preparing their spiritual resurrection. Thus, the pneumatic body of the resurrected Christ mediates between the opponents’ stance and Paul’s – both as reconstructed by Sterling.
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Through his use of the idea of the “last Adam”, Paul hints at the contemporary exegesis of Genesis 1-3 and the repeated generations of man, with which we are acquainted from, for instance, Philo’s writings (see Chapter Four). In Philo’s treatises, it is the figure of Moses who is subjected to a deute/ra ge/nesij, and who is translated to a place near God in place of an ordinary death. In order to explain what happened to Moses when he was drawn near to God in his final a)na&basij (QG 1.86; Sacr. 8), Philo also employs the Stoic idea of a)nastoixei/wsij (Mos. 2.288). In the case of Philo’s Moses, we find the cosmological transformation involved in the Stoic conflagration applied to an individual human being. I shall argue that in the case of the Johannine Jesus’ crossover (meta&basij) from the world to the Father (13:1: i3na meta&bh| e0k tou= ko&smou tou/tou pro_j to_n pate/ra), which is also his ascent (a)na&basij) to the Father (20:17: a)nabai/nw pro_j to_n pate/ra mou), John thinks along the same lines as Paul and Philo. In the discussion in Chapter Four of Wayne Meeks’ comparison in The Prophet-King (1967) between Johannine Christology and Philo’s Moses, it was argued that the negative result of Meeks’ survey was due to his choice of comparative parameters. According to Meeks, the paradoxical enthronement and glorification of Christ took place at his death on the cross; therefore it was the “uplifting” on the cross that should be compared with the ascent and enthronement of Moses on Mount Sinai. Instead, I drew attention to the fact that Philo’s account of Moses’ life has two focal points: Moses’ divine generation (deute/ra ge/nesij), which took place on Mount Sinai, and the translation in place of death, in which Moses was drawn near to God through a transformation of his body and soul into pure nou=j. In Chapter Four, I argued in favour of an understanding of the “incarnation” of the Johannine Jesus in terms of Philo’s deute/ra ge/nesij and referred this to the descent of the heavenly spirit upon Jesus as testified by John the Baptist (1:32). In Chapter Five, it was suggested that this event should to be understood as God’s anointing of Jesus as king. Although, as demonstrated convincingly by Meeks in The Prophet-King, Jesus’ judgement by Pilate is staged as his enthronement, the ceremony cannot be restricted to the cross. In this chapter, it will be argued that Jesus’ departure from the world (13:1: i3na metabh|= e0k tou= ko&smou tou/tou pro_j to_n pate/ra) and his ascent to the Father (20:17: a)nabai/nw pro_j to_n pate/ra mou) should also be understood in light of Philo’s Moses, in this case specifically of Moses’ ascension. The present chapter will take issue with the prevailing scholarly understanding of the relation of Jesus’ departure to the coming of the spirit, according to which Jesus’ ascent is seen as conditioned on the
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delivery of the spirit and not the other way around. Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953, 226; 443) is an advocate of this position: in Jesus’ baptism, the mysteriously incarnated eternal lo&goj was entrusted with the Holy Spirit. As long as he was in the world, the spirit remained with him. But since the Holy Spirit was a phenomenon that belonged to this world, Jesus had to bestow it on someone else, before he was capable of returning to the place where he was before together with the otherworldly, heavenly Father. As I have already discussed in Chapter One, this tradition distinguished between the Holy Spirit and the spirit of God mentioned in John 4:24. The mystery of the incarnation had its counterpart in the mystery of the ascension. It was unexplainable in human categories; it was a matter of faith. In Chapter One, it was also demonstrated that the traditional understanding, be it German or Anglo-American, entailed several problems. I pointed out that some of the specific features of Johannine language – the synchronicity of Jesus’ leaving and coming, the fusion of spaces, the blurring of established identities – could not be accounted for by the (modern) understanding of the subject’s bodybound integrity and a dualistic world view. I also argued that a monistic world view like the Stoics’ was able to makes sense of these statements, and this led to the sketch of my Stoically informed metastory of pneumatic transformations. By means of transformations effected by the divine pneu=ma, new light was shed on the Christological mysteries. In Chapter Four, the mystery of the incarnation was dissolved by means of Philo’s employment (in his theory of the two men and their respective generations) of Aristotle’s theory of the epigenesis and of the Stoic phenomenon of the kra~sij of pneumatic bodies. In a similar manner, the mystery of the ascension will now be explained in terms of Philo’s use of the Stoic phenomenon of a)nastoixei/wsij in his idea of a translation (a)na&basij) in place of death. Jesus does not leave the Holy Spirit behind, when he leaves the world. Through his a)na&basij to the Father, who is pneu=ma (4:24), Jesus himself becomes the life-giving Holy Spirit. The transformation is anticipated discursively in Jesus’ sayings in the Farewell Discourses, pre-eminently in John 14, and it is dramatized in John 20 by the means of John’s topographical staging of the resurrection scenes. In this chapter, the ascension in the scholarly tradition will be discussed first. Whereas in Chapter One, the marginalization of the Johannine phenomenon of pneu=ma in German historical exegesis was discussed, I shall here concentrate on the problems that Jesus’ resurrection and ascension pose to Anglo-American scholarship on the Fourth Gospel. Next, Philo’s translation (a)na&basij) is presented and analysed, and
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I discuss how Philo’s idea is related to the Stoic phenomenon of a)nastoixei/wsij. Thirdly, I shall demonstrate how the extensive use of indwelling language in the Fourth Gospel points in the direction of a substantial transformation of Jesus. Finally, I will demonstrate how this process in which Jesus becomes life-giving spirit is, to use an expression of Raymond Brown (1966, 1013), “dramatized” in John 20. In my analysis of the testimony of John the Baptist in Chapter Five, I argued that the question which drives the plot of the Fourth Gospel is whether Jesus will succeed in solving the task bestowed on him as the anointed and chosen one – and if so, how. How (1) will Jesus answer the Isaianic outcry for a better version of the Lord’s way? How (2) will he remove the sin of the world (1:29)? How (3) is he to provide the Holy Spirit for a new kind of baptism (1:33)? All these questions raised in the first chapter of the Gospel are answered in John 20. The third question concerning the coming of the spirit is treated in this chapter. The second question concerning sin is answered by Thomas’ confession, which will be subjected to analysis in Chapter Eight. Taken together these two chapters answer the first question about the way.
7.2 The ascension in the scholarly tradition 7.2.1 Resurrection and ascent in Johannine scholarship Literal questions concerning the incarnation and its counterpart, the ascension, as well as the attempt to expound God’s mysteries from the perspective of ancient philosophy and physics is considered in German exegesis to be an effort “zu verobjektivieren, was nicht verobjektivierbar [ist]” (Wengst 2001, 286), and in Anglo-American Johannine scholarship to be an endeavour that is spiritually naïve and “false” (Brown 1966, 1015). John Barclay’s objection to a paper of mine on precisely this issue is emblematic of Johannine scholarship: As I read John 20, John has a problem [emphasis added] – not with the heretical opponents but with his attempt to superimpose on the synoptic tale of crucifixion and empty tomb his own schema that the telos of Jesus’ life on earth was exaltation, glorification, fulfilment and ascent. If we ask, ‘precisely when [Barclay’s emphasis] did Jesus ascend in the course of this story’ (at the cross? at the resurrection? after the resurrection?) we are pressing the narrative in a direction John is reluctant to go. Jesus’ ascent is a metaphor for revelation completed and fulfilled, but John has to narrate it in a series of episodes and events which prompt a literal reader [emphasis
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added] to ask at what point it actually occurs. John, I think, tries to evade answering that question.456
Barclay is not alone in identifying problems in John. C. K. Barrett, for instance, finds a tension between, on the one hand, the “resurrection [that] is represented as a stage in the process by which Jesus ascends to the Father” and, on the other hand, the fact that “[n]o further ascension narrative is recorded” (Barrett 1955, 467). Throughout the Gospel, the coming of the spirit depends on the ascent of the Son of Man or his departure from the world, but in the end, the narration of this crucial event is absent from the Gospel. Barrett suggests an answer: “… perhaps [this is the case] because John intends his readers to think of the one compound event of crucifixion and resurrection as the means by which Christ has departed to the Father”. Endorsing Barrett’s understanding of the fourth Evangelist’s theology, Raymond Brown finds that the existence of the resurrection stories is a cause of some inconvenience: It is a basic NT understanding that the risen Jesus is not restored to the normal life that he possessed before death; he possesses eternal life and is in God’s presence. … From the moment that God raises Jesus up, he is in heaven or with God. … “Ascension” is merely the use of spatial language to describe exaltation and glorification. … On the cross the Johannine Jesus had already entered into the process of exaltation and glorification, for crucifixion is a step upward in the course of being lifted up to the Father (xii 32-33). Perhaps it would have been more logical if John had joined the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in having Jesus go directly to the Father from the cross, for the resurrection does not fit easily into John’s theology of the crucifixion … (Brown 1966, 1013)
However, John did not join the “author of the Epistle to the Hebrews”. The fact is that the resurrection narratives constitute a well-integrated and even concluding climax to the Gospel. As such their presence demands an explanation from scholars who claim that Jesus passed directly from the cross to the Father. Although scholars accentuate the meaning of the cross differently, the strategy for coping with the resurrection narratives remains surprisingly unchanged; only the vocabulary differs. Jesus’ final word on the cross: tete/lestai (19:30) marks the transition from the world to the Father (13:1); at that point, the narrative takes on a different character. The resurrection scenes are symbolic signs that project Easter faith onto the categories of history (Bultmann 1941, 539; 1971, 696); they are metaphors for the received and therefore 456 Quotation from John Barclay’s response to my paper on John 20 “A Stoic Understanding of Pneu=ma in John”, which was presented at the AAR & SBL Annual Meetings 2006 in Washington at the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section.
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completed and fulfilled revelation (Barclay 2006, response to my Washington paper); they are projections onto history of eternal realities “sub specie aeternitatis” (Dodd 1953, 262, 442); they are historical dramatizations that function as “vehicles for theological reinterpretation” of Jesus’ glorification (Brown 1966, 1014); and they are symbolic narratives of the process of coming to term with a life-engendering bodily representation of the risen Christ (Schneiders 2005, 180). At the moment of Jesus’ death, the modus of the narrative is changed. From the cross and onward, the historical record of (Markan) facts is left behind, and the Evangelist now turns towards the theological significance of this piece of history. That the phenomenon of the spirit belongs to the latter level is taken for granted: This story [viz. of the resurrection narratives] is not about a physical body (here or not here) nor even about a physical transformation (from one state to another) but about the completion of a revelatory truth, which is henceforth accessible to believers in “the Spirit of truth”; and that Spirit is important not for its physical consistency, but for the fact that it gives them the capacity to recognize Jesus as “my Lord and my God”. (Barclay 2006, response to my Washington paper; square brackets added)
7.2.1.1 Bultmann. Resurrection narratives as shmei=a Bultmann’s understanding of the cross and the Easter events is intimately linked to his existentialist interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Theologically the accent is placed on the incarnation as the divine word’s paradoxical reverberation in the world. No specific theological significance is ascribed to the ska&ndalon of the cross, which is subsumed under the sklhro_j lo&goj of the incarnation. The “ascent” (a)nabai/nein) is nothing but a synonym for the “uplifting” (u9ywqh=nai) and the “glorification” (docasqh=nai), and all these terms refer ironically to the scandalous death of the divine lo&goj on the cross. As such, the ascent is also subsumed into the incarnation as God’s paradox. Bultmann’s commentary on John 6:62 makes this quite clear: If one was inclined to object that the a)nabai/nein of Jesus could not be a ska&ndalon, but rather would remove the offence of the sklhro_j lo&goj, then there would be a failure to understand that this a)nabai/nen is not at all achieved as a glorious demonstration before the world of the do&ca of Jesus; it is indeed no other than the u9ywqh=nai and docasqh=nai that takes place on the cross. … Not that the cross will bring a second and new offence; it simply makes it ultimately plain what the one offence is; it is that a mere man, whose life ends in death, solemnly lays the claim that he is the Revealer of God! And this declaration, which demands of man the abandonment of all his securities, is clearly seen at the cross to be a demand for the surrender
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of life itself, a demand to follow right to the cross. (Bultmann 1941, 341; 1971, 445)
Consequently, real Easter faith believes in the offence of the cross. The miraculous appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples belong among the shmei=a performed by Jesus (20:30). However, even as signs these stories are only of secondary value. The problem is that they only communicate and testify to the Easter faith in an indirect manner. In the hands of the fourth Evangelist, the resurrection narratives, which he received from the tradition, are remoulded and retold from a critical perspective that aims at correcting false conceptions of faith: Accordingly, as in the story of Mary, vv. 1f. 11-18, there is embedded in the narrative of Thomas also a peculiar critique concerning the value of the Easter stories, they can claim only a relative worth. And if this critical saying of Jesus forms the conclusion of the Easter narratives, the hearer or reader is warned not to take them to be more than they can be; neither as narrations of events that he himself could wish or hope to experience, nor as a substitute for such experiences of his own, as if the experiences of others could, as it were, guarantee for him the reality of the resurrection of Jesus; rather they are to be viewed as proclaimed word, in which the recounted events have become symbolic pictures for the fellowship which the Lord, who has ascended to the Father, holds with his own. (1941, 539f; 1971, 696)
Bultmann’s understanding of the resurrection narratives is epitomized in his interpretation of the “not yet” (ou!pw) in Jesus’ justification for telling Mary Magdalene not to touch him or hold him back: (ga&r) he had not yet ascended to the Father (20:17: mh/ mou a#ptou, ou!pw ga_r a)nabe/bhka pro_j to_n pate/ra). On the one hand, Bultmann admits that Jesus’ words seem to indicate that he is in a strange state of transition (1941, 532; 1971, 687), and furthermore, that the mark of the fulfilment of this transition is that touching him will somehow be possible again. Jesus’ invitation to Thomas to place his finger in the wounds from the nails then marks the completion of the transition. On the other hand, since it is Bultmann’s conviction that, after his death, Jesus does not return to an ordinary mode of life in this world, he cannot take Jesus’ statement at face value: “… and v. 27 could conceivably confirm this interpretation. But that can hardly be right” (1941, 532; 1971, 687). Bultmann’s famous solution to the quandary is that the “not yet” does not refer to Jesus, but to Mary and her faith. As long as she has “not yet” come to terms with the true Easter faith in God’s ska&ndalon and continues to demand an objective basis for her faith, she cannot enter into the relationship with the divine revealer that will transform her life:
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First and foremost ou!pw refers to Mary rather than to Jesus; she cannot yet enter into fellowship with him until she has recognised him as the Lord who is with the Father, and so removed from earthly conditions. (1941, 533; 1971, 687, emphasis added)
Bultmann’s understanding of the resurrection stories as narratives of (failed) Easter faith, especially, his “penetrating observation that the ‘not yet’ of Jesus’ ‘I have not yet ascended’ is really applicable to Magdalene’s desire … [to] have Jesus’ enduring presence” (Brown 1966, 1012) has influenced scholars who do not otherwise agree with Bultmann’s existential interpretation. Bultmann’s interpretation of the ou!pw of 20:17 still reverberates in recent commentaries on John 20: Wengst quotes Bultmann (2001, 286), Zumstein does as well (2001), and Sandra Schneiders quotes Zumstein: Jean Zumstein helpfully provides a paraphrastic translation of v. 17a, the famous “Do not touch me” verse, as “For you I am not yet ascended to the Father”. Jesus, glorified on the cross, has indeed gone to the Father, but in Mary’s perception he has not yet ascended, for she has not yet integrated into her realization that Jesus is risen the fact that he has also been glorified. (Schneiders 2005, 183, author’s emphasis)
I shall return to Schneiders’ understanding of “the resurrection (of the Body)” below, but first some remarks on Dodd’s understanding of the resurrection narratives as projections onto history of eternal realities “sub specie aeternitatis”.
7.2.1.2 Dodd. Sub specie aeternitatis Dodd (1953, 439-43) agrees with Bultmann that in the Fourth Gospel the resurrection narratives are to be understood as shmei=a that communicate and expound Johannine faith, but he does not share Bultmann’s view that the resurrection stories are told from a critical and corrective perspective. The opposed evaluations of the role of the resurrection stories in the Gospel mirror Dodd’s and Bultmann’s different understandings of the cross. According to Dodd, Christ is in an absolute – that is, absolutely non-paradoxical sense – glorified and exalted in his death: “No higher exaltation, and no brighter glory is to be conceived than that which Christ attained in His self-oblation, since it is the absolute expression of the divine a)ga&ph” between Father and Son (441). Jesus’ life, pre-eminently his death, is “a projection of this eternal relation (which is the divine a)ga&ph) upon the field of time” (262). Dodd concludes that “for John the crucifixion itself is so truly Christ’s exaltation and glory (in its meaning, that is to say), that the resurrection can
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hardly have for him precisely the same significance that it has for some other writers” (440, Dodd’s brackets). Nevertheless, the resurrection stories still constitute an enigma, since they are told in a way that seems to contradict the theology of the Johannine cross. Dodd asks: Why does John, with his prevailing interest in the heavenly glory of Christ, keep out of the resurrection narratives all such obvious suggestions of divine majesty as we find in Matthew, and emphasize the element of human feeling? … Why does the author of the “spiritual gospel”, who is often said to give to his picture of the “Jesus of History” a hieratic tone scarcely consistent with real humanity, insist so strongly on the quasi-physical character of His resurrection? (441, emphasis added).
Dodd finds the answer to these questions in the Evangelist’s wrestling with the interplay between the historical/temporal perspective and the perspective sub specie aeternitatis, which is Dodd’s designation for the spiritual plane which can only be grasped by faith. From an ordinary, historical point of view, the cross is “the death of a good man unjustly condemned” (441), but when this event is viewed from the perspective sub specie aeternitatis, it refers to the divine lo&goj and his eternal love for his Father. As Christ’s obedient self-oblation, the cross is the projection of eternal love onto the world. Also Christ’s return to the Father (14:28, 16:10, 16) through the resurrection and ascension is a matter of pure faith. From the perspective sub specie aeternitatis, the events embody the heavenly love of the Father towards His obedient Son. But, according to the Evangelist, this heavenly love must be projected onto the world and have a historical equivalent. It is this imperative that the Gospel tries to communicate by the aid of the resurrection appearances, and it is this worldly imperative that accounts for the (apparent) absence of glorifying features and the (seeming) surplus of quasi-physical features in the resurrection narratives. According to Dodd, the resurrection narratives in the Fourth Gospel do not concern the glorification of Christ, nor the renewal of the relation between the risen Christ and his followers, but the renewal of the personal relations between the disciples. The meaning of the resurrection narratives is expounded in the Farewell Discourses, which aim at installing the community of disciples as the new foil onto which the eternal and divine love between God and His lo&goj may be projected in the world. For Dodd, the intimate interplay between the perspectives sub specie aeternitatis and history explains the cruces with which Johannine scholars wrestle. When on the cross Jesus declares everything completed and gives up (gives over) the spirit, it is sub specie aeternitatis the fulfilment of his mission (19:30). This is illustrated symbolically by the lifegiving stream of water flowing from Jesus’ side (19:38). However,
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knowledge of the divine love reworks men of time and history; therefore the ascension cannot be said, from the temporal, historical perspective of man, to be fulfilled before the projection of God’s love onto the world is re-established. The infusion of the Holy Spirit into the disciples becomes a symbol of the reception and acceptance of the revelation. It is the changing perspectives that account for the enigmatic ou!pw (20:17) and for the depiction of the ascension as a process. This understanding allows Dodd to pay full attention to the differences in Jesus’ encounters with Mary and Thomas, respectively. In contrast to the prohibition given to Mary, Jesus’ invitation to Thomas to touch his wounds becomes indicative of the fact that the ascension is – now also from a historical perspective – completed (443). Barclay’s understanding of the ascension as “a metaphor for revelation completed” echoes the interplay of perspectives in Dodd’s exegesis.
7.2.1.3 Brown. Dramatization of the ascension Raymond Brown refers his solution to the tension between the “hour” of the cross and the resurrection stories to Dodd’s shifting perspectives. However, a pragmatic dimension is also included in Brown’s understanding of the function of John 20. Believers’ narratives of their personal encounters with the risen Christ had become too firm a part of the Christian tradition to be dispensed with by the fourth Evangelist: Consequently the evangelist had to make the effort to fit the resurrection into the process of Jesus’ passing from this world to the Father. If John reinterprets the crucifixion so that it becomes part of Jesus’ glorification, he dramatizes the resurrection so that it is obviously part of the ascension. (Brown 1966, 1014)
The resurrection appearances become the language (“vehicles”) that John employs in order to dramatize the glorification of Jesus through his ascension to the Father. By the aid of the strategic subordination of the traditional resurrection appearances to the ascension, the Evangelist establishes a terminus to the resurrection appearances and teaches the reader that the enduring relation with the risen Christ takes place through his spirit: “there is no terminus to the Spirit’s presence” (1015). It is this strategy which is summarized in Jesus’ ou!pw to Mary Magdalene. However, if one goes beyond this strategy and takes the stories at face value, immense problems arise: This use of the Magdalene appearances as a vehicle for Johannine theological reinterpretation accidentally creates a problem. Does John mean literally that the appearances to Magdalene took place before the ascension,
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while the other appearance took place later? Taken at face value, such an interpretation would paradoxically deny that the resurrection is the same as the ascension, for an interval would separate the two. Moreover, it would mean that it was not the glorified Lord who appeared to Magdalene and thus she was granted only an inferior-grade appearance. (1014)
According to Brown, these kinds of absurdities and “false problems” arise from a misunderstanding of John’s theological strategy and his narrative technique of dramatizing “in temporal scenes what is sub specie aeternitatis” (1014).
7.2.1.4 Schneiders. The resurrection (of the Body) In her 2005 essay “The Resurrection (of the Body) in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Johannine Spirituality”, Sandra Schneiders resumes the discussion of the function of the resurrection in the Fourth Gospel. As her starting-point, she identifies the question to which the resurrection narratives in John 20 provide an answer: “Most important for our purposes, however, is the theological structure of John 20, which is a careful answer to the question, ‘Where is the Lord?’” (Schneiders 2005, 183). In line with the majority of Johannine scholarship, Schneiders distinguishes between Jesus’ glorification, which took place at his death on the cross, and during which Jesus returned to the Father, and the resurrection, which is a cognitive event that concerns the process of coming to faith. John 20 is not concerned with the post-paschal dispensation of Jesus’ bodiliness, but with the significance for believers of Jesus’ transformation from the dispensation of flesh to the dispensation of glory: I am proposing that the Resurrection Narrative in John functions not primarily to proclaim or explain what happened to Jesus after his death (since, in John, he was glorified on the cross and has no need of vindicatory restoration) but to explore what his glorification meant and means for his followers. In other words, the glorification in John is Jesus’ passage to God and the resurrection is Jesus’ return to his own. This twofold destiny of Jesus is not a chronological succession of separate events but two dimensions of his post-paschal life. As Jesus promised on the eve of his death, “I go away (u9pa&gw) and I come to you (e1rxomai pro_j u9ma~j) [14:28], both verbs in the present. The bodily resurrection is the condition of possibility for the fulfilment of that promise. (180, Schneider’s emphasis)
When Schneiders speaks about the “resurrection (of the Body)” and brackets the body, she emphasizes that it is the symbolic representation of Jesus’ body in believers’ minds that she is interested in. Resurrection thus becomes synonymous with mental representation. She argues that
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a bodily representation of the risen Christ is a presupposition for Christian faith, since, from a phenomenological point of view, self-identity and inter-subjective relations are body bound. Although bodily, Christ’s representation is in the true faith neither physical nor fleshly: I have suggested just as the term “flesh” functioned, throughout the lifetime of the historical Jesus, to denote his real presence in his mortal humanity, “body” functions after the glorification to speak of his real, divinely human presence as Risen Lord in and among his disciples. If Jesus ceased, at his death, to be a living human being then Christian faith as Christian has no real object. Bodiliness, the condition of possibility and symbolic realization of human self-identity and continuity, intersubjective presence, and action in the world, is integral to the meaning of real, living humanity. But if bodiliness can only be understood in terms of the physical materiality that characterized the earthly Jesus, it is imaginatively implausible … (180)
From this point of view, Schneiders finds no difference between Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Christ and that of Thomas; the initial reaction of both is symptomatic of an inadequate faith that is unable to represent the risen Christ in non-fleshly categories. The parallelism between the two scenes allows Schneiders to interpret them in light of one another. Mary’s messages to the disciples must therefore be understood in terms of Thomas’ confession; both situations illustrate the process of coming to full faith – that is, to a symbolic representation of Christ that is capable of transforming the life of the believing community. The parallel stories of the disciples’ process of coming to faith form a sandwich around the account of Jesus’ infusion of the Holy Spirit into his disciples and define the character of the spiritual community. In spite of the fact that Jesus commands Mary to bring the message of his imminent ascent “to his brothers” (20:17), Schneiders understands the gathered group of disciples who receive the Holy Spirit inclusively as the community of brothers and sisters in faith. Schneiders’ essay is a representative of the influence that Paul Ricoeur’s philosophical hermeneutics and his ideas about “symbol” and “surplus of meaning” have exerted, especially, on contemporary Catholic scholarship on the Fourth Gospel.457 In this tradition, Johannine pneumatology becomes “spirituality” and is understood in terms of Ricouer’s idea of revelation as biblical interpretation. The spirit is received when the engagement with the text, here the Fourth Gospel, 457 See R. Leavitt, “Raymond Brown and Paul Ricoeur on the Surplus of Meaning” (2005), D. Lee, “Partnership in Easter Faith: The Role of Mary Magdalene and Thomas in John 20” (1995) and her Flesh and Glory: Symbolism, Gender and Theology in the Gospel of John (2002) and M. Coloe, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (2001).
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leaves a “symbol” of God in the reader that is capable of transforming the believer’s life through its “surplus of meaning”. Ricoeur’s concept of “biblical Interpretation” is understood by himself as a revitalisation of Bultmann’s theory of the Johannine shmei=a.458 In Schneiders’ reading, the content of the true faith as well as the meta-language of faith have changed, but the strategy remains that of Bultmann: ou!pw concerns the subjective process of coming to faith, not the objective process of Jesus’ transformation.
7.2.2 Discussion of scholarship on resurrection and ascent Bultmann’s solution to the function of the resurrection stories in John 20 is approved by scholars who otherwise have the most diverse understandings of Johannine theology – be it Bultmann’s own theology of the incarnation, Käsemann’s and Dodd’s theology of glory or Hofius’, Frey’s and Attridge’s theology of the cross: The departure from the world and the ascent to the Father takes place at the moment of death on the cross. Jesus’ resurrection, however, belongs to another level; it is a cognitive event that takes place in believers’ coming to faith. This event, in which Jesus, as it were, returns to “his own” (14:28), is understood as the work of the spirit. Exegetically, scholars refer the first event, the ascent, to the word with which Jesus expires: “tete/lestai” (19:30); the second, the believers’ resurrection, is mentioned in John 5:29.459 When the Gospel leaves behind the Markan agenda of the empty tomb, it becomes a symbolic narrative in which a series of cognitive events is plotted onto history. The conditioning of the coming of the spirit on Jesus’ departure from the world and his ascent to the Father is interpreted in light of Mark’s Messianic secret. The conditioning must be understood hermeneutically as a reference to the conditions of faith; no physics of cause and effect are involved. To summarize: John 20, with its account of the resurrection encounters and the infusion of the spirit, 458 For Ricouer’s theory of the symbol, see Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (1976). Ricoeur’s reinterpretation of the biblical idea of revelation in terms of textual interpretation is found in “Towards a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation” (1980b). For Ricoeur’s own understanding of his relation to Bultmann, see his essay “Preface to Bultmann” (1980a). 459 Thus also Attridge in his treatment of the theme of resurrection in an unpublished paper from the SNTS Meeting 2006: “Resurrection in the Fourth Gospel” (I am grateful to Attridge for having shown me this paper). In line with the tradition from Bultmann, Attridge takes resurrection to be an event that exclusively concerns believers.
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is reduced to an epilogue to God’s action in the cross. Nothing new is added here. Although this reading has Johannine scholarship to recommend it, there remains something unsatisfactory about it. First, from a literary point of view, the problem is that the solution presupposes a shift in the Gospel’s narrative mode from historical to symbolic. However, no obvious signs indicate such a change. An external source – the Gospel of Mark with its tradition of the empty tomb – becomes the matrix through which the shift is identified. The problem is not that the narratives of John 20 are claimed to have a symbolic value as shmei=a of faith, but that these signs are claimed to differ from the shmei=a of the rest of the Gospel. Second, from the viewpoint of the plot, it seems problematic that the coming of the spirit and the regeneration of believers a!nwqen through the pneu=ma – a theme that governs the Gospel from its very beginning (3:3, 5) – are sidetracked. Third, speaking epistemologically, the two level solution is rooted in Platonism. The idea that cognitive – or “spiritual” – processes take place at a different (a supposedly “superimposed”) level from events in the physical world of material phenomena of history and time, and of cause and effect, is Platonic. However, as already mentioned, when it comes to the spirit, the Fourth Gospel does not allude to Platonism, but to monistic Stoicism. I therefore find it worth reopening the discussion of the meaning of the resurrection narratives and of why they are there at all. Against the almost unanimous view of Johannine scholarship, I have suggested that Jesus’ ascent to the Father should rather be seen as an extended process or journey in which the cross only constitutes one station on Jesus’ way – though, of course, an important one. Jesus’ a)na&basij to the Father comprises his journey up to Jerusalem and his being lifted up onto the cross and it climaxes in his passage from the world (13:1: metabh|= e0k tou= ko&smou tou&tou pro_j to_n pate/ra) and his ascent to the Father (20:17: a)na&basij pro_j to_n pate/ra). This passage takes place in his translation into life-giving spirit (6:63) which simultaneously unites him with his pneumatic Father and God (4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j) and with believers through their regeneration a!nwqen (3:3) by water and pneu=ma (3:5, 8). John does not superimpose his own cognitive schema onto the synoptic tale of crucifixion and empty tomb. Instead, without making any change in the narrative mode itself, he simply continues Mark’s story by his account of the last steps in Jesus’ journey. In order to substantiate this understanding of Jesus’ prolonged journey, we will, as the first step, have a look at the categories at work in the scholarly analyses. That Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation of the Fourth Gospel is intimately related to the modern discussion of
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the divine as a paradoxical category has already been discussed in Chapter Six. Here we will concentrate on Dodd’s concept of sub specie aeternitatis. Next, the more recent work of Geurt van Kooten (2005) will be presented. Although van Kooten’s innovative reading of John 11 is inspired by Plato’s allegory of the cave, his work may be used in favour of the extended journey, too. Finally, I shall argue that a Stoic interpretation of John 20 meets the demands made by Brown and Schneiders.
7.2.2.1 Dodd and Käsemann. God’s love – sub specie aeternitatis The ideas behind Dodd’s sophisticated exegesis of the Fourth Gospel may seem difficult to get hold of, but since Käsemann endorses and comments on Dodd’s interpretation, we may draw on Käsemann in order to sort out Dodd’s understanding of the Gospel’s world view and to identify some of the problems inherent in Dodd’s reading.460 The following passage from Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, to which Käsemann also refers for his own understanding of the Fourth Gospel (Käsemann 1968, 20; 1971, 48), perfectly captures the governing idea of Dodd’s interpretation of the incarnation: The conclusion might be stated thus: The relation of Father and Son is an eternal relation, not attained in time, nor ceasing with this life, or with the history of this world. The human career of Jesus is, as it were a projection of
460 Käsemann cites Dodd’s understanding of Jesus’ incarnation and the death approvingly: “More precisely, John understands the incarnation as a projection of the glory of Jesus’ pre-existence and the passion as a return to that glory‚ ‘which was his before the world began’. … The one who walks on earth as a stranger, as the messenger sent by the Father, the one who passes through death without turmoil and with jubilation, because he has been called back to the realm of freedom, has fulfilled his mission, as his last word from the cross indicates. Neither the incarnation nor the passion in John have those emphases and contents which were taken from ecclesiastical tradition. They do not mark a change in Christ according to his nature, but only a change in terms of ‘coming’ and ‘going’, of descending and ascending. Incarnation and passion indicate the change of space and thus of the scope of the manifestation of Christ” (1968, 20; 1971, 48f). Within this perspective the question of the Johannine eschatology is dissolved in favour of protology: “In John’s eschatology, in so far as it is Christology, the direction has been reversed, so that his eschatology no longer emphasizes the end and the future, but the beginning and the abiding. … The basic problem is no longer the sense in which the crucified one is the Son of God, but rather the reason why God came into the flesh and gave himself to death. … In this way a protology, a doctrine of the first things, was placed beside the eschatology, and the latter was reflected in the former” (1968, 20f; 1971, 50f).
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this eternal relation (which is the divine a)ga&ph) upon the field of time. It is such, not as a mere reflection, or representation, of the reality, but in the sense that the love which the Father bore the Son “before the foundation of the world”, and which He perpetually returns, is actively at work in the whole historical life of Jesus. That life displays the unity of Father and Son, in ways which may be described as “knowledge” or “indwelling”, but are such, not in the sense of withdrawn contemplation like that recommended by “Hellenistic mysticism”, but in the sense that the love of God in Christ creates and conditions an active ministry of words and deed, in which the words are pneu=ma kai\ zwh/, and the deeds are shmei=a of the eternal life and light; … The love of God, thus released in history, brings men into the same unity of which the relation of Father and Son is the eternal archetype. (Dodd 1953, 262, emphasis added)
Käsemann, for his part, speaks of the incarnation as the possibility of communication between categorically unequal and ontologically separated partners.461 The communication of the eternal “idea” of love – or in Dodd’s terms: the “projection … upon the field of time” – offers human beings the possibility of moulding their historical relations on the divine archetype. Although Käsemann follows Dodd in his radical dualism, a difference also exists between the two exegetes. According to Dodd, John’s world view is Platonic; according to Käsemann, it is apocalyptic.462 When the Fourth Gospel is situated in Dodd’s and Käsemann’s dualism, it becomes important to situate the ideas/phenomena that we meet in the Gospel on the right side of the chasm. As we have already seen, the ontological dualism leads Dodd to distinguish between different pneumatic phenomena in the Gospel. The Holy Spirit is a worldly phenomenon, which is identified with Jesus’ words in and to the world, and which is the force at work in creating the love, which knowledge of the eternal love brings about between human beings. The divine spirit, with which God is identified in John 4:24, belongs to the divine sphere of eternal ideas, where it represents the divine communication of the eternal and archetypical love between Father and Son. Consequently, Jesus must give over the Holy Spirit, before he is capable 461 Thus Käsemann: “The disguise, the hiding, of a divine being in lowliness may appear paradoxical, but it is not really paradoxical at all. Such concealment, in the last analysis, is to make communication possible between what is unequal and therefore separate, between heaven and earth, God and man. As the possibility of communication such hiding is something very proper and very purposeful and quite rationally understandable. It indicates condescension, but not antinomy” (1968, 12; 1971, 33). 462 In the article, “The Corinthian Correspondence between Philosophical Idealism and Apocalypticism” (2001), Henrik Tronier demonstrates how the two world views correspond on a structural level. He even suggests a common ideological background to the two modes of thinking.
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of returning to the Father. No exchange of spirit takes place across the chasm; the exchange is a matter of communication and knowledge alone. The language of mutual “indwelling” between the divine and human beings is understood on analogy with the participation of Platonic phenomena in their ideas. Persons who have knowledge of God’s eternal love and embody this love in their relationships with others are said to have the divine word abiding in them; they have part in Jesus, and they have God and His Son indwelling them. “Indwelling” becomes a metaphor of the transforming knowledge of the divine love. Although the eternal Son entered the human sphere of time and history, for Käsemann he remained a stranger in passing (1968, 20; 1971, 48). The Christology of the Fourth Gospel was therefore to be characterized as a “naive docetism” (1968, 26; 1971, 62). Compared to Käsemann’s exegesis, Dodd’s interpretation of the Fourth Gospel seems to be in the danger of lapsing into docetism, too. What exists sub specie aeternitatis, exists independently of what happens in the historical sphere. In Dodd’s interpretation, the divine love remains an affair between God, the Father and his eternal Son; it only concerns human beings in so far as it is the eternal archetype for interpersonal relations. The Platonically conceived God is too lofty a being to have emotions and desires that are directed towards the human sphere of world and time. The implementation of the archetype of love in history is not a divine matter, but the business of the church or, in this case, the Evangelist:463 In other words, resurrection is prima facie a reality on the spiritual plane and the evangelist is concerned to show that it is also an event on the temporal, historical plane. In order that the death-and-resurrection of Christ may constitute an ‘epoch-making’ event for mankind, it is necessary that it should actually happen – that the entire event, death-and-resurrection together, should happen – in this world. That is what the quasi-physical features of the post-resurrection appearance are intended to affirm. (Dodd 442, emphasis added)
463 See Käsemann: “It should not be overlooked that according to 3.16 God loved the world. But it is more than doubtful whether this statement, which is nowhere repeated in John, should give us the right to interpret the whole Johannine proclamation from this perspective According to the context, we have every reason to consider this verse as a traditional primitive Christian formula which the Evangelist employed. Its sole purpose in John is to stress the glory of Jesus’ mission, that is to say the miracle of the incarnation. References to God’s love for the world are absent in Jesus’ own witness to himself as well as in his commandment given to his disciples” (1968, 59f; 1971, 124f).
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In the case of Käsemann, this understanding becomes clear in his rejection of 3:16 as a genuine expression of Johannine theology. When Dodd’s Platonically inspired reading is juxtaposed with the Stoic one proposed in this study, it becomes clear what is at stake in the different approaches to John 20, namely God’s relation to the world. Is God a lofty Platonic being beyond the world of history and time? Or is he as the Stoic pneu=ma embedded in the world and therefore engaged in worldly affairs? Is the language of indwelling to be understood in terms of a Platonic participation of worldly phenomena in their divine ideas, in this case, the divine love? In other words, is “indwelling” a metaphor of faith and knowledge? Or is indwelling rather to be understood literally and physically in terms of the Stoic blending of pneumatic bodies? If we choose the Platonic solution, 3:16 must be bracketed out as a non-Johannine intrusion into the text. Divine love remains directed towards the eternal Son: in going to the cross, the eternal Son returns his love for the Father. If we choose the Stoic solution, 3:16 becomes the key verse that describes the divine motivation behind the Son’s journey – up to Jerusalem, up on the cross, climaxing in the a)na&basij of his translation – which results in the regeneration of believers a!nwqen as the ultimate goal of the ascent. If read Platonically, a modal change is needed in order to cope with the resurrection narratives. If read according to Stoicism, John 20 constitutes, without any modal change, the climax and ultimate goal of Jesus’ journeying. As we shall see, an argument in favour of the latter reading may be found, surprisingly enough, in the Church Fathers’ otherwise Platonically oriented understanding of the Fourth Gospel. According to Origen and Justin Martyr, Jesus’ revelatory journey represented an easy and accessible way to the truth.
7.2.2.2 van Kooten. John 11 and Plato’s cave allegory The Belgian scholar Geurt H. van Kooten’s 2005 essay, “‘The ‘True’ Light Which Enlightens Everyone’ (John 1:9): John, Genesis, the Platonic Notion of the ‘True, Noetic Light,’ and the Allegory of the Cave in Plato’s Republic” proves illuminating for our understanding of Jesus’ extended journey as an act of divine love directed towards the world. In his essay, van Kooten compares the Fourth Gospel with Plato’s allegory of the cave in the Republic. van Kooten draws attention to the shared language that characterizes the two narratives: the katabai/neina)nabai/nein motif is dominant in both. The parallels can hardly be coincidental; John must have been acquainted with Plato’s writing. But
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when Jesus’ descent into the world is compared with the philosopher’s return into the cave, a difference must also be noted. Whereas the philosopher, alias Socrates, ascends from the cave towards the truth and descends again in order to stimulate the cave’s inhabitants to ascend as well, Jesus descends as the eternal lo&goj into worldly flesh in order to reveal the truth to men and, when this has been accomplished, he ascends again. van Kooten speaks of an “inverted parallel” (179): Plato subsequently describes what would happen to this man ei0 pa&lin o( toiou=toj kataba~j (516E) … he would provoke laughter among his former fellow prisoners who would be ignorant of his need to adjust again to the darkness of the cave, and would argue instead that his eyes had apparently been ruined when he had gone upwards (w(j a)naba_j a!nw), so that it would not be worth while even to attempt such an ascent (517A). Finally, if it were possible to kill the man who now tried to release them and lead them up, they would do so (517A). Plato is clearly alluding to the death of Socrates. … In John this action of coming down is ascribed to Jesus, as he is o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j, the one who came down from heaven (3:13). At this point, John seems to invert the parallel between Socrates and Jesus. Whereas Socrates came down (kataba~j) into the cave after his upward ascension (a)naba_j a!nw), Jesus did not ascend prior to his descent. In fact, John emphasizes, nobody ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven: ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j (3:13). In this way, John inverts the parallel between Socrates and Jesus: Jesus descended without prior ascension, and Socrates did not ascend to heaven at all. (van Kooten 2005, 179f)
Geurt van Kooten convincingly demonstrates how Jesus is dramatized throughout the Fourth Gospel as the embodiment of the “true, noetic light”. Special attention is given to the two healings associated with the Jewish feast for the consecration of the temple (John 10:22), during which rituals of light played an important role: the gift of sight to the man born blind in John 9 and the calling up of Lazarus from the grave in John 11. The similarity in vocabulary is noted by van Kooten: Plato’s citizens dwell in a cave-like dwelling (514A: e0n katagei/w| oi0kh/sei sphlaiw&dei), Lazarus, Jesus’ Jewish friend is buried in a cave (11:38: sph/laion). However, according to van Kooten, John does not only draw on Plato’s allegory for inspiration: the Gospel may also be read as a commentary on the elitism of the philosophical tradition. It is this critique that is represented by the “inverted parallel”: Despite all similarities, there is an important difference between John and Plato with regard to the light’s accessibility. In principle, according to both authors, the true light enlightens all. … Yet in Plato’s view the accessibility of the light is limited to the best natures, those capable of philosophy, who are forced to ascend from the cave into the light of day (519C-D; 520A) and are offered the fullest education possible (535A-540C). This limited accessi-
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bility contrasts sharply with John’s portrayal of the blind man and Lazarus as prototypes for each believer. All human beings, regardless of their intellectual potential are invited to put their faith in the light and become children of light (12:35-36). In this sense, the parallelism between John and Plato is inverted, just as in the comparison between Jesus and Socrates. (190)
Attention is drawn by van Kooten to the way in which apologists like Justin Martyr and Origen considered the Christian faith to be a nonelitist way to attain the truth sought after in the philosophical tradition as well. In a footnote (191, note 68) van Kooten points to the role that the Timaeus 28C played in the apologies. As we saw in Chapter Three, it is in the Timaeus 28C that Plato’s narrator claims: “Now to discover the Maker and Father of this universe were a task indeed; and having discovered Him, to declare Him unto all men were a thing impossible”.464 In Contra Celsum 7.42-43, Origen links Tim. 28C with an exegesis of the discussion of “the way” in John 14, and he points to the difference between the few who will have access to the “Maker and Father of the All” through philosophy and the many, indeed “anyone”, who are offered this knowledge through Christian faith. Faith in Jesus as the Son of God constitutes a short cut to the truth pursued by all: Moreover, when Plato says that it is impossible for the man who has found the maker and father of the universe to declare him to all, he does not say that he is indescribable and nameless [as claimed by Celsus], but that although he can be described it is only possible to declare him to a few. … We certainly maintain that it is difficult to see the Maker and Father of the universe. But He is seen … in the way implied in the saying of the Image of the invisible God that “He who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me”. In these words no one of any intelligence would say that Jesus was here referring to this sensible body which was visible to men. … That the words, “He who has seen me has seen the Father who sent me”, refer not to the ordinary meaning is obvious from the words he said to Philip, “Have I been such a long time with you without your having known me, Philip?” He said this to him when he asked: “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us”. Anyone, therefore, who has understood how we must think of the only begotten God, the Son of God, the firstborn of all creation, and how that the Logos became flesh, will see that anyone will come to know the Father and Maker of this universe by looking at the image of the invisible God. (Origen, Cels. 7.43,465 emphasis added)
Although I agree with van Kooten in his conclusion, I would like to question his “inversion” of the Socratic anagogic movement in John. In Chapter Six, I discussed the traditional reading of John 3:13, and I drew 464 Translation R. G. Bury (LCL): to_n me\n ou]n poihth\n kai\ pate/ra tou=de tou= panto_j eu9rei=n te e1rgon kai\ eu9ro&nta ei0j pa&ntaj a)du/naton le&gein. 465 Translation H. Chadwick in Origen: Contra Celsum, Cambridge at the University Press 1965.
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attention to the use of the participle kataba&j.466 I suggested that, instead of being a statement about the incarnation, verse 3:13 may also refer to Jesus’ crossing from the world to the Father (cf. 13:1: meta&basij e0k tou\ ko&smou tou/tou pro_j to_n pate/ra) and the interlacing of his translation into the Father (cf. 20:17: a)na&basij pro_j to_n pate/ra) with the regeneration of believers through the descent a!nwqen by the spirit. When seen in this way, the parallels between the philosopher Socrates’ anagogic journey and that of Jesus are not inverted. Instead, the difference concerns the inhabitants in the cave. Whereas Plato’s men do not find it worth giving the ascent a try, Jesus’ journey has once and for all made any subsequent ascent superfluous. Jesus has brought the truth and the light from heaven down to the mentally “blind” (John 9) and psychologically “dead” (John 11) indwellers of the cave and installed it in them through faith. Through the reception of the spirit they are without accent given access to the Father and the truth. In conclusion, it is when Jesus’ journeying is viewed in its totality – including the ascent to the Father and the return to believers – that it replaces the anagogical journey that Plato prescribes for the inhabitants in his cave. Jesus’ journeying then accords with my exegesis of John the Baptist’s Isaianic outcry presented in Chapter Five (John 1:23). The cry of the Baptist in the wilderness was here linked to Jesus’ discussion of “the way” in John 14 and his enigmatic identification of himself as this way. It is precisely because Jesus is the way that he makes believers’ journeying superfluous. In order to meet the weakness of human beings (the cave indwellers), the Father and the Maker of All has made faith in his Son a short cut to heavenly truth.
7.2.2.3 The translation. Challenging Brown and Schneiders Raymond Brown and Sandra Schneiders propose readings of John 20 that point in the direction offered here. Brown suggested that, in John 20, the Evangelist dramatized Jesus’ ascension by means of stories that the tradition about the risen Christ and his appearances to his followers offered him. The Evangelist fit the appearances into his narrative of the ascension, which put an end to them. According to Brown, this strategy was motivated by the Evangelist’s pedagogical wish to demonstrate that the enduring relationship with the risen Christ took place in the spirit and not through personal encounters. Whether or not a specific 466 John 3:13: Kai\ ou0dei\j a)nabe/bhken ei0j to_n ou0rano_n ei0 mh\ o( e0k tou\ ou0ranou= kataba&j, o( ui9o_j tou= a)nqrw&pou.
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attitude needed correction must be left for speculation. Nonetheless, Brown’s understanding of John 20 remains to the point. The chapter should be read as a dramatization of the ascension to the Father in which Jesus enters the mode of being that will guarantee his enduring presence; he becomes the life-giving spirit. It is true that such a reading implies that Mary Magdalene is “granted only an inferior-grade appearance”, which appeared unacceptable to Brown (1966, 1014). In order to avoid diminishment of Mary Magdalene’s status, Brown has recourse to Dodd’s concept of sub specie aeternitatis. Since Brown’s reading of the Fourth Gospel does not in general share Dodd’s Platonic flavour, the sudden introduction of the sub specie aeternitatis category becomes an exegetical knife that enables Brown to split the meaning of the text: on the one hand, it is a dramatization of the ascension; on the other it is not to be taken at face value. As an objection to Brown’s analysis, one may point to the fact that, on a strictly literary level, the Gospel just leaves Mary Magdalene in the same position as the other prominent women in the Gospel, the Samaritan woman and Martha, whose confessions of faith are also given a transitory character in comparison with the faith which is the outcome of a personal meeting with the risen Lord. Blindness to categories of gender may prevent us from grasping what is at stake in this chapter.467 Sandra Schneiders reads the narrative of Mary Magdalene’s encounter as a story of coming to terms with the proper representation of the “resurrection (of the body)”, that is, in non-physical, non-fleshly categories. In fact, this is what a reading of John 20 that “proclaim[s] or explain[s] what happened to Jesus after his death” (2005, 180; Schneiders’ emphasis) from a Stoic perspective will give her, though only in part. If Jesus’ a)na&basij to the Father is understood in analogy with Philo’s translation of worthy and holy men, John 20 then dramatizes Jesus’ transformation into life-giving pneu=ma by means of the resurrection appearances – as argued by Brown. As discussed in Chapter Two, the Stoics ascribed bodily character to pneumatic bodies, since they were capable of influencing and transforming other bodies. Although pneumatic bodies and material bodies constituted opposite poles on an axis of tensional tonus, pneumatic bodies were in practice considered to be different from material ones – those we may call “fleshly”. When translated into life-giving pneu=ma, Jesus still has bodily character, and he is capable of influencing other bodies. Although he is a “nonfleshly” body, his transformed body is still physical in character. The 467 See e.g. Dorothy A Lee’s “Partnership in Easter Faith: The Role of Mary Magdalene and Thomas in John 20” (1995).
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fact that the resurrection (of the body) is not represented in fleshly categories does not entail that the resurrection of the body must be classified as a uniquely mysterious, out-of-category phenomenon along the same lines as the well-established “mystery” of the incarnation. Schneiders, on her part, rebukes a colleague who “equate[s] risen bodiliness with physicality, which may reflect a lack in his philosophical repertoire of a notion of materiality that is not physical …” (2005, 194). As opposed to this, I suggest that Schneiders’ concept of a mysterious, glorified body (184) – which is “material” although non-fleshly and non-physical – does not make use of the possibilities offered by the ancient philosophical repertoire, e.g. Stoicism in its Philonic reception. Once this repertoire is brought into action, John 20 will be concerned with “what happens to Jesus after his death” as a precondition for that which will happen to his followers: Jesus’ ascension is a precondition for believers’ “resurrection”.468 Brown’s and Schneiders’ readings of John 20 may be seen (with these small adjustments) as pointing in the direction of the reading proposed here, namely that by his topographical staging of John 20, the fourth Evangelist depicts Jesus’ translation into the pneumatic Father. Fortunately, I am not the sole person to advocate this understanding. Harold Attridge (2003) has also called into question the tendency to include the return to the Father in the death on the cross. This came 468 Like Raymond Brown, Ernst Haenchen finds that John is under an obligation to reproduce the resurrection narratives from the tradition, but that he reinterprets them according to his own purpose. Haenchen speaks of John’s “demythologization”, but – in opposition to the strong tradition in Johannine scholarship of Bultmann’s interpretation of ou!pw – Haenchen does not understand Jesus’ reservation as a response to Mary’s inadequate faith. Instead, the Evangelist here uses Jesus as an angelus interpres who explains to Mary how his return as spirit will change the disciples’ relation to him and to God. From now on they will be brothers of Jesus and share with him God as Father: “Dieses Motiv, dass der Auferstandene zunächst nicht erkannt wird … soll zeigen, dass er als der Auferstandene nicht wie einst zugänglich ist. … Die hier wiedergegebene Tradition ist noch in einer naiven Form der Vorstellung befangen: sie fasst sie, ebenso wie den Aufstieg zum Vater, als eine Veränderung innerhalb des irdischen Raumes auf. Der Evangelist benutzt diese Überlieferung um ihrer Anschaulichkeit willen, aber er versucht zugleich, sie zu korrigieren. … In Wirklichkeit setzt der Evangelist eine Entmythisierung der Auferstehungsvorstellung voraus, nach der Jesus als der Geist wiederkehrt. Maria scheint Jesus – einer vergröbernden Tradition folgend, wird das erzählt – in einem Zustand anzutreffen, in dem der Übergang von der irdischen Form in die Geistwirklichkeit noch nicht stattgefunden hat; ein für unser Denken unmöglicher Zustand, dessen Unangemessenheit auch der Evangelist empfindet” (Haenchen 1980, 570, emphasis added). The encounter and dialogue between Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus perfectly demonstrates what takes place here. The impropriety of the whole scene, however, makes the Evangelist cut off the situation and turn it into a lesson.
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about through Attridge’s positive evaluation of a short note from 1990 on John 20 by Mary D’Angelo.469
7.2.2.4 Mary D’Angelo: A critical note on John 20:17 D’Angelo is a rare proponent of the idea that some kind of physical transformation of Jesus takes place in John 20. In “A Critical Note: John 20:17 and Apocalypse of Moses 31” (1990), D’Angelo chose an approach to John 20 that differed from that of most theological commentaries; she analysed the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Jesus from the perspective of social anthropology and the category of liminality. D’Angelo suggests that the risen Christ’s different reactions to Mary Magdalene and Thomas, a prohibition of touching and an invitation to excessive touching, reflect a liminal, intermediary situation in which the risen Christ undergoes some kind of transformation. D’Angelo draws attention to an Old Testament pseudepigraph, The Apocalypse of Moses (31.3-4), in which she finds a parallel to the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ in the instructions concerning his body that Adam gives to Eve before his death. Eve is instructed not to touch Adam’s corpse until he has given back the spirit to the One who once gave it to him and it is restored in heaven. D’Angelo suggests that the prohibition is motivated by the liminal notyet situation: “Adam describes what is necessary for the time when he is dead but not yet buried; Jesus is raised but describes himself as not yet
469 Another proponent of this reading is Udo Schnelle who, without any reservations, explains Jesus’ refusal of Mary’s outreach with reference to Jesus’ intermediary situation: “Jesus verwehrt Maria die Möglichkeit, ihn zu berühren. Diese Form der Selbstvergewisserung ist noch nicht möglich, denn Jesu befindet sich in einem Zwischenzustand; von den Toten auferstanden, aber noch nicht zum Vater aufgefahren” (1998, 303). However, Klaus Wengst immediately censures Schnelle with a reference to Bultmann’s interpretation of John 20:17: “In dem Auftrag an Mirjam, was sie Jesu Schülern ausrichten soll, sagt Jesus im Präsens: ‘Ich steige hinauf’. Aus diesen Aussagen auf einen ‘Zwischenzustand’ Jesu zu schliessen, wäre der Versuch, etwas zu verobjektivieren, was nicht verobjektivierbar ist. Wenn von Jesus als Aufererwecktem, der nicht in das Leben vor dem Tod zurückgekehrt ist, in Begegnung mit Menschen erzählt wird, kann das nicht anders geschehen, als dass er dabei in einer eigenartigen Schwebe bleibt. Bultmann hat sachlich Recht, wenn er meint, das ‘noch nicht’ gelte im Grunde nicht von Jesus, sondern von Maria: sie kann noch nicht in Gemeinschaft mit ihm treten, ehe sie ihn als den erkannt hat, der, den weltlichen Bedingungen enthoben, beim Vater ist” (Wengst 2001, 286).
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ascended to God. In both cases the function of the command seems to be to call attention to the unique state of each” (532, emphasis added). D’Angelo’s approach and analysis are endorsed by Harold Attridge in his survey of recent feminist scholarship on Mary Magdalene: “’Don’t Be Touching Me’: Recent Feminist Scholarship on Mary Magdalene” (2003). Attridge rejects interpretations that displace the ou!pw from Jesus to Mary with reference to Bultmann’s “penetrating observation” (Brown 1966, 1012) and read Jesus’ information concerning his imminent ascent as a rebuke to Mary in her “obsessiveness or inadequate faith”. This is “[u]nlikely”, Attridge answers and he concludes that “too much Freud and Heidegger” have been involved in the scholarly exegesis of John 20 (Attridge 2003, 164). Instead, Attridge finds that D’Angelo’s analysis provides a basis for returning ou!pw to Jesus and reintroducing the simple logic of the text:470 D’Angelo’s analysis … provides a reasonable solution to the problem of the relationship of v. 17b [“for I have not yet ascended to My Father”] to 17a [“Do not cling to Me”]. Despite commentators’ resistance, it seems likely that the text assumes that “exaltation” is a process, not completed on the cross, but taking place before the very eyes of Mary. Once that process is complete, Jesus can appear to his disciples and give them the gift of the Spirit (20:19-22) … (Attridge 2003, 164, brackets added)
I think that D’Angelo and Attridge are right on a number of points: first, that the “exaltation” is not completed at the death on the cross, but is a process that is only accomplished with the ascent to the Father; second, that the explanatory force of v. 17b: “for I have not yet ascended to My Father” should therefore be accentuated; third, that the theme of John 20 is not the inadequacy of different kinds of “fleshly” oriented faith, but Jesus’ intermediate state between resurrection and ascension; fourth, that the symmetrical structure of Jesus’ encounter with individual persons, Mary and Thomas, accentuates the differences between the two scenes; fifth, that what is happening in John 20 cannot be grasped in categories of modern theology, but must be elucidated by contemporary ideas of the process of dying; sixth and final, that the terminus of Jesus’ transformation is the bosom of the Father (1:18): 470 See also Schnackenburg who ends up as an advocate of exempting from the actual logic and wording of the present text: “Steht Jesus vor Maria von Magdala etwa nicht als Verherrlichter? Kann man Auferstehung, ‘Aufstieg’ und Verherrlichung voneinander trennen? Gibt es einen merkwürdigen Zwischenzustand zwischen dem Hervorgehen aus dem Grab und der Rückkehr zum Vater? Alle diese Fragen sind falsch gestellt. Man muss vielmehr prüfen, welche Intention der Evangelist mit dieser Ausdrucksweise verfolgt, und den Text nach dieser Intention, nicht nach Wortlaut und äusserer Logik, zu verstehen suchen” (1975, 376f, emphasis added).
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D’Angelo then makes an important contribution with two significant moves. She takes seriously the connection between vv. 17b. and 17a, and she does not dismiss or ignore what may seem to modern readers a very odd piece of logic. … The result for the first-century reader aware of Jewish traditions about the odd status of people on their way to heavenly glorification is the recognition that Mary was there at the most delicate of moments, when Jesus could tell her of his victory over death but before he had taken his exalted place in the bosom of the Father. (Attridge 2003, 165)
In spite of the overall agreement with D’Angelo and Attridge’s reading, I find that the depiction of Adam’s death in the Apocalypse of Moses exhibits some important differences from the situation of the risen Christ in the Fourth Gospel. In Adam’s case, we have the ordinary separation of the immortal soul from the mortal body, whereas something extraordinary is at stake in the Fourth Gospel. The parallelism between the two texts with regard to liminality must not lead us to import from the pseudepigraph into the Fourth Gospel the idea of a separation of body and soul. Instead, I suggest that we bring in Philo’s idea of a translation in place of death. Although some important differences also exist between Philo and the Fourth Gospel, the hesitation concerning the value of comparing Philo and John articulated by Meeks in The Prophet-King must be reconsidered in light of Attridge’s suggestion that Jesus’ return to the Father should be seen as a real process that extends beyond the cross into the resurrection scene.471
7.3 Philo and the translation of devout men Philo’s idea of a translation in place of death is well integrated into his description of the emotional development of the soul. During this process in which the desires are changed from being directed towards bodily pleasures to the oneness of mind that only wishes to please God as the Father and Maker of the All, the soul is said to be called upwards towards God: it ascends. Philo also conceives of this process as the re471 In general, intermediary cosmological spaces and human states appear from a theological point of view problematic to Johannine scholars, although the reservation is seldom explained. E. Haenchen’s comment on John 20:17 is representative: “Aber der Evangelist ist weit davon entfernt, dem Auferstandenen eine Art Zwischenzustand zuzuschreiben, in dem er noch auf der Erde umhergeht (vgl. Apg 1), wie vor seinem Tode, oder wieder auf die Erde zurückkehrt (V. 14.26), als läge zwischen Gott und der Welt eine räumliche Entfernung” (1980, 571, author’s emphasis). However, the reservation does not correspond with the ancient world view. The space between heaven and earth was a prolific area of intermediary beings, which the soul must pass in the process of dying. See Alan Scott’s account of heavenly powers in his Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea (1991).
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generation (paliggenesi/a), or second generation (deute/ra ge/nesij), of the soul. In the case of holy and worthy men with this kind of monadic mind-set, the ascent may culminate in a translation, in which man in his twofold nature of body and soul is transformed into the monadic nature of pure mind; instead of dying, he is translated. Whereas Philo’s ideas of a psychological regeneration are common philosophical property, the ontological transformation appears to be Philo’s own construct. It is brought into play in order to account for the unknown fate of biblical persons, like e.g. Moses, whose graves were never found. Nevertheless, Philo has recourse to contemporary philosophy for the development of his idea; in this case, the Stoic theory of the transformation of elements called a)nastoixei/wsij. Moses’ translation is variously named an a)nastoixei/wsij (Mos. 2.288), a metana/stasij (Sacr. 8) or a meta&qesij, metabolh/ or a)na&basij (QG 1.86). The last term is also employed by the fourth Evangelist for Jesus’ ascent to the Father (20:17: ou!pw ga_r a)nabe/bhka pro_j to_n pate/ra; a)nabai/nw pro_j to_n pate/ra). Since Philo’s idea of translation forms a logical part of his doctrine of regeneration, it will also be treated in this context. 7.3.1 Philo and the idea of regeneration: paliggenesi/a Philo’s concept of paliggenesi/a summarizes his whole world view in its historical, psychological and cosmological dimensions. Throughout his writings, the term is employed in three different, but intimately related ways: (1) historically, it denotes the new era after the deluge; (2) psychologically, it designates the emotional development of the soul and the achievement of virtue; (3) cosmologically, it represents the separation of the immortal soul from the body at death and the renewed post-mortem cosmic life of the disembodied soul. In each case, the idea of paliggenesi/a is linked to and interpreted in light of the Stoic concept of a)nastoixei/wsij. After a short presentation of the first two types of paliggenesi/a, we will concentrate on Philo’s idea of a translation in place of death and focus on his description of the a)nastoixei/wsij that befell Moses. 7.3.1.1 Paliggenesi/a as new world cycle The new era after the deluge is called a paliggenesi/a by Philo: that was the time when the patriarchs – descendants of the righteous Noah – became “leaders of the regeneration, inaugurators of a second cycle
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(a)lla_ kai\ paliggenesi/aj e0ge/nonto h9gemo&nej kai\ deute/raj a)rxhge/tai perio&dou)” (Mos. 2.65). The inauguration of the new circle was due to the insight that the figure of Noah represents in Philo’s writings. Noah’s “surprising discovery”, namely that “all things in the world and the world itself is a free gift and act of kindness and grace on God’s part” (Leg. 3.78) has already been treated in Chapter Three. The new era is intimately related to Philo’s reversal of the Stoic theory of oi0kei/wsij. The end is not the appropriation of nature to the sage’s self, but the “appropriation” of everything to God as the gracious giver and first cause of all that has come into being (Post. 123). The use of the term paliggenesi/a for the deluge is close to its original meaning in Stoicism, where it denotes the new world cycle after the conflagration.472 Philo describes the deluge as an inverted Stoic a)nastoixei/wsij. Whereas during the Stoic e0kpu&rwsij, the four elements were transformed into the one pure, life-generating element of constructive fire, the elements were, by God’s choice, transformed into water in the deluge (Abr. 43). Throughout his writings, Philo argues emphatically against the Stoic idea of the conflagration and a destruction of the universe (Leg. 3.7; Her. 288; Aet. 94ff). However, the rejection of the phenomenon of e0kpu&rwsij does not imply that Philo also dismisses the idea that the four elements may, as it were, be destroyed through a transformation into one another, by which they, the “strangest of contradictions, are made immortal” (Aet. 109). The Stoic differentiation between the two phases of the world cycle, “called by some Fullness and Want, by others a General Conflagration and Reconstruction” (Spec. 1.208: oi9 d’ e0kpu&rwsin kai\ diako&smhsin) provides for Philo the basis for an argument for the eternity of the present world. During the world cycle, the processes of elementary transformations differ: “the Conflagration being the state when the supremacy of heat has prevailed over the rest, the Reconstruction when the four elements, by concession to each other (h4n a)ntidido&asin a)llh/loij), obtain equilibrium” (Spec. 1.208). Philo finds it unconvincing that a universe characterised by this balance and order suddenly should give in to destruction: The people whose talk is for ever of conflagration and rebirth [e0kpurw&seij kai\ paliggenesi/aj] may well excite our wonder, not only for the aforesaid reasons which prove the falsity of their creed, but particularly on the following grounds. … Indeed also observation of the equality inherent in the world should make them afraid or ashamed to affirm the death of so great a deity [qeou=. MSS. qei/ou]. For there is a vast reciprocation between the four powers and they regulate their interchanges according to the standards of 472 For Philo’s discussion of Stoic physics, see Aet. 8-9, 47, 94-95
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equality. … For just as the annual seasons circle round … so, too, the elements of the world in their mutual interchanges seem to die, yet, strangest of contradictions, are made immortal as they ever run their race backwards and forwards and continually pass along the same race up and down [th\n au0th\n o(do_n a!nw kai\ ka&tw]. The uphill journey begins from earth. Earth is transformed by melting into water [thkome/nh ei0j ga_r u3dwr (meta)lamba&nei th\n metabolh/n], water by evaporation into air [e0catmizo&menon ei0j a)e/ra], air by rarefaction into fire [a)h\r leptuno&menoj ei0j pu=r]. The downhill path … That this self-determined equality should be maintained for ever inviolate and constant is not only natural but necessary.473 (Aet. 107-112)
The fact that Philo accepts the equilibrium aspect of the Stoic world cycle and endorses the idea of a “concession of elements to each other” is of decisive importance for our understanding of his description of Moses’ translation as an instance of a)nastoixei/wsij. As argued in Chapter Two, the transformation of elements into one another, in which they gain “immortality” through “destruction”, is intimately bound up with the materiality of Stoic physics. The phenomenon is not found in the Platonic cosmology of the Timaeus, in which the four elements remain stable cosmic entities. 7.3.1.2 Paliggenesi/a as emotional development The psychological palligenesi/a of mankind is the generative work of the divine lo&goj. Exegetically, the term is used for the replacement of the murdered Abel by Seth, which Philo calls the new birth or regeneration of Abel (paliggenesi/a 1Abel) (Post. 124). The etymological meaning of Seth is “watering”, and when the soul is watered and “fostered with a fresh sweet stream of wisdom” through God’s lo&goj, it “shoots up and improves … for the word of God is the source and spring of noble conduct” (Post. 125-127). Again, it is the opposition to philosophy, first and foremost the Stoic doctrine of oi0kei/wsij, which is at stake in Philo’s exegesis of the Cain and Abel. The figure of Abel represents the pious mind of the sage, who ascribes the achievement of virtue to God. This attitude stands in a murderous relation to the philosophical mind-set of Cain, 473 Whether On the Eternity of the World is a treatise from Philo’s hand or not, continues to be an issue of debate; compare the introduction in the LCL. It is the notion of the world as a deity that draws Philo’s authorship into question. The ideas presented in the quotation above are, however, confirmed as Philonic by their presence in his undisputed writings. In On Dreams 1.144-46, the angels ascending and descending on the ladder in Jacob’s dream are interpreted as a symbol of the universe and the continuous equilibrium between the uphill and downhill movement of elements in transformation.
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who assigns virtuous deeds to the merits of human reasoning. As we already know, the exegetical basis for Philo’s turning the Stoic idea of oi0kei/wsij upside down is found in Leg. 1.37: in the process of oi0kei/wsij, the pneu=ma of the Stoics’ wise man was stretched to encompass the whole world, but according to Philo God has already stretched His pneu=ma (tei/nantoj tou= qeou= th\n a)f’ e9autou= du&namin) through His inbreathing of mind into man, and His powers encompass from the beginning the individual person. The text also informs us about the memedium in which man and God interact; the interaction between God and man takes place in the medium of the divine pneu=ma: “Breathed into”, we note, is equivalent to “inspired” or “be-souled” the soulless [to& ge mh\n “e0nefu&shsen” i1son e0sti\ tw~| e0ne/pneusen h@ e0yu&xwse ta_ a!yuxa]. … Yet the expression clearly brings out something that accords with nature. For it implies of necessity three things, that which inbreathes, that which receives, that which is inbreathed: that which inbreathes is God, that which receives is the mind, that which is inbreathed is to_ pneu=ma. What, then, do we infer from these premises? A union of the three comes about, as God projects the power that proceeds from Himself through the mediant breath till it reaches the subject. And for what purpose save that we may obtain a conception of Him?474 (Leg. 1.37)
That which is left to man is the recognition, reconstruction and regeneration of the original situation, in other words: the paliggenesi/a of Abel. Philo here uses the Stoic idea of a literal, cosmological a)nastoixei/wsij, in which the different elements are turned into pure fire, as a metaphor for the emotional development of the soul. The soul of Abel, who attributes everything to God and puts nothing aside for himself, has, as it were, undergone an a)nastoixei/wsij: Surely it is a fitting life-work for the world, that it should give thanks to its Maker continuously and without ceasing, well-nigh evaporating itself into a single elemental form [e0kqumiw~nti kai\ a)nastoixeiou=nti e9auto&n], to shew that it hoards nothing as treasure, but dedicates its whole being at the shrine of God its Begetter. (Her. 200)
7.3.1.3 Paliggenesi/a as cosmic translation i. The death of ordinary men Finally, paliggenesi/a in Philo denotes the separation of the soul from the body which takes place at death, when “we who are here joined to 474 Leg. 1.37: e3nwsij gi/netai tw~n triw~n, tei/nantoj tou= qeou= th\n a)f’ e9autou= du&namin dia_ tou\ me/sou pneu&matoj a!xri- [LCL’s hyphen] tou= u9pokeime/nou – ti/noj e3neka h@ o#pwj e1nnoian au0tou= la&bwmen;
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the body, creatures of composition and quality, shall be no more, but shall go forward to our rebirth (ei0j paliggenesi/an), to be with the unbodied, without composition and without quality” (Cher. 114). Here, the term a)nastoixei/wsij is used to designate the process in which, after the departure of the immortal soul, the mortal and lower parts of the soul and the body are decomposed into the elements from which they were originally made: Indeed the particles of the deceased break up into their original elements and are again distributed to the various forces of the universe out of which they were constituted [ai9 tw~n teteleuthko&twn a)nastoixeiou&menai moi=rai], and the loan which was lent to each man is repaid, after longer or shorter terms, to Nature his creditor, at such time as she may choose to recover what she herself had lent. (Post. 5, emphasis added)
Philo here alludes to the Timaeus (42E), in which the lower parts of the soul and the body are said to be put together by the younger gods out of the four elements.475 As already mentioned, in Platonism the four elements remain stable entities. Within this context, Philo’s use of the concept of paliggenesi/a corresponds to the idea of commentatio mortis (mele/th qana&tou) found in contemporary philosophy.476 In the post-mortem life, conflicts between the wish for virtuous living and the desire for bodily pleasure were definitively resolved though the separation of the soul from the body. This post-mortem lifestyle may, however, be anticipated in the life that seeks to overcome the bodily desires – or in Philo’s exegesis: that seeks the “regeneration of Abel”. The post-mortem fate of the immortal part of a particular soul is determined by the achievement of virtue while the person was still alive in the body. In the post-mortem life, psychology and cosmology are brought into contact, and an ethical and cosmological hierarchy outlined. Whereas the immortal soul of the man who is trained by others, e.g. Abraham, is added to the host of angels, that of the self-learnt, e.g. Isaac, is allotted to another “company”,
475 Philo quotes almost verbatim from the Timaeus: “… meanwhile his sons took heed to their father’s ordinance and set about obeying it. Having received the immortal principle of a mortal creature, imitating their own maker, they borrowed from the world portions of fire and earth, water and air, on condition that these loans should be repaid, and cemented together what they took not with the indissoluble bonds whereby they were themselves held together, but welding them with a multitude of rivets too small to be seen and so making each body a unity of all the portions. And they confined the circuits of the immortal soul within the flowing and ebbing tide of the body” (Plato & Cornford 1935, 147f). 476 See the discussion of the idea of commentatio mortis in D. E. Aune, “Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul: Some Issues and Problems” (1995, 305ff).
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namely that of the ge/noj of the imperishable and fully perfect people who “populate” the noetic world (Sacr. 5). ii. The death of extraordinarily worthy men In the case of extraordinarily worthy men, something different and very marvellous may happen: “The end of worthy and holy men is not death but translation (meta&qesij, metabolh/) and approaching another place” (QG 1.86). In place of an ordinary death, in which the immortal soul is separated from the mortal body, their two-fold nature of body and soul is transposed into the single nature of pure mind (Mos. 2.288). Therefore, their body and burial-place cannot be found. This happened to Elijah, who ascended (a)ne/bh) to the level of angels, and to Enoch, who “is said (to have moved) from a sensible and visible place to an incorporeal and intelligible form (ei0j a)sw&maton kai\ noera_n morfh/n or ei]doj, ge/noj)” – that is, to Philo’s noetic world (QG 1.86). Moses, however, was drawn upward from the earth to an even higher place. This is the knowledge that Philo acquires from the “oracle” speaking in Deut 5:31, in which God says to Moses: “Stand here with Me” (Sacr. 8: su\ de\ au0tou= sth=qi met’ e0mou=). As the only truly perfect man, Moses ascends beyond even the noetic world in order to stand together with God Himself: Afterwards the time came when he had to make his pilgrimage from earth to heaven, and leave this mortal life for immortality, summoned thither by the Father Who resolved his twofold nature of soul and body into a single unity, transforming his whole being into mind, pure as the sunlight [Xro&noij d’ u3steron, e0peidh\ th\n e0nqe/nde a)poiki/an e1mellen ei0j ou0rano_n ste/llesqai kai\ to_n qnhto_n a)polipw_n bi/on a)paqanati/zesqai metaklhqei\j u9po_ tou\ patro&j, o$j au0to_n dua&da o!nta, sw~ma kai\ yuxh/n, ei0j mona&doj a)nestoixei/ou fu&sin o#lon di’ o#lwn meqarmozo&menoj ei0j nou=n h9lioeide/staton]. Then, indeed, we find him possessed by the spirit [katasxeqei/j] … (Mos. 2.288) … for when he was already being exalted and stood at the very barrier, ready at the signal to direct his upward flight to heaven, the divine spirit fell upon him and he prophesied with discernment while still alive the story of his own death [h!dh ga_r a)nalambano&menoj kai\ e0p’ au0th=j balbi=doj e9stw&j, i3na to_n ei0j ou0rano_n dro&mon diipta&menoj eu0qu&nh|, katapneusqei\j kai\ e0piqeia&saj zw~n e1ti ta_ w(j e0pi\ qano&nti e9autw~| profhteu&ei deciw~j]. (Mos. 2.291)
How are we to understand Philo’s notion that Moses’ twofold nature was resolved into a single unity of pure mind? It is obvious that the transformation of “his whole being into mind” differs from the Platonic decomposition of the body into the elements from which it was originally made. But what does Philo mean when he sees the transforma-
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tion as an instance of a)nastoixei/wsij? From Philo’s metaphorical application of the concept of a)nastoixei/wsij to the emotional development of the soul that we discussed above, we know that Philo was familiar with the Stoic use of the term, in which it designates a genuine transformation of elements into one another. We have seen, too, that although Philo rejects the exclusively uphill a)nastoixei/wsij of the general conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), he endorses the uphill a)nastoixei/wsij involved in the equilibrium established in the reconstruction (diako&smhsij) by the aid of which God upholds creation. With this modification, Philo acknowledges the Stoic idea of matter-in-motion, which constitutes the governing principle of Stoic physics in general, and of the phenomenon of a)nastoixei/wsij specifically. The next questions concern what Philo means by the invisible place of “an incorporeal and intelligible form (ei0j a)sw&maton kai\ noera_n morfh/n)” and of how this “mind, pure as sunlight (ei0j nou=n h9lioeide/staton)”, into which these men are transposed, relates to the Stoic idea of a transformation of elements. On the face of it, there seems to be a logical flaw in Philo’s thinking here. The noetic, invisible and incorporeal form is referred by some scholars to Plato’s ideas.477 But if Philo extrapolates the Stoic a)nastoixei/wsij beyond the material world of the dynamic continuum to encompass the Platonic noetic ideas as well, he comes up against the fact that the idea of a)nastoixei/wsij cannot be separated from Stoic physics of the pneu=ma and transposed into a Platonist ontology. There is an impassable chasm here. We must remember that it was the main objection of Stoicism against the Platonists that mediation between the two spheres was impossible: How did the noetic order of non-bodily ideas physically bring sense-perceptible bodies into being? Taking their starting-point from the maxim that only bodies were capable of affecting and changing bodies, the Stoics situated the formative powers in the swiftest, hottest, most expansive and pervasive form of matter-in-motion and matter-in-space: the pneu=ma. Is it possible to solve this quandary? In part. First, we should recall the discussion in Chapter Two of “God, principles and pneu=ma in the Stoic sign”. The reflections presented there were an attempt to account for some of the contradictions that we met in the testimonies to Stoic theory. The problem was that while some Stoics argued that God was an incorporeal principle, which was to be grasped by the mind alone, others identified God with constructive fire 477 This is the understanding of my colleagues in the seminar Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen.
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(pu=r texniko&n), in the phase of the conflagration (e0kpu&rwsij), and the all-permeating pneu=ma, in the phase of reconstruction (diako&smhsij). In the latter two cases, God was given a bodily character. In Chapter Two, it was demonstrated how the contradictions may be dissolved by means of the Stoic theory of the sign. I drew attention to the tendency in the sources, also noted by Sambursky (1959, 36-37), to let the complex relations in the sign collapse into simple statements of identity. The collapse led, on the one hand, to an identification of God – as the name of the active, ruling, incorporeal principle of lo&goj – with the corporeal denotatum of the pneu&mata, and on the other hand, to a dematerializing of these pneu&mata in terms of non-corporeal powers (duna&meij).478 The latter tendency was especially prominent in Philo. With this in mind, it is worth restating Origen’s and Aetius’ description of Stoic physics in order to come to terms with Philo’s idea of translation: The god of the Stoics, in as much as he is a body [a#te sw~ma tugxa&nwn], sometimes has the whole substance as his commanding-faculty [o(te\ me\n h9gemoniko_n e1xei th\n o#lhn ou0si/an]; this is whenever the conflagration is in being [h9 e0kpu&rwsij]; at other times, when world-order exists, he comes to be in a part of substance [o(te\ de\ e0pi\ me/rouj gi/netai au0th=j, o#tan h|] diako&smhsij].479 (Origen, Cels. 4.14) The Stoics made god out to be intelligent, a designing fire [pu=r texniko&n] which methodically proceeds towards creation of the world, and encompasses all the seminal principles [spermatikou\j lo&gouj] according to which everything comes about according to fate, and a breath pervading the whole world [pneu=ma me\n e0ndih=kon di’ o#lou tou= ko&smou], which takes on different names owing to the alterations of the matter through which it passes.480 (Aetius 1.7.33)
With regard to Philo, it is noteworthy that the conflagration is described by Origen as a process through which the whole of substance is absorbed into the universal and divine mind (to_ h9gemoniko&n). In analogy with this statement, Philo says concerning Moses’ translation that 478 This tendency should perhaps be seen in light of the development described by Gretchen Reydam-Schils in her book Demiurge and Providence: Stoic and Platonist Readings of Plato's Timaeus (1999). According to her analysis of the reception of Plato’s Timaeus in Middle Platonism, two tendencies marked the philosophical development: an economical reduction of the explanatory principles involved in generation (43) and a reluctance to go beyond the physical universe in order “to search for the principle of what is itself a principle” (48). Both tendencies were strongly influenced by Stoicism. Thus, the Timaeus of Middle Platonism was a Stoicized Timaeus. However, even Stoicism, in the case of the sign relation, seems to have succumbed to this tendency. 479 See LS 46H. 480 See LS 46A.
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through the process of a)nastoixei/wsij, in which Moses came to stand with God, his whole dual being of body and soul was also transformed into mind (o( nou=j). However, an important difference also exists between these two statements, since Philo rejects the Stoic idea of the conflagration. But as stated by Aetius, it was only during the conflagration that this mind existed as constructive fire, since during the phase of reconstruction it existed as the universal pneu=ma. As we saw above, Philo endorsed the balanced version of the a)nastoixei/wsij. It would therefore be logical and consequent, if the a)nastoixei/wsij of Moses into the divine mind was a transformation into pneu=ma. That is in fact what it seems to be. By looking at a mosaic of texts from Philo’s treatises, I shall try to substantiate this claim. First, a key position in my argument is held by the text quoted above from Leg. 1.37 in which Philo describes the union between God and man that comes about when man is endowed or inbreathed with mind by God. Through His inbreathing of to_ pneu=ma, God stretches (tei/nantoj tou= qeou=) – Philo employs a technical term from Stoic physics – the power that proceeds from Him (th\n a)f’ e9autou= du&namin) until it reaches the substance of the human mind (u9pokeime/noj). Thus, it is God’s pneu=ma that provides the mind with its many faculties (duna&meij). Through these mental powers, man participates in the universal mind. The medium through which man communicates with the God is (according to Leg. 1.37) God’s pneu=ma. Second, in De plantatione (23-24), the divine spirit, which man receives through God’s down-breathing, is said to be the force by which the mind is called upwards to God: For it accords with God’s ways that those who have received His downbreathing should be called up to Him [pro_j ga_r to_ qei=on a!nw kalei=sqai qe/mij tou\j u9p’ au0tou= katapneusqe/ntaj] … it is strange if a light substance like the mind is not rendered buoyant and raised to the utmost height by the native force of the Divine spirit, overcoming as it does in its boundless might all powers that are the below [th|= de\ tou= qei/ou pneu/matoj kai\ pa&nta dunatou= kai\ ta_ ka&tw nikw~ntoj fu&sei]. Above all is it strange if this is not so with the mind of the genuine philosopher. (Plant. 23-24)
In other words, it is by an extension of the divine pneumatic powers, which Philo also calls a down-breathing (katapnei=n), that God draws human beings towards Him. Third, in De migratione Abrahamo (184), it is stated that it is this down-breathing from heaven (a)p’ ou0ranou= katapneusqei\j a!nwqen) which brings about the psychological a)nastoixei/wsij of the mind and turns it into “a single element” and “a holy libation to Him who inbreathed it (katapneu/santi)”.
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Fourth, in De vita Mosis (2.69-70), the symbolic meaning of God’s calling up Moses on Mount Sinai is exposed. The calling-up is understood in terms of God’s down-breathing from heaven, which draws Moses upward towards God. But the transformation of Moses’ soul also affects his body; it, too, undergoes a change. When Moses descends from the mountain, this change makes his face shine like sunlight: But first he had to be clean, as in soul so also in body, to have no dealings with any passion, purifying himself from all the calls of mortal nature, food and drink and intercourse with women. This last he had disdained for many a day, almost from the time when, possessed by the spirit, he entered on his work as prophet [a)f’ ou[ to_ prw~ton h!rcato profhteu&ein kai\ qeoforei=sqai], since he held it fitting to hold himself always in readiness to receive the oracular messages. As for eating and drinking, he had no thought of them for forty successive days, doubtless because he had the better food of contemplation, through whose inspiration, sent forth from heaven above [a!nwqen a)p’ ou0ranou= katapneo&menoj],481 he grew in grace, first of mind, then of body also through the soul [th\n me\n dia&noian to_ prw~ton, e1peita de\ kai\ to_ sw~ma dia_ th=j yuxh=j e0beltiou=to], and in both so advanced in strength and well-being that those who saw him afterwards could not believe their eyes [w(j tou\j i0do&ntaj u!steron a)pistei=n]. For we read that by God’s command he ascended [a)nelqw_n] an inaccessible and pathless mountain, the highest and most sacred in the region. … Then, after the said forty days had passed, he descended with a countenance far more beautiful that when he ascended [kate/baine polu\ kalli/wn th\n o!yin h4 o#te a)nh|&ei], so that those who saw him were filled with awe and amazement; nor even could their eyes continue to stand the dazzling brightness that flashed from him like the rays of the sun [h9lioeidou=j]. (Mos. 2.69-70)
Although Philo does not apply the term a)nastoixei/wsij to Moses’ ascension on Mount Sinai, I think that it is possible – by means of the texts quoted from Migr. 184, Mos. 2.69-70 and Mos. 2.288, 291 – to plot the process, in which God draws man, in this case Moses, upwards towards Himself by means of his down-breathing and extension of His spirit. Moses’ ascent towards God takes its beginning with the prophetic call effected by the initial, periodical possessions of the divine spirit. These possessions results in Moses’ mental growth (h9 dia&noia … e0beltiou=to) through which his mind is transformed into a “single element” of a single will. It is in this state of mind that Moses is called up on Mount Sinai. During the period on the mountain Moses feeds solely on the contemplation of divine things, which also affects his soul and, in turn, his body. His appearance undergoes a change, his face begins to shine like sunlight in a way that seems incredible (a)pistei=n) to those 481 The parallels to John 4:32-34 are obvious, but unnoticed by Johannine scholarship, by Bultmann, Brown, Meeks, Barrett etc.
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who see him. Finally, under the influence of the down-breathed spirit, these changes affect his whole bodily being, and he is translated into another “position” near God, namely, into an invisible, noetic, incorporeal form, “pure as sunlight” – which I suggest is the divine pneu=ma. Since the powers of the human mind are described by Philo as an extension of the divine pneu=ma (Leg. 1.37), it seems reasonable to claim that this pneu=ma must constitute the medium of the invisible, incorporeal and noetic form (QG 1.86: ei0j a)sw&maton kai\ noera_n morfh/n) into which these holy and worthy men are transformed. But is this statement not a contradiction in terms? That Stoic pneu&mata are invisible is true enough, but no matter whether they are considered as parts or as a whole, they remain bodies. However, the tendencies (discussed in Chapter Two), on the one hand, to materialize the Stoic God, and on the other hand, to dematerialize the divine pneu=ma or pneu&mata in terms of incorporeal powers should here be taken into consideration. From a strictly Stoic and logical point of view, both moves are wrong. Yet, we may conclude that if Philo held (as indicated by the above analysis) that the end of the translation is the invisible, noetic medium of the divine incorporeal pneu=ma, then he will be in accordance with contemporary descriptions of Stoicism.482
7.4 John and the translation of Jesus In light of Philo’s account of Moses’ ascension, which takes its beginning when the divine prophetic spirit enters him, and which climaxes in his translation into a noetic mode of being close to that of God, we may say that the fourth Evangelist also depicts Jesus’ journey as an extended ascension. Jesus’ ascent, too, begins when the spirit descends on him (1:32). Signs given throughout the Gospel indicate that the process of transformation has already begun. When read in light of Philo’s account of Moses’ ascension on Mount Sinai (Mos. 2.69-70), quoted above, the cross-purpose dialogue in Samaria between Jesus and his disciples suddenly makes sense (4:31-34). The disciples invite Jesus to eat, but Jesus answers that he has food to eat of which they know nothing (4:32: e0gw_ brw~sin e1xw fagei=n h4n u9mei=j ou0k oi1date), and the disciples wonder whether someone else has brought him food. The 482 This understanding accords with another set of contradictions in Philo’s writings. Although Philo in general describes the noetic structures as incorporeal, he attributes features like swiftness (o)cuki/nhtoj) and tension (eu!tonoj), which are intimately bound up with the materiality of the Stoic pneu=ma, to the human nou=j and the divine spirit that fills it with its powers.
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disciples’ puzzlement gives Jesus an opportunity of clarifying his statement: his food is doing the will of his sender and fulfilling his work (4:34).483 As a typical example of Johannine irony, the disciples’ doubt is to the point, but only when situated in the right context, which in this case seems to be Philo’s narrative of Moses’ ascension. To a reader acquainted with the tradition of Moses’ ascension, the refusal to eat ordinary food is a sign that the process of ascent towards God has begun. As was the case with Philo’s Moses, the final step in the Johannine Jesus’ a)na&basij is his translation into the Father. In John, Jesus’ translation provides the life-giving spirit which, in turn, fulfils and perfects God’s work. That this may be a proper reading of the dialogue about Jesus’ enigmatic food is supported by the fact that this dialogue is framed by a discourse on Jesus’ toilsome journey. At the beginning of the scene, we find Jesus resting at the Samaritan well, his travelling has made him tired (4:6: o( ou]n 0Ihsou=j kekopiakw_j e0k th=j o(doipori/aj e0kaqe/zeto ou3twj e0pi\ th|= phgh|=). At the end of the dialogue, Jesus states that the disciples are to harvest where others have sown, and that they will benefit from the hard work of others. 484 In general, the commentaries do not pay much attention to the idiom o( ko&poj in John 4:6 and 4:38. In the few cases where the word attracts some attention, any relation between the two verses is denied. Whereas 4:6 has “einem ganz elementaren Sinn”, then in 4:38 “wächst dieser Characterisierung noch eine Bedeutungsdimension zu; und die ‘Wanderung’ Jesu geht ja auch noch weiter – bis zum Kreuz“ (Wengst 2000, 173).485 I do not make this distinction, but see the double use as a reference to what – in light of the Gospel’s allusions to Plato’s cave allegory – we may call Jesus’ vicarious journey. 483 John 4:34: e0mo_n brw~ma& e0stin i3na poih/sw to_ qe/lhma tou= pe/myanto&j me kai\ teleiw&sw au0tou= to_ e1rgon. 484 The fine distinction that the Johannine text makes between harvesting and sowing, according to which sowing is toil and harvesting something beneficial, is also seldom noticed: e0gw_ a)pe/steila u9ma~j qeri/zein o$ ou0x u9mei=j kekopia&kate. Instead, scholars supplement the Johannine text with other New Testament texts, e.g. Rom. 16:6(12), in which harvesting is understood as the continuing “labour of Christian proclamation” (Barrett 1955, 243) and not as something beneficial. The result is that the tension in the syntax of John 4:38 between Jesus’ work and that of the disciples collapses. 485 John 4:38: e0gw_ a)pe/steila u9ma~j qeri/zein o$ ou0x u9mei=j kekopia&kate: a!lloi kekopia&kasin kai\ u9mei=j ei0j to_n ko&pon au0tw~n ei0selhluqate. According to my interpretation, the plural of the working subject in 4:38 (kekopia&kasin) refers to the shared work of Jesus and his Father – cf. 5:17: o( path/r mou e3wj a!rti e0rga&zetai ka)gw_ e0rga&zomai – or the work that the Father does through Jesus, in whom he abides – cf. 14:10: o( de\ path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=. Most commentaries refer the plural to the common work of Jesus and believers. See note 485.
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The final steps of Jesus’ ascension are depicted in John 20. Before the risen Jesus definitively disappears from the sight of human beings (20:29), he is in an intermediate stage that renders him unrecognizable to his followers. What they see is unbelievable, precisely as it was the case with Philo’s Moses after his bodily transformation had begun (Mos. 2.69: w(j tou\j i0do&ntaj u!steron a)pistei=n). When seen in this Philonic light, neither Jesus’ request to Thomas to believe what he actually sees (20:27: kai\ mh\ gi/nou a!pistoj a)lla_ pisto&j) nor the blessing of those who will not be gifted with Thomas’ sight implies any critique of Thomas’ lack of true faith. The former is a statement about the character of the sight that Thomas faces. The transformation occurring in front of the disciples’ eyes is, as a matter of fact, unbelievable. The latter simply refers to the fact that Jesus will be invisible when the ascension has been brought to an end, just as the case was with Philo’s devout men.486 In his 2006 essay “The Cubist Principle in Johannine Imagery: John and the Reading of Images in Contemporary Platonism”, Harold Attridge argues that the cross is the ultimate referent towards which every sign, narrative and saying points in the cubist composition of the Fourth Gospel. In accordance with Attridge’s own recommendation of D’Angelo’s understanding of the resurrection as a process, I suggest that we should rather find the focal point in the combined events of Jesus’ ascension to the Father and the regeneration a!nwqen (3:3) of God’s children through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22). 487 I shall try to support this claim in two ways. First, I will demonstrate how some of Jesus’ enigmatic statements about his departure and the coming of the spirit make sense when his departure is understood as a translation into life-giving pneu=ma. Two examples will be provided: 486 See e.g. Raymond Brown (1966, 1048-51): “The two lines of vs. 29, then, are a contrast between two situations: the situation of seeing Jesus and that of not seeing Jesus. … And so we interpret the contrast in 29 as existing between two types of blessedness. … This second type of belief does not discard the sign or the appearance of the risen Jesus, for the use of the visible is an indispensable condition of the Word’s having become flesh. … Now, at the end of the Gospel, another attitude becomes possible and necessary. This is the era of the Spirit or the invisible presence of Jesus (xiv 17), and the era of signs or appearances is passing away”. 487 Attridge’s essay was originally presented at a seminar on Johannine imagery in Eisenach 2005. During a seminar in Copenhagen Autumn 2006, in which I was given the opportunity of presenting my reading of John 20, I discussed Attridge’s reading and proposed a displacement of the focal point to chapter 20. Attridge was present at the seminar and agreed with the displacement of the focal point from the cross to the combined spiritual ascent and descent that constitutes the (re-) generation a!nwqen.
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the discourse on “ingesting Jesus” given in John 6 and the discourse on Jesus’ simultaneous leaving and coming given in John 14. Second, I turn towards a narrative analysis of the drama that takes place in John 20.
7.4.1 The enigmas of Jesus’ departure 7.4.1.1 Ingesting Jesus Let us first have a look at Jesus’ discussion of bread from heaven in John 6. In the discussion with the Jews concerning the identity of the bread from heaven, Jesus states that he is the living bread that has come down from heaven and that the person who eats of this bread will live eternally. He explains that the bread he provides is his own flesh which is given for the sake of the life of the world (6:51).488 The Jews are puzzled by his statement and wonder how Jesus will be capable of offering his flesh for food (6:52: pw~j du&natai ou[toj h9mi=n dou=nai th\n sa&rka [au0tou=] fagei=n;). The question picks up Nicodemus’ puzzled and repeated pw~j du&natai in John 3:4 and 3:9. Again the question functions as an incentive for Jesus to elaborate on and even sharpen the issue further. Jesus concludes the discussion by a radical claim: the acquisition of eternal life depends on the ingestion of his flesh and blood:489 [6:56] He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. [58] This is the bread which came down from heaven – not as your fathers ate the manna, and died. He who eats this bread will live forever.
Even the disciples from the intimate circle are offended by his statement, but Jesus explains:490 [6:61] Does this offend you? [62] What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? [63] It is the spirit who gives life; the
488 John 6:51: e0gw& ei0mi o( a!rtoj o( zw~n o( e0k tou= ou0ranou= kataba&j. e0a&n tij fa&gh| e0k tou/tou tou= a!rtou zh/sei ei0j to_n ai0w~na, kai\ o( a!rtoj de\ o$n e0gw_ dw&sw h9 sa&rc mou/ e0stin u9pe\r th=j tou= ko&smou zwh=j. 489 John 6:56ff: o( trw&gwn mou th\n sa&rka kai\ pi/nwn mou to_ ai[ma e0n e0moi\ me/nei ka)gw_ e0n au0tw~|. kaqw_j a)pe/steile/n me o( zw~n path\r ka)gw_ zw~ dia_ to_n pate/ra, kai\ o( trw&gwn me ka)kei=noj zh/sei di’ e0me/. ou[to&j e0stin o( a!rtoj o( e0c ou0ranou= kataba&j, ou0 kaqw_j e1fagon oi9 pate/rej kai\ a)pe/qanon. o( trw&gwn tou=ton to_n a!rton zh/sei ei0j to_n ai0w~na. 490 John 6:61ff: tou=to u9ma~j skandali/zei; e0a_n ou]n qewrh=te to_n ui9o_n tou= a)nqrw&pou a)nabai/nonta o#pou h]n to_ pro&teron; to_ pneu=ma& e0stin to_ zw|opoiou=n, h9 sa_rc ou0k w)felei= ou0de/n: ta_ r(hm / ata a$ e0gw_ lela&lhka u9mi=n pneu=ma& e0stin kai\ zwh/ e0stin.
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flesh profits nothing. The subjects of which I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
Jesus’ statements to the Jews and his disciples link important themes in the Fourth Gospel in a way that makes it possible to discern the meaning of the enigmatic sayings. Like equations with several unknown quantities, the sayings must be superimposed onto one another in order to solve the puzzle. First, we are told (6:56-58) that it is the consumption of Jesus’ flesh and blood that as the true bread from heaven occasions the situation of mutual indwelling between Jesus and his disciples and, furthermore, that this abiding within one another brings about the qualified life that avoids death. Next, we are informed (6:6163) that this qualified life is due to the life-engendering spirit and the spirit alone, since the flesh benefits nothing. Finally, Jesus says that the coming of this life-engendering spirit is somehow associated with the ascent of the Son of Man. Unless we have recourse to redaction criticism, as proposed by Bultmann, 491 or to a metaphorical analysis, in which “flesh and blood” becomes the vehicle of the tenor of the heavenly bread and, in turn, the Eucharist, and not the other way round, the argument suggests two things. Firstly, that the ascent will involve a kind of transformation in which Jesus’ flesh (which benefits nothing) somehow becomes a life-giving spirit. Secondly, that this spirit is the medium of the mutual indwelling.492 Is there a contextual answer to the Jews’ question concerning the ingestion of Jesus’ flesh: How will this be possible (6:52: pw~j du&natai;)? Yes, the Philonic translation of devout men into a noetic form. In the case of Moses, his “body and soul” were transformed into the noetic medium of pure mind, which I have argued – with reference to Leg. 1.37 – is the divine pneu=ma. It was a common notion in antiquity that the soul resided in the blood and that bodily matter was nothing 491 Bultmann ascribes 6:60-71 to the work of the ecclesiastic editor, who reinterprets the bread of life discourse in terms of the sacrament: “Damit ist aber der Begriff des ska&ndalon veräusserlicht, und aus einem Charakter der Offenbarung, die als solche – o( lo&goj sa_rc e0ge/neto! – immer ska&ndalon bleibt, ein literarisches Motiv gemacht: die Hörer können nicht verstehen, dass Jesus vom Herrenmahl redet” (Bultmann 1941, 177). 492 It was precisely this understanding, which reduces the sklhro_j lo&goj to an impenetrable literary motif, which Bultmann rejected. According to the prevailing opinion among scholars, it is the sacrament of the Eucharist that hovers in the background. See, for instance, the 2003 book by Jane Webster, Ingesting Jesus. Eating and Drinking in the Gospel of John. Although I do not share the idea of the ecclesiastical editor, I here side with Bultmann against the majority of Johannine scholarship. I do not find that the sacraments play any role in the textual universe of the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, this does not mean that the sacraments of the community are not invested with meaning by the text of the Gospel!
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but lifeless flesh.493 Thus, in Johannine language Moses’ “body and soul” matches Jesus’ “flesh and blood”.494 Furthermore, we ought here to be reminded of Plutarch’s description of the Stoic phenomenon of blended bodies (kra~sij). Although Plutarch’s immediate aim was to demonstrate that the idea of mutual extension was absurd, his exposition is relevant to the Fourth Gospel: If blending occurs in the way they [the Stoics] insist, the constituents must come to be in one another, and the same thing must both be enveloped by being in the other and by accommodating it envelop it [kai\ tau0to_n o(mou= tw~| e0nupa&rxein perie/xesqai kai\ tw~| de/xesqai perie/xein qa&teron]. (Comm. not. 1078B-C. Translation LS 48E)
When the discussion of heavenly bread is understood in light of Philo’s theories of translation and regeneration and also in the context of the Stoic theory of blended pneumatic bodies, we may reasonably claim that, through the ascension and the generation a!nwqen, Jesus’ “flesh and blood” will be truly and literally consumed. This is the content of the sklhro_j lo&goj.
7.4.1.2 Jesus and the Paraclete – blurred identities In the Farewell Discourses, Jesus informs his disciples about the future coming of “another” Para&klhtoj. The Paraclete is identified with the Spirit of Truth in John 14:16f; 15:26; 16:7-13 and also with the Holy
493 See Anthony Long’s 1996 essay “Soul and Body in Stoicism”, which was also discussed in Chapter Two. 494 The sklhro_j lo&goj refers neither to Bultmann’s incarnation nor to the sacrament suggested by Webster and many others. The link between the ascension and the consummation of Jesus’ body is also made by Hoskyns in his comment on the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ: “So intimate will be the new relationship with Jesus that, though Mary must for the time being cease from touching him, because he must ascend and she must deliver his message, yet, after the Ascension, both she and the disciples will be concretely united with him (emphasis added) in a manner which can actually be described as ‘touching’ and of this the eating of the Lord’s Body and the drinking of his Blood is the most poignant illustration” (Hoskyns 1947, 543). Hoskyns’ description refers to the Eucharist and is therefore rejected by R. Brown on the ground that he finds no allusion to the Eucharist in chapter 20 (1966, 1011). Whereas Brown wants to cut the relation between the ascension and the consummation, I find that Hoskyns’ analysis is almost to the point. But I agree with Brown that the Eucharist is not at stake here. In opposition to both Brown and Hoskyns, I take it that “the eating of the Lord’s Body and the drinking of his Blood” is not an “illustration” – not even “the most poignant” one. It is a Johannine physical fact: in his spiritual mode of being, Jesus is indeed ingested.
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Spirit in John 14:26.495 But why does the Fourth Gospel employ various names for the seemingly same spiritual phenomenon? Probably the answer is the same as I have proposed in relation to the Johannine Jesus’ various names – the Son of God, Son of Man, the Messiah, the Anointed etc. By re-inscribing various traditions from contemporary Judaism and Hellenism into the narrative of Jesus of Nazareth, the Fourth Gospel reinterprets and controls the meaning of the shared signifiers (cf. Dawson 1992). i. The replacement of Jesus in the scholarly tradition Studies of the replacement of Jesus with the spirit often accentuate only one of the three names and one aspect of the spirit’s function in the Johannine community. Referring to contextual studies, the scholars determine the meaning of the replacement by the aid of extra-textual sources: In his 1963 monograph, Der Paraklet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentums, im Johannes-Evangelium und in neugefunden gnostischen Schriften, Otto Betz argued that the Johannine Paraclete was to be understood in light of the Qumran myth of the heavenly battle between the archangel Michael and Beliar. The earthly counterparts of these heavenly figures battled in human beings as the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Darkness. According to Betz, the Johannine Paraclete was cast in the mould of the archangel and acted as heavenly advocate on behalf of the community. Tricia Gates Brown also favours the figure of the Paraclete in her 2003 monograph, Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-scientific Perspective. On the basis of a socio-scientific study of the patron-client system in antiquity, she accentuates the spirit’s role as spokesman and “broker” between human beings as clients and God as the ultimate patron. In his book, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (1987), Gary Burge focuses on the function of the Holy Spirit in the Johannine community and draws attention to God’s spirit in the Old Testament prophetic writings. In comtemporary Judaism, it was expected that this divine and holy spirit would qualify the Messiah and that, at the end of times, it would also be poured out onto God’s nation. In his SNTS-monograph from 1970, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John, George Johnston opposes the tendency in Johannine studies to pick out a concept in the Fourth Gospel, scrutinize various external traditions for its meaning in order, then, to determine its meaning within the Fourth Gospel. Instead, Johnston argues that the concept in concern must first be analysed within its literary context in the Fourth 495 John 14 will be analysed in more detail in Chapter Eight.
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Gospel. On the basis of this kind of literary analysis, Johnston concludes that only one spiritual phenomenon is in play in John’s Gospel, namely God’s creative spirit, the immanent power that comes from God. As the eternal Logos, Jesus receives this spirit as his Messianic equipment in his baptism. Because Jesus is God’s Holy one (6:68), the spirit is designated the Holy Spirit; because Jesus is the truth (14:6), the spirit is also the Spirit of Truth. Johnston’s analysis also leads him to the conclusion that the idea of the Paraclete in the Fourth Gospel is secondary to God’s and Jesus’ spirit; a conclusion that brings him onto a collision course with most scholars of the Fourth Gospel. According to Johnston, the specific functions ascribed to the Paraclete are all functions that members of the inspired community will perform in relation to each other under the influence of God’s spirit, who is the Holy and True one. As inspired teacher, the Paraclete will teach them all things and bring to them the remembrance of all the things that Jesus has said (14:26), and he will explain and declare Jesus’ sayings to them (16:13f); as inspired witness, he is to testify to Jesus (15:26); as inspired preacher, he is to glorify Jesus through the declaration of Jesus’ saying (16:14f); as an inspired prophet, he will declare the things to come (16:13); and as an inspired advocate, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgement (16:8-11). Johnston rejects the contemporary tendency to identify the Paraclete with one specific figure or person; the functions are carried out by members of the Johannine group. As once Christ was God’s instrument in the world, this function is now performed by the Johannine community: … the time of the spirit-paraclete is the age of the Church. In and for the Church some men are chosen witnesses, with authority and therefore spiritual power for their task. … John locates the activity of the spirit within the Church. … For him, apostles and Christians in general are the visibility of the unseen spirit. Of course, they are not to be identified with the spirit. … Rather, this divine, Christ-like power makes them its instruments. (Johnston 1970, 38)
Like Burge, Johnston also speaks of the immanent theology of the Fourth Gospel. Consequently, none of these two Anglo-American scholars finds any hiatus etc. in the Fourth Gospel between the Christology of the Logos and the Christology of the spirit. Nevertheless, Johnston describes a potentially “extremely dangerous element” that he sees in Johannine spirituality.496 He warns against the behaviour of the socalled spiritualizers in Corinth. However, these problems belong, according to Johnston, to the reception of the Fourth Gospel, not to its genealogy. 496 See Klauck’s and Wengst’s analyses of the Johannine opponents in Chapter One.
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I agree with Johnston that, when determining the meaning of Johannine concepts, a literary study of its function within the Gospel must precede the study of external sources. The main difference between Johnston’s study and the one presented in this book concerns the understanding of John 4:23: pneu/ma tou= qeou=. According to Johnston, the statement is not a “palindrome”: The spirit is not God, but the spirit is from God. The spirit belongs to God as His creative power in the world; it is God’s counterpart in the world. ii. The Paraclete and the Passover As mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, the coming of the Paraclete is conditioned on Jesus’ departure (16:7). In contrast to the way things are during Jesus’ presence in “flesh and blood”, the Paraclete and his alter ego(s) will be with the disciples forever (14:16) and stay inside them (14:17). In the course of the conversation, Jesus identifies himself with this other figure: he is himself the one who is coming to the disciples and who will not leave them as orphans (14:18). In the context of antiquity, this means that they will not be left without a father. The new fatherhood is somehow inaugurated by the future joint coming of Father and Son to the individual believer in order to make a dwelling in him (14:20; 23). Jesus’ statements about his identity/notidentity with the coming spirit and about his simultaneous leaving and coming (14:28) generate a collapse of the syntactic logic of language.497 The solution to the riddles presupposes a transformation of Jesus, in which he is simultaneously changed and remains the same. Again, the interlaced events of the ascension and the regeneration constitute the solution. When understood in light of the statements about Jesus’ leaving and coming, the Johannine Passover assumes a new symbolic meaning. Jesus’ final Passover is introduced by John as the coming of the hour (h9 w#ra) in which Jesus will “pass over” from the world to the Father (13:1: metabh~|). The Passover now denotes the ascension to the Father in which Jesus is transformed from a body bound fleshly mode of being into a pneumatic one in the manner of the Father. When this understanding of the Passover is combined with the Gospel’s portrayal of Jesus as the Paschal lamb, the narrative of the Johannine Jesus turns into a comment on Philo’s interpretation of the Passover and the Paschal lamb. Philo reinterprets the sacrifice of the Passover (to_ Pa&sxa qu/ousan) in terms of moral progression. The rhe497 See my discussion of Meeks’ characterization of the Fourth Gospel as a “parody of a revelation discourse” (1972, 57, emphasis added) in Chapter One.
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toric at work in this case resembles van Kooten’s analysis in which Jesus’ ascent/descent was seen as a comment on Plato’s cave allegory: since the incarnated Jesus brought the truth into the world, any further attempts to climb the cave became superfluous. In a similar manner, John’s Paschal lamb seems once and for all to replace Philo’s sacrifice at the Passover. Through the etymology of the Greek word for sheep, pro&baton, which denotes anything that walks forward, Philo made the offer of the Paschal lamb a symbol of psychological progression: h9 prokoph/; h9 prokoph/ is a term borrowed from the Stoic ethical vocabulary. According to Philo, the sacrifice was offered and the Passover celebrated whenever the soul engaged in the study of the “Passover” from the domain of passions (dia&basi/n ge meletw~san a)po_ tw~n paqw~n) to the domain of God and turned away from the pursuit of body bound pleasures in order to please God as the proper response to His goodness: For thou art required also, when making it thy study to cross over from the passions and when sacrificing the Passover, to take the forward step, whose symbol is the lamb [kai\ ga_r dia&basi/n ge meletw~san a)po_ tw~n paqw~n kai\ Pa&sxa qu/ousan dei= th\n prokoph/n, to_ pro&baton lamba&nein]. (Leg. 3.165)
As the Paschal Lamb, Jesus offers his own life in order to bring knowledge of the truth to those who believe in him. Once and for all, Jesus’ “pass-over” (his vertical meta&basij) replaces Philo’s horizontal dia&basij. The ethical impact of Johannine faith will be discussed in Chapter Eight.
7.4.2 Jesus’ ascent. A narrative analysis of John 20 We saw how in her “Critical Note” Mary D’Angelo shifted the focus in John 20 from the traditional interest in believers’ reactions to the resurrection to the risen Jesus’ own attitude towards his believers. The issue at stake in Jesus’ different reactions to Mary Magdalene and Thomas Didymos was Jesus’ own transitory situation during the ascent, not different types of inadequate faith. The narrative of these successive encounters includes different stages in the process of ascent: from the “not-yet” in the encounter with Mary to the (nearly) fulfilled transformation in the scene with Thomas. I would like here to draw attention to other features of the narrative in John 20 that support D’Angelo’s reading: e.g. the careful information given by the author about open and closed rooms, that is, the spatial dimension; the specific difficulties involved in the recognition of Jesus; and finally the way that the set-up of
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the narrative dramatizes the image of the woman in birth pains with which Jesus concludes his Farewell Discourses.498 I would also like to suggest a minor change in D’Angelo’s description of Jesus’ transformations. It turns out that there are not just two scenes – that of Mary and that of Thomas – which depicts the transformational process; there is also a third one, namely the anticipation of the future situation when believers, in contrast to Thomas and the disciples, will not be privileged to actually see the risen, bodily Jesus. Thus, the process of ascent should be extended beyond the scene featuring Thomas: it is only fulfilled when as the divine pneu=ma Jesus has become invisible.
7.4.2.1 Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene Let us first take a look at the encounter of the risen Jesus with Mary Magdalene. Early in the morning, Mary arrives at the tomb in the garden where Jesus was buried, and she discovers that the stone in front of the tomb has been moved (20:1). Convinced that someone has removed her Lord from the tomb, she fetches Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved. “We don’t know where they have placed him (ou0k oi1damen pou= e1qhkan au0to&n)”, she says. The two disciples run to the tomb, enter it and note that the sheet used for the corpse is left orderly arranged. They go back home and leave Mary weeping in front of the tomb (20:11: klai/ousa). As she stands there weeping (20:11: e1klaien), she, too, throws a glance into the tomb. Where Jesus’ body had been placed (20:12: to_ sw~ma tou= 0Ihsou=), she sees two angels sitting. The angels inquire concerning her weeping: “gu&nai, ti/ klai/eij;” (20:13; cf. 20:15). She laments that she does not know where they have placed her Lord (20:13: pou= e1qhkan au0to&n; cf. 20:15). She turns around and sees Jesus 498 This idea is borrowed from Wengst: “Sie steht am Grab Jesu und weint. Dieses Bild ist transparent für die Situation der Gemeinde des Evangelisten. … In ihrem Weinen erfüllt sich innerhalb der Erzählung des Evangeliums die Trauer, die Jesus seinen Schüler in den Abschiedsreden angekündigt hatte: „Amen, amen, ich sage euch: Weinen und klagen werdet ihr. … Ihr werdet traurig sein, aber eure Trauer soll zur Freude werden (16:20)” (Wengst 2001, 281). I have not seen Wengst’s idea developed elsewhere. Instead, many interpreters compare the weeping Mary to the female lover of the Song of Songs in search of her beloved, see for instance S. Schneiders, “John 20:11-18: The Encounter of the Easter Jesus with Mary Magdalene – A Transformative Feminist Reading” (1996, 161) and A. Reinhartz, Befriending the Beloved Disciple (2001, 107). However, the two ideas supplement each other. In both cases the female position becomes representative of believers’ position in relation to Jesus and God.
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standing outside the tomb. Unable to recognize him by sight, she mistakes him for the gardener. Like the angels, Jesus asks her why she weeps, and the dialogue is repeated. Mary is only able to identify Jesus as her master when he addresses her by name. Probably she reaches out for him, but Jesus instructs her: since (20:17b: ga&r) he has “not yet” ascended to the Father, she must not touch him. Instead, she must go to Jesus’ “brothers” and tell them that he is about to ascend to his – and now also their – Father and God. Mary brings the message to the disciples and declares to them that she has seen the Lord. To summarize: 20:11-18:
Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene
Gender: Space:
Instruction:
Female The garden with the tomb, from which the closing stone has been moved Recognition by physical sight is hampered; the recognition is occasioned by Jesus’ voice Prohibition of touching
Confession:
“I have seen the Lord”
Recognition of Jesus:
How are we to make sense of the various pieces of information provided by this narrative? The fact that the stone had to be removed from the tomb indicates the kind of dispensation in which Christ rises; he still has a fleshly body. In the crucifixion scene, Jesus’ corpse is also designated his sw~ma (19:31, 38, 40). In spite of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, his physical appearance is not immediately recognizable. This fact indicates that something physical must have happened to him. Instead, Jesus is recognized by his voice when he calls Mary by her name. Like D’Angelo, I find that the scene as a whole depicts Jesus in a transitory liminal situation. The fact that Mary is unable to recognize Jesus by sight should be understood along the same lines as the prohibition of touching; it points to the transformation that takes place. The Gospel emphatically repeats that Mary looks for the place “where” Jesus has been placed (20:2, 13: pou= e1qhkan au0to&n; 20:15: pou= e1qhkaj au0to&n;). Mary’s despair picks up an important theme in the Farewell Discourses, namely the enigmatic character of “the paternal house” for which Jesus departs. The disciples lament that they do not know the way to Jesus’ place. In fact, the question of Jesus’ place (pou=;) pervades the Fourth Gospel from the beginning to the conclusion (1:38-39; 7:11, 34, 35, 36; 8:19, 21; 9:12; 12:26; 13:36; 14:3, 4, 5; 16:5). Mary’s questions seem to be yet another instance of Johannine irony, in which the question itself, when situated in the right context, provides the answer. In Philo’s description of the translation of worthy and holy men, qe/sij is the technical term that Philo employs for the translation: “For the trans-
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lation to another place is nothing else than another position (qe/sij)” (QG 1.86). The Gospel’s choice of words may be a pun that hints at the issue at stake: Jesus’ change of qe/sij; Mary looks for Jesus’ qe/sij.499 Furthermore, if we recall that in the ancient world voice and speech were intimately related to the pneumatic constitution of the speaker, the manner of Mary’s recognition points to the fact that it is the pneu=ma that constitutes the continuity and identity between Jesus’ different bodily dispensations. Mary’s encounter with the risen Jesus thus exemplifies Jesus’ saying in John 10 in the discussion of the good shepherd. Knowing his sheep, the good shepherd calls them by name, and they hear and follow, because “they know his voice” (10:2-4, 27).500 We should also remember that in the case of John the Baptist it was the voice of the coming groom that made him rejoice (3:29). Finally, the repeated question of the angels and Jesus: “Woman, why do you weep?” (20:13, cf. 15: gu&nai, ti/ klai/eij;) draws attention to the image of a woman in labour with which Jesus compares the disciples’ situation while he is away for a short while (16:19-20): “for a little while you will not see me;501 and for a little while again you shall see me. Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament (klau&sete kai\ qrhnh/sesqe), but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy (u9mei=j luphqh/sesqe, a)ll’ h9 lu&ph u9mw~n ei0j xara_n genh/setai)”. The disciples’ anguish is like that of the women giving birth:502 She is anxious, because her hour has come. But when the child has been born, she no longer remembers her hardships because of happiness that a human being – not a child – has been born into the world. The Evangelist seems to use this image as a structuring principle in his dramatization of the ascension.
499 In her essay 2005 “The Resurrection (of the Body) in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Johannine Spirituality”, Sandra Schneiders also linked the question: “Where is the Lord?” with the character of the resurrection body (183). 500 The intimate connection between the state of a person’s pneu=ma or “innate heat” and of the “reproductive” faculties of voice and semen was generally recognized in antiquity, both in scientific writings like those of Aristotle and in the more popular traditions like the tragedies. See ”Two Notes on Greek Tragedy: The Virgin’s Voice and Neck: Aeschylus, Agamemnon 245 and other Texts” (Armstrong & Hanson 1986). In the De generatione animalium, the heart is as the place of pneu=ma or “innate heat” the source of the voice as well as the gendering of the body, which includes the reproductive faculties (766a30ff). See also Philo on the relation of reason to voice in De gigantibus 64: logismo&j … path\r fwnh=j h[| sunhxou=men. 501 John 16:19: mikro_n kai\ ou0 qewrei=te/ me, kai\ pa&lin mikro_n kai\ o!yesqe/ me. 502 John 16:21: h9 gunh\ o#tan ti/kth| lu/phn e1xei, o#ti h]lqen h9 w#ra au0th=j: o#tan de\ gennh/sh| to_ paidi/on, ou0ke/ti mnhmoneu/ei th=j qli/yewj dia_ th\n xara_n o#ti e0gennh/qh a!nqrwpoj ei0j to_n ko&smon.
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7.4.2.2 Jesus’ encounters with the male disciples Later the same evening, Jesus meets with his brothers. Seemingly out of context, the author informs the reader that out of fear of the Jews, the disciples stay behind closed doors. In spite of this, Jesus suddenly stands in their midst and greets them with peace (20:19). There is, however, no immediate recognition of Jesus by the gathered disciples. Mary’s testimony to the disciples that she has seen the Lord and her information about Jesus’ ascent to the Father (20:18) have not prepared them for the present situation. They are only capable of recognizing Jesus when he identifies himself as the crucified one by the marks in his hands and in his side. Seeing their Lord, they rejoice (20:20: e0xa&rhsan ou]n oi9 maqhtai\ i9do&ntej to_n ku&rion). Having installed the disciples in his own place and mission, Jesus blows the Holy Spirit into them (20:22), mandates that they forgive sins, and empowers them to maintain and strengthen believers in faith. Later, when Thomas, who was not present with the disciples, receives their report of the event, he insists – in order to believe – on seeing for himself and even on placing his finger and hand in Jesus’ wounds. A week later, the situation is repeated. Once more in spite of the closed doors, Jesus suddenly stands among the gathered disciples (20:26) and invites Thomas to put his finger and hand into his wounds, thus encouraging him to leave his doubt behind and believe what he sees. Thomas reacts with a confession of Jesus as not only his Lord, but also his God. Again we may summarize the information schematically: 20:24-29: Gender:
Jesus’ encounter with Thomas Male (as the brothers)
Space: Recognition of Jesus:
Inside a house with closed doors Insisting on seeing for himself and on placing his finger and hand in Jesus’ wounds in order to believe the message of the disciples that they have seen the Lord Invitation to excessive touching, to place finger and hand in Jesus’ wounds “My Lord and my God”
Instruction: Confession:
How are we to make use of this information? The encounters of the ascending Christ – first, with the group of disciples and, next, with Thomas – are made after the same pattern. This fact has traditionally led scholars to see the Thomas-episode as an (editorial) appendix, but the parallelism may also be used to illustrate the same event from two different perspectives. In the first encounter, the infusion of the Holy
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Spirit constitutes the focal point (20:22). In the case of Thomas, it is his confession that is in focus (20:28). The first event concerns the physical aspect of the regeneration; the latter, the cognitive. The first will be treated here in relation to Jesus’ transformation, the latter in the next chapter.503 In order to understand what is at stake in these scenes, we must once more go back to the discussion of the good shepherd in John 10. Here Jesus announced that the doorkeeper would only allow the true shepherd to pass through the door to the sheepfold (10:2-3). In a quite surprising way, this saying is played out literally in John 20. Only the figure of Jesus, who is now ascending to his Father, is capable of entering the enclosure of the disciples, even through closed doors. The doors become indicative of the process that is taking place in Jesus. He is now, with a word borrowed from Philo, in a different “position” (qe/sij) from that in which he was raised. Being able to penetrate doors, 503 The logical link: ga&r between the prohibition to touch and the ou!pw of the ascension implies that after the ascension has taken place, touching will be possible. Scholars note the logic and paraphrase it away. Barrett’s reflection on 20:17 is representative: “ou!pw ga_r a)nabe/bhka pro_j pate/ra. This is a statement of some difficulty. It seems to be implied that it will be possible and permissible to touch Jesus after the ascension, though not before; and this is the reverse of what might have been expected. … It was moreover a condition for the coming of the Spirit. … A possible conclusion from these facts is that John believed that between vv. 17 and 22 the ascension, or at least the complete glorification, of Jesus had taken place. But it must be admitted that he does not say so, and it is very strange that so vital a fact should be left as a matter of inference. A more profitable line of interpretation. … The verse may then be paraphrased …” (Barrett 1955, 470, emphasis added). Barrett’s paraphrase links the prohibition of touching to the injunction to go to the brothers. The problem is that Mary has not yet grasped the implications of the change: “The resurrection has made possible a new and more intimate spiritual union between Jesus and his disciples; the old physical contacts are no longer appropriate”. But his interpretation, Barrett admits, runs counter to the fact that “touch may yet (v. 27) be appealed to in proof that the glorified Lord is none other that he who was crucified”. Dodd’s distinction between the sub species aeternitatis and the temporal/historical implement of knowledge of the eternal affairs allows him to give full weight to the ga&r of 20:17: “Thus the process by which Jesus is establishing renewed contact with His disciples after His resurrection is accompanied by a process of ascent, which can be (temporally speaking) complete only when the renewed contact is consolidated. … When therefore the disciples have received the Spirit through His ‘insufflation’ (xx.22), we may know that Christ has finally ascended. And this seems to be implied when Thomas is invited to touch His hands and side, in contrast to Mary Magdalene, who was not permitted to touch Him, because He was not yet ascended” (Dodd 1953, 443). Although I do not share Dodd’s Platonic analysis of the Gospel, I find his reading of 20:17 to be correct.
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he is also capable of permeating his disciples by infusion them with the Holy Spirit. Like D’Angelo, I understand Jesus’ invitation to Thomas to put his finger and hand into the wounds left by the crucifixion against the background of the prohibition of touching given to Mary: the attempt to hold Mary’s outreach in check was motivated by a reference to the impending ascent. The changed attitude on Jesus’ part is indicative of a process that has gone significantly further, but is not yet completed. After all, in contrast to subsequent generations, Thomas still sees some kind of a physically tangible body. In spite of that, Jesus’ self-identification is still needed, too. The marks demonstrate both that the “phenomenon” speaking to them from their midst is truly the risen Jesus and that the transformation which is taking place involves his body: it is Jesus’ physically marked body that undergoes a transformation during the ascent to the Father. During John 20, the confessed identity of Jesus is successively amplified. The narration climaxes in Thomas’ interpretation of his vision, namely that he now simultaneously sees his Lord and his God (20:28: o( ku&rio&j mou kai\ o( qeo&j mou). In this way, an arch is established from Thomas’ confession to the final verse (1:18) of the Prologue, in which the monogenh/j, who has finally entered the bosom of the Father, is also called qeo&j. From the perspective of the resurrection, the enigmatic idea of Jesus’ entering the divine bosom can now be understood. It is a metaphorical expression for Jesus’ ascent to the Father, which is again a metaphor for Jesus’ translation into the pneumatic, heavenly mode of being, which is God’s (cf. 4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j). Here we finally get the answer to the question concerning Jesus’ place: pou=; he is in his Father’s place, he has been absorbed into the divine pneu=ma. The allusions to the image of the woman in labour from the Farewell Discourses also help us to understand what takes place when the spirit is infused into the disciples. Just as the anguish and wailing of the woman in labour were displaced by joy when the human being – not the child – finally had entered into the world (16:21: e0gennh/qh a!nqrwpoj ei0j to_n ko&smon), so the lament of Mary is now displaced by rejoicing disciples. The infusion of the Holy Spirit is the (re-) generation a!nwqen (3:3, 5) through which the now fully born human being finally comes into being. In this way, Jesus succeeds in bringing the work of the Father, with which he was entrusted, to an end. Here we finally get the answer to the question posed by Nicodemus (3:9): How will all this – the (re-)generation from above (3:3: gennhqh|= a!nwqen) through water and pneu=ma (3:5: gennhqh|= e0c u3datoj kai_ pneu&matoj) – happen? The regeneration presupposes, precisely as Jesus told Nicodemus, the uplift-
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ing (3:14: u9ywqh~nai) and ascent (3:13: a)nabe/bhken) of the Son of Man. Through the infusion, the disciples literally become Jesus’ “brothers” (20:17), they receive a new fatherhood and are not left as orphans (14:18).
7.4.2.3 Summary By means of shifts in the topographical staging of successive encounters between the risen Jesus and his followers, and by the aid of allusions to images introduced by Jesus in his discourses, the Evangelist succeeds in dramatizing the interlaced pneumatic events of Jesus’ ascension and the regeneration of believers. The careful staging shows that it is the whole bodily and crucified being of Jesus that is translated. The risen Jesus of Mary’s encounter is not a de-souled body: Mary’s recognition of Jesus by his pneumatic voice guarantees that his soul is still present. Nor is Jesus a soul devoid of a body: the marks on his body show this. We may therefore conclude that what happens to Jesus in his ascension resembles the process that Philo’s Moses went through in his prolonged ascension to a position near God. Jesus’ ascent may, in other words, be understood as an instance of the Stoic a)nastoixei/wsij, in which the elements of soul and body – “blood and flesh” – are transformed into the highest, lightest, swiftest, and most dynamic element of the dynamic continuum, the divine pneu=ma. The author of the Fourth Gospel has in this way dramatized the Pauline belief articulated in 1 Cor 15:45, namely that “the last Adam became life-giving spirit”. This understanding accords with the information provided by the author in his comment on the second sign performed by Jesus: the temple that was to be destroyed and that Jesus would raise within three days in fact referred to his own body (2:21: sw~ma). The sign thus anticipated the transformation of Jesus’ body. In John the temple in Jerusalem is displaced by the new worship in “spirit and truth” (4:24) that Jesus’ ascent and translation enables. Through his careful staging of chapter 20, John has illustrated the intimate relationship between Jesus’ departure from the world and his return as life-generating spirit (6:63). Jesus does not, as claimed for instance by Dodd,504 leave the worldly phenomenon of the Holy Spirit behind when he as the eternal lo&goj returns to the otherworldly Father. Instead, he himself becomes the life-giving Holy Spirit. This causal relation between Jesus and the Holy Spirit has two implications: from a 504 See note 6.
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temporal point of view, Jesus’ ascent and regeneration of believers a!nwqen – his leaving and coming – take place simultaneously (cf. 14:28).505 From a spatial point of view, both the coming and leaving take place within this world; through the ascension the Son of Man returns to the place where he was before (cf. 6:62). Jesus’ translation into divine pneu=ma leads us through the cross to God. Although John 20 constitutes the focal point towards which every sign, image and word in the Fourth Gospel points, Thomas’ recognition picks up the final verse of the Prologue. In verse 1:18, we were told that while no one has ever seen God, he has now been revealed by the onlybegotten God, who has come to reside in the Father’s bosom.506 John 20 lays bare the dynamics of this revelation. If, as I suggest, we understand the transformation of Jesus’ crucified and marked body as an instance of Stoic a)nastoixei/wsij, what chapter 20 will show is, first, that the divine pneu=ma into which Jesus is translated is, as it were, already marked by the cross, and second, that this, too, holds true of God. This is because the pneu=ma – which initially descended on Jesus, guided him in his words and deeds and was the active force behind his translation into his Father – is God Himself (4:24). Although my account of the pneumatic transformations may resemble the Christology ascribed to the Johannine opponents by German exegetes and be said to represent a kind of Geist-, Tauf- and Adoptionschristologie, it never becomes a Platonically inspired Trennungschristologie and it is not opposed to the cross.507 On the contrary, through Jesus’ translation the marks of the cross become a predicate of God. The introduction of a Stoically informed translation deconstructs the German dichotomy between the opponents’ pneu=ma and the Johannine cross. Both belong to the signifiers that the fourth Evangelist employs in order to communicate his theology: by means of the figure of Christ (1:17: dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou=), the Gospel reveals the Father, and through this revelation it defines the identity of the believing commu505 Although I disagree with Sandra Schneiders’ understanding of the ou!pw of 20:17, I find her commentary on John 14:28 to the point: “In other words, the glorification in John is Jesus’ passage to God and the resurrection is Jesus’ return to his own. This twofold destiny of Jesus is not a chronological succession of separate events but two dimensions of his postpaschal life. As Jesus promised on the eve of this death, “I go away (u9pa&gw) and I come to you (e1rxomai pro_j u9ma~j) [14:28], both verbs in the present” (Schneiders 2005, 180, emphasis added). 506 John 1:18: Qeo_n ou0dei\j e9w&raken pw&pote <:monogenh\j qeo_j> o( w@n ei\j to_n ko&lpon tou= patro_j e0kei=noj e0chgh/sato. 507 See my discussion of the reconstruction of the opponents’ Geist-, Tauf-, Adoptionsoder Trennungschristologie in Wengst (1982), Klauck (1988) and Theobald (1990) in Chapter One.
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nity. The identity of the Father and of believers, respectively, is discussed in the next chapter.
Chapter 8
The Ultimate Pneumatic event. Worshippers in Spirit and Truth. The Quest for the Father – The Quest of the Father
8.1 Introduction. The quest for the truth In the preceding chapter, it was argued that Jesus’ passage from the world (13:1: meta&basij) and his ascent to the Father (20:17: a)na&basij) should be understood in parallel with the translation and ascent (QG 1.86: meta&qesij, metabolh/, a)ne/bh) that befell extraordinarily devout men instead of an ordinary death in Philo’s writings, the pre-eminent example being Moses, who was drawn near to God. In contrast to Moses’ translation, Jesus’ ascension consisted of intimately related pneumatic events: (1) the establishment of the pneumatic union between Son and Father through Jesus’ translation into pneu=ma, which was the presupposition of (2) the regeneration a!nwqen of believers, who became children of God (1:13) through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22). In Jesus’ own words, the “coming” of the Paraclete (alias the Spirit of Truth (14:16f; 15:26), alias the Holy Spirit (14:26)) depended on his own “going away” (16:7). From a literary perspective, the interrelation of these events was demonstrated by the inclusio that Mary Magdalene’s and Thomas Didymos’ encounters with the risen Jesus – the two scenes that dramatized the ascension – formed around the scene where the Holy Spirit was infused into the disciples: Jesus’ “return” to the Father included his “return” to his believers (cf. 14:28). Through these physical transformations the Johannine pneu=ma becomes the vehicle for the revelation of two related issues. Corresponding to the “leaving” and “return to the Father” involved in the translation, the truth about the Father is retrospectively revealed. The completion of the pneumatic unity between Son and Father makes it clear that throughout his life Jesus was the Son of Man stamped with God’s seal (6:27). This “stamping” took place when the spirit, as wit-
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nessed by John the Baptist, descended into Jesus. 508 As claimed by Jesus in his discussion with his disciples: seeing him was to see the Father (14:7, 9). Corresponding to the “coming” and “return to the believers” involved in the regeneration a!nwqen (3:3), the identity of God’s children is also revealed; their new identity is defined by the truth about the Father. Finally, the believers sought by the Father have come into being: Jesus’ death and translation results in the generation of true worshippers who worship the Father (by being) “in spirit and truth” (4:23f). The task with which Jesus was commissioned by the Father is now fulfilled (4:34; 5:36; 17:4; 19:30).509 The new situation is the answer to the Isaianic outcry in the desert issued forth by John the Baptist, namely that a new way to the Lord should somehow be prepared (1:23). The pneumatic transformations constitute the answer to Nicodemus’ question: “How shall all this come about?” (3:9). From a physical point of view, Jesus has brought about the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” (1:33). From a cognitive point of view, he has provided knowledge of the paternal truth that is capable of removing sin from the world (1:29; 16:9).510 Whereas the physical dimension has been exposed through the exegesis of the pneumatic transformations, questions about the truth remain: “What is truth?” (18:38).511 Or: What does being “in … the truth” (4:23f) more precisely mean? In the Gospel, the discussion about the Father is intimately linked to the disciple Thomas. As the first interlocutor in the Farewell Discourses, Thomas requests of Jesus that he reveals the way to the Father. Jesus answers Thomas’ request by refer508 John 6:27: tou=ton ga_r o( path\r e0sfra&gisen o( qeo&j. In Plant. 18-19, Philo likens the inbreathing of God’s spirit with the stamping of a coin: “Now while others, by asserting that our human mind is a particle of the ethereal substance, have claimed for man a kinship with the upper air; our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable soul to no created thing, but averred it to be a genuine coinage of that dread Spirit, the Divine and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of which is the Eternal Word. His words are ‘God in-breathed into his face a breath of Life’. (Gen. ii.7); so that it cannot but be that he that receives is made in the likeness of Him Who sends forth the breath”. 509 Jesus’ fulfilment of his Father’s task comes to the fore in his final address to the Father: John 17:4: e0gw& se e0do&casa e0pi\ th=j gh=j to_ e1rgon teleiw&saj o$ de/dwka&j moi i3na poih/sw: John 17:22: ka)gw_ th\n do&can h4n de/dwka&j moi de/dwka au0toi=j, i3na w}sin e4n kaqw_j h9mei=j e3n: e0gw_ e0n au0toi=j kai\ su\ e0n e0moi/, i3na w}sin teteleiwme/noi ei0j e3n: The task bestowed on Jesus is fulfilled in the establishment of a union of believers through their union with Jesus and, through him, with the Father. 510 John 16:9: peri\ a(marti/aj me/n, o#ti ou0 pisteu&ousin ei0j e0me/. 511 Ironically, the question is asked by Pilate in reaction to Jesus’ defence that he has come in order to witness to the truth.
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ring to himself: “If you have come to know me, you will know my Father, too. From this moment you know him and have seen him” (14:7).512 However, Thomas’ knowing and seeing are postponed to his encounter with the risen Jesus (20:28). The truth is related to this situation, but what did Thomas finally recognize and what did he in fact see? In accordance with the two aspects of the spirit-borne revelation – the truth, and the identity of the Father and of believers, respectively – this chapter consists of two sections. In order to come to terms with the paternal truth, we will scrutinize Thomas’ vision from two different perspectives. Taking our starting point in Thomas’ appearances in John 14 and 20, we shall inquire into the epistemology of space and examine the character of the paternal place (14:2, 3: to&poj). Stoic physics will be brought into play here. Next, in an exegesis of John 11, a chapter in which Thomas also represents the disciples, we will inquire into the epistemology of emotions and examine the disturbances that the situation occasions in Jesus’ pneu=ma (11:33). Jesus’ display of emotions in this scene contrasts with the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia. Inevitably, a Stoic interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in general and of its statement: pneu=ma o( qeo&j (4:24), specifically, is challenged. We shall here discuss the Stoic explanation and defence that the otherwise anti-Stoic philosopher Origen gives of Jesus’ behaviour in his Commentary on St. John’s Gospel. We will also have a look at Philo’s seemingly Stoic defence of his biblical heroes’ emotional behaviour. Once more, Philo’s treatises prove illuminating for our understanding of the Fourth Gospel. The discourses of space and emotions in their own special way contribute to the Gospel’s revelation of the “only and true God”. In the end, the Johannine portrait of the Father accords with Stoic physics and with Philo’s God. In the second part of the present chapter, we turn towards the new identity of believers. I shall here argue that the knowledge of the “only and true God”, when mediated through “him who You have sent” (17:4), is capable of – now using Stoic terms – transforming a weak (a)sqenh/j) Jewish faith into a strong (still Jewish) faith that “removes sin from the world”. Thus, the Johannine Paraclete leads the disciples to the goal of Stoic para&klhsij. First, it will be demonstrated how this transformation accords with Philo’s idea of God’s and His worshippers’ Sabbatical work. Next, I will show how the disciple Peter is made a paradigm of this transformation. Finally, in order to substantiate the
512 John 14:7: ei0 e0gnw&kate/ me, kai\ to_n pate/ra mou gnw&sesqe. kai\ a)p’ a!rti ginw&skete au0to_n kai\ e9wra&kate au0to&n.
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claim, the narrative about the disciples caught by the storm at the Sea of Tiberias (6:16-21) is expounded symbolically. In conclusion, the solution to the Johannine quest for the truth resides in Stoic physics and cosmology and also accords with their ethics. To repeat, in Stoicism the physics of the pneu=ma and the epistemology of a)lhqei/a were two irreducible discourses. The same seems to be the case in the Fourth Gospel: the worshippers sought out by the Father are defined physically by their being “in the spirit” and cognitively by their being “in the truth”.
8.2 Thomas’ recognition. Seeing the Father 8.2.1 The figure of Thomas in the scholarly tradition In the heyday of the previous century’s scholarly reconstructions of the Johannine community, the main characters among Jesus’ disciples – Peter, the beloved but otherwise anonymous disciple, and Thomas – were seen as figures who represented either different states in the life of the community or conflicting groups and theologies in or around this community. The fact that the beloved disciple and Peter appear as a pair in several of the Gospel’s scenes (John 13, 18, 20 and 21) was interpreted variously as a transfer of authority from the earliest leadership, appointed by the Lord to Peter, to the new leadership of the Johannine community represented by the beloved disciple,513 or as rivalry about this authority between different groups represented by these figures.514 513 According to Bultmann, the depiction of the two disciples in John 21, which is the work of the editor, serves the transference of authority from Peter to the beloved disciple: “… here the topical question about the status of ecclesiastical authorities is echoed. In this passage the beloved disciple is not the representative of Gentile Christianity, but a definite historical person [1941, 543; 1971, 701] … The redactor, i.e. the author of ch. 21 … For the author the interest rests … on the idea that the beloved disciple shares the same rank as Peter, to whom the Lord assigned the leadership of his community [1941, 546f; 1971, 706] … the Beloved Disciple is set alongside Peter as the competent witness in the time when the heresies are springing up [1941, 547 note 1; 1971 706, note 4]”. 514 The competition in John has sometimes been interpreted in light of the Galatians as a conflict between Jewish Christianity represented by Peter and Gentile Christianity represented by the beloved disciple, but most often the rivalry is seen as a critique against the emerging hegemony of Roman Christianity represented by the figure of Peter. Brown rejects this “popular thesis“ (1966, 1120) as an anachronism that mirrors the post-Reformational Church schism (1006):
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In the scholarly community, a similar fate has befallen the figure of Thomas. If Peter was representative of primordial Roman Christianity, Thomas came to represent the naïve docetism that subsequently developed into full-blown Gnosticism (capitalized). Within the historical perspective of older commentaries, three aspects of the Thomas story (20:24-29) are accentuated: 1. From a literary and diachronic point of view, discussions centred on which stratum of the Gospel’s generic history that the Thomas story belonged; in general, its originality was questioned. 2. The anti-docetic stance in the Thomas story was emphasized; in general, the story was seen as a token of the risen Jesus’ physicality. 3. Finally, from a theological point of view, scholars stressed the function that the story had as a foil for the true and blessed faith that believes on the basis of the word alone without seeing any signs (Schnackenburg 1979b, 391). Mirror-readings of the Thomas episode in chapter 20 have caught Thomas’ figure in a Catch-22 between different heresies.515 On the one hand, Thomas’ insistence on touching the body of the risen Christ has been made part of the fourth Evangelist’s anti-docetic agenda; on the other hand, it is precisely this wish that is denigrated as an inferior kind of faith in light of the Makarismus of 20:29. Through this scholarly “But there is not a single incident in this Gospel where the Beloved Disciple is presented as a figure with ruling authority over the Church or over a church; his authority is as a witness. In our opinion, all attempts to interpret the presence of the Beloved disciple alongside Peter in this scene [21:15-23] as part of an apologetic against or for the claims of Petrine or Romans primacy are eisegesis” (1966, 1121). There is, according to Brown, no rivalry between the two disciples, since different forms of authority are bestowed on them: Peter is shepherd and leader of the community, whereas the beloved disciple is the primary witness within the community. 515 U. Schnelle’s interpretation of Thomas’s figure is representative of this double bind. Thomas is made the battleground of several anti-heretical agendas: “In der Thomasperikope verbindet der Evangelist Johannes zwei aktuelle theologische Probleme seiner Gemeinde: die Abwehr einer doketischen Leugnung der Identität des Gekreuzigten mit dem Auferstandenen und die Frage nach dem Auferstehungsglauben derer, die auf das Zeugnis der Augenzeugen angewiesen sind. Eine antidoketische Tendenz artikuliert sich in dem Verlangen des Thomas, die Wundmale Jesu berühren zu dürfen, um so die Leiblichkeit des Auferstandenen und seine Identität mit dem Irdischen nachzuprüfen. Thomas wird dieser Wunsch gewährt, womit er als Augenzeuge ausdrücklich bestätigt, dass der Auferstandene in dem Fleisch ist, in dem er litt und starb. Die damit behauptete Kontinuität zwischen dem irdischen Leib Jesu und dem Auferstehungsleib richtet sich gegen Glieder der joh. Gemeinde, die Jesu reales Gekommensein ins Fleisch und somit auch sein Leiden und Sterben und die Realität des Auferstehungsleibes leugnen (vgl. 1. Joh. 2,22.23; 4,2.3; 5,1)” (1998, 308-309).
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dissection, the meaning of Thomas’ confession was sought for outside of the Gospel in the imagined history of the Johannine community.516 Apart from the docetic denial of Jesus’ bodily resurrection, the scholarly tradition has imputed yet another heresy onto the opponents that the Thomas episode in John 20 was imagined to counter, namely that of a mysticism in which the vision of God in itself constituted the salvific event. The visio dei was opposed to the genuine Johannine faith in Jesus’ vicarious sacrifice (Dunderberg, 2006, 46).517 An attempt to relieve Thomas of the doubtful character ascribed to him by Johannine scholarship comes from scholars engaged in the study of the so-called “gnostic” scriptures. In New Testament scholar516 Bultmann’s exegesis of the figure of Thomas is controlled by the strong accentuation of the Makarismus of 20:29, which in Bultmann’s reading is understood as a rebuke not of Thomas alone, but also of the other persons involved in the encounters with the risen Jesus. In the end the rebuke is directed towards the text of the Fourth Gospel itself: “And above all, does not the reproach that falls on Thomas apply to the other disciples as well? All of them indeed, like Mary Magdalene, believed only when they saw. … Thomas demanded no other proof than Jesus had freely offered the others (v. 20). … Rather the doubt of Thomas is representative of the common attitude of men, who cannot believe without seeing miracles (4.48). As the miracle is a concession to the weakness of man, so is the appearance of the Risen Jesus a concession to the weakness of the disciples. Fundamentally they ought not to need it! Fundamentally it ought not to be the sight of the Risen Lord that first moves the disciples to believe ‘the word that Jesus spoke’ (2.22), for this word alone should have the power to convince them … Accordingly, as in the story of Mary, vv. 1f. 11-18, there is embedded in the narrative of Thomas also a peculiar critique concerning the value of the Easter stories; they can claim only a relative worth. … This exhortation is the pertinent and impressive conclusion of the Easter stories … an ascension narrative therefore is not necessary” (1941, 539; 1971, 696f, emphasis added). 517 In spite of Alan Culpepper’s focus on plot and characters in his seminal 1983 book Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design, the prominent position given to Thomas as the figure who concludes the Gospel occasioned no new reflections on the function of this character within the Gospel. Thomas remains a static and secondary figure who embodies scepticism concerning Jesus’ glorification: “Thomas … is the model of the disciple who understands Jesus’ flesh but not his glory. Thomas is therefore the opposite of Peter, who saw Jesus’ glory but could not accept his suffering. … Thomas enters the story as the clear-eyed realist who knows that following Jesus back to Judea means risking death. He calls the others to go with Jesus even if it means dying with him (11:16), but Thomas does not understand that Jesus’ death will be his exaltation. He does not understand where Jesus is going: ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?’ (14:5) He cannot comprehend an appearance of the risen Christ: ‘Unless I see in his hands … I will not believe’ (20:25). Realist more than doubter, Thomas stands in for all who, like Mary Magdalene, embrace the earthly Jesus but have yet to recognize the risen Christ” (Culpepper 1983, 123-24). In Culpepper’s analysis, the historical heresy becomes a personal feature and failure.
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ship, the Thomas figure in the Fourth Gospel and the construction of Gnosticism (capitalized) have been linked and cast in the same docetic mould: the anti-docetic agenda bestowed on Thomas mirrored the phenomenon of Gnosticism (capitalized). Due to the coincidence of the names, it has been assumed that the fourth Evangelist (or his subsequent editor) was acquainted with the Syrian Thomas tradition (Acts of Thomas, Gospel of Thomas and Book of Thomas) and created or edited the character of Thomas in the Gospel in order to oppose this tradition. Although Ismo Dunderberg’s aim in his 2006 book, The Beloved Disciple in Conflict: Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas, is to acquit the Syrian Thomas tradition of the charge of Gnosticism (capitalized), his arguments indirectly break new ground for our understanding of the figure of Thomas in the Fourth Gospel, too. If the character of the imagined opponent (in this case the Syrian Thomas tradition) changes, our understanding of Thomas’ function in the Gospel must change as well. Dunderberg features no less than six arguments against the gnosticizing understanding of the Syrian Thomas scriptures. First, the scholarly claims that the heretical visio dei or denial of the bodily resurrection may be supported by the Syrian Thomas texts are methodologically ill founded. By the aid of editorial criticism, a heretical layer is distilled out of the texts but, when considered as a whole, the texts do not support the idea of salvation by visio dei in any unambiguous manner. Add to this that in order to substantiate their claim of heresy the proponents themselves have filled in the lacunas of the texts (Dunderberg 2006, 62). Consequently, the texts can no longer serve as a foil against which we may discern the function of Thomas figure in the Fourth Gospel. Second, Dunderberg argues that, in the Fourth Gospel, it is impossible to charge the figure of Thomas with desiring to base his faith on some kind of tangible proof (Dunderberg, 60). 518 The Fourth Gospel rather associates Thomas with the other disciples than dissociates him from them. In John 11, he acts as a spokesman on behalf of the group of disciples, and in John 14 he is but one of the interlocutors desiring to know the Father. In these chapters, the unified picture of Thomas as realist does not function in any negative way; he is just a prototype of the disciples.519 Third, Dunderberg shows that Makarismus of 20:29 is not, in fact, a rebuke. Jesus’ blessing of future generations does not contrast with Thomas’ wish: “In Joh. the blessing of those believing without seeing does not negate the value of the eyewitness testimony. They are 518 This argument accords with Bultmann. See note 516. 519 Dunderberg refers to Culpepper. See note 517.
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blessed insofar as they believe in the Gospel’s story that presents itself as the reliable testimony of an eyewitness” (61) – namely that of the beloved disciple. Instead, the Makarismus represents the necessary transition to the generations who are no longer privileged by the sight of the risen Jesus. Fourth, in the depiction in ancient literature of encounters with dead friends and relatives, bodily marks like scars functioned as signs by which an otherwise unidentifiable appearance was ascribed to a known person: “Against this background, Thomas’s demand to see the scars of Jesus and to touch him is indicative of a doubt concerning the identification of the risen Jesus rather than a doubt concerning the form in which Jesus was raised” (64).520 Fifth, Dunderberg notes the prominent position of Thomas’ confession in the Fourth Gospel: It is striking that the Johannine author not only includes Thomas in the group of believers but also attributes to him a full-blown confession of Jesus. Thomas’s confession ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20:28) is unique in the Gospel of John, since this words form an inclusion to, and confirmation 520 Although the Danish scholar Jesper Tang Nielsen does not use the designation visio dei in his 2009 study, “The Cognitive Function of the Marks from the Cross: The Narrative Structure of the Gospel of John” (essay in Danish), his use of modern narratology (Greimas) leads him to a parallel understanding of the function of Thomas’ figure in the Fourth Gospel. The main analytical device in Nielsen’s analysis is the semiotic quadrate: A, non-A; A*, non-A*. The task bestowed on the divine logos is to bring about believers whose attitude to him as Son of God will be characterized by “truth”. This task constitutes the main program of the plot. The ironical problem is that the necessary means of divine communication, the incarnation, hides the truth. Jesus seems to be an ordinary human being, although he truly is a god. Semiotically speaking, Jesus’ appearance must be characterized as a secret. Again semiotically speaking, four responses to Jesus’ claims about his identity exist: outright rejection (he is lying, as claimed by some Jews), doubt, faith (belief in that he speaks the truth) and outright knowledge (the truth of the claim has been proved). As long as the divine logos is in flesh, knowledge or proof of his true identity cannot be obtained. However, his death on the cross becomes the opportunity of returning to his original glory. It is in this mode of being that Thomas encounters Jesus. But now new problems arise: Is the figure that Thomas faces really identical with his crucified master? The marks left by the cross prove that. Like Käsemann in his famous reading of the Fourth Gospel in Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes (1966), Nielsen does not understand the crucifixion as a vicarious sacrifice. The sequence of events is charged with irony: Jesus was sentenced to death by Pilate and the Jewish nation, but the marks that the crucifixion left on Jesus’ body enabled the identification of the glorified Lord with the crucified Jesus. In his confession, Thomas recognizes the true identity of his Master: the figure in front of him is simultaneously “his Lord and his God”. In Nielsen’s reading, Thomas’ recognition may be characterized as salvation through visio dei. In opposition to Culpepper’s Anatonomy of the Fourth Gospel, Nielsen’s interpretation is capable of installing Thomas in the prominent position that he has as the person who concludes the Gospel. In many ways, my reading resembles Nielsen’s. I also reject the interpretation of the Johannine cross as a vicarious sacrifice, but I still want to argue that the cross has a specific meaning apart from providing the accidental marks on Jesus’ body that enable his recognition as God.
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of, what was said in the Prologue of this gospel: “… and the Word was God” (John 1:1, 1:18). Thus there is no doubt that Thomas’s confession is presented as paradigmatic to the audience of the Gospel of John. If there was an ongoing, contentious debate between Johannine and Thomasine Christians, would it not have been confusing to the Johannine audience that it is Thomas, the hero of the rival community, who performs the paradigmatic confession!? (2006, 65)
As the sixth and final argument, Dunderberg mentions that in the earliest reception of John’s Thomas, to which we have access, no traces of a negative understanding of Thomas’ figure are found. In fact, quite the opposite seems to be the case. Jesus’ words to Thomas (20:27), which have been understood by New Testament scholarship as a rebuke, are transposed to other narratives in which they are addressed to persons unambiguously depicted as the heroes: While we cannot know how the first readers of the Gospel of John took the presentation of Thomas, there is evidence to the effect that later Thomas Christians were not offended by it. This can be seen in the fact that the confession ascribed to Thomas in John 20 is repeated twice in the Acts of Thomas (10; 166). The Johannine portrayal of the Doubting Thomas, thus, was entirely acceptable to those who held Thomas in high regard. Apparently, they did not think that the Johannine portrayal of him denigrated his authority. It is equally striking that, in the Acts of John 90, the exhortation of Jesus addressed to Thomas in John 20:27 (“Do not doubt but believe”, NRSV) is now addressed to John, the main hero of the text. The real-reader responses, to which these texts bear witness, show that neither Thomasine nor later Johannine Christians considered the portrayal of Thomas in John 20:24-29 offensive. (65)
By the aid of imagined extra-textual opponents, historical criticism has fixed our understanding of various figures in the Fourth Gospel. The manoeuvre of mirror-reading has linked the Thomas figure with the imagined anti-docetic, anti-gnostic, anti-Roman agendas of the Evangelist or the editor. However, the early and positive reception of Thomas’ figure indicates that the methodological repertoire employed by modern, historical exegesis is not capable of opening all the potentials of meaning bestowed on the figure. Maybe we have been caught in a too static understanding of the dynamic between text and reader? The fact is that the vision or flash of understanding that elicits Thomas’ climactic confession: “My Lord and my God” (20:28), is not described: Instead, the Gospel hands it over to the reader to reconstruct Thomas’ vision for him- or herself. In order to solve the exegetical quandary between tradition and text in which Thomas has been caught, an engagement with a reader sensitive analysis seems mandatory. I shall argue that if we want to understand what Thomas finally realizes and to get an idea of the significance bestowed on his figure, we
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are forced to leave the surface of the text and engage with non-syntactical, non-logical, non-argumentative, non-plotted paradigmatic or poetic structures of the text. We must – using the German exegete K. Koch’s designation (1974, 295) – involve ourselves in the assoziative Feld that the Thomas figure outlines. Since by this kind of analysis we leave the surface of (syntactic, logical, argued, plotted) syntagmatic structures of the text, our reading inevitably risks being labelled an idiosyncratic construct of the reader. From a scholarly point of view, the problem of paradigmatic structures is that, in comparison with the syntagmatic ones, no obvious criterion of falsification exists: How may one prove that a relation between two words is intended? However, from a reader-sensitive point of view, this may be the point: like Thomas who insists on seeing for himself, the reader must find his or her way through the text and make the inferences that lead to the Father (cf. 14:1-9).
8.2.2 Seeing the Father. The epistemology of space In order to establish a poetic field through which Thomas’ insight or vision may be reconstructed and discerned, the reader must collect paradigmatic markers like catchwords, repeated motifs and recurrent persons etc. Consequently, the paradigmatic analysis is more sensitive than the syntagmatic one to the choice of words in the various versions of the Greek text that we find in the Nestle-Aland editions. An important variation is found in the concluding scene of the Gospel in which Thomas encounters the risen Jesus. Until 1979, the year of Nestle-Aland26. revidierte Auflage, the commentaries followed the wording of 20:25 found in the previous Nestle-Aland editions: to_n to&pon tw~n h#lwn (20:2525) instead of the present to_n tu/pon tw~n h#lwn (20:2526,27). According to the 25th edition, the objection of Thomas goes: “If I do not see the mark (to_n tu/pon) of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the place (to_n to/pon) left by the nails and place my hand into his side, I do not believe”. Schnackensburg’s argument for preferring “place” (to&poj) instead of “mark” (tu/poj) is representative of several scholars: Among the mss some confusion between tu&pon und to&pon exists; … tu&poj = stigmata ((Wund-)Mal) corresponds to “seeing”. However, at the other place to&pon must be given preference in spite of the fact that tu&poj is witnessed by the mss B D אpl. These mss seem here to have cut back to the tu&pon”. (Schnackenburg, 1979b, 392, note 97; my translation)
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Raymond Brown also prefers to&poj and argues with reference to the principle, lectio difficilior lectio melior est: “mark of the nails … place of the nails. ‘Mark’ is typos; ‘place’ is topos; and the textual witnesses exhibit a confusion of the two words. … Although many would read typos as original in both phrases (so SB, American Bible Society Greek NT), the variant readings are more easily explained if the original had two different words” (1966, 1025). In fact, although the Nestle-Aland26,27 editions have concluded that the witnesses for tu&poj are the stronger ones, some newer commentaries still prefer the older choice of to&poj.521 If we follow the Nestle-Aland25 version, the term to&poj establishes a poetic field. At one pole of the field, we find the scene where Thomas recognizes the risen and ascended Jesus (20:24-28). In order to believe the disciples’ message that they have seen the Lord, Thomas insists on putting his finger into the place or space (20:25Nestle-Aland 25: to_n to&pon) left by the nails in Jesus’ body. At the other pole, we have the quest of the interlocutors of the Farewell Discourses – among them Thomas – for the way to the Father’s place (14:4-5: to&poj) and for knowledge and sight of the Father (14:7-9). In the dialogue, knowledge of the way to the paternal place and knowledge of the Father amount to the same thing: knowing the way is to know the Father. Let us therefore start the analysis with an inquiry into the enigma of the paternal place.
8.2.2.1 The paternal place in John 14 and Jesus’ translation Throughout the Farewell Discourses, Jesus prepares his disciples for his imminent departure from the world; he goes to the Father (13:1: i3na metabh|= e0k tou= ko&smou tou/tou pro_j to_n pate/ra). Wanting to comfort them, he initially explains the purpose of his leaving: he goes away in order to prepare a place for the disciples in his Father’s house, which is a place with many apartments (14:2).522 After that, he will return in order to take the disciples to himself so that where he is, they may stay, too (14:3).523 Later, within the same discourse, the place of the shared dwelling is changed (14:23): now the Father and the Son will come to521 See Schnelle who translates Thomas’ objection in 20:25 in the following way: “Wenn ich an seinen Händen nicht das Wundmal der Nägel sehe und meinen Finger in die Stelle der Nägel und meine Hand in seine Seite lege, glaube ich nicht“ (1998, 305, emphasis added). Wengst, too, follows Nestle-Aland25: “… das Mal der Nägel … die Stelle der Nägel” (2001, 294). 522 John 14:2: e0n th=| oi0ki/a| tou= patro&j mou monai\ pollai/ ei0sin: ei0 de\ mh/, ei]pon a2n u9mi=n o#ti poreu/omai e9toima&sai to/pon u9mi=n; 523 John 14:3: kai\ e0a_n poreuqw~ kai\ e9toima&sw to&pon u9mi=n, pa/lin e1rxomai kai\ paralh/myomai u9ma~j pro_j e0mauto&n, i3na o#pou ei0mi\ e0gw_ kai\ u9mei=j h]te.
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gether and, as a gesture of love, make a dwelling with those whose love for Jesus is manifest in their abiding in Jesus’ word.524 These two sections on dwellings (14:2: monai/; 14:23: monh/) frame the promise of “another Paraclete” whom the Father will give to them and who will be with them forever (14:16) and of a Spirit of Truth which they, in opposition to the ignorant world, will receive and which will abide with them and be in them (14:17: par’ u9mi=n me/nei kai\ e0n u9mi=n e1stai). When compared to Jesus’ presence in flesh-and-blood, the promised replacement by the Paraclete has certain advantages: the Paraclete will be with them forever; the Spirit of Truth will be present inside them. Traditionally the tension between 14:2-3 and 14:23 is discussed in terms of time and referred to the different eschatologies present in the Gospel. The statement about the paternal house for which Jesus leaves and to which he will bring the disciples constitutes an enigma to Johannine scholarship; the overtly apocalyptic language challenges and contradicts the predominant scholarly idea that the Gospel reflects a realized eschatology.525 If, instead of focusing on time and eschatology, we reformulate the riddle in terms of space, the tension may be summarized as a question of where God’s dwelling is to be found: in heaven which is – also in contemporary literature – designated “God’s house” (John 14:2, 3)?526 Or in the individual believer (14:23)? When recast in spatial terms, a solution to the enigma is also suggested by John 14. From a strictly logical point of view, the riddle will be solved if we identify the united coming of Father and Son with the sending of the Paraclete (14:16, 26) (alias the Spirit of Truth (14:16f), alias the Holy Spirit (14:26)).527 The common root of the noun dwelling (14:2: monai/; 14:23: monh/) and of the verb used for the indwelling of the Paraclete (14:17: par’ u9mi=n me/nei kai\ e0n u9mi=n e1stai;) hints in this direction.528 Also the parallels between the precondition of the coming of the Paraclete (14:15, 16) and of the coming of Son and Father (14:23) point in the direction of this identity: In both cases, it is the presence of love
524 John 14:23: e0an& tij a)gapa~| me to_n lo&gon mou thrh/sei, kai\ o( path/r mou a)gaph/sei au0to_n kai\ pro_j au0to_n e0leuso&meqa kai\ monh\n par’ au0tw~| poihso&meqa. 525 See the discussion in Brown (1966, 624-27), Schnelle (1998, 227-28), Wengst (2001, 118). 526 Bultmann (1941, 464), Schnelle (1998, 228) and Wengst (2001, 118) all refer the expression God’s house to Jewish apocalyptic literature, e.g. the Book of Enoch. 527 In my discussion of the German exegesis of the Johannine pneu&mata in Chapter One, I have on a literary basis argued against the attempt to differentiate within the Johannine pneu/mata in spite of the different names. 528 According to LSJ, monh/ is the substantive of the verb me/nw.
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for Jesus expressed in the observance of his command (14:15) or his word (14:23) that qualifies for the visit: 14:15: e0a_n a)gapa~te/ me, e0ntola_j ta_j e0ma_j thrh/sete: ka)gw_ e0rwth/sw to_n pate/ra kai\ a!llon para&klhton dw&sei u9mi=n. 14:23: e0a&n tij a)gapa|~ me to_n lo&gon mou thrh/sei … pro_j au0to_n e0leuso&meqa kai\ monh\n par’ au0tw~| poihso&meqa.529 The solution to the spatial tension touched on in the Farewell Discourses is made manifest through Jesus’ ascent – his meta&basij (13:1) or a)na&basij (20:17) – to the pneumatic Father. As already mentioned, the “leaving” and “return” that Jesus speaks of in 14:2-3 (cf. 14:28) match the two aspects of the ascension; the leaving corresponds to Jesus’ translation into a pneumatic state of being, and the return corresponds to the regeneration a!nwqen of believers through the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22). This, too, accords with John 14, where the promise of “another Paraclete” slides into a discourse on Jesus’ own return (14:15-17; cf. 14:18); Jesus will not leave his believers as orphans, his return implies a new parenthood, a new Father – in other words, a second (a!nwqen) generation. In the Gospel, the enigmatic reciprocity of the indwelling refers to the physical properties of the pneu=ma. On the one hand, the pneumatic unity of Son and Father indwells the believer through the infusion of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, just as Jesus explained with regard to his own flesh-and-blood mode of being, namely that the indwelling Father was greater than him (14:28), this situation now characterizes the believers. The pneumatic unity between Son and Father occupies a larger space than the individual believer, he constitutes but one place (monh/), that is, a part of the divine pneumatic whole.530 In conclusion, the discourse of the dwellings (monh/) – whether there with the Father or here with the believer – is but a symbolic way of speaking about the indwelling (me/nein) of the spirit. In the cosmology of 529 This parallel speech constitutes for Bultmann the main argument for identifying the Paraclete with the established spiritual union between Son and Father. According to Bultmann, the early Christian idea of the Pentecost as well as the primitive expectation of the Parusia were absorbed in the coming of the Paraclete. See Bultmann (1941, 463-64 note 4, 477-84 ; 1971, 600f note 4, 617-625). 530 Jesus’ enigmatic saying to Peter (13:8): “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me (e0a_n mh\ ni/yw se, ou0k e1xeij me/roj met’ e0mou=)” also refers to and anticipates this situation. Within the textual world of the Gospel, Jesus’ washing of his disciples refers symbolically to the baptism in the Holy Spirit (1:33) that he will provide.
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the Fourth Gospel, the distance between there (heaven) and here (the heart of the believer) collapses.531
8.2.2.2 Divine-human indwelling. John and philosophy The reciprocity of indwelling related to the pneumatic union of Jesus, God and the believer finds a striking parallel in the Stoic blending (kra~sij) of pneumatic bodies. Plutarch’s objections against the idea of the co-extension of bodies (also referred in Chapter Seven) perfectly brings out what seems to be the case in the pneumatic union of the Fourth Gospel: God dwells in the believer and the believer dwells in God. In Stoic terms, they are blended bodies: If blending occurs in the way they [the Stoics] insist, the constituents must come to be in one another, and the same thing must both be enveloped by being in the other and by accommodating it envelop it [kai\ tau0to_n o(mou= tw~| e0nupa&rxein perie/xesqai kai\ tw~| de/xesqai perie/xein qa&teron]. (Comm. not. 1078B-C. Translation LS 48E)
Add to this that in Philo’s treatises, the word-pair of envelopedenveloping or contained-containing (perie/xesqai-perie/xein) is used primarily in his discussion of God’s place: whereas the fool, Philo explains, believes that God is “contained” in a specific place, e.g. in the temple, the wise man knows that God “contains” all things: For we read “Jacob rose up and said, that the Lord is in this place, but I knew it not” (Gen xxviii. 16). And it would have been better, I should say, to be ignorant than to suppose that God is in some place Who Himself contains and encompasses all things. … Wherefore he straightway cried aloud “This is not” (ibid. 17); this that I supposed, “that the Lord is in some place” 531 In Bultmann’s existential interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, the temporal as well as the spatial tension collapses, too. The belief in the spiritual power of the resurrection (14:15-24; as realized eschatology) and in a future and heavenly restoration after death (14:2-7; as a future eschatology) are nothing but different mythological ways of expressing the same experience of the transforming power of faith in God’s presence: “But the inner unity of the believers’ existence in the world and in the other-worldly future was made plain. … The question about the o(do&j is very quickly deflected into a question about the present fellowship with the Revealer, so that the anxiety in which the believer is placed is not anxiety about the promised other worldly future, but about the believing existence in the world. This is why the promise of an otherworldly future after death does not contradict the idea that the resurrection is already experience in faith now. On the other hand this kind of faith is accompanied by the certainty of the nothingness of impending bodily death. It is precisely in the taraxh/ of isolation that the believer can hear the promise that he has a home, that in the Father’s house there are ‘many dwellings’, and thus also a place for him” (1941, 465; 1971, 602-3).
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(ibid. 16), is not so; for according to the true reckoning He contains, but is not contained [perie/xei ga&r, a)ll’ ou0 perie/xetai kata_ to_n a)lhqh= lo&gon]. But this that we can point out and see, this world discerned by sense, is, as I now know, nothing but a house of “God”, that is, of one of the Potencies of the Existent, that is, the Potency which expresses His goodness [o( ai0sqhto_j ou9tosi\ ko&smoj, ou0de\n a!ra a!llo e0sti\n h@ oi]koj qeou=, mia~j tw~n tou= o!ntoj duna&mewn, kaq’ h4n a)gaqo_j h]n]. (Somn. 1.183-85)
However, God’s containing all things does not imply that He is a transcendent being outside the material world. On the contrary: “God fills and penetrates all things, and has left no spot void or empty of His presence” (Leg. 3.4-6). According to Philo, the name “God” represents the Existent One in one manifestation of His powers. This power corresponds to the Stoic idea of the universal pneu=ma (Sambursky 1959, 3637). Therefore “God’s house” is a proper name for the cosmos: Let us see next how a man is said actually to hide himself from God. Were one not to take the language as figurative, it would be impossible to accept the statement, for God fills and penetrates all things, and has left no spot void or empty of His presence [pa&nta ga_r peplh/rwken o( qeo_j kai\ dia_ pa&ntwn dielh/luqen kai\ keno_n ou0de\n ou0de\ e1rhmon a)pole/loipen e9autou=]. What manner of place then shall a man occupy, in which God is not [poi=on dh/ tij to&pon e0fe/cei, e0n w|{ ou0xi\ qeo&j e0sti;]? … The bad man thinks that God is in a place, not containing, but contained [o( fau=loj dokei= ei]nai to_n qeo_n e0n to&pw|, mh\ perie/xonta, a)lla_ periexo&menon]; and for this reason he imagines that he can hide from Him, fancying that God, the Author of all things, is not in that part which he has chosen for his lurking-place. (Leg. 3.4-6)
In light of these texts, it seems reasonable to claim that, although the language of God’s house and Jesus’ round-trip to heaven in 14:2-3 allude to Jewish apocalypticism, it is here reinterpreted in terms of the Stoic physics that we also find in Philo’s writings.532 The Fourth Gospel incorporates several contemporary traditions into its narrative and in 532 Several commentators are aware of Philo’s use of the expression “thy fathers house (ei0j to_n patrw~|n oi]kon)” in the final paragraph of Somn. 1.256 (e.g. Bultmann 1941, 463f note 4 ; 1971, 600f note 4). Brown, too, refers to this passage in Philo, but does not differentiate between Philo’s use of the expression and that found in Enoch. Commenting on 14:1-4, Brown states: “We may begin our discussion by noting that Jesus is using traditional terminology. Taken against the Jewish background, ‘my Father’s house’ is probably to be understood as heaven. Philo (De somniis 1.256) speaks of heaven as ‘the paternal house’. … The ‘many’ simply means that there are enough for all; the ‘dwelling places’ reflects the type of Jewish imagery found in En xxxix 4 which speaks of the dwelling places of the holy and the resting places of the just that are situated in the extremities of the heavens …” (Brown 1966, 625) The identification of the paternal house of Philo and Enoch, respectively, is only possible if one does not inquire further into Philo and includes the discussion of “God’s house” found in the same treatise at 1.185 (quoted above) in one’s understanding.
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the end subsumes them into its own overarching pneumatic metastory.
8.2.2.3 The Johannine signs in light of the translation When the reader reaches the Farewell Discourses, he has already been introduced to the paternal house, namely, in the sign performed by Jesus in the temple, in which the sacrificial cult was censured: “Don’t use my Father’s house (to_n oi]kon tou= patro&j mou) as a place of trading” (2:16). As an explanation of his sign, Jesus refers to a future destruction and restoration of the temple (2:19). In the subsequent commentary on Jesus’ sign, the authorial voice informs the reader that, when Jesus talked about the demolition and restoration of the temple, he referred to his own body (2:21: e0kei=noj de\ e1legen peri\ tou= naou= tou= sw&matoj au0tou=). However, the author adds, this was first understood by the disciples when Jesus had risen from the dead (2:22). Since it is the risen – that is, the ascended and translated – Jesus whom the disciples are to encounter, the restored temple and paternal house are here identified with the pneumatic body of the unified Father and Son. Of course, the resurrection and the enigmatic translation had to happen before anyone could understand it. The paternal house, as well as the paternal bosom (1:18), in which Jesus comes to reside through his translation, are but metaphorical expressions of the same pneumatic phenomenon. It is the establishment of the pneumatic union between Father, Son and believer that constitutes the answer to Thomas’ puzzled question about how to enter the paternal place (14:5-7). Through the interlaced events of the ascension – the translation and the regeneration – the paternal place already surrounds and permeates Thomas, so that no distance must be travelled in order to reach it. The commentaries rigorously debate whether or not Thomas did in fact place his finger and hand in Jesus’ body. However, in light of the reciprocity of indwelling that is the result of the translation and regeneration involved in the ascension, the answer is superfluous: situating oneself into the pneumatic body of Jesus (for Thomas) or having the Holy Spirit infused (for the disciples) amount to the same idea. The sign with which Jesus heals the man who was born blind (John 9) anticipates Thomas’ vision in an intriguing way. In order for the man to gain his sight, he is summoned by Jesus to immerse himself into the pool of Siloam, which is translated “he-who-is-sent” (9:7: o$ e9rmhneu/etai
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a)pestalme/noj) by the authorial voice.533 “He who is sent” refers of course to Jesus, who is sent by the Father, but it also refers to the Paraclete (alias the Spirit of Truth, alias the Holy Spirit) that Jesus promises to send (15:26). No contradiction is found here, since, through his ascent, Jesus sanctifies himself (17:19: kai\ u0pe\r au0tw~n e0gw_ a(ga&zw e0mauto&n) and becomes the Holy Spirit (pneu=ma a#gion) and as the truth he becomes the Spirit of Truth. The healing act therefore becomes a symbol of baptism in the Holy Spirit that Jesus is predicted to provide (1:34), which constitutes the promised generation a!nwqen (3:3). In Chapter Two on Stoicism, I described the role of the pneumatic constitution for a person’s ability to see and perceive. It was mentioned that psychological development may extend a person’s pneu=ma infinitely and allow him to grasp phenomena beyond the reach of the eye – e.g. the basic principles, including God. According to the Stoics, there was no qualitative difference between physical sight and one’s grasp of, or insight into, the All. In both cases, seeing was physical, and in both cases the perceived phenomenon was literally touched and pneumatically grasped. In opposition to the qualitative distinction between sense perception and insights that we find in Platonism, sense perception and mental insight constitute in Stoicism two poles within a dynamic continuum. It seems to be precisely this kind of extended seeing/touching that is at stake in Thomas’ recognition. Seeing the marks (tu/poj) left by the cross in Jesus’ body and (eventually) touching the place (to&poj) left by the nails, enables Thomas to see what he – as well as the other disciples – were previously unable to perceive, namely the Father, whom no one has ever seen (1:18). But still we may ask about the nature of the place that Thomas desires to enter (14:5) and about the details of his vision (20:28).
8.2.2.4 Knowing the Father. The epistemology of space In order to come to terms with Thomas’ vision, we must follow the inferences that the catchwords related to the paternal place outline: the place in the paternal house (14:2: to&poj) refers to the place or space left by the nails (20:25: to&poj). The spaces left by the nails are marks of the crucifixion. The death on the cross, in which Jesus gives his life for the sake of his friends, is characterized by Jesus himself as the highest love
533 The meaning of “Siloam“ is characterized by R. Brown as the Evangelist’s idiosyncratic construct; the Evangelist is “exercising liberty in adapting the etymology to his purposes” (1966, 373).
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that a person can have (15:13).534 This is the traditional interpretation of Jesus’ words and their meaning, but taken literally Jesus states that the highest form of love is characterized by the willingness to place one’s soul into (or more precisely: over or above – cf. u9pe/r plus the accusative) that of one’s friends (i3na tij th\n yuxh\n au0tou= qh|= u9pe\r [ta_j yuxa_j, my brackets] tw~n fi/lwn au0tou=). This is precisely and literally what Jesus does through the events related to the cross: his death, resurrection, translation and regeneration of believers. Through the infusion of the Holy Spirit, Jesus unites his transformed soul – his pneu=ma – with those of his friends and (re-)generates them a!nwqen. This sequence of events is put into motion – they are motivated – by Jesus’ love for his friends. The Johannine shmei/wsij may be pressed even a step further. The ultimate referent of the catena of signs has not yet been identified. Due to the translation of Jesus into the pneumatic Father, the love with which the Son has loved his own (15:9-10) must also characterize the Father’s motivation in his interactions with the world. This understanding throws new light on Jesus’ final address to the Father, in which he reports the results of his mission. Jesus explains that he has now given the Father’s lo&goj to the disciples (17:14: e0gw_ de/dwka au0toi=j to_n lo/gon sou). Understood as “word”, the divine lo&goj refers to the commandment of mutual love that Jesus gives his disciples (15:17: tau=ta e0nte/llomai u9mi=n, i3na a)gapa~te a)llh/louj).535 However, the way that the new commandment is given differs from that of an outspoken or written command in that it is substantiated by Jesus’ own life. Jesus embodies the love command; the divine lo&goj is, as it were, fleshed out in his life. The lo&goj which Jesus has given to his disciples may therefore also refer to Jesus’ mind-set and, since Jesus reveals the Father, to God’s “mind-set”, too.536 This understanding adds yet another meaning to Jesus’ statement: he has revealed God’s commandment, he has revealed God’s motivation and mind-set, but we may also say that he has succeeded in installing the divine mind-set in his disciples. We shall return to this idea in the second part of this chapter. When the Prologue is read in light of this understanding of the divine lo&goj, some important corrections of traditional readings must be undertaken. First, the lo&goj, which was in the beginning with God, 534 John 15:13: mei/zona tau/thj a)ga&phn ou0dei_j e1xei, i3na tij th\n yuxh\n au0tou= qh|= u9pe\r tw~n fi/lwn au0tou. 535 We saw in John 14 how this word (14:25) was equated with Jesus’ (new) command (14:15). 536 In his 1973 book, Logos und Sophia, Burton L. Mack speaks of the divine lo&goj as “[die] ‘Intentionen’ Gottes” (187).
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(and which was God) (1:1),537 was not an abstract word, but the rationality or motive that motivated God in His interactions with the world: in creation (1:9-10), in the giving of the law (1:11; 17) and in the giving of the Son (3:16). The latter was a meta-act in which the divine motivation and love was fleshed out and revealed in Jesus of Nazareth (1:14). Nor is Jesus’ do&ca, which the Johannine community confesses to have seen (1:14c: kai\ e0qeasa&meqa th\n do&can au0tou=), primarily a reference to Jesus’ divinity and power (Käsemann) or to his Pauline-like paradoxical humiliation and powerlessness (Bultmann). Jesus’ glory is said to be “like that which the mono-begotten has from the Father, full (plh/rhj) of good-will and truth” (1:14c).538 Since the adjective plh/rhj represents the feminine as well as the masculine form, it may qualify Jesus’ glory, the mono-begotten (Son) or the Father. However, due to the establishment of the pneumatic union between Father and Son, the precise identification of the subject does not really matter. God’s do&ca refers to His spirit,539 and the glorification of His Son to the translation of Jesus into His pneu=ma. It is this pneumatic union which is confessed by the community to be filled with the “good-will and truth” that became a reality through Jesus Christ (1:17: h9 xa&rij kai\ h9 a)lh/qeia dia_ 0Ihsou= Xristou= e0ge/neto). To summarize: the ultimate referent of the Johannine shmei/wsij is, from a physical point of view, the divine spirit; form a cognitive point of view, the motive that characterizes God’s interactions with the world, or we may say, the emotion that set his actions into motion: his love for the world – cf. 3:16. We saw that, in relation to Jesus, the definition of love given in John 15 – i3na tij th\n yuxh\n qh|= u9pe\r [ta_j yuxa_j] tw~n fi/lwn au0tou= (15:13) – could be understood in two ways, idiomatically and literally. It was demonstrated that the idiomatic meaning pertained to the Father as well. When taken literally, the statement referred to the fact that Jesus literally placed his soul in (or over) that of his friends. The question is now whether the literal meaning also reveals something about God’s relation to the world. If we take the statement at face value, it implies that the God of the Fourth Gospel has deposited His soul in (or over) those He loves – cf. John 3:16, express verbis: the world. This reading makes sense in light of the immanent theology of the Fourth Gospel: 537 John 1:1: 0En a)rxh=| h]n o( lo&goj, kai\ o( lo&goj h]n pro_j to_n qeo_n, kai\ qeo_j h]n o( lo&goj. 538 John 1:14c: kai\ e0qeasa&meqa th\n do&can au0tou=, do&can w(j monogenou=j para_ patro&j, plh/rhj xa&ritoj kai\ a)lhqei/aj. 539 Cf. Paul’s speech of the various beings’ do&ca in 1 Cor 15:40-41. The do&ca of earthly beings differs from the do&ca of the heavenly beings. In a summary form, Paul here sketches the Stoics’ ontological hierarchy of pneumatic powers.
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God indwells Jesus and speaks and acts through him (14:10) and in turn, God and Jesus will indwell believers (14:23), who will receive a new fatherhood (14:17) through the reception of the Holy Spirit as they are begotten a!nwqen (3:3), thus becoming children of God (1:13).540 First and foremost, however, it makes sense of the overt identification of God with pneu=ma (4:24). In order to understand this, we must recall the Stoic physics of Chapter Two. A reader of the Fourth Gospel acquainted with Stoic philosophy may have been struck by the analogy between the Johannine Prologue and Diogenes Laertius’ depiction of the Stoic world soul as it becomes active in creation:541 God is one and the same with Reason, Fate, and Zeus; he is also called by many other names. In the beginning he was by himself [kat’ a)rxa_j me\n ou]n kaq’ au9to_n o!nta]; he transformed the whole of substance through air into water, and just as in animal generation the seed has a moist vehicle, so in cosmic moisture God, who is the seminal reason of the universe [spermatiko_n lo&gon o!nta tou= ko&smou], remains behind in the moisture as such an agent, adapting matter to himself with a view to the next stage of creation [eu0ergo_n au9tw~| poiou=nta th\n u3lhn pro_j th\n tw~n e9ch=j ge/nesin] … (Diogenes Laertius LCL 7.136) Nature in their view is an artistically working fire, going on its way to create [Dokei= d’ au0toi=j th\n me\n fu/sin ei]nai pu=r texniko&n, o(dw~| badi/zon ei0j ge/nesin]; which is equivalent to a fiery, creative, or fashioning breath [pneu=ma puroeide\j kai\ texnoeide/j]. And the soul is a nature capable of perception. And they regard it as the breath of life, congenital with us [tau/thj d’ ei]nai to_ sumfue\j h9mi=n pneu=ma]; from which they infer first that it is a body and secondly that it survives death. Yet it is perishable, though the soul of the universe [th\n [yuxh\n] de\ tw~n o#lwn], of which the individual souls of animals are
540 See G. Burge’s discussion of the immanent theology of the fourth Evangelist in his The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (1987, 54). 541 Although the Stoics depicted God as the soul of the cosmos or the All, they seldom used the designation “world soul” or “soul of the all”. More often God is identified with the ruling part of the soul (see Cicero, Nat. d. 1.39; LS 54B), and even more commonly with reason (see LS 54FGH). The expression is, however, used by Äetius: “Dioge/nhj kai\ Klea&nqhj kai\ Oi0nopi/dhj (to_n qeo_n) th\n tou= ko&smou yuxh/n” (SVF i.532). Philo, too, uses the designation, but in a context (Leg. 1.91) in which he explicitly gives up any further determination of the character of this soul – e.g. its material constituents, its bodily character etc.: “For just as the eye sees other objects but does not see itself, so the mind too perceives other objects, but does not apprehend itself. Can it say what it is and of what kind, breath or blood or fire or air or anything else? Can it even say that it is a body or else that it is incorporeal? Are not they simpletons, then, who inquire about God’s substance? For how should those, who know not the substance of their own soul, have accurate ideas about the soul of the universe (pw~j a$n peri\ th=j tw~n o#lw~n yuxh=j a)kribw&saien;)”.
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parts [h{j me/rh ei]nai ta_j e0n toi=j zw|&oij], is indestructible. (Diogenes Laertius LCL 7.156)
At the end of the Stoic conflagration, God has absorbed the whole of being into Himself. Consequently, before the new creation takes its beginning, God exists all by Himself; the “seminal reason of the universe” (spermatiko_j lo&goj) is present in Him as pure potentiality. But when creation begins, the Stoic God, as it were, lays Himself out into the world by creating it. During the phase of creation, God with His seminal reason (his lo&goj) is now present in the all-permeating, creative pneu=ma – in the “fiery, creative breath”. In a similar manner, the Johannine Prologue in its opening verses depicts the divine lo&goj in a state in which it exists with (or in) God (1:1b, 2a: pro_j to_n qeo&n); it may even be identified with God (1:1c). In the subsequent verses (1:3-5), we hear about the role that the divine lo&goj plays in creation. Scholars have often drawn attention to the fact that, in the Prologue, we hear about the lo&goj whereas the pneu=ma is absent, but in the so-called body of the Gospel the situation is the opposite, here we hear about the spirit while the discourse of the lo&goj is now absent. As discussed in Chapter One, this situation has been explained by the genealogy of the Gospel: the Prologue was added in order to suppress the imagined opponents’ spirit-oriented Christology. However, the observation may also be due to the fact that in Stoicism, in the phase of creation, the divine lo&goj exists in the form of pneu=ma. When understood in this way, we have an explanation of the Johannine statement in John 4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j. During creation, the lo&goj, which was with God in the beginning and was to be identified with God, became pneu=ma.542 In general, there is a strong reluctance in Johannine scholarship against any attempt to identify God both with lo&goj and with pneu=ma, although this is the most obvious reading of 1:1c and 4:24. The missing article in 1:1c (kai\ _ qeo_j h]n o( lo&goj) and 4:24 ( _ pneu=ma o( qeo&j), respectively, constitutes a chasm that prevents identification of the two semantic units. The missing article functioned as a trench that prevented the invasion of immanent theology into the Fourth Gospel. Instead, the Word of 1:1 is predicated as divine because it belongs to the sphere of God. The different syntactic positions of qeo&j in 1:1c and in 4:24 do not prevent scholars from saying the same about the pneu=ma in 542 In the essay (2010 forthcoming), “God, Matter, and Information: Towards a Stoicizing Logos Christology”, Niels Henrik Gregersen speaks of John’s immanent theology in which God is present in the creation as “a deep incarnation”. See also the discussion of the concept in Gregersen’s 2001 article, “The Cross of Christ in an Evolutionary World” (2001, 205).
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4:24: the spirit is divine because it belongs to the sphere of God. However, if in 4:24 we were to stick to the principle used in 1:1, we should rather speak of God’s pneumatic character or His affinity to the sphere or phenomenon of pneu=ma.543 Actually, this would have been quite Stoic, as it was also noted by Origen (with worry) long ago. The Stoic idea of a god who lays himself out into the world by creating it corresponds to – what I assume to be – the Johannine idea of a God who gives His soul for the sake of the world. When read in this light, the stress placed in 4:24 on believers’ identity – they must worship “in spirit and truth” – suddenly becomes meaningful: “God is spirit and it is (therefore) of necessity (dei=) that those who worship Him does it (by being) in spirit and truth”.544 The way God performed His deeds through His indwelling of Jesus (14:10: o( de\ path\r e0n e0moi\ me/nwn poiei= ta_ e1rga au0tou=) now takes place through those into whom the Holy Spirit (the established pneumatic unity of Father and Son) has been infused. Through the work of the “spirit”, they have come to know the “truth” revealed by Jesus, namely that the Father, because of love, has created the world by involving Himself physically in All that is, including themselves. It is the person, who knows the Father, believes in His love and in His Son and who observes his Word of love, who now does God’s deeds. When the Jews asked Jesus what they were to do in order to do the deeds of God (6:28: ti/ poiw~men i3na e0rgazw&meqa ta_ e1rga tou= qeou=;), Jesus answers: “God’s deeds is this, believe in him whom He has sent” (6:29), thus anticipating this situation. In this answer and in this 543 This is a discussion of huge dimensions into which I cannot enter here. I just want to point out some of the contradictions at work in Johannine scholarship. Barrett e.g. argues in the case of 1:1c that “qeo&j, being without the article, is predicative and describes the nature of the Word …” and interprets the statement in Trinitarian terms (1955, 156). He is aware of the fact that qeo&j holds a different syntactic position in 4:24 and translates the later: “The proposition ‘God is Spirit’ means that he is invisible and unknowable (cf. 1.18)” – in spite of his awareness that “pneu=ma itself was a Stoic term … the Stoic term pneu=ma was in a sense material …” (238). In the case of R. Brown, the argument is reversed. Brown rejects the article-predicate argument in relation to 1:1c with reference to the incarnation: the divine lo&goj Christ was truly God. “However, while theos is most probably the predicate, such a rule does not necessarily hold for a statement of identity as, for instance, in the ‘I am …’ formulae (John xi 25, xiv 6 – with the article). To preserve in English the different nuance of theos with and without the article, some (Moffatt) would translate, ‘The Word was divine’. But this seems too weak; and, after all, there is in Greek an adjective for ‘divine’ (theios) which the author did not choose to use” (Brown 1966, 5). However in the case of 4:24 Brown has recourse to the article-predicate argument: “This is not an essential definition of God, but a description of God’s dealing with men” (172). 544 John 4:24: pneu=ma o( qeo&j, kai\ tou\j proskunou=ntaj au0to_n e0n pneu/mati kai\ a)lhqei/a| dei= proskunei=n.
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belief, the whole story of the pneumatic transformations – and the truth that it reveals – is summarized. In 4:24, the physical dimensions of the Fourth Gospel (the story about the pneu=ma), and the cognitive dimensions (the story about divine love) are brought together in the paternal wish for worshippers that worship him “in spirit and truth”. Seen in this way, believing in Jesus is simultaneously to live in accordance with God’s will for the world as it has been laid out originally. The new commandment of love becomes the universal law: the request to “follow Jesus” is simultaneously a request to follow Nature (a)kolouqei=n tw|~ fu/sei) or to live “in accordance with nature” (kata_ fu&sin), which, as we know, are the Stoic maxims of true living. Thus, faith in Jesus becomes a short cut to truth and virtuous living.
8.2.3 Seeing the Father. The epistemology of the emotions In the Fourth Gospel, the depiction of Jesus changes when he sets out for Jerusalem for the last time. In a lofty – we may say, almost stoical manner – Jesus has proceeded unaffected through the first ten chapters of the Gospel, but when he approaches Jerusalem and the betrayal by one of his own draws near, he is seized repeatedly by emotional upheavals.545 Provoked by Jesus’ statement that he and the Father were one, the Jews of Jerusalem have attempted to stone Jesus several times (5:18; 8:59; 10:31). The conflicts during the Feast of Tabernacles force Jesus to leave Jerusalem and he withdraws with his disciples to point zero, the place on the other side of Jordan where John had baptized (10:40) and where he himself gathered his first followers. While staying alongside the Jordan, Jesus is informed about the illness of his beloved friend Lazarus,546 who lives with his two sisters in Bethany, a village near Jerusalem (11:3). Knowing that this illness will not serve death, but God’s glory, Jesus waits for two days before he heads to Bethany with his disciples (11:4-6). This delay, however, causes Lazarus to die before Jesus reaches Bethany. Lazarus’ sisters lament Jesus’ delay; if he had been there, he would, they believe, have prevented their brother from dying (11:21; 32). In the meantime, several Jews have arrived from Jerusalem at the family’s house in order to comfort the bereaved sisters. 545 See Mark Stibbe, who notices that up to this point – apart from an isolated reference to Jesus’ tiredness (4:7) – “Jesus has not been portrayed as a man with obvious weaknesses, needs and emotions” (1994, 44). 546 The Greek term for illness is a)sqe/neia (11:2, 3, 4, 6), the literal meaning of which is weakness.
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When Jesus meets with Mary and the Jews and sees their crying, he is strongly affected by the situation (11:33: e0nebrimh/sato tw|~ pneu/mati kai\ e0ta&racen e9auto_n). He asks Mary to take him to the place where Lazarus is buried (11:34).547 Mary asks Jesus to follow her, whereupon he bursts into tears (11:35: e0da&krusen o( 0Ihsou=j). The Jews interpret Jesus’ tears as a sign of his loving affection for Lazarus (11:36: i1de pw~j e0fi/lei au0to&n). As the crowd approaches Lazarus’ grave, Jesus is upset once more (11:38: 0Ihsou=j ou3n pa&lin e0mbrimw&menoj e0n e0autw|~). In spite of Mary’s protest that, having been dead for four days, her brother must be stinking, Jesus orders the stone moved from the entrance of the grave and orders Lazarus to leave the cave. The returning Jews bring the message of Lazarus’ resurrection to Jerusalem. The message aggravates the conflict between Jesus and the authorities of Jerusalem, and the enigmatic hour of the Son of Man’s glorification approaches (12:23). Jesus is emotionally overwrought by the situation, and his soul is troubled (12:27: Nu=n h9 yuxh/ mou teta&raktai). Jesus is seized by an emotional upheaval only on one additional occasion, namely when he is to reveal the identity of his betrayer (13:21: 0Ihsou=j e0tara&xqh tw|~ pneu/mati). Having received the bread, Judas immediately leaves the disciples’ company and disappears into the night (13:30). From that moment, Jesus appears totally dedicated to the appointed task and is no longer disturbed emotionally. In order to describe Jesus’ (and his disciples) emotional behaviour, different idioms are employed: 11:33:
e0mbrima~sqai tw~| pneu/mati kai\ e0ta&racen e9auto_n (Jesus)
12:27:
h9 yuxh/ mou teta&raktai (Jesus)
13:21:
tau=ta ei0pw_n [o(] 0Ihsou=j e0tara&xqh tw~| pneu/mati (Jesus)
14:1, 27:
mh\ tarasse/sqw u9mw~n h9 kardi/a (the disciples)
Although these expressions form part of the fourth Evangelist’s idiom, it seems possible to discern the contours of his anthropology in his everyday language. The Gospel describes Jesus’ emotional experience physically, associates it with the spirit and locates it in the soul and in the heart. This description has several features in common with the Stoic theory of emotions. In Chapter Two in the discussion of the Stoic theory of emotions, we saw how the emotional judgement co-existed with moderations in the tensional pattern of the pneu=ma of the leading part of the soul (to_ h9gemoniko&n) around the heart (h9 kardi/a), and it was these physiological changes in the pneu=ma that engendered the feeling 547 John 11:33f: 0Ihsou=j ou[n w(j ei]den au0th\n klai/ousan kai\ tou\j sunelqo&ntaj au0th|= 0Ioudai/ouj klai/ontaj, e0nebrimh/sato tw|~ pneu/mati kai\ e0ta&racen e9auto_n kai\ ei]pen:
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or psychological awareness of being emotionally affected. 548 The analogy between the Stoic theory of the emotions, their location, and the idioms of emotional affection in the Fourth Gospel makes it tempting to examine whether the recorded movements in Jesus’ spirit (11:33; 13:21) also participate in the revelation of the pneumatic Father. Are the idioms – as in many other places in the Gospel – chosen with knowing awareness or is the wording accidental? Yet, at the very outset, this approach raises more problems than it solves. Jesus’ emotional upheavals inevitably challenge the Stoic ideal of freedom from passions (a)pa&qeia). Jesus’ emotions constitute an obstacle that seems a priori to prevent any investigation into the Stoicism of the Fourth Gospel. The ideal embodied by the crying savior – if philosophical at all – seems closer to the Peripatetic idea of metriopa&qeia than the Stoic a)pa&qeia. Aristotle and the Peripatetics valued the emotions as the source of interpersonal identification and the basis of social life. Their ideal was the moderation of passions, not their extinction. Does the Gospel, after all, side with the Aristotelians in the discussion of the value of emotions? Are Jesus’ tears tokens of the charge of inhumanity against the Stoic sage so popular in Antiquity? I shall argue that Jesus’ emotional outbursts do not have to be seen as tokens of John’s anti-Stoic stance. In order to substantiate this claim, we will first look at the early reception of the Gospel in Origen’s commentary on John. The otherwise anti-Stoic philosopher, who overtly rejected a Stoic understanding of John 4:24 in his commentary, also gives an interpretation of Jesus’ emotional behaviour that accords with the Stoic theory of emotions – especially the revised version that we find in Seneca’s De ira. This tells us about the impact of the Stoic theory of emotions in general and their ideal of a)pa&qeia, specifically. However, this only sharpens the problem we are wrestling with: if the Evangelist really subscribed to Stoic theory, why did he not depict Jesus as a lofty Stoic sage? Once more a suitable answer is found with 548 The locus classicus in the Stoic Corpus for the heart as the place of the emotional awareness was Galen’s quotation in De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (De Lacy 1978) of Chrysippus’ theory: “… they [the Stoics] say that distress and anxiety and suffering are not pains … that arise in some region other than the governing part (of the soul) [to&pw| h@ tw|~ h9gemonikw~|]. We shall say the same also about joy and good cheer, which reveal their origin in the area of the heart [peri\ th\n kardi/an]. For when our foot hurts us or our head, the hurting occurs in our foot or head, just so we are conscious of the pain in distress as occurring in the chest; and it is not the case that distress is not a pain, or that it occurs in some place other than the governing part of the soul” (PHP III 7.3, emphasis added). See also Frede, “The Stoic Doctrine of the Affection of the Soul” (1986, 102).
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Philo – or more precisely, in Philo’s reworking of Stoic theory. Since Philo approves of the Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia, he is forced by the continuous crying of his biblical heroes to adjust the Stoic theory of emotions. His solution is the development of a fourth eu0pa&qeia corresponding to pain. Anticipating the conclusion, the Stoicism of the Fourth Gospel is not eliminated because of Jesus’ tears.549 The early tendency to downplay the Johannine Jesus’ emotions remains constant throughout history and has also marked the text that forms the basis of our analysis, the Nestle-Aland27 version of the Greek text. We will therefore start our analysis with a look at the NestleAland text. Then – before we turn towards our ancient sources from Origen, Seneca and Philo – we will have a brief look at the reception of Jesus’ emotions in modern exegesis.
549 In his book Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel: Human or Divine? (2005), Stephen Voorwinde features Jesus’ emotions as an argument against a Stoic understanding of the Johaninne Jesus: “Although John records no Gethsemane scene he hardly portrays a Jesus who conforms to the Stoic ideal of apatheia or to the Hellenistic Jewish ideal of devout reason” (194f). In his book, Voorwinde scrutinizes the BultmannKäsemann controversy on Christology from the perspective of Jesus’ emotions. He concludes that in the case of the Johannine Jesus, “[t]he complexity of his emotions cannot be adequately accounted for by either a humanistic or a docetic Christology” (269); most of Jesus’ emotions are too complex to be understood along the divine or the human axis alone. When the Gospel is read in light of the covenantal theology of the Old Testament, Jesus’ emotions lead to his identification with the covenantal Lord of the Pentateuch, but also with Isaiah’s suffering servant. Jesus is simultaneously the Lord of the covenant and the sacrifice that installs the covenant: “This central question was made more complex by our discovery from comparisons with the Old Testament that the Fourth Gospel casts Jesus in the dual role of both the Lord of the covenant and the covenant sacrifice. He therefore fulfils divine and human functions that intersect and interrelate in intricate and highly nuanced ways. An examination of Jesus’ emotions demonstrates this observation again and again” (267). First and foremost, Jesus’ emotions concern the Gospel’s soteriology. When Jesus’ emotions are drawn into focus, the promised covenantal renewal in the Old Testament is in the Fourth Gospel realized through God’s self-sacrifice: “A dramatic reversal has taken place. The Lord of the covenant has become the covenant sacrifice. He has become the sacrificial victim in whose body the covenant is cut. This is indeed the new covenant in his blood” (106). “… he is portrayed as covenant Lord and as covenant sacrifice” (108). “Jesus’ humanity comes to its most profound expression when he becomes the covenant sacrifice” (109). Voorwinde himself points to a fact that may be the weakness of his reading: “Even though the word diaqh/kh never occurs in John (or even in the Johannine epistles) could the covenant concept provide a hermeneutical key to Jesus’ emotions in John?” (65)
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8.2.3.1 Jesus’ emotions in the Nestle-Aland text In order to express Jesus’ distress as the hour draws nearer, the author borrows the words from Psalm 6 verses 4 and 5. Whether or not Jesus’ situation may be described as a state of actual agony is a topic of debate among scholars. One’s understanding depends on how Jesus’ internal monologue is marked grammatically. The marks of Nestle-Aland favour an understanding of Jesus’ dialogue as a display of control over the situation: 12:27f: Nu=n h9 yuxh/ mou teta&raktai, kai\ ti/ ei1pw; [?] pa&ter, sw~so&n me e0k th=j w#raj tau/thj; [?] a)lla_ dia_ tou=to h]lqon ei0j th\n w#ran tau/thn. [!] pa&ter, do&caso&n sou to_ o!noma. [!]
Ps 6:4 Ps 6:5
The prayer of the psalm for rescue (Ps 6:5) is here made into a rhetorical question which serves as a foil for Jesus’ subsequent confirmation of the purpose of his sending and for his total submission to the Father.550 An answer to Jesus’ request comes immediately from heaven. That no agony was at stake is confirmed by Jesus’ confident statement that the heavenly answer was not given for his personal sake, but for the audience present.551 However, another reading of Jesus’ internal dialogue is also possible. The German scholar Klaus Wengst rejects the backward reading of Jesus’ monologue and argues that a process takes place: The fact that Jesus’ dismay (Bestürzung) is spoken out loud should be noticed and left for what it is and not be overshadowed by the continuation of the text. … For John the point is not to demolish (‘entschärfen’) Jesus’ dismay and his plea for rescue. Jesus’ dismay is observed and not questioned. The plea for deliverance from the situation is a possibility offered by Scripture, and Jesus could make use of it (könnte sie wahrnehmen). (2001, 73f, my translation)
550 Psalm 6:4f LXX: Kai\ h9 yuxh/ mou e0tara&qh sfo&dra: kai\ su/, ku/rie, e3wj po&te; e0pi/streyon, ku/rie, r(u=sai th\n yuxh/n mou, sw~so&n me e3neken tou= e0le/ouj sou. 551 Commentaries that emphasize Jesus’ control and obedience interpret the monologue in light of 12:30. Bultmann’s commentary is representative: “If in the Evangelist’s view this can have little or nothing to do with a psychological description of one who, in truth, has no need at all of the divine promise for the conquest of his fear (v. 30), the more the objective meaning of the nu=n should become plain. The saying that follows interprets it as the ‘now’ of decision” (1941, 327; 1971, 427). According to Bultmann, Jesus’ decisiveness a priori excludes any psychological interpretation of his monologue.
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The speech may then be marked as a monologue of genuine questions and requests. In this case, the words as well as the speech acts of the quoted psalm are used in Jesus’ speech. 12:27f: Nu=n h9 yuxh/ mou teta&raktai, kai\ ti/ ei1pw; [?] pa&ter, sw~so&n me e0k th=j w#raj tau/thj. [!] a)lla_ dia_ tou=to h]lqon ei0j th\n w#ran tau/thn; [?] pa&ter, do&caso&n sou to_ o!noma. [!]
Ps 6:4 Ps 6:5
The despair of Jesus’ soul is expressed in his oscillating attitude towards the impending hour. Jesus shifts from one position to another, first asking the Father to spare him the hour, then reminding himself of the task to which he has been appointed. Finally, Jesus accepts the situation and asks the Father to inaugurate the glorification.552
8.2.3.2 Jesus’ emotions in modern exegesis A survey of the scholarly reception of John 11 reveals two opposing tendencies (Lindars 1992, 90). On the basis of 11:33, a predominantly German tradition emphasizes Jesus’ anger.553 Schnackenburg’s transla552 In The Gospel According to John, Raymond Brown interprets John 12:27 in light of Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane in the synoptic tradition (Mark 14:36). Brown sees Jesus’ struggling as an anti-docetic sign of his true humanity: “In this scene so parallel to the agony in the garden, we see the true humanity of the Johannine Jesus. … If in the agony he struggles with the human preference that the cup of suffering passes him by (Mark), so in John he struggles with the temptation to cry out to his Father to save him from the hour. But he triumphs in each scene by submitting himself to the Father’s will or plan” (1966, 475). See also Stephen Voorwinde’s interpretation in Jesus’ Emotions in the Fourth Gospel (2005, 191-195): “As he faced death Jesus clearly experienced fear. … When the Johannine Jesus declares Nu=n h9 yuxh/ mou teta&raktai (12:27), he is giving expression to a very human emotion. … His troubled soul may be likened to the Psalmists’ in their distress … but his inner turmoil and disturbance of soul is of a very different order to theirs” (194). … “The condition described is again very human, but the emotion is driven by supernatural insights” (268). In the end, Jesus’ emotions cannot be characterized as either human or divine: “His troubled spirit casts Jesus in the role of the righteous sufferer. The love that stoops to servanthood and even death reveals his identity as the covenant Lord. … In chapters 12-13 it is Jesus as the Saviour (i.e. as the God-man) who is portrayed as being both supremely loving and deeply troubled …” (Voorwinde 2005, 224f). 553 Schnackenburg has: “Als Jesus sah, wie sie weinte und wie auch die Juden weinten, die mit ihr gekommen waren, ergrimmte er im Inneren und erregte sich” (1971, 419). Klaus Wengst also follows Luther and translates “ergrimmte er sich innerlich und erregte sich” (2001, 29). Nevertheless, he rejects the interpretation that Jesus’ tears should be representative of anger, and that the tears of Mary and the Jews should represent lack of faith. This interpretation completely ignores the context (2001, 32).
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tion, which follows Luther’s, is typical of the German tradition: “When Jesus saw the way she and her fellow Jews cried, indignation and irritation seized him” (my translation). In contrast, the Anglo-American tradition highlights 11:35, in which Jesus is understood as a compassionate being, deeply moved by the situation. As a representative of the latter tradition, Raymond Brown translates: “Now when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had accompanied her also weeping, he shuddered, moved with the deepest emotions” (Brown 1966, 421). The contrasting interpretations reflect a basically exegetical problem: When read against the background of classical and biblical usage, the verb e0mbrima~sqai unequivocally denotes the display of strong, even aggressive excitement.554 However, when this aggression is transposed to the Fourth Gospel and 11:33 and 11:38 are seen as displays of anger, it disturbs the immediate context, where Jesus is himself moved to tears (11:35) by the grief of Mary and her Jewish neighbours (11:33). 555 Jesus’ crying is understood by the Jews as a sign of his loving affection for Lazarus (11:36). Their interpretation accords with the sisters’ description of the relation (11:3: ku/rie, i1de o$n filei=j a)sqenei=), the narrator’s summary of the situation (11:5: h0ga&pa de\ o( 0Ihsou=j th\n Ma&rqan kai\ th\n a)delfh\n au0th=j kai\ to_n La&zaron) and Jesus’ own statement about the relation (11:11: La&zaroj o( fi/loj h9mw~n kekoi/mhtai). We can conclude that the interpretive problems arise from the fact that the lexical meaning of the idiom in 11:33 is on a collision course with the text’s unanimous statements about Jesus’ relation to his beloved friend. Both interpretations attempt to do away with the tension between idiom and context. The German tendency attempts a plausible explanation of Jesus’ anger vis-à-vis, first, the tears of Mary and her mourning Jewish neighbours and, in turn, of Jesus himself. The solution is that Jesus’ emotional reaction is dissociated from the grief of the mourners; Jesus’ tears represent an anger that is directed towards what their tears signify, namely a continuous disbelief in spite of Jesus’ teaching on the resurrection. The differentiation between Jesus’ tears and the mourners’ is supported by the choice of different words for the emotions of the characters in the story: klai/ein for the mourners (11:33), dakru/ein for Jesus (11:35). Jesus cries out of indignation, not compassion. Some interpretations are able to maintain Jesus’ lexical anger and 554 The classical example to which the commentaries refer is Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, where the “mares” are “snorting (e0mbrimw&menaj) in the bridles” as they are led to their appointed places in the ambush outside the city gates. The breath whistling in the horses’ nostrils demonstrates their physical excitement, but as Barnabas Lindars notices in his 1992 essay, “Rebuking the Spirit: A New Analysis of the Lazarus Story of John 11”, it “does not denote the emotion of anger as such” (92). 555 Lindars: “[it] makes havoc of the context” (1992, 90).
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still make sense of the context. Brown, for instance, suggests that the anger is directed towards Satan as the daemonic and destructive power of death who has brought sin and sorrow into the world and who now occasions the death of Jesus through Judas (13:2). In this way, opposing emotions may be present simultaneously.556 Jesus’ anger is directed towards Satan, while he shares his love and compassion with the victims of death.557 Whether Jesus’ reacts out of anger or compassion, his emotions are seen by modern readers as an adequate and theologically meaningful response to the situation. The Stoic ideal of a)pa&qeia appears too foreign and even unacceptable to modern readers, but in general, modern commentaries do not attempt to situate their more positive evaluation of Jesus’ anger or compassion in the discourse of emotions so prominent in Hellenistic philosophy.
8.2.3.3 Origen’s interpretation of Jesus’ emotions In his Commentary on St. John’s Gospel, Origen devoted several books to his justification of Jesus’ emotions.558 Yet, most of these books (e.g. Book 26 and 27 on the Lazarus story) have been lost. Fortunately, the surviving fragments and shattered comments in the commentary still allow us to draw a coherent picture of how Origen explained Jesus’ and his disciples’ emotional reactions.559 In Fragment 83 on John 11:34 & 11:35, Origen comments on Jesus’ request to know where the mourning Jews have placed Lazarus (11:34): of course, the heavenly lo&goj could not be without this knowledge; consequently, the text must be interpreted allegorically. In Book 28, starting with John 11:39, Origen states: “the anagogical sense concern556 Brown finds inspiration for his interpretation of Jesus’ anger in the synoptic tradition: A better explanation of it “would be the reason offered for similar displays of anger in the synoptic tradition, namely, that he was angry because he found himself face to face with the real power of Satan which, in this instance, was represented by death” (1966, 435). 557 Another attempt to combine opposing emotions is found in some, primarily German, commentaries of the 19th century that differentiate between Mary’s sincere tears and the Jews’ hypocrisy. Jesus’ anger is restricted to the latter (Holtzmann 1908, 211; Weiss 1893, 412-13). 558 Analyses of Origen’s reading of the Lazarus story are found in Cullen Story 1991 and Barnabas Lindars 1992. 559 The text used is The Commentary of Origen on St. John’s Gospel: The Text Revised with a Critical Introduction and Indices by A. E. Brooke (1896). The translation of Book 28 is from Ronald Heine, Commentary on the Gospel according to John. Books 13-32 (1993). The translations of the fragments are mine.
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ing the [Lazarus] passage is not difficult … For he asked that the one who had sinned, after becoming his friend, and has become dead to God return to life by divine power”.560 Therefore, when Jesus called Lazarus forth from the cave, the Jews marvelled “that someone, who had become foul-smelling from sins to death and was dead to virtue, should return to virtue”.561 Origen then explains Jesus’ tears: “But if it should happen that someone among his beloved remains in the grave, then Jesus cries”.562 Mental weakness and the psychological death of friends are legitimate reasons for crying. Origen’s allegorical interpretation may be justified by the fact that the word used in the Gospel for Lazarus’ illness, a)sqe/neia, as we know from Chapter Two, also was the Stoics’ term for their version of the weakness of will (a)krasi/a). In particular, beginners in faith were in danger of this moral kind of death. “I think,” Origen says, “that the choice of those still advancing is changeable and susceptible to willing the opposite to what was formerly preferred”.563 Special attention must be paid to this character. Origen inquires to know how this change of attitude may come about. The danger resides with the body-bound passions: in order to enter the human heart and disturb the sound choices of the soul, Satan makes use of passions. The case of Judas is a vivid example of how Satan affects human beings. Due to his love of money,564 Judas’ heart became susceptible to the satanic powers of evil thoughts and wicked choices. Origen wants to make Judas a warning example and invests his story with a moral point; he emphasizes that Judas did not begin as a wicked person. In fact, it was the other way around: “Judas was holy and changed for the worse”.565 When Jesus states that “one of you will betray me, it is …”, Origen explains, “said marvellously with the following meaning: he who betrays me is not alien from my disciples, and he is not even one of the many disciples, but he is one of the apostles honoured by my choice”.566 As God’s agent in the world, Jesus is committed to carrying out the ultimate counterstrike against Satan and the evil forces in the world
560 Book 28, Heine § 49; Brooke 115, 23-28. 561 Book 28, Heine § 50; Brooke 115, 28-32. 562 Fragment 83; Brooke 292, 4-5: dakru/ei de\ o( 0Ihsou=j e0a&n tij au0tou= tw~n fi/lwn e0n mnhmei/w| ge/nhtai. 563 Book 32, Heine § 255; Brooke 187, 1-4: e0me/mnhnto ga_r, oi]mai, a!nqrwpoi o!ntej, o#ti trepth/ e0stin h9 proai/resij tw~n e1ti prokopto&ntwn kai\ e0pidexome/nh ta_ e0nanti/a qe/lein oi[j pro&teron proe/qeto. 564 Book 32, Heine § 244; Brooke 185, 28: fila&rguroj. 565 Book 32, Heine § 247; Brooke 186, 11: o#ti a#gioj w@n metape/ktwken, 566 Book 32, Heine § 235; Brooke 184, 11-14.
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that originate with him.567 On his way to Lazarus’ grave when Jesus “e0nebrimh/sato tw~| pneu/mati” (11:33), he demonstrates, according to Origen, his anger. Later, when Jesus faces the coming of Judas’ betrayal, he “is struck by a sudden emotion of fearful panic due to the excessiveness of the hardship to come” and is once more troubled in his spirit (13:21).568 The various emotions emerge from Jesus’ awareness of the impending confrontation with the Evil One. Yet, Origen stresses, Jesus’ emotional distress is not caused by his dread of dying. The Saviour only fears that in his confrontation with the Evil One, “he would not be the weaker one” and,569 consequently, that salvation would be without the intended effect. Although the savior’s soul, when facing this immense and hostile satanic power, becomes anxious “in a human manner”,570 his distress is “only of momentary character”.571 Jesus is able to handle his affections; he recognizes the emotional disturbance and then regains control due to (that which Origen calls) “his foreknowledge”.572 Since Jesus is capable of mastering his emotions, their outward display must be intentional; according to Origen, their demonstration has a pedagogical purpose. The anger involved in the rebuke or censure of the emotions is a warning that is meant to encourage the disciples’ psychological awareness and moral growth.573 To summarize: according to Origen, Jesus’ display of emotions serves several purposes: firstly, that “we may learn that he [Jesus] has been generated human … just like us”.574 The sudden occurrence of an emotion testifies to the true humanity of the divinely begotten Son. Secondly, Jesus warns his disciples (and Origen his readers) against the satanic passions that cause the psychological death of friends, who, – instead of being obedient to God’s will – have become obedient to the desires of their bodies.575 Soon this satanic power will also be the cause of Jesus’ own physical death. Finally, by the aid of his own behaviour, Jesus provides his own and the Gospel’s audience with an example of emotional management that ought to be followed. 567 Fragment 88 on John 12:27; Brooke 294, 13 – 295, 8. 568 Fragment 100 on John 13:21; Brooke 305, 14-17. 569 Fragment 88; Brooke 295, 3: ou0 to_n qa&naton deiliw~sa, ei0 kai\ tou=to a)nqrw&pinon, a)lla_ to_ mh\ h9tthqh=nai. 570 Fragment 88; Brooke 295,1: h9 tou= swth=roj yuxh\ a)nqrwpi/nwj e0tara&tteto 571 Fragment 88; Brooke 295, 7f. 572 Fragment 100; Brooke 305, 12: to_ me/llon proorw~n. 573 Origen’s commentaries on the Johannine Farewell Discourses – especially Jesus’ promise of another Paraclete – would have been interesting, but probably they were never written. 574 Fragment 84; Brooke 292, 10-11: i3na ma&qwmen o#ti a!nqrwpoj ge/gonen a)tre/ptwj, w(j h9mei=j. 575 Fragment 83; Brooke 292, 2: ei0 de/ tij a)gnoei= a)gnoei=tai.
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8.2.3.4 Origen, Seneca and Jesus’ tears In his interpretation of Jesus’ emotional behavior, Origen situates the Johannine Jesus in the tradition that had come down to Hellenistic ethics from Plato’ Republic: the emotions were seen as disturbances of the soul that impaired a correct evaluation of one’s situation.576 Although Origen finds a confirmation of Jesus’ humanity in the momentary emotional response, he also projects his own negative evaluation of the emotions onto the Johannine Jesus. Even when Jesus expresses anger, he remains wholly in control: his emotional display is part of his (or Origen’s) pedagogical strategy. In Chapter Two, I presented the discussion among the Stoics about the proper understanding of Chrysippus’ theory of emotions and I described Seneca’s solution to the problem of irrational emotions. To a certain extent, Seneca’s theory of pre-emotions proves illuminating to Origen’s exegesis of Jesus’ emotions. It explains why emotional upheavals may be seen as specifically human: pre-emotions are scars of a childish, pre-rational mode of relating to the world. It explains, too, why the disturbance is over in a moment. Although Jesus fears only that his victory over the Evil One will be without the intended salvific effect, his despair is true. Yet, it passes away like a pre-emotion. Even Jesus’ crying might have been explained by the theory of pre-emotions: the spontaneous crying in reaction to others’ tears is pointed out by Seneca as an example of pre-rational pre-emotions. But according to Origen, Jesus does not cry spontaneously, he is angry – or he acts as if he was angry – at Satan and warns against emotional inattention.577 Origen’s Jesus fits the role of the Stoic sage: he only experiences emotions that comply with the purpose of his sending, namely to deliver the fallen souls from the grasp of body-bound satanic passions and to re-establish them in their former contemplation of God. Jesus’ role is that of the yuxagwgo&j who accompanies the souls through the process of, in this case, psychological death. Origen’s interpretation of John’s emotional Jesus may be an attempt to justify an embarrassing Johannine fact. Let us therefore take a look at Philo who also allows his biblical heroes to cry out of true and genuine emotion without renouncing on the Stoic ideal.
576 Plato, the Republic, Book II & III. See, too, M. Nussbaum’s analysis of Plato’s Republic in her 1993 article, ‘‘Poetry and the Passions: Two Stoic Views’’ (104-08). 577 Raymond Brown’s solution to the emotional tension between tears and anger discussed above resembles Origen’s interpretation of Jesus’ emotions.
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8.2.3.5 Philo and the fourth eu0pa&qeia The fact that the Israelites’ mourning, crying and tears pervade the pages of Scripture – the virtuous Moses’ tears being no exception – seems to have provoked Philo to develop the Stoic doctrine of emotions. The biblical lament (specifically crying) is understood as a rational kind of pain that at least aspired to the position of the fourth (and in Stoic theory, the missing) proper sensibility (eu0pa&qeia). In order to evaluate Philo’s interpretation of the Israelites’ and Moses’ crying, attention should first be drawn to the fact that no polemical attitude is found in Philo’s writings against the Stoic theory of emotions. Philo only supplements the theoretical doctrine by including the Aristotelian idea of metrio&paqeia as a pragmatic step on the way to virtue. Yet, the ideal of a)pa&qeia is maintained as the ultimate goal of intellectual development. Whereas to Philo, Aaron is a representative of the case of metrio&paqeia, a)pa&qeia is reserved for the virtuous Moses (Philo Leg. 3.134). That Philo was acquainted with the Stoic theory of the three eu0pa&qeia is confirmed by his allegorical exegesis of Gen 9:3 in Questions and Answers on Genesis 2.57. The question is: “Why does (Scripture) say, ‘Every reptile that lives shall be to you for food’?” The Armenian of the answer is fraught with textual problems, but I quote from John Dillon’s and Margaret Graver’s translations: The nature of reptiles is twofold. One is poisonous, and the other is tame … This is the literal meaning. But as for the deeper meaning the passions resemble unclean reptiles, while joy (resembles) clean (reptiles). For alongside the passion of Pleasure there is Joy. And alongside Desire there is Will. And alongside Grief there is “biting and contractions”.578 And alongside Fear there is Caution.579 Thus, these passions threaten souls with death and murder, whereas joys are truly living as He Himself has shown in allegorizing, and are the causes of life for those who possess them. (QG 2.57)
In the case of lu/pe, pain, Philo also features a better counterpart, namely the physical reaction of “biting and contractions” involved in the pre-emotional perception. This initial sting first becomes an emo578 The LCL-edition has: “And alongside grief there is remorse and constraint.” Dillon 1976-77, 17 and Graver 1999, 317 agree that this interpretation goes beyond the textual evidence. Instead of Dillon’s “compunction,” Graver suggest that “biting and contraction” may be a better and more literal translation of the Armenian text. Graver refers to Dillon’s own argument: the two words of the Armenian equivalent to grief correspond to derivates of the Armenian word that in other translations of Philo’s Greek text correspond to dhgmo/j (Dillon 18) – that is, the physical reaction involved in passionate pain and its corresponding propatheia. 579 Textual problems are also involved in the reconstruction and translation of this sentence. See Dillon 1976-77, 18.
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tion when the person assents to the immediate impression of the situation. Philo’s idea must be that the awareness of the biting may prevent the fatal assent. Add to this that, in his definition of true friendship, Philo quotes the Stoic definition of goodwill, a subspecies of the rational wish, almost verbatim. In his treatise On the Emotions (Peri\ paqw~n), Andronicus describes goodwill (eu!noia) as the common denominator of the subspecies of boulh/sij: “eu!noia is the rational wish that good things may happen to others for their own sake” (SVF 3.431, my translation). Philo characterizes the real goodwill of true friendship as “a desire that good should befall your neighbour for his own sake”.580 In conclusion, Philo seems acquainted with the Stoic theory of the eu0pa&qeiai and approves of it. In his comment on Gen 9:3, Philo’s had mentioned the propatheia as the positive counterpart to to pain or grief in place of the eu0pa&qeia. However, in Legum allegoriae 3.211 we find an example in which intense and excessive pain (sfodra_ kai\ e0pitetame/nh lu/ph) that is expressed in groaning (stenagmo&j) is treated a fourth eu0pa&qeia – although Philo does not himself use the technical term. In a manner that we later find exemplified in the doxographer Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Philo accounts for the vicious and virtuous aspects of the emotion. As is the case with the three generally accepted eu0pa&qeiai, virtuous groaning also mirrors the pleasure-loving attitude negatively. Virtuous groaning represents the awareness of and sorrow over the vicious past of the repenting soul:581 One kind [of groaning] is found in men who desire and long for opportunities of wrong doing and cannot get them, and this a bad kind. Another kind is that which is seen in those who repent and are vexed over their de580 Philo, Plant. 106: eu!noia ga&r e0sti bou/lhsij tou= tw~| plhsi/on ei]nai ta_ a)gaqa_ au0tou= xa&rin e)kei/nou. Translation LCL. 581 In the contemporary discourse on emotions, the tears of Alcibiades in Socrates’ lap were seen as a case that challenged the Stoic theory of emotion, theoretically as well as pragmatically. Alcibiades lamented his present vice, his vanity, his pleasure in his beauty and wealth. How should one classify Alcibiades’ dismay Stoically? The impression that brings about his emotional reaction is true, although he is himself unwise. Alcibiades’ tears became a paradigm of the remorse and pain that accompanies moral progression. In Stoicism and Emotion (2007), Margaret Graver describes these of “progressor-pains” (2007, 206) as an intermediary phenomenon: “… even those who are not wise will sometimes respond affectively to internal objects – that is, to features of our own character or conduct. When we do this, it certainly seems possible within Stoic theory that our responses are at least sometimes generated on the basis of true beliefs These would then have the same status as our other actions have when premised on pure beliefs about appropriateness; that is, the status of kathêkonta …“ (210f).
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fection in former days and cry: “Hapless we, how long a time had we, as is now evident, been ill all unaware of it with the illness of folly and senselessness and unrighteousness in our conduct” … when wickedness has died, he that seeth God groans over his failure, “for the children of Israel groaned by reason of their material and Egyptian works” (Exod. ii.23). For while the [Egyptian] king and pleasure-loving temper is alive in us, it induces the soul to rejoice over the sins it is committing, but when he has died, it groans. (Philo, Leg. 3.211-13)
Of course repentant groaning would never befall the sage, but Philo allows his devotees of virtue to complain of the presence of vice and ignorance among their fellow human beings. Whereas Philo’s sage rejoiced when “good … befell your neighbour for his own sake”, he – being in pain – laments the evil and vice that are present with his friends. The sage is even prone to shed tears when he faces the misfortune of the unwise: And yet indeed it is not unusual for the devotees of virtue themselves to be much moved and to shed tears (a)lla_ ga_r kai\ toi=j xoreutai=j a)reth=j sfada|~zein kai\ dakru/ein e1qoj),582 either when bemoaning the misfortunes of the unwise owing to their innate fellow-feeling and humaneness (h@ ta_j tw~n a)fro&nwn o)durome/noij sumfora_j dia_ to_ fu/sei koinwniko_n kai\ fila&nqrwpon), or by reason of being overjoyed. (Philo, Migr. 156)
To Philo, this lament represents attitudes of fellow-feeling (koinwni/a) and humaneness (filanqropi/a), which are acknowledged Stoic virtues.583 The fact that the sage is naturally made for society ultimately rests on the idea of the sage’s physically extended self. In conclusion: although Philo does not himself speak of virtuous groaning as the fourth and missing eu0pa&qeia, it functions in this way. Add to this the Stoic fact that the sage’s self was an extended self that potentially encompassed the All. When seen in this light, it becomes difficult to uphold the argument that the sage “by definition … could never have the knowledge that some evil was present to him” and that, accordingly, there could “be no fourth eupatheia” (Brennan 1998, 35, emphasis added; cf. Cicero, Tusc. 4.14; Diogenes Laertius 7.118). The wise man’s self included his fellow citizens. After all, Philo’s virtuous groaning “by definition” appears to be more consistently Stoic than the Hellenistic doxographers’ – and their modern interpreters’ – exposition of Stoic theory.
582 My translation would be: “And yet indeed it is a habit of the devotees.” I find that the “it is not unusual” of the LCL is too weak. 583 Whereas the unwise is viewed (by Cicero) as being characterized by misanthropy (Tusc. 4.11.25), the sage is described by Diogenes Laertius as “naturally made for society (7.123: koinw~nikoj ga_r fu/sei kai\ praktiko&j. Translation LCL).
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8.2.3.6 Knowing the Father: the epistemology of emotions The Stoic sage experiences emotions, namely the eu0pa&qeia of the wish for good things to happen for his friends. Desiring the same goal, he may also, at least according to Philo, be subjected to pain by the misfortune of his unwise fellow citizens. In both cases, the emotion is accompanied by an impulse to work for a better end. Consequently, the wise man experiences tensional movements in the pneu=ma around his heart, and they make him aware of his emotional involvement in the present situation. The sage’s spirit may also be disturbed by rudimentary passionate desires, but the strength of his beliefs prevents them from turning into full-blown passionate emotions of fear and flight. They leave “a sting” and pass away quickly. The phenomenon of the pre-emotion throws new light on Jesus’ inner monologue in John 12:27, as well as on the other situations in which Jesus’ spirit is disturbed (11:33; 13:21). The healing of Lazarus triggers off the conflict with the Jewish authorities that, in turn, leads to Jesus’ death. In line with the dismay depicted in the psalm quoted in 12:27, we may see the monologue as a display of the emotional dilemma provoked by the aggravation of the situation. Jesus is momentarily split between the wish to avoid the hour and the desire to glorify the Father’s name.584 The despair is over in a moment; nevertheless, the dilemma emphasizes the radical character of Jesus’ affection for his beloved. Jesus’ love for his friends is measured by the sacrifice that he is willing to undertake on their behalf – cf. the motivation that Jesus gives for the new commandment (15:13): “No one has a higher love (mei/zona) than he who lays down his life for the sake of his friends”.585 Yet, it is not Jesus’ love that is measured alone, but also that of the Father. In the Farewell Discourses, Jesus refers to “the Father’s love” with which he has himself loved his disciples (15:9; 17:23). Consequently, the love exposed in the Lazarus story characterizes the Son as well as the Father. The relationship between this story and the section on the love command in the Farewell Discourses (15:9-17) is substantiated by the fact that Jesus’ relation to his disciples is described in terms of friendship 584 Just as Raymond Brown and Klaus Wengst do in their commentaries. 585 For a parallel interpretation, see B. Byrne’s monograph Lazarus: A Contemporary Reading of John 11:1-46 (1991): “What the evangelist achieves by depicting the complex of Jesus’ emotions is to underline the cost to Jesus of the action he is about to perform. … The triumph of love over natural desire for self-preservation is not a facile, playacting sort of thing. Jesus gives life to the one he loves by taking steps which he clearly foresees will cost his own life” (73, Byrne’s emphasis).
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(fi/loj and its cognates) only in these two passages (11:3, 11, 36; 15:13, 14, 15).586 In light of these considerations, it seems reasonable to claim that the movements of the pneu=ma involved in Jesus’ emotional upheavals (11:33; 13:21) should not be seen in purely idiomatic terms, but should also be assigned a significant role in the Johannine story of the divine pneu=ma. The “spirit” of the idiom has a physical referent in the spirit that initially descended on Jesus (1:32) and that constituted the medium of God’s abiding presence and power in him (14:10). The idiom therefore participates in the revelation of the Father. In Jesus’ emotional response to the situation – cognitively, in the love for his friends; physically, in the movements of the pneu=ma – the Father is present. In Jesus’ love for his deceased friend Lazarus (11:35-36), God’s love for the world in danger of perishing (3:16-17) is truly present. When seen in this perspective, the Jews’ comment: “See, how he loved him (11:36: i1de pw~j e0fi/lei au0to/n; masculine)” becomes yet another example of Johannine irony.587 The Johannine Jews certainly state the truth, but without realizing the scope of their statement, namely that the pronoun of 11:33 refers to the world loved by God as well (3:16: ou3twj ga_r h0ga&phsen o( qeo_j to_n ko&smon; masculine). This is the way that Johannine irony in general works: the truth is stated, but without the speaker’s awareness.588 In 11:36 the Jews articulated knowledge the lack of which they are not even aware. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews had asked Jesus where his Father was (8:19: pou= e0stin o( path/r sou;). In his answer, Jesus pointed to himself as the place where the Father was to be known: “You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me, you would have known my Father, too”. If we allow John 11 to be interpreted along these lines, we must also ask about what it is that, from a symbolic perspective, the Johannine Jesus laments in the Lazarus’ story. We should recall that the episode was occasioned by Jesus’ knowledge that “this illness was not for death” (11:4), or more precisely, that “this weakness was not for death, but for the glorification of God”. Recalling also the Stoic understanding of a)sqe/neia (weakness of will – cf. a)krasi/a), the Lazarus’ story seems to indicate that it is precisely this kind of weakness among his Jewish 586 Two other places in the Gospel employ the term “friend”. It is used by John the Baptist in the metaphor with which he describes his relation to Jesus. He is the groom’s best man – or friend (3:29). It is also used by the Jews threatening Pilate; if Pilate frees Jesus, he will no longer be a friend of the emperor (19:12). 587 In Johannine scholarship, irony traditionally concerns the Jews’ mistake. In John 11, they mistake Jesus’ anger for compassion. 588 Other examples of this kind of irony are found in: 3:4; 7:35; 8:22; 11:50. In 11:50, the phenomenon is described as involuntary prophecy.
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friends that Jesus laments, and that his revelation of the Father somehow cures. The Lazarus story does not anticipate Jesus’ resurrection alone, it also anticipates that of the believers: the sign in John 11 illustrates the discourse on believers’ resurrection in John 5. However, this is the subject of the next section.
8.2.4 Summary The conclusion of the Fourth Gospel may be characterized as an ellipse with two focal points: at the one centre, we find the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the group of waiting disciples (20:22); at the other, Thomas’ recognition that in the risen and translated Christ he simultaneously sees his Lord and his God (20:28). This has led scholars to characterize the Thomas-episode as an appendix that is superfluous from a theological as well as narrative point of view. However, I have suggested that this bipolar conclusion is in line with the two-fold focus that pervades the Gospel: the same story is approached simultaneously from a physical and from a cognitive perspective. The first perspective concerns the pneu=ma, the second God’s lo&goj and love. From a physical point of view, the narrative reaches its goal in the infusion of the Holy Spirit and the regeneration of the believers; from a cognitive point of view, the narrative is concluded in Thomas’ confession. This bipolar perspective corresponds to the non-reductive description of mental processes that we find in Stoic philosophy; what happens in the mind may be described completely either in cognitive terms or in physical terms.589 In order to discern what it was that Thomas understood at this climactic moment, I have carried out two very different analyses of texts that are linked by the figure of Thomas. In both analyses, the pneu=ma 589 The description of the Thomas-episode as an appendix that was superfluous from a theological as well as narrative point of view belongs to Bultmann. Bultmann found that the stories of the encounters between the risen Jesus and his believers had a critical sting directed towards themselves: “Accordingly, as in the story of Mary … there is embedded in the narrative of Thomas also a peculiar critique concerning the value of the Easter stories; they can claim only a relative worth” (Bultmann 1941, 539f ; 1971, 696). In his 2006 article “The Cubist Principle in Johannine Imagery: John and the Reading of Images in Contemporary Platonism”, Harold Attridge argues that every image, every sign and metaphor in the Fourth Gospel points, although from different perspectives, in the same direction, namely, towards the cross. However, in a private conversation in Copenhagen September 2006, Attridge corrected this point of view and pushed the climactic point to the infusion of the Holy Spirit (20:22) as the event of the promised regeneration. This, however, turns the Thomas story into something of an odd appendix with no narrative or theological function.
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becomes the vehicle for the revelation of the Father, and in both, the pneu=ma is intimately related to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascent. The first analysis was a poetic, paradigmatic inquiry into the epistemology of space, which linked the space or place left in Jesus’ body by the nails (20:24-28: to&poj) to Thomas’ desire to know about the place in the paternal house that Jesus was to prepare for the disciples (14:5-7: to&poj). The enigmatic place in the Father’s house referred to the pneumatic union between Father and Son established by Jesus’ ascent. Consequently, the love (that is, the willingness to die for one’s beloved), which the nail marks represented, characterized the Son as well as the Father. In the second analysis, we inquired into the epistemology of emotions and it was argued that Jesus’ emotional upheaval and the corresponding movements in his pneu=ma were events – or movements – that also characterized or revealed the Father. Through these analytical manoeuvres, the paternal lo&goj or the cognitive content of the divine pneu=ma was established as the principle of love. In Chapter Six, on the basis of my exegesis of the Nicodemus discourse, I argued that the Johannine signs were characterized by two dimensions. The analyses carried out in this chapter exemplified how these two levels functioned. Initially, corresponding to the first aspect of the Gospel’s stated purpose (20:31a), the signs served the revelation of Jesus’ identity as the Christ, the Son of God. Next, corresponding to the second aspect (20:31b),590 to those who actually believe this, the signs constitute an access to the hitherto unknown Father (1:18) and to the life qualified by His name, or as stated expressis verbis by Jesus in his final address to the Father: “Knowledge of the Father, the only true God and of him whom He has sent, Jesus Christ, is the eternal life” (17:3).591 Through the secondary involvement with the signs – e.g. in Jesus’ preparation of places in the paternal house (the epistemology of space) and in Jesus’ emotional behaviour (the epistemology of emotions) – we may discern the movements of the paternal pneu=ma and catch a glimpse of the emotional attitude that accompanies these. We may recognize the attitude that “was in the beginning with the Father” (1:1) and that moved and motivated him in his interactions with the world, first, in creation and, subsequently, in the meta-act in which the Son was sent in order to make this attitude known. Through the Son, the paternal goodwill (1:14, 16: h9 xa&rij), affection (11:36: fili/a) and love 590 John 20:31a: tau=ta [ta_ shmei/a] ge/graptai i3na pisteu&[s]hte o#ti 0Ihsou=j e0stin o( xristo_j o( ui9o_j tou= qeou=, John 20:31b: kai\ i3na pisteu&ontej zwh\n e1xhte e0n tw~| o)no&mati au0tou=. 591 John 17:3: au3th de/ e0stin h9 ai0w&nioj zwh\ i3na ginw&skwsin se\ to_n mo&non a)lhqino_n qeo_n kai\ o$n a)pe/steilaj 0Ihsou=n Xristo&n.
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(3:16; 15:13: h9 a)ga&ph) for the world were revealed as the ultimate source of life. It is this knowledge that characterizes those who worship in spirit and truth, the kind of worshippers the Father desires (4:23). It is also this knowledge through which sin is removed from the world (1:29); this is the subject of the next section.
8.3 Worshippers in spirit and truth When the Lazarus story is read symbolically as a story about God’s involvement with the world, the weakness of Lazarus (11:3: ku/rie, i1de o$n filei=j a)sqenei=), which is not a weakness unto death (11:4: au3th h9 a)sqe/neia ou0k e1stin pro_j qa&naton), assumes a symbolic meaning as well. Jesus’ beloved friend, whose life is in danger due to a sudden state of bodily weakness, becomes a representation of the world loved by God, but in danger of going astray and perishing (3:16-17). In the same manner, Jesus’ healings of different kinds of bodily weakness (a)sqenei=n; a)sqe/neia: 4:46; 5:3, 5, 6; 6:6; 11:1, 2, 3, 4, 6) become symbolic narratives about the cognitive transformation effected by the healing “knowledge of the only true God and him whom He has sent” (17:3). In fact, the symbolic meaning of these stories solves a problem that exists on the literal level of the text. In his injunction to the cripple who has suffered from weakness for more than 38 years (5:5), 592 Jesus had stated that now that the man was restored to health, he should abstain from sinning (5:14).593 But this statement is at odds with Jesus’ overt rejection of any relation between sinning and bodily defects in the case of the man born blind: his congenital blindness was not caused by his or his parents’ sinning (9:2-3). However, if Johannine sin concerns mental weakness, and if healing refers to removal of the mental flaws that made sinning possible, Jesus’ statement to the cripple becomes meaningful; the more so, as true and inexcusable sin first becomes a possibility through the rejection of the healing truth offered by Jesus (9:41, 15:22). This understanding also accords with the Paraclete’s teaching concerning sin: “that they do not believe in me” (16:9).594 As we saw in Chapter Two, mental weakness, a)sqe/neia, constituted the Stoic counterpart to the phenomenon of “weakness of will” or a)krasi/a. It is noteworthy, too, that the Stoics had a preference for illustrating the idea of mental weakness by the analogy of bodily weak592 John 5:5: h]n de/ tij a!nqrwpoj e0kei= tria&konta kai\ o)ktw_ e1th e1xwn e0n th=| a)sqenei/a| au0tou=: 593 John 5:14: i1de u9gih\j ge/gonaj, mhke/ti a(ma&rtane, i3na mh\ xei=ro&n soi/ ti ge/nhtai. 594 John 16:9: peri\ a(marti/aj me/n, o#ti ou0 pisteu&ousin ei0j e0me/:
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ness. Just as bodily sickness was due to disharmony between the humours, mental weakness was caused by disharmonious, inconsistent beliefs (Engberg-Pedersen 1991, 189). As an epistemological category, a)sqe/neia characterized true belief, which was true only by accident. The Stoics explained the phenomenon of a)krasi/a as a mind characterized by unconsidered, internally inconsistent beliefs and therefore prone to give in to outright false ones. In the state of a)sqe/neia, the mind was caught between vacillating impulses. With this in mind, the Fourth Gospel seems to claim that a weak belief – which must be a Jewish one – in “the only true God” is made epistemologically strong(er),595 when it is supplemented with the knowledge of “him whom He has sent” (17:3). The cognitive transformation is expressed in various ways that all centre on the idea of a new or restored life. To Nicodemus, Jesus speaks about the “new (second) generation from above” (3:3: a1nwqen). In the case of the cripple (John 5), Jesus makes “a whole human being sound on a Sabbath” (7:23). 596 In the case of the congenitally blind man (John 9), Jesus perfects what was not accomplished in the first generation. When Lazarus is called forth from the grave by the voice of the Son of God, it is a dramatization of “the resurrection of life” promised to those who pursue the good (5:29).597 The implication of this strong belief is that God’s deeds are done (cf. 3:21, 6:28-29).598 When understood in this way, the Fourth Gospel seems to claim two things. First, the beliefs contained in Scripture are unconsidered and internally inconsistent and as such only true in a weak manner. The consequence is that obedience to the law may simultaneously be disobedience to the will of God. This problem is confronted by Jesus in the discussion with the Jews during the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7). Second, in ordinary cases Jewish faith is insufficient to overcome the weakness in which a person acts against what he previously found to be the right thing to do. In the Gospel, this claim is illustrated by the figure of Peter. In order to grasp why and how “knowledge of the only 595 I thus disagree with Brown’s statement that Lazarus represents Christians. John’s world is a Jewish world. However, the revealed truth concerning the only God (17:3) is of relevance to Gentiles as well (10:16; 11:52). 596 John 7:23: o#lon a!nqrwpon u9gih= e9poi/hsa e0n sabba&tw|; 597 John 5:29: oi9 ta_ a)gaqa_ poih/santej ei0j a)na&stasin zwh=j, 598 John 3:21: “But he who does the truth comes to the light, in order that it may become clear that his deeds have been done in God (o( de\ poiw~n th\n a)lh/qeian e1rxetai pro_j to_ fw~j, i3na fanerwqh|= au0tou= ta_ e1rga o#ti e0n qew|~ e0stin ei0rgasme/na). John 6:28-29: “Then they said to him: ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God (ti/ poiw~men i3na e0rgazw&meqa ta_ e1rga tou= qeou=;)?’ Jesus answered and said to them: ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent’ (tou=to& e0stin to_ e1rgon tou= qeou=, i3na pisteu&thte ei0j o$n a)pe/steilen e0kei=noj)”.
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true God and him whom He has sent” (17:3) is a stronger belief when compared with the guidance offered by the law, we shall inquire into these two cases. The interpretation is substantiated by a symbolic analysis of the disciples’ crossing of the Sea of Tiberias (6:16-21).
8.3.1 Making Jewish faith strong. First take. Sabbatical work The quarrel between Jesus and the Jews during the Feast of Tabernacles is occasioned by some Jews’ questioning Jesus’ qualifications for teaching. They point to the fact that Jesus has not been educated in the written law (7:15: ta_ gra&mmata). Jesus defends himself against their accusations by demonstrating that knowledge of the letter of the law does not necessarily lead to a just judgement. Instead of judging “according to appearance” (7:24: mh\ kri/nete kat’ o!yin), Jesus summons the Jews to make a “just judgement” (7:24: h9 dikai/a kri/sij). In his argument, Jesus takes the situation that provoked the Jews to persecute him as his starting point, namely his healing of the cripple on a Sabbath and his overt identification of his own Sabbatical work with God’s (5:16, 18). At first glance, the conflict between the Johannine Jesus and the Jews resembles the Sabbatical conflicts concerning Jesus’ mandate in the Synoptics, but something more is at stake in John. Let us initially have a look at the argument that unfolds at the surface level of the text. On the basis of the law, Jesus demonstrates that his healing of the cripple on a Sabbath was in accordance with the law’s teaching and, consequently, that the Jews’ efforts to kill him were unjustified. Premises that are accepted by both parties: 1. In Exod 31:15 it is said: “Everyone who does work on the Sabbath shall be put to death”. 2. In Gen 17:12 and Lev 12:3 the law prescribes: “On the eight day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised”. 3. The social practice was, however, that if birth takes place on a Sabbath, circumcision does so, too. Raymond Brown refers to Mishnah Nedarim 3:11: “R. Jose says, ‘Great is circumcision since it overrides the stringent Sabbath’” (Brown 1966, 312). Using the a minori ad maius principle, Jesus adds a premise that should also be accepted generally: 4. Whereas circumcision concerns only a part of the human being, Jesus’ healing made a whole human being sound (7:23). Jesus’ concluding inferences:
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5. If circumcision on a Sabbath is just, then his Sabbatical work must be as well. 6. Consequently, the Jews’ persecution of Jesus for violating the Sabbath is unjustified. Jesus’ argument demonstrates that education in ta_ gra&mmata does not imply that the law is used in a just way. In fact, quite the opposite seems to be the case: too much emphasis on ta_ gra&mmata leads to unjust judgements. However, Jesus’ description of his healing of the cripple as his “making a whole human being sound” indicates that more is at stake in Jesus’ and his Father’s Sabbath work than what “appears” at first sight.599 In the Judaism contemporary with the Fourth Gospel, the biblical idea of a God who changed from activity to Sabbatical rest appeared unacceptable. Philo’s treatment of the Sabbath in his treatises is indicative of this problem (Leg. 1.1-18). Unable as a philosopher to accept the idea of a resting God, Philo reinterprets the biblical motivation for the Sabbath; that God having ceased to work on the seventh day is non599 In his 1991 essay, “The Sabbath Controversy in John 5:1-18 and Analogous Controversy Reflected in Philo’s Writings”, Peter Borgen also interprets the Sabbatical healing of the Johannine cripple (5:1-18) and the controversy that it occasions with the Jews during the Feast of Tabernacles (7:19-24) in light of Philo’s understanding of the Sabbath. Borgen, however, takes the interpretation of John 5:1-18 in another direction than the one I suggest. Whereas I focus on the interpretation of the Seventh Day given in Legum allegoriae 1.1-18 as the day of God’s perfection of divine things, Borgen finds that it is the conflict with the spiritualizing Jews of Alexandria about the observation of the Sabbath discussed in Migr. 86-91 that constitutes a suitable parallel to John 5:1-18 & 7:21-24. To the spiritualizing Jews, the allegorical exegesis of Gen 2:2-3 in terms of God’s continuous work legitimated their abrogation of the Sabbath. Borgen explains: “The conclusion is: John 5:1-18 and 7:21-24 have their life-setting in the situation of the Johannine community in the period prior to the time of the writing of the Gospel. On the basis of the Jesus-tradition the community freed itself of the Sabbath observance by referring to the authority and the Sabbath work of Jesus. In this controversy the Johannine Christians drew on exegetical and halakhic debates on Sabbath observance in contemporary Judaism and applied the Jesus-tradition to these debates” (216) … “The point in John 5:1-18 is then to offer guidelines to a convert: he is set free from the observance of the Sabbath laws (and from keeping the other Jewish feasts) on the basis of Jesus’ divine authority, his non-conformity to the observance and his resulting death” (217) … “At the time of John 5:1-18 and 7:21-24 the Sabbath observance as such was a burning and controversial issue and Jewish halakhic exegesis and reasoning were utilized by the Johannine Christians” (218). In Borgen’s reading, the narratives of the abrogation of the Sabbath contribute to the establishment of the Gospel’s high Christology: “Since they [the Johannine Christians] referred to Jesus’ authority in this controversy, the Sabbath issue contributed to the formulation of a ‘high’ Christology” (1991, 218). I have argued that Christology is no burning issue in the Fourth Gospel; instead, it is the next generation or in traditional terms, the ecclesiology, which is at stake.
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sense and must be understood allegorically – that is, philosophically (Leg. 1.2). During the first six days of the creation, God was engaged in the creation of mortal things, but this He ceased doing on the seventh day in order to concentrate on the perfection of divine things, namely man’s soul (Leg. 1.16). Accordingly, the Sabbath is devoted to activities that aim at uprooting the desire directed towards mortal things (Leg. 1.18) and at developing virtues. For the mind in training (o( a)skhth/j) this takes place in the synagogues on the Sabbath when the law is studied: Further, when He forbids bodily labour on the seventh day, He permits the exercise of the higher activities, namely, those employed in the study of the principles of virtue’s lore. For the law bids us take the time for studying philosophy and thereby improve the soul and the dominant mind. So each seventh day there stand wide open in every city thousands of schools of good sense, temperance, courage, justice and the other virtues in which the scholars sit in order quietly with ears alert and with full attention, so much do they thirst for the draught which the teacher’s words supply [diyh=n lo&gwn poti/mwn]. (Spec. Laws 2.61f)
In De posteritate Caini, Philo also speaks of the “fresh sweet stream of wisdom” that issues forth from the law and quenches the scholars’ thirst for virtue, and he adds that, when their soul is “fostered” and “improves”, it is subjected to a process of paliggenesi/a (Post. 124). The Sabbath is the day, when – through His revelations – God engages in the “divine impregnation of outstanding, ever-virginal, natures” (QE 2.46). Consequently, God’s revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai, which is by Philo interpreted as his second conception (deute/ra ge/nesij), also belongs to God’s Sabbatical work. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus justified his healing of the cripple on a Sabbath with reference to the co-operative and continuous Sabbatical work of himself and his Father (5:17). In the discussion with the Jews during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus defended his Sabbatical healing with an a minori ad maius argument and argued that his Sabbatical work outdid circumcision by making a whole human being sound (7:23). Some Johannine scholars find that in these two situations Jesus features different arguments.600 However, when the two arguments are read in 600 See Borgen (1991), who notes that “In John 7:22-23 Jesus’ defence of the healing on the Sabbath is different from the one given in 5:17 (‘My Father is working still, and I am working’)”. In order to bring the two arguments together under the Sabbath theme, Borgen has recourse to Rabbinic sources (Tos. Sabb. 15:16): ‘He supersedes the Sabbath for one of his members, and shall he not supersede the Sabbath for his whole self?’ (1991, 213). However, if John 5 & 7 are read in light of the Sabbath theme from Legum allegoriae instead of Migr. 86-91, a relation between the two arguments is already offered: the Sabbath is the day in which God completes and perfects divine things, that is, the human mind.
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light of Philo’s symbolic interpretation of the Sabbath as the day of God’s perfection of creation, the differences are dissolved. Within this perspective, it seems reasonable to claim that the just judgement required by Jesus that goes beyond what is merely seen (7:25: kat’ o!yin) implies that the symbolic meaning of the act should also be taken into consideration. The fact that the healings (John 5 & 9) take place on a Sabbath becomes a way of representing symbolically the character and range of the work that Jesus is commissioned to carry out. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus’ work is depicted as making perfect or completing his Father’s work (4:34: teleiw&sw au0tou= to_ e1rgon; see also 5:36; 17:4; 19:30). His work is completed in the glorification that makes God and “him whom He has sent” known to the world: “This is the eternal life: that they know You and him You have sent, Jesus Christ. By perfecting/fulfilling the job that You have given me to carry out (to_ e1rgon teleiw&saj o$ de/dwka&j moi i3na poih/sw), I have glorified You on earth” (17:3-4). In the first part of this chapter, I have demonstrated how the paternal goodwill (1:14, 16: h9 xa&rij), affection (11:36: fili/a) and love (3:16; 15:13: h9 a)ga&ph) for the world is revealed through Jesus. It is the acknowledgement of God’s love as the ultimate source of life that perfects believers’ lives. Through this knowledge a union is established that is based on love; cf. 17:22f: “And the glory which You gave me I have given them, that they may be one just as we are one: I in them, and You in me; that they may be made perfect in one (i3na w}sin teteleiwme/noi ei0j e1n), and that the world may know that You have sent me, and have loved them as You have loved me”. The revelation of God’s lo&goj to Moses on a Sabbath on Mount Sinai, at least according to the tradition that Philo represents, is according to the Fourth Gospel made available to everyone who believes that Jesus is the anointed, the Son of God (20:31a). In Jesus, God’s lo&goj and love are displayed. Just as Moses once received a deute/ra ge/nesij, Johannine believers are now regenerated a!nwqen (John 3) through the Holy Spirit (20:22). Through this regeneration, their minds are physically healed (John 5), completed (John 9), restored (John 11) and cleansed (15:1-3) – and made perfect in love (17:23). When seen in this light, the opposition in Jesus’ discussion with the Jews between a just judgement and a judgement kat’ o!yin achieves yet another dimension. A just judgement is an act done out of knowledge of God’s love, and this is precisely what Jesus accuses the Jews of lacking in his initial defence of his Sabbatical work (5:42): “I know that you
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do not have God’s love abiding in you”.601 Although the law given through Moses (1:17) was given out of God’s goodwill, education into ta_ gra&mmata does not of necessity lead to knowledge and acknowledgement of God’s love. Conversely, knowledge of God’s love as it is displayed in Jesus makes education in ta_ gra&mmata superfluous. To this theme I shall come back in the “third take” on “Making Jewish faith strong”.
8.3.2 Making Jewish faith strong. Second take. The case of Peter If Jesus, when facing betrayal and death, had been caught by a momentary doubt about his mission, the fear was soon replaced by a strong conviction that will enable him to carry out the task appointed to him. Jesus’ devotion to his duty serves as foil to the disciple Peter’s failure. The two figures are brought into contact in the dialogue that follows the meal during which Jesus predicted his imminent betrayal by Judas. Three characters among the disciples are featured in this scene: the traitor Judas, the beloved but anonymous disciple and Peter. The cast is the same in the scenes of the betrayal, capture (18:1-14) and trial of Jesus (18:15-27); a paradigmatic fact that connects the two episodes. When Judas has disappeared into the dark, Jesus enigmatically announces to the remaining disciples that through this betrayal the Son of Man (and through him God) will be glorified (13:31-32). He adds that soon he will no longer be with them, and that he leaves for a place into which they are not able to follow him (13:33). As a replacement for his own presence, Jesus gives the new command of love to the disciples. From now on, this love, with which he has loved them, must also characterize their mutual relations (13:34). Mutual love will be a sign by the aid of which the world will recognize that they are his disciples of Jesus (13:35). Puzzled by Jesus’ words, Peter asks about the place where Jesus is going. Instead of a straightforward answer, Jesus promises Peter that although he is incapable of following him for the time being, he will indeed follow later. The answer appears unacceptable to Peter: how can it be that he, who is willing to give his life for Jesus’ sake (13:37: th\n yuxh/n sou u9pe\r e0mou= qh/seij;), will not be able to follow Jesus now? Jesus repeats Peter’s statement and adds that before the rooster has crowed, Peter will have denied Jesus three times (13:36). Having been betrayed by Judas, Jesus is arrested by the temple guard and taken from the garden to the High Priest’s quarter. Peter and another disciple 601 John 5:42: a)lla_ e1gnwka u9ma~j o#ti th\n a)ga&phn tou= qeou= ou0k e1xete e0n e(autoi=j.
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follow Jesus (18:15: h0kolou/qei de\ tw~| 0Ihsou= Si/mwn Pe/troj kai\ a!lloj maqhth/j).602 Since the other disciple is known by the High Priest, he is allowed to come in with Jesus, and he manages to arrange that Peter, too, is given entry into the courtyard. Confronted with several witnesses that recognize him as one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter denies his relation to Jesus three times. In the dialogue with Jesus after the last meal, Peter was convinced that following Jesus, even at the risk of his life, was the right thing to do, and that he would do it. However, in face of the actual risk his conviction weakens. The staging of the situation documents his weakness. On the one hand, Peter does follow Jesus: he defends him, although mistakenly, with weapons, he follows him to the quarter of the High Priest and even enters into the courtyard. All of these acts are indicative of Peter’s sincere wish to follow. On the other hand, he does not move forth from the courtyard into the place where Jesus is interrogated,603 and he denies his relationship with Jesus; these are acts which are indicative of his wish to spare his own life. In spite of this, however, he does not leave the courtyard.604 He hesitates and remains stuck in the 602 A strong tendency exists among scholars of the Fourth Gospel to identify “the other disciple” with the beloved disciple. Brown argues in favour of this understanding with a reference to the association of the figure of Peter with the figure of the beloved disciple in chapters 13, 20 and 21 (1966, 822). Schnelle follows Brown (1998, 266). Barrett argues from the viewpoint of the implied author, whom the Gospel identifies with the beloved disciple. The author needed an eyewitness to the questioning of Jesus by the Jewish authorities: “It is not impossible that John was aware of an objection to the traditional narrative, that Peter would not have been admitted to the scene of the trial, and introduced the other disciple to answer it” (1955, 438f). Bultmann, however, rejects an identification of the “the other disciple” with the beloved disciple: “Who the a!lloj maqhth/j is cannot be divined … There is no basis for identifying him with the ‘beloved disciple’ … and in particular his appearance with Peter is no reason for it; for the two figures do not appear here, as in 20:3-10 and 21:1-23, as rivals or as contrasted types … and nothing more is reported about the ‘other disciple’ than that he effects an entrance for Peter. Obviously it is not meant that he belongs to the Twelve” (1941, 499 note 6; 1971, 645 note 4). As my exegesis will demonstrate, I do not agree with Bultmann’s judgement that there is no contrasting of the two “types”. Wengst, too, renounces the identification of the other disciple; the function of the anonymous disciple is to bring Peter into the High Priest’s quarter and nothing more: “Dieser Funktion hat er erfüllt. Nun wird er nicht mehr gebraucht und tritt also auch nicht mehr auf” (2001, 208). 603 … and where “the other disciple” must be in order that the questioning of Jesus by the High Priest may be documented. See Barrett’s reasoning in the note above. 604 Contrary to the Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel does not mention explicitly that the courtyard where Peter stays is separated from the place of Jesus’ inquiry. Since John in other ways follows this tradition, I think that the separation may be presupposed. See again Barrett’s reasoning in the note above. The other disciple is inside, Peter outside the place of interrogation (Barrett 1955, 440).
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intermediary space of the courtyard: not outside, with his life in safety; not inside with Jesus, with his life at risk. Like the man at the pool of Bethesda in his bodily weakness (5:5: e0n th|= a)sqenei/a| au0tou=), Peter is left immobile by his mental weakness in the courtyard and is in need of help. Although Peter is incapable of following Jesus, he is not a wicked character. He is not like Judas, but nor is he like the other, anonymous disciple who follows Jesus all the way and who – at least for that reason – should be identified with the beloved disciple of Jesus. Peter is an intermediary character. In Chapter Three, in the discussion of Philo’s ethics, it was explained how the Stoics distinguished between three ethical types: o( fau/loj, o( me/soj and o( spoudai/oj. In general – and also in Philo’s writings, it was the intermediary character – o( me/soj or o( mh/pw teleiwqei/j – who as the primary target of exhortation was of any interest.605 Against this background, it seems obvious to identify the three disciples, who are staged together, with these three positions. The cure of Peter’s weakness was not mentioned in the original Gospel, but the author could take knowledge of the historical fact of Peter’s continuous history with the Christ believing community for granted. Add to this that, in the text, Peter’s cure is indirectly implied by the secondary and symbolic perspective on the signs – that is, by the generation a!nwqen that Peter had not yet received at the moment of his denial. Peter’s restoration almost begged to be told – and John 21 has been added. The fact that chapter 21 is firmly integrated into the Fourth Gospel, narratively as well as idiomatically, does not necessarily imply that it was also a part of the original Gospel. From a rhetorical or reader sensitive point of view, the addition of John 21 closes the figure of Peter for the reader’s imagination and identification.606
8.3.3 Making Jewish faith strong. Third take. Crossing the Tiberias I have argued that when the signs are expounded symbolically (cf. 20:31b), they provide the life-engendering, life-restoring and liferenewing knowledge that is the source of eternal life (cf. 17:3). This is 605 See my analysis of Philo’s exhortation in Leg. 92-94 in Chapter Three. 606 The understanding of the figure of Peter as an intermediary character between Judas and the beloved disciple is also argued by Alexsandar Gusa in his dissertation on friendship in the Gospel of John (Gusa 2004, 243). Gusa takes it for granted that Peter’s companion in the High Priest’s quarter is the beloved disciple (245). Gusa adopts a dynamic point of view on the figure of Peter: through his friendship with Jesus, Peter is transformed from a failing to a devoted friend – like that of the beloved disciple (243).
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obvious in those signs in which Jesus performs a healing, but other kinds of signs may also make sense at the symbolic level. This is, for instance, the case with the story of the disciples who struggle to pass the Sea of Tiberias after Jesus’ miraculous feeding of the multitude. In the Synoptics, the stories of the disciples’ journeying at sea are first and foremost epiphanies that reveal the divine and creative power at work in Jesus, but they also form part of the Messianic secret by their depiction of the disciples’ continuing lack of understanding. However, the Messianic secret and Jesus’ identity are not really an issue in the Fourth Gospel. In Mark, the crossing of the sea mediates between the Gentile and the Jewish worlds, but this is not a theme in John either. Consequently, in John the story has appeared superfluous to many commentators, its only function being that of providing a literary and logistical mediation between two scenes. In general, its presence is ascribed to the sense of obligation that the Evangelist may have felt towards the tradition (Brown 66, 252). However, I shall argue that the sign is right to the point when the story is read symbolically in light of the transformation of believers engendered by faith in Jesus. In John as well as in the Synoptics, the problem is the rough sea which impedes the progression of the disciples’ boat. Yet, in John’s version of the story the accent differs from that of the Synoptics’ (Matt 8:23-27; 14:22-32, Mark 4:35-41; 6:45-52, Luke 8:22-35). In the synoptic versions, the focus is on the miraculous stilling of the storm and on the question of Jesus’ identity: who can he be that even the wind and the sea obey him? In the Johannine story, there is no stilling of the storm, and although Jesus does walk on the sea, it is not the epiphany that constitutes the story’s clue, but the effect that Jesus’ coming has on the disciples’ situation. In John, the situation is not solved by Jesus’ calming of the sea – seemingly the sea remains rough – but by the speedy transposition of the boat to the shore of Capernaum. That the vessel immediately (eu0qe/wj) reaches the land for which the disciples were heading is the miraculous effect of wanting to receive Jesus onboard (6:21: h!qelon ou]n labei=n au0to_n ei0j to_ ploi=on, kai\ eu0qe/wj e0ge/neto to_ ploi=on e0pi\ th=j gh=j ei0j h4n u9ph=gon). Thus, in line with an overall tendency in the Fourth Gospel, the accent is here displaced from Christology to ecclesiology. As yet another sign that interprets the generation a!nwqen, the story receives a unique meaning in John. The sign anticipates and interprets the situation after Jesus’ death, where the disciples are left alone “for a short time” (16:16-19: mikro&n) and therefore are in risk of being caught
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by the dark (6:17, cf. 12:35) and of falling away (16:1: skandali/zein).607 Most interpreters find that the story alludes to the Exodus tradition and the Jewish celebration of the Passover. 608 I would, however, like to draw attention to yet another possible allusion, namely, Gen 1:2, in which darkness prevailed and God’s spirit was hovering over the sea (Gen 1:2LLX: kai\ sko&toj e0pa&nw th=j a)bu/ssou, kai\ pneu=ma qeou= e0pefe/reto e0pa&nw tou= u3datoj).609 When seen in this light, the sign anticipates how, after his ascent and translation into the pneumatic Father (20:17), Jesus returns through the darkness (6:17, cf. 20:19) as God’s Spirit to the frightened disciples. As they receive him, they immediately reach the goal for which they had been striving, namely earthly and eternal life. In Philo’s treatises, crossing a river, or in general navigating a vessel, is a symbol of the soul’s journey towards virtue and truth. Without God’s help – as it is mediated through Moses and the law – the soul wrestling with passions is left like a vessel on a tumultuous sea with no pilot on the bridge: For when the soul is swaying and tossing like a vessel, now to the side of the mind now to that of body [o#tan ga_r kaq’ e9ka&teron toi=xon th=j yuxh=j new_j tro&pon, to&n te nou= kai\ ai0sqh/sewj], owing to the violence of the passions and misdeeds that rage against her, and the billows rising mountains high sweep over her, then in all likelihood the mind becomes waterlogged and sinks [to&q’ w(j ei0ko_j u9pe/rantloj o( nou=j gino&menoj katapontou=tai]; and the bottom to which it sinks is nothing else than the body, of which Egypt is the figure. (Agr. 89)
According to Philo, the good pilot (o( a)gaqo&j kubernh/thj) who enables “a vessel, the living being I mean, to make life’s voyage successfully (di’ w{n w{sper ska&foj to_ zw~|on eu0ploi/a| th=| tou= bi/ou xrh/setai) [is] … the right principle (ou{toj de\ e0stin o( o)rqo_j lo&goj)” (Leg. 3.80). When the Johannine sign of the boat struggling at sea is read in this light, it suggests that life according to the law, Philo’s pilot, leads nowhere, but when faith in Jesus supervenes and the spirit has come, that is, when Jesus has been installed as the divine pilot and lo&goj, then the pursued goal is immediately reached.
607 John 12:35: “Then Jesus said to them: “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtakes you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going (e1ti mikro_n xro&non to_ fw~j e0n u9mi=n e0stin. peripatei=te w(j to_ fw~j e1xete, i3na mh\ skoti/a u9ma~j katala/bh|: kai\ o( peripatw~n e0n th=| skoti/a| ou0k oi]den pou= u9pa&gei). 608 See Brown (1966, 225) and Schnackenburg (1980, 39). 609 Actually, this intertextual reading offers an explanation to a problem with which the interpreters have been struggling, namely why in 6:19 John uses e0pi\ with the genitive: th=j qala&sshj (Brown 1966, 252). A suggestion is that by using the genitive, John has hinted intentionally at God’s spirit in Gen 1:2.
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8.3.4 Summary Throughout the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is related to an idea of immediacy and instantaneousness. Having Jesus as a pilot brings the boat right to the shore (6:21: eu0qe/wj); believers are already cleansed by Jesus’ word (15:3: h!dh); the toil is already done by others, only the harvesting and enjoyment of their work is left (4:38: o$ ou0x u9mei=j kekopia&kate: a!lloi kekopia&kasin). Faith in Jesus as the anointed and the Son of God (20:31a) and the knowledge of the only true God that is available in and through him (17:3) constitute – as claimed by Origen in his argument with Celsus: a short cut to truth (Cels. 7.42-43). The soul’s ascent through training in the law and in philosophy, which were recommended by Philo as Sabbatical activities, is replaced by Jesus’ and his Father’s Sabbatical work (5:17). The para&klhsij or guidance of the soul called for by the Stoic philosophers is met in the coming of the Paraclete. The reluctant inhabitants in Plato’s cave no longer have to ascend towards light and truth, the light and the truth have in Jesus as the anointed Son of God entered the darkness of the world. The toils of journeying have (4:6 o( ko&poj e0k th=j o(doipori/aj), as the Johannine Jesus tells his disciples, been done by others (4:38), namely in Jesus’ continuous a)na&basij, first, up to Jerusalem, then in the up-lifting onto the cross and finally in the ascent and translation into the pneumatic Father. The cosmic speculations of Philo and pagan philosophers are replaced in the Fourth Gospel by faith in the “heavenly things” (3:12) that Jesus reveals, namely the goodwill (1:14, 16: h9 xa&rij), the affection (11:36: fili/a) and the love (3:16; 15:13: h9 a)ga&ph) that motivates the Father in His interactions with the world. Therefore the Johannine Jesus is claimed to be “the way, the truth and the life” (14:6): the preparation (the way), the goal (the truth) and the effect (the life) are realized in faith. The demand for a well-guided way to the Lord (1:23), initially made by a representative of the Jewish dispensation, John the Baptist, has been met in Jesus. The way to the Lord offered by Johannine faith is well-guided and safe, for journeying has, as it were, already been done. The knowledge that is to be obtained at the end of the way is already displayed in Jesus – in his words, in the performed signs and in his emotions. The truth is brought directly home to the believer. Speaking in Johannine terms: the toil has been done, the pneumatic seed has been sown; now harvesting alone is left for those who believe. What pagan philosophers and pious Jews pursued is realized in Johannine faith (20:31). The Stoic maxim of a)koluqei/a fu/sewj, the Jewish idea of living
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kata_ qeo&n, that is, in accordance with the law, are summarized and realized in the Johannine maxim: a)kolouqei/a tw~| 0Ihsou=.610 In Chapter Three, we saw how Philo split the Stoic discourse on the ethical value of giving advice. While arguing that Stoic philosophy could not offer the beginner on the path in virtue any help, Philo reserved the more nuanced position of combining theoretical dogma with the specificity of advice for his Moses. “Now”, Philo claimed, “wise men take God for their guide and teacher, but the less perfect take the wise man” (Her. 19) – and in place of the wise man, his law. The positive value of giving advice was claimed for the injunctions of Moses’ law. The rhetorical strategy seems now to be repeated in the Fourth Gospel, however, in reverse. In John, the position represented by the wilderness – the point zero of John the Baptist at the other side of the Jordan – is reduced to pure ta_ gra&mmata without the dialectic of general principles. The Gospel now assigns the “truth” to faith in Jesus. But as we have seen in Chapter Two: (in spite of Philo’s claims) the Stoics had a well-developed discourse on giving advice; and in Chapter Three: (in spite of the Gospel’s claims) the Jew Philo installed God’s grace as the ultimate truth and the beginning of All that is. Beyond the play of rhetoric, a difference however remains. Although the world view of John is philosophically informed, the Evangelist’s choice of genre differs from a philosophical treatise, and although it is a narrative charged with symbolic meanings, it differs from Philo’s allegorical commentary. His book is a gospel that puts the truth on display with the persuasive means that a narrative genre allows. In the narrative rhetoric of the Fourth Gospel, logos, ethos, and pathos intermingle in order to persuade the reader about the ultimate truth: God’s loving care for His creation. His text provides a mirror in which the reader’s identity as a child of God is reflected.
610 No less than 11 instances of the verb a)kolouqei=n with Jesus as indirect (dative) object are found in the Gospel (15, if chapter 21 is included): John 1:37-38, 40, 43: kai\ le/gei au0tw~| o( 0Ihsou=j: a)kolou&qei moi. John 8:12: e0la&lhsen o( 0Ihsou=j le/gwn: e0gw& ei0mi to_ fw~j tou= ko&smou: o( a)kolouqw~n e0moi\ ou0 mh\ peripath/sh| e0n th=| skoti/a|, a)ll’ e3cei to_ fw~j th=j zwh=j. John 10:4: kai\ ta_ pro&bata au0tw~| a)kolouqei=, o#ti oi1dasin th_n fwnh\n au0tou=: John 10:27: ta_ pro&bata ta_ e0ma_ th=j fwnh=j mou a)kou/ousin, ka)gw_ ginw&skw au0ta_ kai\ a)kolouqou=si/n mou, John 12:26: e0a_n e0moi/ tij diakonh|=, e0moi\ a)kolouqei/tw, John 13:36-37: Le/gei au0tw~| Simwn Pe/troj: ku/rie, pou= u9pa&geij; a)pekri/qh [au0tw~|] 0Ihsou=j: o#pou u)pa&gw ou0 du/nasai/ moi nu=n a)kolouqh=sai, a)kolouqh/seij de\ u3steron. John 18:15: 0Hkolou/qei de\ tw~| 0Ihsou= Si/mwn Pe/troj kai\ a!lloj maqhth/j. John 21:19, 20, 21, 22.
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Modern Hermeneutics Chatman, Seymour. 1978. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1976, Of grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore & London: The John Hopkins University Press. Fish, Stanley. 1980 (1995 9th printing). Is There A Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
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Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Discourse. Pages 48-78 in Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Edited and introduced by R. Young. Boston: Routledge Kegan Paul. Gallagher, Catherine & Greenblatt, Stephen. 2000. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Genette, Gérard. 1980 (1981). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Greimas, Algirdas J. 1976. Prologue de Jean: Essai de description sémiotique. Sémiotique et Bible 4: 14-23. Gulddal, Jesper & Møller, Martin. 2002. Hermeneutik: En antologi om forståelse. København: Gyldendal. Haraway, Donna J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. _______ 1991a. Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Pages 183-201 in Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. By D. J. Haraway. New York: Routledge. Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Kristeva, Julia & Moi, Toril. 1986. The Kristeva Reader. Edited by T. Moi. New York: Columbia University Press. Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark. 1980 (1984). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth, Texas: Texas Christian University Press. Ricoeur, Paul & Mudge, Lewis S. 1980. Essays in Biblical Interpretation. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Ricoeur, Paul. 1980a. Preface to Bultmann. Pages 49-73 in Paul Ricoeur: Essays on Biblical Interpretation. Edited and introduced by L. S. Mudge. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. _______ 1980b. Towards a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation. Pages 73-119 in Paul Ricoeur: Essays on Biblical Interpretation. Edited and introduced by L. S. Mudge. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. Schott, Robin M. 2003. Discovering Feminist Philosophy: Knowledge, Ethics, Politics. Feminist constructions. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. _______ 2004. Feministisk filosofi. København: Gyldendal. Smith, Jonathan Z. 1990. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, 14. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (Chicago: Chicago University Press).
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Smith, Jonathan Z. 1978 (1993). Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, 23. Leiden: Brill (Chicago: Chicago University Press). Simonsen, Dorthe G. 2003. Tegnets tid: Fortid, historie og historicitet efter den sproglige vending. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum. Young, Robert ed. 1981. Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Theological Literature Kierkegaard, Søren & Thulstrup, Niels. 2001. Philosophiske Smuler. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel. Lessing, Gotthold E. 1777. Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft. Pages 310-322 in Teologiske tekster. 1994. Edited by Afdeling for Dogmatik. Aarhus Universitet. Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag.
Biblical Studies. Modern Works Ashton, John. 1991. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ashton, John ed. 1986 (1997). The Interpretation of John. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. (Edinburgh: T & T Clack). Attridge, Harold D. 2002. Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel. Journal of Biblical Literature 121: 3-21. _______ 2003. “Don’t be Touching Me”: Recent Feminist Scholarship on Mary Magdalene. Pages 140-166 in A Feminist Companion to John. Volume II. Edited by A. Levine & M. Blinckenstaff. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press. _______ 2006a. The Cubist Principle in Johannine Imagery: John and the Reading of Images in Contemporary Platonism. Pages 47-60 in Imagery in the Gospel of John: Terms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language. Edited by J. Frey & J. van der Watt & R. Zimmermann. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. _______ 2006b. Resurrection in the Fourth Gospel. Unpublished paper presented at the SNTS meeting. Aberdeen. August 2006. Aune, David E. & Seland, Torrey & Ulrichsen, Jan H. eds. 2002. Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen. Supplements to Novum Testamentum, 106. Brill: Leiden. Aune, David E. 1995. Human Nature and Ethics in Hellenistic Philosophical Traditions and Paul: Some Issues and Problems. Pages 291-312 in Paul in his Hellenistic Context. Edited by T. Engberg-Pedersen. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
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Barclay, John M. G. 1997. Colossians and Philemon. New Testament Guides. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. _______ 2006 Response to “A Stoic Understanding of Pneu=ma in John”. Response in the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christian Section at the AAR & SBL Annual Meetings. Washington, D.C. Barrett, Charles K. 1955 (1975). The Gospel according to St. John. An introduction with commentary and notes on the Greek text. London: SPCK. Bauer, Walter. 1912. Johannes. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 2. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Bauer, Walter & Lietzmann, Hans. 1933. Das Johannesevangelium. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament 2. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr. Baur, Ferdinand C. 1864. Vorlesungen über neutestamentliche Theologie. Leipzig: Hrsg. F. C. Baur. Betz, Otto. 1963. Der Paraklet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentums, im Johannes-Evangelium und in neugefunden gnostischen Schriften. Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Spätjudentum und Urchristentums 2. Leiden: Brill. Black, Fiona C. & Boer, Roland & Runions, Eric. 1999. The Labour of Reading: Desire, Alienation, and Biblical Interpretation. Essays in Honour of Robert C. Cully. Semeia studies. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press. Borgen, Peter. 1991. The Sabbath Controversy in John 5:1-18 and Analogous Controversy Reflected in Philo’s Writings. The Studia Philonica Annual, Studies in Hellenistic Judaism: Heirs of the Septuagint. Philo, Hellenistic Judaism and Early Christianity III: 209-221. Brenner, Athalya. 1996. A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible in the New Testament. The Feminist Companion to the Bible 10. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Brooke, A. E & Origen. 1896. The Commentary of Origen on S. John's Gospel. The text revised with a critical introduction and indices by A. E. Brooke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Raymond E. S.S. 1966-1970. The Gospel according to John. The Anchor Bible 29. London: Geoffrey Chapman. _______ 1979. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist Press. _______ 1982. The Epistles of John. The Anchor Bible 30. New York: Garden City. Brown, Raymond E. S.S. & Francis J. Moloney S.D.B. 2003. An Introduction to the Gospel of John. Edited, updated, introduced, and concluded by Francis J. Moloney. New York: Doubleday. Brown, Tricia G. 2003. Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-scientific Perspective. Journal for the Study of New Testament. Supplement Series 253. London: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
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Buch-Hansen, Gitte & Engberg-Pedersen, Troels & Fatum, Lone eds. 2006. Gender and Body in the Gospel of John. Copenhagen: Biblical Studies Section, The Faculty of Theology, The University of Copenhagen. Buch-Hansen, Gitte. 2007. A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John. Pages 75100 in Philosophy at the Roots of Christianity. Edited by T. EngbergPedersen & H. Tronier. Copenhagen: Biblical Studies Section, The Faculty of Theology, The University of Copenhagen. Bultmann, Robert. 1941 (1952). Das Evangelium des Johannes. Kritisch exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. _______ 1953. Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Neue theologische Grundrisse. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). _______ 1971. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Translated from the 1964 printing of Das Evangelium des Johannes. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Westminster Press. _______ 1925. Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums. Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24: 100-146. _______ 1951. Neues Testament und die Mythologie. Pages 15-48 in Kerygma und Mythos I: Ein theologisches Gespräch. Edited by H. W. Bartsch. Hamburg: Herbert Reich. _______ 1952a. Das Problem der Hermeneutik. Pages 211-235 in Glauben und Verstehen: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Edited by R. Bultmann. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck). _______ 1952b. Zur Problem der Entmythologisierung. Pages 179-208 in Kerygma und Mythos II: Diskussionen und Stimmen zum Problem der Entmythologisierung. Edited by H. W. Bartsch. Hamburg: Herbert Reich. _______ 1954. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. New Testament Studies 1: 77-91. Burge, Gary M. 1987. The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Burton, Mack L. 1973. Logos und Sophia. Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie im hellenistischen Judentum 10. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Byrne, Brendan J. 1991. Lazarus: A Contemporary Reading of John 11:1-46. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. Coloe, Mary L. 2001. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press. Conway, Colleen M. 2003a. “Behold the Man!” Masculine Christology and the Fourth Gospel. Pages 163-180 in New Testament Masculinities. Edited by S. D. Moore & J. C. Anderson. Semeia Studies, 45. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature. _______ 2003b. Gender Matters in John. Pages 79-103 in A Feminist Companion to John. Volume II. Edited by A. Levine & M. Blinckenstaff. Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press.
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Moore, Stephen D. 1994. Poststructuralism and the New Testament: Derrida and Foucault at the Foot of the Cross. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Moore, Stephen D. & Anderson, Janice C. eds. 2003. New Testament Masculinities. Semeia Studies 45. Atlanta, Georgia: Society of Biblical Literature. Müller, Mogens & Thompson, Thomas L. 2005. Historie og konstruktion: Festskrift til Niels Peter Lemche i anledning af 60 års fødselsdagen den 6. september 2005. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag. Neyrey, Jerome H. 2002. Spaces and Places, Whence and Whither, Homes and Rooms: “Territoriality” in the Fourth Gospel. Biblical Theology Bulletin, vol. 32, no. 2: 60-74. Nielsen, Jesper T. 2003. Korsets kognitive dimension. En studie i Johannesevangeliets forståelse af Jesu død. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Faculty of Theology, The University of Aarhus. _______ 2006a. The Blended Lamb: Cognitive Grounding of the Johannine Lamb of God. Pages 217-256 in Imagery in the Gospel of John. Terms, Themes, and Theology of Johannine Figurative Language. Edited by J. Frey & J. van der Watt & R. Zimmermann. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. _______ 2006b. “And the Flesh Became Word”: An Aristotelian Reading of the Resurrection Scenes in the Gospel of John. Unpublished paper presented at the SNTS meeting. Aberdeen. August 2006. _______ (2009 forthcoming). Korsmærkernes kognitive funktion: Johannesevangeliets narrative grundstruktur. Copenhagen: Alfa. Nissen, Johannes. 2001. Stedets og rummets betydning i Johannesevangeliet. Collegium Biblicum Årsskrift, vol. 2001:21-32. Nutu, Ela. 2007. Incarnate Word, Inscribed Flesh: John’s Prologue and the Postmodern. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press. _______ 2003. Words and Flesh and the Desire for God: On John and Greenaway’s Pillow Book. Biblical Interpretation, vol. 11, no. 1: 79-97. Pagels, Elaine H. 1973. The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John. Society of Biblical Literature. Monograph Series 17. Nashville: Abingdon. Painter, John. 1986. The “Opponents” in 1 John. New Testament Studies, vol. 32, no. 1: 48-71. Peacocke, Athur & Clayton, Philip eds. 2007. All That Is: A Naturalistic Christian Faith for the Twenty-first Century. Minneapolis: Ausburg Fortress Press. Peacocke, Athur. 2007. A Naturalistic Christian Faith for the Twenty-first Century: An Essay in Interpretation. Pages 1-56 in All That Is: A Naturalistic Christian Faith for the Twenty-first Century. Edited by A. Peacocke and P. Clayton. Minneapolis: Ausburg Fortress Press. Pilgaard, Aage ed. 2005. Apologetik i Det Nye Testamente. Copenhagen: Anis. Porsch, Felix. 1974. Pneuma und Wort: ein exegetischer Beitrag zur Pneumatologie des Johannesevangeliums. Frankfurter theologische Studien 16. Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht. de la Potterie, Ignace. 1962. Naître de l'eau et naître de l'Esprit. Sciences Ecclésiastiques 14: 351-374.
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Indices Subject Index Abraham Philo 88, 105, 109n175, 130, 195, 254f, 261f, 380, John 262n330, 335n436 Adam Paul, last Adam 1f, 30n45, 349-51, 350n455, 402 John 373-75 Philo, earthly man, Adamic mind 13538, 145, 174, 193, 194n244, 245; creation of woman from Adam 132 a)krasi/a-e0gkra&teia 85n140, 94f, 101n159, 180, 435, 442, 445f Allegory, allegorical allegory-typology 292-294, 292n369, 293n371, 329-331, 331n426, 344 John 227, 296f, 296n376, 448n599, 450n600 Philo 59, 88, 114-20, 132-34, 145-49, 198n247, 210, 212, 222 Plato, allegory of the cave 364, 367-70, 387, 395 a)nastoixei/wsij John 59, 61, 215, 402f Paul 2n3 Philo 66, 306, 306n395, 351-53, 376-80, 382-85 Stoicism 59, 71f Anger John, God’s anger 223, 243, 249, 260, 262, 268, 336; Jesus’ anger 432-37, 433n553, n554, 435n556, n557, 438n577 Philo 270f, 327n422 Stoicism 99, 135 a)pa&qeia John 62, 407, 429, 434 Philo 62, 108, 138, 326n422, 327, 430, 438 Stoicism 62, 79, 91-93, 99, 103, 135, 407, 429f Antidote, see serpent Apocalypticism, apocalyptic 3, 5, 17, 29, 204n257, 220f, 243, 252, 256, 264, 273, 293n371, 296, 316, 322n419, 335, 365, 366n462, 416, 417n526
Ascension, ascent John, descent/ascent pattern 6-14, 12n14, 17, 32, 170, 294n374, 316n413, 320, 332, 352, 378n473, 389n487, 395; Jesus’ ascent, too many references Moses‘ ascent 115, 141, 172-74, 212n267, 213, 292, 295f, 320, 322n419, 351f, 379, 381, 385-87 Plato 111, 135, 138, 141, 292, 395, 456 Asclepius, Asclepian 138f, 246n317 a)sqe/neia, a)sqenei=n John 62, 236, 407, 428n456, 433, 435, 442, 445f, 453 Stoicism 81, 98 Atonement John 41n72, 264f, 264n333, 265n335, 26769, Philo 270 Baptism, Christologie (Tauf-, Tauferkreisen) 36, n58, 39-43, 41n72, 52, 57, 217, 276n350, 403n507, 404; in Corinth 41, 350n455; in the (Holy) spirit 61, 162, 215, 219-21, 225f, 225n286, 228f, 239, 250, 257f, 261, 273, 303, 339f, 343, 406, 418n530, 421; Jesus’ baptism 34-41, 41n72, 165, 218, 219n272, n273, 227, 240, 272n347, 345n445, 352, 393 Beloved disciple, the 14n20, 33, 189, 303, 333n430, 408, n513, 409n514, 411f, 452n602, 453 Christology; Adoptions- 36, n58, 44, 52, 56, 217f, 219n273, 233n299, 276n350, 403, 404n507; Geist- 36, n58, 37-44, 38n62, 52, 56, 217, 276n350, 403; Herrlichkeit- 40, 28, 287n366, 334n435; Tauf- see Baptism; Trennungs- 36, n58, 41n72, 38-43, 52, 57, 217, 276n305, 403 Cleansing, cleansed, clean John 40, 41n71, 206, 209, 223f, 254, 257f, 261f, 274, 342, 450, 456 Philo 222, 246 Commentatio mortis 380, n476
484
Indices
Creation John 188, 422-27, 385 Philo, creation of the world 108, 212, 294f, 305, 382, 449-50; of man 113-32; of woman 132-36 Stoicism 72, 85, 328f, 424-26 Crying, tears, groaning John, Jesus’ crying 63, 103, 428f, 433-37, 433n553, 438n577 Philo 103, 429, 433-40 Plato, Alcibiades 103n164, 440n581 Stoicism 99 Das blosse Dass 8, 10, 56, 171f, 222n278, 282, Docetism, docetic 39, 41n68, 42f, 187f, 199, 207, 288, n366, 324, 331, 366, 409-11, 431n549; anti-docetism 189, 205, 324, 328f, 331, 409, n515, 411, 413, 432n552 Dualism, dualistic John 5, 10n12, 12, 17, 29, 41, 43, 44n92, 47n92, 56, 169n216, 171n219, 276, 331f, 332n430, 352, 365 Modern theology 285f Philo 112, 115-123 Stoicism 76n125, 82n134 Elijah, redivivus 218, 227, 231f, 241-43, 249, 257, 262; extraordinary death 60, 381 Emotions John, God’s emotions 213, 336, 366, 407, 423, 442, 444, 457; Jesus‘ emotions 62, 103, 160, 334n433, 407, 427-37, 441f, 441n585, 444, 456 Philo 62, 103, 129f, 135-37, 150-52, 213, 326, 375-79, 438-40 Stoicism 62f, 81n132, 92-103, 94n152, 97n157, 103n160, 133-35, 334n433, 429n548, 439n581 Epigenesis Aristotelian 126, 179-83, 207, 210n265, 352 John 22f, 31, 167, 177, 183-91,198-201, 214, 290, 303f, 352 Philo 126, 184, 191-201, 352 1Erwj 106, 134, 140f, 200f Eucharist 390, n492, 391n494 eu0pa&qeiai Philo 438-41 Stoicism 102f, 102n160, n162, 103n163 Eve 132, 134, 373; new Eve 188 Exhortation, see paraenesis John 453 Philo 145-151
Faith, strong 338, 407, 446-55; see strength, mental Familia dei 189f, 198f Fatherhood 187; Aristotle 200, 207; divine 188, 209, 304, 394, 402, 424; multiple fathers 179,182, 200, 207 Feast of Tabernacle 348, 427, 442, 446f, 448n599, 449 Feminism; philosophy 54, n108; scholarship, on John 166, 176, 179, 189-204, 202n252, n253, 203n254, 214, 374, 396n498 Foetus, epigenesis 125f, 181f, 193, 196, 304 Force fields, Stoic 70f, 76 Gardening, Philo 127, 145f, 148, 328n424 Generation a!nwqen, John, too may references; autogenesis, female 181, 195; autogenesis male, divine 193, 195, 199; parthenogenesis, see virgin birth Glorification 34, 45, 161, 172, 266, 301, 316, 317n416, 324, 329, 333, chapter seven, 400n503, 403n505, 410n517, 423, 428, 432, 450 Gnosticism, Gnostic; anti-Gnostic agenda 118, 205f, 413; Capitalized 39, 43, 206-10, 411; dubious category 39n66, 206n261, 207; Primal Man 122; Gnostic reception of John 12f Grace, gift John 50, 113, 127, 157, 171f, 231n293, 271, 285, 329, 335-38, 344, 368, 374 Philo 141, 152, 171, 175, 198n247, 244f, 270f, 308, 294, 457; Noah’s find 108f, 144, 157, 212, 258, 295, 377 Hagar, the bondswoman 130 Heavenly food John 171, 292, 386f Philo 141, 141n190, 143, 292, 385-87 Plato 141 Hiatus, see lo&goj-pneu=ma Iustificatio impiorum 58, 337n438, 338 Impregnation 137; of the mind 193, 195, 449 Incarnation, too many references Indwelling, divine 21f, 55, 59, 77n128, 78, 185, 189, 259, 287, n366, 289, 302n389, 308, 353, 365-67, 390, 416-18, 420, 426 Irony, Johannine 16, 18, 177n222, 187, 190, 207f, 214, 259, 277n352, 302, 387, 397, 413n520, 442, 443n587, n588
Subject Index Isaiah; program of redemption 228, 23241; suffering servant 235, 263, 265f, 329, 430n549 John the Baptist 11, 29, 36, 38, 41, 44, 61, 164, 171, 217-74 (chapter five), 338-44, 338n440, 343n444, 442n586, 456f Judgement, eschatological 225, 237, 240, 243, 252, 256, 265n335, 267f, 272f, 336, 336n437, 393, Kingdom of God 12, 166, 168, 173, 206, 208f, 214, 220, 221n277, 269, 280, 292, 295, 299, 302, 321n419 kra~sij 59-61, 63, 70, 75-84, 94, 207, 286f, 352, 391, 418 Lamb of God, Pascha Lamb John 228f, 230, 235, 237, 262-66, 264n332, 334, 269, 273, 394f Philo 394f Levite, Levitical John 232, 243, 244n314, 249, 257f, 261, 263, 265 Philo 244-49, 261 lo&goj Logos asarkos, ensarkos 43, 49, 55, 178, 233n297 lo&goj-pneu=ma, hiatus 5, 7, 37, 44f, 58, 219n271, 393 Love, God’s, divine love John 213, 277, 322, 330n427, 333-36, 335n436, 345, 358f, 364-67, 366n465, 427, 442, 450f Philo 270f Manna John 171, 223, 389 Philo 141, 171, 222, 322 Mary Magdalene 30, 186, 189, 202, n251, 290, 356, 359-61, 361n457, 371-74, 371n467, 372n468, 391n494, 395-98, 396n498, 400n503, 410n516, n517, 405 Maxim John, ethical 427, 457 Stoicism, ethical 114, 153, 427, 456; physics 67n114, 69, 382 Medea 134, n183, 138, 155 me/soj o( 130f, 145f, 148-54, 196, 453 Meta-story, definition 1; too many references metriopa&qeia 139, 326n422, 327, 429 Middle Platonism 4, 113, 120, 308n397, 383n478
485
Minimal and maximal reason 84, 89, 91, 93, 95, 126f, 175, 245f Mola uteri 181f, 182n231, 195n246, 197 Moses John 33, 169f, 170n217, 176n223, 223, 231, 254, 277, 295f, 319-23, 322n419, 330n425, 332f, 333n431, 338, 387-90, 402, 406n508, 450f Philo, too many references Mother, maternity; a)mh/twr, no mother 175f, 193, 199, 200, 207f; Aristotle 179182; Jesus’ mother 23, 166, 185-89, 188n237, 199; sense perception as mother 142; spiritual motherhood 186, 187n236 Moulding, Philo’s idea of 124f, 130, 132, 141, 145, 195, 197 New Criticism 19, 23, 26, 37, 117, 159 New Historicism 23-28, 23n34, 158, 348n477 Noah’s find 108f, 144, 152, 157, 295, 376f oi0kei/wsij Philo, subversion of 60, 128, 149, 152, 175, 195, 211n268, 244, 308, 377-79 Stoicism 89f, 89n144, 90n146, 92, 95n155, 109, 147 o)rqo_j lo&goj, right reason Philo 143, 147, 149, 175, 193, 197, 200, 210, 212, 254 Stoicism 91f paliggenesi/a 208, 376, 380, 449 Paraclete 10n12, 12n14, 20n25, 48n95, 215, 237, 348f, 391-95, 405, 407, 416f, 418n529, 421, 437n573, 445, 456; German exegesis 44-53; Reinhartz’ exegesis 16-20, 30-35, 186 Paradigmatic structures 162-65, 163n208, 230, 414, 444, 451, 230n292; definition 164 Paraenesis 145f, 149n199 Parousia 16, 18, 20, 20n25 Passions Aristotle 195n246 Origen on John 435-37 Philo 119, 130, 133-42, 194f, 197, 246, 258, 269, 271, 326f, 326n422, 385, 395, 438, n578, 455 Plato 139n187, 437n576 Stoicism 78, 91-102, 102n160, 135, 429, 441
486
Indices
Peter, the disciple 396, 407-9, 408n513, 409n514, 410n517, 417n530, 446, 452n602, n604, 451-53, 453n606 Phaedrus, the 94, 98, 101, 106, 111, 134, 13841, 139n187, 140n188, 141n190, 213n269, 292 Plot, Johannine 15, 16n22, 19, 29, 44n80, 61f, 159, 162, 216, 219, 225, 279n356, 353, 410n517, 412n520; theory 14, 19, 163n208 Poultry farming, Aristotle; 182, 200n248 Pre-emotion 84n140, 95n155, 99f, 133, 437f, 441 Prophecy, prophet; prophecy as regeneration 60, 125, 193, 208f, 307, 332; prophecy-typology 291-93, 296n376; the wise man as prophet 169, 308 John, Christ a prophet like Moses 16971, 231f, 279, 307, 310 Philo 60, 105, 110-12, 123, 136, 170, 175, 193, 307-12, 309n397 Redaction criticism 7, 22, 37, 51, n102, 56, 257 Religion, comparative, methodology 55f, 170f, 212, 294 Sabbath, Sabbatical work John 342, 446-50, 448n599, 449n600 Philo 125, 131, 194, 197, 407, 449f, 456 Sacrifice, see Levitical; vicarious 265f, 269, 344, 410, 413n520 Samaritan woman 18, 20, 31f, 186, 202, 290, 371 Second generation, deutera genesij John 172-177, 189-91, 198, 208, 304 Philo 106, 123-26, 131, 167, 172-77, 211n267, 287, 294, 376 Self-mastery, Philo 139, 327, n423 Semen, sperma Aristotle 179-83, 204f, 399n500 John 188, 190, 199, 204, 214, 303f Philo 193, 196, 200 Semiotics, New Criticism 13-15, 19, 117, 159; New Historicism 23-28, 159 Simul iustus et peccator 248, 269 Supplement, post-structural 15n19, 23-28, 31, 39n64, 50f, 63, 191, 347, 347n447, 387n484, 446 Serpent, symbol of pleasure 120, 138, 141, 327; Medea’s serpents 135, 138; Eve 134, 136f, 327; Pentateuch 222f, 323-27 John, Moses’ uplifting of 223f, 323-27
Philo, Moses’ antidote 138, 171f, 325, 327 Secessionists, Johannine 39-42, 39n65 Shepherd, the good 163, 189, 292, 398, 400 Short cut to truth John 223, 256, 369f, 427, 456 Philo 60, 110, 123, 175 Signs John 18, 165, 220f, 236-38, chapter six, 402, 420f; gender 290; relation to the meta-story 34, 61, 63, 159, 224, 33f, 339, 344f, 388, 403, 420f, 444 Philo, the serpent as shmei=on 324-331 Stoicism 83-88, 382f Sin John 15, 17, 42, 54, 61, 226, 230, 237, 248f, 260, 262-69, 265n335, 273, 335n436, 338, 353, 406f, 445 Philo 247f, 270f, 326 Stoicism 91 Son of Man 11, 32, 34, 170n217, 172f, 220, 272, 277, 283, 297-301, 304, 315-17, 315n411, 316n413, 320-24, 321n419, 328f, 331f, 333-35, 344f, 347-49, 354, 389-92, 402f, 405, 428, 451 Strength, mental Philo 129, 143 Stoicism 80-82, 95, 98, 100 Structural fallacy 171, 171n219, 177, 294, 295n374 Symposium, the 106, 166n211, 200 qe/sij, position 397f, 400 Tears, see crying Theologica gloria 40, 45, 45n83, n85 Theologia cruces 45, 45n84, 45n86 Thomas Didymos 40n68, 62, 164, 202n251, 253, 356, 359, 362n257, 372n467, 388, 396, 399f, 400n503, chapter eight Timaeus, the 106n169, 107n170, 119, 121-23, 200, 200n249, 378, 380, 381n475, 383n478 Translation Jesus chapter seven Moses 381-86 Virgin birth John 167, 187-91, 198f, 214 Philo, the virginal soul 191-95 Virgin’s voice 399n500 Visio dei 410f, 412n520
Index of Modern Authors Voice Aristotle 33, 398n500 John 33n51, 160, 168-70, 169n216, 175n221, 223, 300, 302, 305, 306-11, 309n397, 310n399, 311n401, 313n404, 318, 332, 341-43, 397f, 402, 446 Philo 112, 307-11 Way, discourse on the John 61, 106, 217, 243, 253f, 256, 258, 295, 353, 369f, 406, 415, 456
487
Philo 105f, 110f, 139, 146 Woman Aristotle, defective woman 179, 181, 204 John, anointing woman 238; Jesus as woman 202-04, 203n254; the woman in labor 396, 398, 401 Philo, intermediary woman 111f, 13234; as sense perception 120, 134-38; barren women 194f
Index of Modern Authors Anderson, Janice C., 203n254 Armstrong, David, 398n500 Ashton, John, 8n10, n11, 9, 168n214, 227n291, 232n295 Attridge, Harold D., 162, n206, 218n273, 362, n459, 372-75, 388, n487, 444n589 Aune, David E., 380n476 Baer, Richard A., 120-23, 194n244, 198n247, 202fn253 Barclay, John M. G., 39n64, 353-55, 354n456, 359 Barrett, Charles K., 208f, 208n263, 212, 218n272, 227n291, 244, 261n329, 262n300, 263, 272n346, 295n375, 298, 300n305, 313n403, 315n410, 338n440, 343n444, 354, 385n481, 387n484, 400n503, 426n543, 452n543, n602, n604 Bauer, Walter, 37n60, 49 Baur, Ferdinand C., 29n41 Betz, Otto, 392 Blinckenstaff, Marianne, 203n254 Borgen, Peder, 448n599, 449n600 Brennan, Tad, 81n134, 84, 93, 103, n163, n165, 440 Brown, Raymond E., 14, n20, 15n21, 43n79, 52n103, 209f, 212, 227, n288, 231n294, 241n312, n312, 244, 257n327, 259n328, 261n329, 262n330, 263n331, 266n337, 268n341, 272n347, 273, 279n356, 280n359, 298n380, 300n386, 303n391,305n93, 311n401, 313f, 313n405, 315n409, 320n417, 330n425, 332n431, 335n436, 339n441, 340, n442, 343n444, 353-55, 357, 359f, 361n457, 364, 370-72, 372n465, 374,
385n481, 388n486, 391n494, 408n514, 415, 416n525, 419n532, 421n533, 426n533, 432n552, 433f, 434n556, 437n577, 441n584, 446n55, 447, 452n602, 454, 455n605, n609 Brown, Tricia G., 10n12, 20n26, 392 Brunschwig, Jacques, 91n150 Buch-Hansen, Gitte, 23n32 Bultmann, Robert, 4n4, 6, 8-11, 8n10, 20, n25, n26, 31n46, 34, n54, 36, 37n60, 45, 49n96, 56-58, 170f, 170n214, 205-207, 205n258, n259, 217, 221, n278, 244, 227n289, n291, 232n295, 257n326, 261n329, 276, 278n354, 280-85, 280n359, 281n370, 288f, 294n374,296, 298n381, 298n382, 300n386, 313n406, 314n407, 315n408, n411, 344, 354-57, 362f, 362n458, n459, 372n468, 373n469, 374, 385n481, 389n491, 390, n492, 391n494, 408n513, 410n516, 411n518, 416n526, 417n529, 418n531, 423, 430n549, 431n551, 443n589, 452n602 Burge, Gary M., 30n45, 233n298, 392f, 424n540 Burton, Mack L., 422n536 Byrne, Brendan J., 441n585 Chatman, Seymour, 13f, 13n18 Christensen, Johnny, 62, 64n111, 65f, 67n114, 69, 70n119, 71f, 73, 83f, 85f, 89n144, 90n146 Coloe, Mary L., 361n457 Conway, Colleen M., 204n254 Counet, Patrick C., 51n100
488
Indices
Culpepper, R. Alan, 13n17, 31n46, 218n273, 289, 344, 410n517, 411n519, 412n520 D’Angelo, Mary R., 373-75, 388, 395-97, 401 Damgaard, Finn, 293n371 Dawson, David, 57, 201f, 392 Derrida, Jacques, 24-26 Dillon, John, 113, 438, n578, n579 Dodd, C. H., 4f, 4n4, n5, 5n6, 7n9, 47n92, 120, 163, 264, 276, 290-93, 291n370, 293n376, 296, 344, 352, 355, 357-59, 362, 364-67, 364n460, 371, 400n503, 402 Dunderberg, Ismo, 410-13, 411n519 Dunn James D. G., 30n45 Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, 2n3, 23n32, 81n134, 84n140, 89n144, 91n148, 95n155, 98, 104n163, 146, n195, 149n199, 150n200, 338, 349, 446, Fehribach, Adeline, 205n254 Fish, Stanley, 26n38 Fiorenza, Elisabeth S., 202n252, 253 Ford, J, Massyngbaerde, 203n254 Foucault, Michael, 26n39, 48n95 Frede, Michael, 5, 98, 102n160, 104n163, 429n558 Frey, Jörg, 45n84, n86, 225n285, 253n322, 276n349, 291n369, 314, 315n409, 324f, 325n421, 328-31, 331n428, 335n435, 344f, 362 Gallagher, Catherine, 23n34 Genette, Gérard, 13f, 13n18 Gill, Christopher, 97n157, 98 Gosling, Justin, 84n140, 100n159 Graver, Margaret R., 104n164, 338, 438n578, 439n581 Greimas, Algirdas J., 31n46, 226n287, 412n520 Greenblatt, Stephen, 23n34 Gulddal, Jesper, 21n29 Goodenough, Erwin R., 177n224, 202n253 Gregersen, Niels H., 425n542 Gusa, Alexsandar, 453n606 Haenchen, E., 37n60, 372n468, 375n471 Hallbäck, Geert, 235n303 Hanson, Ann E., 398n500 Haraway, Donna J., 23n33
Harnack, Adolf von, 2f, 29n41, 163, n207, 198, 219n275 Hengel, Martin, 331n428 Hofius, Otfried, 11n13, 50n99, 205f, 205n258, 206n260, 278n354, 297n382, 315n411, 317n416, 334fn435, 335n436, 337n438, 362 Holtzmann, Henrich J., 37n60, 434n557 Hooker, Morna, 266n338 Hoskyns Edwyn C., 3, 170n217, 391n494 Irwin, Terence H., 101 Jasper, Alison, 25n37, 51n100 Johnson, Elizabeth A., 202n253 Johnson, Mark, 201 Johnston, George, 392-94 Kammler, Hans-Christian, 7, 35, n55, 37, n60, 44-55, 44n82, 46n87, n89, 47n92, 49n97, 50n98, n99, 57, 166, n212, 168n215, n216, 186, 190n239, 218n272, 220n276, 233n297, n299, 332n429, 341n443 Käsemann, Ernst, 4n4, 18n24, 31n46, 45n85, 199, 207, 276, 280f, 283-85, 283n362, 288f, 291n370, 331, 334n435, 344, 347n448, 362, 364-67, 364n460, 365n461, 366n463, 412n520, 423 Kelber, Werner H., 51n100 Kidd, I. G., 154f Kierkegaard, Søren, 56 Kitzberger, Ingrid R., 203n254 Klauck, Hans-Josef, 39f, 39n65, 42, 43n78, 51, 56f, 217, 276n350, 393n496, 403n507 Koch, Klaus, 163n208, 230n292, 414 Koester, Craig R., 21n29, 208n263, 265n335, 366n338, 298n382 Kooten, Geurt H. van, 364, 367-69, 395 Kristeva, Julia, 25n37, 55n109 Kvanvig Helge S., 163n208 Lakoff, George, 201 Laqueur, Thomas, 137n185, 179n226, 304n392 Lessing, Gotthold E., 27 Larsen, Kasper Bro, 44n80, 218n273, 226n287, 284n363, 289, 344 Leavitt, R. F., 361n457 Levine Amy-Jill, 203n254 Lieu, Judith, 202n253 Lindars, Barnabas, 432, 433n544, n545, 434n558
Index of Modern Authors Long Anthony A., 64n110, 74, 75n125, 79, 81, n134, 82n137, 85, 88n142, 89, 92n151, 391n493 Löhr, Hermut, 331n428 Lundager Jensen, Hans Jørgen, 235n303 Malbon, Elizabeth S., 222n280 Malina, Bruce, 10n12 Martin, Dale B., 22n30, 51n102, 107, n170, n171 Martyn, J. Louis, 14, n20, 15n21, 52n103, 232n295 Meeks, Wayne A., 6, 8-14, 10n12, 11n13, 12n14, n15, 13n16, 35, 57f, 166-177, 168n214, 170n217, 171n219, 175n221, 176n223, 191, 213, 232, 294n374, 300f, 300n387, 307, 310n399, 311n401, 316n413, 317, 321n419, 351, 375, 385n481 Moloney, Francis J., 52n103, 163n207, 219n275, 298n379, n382, 300n385, 303n390, 314n407, 315, n410, 317, 330n425, 338n440, 339n441, 343n444 Moore, Stephen D., 24n36, 51n102, 203n254 Møller, Martin, 21n29 Nielsen, Jesper T., 44n80, 264n334, 265n336, 284n363, 412n520 Nisse, Johannes, 222n281 Nussbaum, Martha C., 78, 94, n153, 95n15, 96, 101, 104n165, 107n172, 131, 134n183, 140n188, 152f, 153n203, 213n269, 437n576 Nutu, Ela, 51n100 Peacocke, Athur, 285f Peck, A. L., 178n225, 180n227, 181, 205 Pembroke, S. G., 89n144 Porch, Felix, 7n8 de la Potterie, Ignace, 298n380 Preuss, Anthony, 181, 183, 205 Reinhartz, Adele, 2, 6, 13-23, 13n18, 14n19, 15n21, 16n22, 18n23, 20n26, 23n31, 24n36, 28f, 31-33, 53, 57f, 159, 166f, 177f, 178n225, 183-87, 185n235, 186n236, 18992, 199f, 202f, 202n252, 210n265, 332n430, 333n431, 396n495 Reydam- Schils, Gretchen, 106n169, 383n478 Ricoeur, Paul, 21n29, 361f, 361n457, 362n458 Rohrbaugh, Richard L., 10n12 Roustang, Francois, 298n380
489
Runia, David T., 120-23, 128, 130 Sambursky, Samuel, 63, 67n114, 70n118, n119, 72, 73n121, n122, 79n131, 85, 87, 88n142, 383, 419 Sawyer, Deborah, 203n254 Schnackenburg, Rudolf, 206n262, 241n312, 298n39, 303n389, 313n403, 315n411, 338n440, 374n470, 409, 414, 432, n553, 455n608 Schneiders, Sandra M., 268n341, 355, 357, 360-62, 364, 370-72, 396n498, 498n499, 403n505 Schnelle, Udo, 45n84, n86, 169n216, 207n258, 218n272, 241n312, 244, n314, 259n328, 298n379, 300n385, 305n393, 313n403, 314n407, 334n435, 373n469, 409n515, 415n521, 416n525, n526, 452n602 Schott, Robin, 54, n108 Scott, Alan, 375n471 Seim, Turid, Karlsen, 166f, 177f, 186-92, 198f, 202, 204 Simonsen, Dorthe G., 24n35, 27-29 Smith, Jonathan Z., 26n38, 55f, 55n109, 212, 294n374 Solmsen, Friedrich, 180 Sorabji, Richard, 97-100, 97n152 von Staden, Henrich, 79n131 Sterling, Gregory E., 210n264, 350-51n455 Stibbe, Mark W. S., 427n545 Story, Cullen I. K., 434n558 Stowers, Stanley K., 191n240 Strange, Steven K., 104n163 Svendsen, Stefan N., 292n371 Theobald, Michael, 29n41, 31n46, 36n58, 37n60, 38n63, 41n72, n73, n76, 43n79, 44n80, k81, 188n238, 220n276, 276n350, 403n507 Tobin, Thomas H., 112-20, 123 Tronier, Henrik, 204n257, 222n280, 293n371, 294n373, 365n462 Voorwinde, Stephen, 430n549, 432n552 von Wahlde, Urban, 232n295 Watson, G., 83n139 Webster, Jane, 266n337, 90n492 Wengst, Klaus, 39-42, 39n65, 41n72, 51, 56f, 205n258, 217, 225n285, 227n290, 242n313n 244, 253n322, 264n332, 265, 272n345, 276n350, 298n381, 300n385,
490
Indices
n386, 307, 313, 314n407, n408, 316, 321n419, 340, 334n435, 335n436, 338n440, 339n441, 353, 357, 373n469, 387, 396n498, 403n507, 415n521, 416n525, n526, 431, 432n553, 441n584, 452n602 Williams, Michael A., 39n66, 206n261
Winston, David, 308fn397 Zimmermann, Robert, 162n206, 163f Zumstein, Jean, 334n434, 357 Økland, Jorunn, 26n37, 51n100
Index of Ancient Authors Aristotle De generatione animalium (Gen. an.) 23n31, 126, 178, 180n227, 191f, 715a1-10 183 716b3 178n225 716a15 183 726a29-b18 181 729a10-12 181 729b14 183 729b19 181 729a33-30a18 183, 200n248 730b13-15 181 731b24 178n225 731b35 185 732a1-10 183 735b10-36a30 181, 205 736b25-29 126 736b27 192n241 738b20-28 179 738a33-35 181 740a15-23 131n181 766b15-16 183 766a30-32 398n500 766a32 181n228 767b5-10 179, 181, n229 767b10 179, 183 768a10 183 775a15 181 775b25-33 182n231 783a33-35 181n230 De motu animalium 93, 94n153 Poetica Cicero
15
De finibus bonorum et malorum (Fin.) 65, 65n113 3.16-21 150n200 3.32 96 3.73 64 3.74 153n201 4.7 153 De natura deorum (Nat. d.) 1.39 424n541 2.23-28 71 2.84 79 De officiis (Off.) 154 3.13-14 155 Tusculanae dispotationes (Tusc.) 3.30 101 4.14 103, 440 Diogenes Laertius (D. L.) Lives of eminent philosophers 7.85-86 91 7.86 75 7.87-88 65 7.90 92 7.94 65n112 7.112 93 7.118 103, 404 7.120 91 7.128 91n149 7.134 286 7.134-137 66f 7.136 424 7.137 67, 286 7.138 286n365 7.156 424f 7.157 79n131
491
Index of Ancient Authors Epictetus
155n205
Arian Discourses 2.17 92n151
Galen De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis (PHP) 81n132 III.7.3 429n548 IV.6.1-3 98, 129 V.2 153 Origen Commentarii in evangelium Joannis 115.23-28 435n560 115.28-32 435n561 184.11-14 435n566 185.1-4 435n563 185.28 435n564 186.11 435n565 292.2 436n575 292.4-5 435n562 292.10-11 436n574 294.13-295.8 436n567 295.1 436n570 295.3 436n569 295.7f 436n571 305.12 436n572 305.14-17 436n568 Contra Celsum (Cels.) 4.14 78, 383 7.42-43 369, 456 Philo De Abrahamo (Abr.) 68-70 88 268-73 261 268-74 255 271-74 261f De aeternitate mundi (Aet.) 379n473 8-9 377n472 47 377n472 94-95 377, n472 107-112 378 109 377 De agricultura (Agr.) 145
62 89
32n50 32n50, 455
De cherubim (Cher.) 43f 184, 191 44-46 198n247 48 198n247 50 195 114 380 De vita contemplativa (Contempl.) 2 108n173, 153n202 De decalogo (Decal.) 35 309n397 Quod deterius potiori insidiari soleat (Det.) 60 195 144f 148 De fuga et inventione (Fug.) 51-52 203n253 De gigantibus (Gig.) 305 22f 306 64 255, 295, 311, 398n500 Quis rerum divinarum heres (Her.) 118, 143 19 131, n182, 139, 145, 149, 175, 326, 457 68-70 193, 211n268 70 308n397 74 144 98 110f, 111n177, 144 263-65 122 45 130 58-60 131 200 379 259 170, 308, 310, 312n402 259-66 318 264 308n397 265 310, 312 265f 308 288 377 Legum allegoriae I-III (Leg.) 1.1-18 448 1.2 449 1.5 194 1.16 125, 449 1.18 449
492
Indices
1.28f 1.31 1.31f 1.31-41 1.31-42 1.32 1.34 1.33-41 1.36f 1.37 1.39 1.39f 1.42 1.43 1.49 1.53 1.55 1.56 1.87 1.90 1.91 1.92 1.92-94 1.93 1.97 1.99 1.105f
136 121, 125, 193 114f, 118, 122, 124, 132, 194 144 123 127, 130 127, 130 118 128 379, n474, 384, 386, 390 192, 194, 294n372, 305n394 115 129, 193 127 110 127, 145 127, 145 146, n194 223n282 145 424n541 145 146f, 149, 152 130, 145, 148, 154 146, n193 150n199 130
2.9 2.17 2.19f 2.22 2.21-23 2.21-24 2.28 2.49f 2.71 2.79 2.79-93 2.80f 2.89 2.93 2.100 2.102
136 137n186 132 73, 75 124 130, 132f 139 133f 137, n184, 304n392 223 327, n423 138 140 271, 269n343 138 138
3.4-6 3.7 3.15 3.18 3.61 3.77f 3.78
419 377 140 140 138 157 109, 144, 152, 212f, 258, 294f, 377 142
3.79-81
3.80 3.81 3.82 3.104-106 3.109 3.118 3.124 3.129 3.131 3.131f 3.132 3.134 3.144 3.151 3.156 3.162f 3.165 3.188-91 3.211 3.211-13
143, 455 142f 143, 295, n375, 326 270f 137 326n422 326n422 138, 154, 326n422 326n422 139 138 438 138 139 139 141 395 141 439 440
De migratione Abrahami (Migr.) 33-35 60 34 194n243 34f 310-12 86-91 448n599, 449n600 89-91 248 128 109n175 128f 255 156 440 184 384f De Vita Mosis I-II (Mos.) 2.69 388 2.69-70 385f 2.288 172, 292, 351, 376, 381 2.291 32n50, 381 De opificio mundi (Opif.) 67 126, 184, 191-94 69-71 114 134f 114 135 121 161 137 De plantatione (Plant.) 18-19 406n508 19 175 23 32n50, 60 23-24 211n266, 288n367, 384 24 175 64 246, n316 94 145, 148, 154, 328
493
Index of Ancient Authors 100 106 107f 120
148, 154 439n580 247 305n394
De posteritate Caini (Post.) 5 380 123 109, n174, 129, 152, 377 124 175, 209, 211n267, 244, 378, 449 125-27 378 Quaestiones et solutiones in Exodum I, II (QE) 2.3 195, n245 2.29 174 2.40 174 2.46 125, 131, 172, 174-76, 193f, 208f, 211n267, 306, 449 Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin I, II, III, IV (QG) 1.46 137 1.86 60, 172, 351, 376, 381, 321n419, 386, 398, 405
Plato Phaedrus
234 246e 247e 252c
94, 98, 101, 106, 134, 138f, 139n187, 140n188, 141n190, 213n269 141 111, 141, 292 111, 141, 292 140
Protagoras 353c-360e
89n145, 95
Respublica 514a 516e 517a 519cd 520a 535a-40c 606e
111, 165n211, 213n269, 367, 437, n576 368 368 368 368 368 368 134
Symposium
106, 165n211, 200
Timaeus
106n169, 107n170, 121-23, 128, 200, 378 105, 111, 292, 369 119 380
2. 49 2.57
326 438
3.9
308n397
28c 42a-b 42e
4.12 4.125
105 110, 112, 123, 130, 193, 209
Plutarch
De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini (Sacr.) 5 381 8 351, 376, 381 118 245 118-32 245, 261 120 245 121 246, n317 123 246 132 246 De somniis (Somn.) 1.183-85 419 1.187f 136 1.256 419n532 De specialibus legibus I-III (Spec.) 1.208 377 2.61f 449 3.178 137
De Virtute Morali (Virt. mor.) 441b-d 95 449b 102n162 De Stoicorum Repugnantiis (Stoic. rep.) 1034c 92 1054b 73 De Communibus Notitiis contra Stoicos (Comm. not.) 1078c-b 77, 391, 418 1078b-d 70 Seneca Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales I-III (Ep.) 94.2 156 94.50f 156 95.1 154 95.40 156
494
Indices
Medea (Med.) 138 433 134n183, 135 Sextus Empiricus Adversus mathematicos (Math.) 7.38f 82
7.228-231 8.11f 8.275f 9.11 9.75f 11.169
80 86 83n139 68n115 88 153
Biblical Source Index Old Testament Genesis 1-3 1:2 1:26f 1:27
2:8 2:15 2:16f 2:19 2:21 2:24 6:8 9:3 12:4 14:18 17:12 22:2 22:12 24:48 28 28:12 28:16 32:10
3, 351 129, 288, 305, 455, n609 114, 122, 350n455 112, 114f, 118, 120f, 122, 197, 350n455 134f 125 448n599 112, 114f, 120-24, 128f, 192, n242, 196, 303n391, 350n455 127 127, 145, 145, n192, 146 135 132 133 108, 295 438 109n175 142f 447 335n436 335n436 105 272n345 12n14, 32, 272 272, 418 140
Exodus 2:23 12:27 12:46 16:4 20:19 24:2 24:12
33 263, 440 265 265 141 131, 145 174 174
2-3 2:2 2:2f 2:7
24:16b 31:2f 31:15
125 306 447
Leviticus 12:3
447
Numbers 3:12f 9:12 11:2 12:11f 21 21:4-9 21:6-9 21:7-9 21:8
245, 249 265 325 325 344 223, 323, 325 138 323 327n423, 332
Deuteronomy 3:24 277, n352, 299n383 4:24 5 18:14-21 232 18:15 231 18:18 231 23:3f 142 23:13 139 28:12 270 29:1-4 320n417 29:7 320 32:34f 270 Psalms 6:4 6:5
429, n550, 430 429f
Proverbs 30:4
169n216, 305n393
495
Biblical Source Index Ecclesiastes 11:5 11:51
305n393 169n216
Song of Songs 396n498 Isaiah 6:9f 25:6 25:6-10 40:3
61:2-3 62:10-12 62:12
235 238n305 239n307 235, 250f, 251n218, 252, 256, 266, 273 240, n308, n309, 241, 249 209 266n339, 316, n414 266n338 235 266 316 263 266 233n299, 236, 241, 249 233, 233n298, 234-36, 240, n310, 243, 249 233 235 240n310
Ezekiel 36:25f
209
Daniel 7:13
316
Malachi 3:1 3:22f 3:23f
241n311, 250f, 251n218 242f 241n311, 249, 251n218
42:1 44:3 52:13 53 53:1 53:4 53:4-12 53:7 53:11f 61:1 61:1-3
New Testament Matthew 3:1 3:3 3:7 3:17 8:7-10 8:23-27 11:10 11:14
217 251n218 243 218, 227 281n360 454 241n311, 251n218 232
14:22-32 16:19 17:10f 18:3 18:18 26:64
454 268, 269n342 241n311 206 268 272
Mark 1:1 1:2 1:2f 1:4 1:11 4 4:35-41 6:45-52 8:31 9:11-13 10:15 11:28 13:27 14:36
251 241n311 250 217 218, 227 220n277, 276n351 454 454 316, 317n416 232 206 279n356 316 432n552
Luke 1:17 1:76 1:77 3:3f 3:21 3:22 4:24-26 7:11-17 7:20 7:26 8:22-35 10:32
232, 241n311, 242f 241n311, 251n218, 243 251n218 272n347 218, 227 242n313 242n313 217 241n311 454 232n296
John 1:1 1:2 1:1-5 1:1-14 1:1-18 1:1-51 1:3 1:3-5 1:6-8 1:6-14 1:9 1:9f 1:10 1:10-13
55, 162, 164, 178, n225, 413, 423, n537, 425f, 426n543, 444 425 219, 336 3 16, 38n62, n63, 220 38 5, 164, n210 425 38, 219, 226, 231 219 231, 367 423 164, n210, 231, 260 31n46
496 1:11 1:12 1:12f 1:12-14 1:13 1:14
1:14a 1:14c 1:15 1:16 1:16f 1:16-18 1:17
1:18
1:19-22 1:19-28 1:19-34 1:19-2:12 1:19-3:36 1:20 1:20f 1:20-22 1:23
1:24-26a 1:25 1:26 1:26b 1:27 1:29
1:29f 1:29-34 1:30 1:30f 1:31
Indices 423 50n98, 214 1, n1, 12n14, 30, 31n46, 166, 208, 225, 238, 288, 302, 347 188, 199 16n22, 36, 188n238, 214, 303f, 405, 424 43n79, 49, 55, 163n207, 165, 178, n225, 210, 214, 281, 319, 334n435, 423, 444, 450, 456 12n14, 29n41, 31n46, 36, 166, 281 29n41, 31n46, 283, 423n538 38, 219, 226, 248, 260f, 261n329 444, 450, 456 294f, 329, 336f 219 157, 212, 223, 231n293, 271, 276, 330, n425, 333, 337n439, 338, 403, 423, 451 30f, 58, 62, 164, n209, 224f, 259f, 303, 310n398, 334n435, 335, 374, 401, 403, n506, 413, 420, 426n543, 444 228, 230 226, 38, 165, 214, 219, 226, 257, 275, 338f, 343 227n290 219f, 338, n440 231n293, 233n299, 240, 249, 262, 275 340 231 16n22, 61, 228, 235, 250, 251, 253, 256, 273, 338f, 370, 406, 456 228, 256 227n289, 231n293 227n289 228, 258f 228, 248, 260, 261n329 15, 17, 61, 226, 228f, 235, 237, 248f, 262f, 264n332, 266f, 269, 273, 335n436, 337n438, 338, 353, 406, 445 221n278, 261n329 36, 41n72, 44, 226 1:31b 229, 248, 260f, 261n329 227n288 44n81, 227n289, 248
1:31a 1:31b 1:32
1:32f 1:32-34 1:33
1:34 1:35-51 1:35-3:21 1:37 1:38 1:38-39 1:40 1:41 1:43 1:45 1:49 1:51
229, 258f 229, 257 31, 33, 35, 36n56, 59, 160, 213, 302, 321, 333, 351, 386, 442 166, 168n215, 169n215, 229, 233, 235, 250, 253, 287 214f, 217, 231, 301 23, 35, 61, 160, 224, 226, 241, 273, 303, 338, 340, 349, 353, 406, 417n530 41, 44n81, 215, 227, 229f, 240f, 249, 256, 262, 275, 421 226, 231 220 263, 457n610 457n610 397 457n610 19, 231 232n296, 457n610 19, 166, 176, n222, 187n237, 214, 231, 304, 320, 330, 332 19, 11, 12n14, 32, n49, 37, 254n325, 271, 272n347
2:1-11 2:4 2:5 2:6 2:10 2:11 2:12 2:13 2:13-22 2:14-22 2:16 2:17 2:18 2:19 2:21 2:22 2:23 2:24 2:25
220, 239n307, 339, 343 185, 188 187n237 339n441 258, 342 220, 275, 278, n355, 279 187n237 254n323 220, 237, 339, 343 244, n314, 248 420 279 220, 278, 279n356, 282 278, n353, 420 222, 278, 402, 420 289, 410n516, 420 277, 278f, 279n356, 324 279 223, 231n293, 279
3:1 3:1f 3:1-7 3:1-8 3:1-9 3:1-10
343 277, 299, 302 277, 333, 343 12n14, 167 297 175, 315
Biblical Source Index 3:1-21 3:2 3:3
3:3-7 3:3-8 3:4 3:5
3:6 3:7 3:8
3:8-15 3:9 3:9-12 3:9-15 3:10 3:11 3:11-12 3:11-13 3:11-15 3:11-21 3:12 3:12f 3:12-15 3:13
3:13f 3:13-15 3:14
61, 276, 339 220, 275, 277, n352, 299, 324 12, n14, 31f, 55, 60, 106, 162, 165-67, 169n216, 173, n220, 175-77, 178n225, 204, 214f, 220, 287, 289, 296, 303f, 311, 349, 363, 388, 401, 406, 421, 424 175, 275, 299, 301, 321n419, 322 208, 298 50n99, 175, 299, 302, 304, 389, 442n588 12, n14, 31f, 36, n59, 55, 60, 160, 162, 167, 169n216, 173, n220, 175, 177, 178n225, 204, 206, 214, 220, 289, 296, 300f, 303f, 321n419, 322, 349, 363, 401 160, 276, 303 169n216, 277, 299 33n51, 160, 168f, 169n216, 170, 173, 175, n221, 297, 299f, 300n387, 301, 304-7, 310, n399, 311, n401, 318f, 341, 363 275, 277, 299-301, 304, 311n401, 331f, 335 61, 220, 241, 274f, 297, 299, 304, 389, 401, 406 297 312 209, 277, 304, 314f, 317, 343, 349 304, 311n401, 312-14, 314n407, 315. 318f, 330 300, 318, 320 311n401 298, 318 324 298n379, 313f, 314n407, 315, 317-19, 337 276 315n411 32, 173, 254n325, 301, 321, n418, n419, 329, 349, n454, 368-70, 370n466 315, 349, 402 320, 322 223, 254n324, 266, 276, 276n349, 291n369, 300, 316, 317n416, 329, 333, 343, 349, n454
3:14f 3:16
3,16f 3:16-21 3:17 3:17-21 3:18 3:18-21 3:19 3:19-21 3:19-34 3:20 3:21 3:22 3:22-25 3:22-30 3:22-36 3:25 3:25-35 3:27 3:27-28 3:27-30 3:28 3:29 3:29f 3:30 3:31 3:31-34 3:31-36 3:34 3:36
4 4:6 4:7 4:10 4:21 4:23 4:23f 4:24
4:25 4:26 4:29
497 45n84, 220, 277, 299, 301, 324, 330 295, 300f, 331, 334, n435, 335, n436, 337n438, 366n463, 367, 423, 445, 450, 456 5, 442, 445 16, 275, 277, 298-301, 333, 335 5, 267, 300, 335f 334 267, 336 337 223, 300 336 257n326 300 256, 302, 337, 338, n440, 446 261 339n441 257, 343n444 219, 338f, 343 342 219 341 340 219n274 231n293 342, 398, 442n586 341 258, 261n329, 342 206n262 312n402, 341n443 16, 168n214, 219n274, 338n440 160, 168n215, 340, 342 219, 223. 243, 260, 268, 336, 338 281 387, 456 427n545 337, n439 222 222, 225, 263, 445 32n48, 58, 62, 161, 406 4, 5, n6, 16n22, 29f, 32, 47, 55, 58, 61f, 162, 213, 215, 260, 301, 317, 352, 363, 365, 401-3, 407, 424-26, 426n543, n544, 429 17f, 32, 231n293, 427 18, 32f 231n293, 290
498
Indices
4:28 4:31-34 4:32-34 4:34 4:36-38 4:38 4:38f 4:39-42 4:46 4:46f 4:48
202 386 385n481 225, n284, 387, n483, 406, 450 311n400 224, 254, 387, n484, n485, 456 296 290 236, 247, 445 236 279, 281, n360, 410n516
5 5:1 5:1-18 5:3 5:3-7 5:5 5:6 5:7 5:10 5:14 5:16 5:17 5:17f 5:18 5:24 5:29 5:32-35 5:36 5:38 5:39 5:39-47 5:42 5:46 5:46f
281 254n323 448n599 445 236, 247 445, n592, 453 445 236 236 445, n593 447 296, 449, n600, 456 166, 214, 342 427 267 267, 337, 446, n597 11 406, 450 260, 288, 342 319, 330 320 166, 214, 260, 288, 322, 342, 450, 451n601 330 319, 333, 338
6 6:2 6:6 6:14f 6:16-21 6:17 6:21 6:26 6:27 6:28f 6:30 6:37 6:39 6:42 6:44
223 236, 247 445 279f 224, n283, 288, 408, 447 455 454, 456 280, n357, 281,284 405, 406n508 267, 426, 426, 446, n598 279n356, 282 340 165 176, n222, 187n237, 304, 310 165
6:44f 6:49 6:51 6:52 6:54 6:56 6:56-58 6:58 6:60-71 6:61f 6:61-63 6:62 6:62f 6:63
6:65 6:68 7 7:5 7:7 7:10 7:11 7:13f 7:14 7:15 7:19 7:19-23 7:19-24 7:23 7:24 7:25 7:26 7:27 7:27-39 7:31 7:34f 7:35 7:36 7:38f 7:39
337f 223, 344 389, n488 389f 348, n451 348, n541 389, n489, 390 344 390n491 34, n52 389, n490 173, 254n325, 316, n415, 348n452, 349, 355, 403 329, 333, 347, n446, 349 1, 61, 161, 199, 213, 287, 303, 317, n415, 347f, 348n453, 363, 402 340 393
7:41f 7:42
19 187n237 17 254n323 397 316 254n323 447 322 333, n431 448n599 446, n596, 447, 449, n600 447 450 231n293 168f, 231n293, 259, 310, n399 239n307 231n293, 280 19, 397 442n588 397 301 161, 266, 302, 333, n432, 348, n450, 349 231n293 259
8 8:12 8:14 8:19 8:21 8:21f
236 231, 457n610 168f, 310n399 259, 337, 397, 442 397 19
Biblical Source Index 8:22 8:28 8:34 3:34-36 8:40 8:44 8:58 8:59
442n588 254n324, 266, 316, 333 247 237 262 15, 247 36, n57 427
9 9:2f 9:7 9:11 9:12 9:15 9:16 9:18 9:22 9:28 9:35 9:41
15n21, 157, 268 445 420 237 397 237 280 237 231n293 333n431 316, n412, 317 260, 445
10:2f 10:2-4 10:3-4 10:4 10:16 10:17f 10:22 10:24 10:27 10:31 10:34 10:40
400 398 189 457n610 446n595 247 368 231n293 398, 457n610 427 333n431 427
11 11:1-6 11:2-6 11:3 11:4 11:5 11:11 11:15-17 11:16 11:21 11:27 11:27f 11:32 11:33
15n21, 62f, 213, 223, 338 236, 247, 445 427, n546 442, 445 442, 445 433 442 279n356 410n517 427 18n23, 202, 290 279n356 427 160, 334n433, 407, 429, 432f, 436, 441f 428n547 428 434
11:33f 11:33-36 11:34
11:35 11:36 11:38 11:39 11:40 11:49-51 11:50 11:52 12:3 12:4 12:8 12:23 12:24 12:25 12:26 12:27 12:27f 12:30 12:31 12:32 12:32f 12:32-34 12:33 12:34
12:35 12:35f 12:37 12:37-40 12:37-43 12:38 12:41 12:44-50 12:46 12:47 12:48 12:49f 12:50 13:1
13:2 13:8 13:21 13:23 13:27 13:31-37 13:35 13:36
499 433, 442 330n427, 433, 442, 444, 450, 456 368, 428, 433 434 290 237 335n436 185, 208, 302, 446n595 238n305 254 238 316, 428 311n400 17 397, 457n610 428, 432n552, 441 431f 429n551 247 211, 254n324, 266, 297, 328 354 333 296f 231n293, 254n324, 266, 297, n378, 301, 316, n412, 317, n416 455, n607 369 280, n358, 320n417 320 235 235n301, 252 235n301, 252 338n440 260 5, 267 267 313n404 313 1, 30, n42, 31 59, 61, 162, 287, 317, 351, 354, 363, 370, 394, 405, 415, 417 15, 434 417n530 160, 428f, 436, 441f 303 15 451 322 397, 457n610
500
Indices 15:9-17 15:12-17 15:13
342, 441 189 247, 288, 422, n534, 423, 441, 445, 450, 456 442 422 445 267 268 35, 49, 165, 237, 349, 391, 393, 405, 421 161, 322
13:37
457n610
14 14:1 14:1-4 14:1-9 14:2 14:2f
14:30
62, 236f, 428 419n532 414 415, n522, 421 20, n27, 21, 33, 62, 164, 407, 416f, 419 253, n319, n320, n321, n322, 418n531 62 415, n523 397 415 410n517, 421 420, 444 52, n104, 224, 254, 296, 393, 456 165, 224, 259, 406f, 407n512 415 185, n234 288, 406f 33n51, 55, 215, 259, 288, 301, n388, 302, 312f, 313n404, 387n485, 424, 426, 442 422n535 416 f 20n25 418n531 35, 47, 53, n106, 237 161, 23, 349, 391, 405 394 17, 35, 53, 289, 424 47, n90, 215, 402, 417 394 12n14, 20n25, 21, n28, 33f, 47, n91, 53, 225, 253n322, 321, 394, 415f, 416n524, 417, 424 33 35, 48, n94, 53, 161, 237, 349, 392, 393, 405, 416 236f , 428 12n14, 34, 288, 321, 358, 360, 362, 394, 403, n505, 405, 417 15, 247
17:3f 17:4 17:5 17:14 17:14-16 17:15 17:19 17:22f 17:23 17:26
225, 231n293, 237, 247, 444, n591, 445f, 446n595, 447, 453, 456 259, 290, 450 406, n509, 407, 450 36, n57, 316 17, 422 5, 15 421 303, 406n509, 450 287, 303n389, 441, 450 20n41, 303
15:1-3 15:1-8 15:1-15 15:3 15:9f
450 239 343 224, 258, 342, 456 422
18 18,1-14 18:3 18:15 18:15-27
9 451 237 169, 452, 457n610 451
14:2-7 14:2-9 14:3 14:3-5 14:4-5 14:5 14:5-7 14:6 14:7 14:7-9 14:8f 14:9 14:10
14:15 14:15-17 14:15-19 14:15-24 14:16 14:16f 14:16-18 14:17 14:18 14:20 14:23
14:24 14:26 14:27 14:28
15:13-15 15:17 15:22 15:22f 15:23 15:26 15:26f 16:1 16:5 16:6 16:7 16:7-13 16:8-11 16:9 16:10 16:11 16:12-15 16:13 16:13-15 16:16 16:16-19 16:19-20 16:20 16:20-22 16:21 16:22 17:3
455 397 237 35, 53, n106, 161, 215, 237, 348, n449, 349, 394 391 393 267, 406, n510 445, n594 358 247 32, n47 35, 53, n106, 161, 349 393 358 454 398, n501 396n498 204 398n502, 401 236
501
Biblical Source Index 18:18 18:32 18:38
169 296 406
20:28
19:11 19:12 19:23 19:26 19:26f 19:30
206n262 442n586 206n262 185, 188 187n237 40, n67, 41, n74, 160, 273, 354, 358, 406, 450 397 328 202, 204, 335n436 41 41 265, 335n436 358, 397 397
20:30 20:30f
19:31 19:32 19:34 19:33-37 19:35 19:36 19:38 19:40 20:1 20:2 20:3-10 20:11-13 20:11-18 20,11-29 20:13 20:15 20:16 20:17
20:18 20:18-22 20:19 20:19-29 20:20 20:21 20:21-23 20:22
20:23 20:24-28 20:24-29 20:25 20:27
356, 396, 410n516 397 452n602 396 356, 396n498, 397, 410n516 61 398 396, 398 189 2, 30, n43, 31, 50n97, 59, 61, 162, 165, 213, 215, 254n325, 287, 290, 296, 317, 333, 351, 356f, 359, 361, 363, 370, 373, n469, 374-76, 400n503, 402, 403n505, 455 202, 290 399 455 46n89 236 231n293 46n87 2, 16, 30, n44, 31, 35, 40n68, 59, 61, 160, 167, 185f, 199, 287f, 296, 321, 347, 388, 417, 443, n589, 450 236, 268, n341, 269, 273, 400, n503 415, 444 399, 409, 413 62, 164, 410n517, 414, 415n521, 421 400n503
20:31a 20:31b
62, 347, 400f, 407, 412, 421, 443 279, 388, n486, 409, 410n516, 411 356 165, 223, 275f, 283, 299n384, 333 63, 224, 231n293, 254, 275n348, 456 34, 289f, 444, n590, 450, 456 34, 289f, 444, n590, 453
21 21:1-23 21:15-23 21:19-22 21:25
275n348, 408n513, 453 452n602 409n514 457n610 165
Acts 2:33 5:31
30n45, 329 329
Romans 6-8 6:5 16:6
350n455 76n126 387n484
20:29
20:31
First Corinthians 2:15 41 5:2 41 15 350 15:15f 350n455 15:23 349 15:25-28 30n45 15:35-41 2n3 15:40f 423n539 15:45 1, n1, 30, n45, 59, 349, 350n455, 402 15:48f 350n455 Philippian 2:9
329
Hebrews 12:29
354 5
First John 1:5 1:7 2:20-27 2:22f 2:27 2:29
5 40n71 239n306 409n515 239n306 206n262
502 3:1-10 3:9 3:24 4:2f 4:7 5:1 5:6
Indices 239n306 42n77, 184, n233, 206n262, 239n306 239n306 40, n 69, 409n515 206n262 206n262, 409n515 40, n70
Apocrypha Sirach 16:21 48:10
169n216, 305n393 242f
Wisdom of Solomon 16:5 223, n282 16:6 223 16:11 223n282
Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Jubilees 1:23-25
209
