Jesus and the Gospel Movement: Not Afraid to Be Partners

Jesus and the Gospel Movement

ERIC VOEGELIN INSTITUTE SERIES I N P O L I T I C A L P H I L O S O P H Y: STUDIES IN RELIGION AND POLITICS

Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics, by Elizabeth Campbell Corey The Religious Foundations of Francis Bacon’s Thought, by Stephen A. McKnight

Other Books in the ERIC VOEGELIN INSTITUTE SERIES IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

The American Way of Peace: An Interpretation, by Jan Prybyla Faith and Political Philosophy: The Correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, 1934–1964, edited by Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism, by Barry Cooper Art and Intellect in the Philosophy of Étienne Gilson, by Francesca Aran Murphy Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin: A Friendship in Letters, 1944–1984, edited by Charles R. Embry Voegelin, Schelling, and the Philosophy of Historical Existence, by Jerry Day Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity, by Glenn Hughes Eros, Wisdom, and Silence: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues, by James M. Rhodes The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays, by Eugene Davidson Hans Jonas: The Integrity of Thinking, by David J. Levy A Government of Laws: Political Theory, Religion, and the American Founding, by Ellis Sandoz Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World, by John von Heyking Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence, by Thomas J. McPartland

W ILLIAM T HOMPSON -U BERUAGA

and the Gospel Movement

Not Afraid to Be Partners

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS COLUMBIA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2006 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Thompson-Uberuaga, William, 1943– Jesus and the Gospel movement : not afraid to be partners / William Thompson-Uberuaga. p. cm. — (Eric Voegelin Institute series in political philosophy) Summary: “Thompson-Uberuaga reconsiders the image of Jesus Christ by examining his relationships with others and the bonds he formed as the gospel movement took shape around him. He engages the works of Voegelin, Gadamer, and others to explore fully the political dimensions of the emerging church. Includes internet links for supplementation”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8262-1633-5 (hard cover : alk. paper) 1. Jesus Christ—Person and offices. I. Title. II. Series. BT202.T473 2006 232—dc22 2005037962 This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Jacket Designer: Kristie Lee Text Designer: foleydesign Typesetter: Crane Composition, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typefaces: New Century Schoolbook and Papyrus Publication of this book has been assisted by a generous contribution from the Eric Voegelin Institute and the Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation.

For my colleagues and students over the years . . . partners in the community of learners

Contents

xi 1

Acknowledgments Introduction

CHAPTER I

Consider Participation Participation as Knowing, Feeling, and Willing Participation in the New Testament Characteristics of Participation: Between Familiarity and Strangeness The Burning Bush The Burning Heart Characteristics of Participation: Faith, Hope, and Love Characteristics of Participation: Reason, Imagination, Language, Affection, Willing Geography, Society, and History Three Forms of Participating in Jesus Supplement

vii

4 4 5 6 6 9 12 16 27 36 41

Contents / viii

CHAPTER II

Jesus, His Companions, and Their Movement The Engendering Experience and the Bible Participation and Interpretation The Bible as Window On Not Bypassing the Gospel Form Originary Genres and Engendering Experiences Abstract, Portrait, and Photo The Jesus Christ of History, His Companions, and Their Gospel Movement Chronology and Geography The Humane and Transcendental Dimensions (1) Challenges from Matthew, Mark, and Luke (1.1) Beginning with the Synoptics (1.2) The Alternative Community of God’s Reign (1.3) Inclusiveness and Divine Personalism (1.4) The Alternative Community’s Temporal and Geographical Dimensions (1.5) The Paschal Shape of the Gospel Stories (2) Challenges from John (3) God, Community, and Jesus: A Glance Back Supplement

42 42 44 45 48 49 52 53 55 56 57 60 63 66 81 95 97

CHAPTER III

Affection, Action, and Thought in the Advancing Jesus Movement Groups in Participation Individuals in Participation Common Participation The Conspiracy of the Three Types of Participation Supplement

98 99 113 118 128 133

Contents / ix

CHAPTER IV

Not Afraid to Be Partners Challenges and Hopes Soul, Self, Subject, or Heart? Soul Self Subject Heart Society, Community, and Institution Representative Acutely Social Tensions Jesus’ Alternative Community The Cross-Cultural Challenge and Mystical Tolerance World A Soteriological Transition The Divine Ground Evil, Sin, Salvation, and Trinity The Trinity and the Other The Trinity, Language, and Women Supplement

REPRISE

134 134 135 137 140 143 150 151 156 160 168 174 183 189 191 193 197

198

Considering Participation Jesus and the Gospel Movement in the New Testament The Advancing Jesus Movement Not Afraid to Be Partners: Emerging Challenges and Hopes

198 206 216

Bibliography Index

235 251

223

Acknowledgments

My first expression of thanks must gladly be, as always, to my wife, Patricia, who shares with me the always challenging profession of theological and religious studies. She is the indispensable guide and support on the journey. She is also a very helpful balance and complement, for her specialty is ethics and spirituality, while mine is philosophical theology and the philosophy of religion and politics. Thanks as well are offered to our daughters and their husbands, Carolyn and Tony, Stephanie and Craig, who sometimes wonder how it is that they are related to scholars of religion. They are indispensable in so many ways too, not least in drawing me and Pat away from bookish immersion and encouraging us to play the wonderful game of golf. Nothing like a well-struck golf ball to replenish one’s energy and hope, and like a not-so-well-struck one to put things in proper perspective. But the former is always preferred. The reader will soon learn that political philosopher Eric Voegelin is the great philosophical and political inspiration throughout this book. I did not plan it that way, but that is the case nonetheless. One always seems to return to the wells that replenish. Thus, sincerest thanks to you, Professor Voegelin, and to your gracious wife, Lissy, for so many favors over the years. In returning to Voegelin so often, I do not particularly fear listening to a too-narrow range of philosophical and political voices, for he was one of those poly-dialoguers, in communication with a staggeringly wide circle of friends and thinkers down the ages. This is not a book on Voegelin as such, nor upon his views of Jesus as such, although one will find much on these topics in these pages and on the Website supplements accompanying each chapter. I have tried to xi

Acknowledgments / xii approach the great question of Jesus and his movement in the spirit of Voegelin’s work, moving in directions that I think are defensibly in tune with the telos of Voegelin’s thought. I make no claim that all Voegelin scholars will agree with me. Voegelin is a rich thinker, and his work has generated several, not always agreeing, directions of thought. I am of the school holding that his views on the subject under consideration are defensibly in harmony with the deepest telos of the theophanic irruption of the Jesus event in its amplitude. I have dedicated this book to my colleagues and students over the years. Their enormous importance to my vocation increasingly impresses me. By colleagues, I mean those fellow faculty members with whom I have been privileged to work, especially in the Theology Department of Duquesne University, as well as those within the larger professional academy of scholars, and even my friends and relatives who enrich my religious thinking through our occasional conversations. These together with our students have challenged, supported, and always enriched my own work. Special thanks in this regard are owed to the Eric Voegelin Society; to Ellis Sandoz, its director, who has greatly encouraged and supported this project; to the various other professional groups to which I belong; to Glenn Hughes, David Walsh, Roberto Goizueta, Margaret R. Miles, and Thomas P. Rausch; and to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Duquesne University, and Dean Francesco Cesareo, for their support in numerous ways. Finally, it has been a pleasure and an honor to be associated with the University of Missouri Press and its thoroughly gracious and competent staff. Beverly Jarrett, the director and editor-in-chief, whom I so heartily thank, has encouraged and guided this project and its author all along the way. Thanks, too, to Jane Lago, the managing editor, and to Julie Schorfheide, who carefully worked through my manuscript as if it were their own. I have tried to follow their advice throughout, for it was always compelling, even when they suggested that always-feared counsel: “Cut or shorten.” Finally, thanks too to Karen Renner, the marketing manager, to Eve Kidd, publicity and sales assistant, and all the others at the University of Missouri Press who have shepherded along this book. All errors and mistakes in judgment are my own, exclusively. Eskerrik asko bihotzetik, as we Basques say. Many heartfelt thanks!

Jesus and the Gospel Movement

Introduction

This book is largely about relationships. It is about Jesus, but it wagers that we ought to try to imagine Jesus through the perspective of his relationships. We naturally think of him as developing relationships with his apostles and disciples and other interested observers, teaching them and seeking to form their characters in various ways. But this book asks the reader to consider the reverse as well, that is, how all of these helped to shape and form his personality and commitments. Relationships work both ways. This book also strives to widen our imaginations about these circles of relationships. Parents, siblings, relatives, and friends certainly comprise significant circles of relationships, as do teachers, students, civil and religious authorities, those who are antagonistic toward us, our ancestors, and many others. This book wagers that we will form a rather narrow and even lopsided view of Jesus if we abstract him from his relationships. He will become the odd man out. The New Testament is largely a book of relationships. It writes of Jesus, to be sure, but it is a Jesus in interaction with many others. The New Testament was also written by people who had relationships with Jesus. Perhaps this relationship was not immediate; but if not, it then was the result of a process of circles of people who were in varying shades of relationship with Jesus, or in relationships with others who knew him and had experienced him. And on the circles of relationship go. The history of the Jesus movement is a long and complex process of multiple relationships, extending into our present and showing no signs of letting up. It has occurred to this author, as it has occurred to others too, that the 1

Introduction / 2 quality of our views of Jesus depends largely upon the quality of all of these relationships. This is why we have added Jesus’ gospel movement to the title. Can these relationships in this movement be trusted? What goes into the making of these relationships? Relationships involve the mind, but they also involve our feelings and affections, our wills and our behavior. Can we really form an adequate view of Jesus if we thin out his relationships into just their mental side? What about his feelings, his affectionate bonds, and the affectionate bonds he stimulated in others? What about the impact of his actions, and of the actions of others upon him? This book, then, wagers that much depends upon relationships. What is their worth as a guide to forming persons, and as a guide to coming to experience and know persons? In what way is the New Testament, or the accumulating thought and doctrine about Jesus, reflective of and a sediment of a vast history of relationships with him and his companions? Perhaps attending more forthrightly to this relationship factor might open up some new avenues of consideration. We need to be modest, however. Relationships misfire. They are not immune from errors in judgment, the blindness of passions that are insufficiently refined, and plain old sin. We need a realistic approach to relationships, especially when we are dealing with a historical figure like Jesus, whose history of relationships extends far back into a hazy past. As we think of our own historical circle of relationships, we will likely recognize how misty matters of detail oftentimes become. Imagine, then, the mist in our historical details about Jesus. Relationships have much to do with participation. The levels and quality of participation determine the levels and quality of relationship. Participation can be friendly or antagonistic, crude or sensitive, committed or indifferent, and much more. In any case, the quality of the participation will largely determine the quality of the relationships and what those relationships will yield in terms of mind, heart, and will. This book, then, might be considered an experiment focused about participation as a road of access to Jesus and his movement. In a way, relationship and participation are about connections. As the author worked with these themes he grew more and more convinced of a vast partnership or communion linking us all, past, present, and future creatures. Because we are connected, we do not in the first instance have to build bridges. Somehow we know and feel and interact with one another because we are participating with one another. And yet, in another way, we do sense distances between us, and we do need to labor to overcome those distances and help the quality of our relationships improve

Introduction / 3 and flow more adequately. This seems true of all of us, and it seems true of our relationship with Jesus and his movement. What links us all in this vast partnership we are arguing for? The mystics of all the religions and traditional wisdom philosophies spoke equivalently of the divine Ground linking us all, humans and creatures in general. Obviously the connection between Jesus and this divine Ground will form a central consideration of this study. The reader will have gained the sense that this book will be something of a reaction to, or at least counterbalance to, the approach to Jesus that isolates him from others, including from his history of effects, that is, the ongoing Jesus movement and its interactions. There are dangers that the unique personality of Jesus will be smothered, and the reader will have to judge whether we have adequately addressed this danger. On the other hand, the approach put forth here offers, we hope, some fresh perspectives on connections, that is, on how Jesus might be imagined to be connected with us, with the divine Ground, and with the cosmos. But this book makes no claims to being anything near the impossible goal of an exhaustive synthesis of Jesus, his gospel movement, and the various views and teachings by and about him. This would far exceed this author’s competency, in any case. What we have tried to do is to seek out the “logic,” so to speak, of how the Jesus movement and its appreciation of Jesus developed and might be expected to continue to develop. In order to do this, we have tried to keep connections in mind: Jesus and his relationships; Christology and soteriology; thought, affection, action; theology and sociology and politics and philosophy, and more. The reader will notice that each chapter comes with a supplement, “for further study,” which can be accessed at an appropriate Website. The thread of the book’s approach, its logic, will be clearer to the reader if she or he simply ignores these supplements. On the other hand, these supplements enter more fully into the thicket of the conflict of interpretations, add more depth, and, we hope, will provide the reader with suggestions about further questions and challenges needing to be faced. A discerning use of these supplements, or simply ignoring them until a later day perhaps, might make this book appropriate for a broad range of readers: interested readers, undergraduate and graduate students, fellow scholars, and others.

CHAPTER I

Consider Participation Become participants of the divine nature.— 2

PT 1:4

Participation as Knowing, Feeling, and Willing Participation as a way of entry into Jesus studies and into what is known as the study of the beliefs in Jesus as Christ (Christology) and as Savior (soteriology) will be this book’s focus. Participation has a way of leading us along new paths, and that aspect is one of the things that especially recommends participation to the writer. Its tendency is to be open and inclusive, and not to try to reduce everything to itself. Just think of our relationships with our families, our lovers, our friends. As we become involved with them, we find ourselves stretched to consider their loves and interests. And so we grow in mind, heart, and will, take on new perspectives and interests, perhaps even begin discovering and developing new talents, and make new decisions. Or consider the simple example of reading one of our favorite books. As we read along, we find the author’s world becoming our world, the author’s sources becoming our sources. In time, we are reading the books the author read. We are being stretched. As we move along, we find ourselves nudged to consider other approaches as well. So, too, with our theme of Jesus. He is a very complex theme, and one approach just seems too narrowing. We need something that will point us in an open but helpful direction. Participation will be this book’s recommendation. Participation brings knowledge, refines our affections, and stimulates our willing and acting. Participation also stimulates us to imagine how 4

Consider Participation / 5 these three are somehow one, suggesting that something of each is found in the other. Those are among the reasons recommending it in a book that strives to study who Jesus was and is. Participation also seems especially appropriate to persons. How many married couples, for example, have grown in intimate knowledge of one another precisely through sharing each other’s dreams, struggles, needs, burdens, hopes, and triumphs? Staying on the sidelines of each other’s lives, so to speak, would not have unveiled such insight. Such growth in intimacy even results in shared deliberation, action, and deeper commitment. Marriage is not a spectator sport; neither is friendship, nor personal intimacy of any sort. Neither, then, is intimate knowledge of Jesus, as this book will repeatedly suggest.

Participation in the New Testament The word participation occasionally and significantly occurs in the Bible. The well-known passage in 2 Peter 1:4, for example, speaks of our becoming “participants [koino¯noi] of the divine nature” through the gift of faith, and the eucharistic texts of 1 Corinthians 10:16–21 speak of our participating in the bread (body) and cup (blood) of Jesus. The eucharistic context of the latter reference evokes a participation of special intimacy, namely, eating and digesting. Intimate knowledge, in other words, is implied. Participation is a path to intimacy, including intimate knowledge. The first text, speaking of participating in the divine nature, is a celebrated summary of the Eastern Christian theme of deification (theosis) and expresses succinctly what is entailed in the belief in salvation brought us by Jesus. As believers are deified through participation, their natures become transparent of divinity. Divinity in this way becomes permeable to our thoughts, our affections, and our choices. Besides the typical terms for participation (such as koino¯nia or metoche¯ ), other words carrying an equivalent meaning frequently are used to suggest the reality of participative knowledge. For example, the inspiring passage of John 17:21–24 speaks of the world coming to know Jesus as the one sent by the Father and revealing his love for us through our being in God as Jesus is in God. Being “in” one another, or “indwelling,” is equivalent in many ways to participation. A particularly strong “indwelling” text, in fact, is this one: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide [meno¯n] in [en] me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Taken at full throttle, this text would indicate that such participative indwelling is the road to all things, not simply knowledge.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 6 One final example of an equivalent to the term participation, by way of underscoring the significance of our theme in Scripture, would be Paul’s love for sun (with) and sun-compound words. Participation is a way of being with one another. The simple word with evokes that dimension of participation, and Paul’s writings seem especially sensitive to this. We encounter a sun-wave in Romans 6, for example: “Therefore we have been buried with him [sunetafe¯men] by baptism into death . . . crucified with him [sunestauro¯ the¯] . . . we have died with [sun] Christ, we believe that we will also live with him [suze¯somen]” (6:4, 6, 8). One of Paul’s summarylike sun formulas, illustrating how deeply his anthropology is of this participative and connective nature, is found in 2 Corinthians 7:3: “I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together [sunapothanein] and to live together [suze¯n].” Jesus-knowledge is a sun-kind of knowledge; it comes to us in and through our connections with one another. It is found in the “between” dimension. One quick observation: Perhaps we can say that “indwelling” and “withness” (the sun words) express and emphasize each of the two poles of the experience of participation. There is a visceral sharing in someone’s life as one participates with another. We can use the word visceral because participation does seem to bring an outsider somehow into the inside of another on varying levels. On the other hand, the other does remain an “other” in the event of participation, no matter how intimately close the partners become. The partners are “with” one another, and the space in the “with-experience” is one respecting the potentially enriching differences between the partners.

Characteristics of Participation: Between Familiarity and Strangeness The Burning Bush Since we are going to build upon the way that participation may shape our possible responses to Jesus and his movement, let us preliminarily sketch a few of its more notable features. First, we might well consider the interplay between familiarity and strangeness (or nearness and distance, presence and absence, and so on) that seems to characterize participation in general, but especially person-to-person relationships. Here we are developing the two poles of indwelling and being-with that we have just noted. Sharing with someone or in something requires at least a minimal familiarity on our part; at the same time the strangeness offers us a space within which to grow and develop in greater familiarity.

Consider Participation / 7 Too much strangeness or distance, and we have no access, no entryway into participation. Too much familiarity, and we have no need to exert ourselves. The space between the two poles of strangeness and nearness makes it possible for us to encounter and, more important, to honor the other; as we do so, we experience ourselves intriguingly finding ourselves too. In a fascinating way, our selves emerge “before us” as we exert ourselves in the event of participation. One of the paradigmatic texts of the Bible celebrating the theophanic possibilities of this rich interplay between familiarity and strangeness is that of the burning bush in Exodus 3. By using the word theophanic I mean to underscore that there is something divinely revelatory, a becoming luminous, that occurs in the interplay we are considering. The text is especially notable, because one of its key emphases seems to be to maintain the tension of the interplay. That tension is never quite relieved, although layer upon layer of its rich meaning seems progressively unveiled. “There [the mountain Horeb] the angel of the Lord appeared to [Moses] in a flame of fire out of a bush” (Ex 3:2), the text begins. The flame of fire at a minimum is one of those rich symbols of illumination—a “light bulb” experience, as we say today. But we should not over-intellectualize this “fire.” The symbol suggests a more emotional, affectional response, and it also arouses decisive action. This light attracts Moses, it catches his attention. In this sense, it expresses nearness and a certain measure of familiarity. Both the bush and the flame can be said to be evocative of familiarity and nearness. At the same time we are on the mountain Horeb, to which Moses has led his flock, and this mountain is said to be even “beyond the wilderness” (Ex 3:1). In other words, here we meet with the theme of distance. Most of us would be rather timid about going into the wilderness, let alone going beyond it into something even more strange and uncustomary. While there, Moses learns that this bush and fire, which after all we have considered symbols of familiarity and presence, are now also symbols of distance and strangeness. For this bush and fire are strange: “the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed” (Ex 3:2). Right away, then, we are in the midst of the interplay, with Moses. Another surge of this tensive interplay occurs immediately. “Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight [nearness], and see why the bush is not burned up [strangeness]” (Ex 3:3). As he enters through participation into this encounter, Moses grows in intimate knowledge. “When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am’ ” (Ex 3:4). Again, we are back with the theme of nearness. What kind of intimate knowledge is this? Well, God is experienced as calling out to Moses, as

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 8 naming him. We would say today, God is being personal and intimate. And this brings Moses a sense of his own personhood too: “Here I am,” he responds. However, this luminous nearness and intimacy is immediately followed by a new stress upon distance: “Then he said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’ ” (Ex 3:5). As if signaling that now within this protective distance God’s “otherness” will not be violated (the other can only be other within a certain distance), the text announces yet a further luminous insight (familiarity): “He said further, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ ” (Ex 3:6). Moses can hear this new thing because he is truly open to hearing the voice of the other, and not simply his own familiar echo. “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex 3:6), the text continues, giving the theme of strangeness, distance, and mystery the last word, so to speak. This rich text continues on in this way, alternating between the luminous presence and the strange distance in an almost dizzying way. Exodus 3:7–12 continues on to give us a bit more of the theme of luminous presence, for it tells of God as seeing and being concerned for his people’s misery, summed up in the statement of Exodus 3:12, “I will be with you.” But this, as always, is balanced by the theme of strangeness, even in the midst of this nearness, as Moses is told in response to his question about what God’s name is: “I am who I am” (Ex 3:13–15). It is indeed a name, but one most strange indeed. The otherness of God somehow remains other. If this name is really a causative form of the verb to be, it would indicate that Moses will only come to learn who God is by turning to God’s work in life and history—by continuing to participate, in other words, in what God is up to in the “otherness” of history.1 And that indeed is how the text continues, by speaking of Moses’ call to lead his people from captivity. We might call this text from Exodus 3 a primordial theophany text. It is primordial, because in a compact, symbolic way it displays the poles of familiarity and strangeness present in all authentic experiences of participation. The primordiality indicates that we cannot fully explain the 1. “YHWH is a third person form and may mean ‘He causes to be.’ The name does not indicate God’s eternal being but God’s action and presence in historical affairs” (New Oxford Annotated Bible, 72). The NRSV is being used, unless otherwise noted. For the Hebrew and Greek versions, I am following The Interlinear Bible: HebrewGreek-English. For suggestive insight into the fruitful distance created by the polarity of familiarity and strangeness, which has been quite helpful to me, see Gadamer, Truth and Method, 291–300.

Consider Participation / 9 depths of this experience. The more we enter into it, the richer it seems. The primordiality also means that the text is primary in the sense that it is the ground floor, so to speak, upon which we always stand. It is a theophany text because the mysterious divine Ground of existence is encountered here. Thus, the familiarity and the strangeness are the grounding poles of all other kinds of events of familiarity and strangeness, which but express varying degrees of participating in this more grounding reality. God, we might say, is the most familiar reality of all, more intimate than we are to ourselves. Yet God is the most strange, too, the Other par excellence drawing us forward in what seems like a never-ending movement. “The Beauty so old [familiar] and so new [strange],” wrote Augustine.2 We speak by tradition of Exodus 3 as a theophany, stressing the God dimension of the event; but as we have seen, Moses discovers much of his own personhood in the event as well. The personal God addresses him personally and calls him out toward the owning and exercising of his leadership talents on behalf of his people. In a way it is, then, an anthropophany, a manifestation of personhood and personmaking, but also of people-making (anthropoiphany), for it discloses that Moses’ people discover their own dignity and capacity to be free under Moses’ leadership. The Burning Heart The interplay between the Hebrew and Christian Testaments is, from the Christian viewpoint, another variation on the theme of familiarity (old) and strangeness (new). Participation in Jesus alters the traditional theophany into a Christophany, and we could say that Jesus studies and Christology-soteriology are variants of the participative movement into christophany. By way of paradigm, let us consider for a moment the celebrated text of the resurrection story of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus (found only in Luke 24:13–35). One is tempted to pair the Transfiguration accounts (rather than the Emmaus story) with the theophany of Exodus 3, but the more traditional “parallel” to the Transfiguration from the Hebrew Testament would be that of Exodus 24, the Mount Sinai theophany in which “Moses entered the cloud” (Ex 24:18), reminiscent of the overshadowing cloud at the Transfiguration of Jesus (Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:34). So, heeding the play of symbols, let us go somewhere other than the Transfiguration accounts for a more direct parallel to our 2. “Interior intimo meo” and “pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova” (Confessions 3.6, 10.27; Latin text in O’Donnell, ed.)

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 10 Exodus 3 text. I recommend the Emmaus narrative, which in developed form plays upon the resurrection appearance theme of the recognition of Jesus through the struggle with Jesus’ newness and strangeness, as the disciples seek to calibrate it with his more familiar presence. We will then pair the burning bush of Exodus 3 with the burning heart of the Emmaus episode. The very setting itself may be one of those Lukan narrative touches, displaying the interplay between nearness (familiarity) and distance (strangeness), for we are told that the two disciples “were going to a village called Emmaus [the theme of distance], about seven miles [literally, about sixty stadia] from Jerusalem [the theme of the near or familiar].” They are making their way, journeying, which we can take as evocative of the movement involved in participation, which is never really static. It is Jesus in whom they are participating, for we are told that “they are talking with each other about all these things that had happened [regarding Jesus].” Conversation is a form of participation, between the interlocutors certainly, but also between them and the subject matter of the dialogue, which is Jesus and the events of his arrest and execution, in this particular case. Immediately the interplay is announced: “Jesus came near and went with them [the familiar], but their eyes were kept from recognizing him [the strange].” Luke uses the emphatic autos (himself ): It really is Jesus himself. This brings home the theme of familiarity. The Jesus we have really known is here, and yet he is different. The entire narrative, in a way, is a disclosure of this interplay announced here. The strangeness noted in Luke 24:16, namely, “their eyes were kept from recognizing him,” and the familiarity noted in verse 31, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him,” symbolize the two poles within which the Emmaus event plays itself out. Coming to know this Jesus demands the risk of moving between these poles of the more comfortably known and the hazards of the unknown. Such is the stuff of participative knowing. The disciples are said to be “talking and discussing.” They are discussing the recent events occurring to Jesus, and their hopes about his messiahship, as is well known. They are presented as sorrowfully disappointed, but the fact of discussion and conversation indicates a certain perplexity and openness. This openness is the “crack,” apparently, within which recognition just might be able to occur. Luke, with his sensitivity to women, has also noted that “some women of [the disciples’] group astounded [them]” with the news of the empty tomb and the angels’ message that Jesus was alive. The verb translated here as “astounded” (exhiste¯mi) carries the meaning of both surprise and confusion, if we note

Consider Participation / 11 other texts where Luke uses it.3 For example, when Luke describes the perplexity of all the people of varying languages hearing those languages spoken by the Galilean disciples as a result of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2:7, this verb is used. So these two disciples on the way to Emmaus are already in a state of defamiliarization through the prodding of the female disciples’ openness. The participation of others, in this case of the women, has helped to create a community of participation. We are the beneficiaries of a community and even of a history of participation and coparticipation, Luke is indicating. One of the key lessons of the burning bush story was the discovery of the unfamiliar in the familiar. What is more familiar than a bush? What is more strange than a bush that burns and yet is not destroyed? In and through the familiar we are led to the unfamiliar, to the depths we are apt to overlook. So here in the Emmaus story, the elements of familiarity become the path to the unfamiliar. We are led to take another and deeper look at what we had thought we already knew. These disciples knew their Hebrew scriptures; they also were happily familiar with sharing the table fellowship with Jesus during his ministry. Now these elements that were so familiar become the path to an unfamiliar recognition. “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he [Jesus] interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.” “So he went in to stay with them . . . at the table . . . he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” This is that Luke 24:31, noted earlier, which is the counterpole to the earlier verse 16 (“their eyes were kept from recognizing him”)—the movement between not recognizing (the strange) and recognizing (the familiar), in other words. The moment of recognition brings with it the recalling of the burning heart, while Jesus was interpreting the scriptures for them. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32). The Greek word used here for “burning” (kaiomene¯) is the same one used to translate the Hebrew word for “burning” in the burning bush episode of Exodus 3 in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint). So perhaps we are following the ancient translators and commentators in pairing the burning heart and the burning bush. This is like Augustine’s beauty so old and yet so new, it seems. The disciples’ hearts had “burned” with love before, but they were not supposed to do that anymore, for Jesus had died. This burning heart, so familiar and old, has become so unfamiliar and new, like a bush that never stops burning. 3. See Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, 395; cf. 392–400.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 12 “That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem . . . they found the eleven and their companions. . . . Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:33–35). We all recall that the two disciples had expected Jesus to remain the night (“Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over”). Nothing strange in that. It is a quite familiar expectation. But with the recognition of Jesus we are once again thrust into the dynamic interplay between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Keeping this dynamism flowing is just what participation in Jesus means. Hence the return to Jerusalem to share it and extend it. And even the old “familiar” Jerusalem, too familiar with the sad news of the deaths of many martyrs, the most recent being Jesus, now becomes the new and strange city of the risen One whose message for us is, as Luke’s narrative goes on to recount, the good news: “Peace be with you” (Lk 24:36). Surprising events transpire in the event of participation. As in Exodus 3, so in Luke 24, we are dealing with an experience of the divine Ground. This is one of those primordial participation experiences, for only the divine Ground transcends human mortality, both in the sense of the mortality of Jesus’ physical death and in the spiritual sense of the death of hope on the part of the Emmaus travelers. Suddenly he is there, unexpected, as the mysterious divine Ground is unexpected. Their eyes cannot recognize him, for it is the other side of the Mystery that is approaching. Participation on our part is grounded in a deeper participation on the part of the Ground. As in Exodus 3, so here, the Christophany is also an anthropoiphany: the disciples discover their hearts burning. Their capacity to love, to believe in love in fact, is alive, and it leads them further into the mysterious labyrinths of love, symbolized by the immediate journeying back to Jerusalem to share the good news, for love is always a sharing, but also to risk the cost involved in Jesus’ love, for Jerusalem was the site of his costly death. Something, then, of these familiar but strange experiences within participation, as symbolized by the burning bush and the burning heart, is in store for the would-be journeyer into Christology by way of participation.

Characteristics of Participation: Faith, Hope, and Love I suppose it is the authority of Saint Paul that ultimately is responsible for the triad of faith, hope, and love becoming the fundamental Christian virtues, for they occur together as a threesome in his writings, most fa-

Consider Participation / 13 mously in 1 Corinthians 13:13 (along with Col 1:4–5 and 1 Thes 1:3). But there is a “natural” logic behind grouping the three together when we consider them in the context of participation, and it seems plausible that this logic also has something to do with the triad’s achieving such prominent status in the Christian tradition. “Faith” in the vividly concrete sense of faithfulness to the event of participation, not giving up on it, staying with it, remaining in a posture of fidelity and committed trust— such would seem basic ingredients in any experience of participation, at least if it be uncoerced. Let us call this faith “fidelity.” The word fidelity seems appropriate, because both faith and fidelity share the same Latin root ( fides). In this original sense, such faith is not only a Christian virtue but a virtue intrinsic to any event of participation, whether of interpersonal exchange, or of scientific collaboration and experimentation, or of scholarly interchange, or commercial entrepreneurship, and so on. Participation simply requires a basic measure of fidelity to get and keep going. But if such participation be free, it is hard to see how the fidelity it requires can be sustained without hope, in the simple sense of meaningful expectation. We participate because we are hopeful creatures, expectant of some beneficial result. Obviously there is a time element involved. There can be no hope if there be no future. But hope qualitatively alters the experience of time, away from mere passage of minutes (chronos) to meaningful expectation (kairos), as many have pointed out. Love is perhaps the most ambiguous member of the triad, because there are so many views of what it is and, traditionally, so many forms of it, ranging from the love of nature, on through to human interpersonal loves like friendship and romance, and on through to love between God and humans. The fact that our languages commonly use the same word for all of these things (even while they will use the words to distinguish them too, as we have just done) indicates a something in common, at root, between them all. But what love may be, and even if it actually exists, is much disputed. I will follow Augustine, who in his commentary on Psalm 64:2, writes that one who loves is one who is in process of going out.4 In other words, love is at root an exodus experience. So the event of participation is an exodus, too, a going out from familiarity to strangeness. Such going out involves fidelity and expectation, to be sure, but neither of those could find realization, or even “be,” apart from the going out of love. Maybe that is why Paul names “love” the greatest of the three (1 Cor 13:13). 4. “Incipit exire qui incipit amare” (Enarrationes in Psalmos, 64.2, Aurelii Augustini Opera, 39:824). Augustine likely used a Latin translation from the Septuagint Greek text of the Psalter; Ps 64 corresponds to our Ps 65 in the modern editions.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 14 I find it helpful, as political philosopher Eric Voegelin has noted, that the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus had already noticed the roles of faith, hope, and perhaps even love in our human experience. This seems helpful, because it indicates the very human nature of faith, hope, and love. These capacities are, not magical qualities given only to a few privileged souls, but capacities present in and for all. If participation be a way of entry into knowledge of Jesus, for example, then inasmuch as anyone can risk the venture of faith, hope, and love at least in some minimal way, he or she can be on the way to knowing who this Jesus is. But coming to know Jesus, although the main focus of this book, is not the only possibility open to such persons. Coming to know anyone through participative experience, and perhaps coming to know anything as well, is also the fruit of the virtues of faith, hope, and love. This helps us grasp the crucial nature of these virtues (or capacities). The role they play in our humanmaking is central. Far from being obstacles to knowing, as faith along with hope and love often are presented in our culture, these virtues are the very foundations within which knowledge can happen. Within this framework of participative knowledge, faith and the other virtues are not second best to knowledge, as if they are a sort of fallback position if we cannot achieve knowledge. Rather they are knowledge’s ground and source: Going out (love) in expectant (hope) fidelity (faith) to the attraction of reality is what generates our knowing of anyone and anything. We had just mentioned Heraclitus (ca. 500 BC). It may seem surprising to a Christian, accustomed to thinking of faith, hope, and love as specifically Christian virtues, to note texts in which Heraclitus, who knew nothing of Christ explicitly, writes of these virtues. It may also be startling to some of those “modern” readers who consign such virtues to the oddities of Christian religion, reserving the more credible reality of “knowing” to the normal human being. Heraclitus is supposed to be one of these normal types—in fact, one of the more radical forerunners of the great Greek intellectual Enlightenment.5 So it is intellectually stimulating and perhaps even therapeutic to come upon these fascinating texts. “If you do not hope, you will not find the unhoped-for, since it is hard to be found and the way is all but impassable,” wrote Heraclitus regarding 5. Describing himself as the “first tragic philosopher,” Nietzsche wrote that he “looked in vain for signs of it [tragic wisdom] even among the great Greeks in philosophy, those of the two centuries before Socrates. I retained some doubt in the case of Heraclitus, in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer and better than anywhere else” (Nietzsche, “The Birth of Tragedy,” 3, in On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo, 273). Nietzsche, as other “radical” thinkers, liked Heraclitus’ appreciation for the flux, the sort of primal source of newness and revitalization.

Consider Participation / 15 hope. “Nature loves to hide” and “Through lack of faith the divine [?] escapes being known,” he writes concerning love and faith. I am using the rendering of Eric Voegelin, who notes that “Heraclitus is very close to the symbolism of Pauline Christianity.” Voegelin describes these three virtues as “orienting forces in the soul; the invisible attunement is hard to find unless it is hoped for; and the divine escapes being known unless we have faith.” Voegelin does not seem to say much on the virtue of love here. He seems to imply that nature’s loving to hide is a way of drawing attention to our human need to “go out” in search of it, recalling Augustine’s definition of love as a going out.6 In a very compact but intriguing way, Heraclitus shows himself to be a keen observer of our common human experience. “Follow the common,” he writes, while he tells us he has been exploring his self and its various dimensions (“I explored myself ”). It is easy to get lost, and so he counsels us to follow what brings us into community with one another: “Those who are awake have a world one and common, but those who are asleep each turn aside into their private worlds.” The sense is obscure, for we are working with fragments, but it seems that he is suggesting that we test our views with and against one another, although he seems aware that many prefer not to do so: “But though the Logos is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own.” Whatever else the “Logos” may be, for Heraclitus it seems to be “what [we] have in common, and when [we] are in agreement with regard to [it] then [we] are truly in community,” writes Voegelin.7 Voegelin’s interpretation seems quite plausible when we reconsider the matter in the light of our virtues of faith, hope, and love. Reality would indeed seem trustworthy, inspiring our fidelity, and hopeful, filling us with expectation, were it to bring us into communion, sharing, and mutual regard (love, in other words). The “Logos,” at least at this Heraclitean stage of its significance, is what does this. Something else about Heraclitus that is helpful is his use of the aphorism or fragment. We have to work to understand a fragment, for there is no context surrounding it that explains it for us—no context, that is, other than the context of our lives. Perhaps that is the point. Our knowledge ought to be rooted in the stuff of our lives. We need to work at staying 6. Voegelin, Order and History, vol. II, The World of the Polis, 300, translating Heraclitus’ fragments B 18, B 123, and B 86 (from the Diels-Kranz collection). I also first came across Augustine’s commentary on Ps 64:2 from Voegelin, for whom it is a central symbol. See, for example, his Order and History, vol. IV, The Ecumenic Age, 230, 236. 7. Voegelin, The World of the Polis, 304; his renderings of B 2, B 101, B 89, and B 2 continued (304, 300, 304).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 16 tuned into it. In other words, the aphorism invites and almost even compels our active participation. We cannot just sit back and let the “verbal” context do our thinking for us. We must work. There is perhaps a bit of the renegade element in the aphorism, too, in the sense that it can be a way of staying clear of grand systems that claim to be able to explain reality with maximal clarity. The aphorism is a window potentially opening us to a patch of meaning. But a patch is humble and small. Nietzsche claimed that “the aphoristic form . . . today . . . is not taken seriously enough.”8 As readers of Nietzsche know, he liked the form and used it widely, for the reasons here noted. It would be a mistake for people with hesitations about Nietzsche’s thought to ignore the aphorism and its great potential, however. Jesus used it widely, too, as we recall, along with thinkers like Heraclitus. While the use of the aphorism might be something typical of oral cultures, it also expresses something that seems basically true of our human condition, namely, the essentially participative nature of our knowing. Hence the attraction that so many of us have to the form, even when we find it in writers with whom we have our issues.

Characteristics of Participation: Reason, Imagination, Language, Affection, Willing By tradition we Christians refer to the virtues of faith, hope, and love as the “theological virtues” because of the prominence those virtues have as a result of the revelation event of Jesus. They take on a particular shape when we are speaking of participative faith, hope, and love in Jesus, naturally, because within a framework of participation, the shape always corresponds to the partners in the event of participation. Because this is a work on Jesus, we will naturally be focusing upon the specifically Christian form of these virtues; but it is helpful, for the reasons noted, to be aware that in some form those virtues seem to be basic human capacities. This would seem to be one of the reasons why Jesus himself could connect with people, arousing and developing their abilities to trust, hope, and love. The early preaching about Jesus could connect with peoples far and wide for the same reason, it would appear. Heart was connecting with heart. Heraclitus is serving as our representative of these theological virtues 8. Kaufman, preface to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals, 22–23. Helpful is Ansell-Pearson, Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, 15–22.

Consider Participation / 17 as basic human capacities, which Jesus and Christians in general can build upon. Heraclitus stems from the Greek tradition (he was from Ephesus), and we in the West have been greatly shaped by the articulation of the virtues developed among the Greeks, and later by the Roman Stoics especially. Besides the theological virtues, we could add the so-called cardinal virtues of Plato, namely, prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. Actually there are several different lists of virtues and rankings among them in the classic thinkers, and we could add the parallel articulations of virtues among the Confucian, Taoist, and Hindu traditions, among others. In a book on Jesus we may not need to explore each and every one of these virtues, but the reader may want to experiment mentally with how our theme of participation can be enriched by a consideration of these various virtues. It seems that the more we explore the dynamics involved in our experiences of participating with people, whether on a personal and somewhat private level or on a more public and even civic level, the more we discover how we call upon and develop various capacities (virtues, that is), such as the “cardinal” virtues just noted. A lot of courage, for example, was exercised by Jesus and his earliest martyred disciples. Prudence? We are told that Jesus counseled being innocent as doves and shrewd as snakes (Mt 10:16). Temperance (moderation)? Well, even though he was a martyr, he did not seem to foolishly want to bring his martyrdom on. His approach seems more life-oriented. Remember the traditional agony in the garden before his arrest? “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36). And justice? If by justice we mean struggling on behalf of peoples for a more dignified and flourishing form of public existence, the Sermon on the Mount ought to qualify as one example of the exercise of justice, if not only that, for a good deal of faith, hope, and love seems added in as well. Since this book is a philosophical-theological study of Jesus and his significance and movement, it is important to offer some preliminary thoughts on knowledge and directly related issues, in addition to the virtues. The reader will have already glimpsed this book’s approach when reading the proposal that faith is not second best to reason nor reason’s enemy but its grounding source. That assertion is obviously pretty contentious in our Western culture, where there is now a relatively long history of emphasizing a separation between faith and reason. But I ask the reader to exercise the virtue of patience with this book as it tries to plead its case. Incidentally, there is no reason why we cannot have a certain sympathy for the so-called separation between faith and reason, when we consider what certain people seem to think one or the other is.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 18 Faith, so far, has been defined by us in a very broad and human sense as “fidelity” to, or trust in, the event of human participation, with things, with one another, and with the divine Ground of our lives. We are partners in a vast exchange, and faith is being faithful to the obligations of such a partnership. If we think of fidelity not so much as a static noun but as a dynamic verb, then we should go on to consider faith as also needing to be joined with hope and love. Actually in this book we are always speaking of faith, hope, and love and their relationship with reason (and other things too, as we shall note), even if we do not explicitly say so. The tendency to separate faith from hope and love is what partly lies behind the separation of faith from reason. For without hope, faith becomes static and unhistorical, a sort of frozen posture locked in the past. Without love, faith becomes impersonal, abstract, quite dogmatic too. So, as faith atrophies when it is severed from its sisters of hope and love, it should come as no surprise that “reasonable” people want nothing to do with it. Such turn to reason as their guide. The only trouble is that in the struggle to keep reason sanitized from faith, reason in turn seems to suffer its own atrophy, the greatest being the problem of human arrogance and its attendant companions, like egoism, gnosticism (know-it-all-ism), and so on. Now as we are faithful to our partners in life, is it not true that we begin being attentive, observing, listening, questioning, seeking? The Latin word for seeking is quaerens, which is related to our word questioning. Fidelity to another now somehow becomes a seeking and inquiring; and if we remain with this long enough, with sufficient discipline, the seeking becomes a reasoning process, and in turn it yields a certain measure of knowing and perhaps, in time, a certain understanding and wisdom even.9 This is what we mean by fidelity as the ground of reason, and just how this grounding occurs is somewhat obscure. Consequently we have used the word somehow above. Somehow faith grounds reason. This would indicate that faith as fidelity is something more encompassing than reason, a deep down capacity that has the ability to take various forms, among which is this reasoning process. Fidelity to things and persons is what seems to make knowledge of them possible and credible. Most of us would not give much credence to claims of knowledge that is not based upon such attentive fidelity. 9. A rough parallel might be Lonergan’s celebrated “transcendental precepts”: “Be attentive, Be intelligent, Be reasonable, Be responsible” (Method in Theology, 231), but embraced within a framework of faith as fidelity, reworking Saint Anselm’s famous faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum) from the prologue of his Proslogion.

Consider Participation / 19 So this book wants to side with the view that faith and reason should be friends, even if, like other friendships, there can be stormy moments in the relationship when each challenges and potentially enriches the other. Faith can go through its many dark nights as it is challenged by what it is learning and, perhaps more, by what it does not seem to know with much clarity. On the other side, reason can go through its dark nights as well as it is challenged to admit its limits and/or to own up to its responsibilities. We are speaking not only of specifically Christian faith and reason here, but in our broader sense. Let the reader test the plausibility of these observations by attending to any of his or her significant personal relationships. Of course this book will explore the pertinence of these ideas to our history of relating to Jesus, which knows its many dark nights too, including today’s many challenges, given the vast global horizon within which participation in Jesus must occur. Teresa of Avila’s classic, The Interior Castle, a work she completed in 1577, offers us a helpful example of these ways in which faith and reason relate to and challenge one another. This book exhibits a stunning attunement to the dynamics of the engendering process through which theophanic experiences occur. Its relative closeness to experience and relative freedom from religious political correctness is impressive, even if Teresa may need to find a savvy way through the censorship of the inquisitors. She is writing, naturally, of specifically Christian faith within the context of developing one’s most intimate relationship with Jesus, so her book is directly relevant to a Christology concerned with the theme of participative knowledge of Jesus. As is well known, the “interior castle” is a metaphor for the soul’s innumerable dimensions as the Christian journeys in companionship with Jesus. “Because we have heard and because faith tells us so, we know we have souls. But we seldom consider the precious things that can be found in this soul, or who dwells within it, or its high value.” What strikes one immediately is that she does not simply think of faith in isolation from the other virtues but keeps the link between the various virtues alive, especially love, hope, humility, and courage. For example, the common-sense advice to simply “engage in external works of charity and to hope in the mercy of God who never fails those who hope in him,”10 when finding oneself unable to explain what is happening in the companioning experience, is typical of the way she turns to the virtues throughout. This interlinking of the virtues recalls this book’s 10. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 1.1.2 (Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, 2:284), 6.1.13 (365). See index, s.vv. “faith,” “hope,” “love,” “charity,” “courage,” “humility,” “virtue(s),” etc. Helpful for the Spanish reader is Castro, Cristología Teresiana, 145–231 (on Teresa’s virtue ethics).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 20 endeavor of keeping faith always in connection especially with hope and love, among the other virtues. Only thinking of the relation between an isolated faith and reason is already a sign of a certain atrophying of each. Teresa avoids that. A key dimension of Teresa’s book is the tension between the inability to comprehend the interior castle and the strong impulse to try. We are caught between the “paradise of delights” too deep for human comprehension and the desire “to strive to know who we are.”11 We are experiencing the tension between faith and reason. Along the way, she notes critical moments in the relationship between faith (along with the other virtues) and reason, moments when the challenge can come from either side and, if “successfully” worked through, lead to a significant modification in the quality of each. Particularly challenging and perplexing are a number of texts in which Teresa seems to call into question the role of reason in an almost unqualified sense. “Love has not yet reached the point of overwhelming reason,” she comments with respect to people whose “reason is still very much in control” in the spiritual journey. “Let’s abandon our reason and our fears into his hands,” she counsels in the same context. A little later, and most famously, she counsels: “the important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”12 There is no question that Teresa works within a traditional viewpoint that accepts the “primacy” of faith, hope, and love over reason. It may also be true that she does not adequately explore and express, to the systematic thinker’s satisfaction, the various relationships between faith and reason, leaving qualifications missing and needed at times. But the overall sense of this reader is that she is seeking, not to denigrate reason, but to explain how it undergoes a certain broadening and transformation in the companioning process with Jesus. For example, the great problem with beginners on the spiritual journey is simply a too-limited view of the possibilities open to them. Their reasoned view of the matter needs stretching and challenging so they can begin to make progress. In the very text in which she writes about reason not yet being overwhelmed by love, Teresa says that “I should like us to use our reason to make ourselves dissatisfied with this way of serving God.” So she seems to want reason to continue to function, but less narrowly. Her very writing of her book, in which she tells us she is endeavoring to explain the spiritual journey, illustrates her high regard for reason, it seems. And here and there she makes this explicit. “If only I knew how to explain myself. . . . Knowledge 11. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 1.1.2 (284). 12. Ibid., 3.2.7, 3.2.8 (312), 4.1.7 (319).

Consider Participation / 21 and learning are a great help in everything.” Or, in her typically paradoxical way: “the soul will never understand the favors the Lord is granting [in the fourth dwelling places] or the love with which he is drawing it nearer to himself. It is good to try to understand how we can obtain such a favor; so I am going to tell you what I have understood about this.”13 Here, at any rate, Teresa’s book illustrates our view that in the faith and reason exchange and journey, there are critical thresholds within which one or the other issues a potentially transformative challenge. The examples so far, however, look at the challenge coming to reason from the side of faith, hope, and love. That challenge certainly is important. Moving beyond Teresa’s specific Christian context, we can all think of critical moments in our personal relationships where our “reason” needed to pause, stay on hold, and simply lovingly listen and share with our partner, after which we began to “understand” things we never thought we could understand. Our reason underwent a transformative widening, in other words. Teresa is saying something similar about the relationship with Jesus. This book wants to suggest that something similar occurs in the context of the study of Jesus, when understood within the framework of participative knowledge. What we might question is whether Teresa’s little classic adequately explores the challenge to faith coming from the side of reason. She exhibits none of the modern or postmodern questions coming to faith from the physical or social sciences, naturally. Hers is the traditional and rather “secure” faith world of the imperial Spain of the Golden Age. Inasmuch as her book employs reason to chart the spiritual journey and to correct what she regards as inadequate views of its varied dimensions, we can suggest that she does illustrate something of how reason challenges the faith side. Actually, her work contains a potentially rather radical rethinking of the spiritual journey, perhaps “modified” by her somewhat and quite deliberately, given the obstacles women had to overcome in a strongly patriarchal culture. For example, the theme of the “interior” castle, which is a way of challenging a very formalistic and legalistic view of the faith, also would be a Catholic way of challenging the superstitious works righteousness that the Protestant Reformers were challenging in the German territories. Likewise, Teresa’s high regard for the human emotions and imagination, along with her emphasis upon Jesus’ humanity, can be seen as a challenge to a view of Christ and Christianity grown too otherworldly and antihuman.14 So the challenge from the side of reason 13. Ibid., 3.2.7 (312), 4.1.5 (318), 4.2.8 (325). 14. See the sixth dwelling places, especially. For a feminist retrieval of Teresa, see Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity, and Ahlgren, Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 22 is there, even if somewhat indirectly articulated. In our own times, however, the need to think through the challenge from the side of reason has grown more acute, given the way the faith and reason interchange has altered. But we can draw significant help from Teresa in our own efforts. We will at this point particularly note Teresa’s use of the imagination, which is closely linked to aesthetics and the beautiful, and build a little more upon that. Just as we have suggested that it is not healthy to consider faith in isolation from the other virtues, so it is not healthy to consider reason in isolation from other human capacities directly related to it, such as the imagination. Perhaps reason has seemed able to get along well without faith in today’s secularized spheres because reason has been too separated from imagination. For what would an unimaginative reasoning be other than one that too narrowly restricts the range of authentic possibilities open to the human inquirer? An unimaginative thinker is one who avoids the challenge of the explorable, preferring to remain with the familiar as a strategy for avoiding the strange. Again, we are back with our interplay between familiarity and strangeness, and we can allow this interplay to supply us with at least an interim definition of imagination. Imagination, when properly exercised, is the human ability to keep the exchange between these two poles productive. For example, in human relationships, as we seek to participate with one another, we need the ability to imagine the “other,” in his or her needs, desires, dreams, aspirations. We must “as if” ourselves into their situation as best we can, and they with regard to us. In this way, the participation event will continue to flow productively. Such imagination requires, naturally, fidelity to our partner, hopefulness in the possibility of a meaningful outcome, and the going out of love of which we spoke earlier. In this way we can glimpse how a reason affiliated with imagination is a reason rooted in faith, hope, and love. Saint Teresa’s Interior Castle exhibits much imagination, its various dwelling places expressing a movement from the familiar to the strange. Note how the image of an “interior castle” itself draws upon something very familiar in the life of Spanish subjects during the Spanish Golden Age. With its aid Teresa is able to project through analogy the landscape of the soul’s spiritual journey. “There came to my mind . . . that which will provide us with a basis to begin with . . . that we consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places.” Called to participation in Jesus, Teresa is able to find just enough of a basis in her experience to build upon as she seeks to find her way. “It’s necessary that you keep this comparison in mind. Perhaps God will be

Consider Participation / 23 pleased to let me use it to explain.” But she knows this is a journey into transcendence, into the divine Ground: “it is impossible that anyone understand [all the dwelling places,] since there are many,”15 As we experience such an imagination at work, and as we make the journey with its aid in a productive way, we come to discover that the beingness of reality, so to speak, is much ampler than we had thought possible. We discover what Paul Ricoeur has called “being as.” The as means that being is experienced by us as not simply always the same (univocal), nor simply radically strange and different (equivocal), but between the two poles (analogous). The many-roomed castles with which sixteenth-century Spaniards are quite familiar are “as” the other castle of the soul with its even many more rooms.16 Teresa of Avila is celebrated for her use of images. The “interior castle” is but the guiding image among many other images (aqueduct, butterfly, betrothal, marriage, union, etc.). She is often juxtaposed to her younger colleague John of the Cross, whose style of mysticism stresses the need to transcend the image. Teresa has a subtle approach to images too, knowing that people can be led astray into illusions; but perhaps her femininity conjoined with her recovery of the important role of the humanity of Jesus in the Christian journey worked together to emphasize the imagination’s place. We cannot think of the imagination without thinking of images. A productive imagination seems to be able to find the images that work, that is, that communicate productively our participative experience so that the flow of the participation is not cramped. In this way image becomes a symbolic language of communication. Language’s precise roots are deeply mysterious, but its general roots would seem to be the mysterious interchange of our participation in the depths of reality with all the other partners we encounter there. So far as I can tell, there is no human participation in reality without some form of language (in this wide sense) playing a significantly formative role.17 Teresa of Avila in some deep sense was touching on this in her sixth dwelling places as she wrote of her rejection of the advice to move beyond the humanity of Jesus in her spiritual journey, as if that were only for spiritual beginners, the real spiritual athletes rising to a realm completely beyond human images into an almost pure transcendence. Teresa’s experience was alerting her to the divine wisdom of the incarnation, 15. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 1.1.1 (284), referring to John 14:2; 1.1.3 (284). 16. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 3:155. 17. Fischer, A History of Language, is quite suggestive in this regard.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 24 namely, that Jesus’ humanity is the language par excellence, through which the divine Ground will participate with us. The Word became flesh, in the parlance of the Gospel of John (1:14). “To be always withdrawn from corporeal things and enkindled in love is the trait of angelic spirits[,] not of those who live in mortal bodies,” she writes in opposition to those who counsel moving beyond images of the human Jesus. She mentions the aid that we receive from attending not only to Jesus but also to his companions the saints. Her central insight is that “if [we] lose the guide, who is the good Jesus, [we] will not hit upon the right road.” She knows, however, that the way in which we experience our companion Jesus and his many co-companions can vary, from a very discursive and analytical approach to a simple, pointed concentration, where the intellect is suspended. Perhaps she means the images and words reach just that point where not they, but the person whose expression they are, is uppermost. Do the words disappear, or are they largely transparent? If the goal be communication, the persons with whom we communicate must remain. Can we suggest that at times personal transparency is such that, rather than speaking words, persons “become” word?18 Teresa’s comment that “the important thing is not to think much but to love much,” noted above, also illustrates how she keeps her considerations on the virtues, on knowing, imagination, and linguistic images, linked to action. Action in her book typically means “service” for one another in the Gospel sense, not simply aimless forms of “doing.” It is a “shaped” kind of doing, one schooled in the virtues. Fascinatingly in the final, seventh dwelling places, when the soul has reached the summit of mystical union and participative indwelling, service emerges as the central criterion of the authenticity of the union. She wants the sisters “to strive . . . to have this strength to serve.” She explains that it is not “so much . . . the greatness of our works as . . . the love with which they are done” that is central.19 Teresa links action and contemplative knowing in a balanced way. “Believe me, Martha and Mary must join together in order to show hospitality to the Lord and have Him always present and not host Him badly by failing to give Him something to eat.” She says this in the context of her 18. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 6.7.6–12 (399–403). See index, s.vv. “imagination,” “figures of speech.” The perspective of John of the Cross on images is controversial, turning on whether he means by transcending images more the notion of relativizing them rather than leaving them in a simplistic sense. Also, his full corpus of writings and not simply the more rigorous Dark Night of the Soul needs to be kept in view. So far as I can tell, he did not counsel abandoning Jesus, divine and human. 19. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 7.4.12, 15 (448, 450).

Consider Participation / 25 counsel about having the strength to serve. Mary often symbolizes contemplative knowing, as we know, but Teresa fascinatingly indicates that contemplative knowing and doing must form a blend in all of us. Martha and Mary, so to speak, had joined together in Mary, Teresa writes, because “she had already performed the task of Martha, pleasing the Lord by washing His feet and drying them with her hair.”20 Teresa is also a mystic writer noted for her attention to the entire realm of feelings, or affectivity. Throughout The Interior Castle a language charged with affective undertones and even overtones is present. However, it is in the sixth dwelling places that we come upon a sustained description of the manner in which the entire human sensorium forms a part of and is integrated into the person’s growth in union with and serving action with Jesus. She speaks of “anxious longings, tears, sighs, and great impulses” proceeding “from our love with deep feelings,” along with even more profound and intense feelings of love, like being “on fire with thirst,” because one “cannot get to the water.”21 She is also alert to the problem of feelings remaining unintegrated into the Christian journey, and of course, her stress upon the criterion of service and love is a biblical way of testing the authenticity of the affectivity in question. For there are disordered feelings, along with disordered thoughts and actions, all in need of purifying. We have noted Teresa’s attention to both action and affection because it surfaces for us the contested issue of the relationship among thought, feeling, and action, or if you will, mind, heart, and will. We began this section with a consideration of the role of reason in relation to faith, suggesting how a participative view of faith brings us to a combinative view of faith and reason, along with imagination and language, with faith, hope, and love as the grounding basis. We do not want to end these considerations without some further thoughts on possible links with feelings and with willed action. The easy and natural way in which Teresa moves to and from and back again to all of these dimensions—the virtues, reason, imagination, image and language, deliberative action, and feelings— suggests a profound bond between them all. As she explores her spiritual experience, then, she spontaneously notes these various dimensions. In other words, she is not working from some prior, systematically held theory but is attending to her experience as she participates in its various levels with a somewhat heightened mystical reflectivity.22 20. Ibid., 7.4.12 (448). The reference is to Luke 10:38–42. 21. Ibid., 6.11.2, 5 (422, 423). See Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity, 109–22, for an evaluation of the “erotic” tonality here. 22. See Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, index, s.v., “experience.”

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 26 We are suggesting, then, that our participative perspective offers us a holistic matrix within which we might understand the links between all of these factors. Teresa has not herself worked out a theoretical analysis of these links, for that was not precisely her goal. Nonetheless, her rather remarkable attunement to the lessons of her own and that of others’ spiritual journeys enabled her to surface these varied dimensions and to suggest possible lines of understanding. As we have noted, she could be quite creative, and she was able to rise above the climate of opinion and “correct” thinking of her times, if she thought she had to. With respect to the bond between thought and committed action, and the relative equality between them, she was resisting the tendency to place Mary over Martha, or theory over action. Her openness to the sensorium was also quite remarkable in the context of her times. Teresa’s perspective is by and large an integrative one. It suggests not so much a leaving behind as one moves along, but a taking up, complexifying, purifying, and integrating of the varied capacities of the human person. In one place she writes that “the faculties are not lost,” although she suggests that they go through mutations as one moves along.23 This, of course, certainly coheres with our participative approach. Such integration suggests, furthermore, that something of each of these dimensions permeates them all. Thus, for example, each is an action; each is cognitive; each has its feeling tone. It is important to underscore this. For example, the tendency to think of the emotions as simply blind and irrational misses their capacity, through the participative process, to become refined organs of connatural knowledge. The same applies to our action.24 In the same manner, reason is kept open, challenged, humbled, and enriched by the claims coming from the other directions. Reason itself is something of an action, of an exercise of the will, which to some extent is charged by affectivity. In other words, we are not dealing with separated faculties. Nonetheless, while each indwells and even permeates all, there would seem to be experiences of embodied consciousness characterized primarily by one or the other dimension.25 At times, cognitive inquiry predominates; at times, affective warmth; at others, action springing from our deliberative wills. I make no claim to have comprehensively understood these matters of the distinction and yet union between mind, heart, and will. 23. Ibid., 7.3.11 (442). 24. Thus, typically a distinction is made between thoughtful action and simply impulsive behavior or doing (or “activity”). 25. I have found Tallon, Head and Heart, very helpful and suggestive on these matters of mind, heart, and will.

Consider Participation / 27 My suggestions are stumbling and tentative. But try this as a mental experiment: We might imagine a form of will/action with relatively little mind or affectivity involved. Two very different examples come to mind: wildly impulsive behavior or, a quite different example, the exquisitely executed swing of a highly skilled golfer. In any case, the examples offer us something of an insight into an experience characterized chiefly by action, rather than by mind or affection. Our imaginations have a harder time, perhaps, in finding examples of mind or affectivity characterized by little action, since every exercise of the mind or the affections would seem to be an action. Perhaps here we need to think of action as a gradient, ranging from a relatively more passive and “less active” mode on the one end of the spectrum to a more “active” and controlling mode on the other. To the degree that one moves to this latter end of the spectrum, we might be said to be speaking of experiences of the predominance of the will/deliberative action. Perhaps our rich imaginations are the supple medium through which we make our moves, now in this direction, now in that. And perhaps love (affection, in this sense, or “eros” in the widest sense) is the deep-down, ever-more-complexifiable root from which all the others spring. We need not try to take a stand on this issue in this book, although if we view our love as a reflection of the divine Agape and perhaps its closest analogy, we might be inclined to argue along the lines suggested.

Geography, Society, and History Participation occurs somewhere rather than nowhere. It happens within social contexts and on a vastly temporal, historical scale. Our awareness of these geographical, social, and historical coordinates of human participation have varied along the lines of these coordinates. We alluded to the social context of participation, for example, when we noted how it was that female disciples had first brought the news of Jesus’ resurrection to the two travelers on the road to Emmaus. The quality of participation on the part of those travelers was in critical ways shaped by the witness of their female companions. Participation is seen to be a social experience, both in the sense of being shaped by social factors and in the sense of itself being formative of social fields and even of community. On a somewhat larger scale, we might try to think of the significant social fields shaping our capacities for participation in existence, namely, geographical location, the family, friendships, ethnic groups, cultural, economic, and political institutions, national and even civilizational allegiances, and church affiliations, among others. Participation plays itself out on all these

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 28 social fields, often in subtle but powerful ways barely observable to us participants. Participation in Jesus, the recommendation of this study, might well be facilitated by our belonging to various of these social fields, or on the other hand it might well require special doses of faith, or hope, or courage, from among the virtues, because of social antagonisms toward it. If we imagine these social fields as the horizontal dimension affecting each of us, we can think of the historical fields of influence as the vertical dimension shaping our capacities for human participation. Actually, the lines blur between the social and the historical, for history is not simply the past but the flow of the past into present and future. In a more correct sense, history is the human modification of time through the way we shape our lives in time. In this sense, what we just referred to as the horizontal dimension of our existence is the present social field of history itself in the process of becoming future. Ultimately it is history that shapes the quality of our participation in everyone and everything. If by “circumstance” we mean “history” in this sense, we might take the aphorism of Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset as our own: “I am myself plus my circumstance, and if I do not save it, I cannot save myself.”26 Besides the obvious influence of the Jewish and Christian traditions, several other turning points will be noted as central historical factors shaping and challenging contemporary thought about Jesus. Much of this book will be an attempt to think through the impact of these factors upon the study of, and upon our own personal participation in, Jesus. These transitional influences are: (1) the Classical tradition of Greece and Rome (and their medieval transmission); the challenges posed by (2) modernity, (3) late modernity, and (4) postmodernity; and (5) today’s global, crosscultural horizon. We are considering the Renaissance and Reformation periods as blends between the medieval and the modern. An argument could be made that we should single out our interplanetary horizon as well, but given the speculative nature of its impact upon human culture thus far, we will include it under the scientific breakthroughs of modernity and late modernity. Following Ortega and others, we are ourselves and our circumstances. We cannot gain a totalistic perspective beyond these, but only chart a path among them, seizing as best we can the clues offered by our participation from within. The influence of the Classical tradition becomes obvious the minute we 26. Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Quixote, 45. I would modify the second part by adding “as best I can” to “if I do not save it.” The first part is the celebrated formula, “yo soy yo y mi circunstancia.”

Consider Participation / 29 note it. Our view of the virtues, of knowledge, of the relationship between faith and reason and imagination, of the human soul and identity, of the examined life and critical inquiry, of human nature and human dignity and rights, of freedom and love, of the good life, of society and nature— virtually all the fundamental categories by which we think and talk about humans, society, nature, and the divine Ground—originate here with the Classical tradition. Its influence has deeply permeated our Jewish and especially our Christian scriptures and the way we receive them. In the deepest sense this is why we call this period “classical” and its major works, the “classics.” We cannot quite leave this period behind; we find ourselves returning to its works again and again for clarification about the enduring questions thrown up by our human existence. Even as we question their conclusions, even quite radically, we find ourselves “forced” to use their categories and in some way illustrate at least the partial truth of what they offer. Thus there is always a lively debate about what the classics are and which works deserve a place among them.27 It is not surprising, then, that much of today’s debate in theology and philosophy is over what is valid and what invalid in the classical inheritance. Modernity, late modernity, and postmodernity belong together, for the latter two are in some way continuations or at least reactions to modernity. Describing all of these is a hotly contested issue, and so this book must risk yet another likely contestable simplification, for the sake of moving forward. Readers will need to consult more detailed studies for nuances and the debated views. Modernity is typically associated with the way of thinking set in motion by the Enlightenment thinkers (let us say, roughly, including thinkers from Descartes to Hegel, 1596–1831, among whom would be Newton, Locke, Hume, Kant, and the French philosophes). This way of thinking, of course, corresponded with the social transformations associated with modernity, namely, the emergence of limited, democratic forms of polity and economic capitalism. The Enlightenment thinkers were not identical in their views, especially on religion, but in general the modern physical sciences with their experimental method, as they were being articulated by Newton and others of like mind, supplied the normative criteria for what counts as valid knowledge. The further one moved away from what these physical sciences could validate, the 27. We are speaking of the Greek and Roman Classical tradition here. In the larger sense of works to which we must return again and again, because of their compelling insight into the human condition, the “classic” extends naturally beyond these Greeks and Romans. See Gadamer, Truth and Method, 285–90. For an insight about how to receive the classics critically, see Voegelin, “On Classical Studies,” in Published Essays, 1966–1985, 256–64.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 30 more views became matters of opinion or of religious dogma and assent. The separation between faith and reason, which had begun already in the late medieval period if not earlier, became rather typical as well. The Romantic period also formed a part of modernity, representing an attempt to integrate the feelings into a universal science of human beings. It would be a mistake to suppose that the modern thinkers completely ignored the dimensions of affectivity and of the aesthetic. Schleiermacher, for example, offered a powerful apologia for the role of religious and even cognitive intuition and feeling in an era heavily marked by a more cerebral, “scientific” frame of mind. However, the tendency to elevate scientific reason as “objective” and to subordinate the feelings as “subjective” was a rather potent one in the modern period, it seems.28 Late modernity, as I am using the term, refers to the project of continuing the Enlightenment ideal of constructing a science of nature and humanity grounded in critical, experimental reason, but with the added complexification that this project is much more difficult than the earlier Enlightenment thinkers had supposed. In some ways, late modernity reflects something of the Romantic dimension of the modern period, inasmuch as it is attuned to the affective dimension of human beings. Freud and Karl Marx are normative examples. Both were acutely aware that we are influenced if not almost governed by instincts, passions, and social interests, which distort our ability to employ experimental reason critically. They aimed at developing sciences of psychology and socioeconomic theory that could lessen if not eliminate these blinding personal and social pathologies. Freud and Marx are normative, but all the great thinkers of psychology and sociology belong here as well. Probably many of these thinkers have elements within their thought that do not sit easily with the classifications above. Great thinkers are typically hotly debated because they are deep. Vico and Hume, for example, along with Nietzsche, come to mind as thinkers who were sensitive to the historicity of the human condition. Today’s radical historical consciousness was foreshadowed in the thought of the first two and was thought through in an almost unsurpassed way by Nietzsche. This “radical” sense of historicity at least questions whether a universal and unchanging science of nature and humanity is even possible, given historical change along with an inevitable conditioning of perspectives. Likewise, debating whether such conditioning inevitably leads to a form of historical determinism and relativism is also a consequence of this acute sense of historicity. Whether Nietzsche’s superman has risen above such 28. See Taylor, Sources of the Self, index, s.v. “Romanticism.”

Consider Participation / 31 determinism, or whether Nietzsche thinks it is only one of the better forms such determinism can take, certainly Nietzsche predicted that the greater mass of humanity would sink into a form of spiritual nihilism as this sense of determinism takes hold. This acute sense of historicity, it seems to me, in one way or another lies at the basis of many forms of self-proclaimed or alleged postmodernity. Such wants to be post-modernity, because it thinks modernity, whether early or late, has not given up the dream of transcending our radical historicity, along with all its consequences. Some thinkers are in fact so convinced of this radical historicity that they refuse all labels, even that of postmodernity, as too static. There are some other thinkers who refer to themselves as postmodern in a more moderate sense. They share with the more radical varieties a dissatisfaction with modernity, early and late, but their sense of historicity does not lead them into a historical determinism. It may lead them to a greater appreciation for the earlier Classical (along with medieval) tradition, and/or to the religious traditions as well.29 If all of this is not complicated enough, many are increasingly aware of the emerging global horizon of human cultures and civilizations. This has slowly been developing as long as cultures have had an impact upon one another through migrations and travel, but it has now reached global proportions through information technology and economic markets especially. The political and cultural connections and dialogue have lagged behind the technological-economic connections, but the latter are forcing the former to occur. This is not the place to engage the challenges brought by all of these transitions to our study of Jesus. We will do our best to be aware of them as we proceed and to offer perspectives on some of the more pressing issues they raise. At this point we are simply trying to avoid excessive naïveté, indicating that the quality of our capacities for participation are already deeply influenced by these events and by our perspectives upon them. Each transition forces upon us certain key questions and challenges we cannot avoid. For example, the Jewish and Christian revelatory events challenge us to be attentive to their luminosity and salvific potential, along with the willingness to submit to their authority in our lives. As these events were transmitted to us in tradition, their interpretation and reception fused with the Greco-Roman Classical traditions of thought. A question then becomes that of the extent to which this fusion was helpful or deformative of the original revelatory inheritance. What remains permanently 29. At times the thinkers of this orientation will be called “antimoderns.”

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 32 valid in the classics, and what simply a question of period pieces? Modernity particularly challenges us to grapple with the elements of superstition in our tradition, even as it begins to force us to grapple, with more of a troubled awareness, with the question of what is to count as truth for us. If we are to submit to the authority of the revelatory events of Jewish and Christian history, in other words, the modern person would seek, try as he or she may not to, not to be like “the superstitious mind [which] is, in effect,” as Ortega has written, “a dog in search of a master.”30 This already raises enormously difficult questions, for what is to count as superstition, and who is to decide, and on the basis of what? Late modernity, with its intense awareness of the sinister influence of hidden biographical and societal interests and passions, intensifies our difficulties. We would seem to do our thinking amid much fog. How can we find a clearing? Will the “critical” psychological and social sciences help us detect the distortions in our lives and in our inheritance? Postmodern thinkers, along with their intellectual “cousins,” go further, calling into question the intellectual hubris of modernity and late modernity, often along with the hubris or at least alleged naïveté of the earlier Classical and Jewish-Christian traditions. Our intellectual capacities are severely limited by our cultural, historical horizons. On the most extreme view, we should simply surrender the quest for truth as a dream or even nightmare and settle for various pacts of getting along with one another’s preferences as best we can. Another position would argue that we can at least find our way through to temporarily adequate if partial perspectives and that truth in some sense is thus available to us. Today’s global horizon further complexifies matters. On the one hand, it brings home with even more stridency how intellectual capacities are linked with cultural experiences and traditions. On the other, it brings an intellectually unsure postmodern West into contact with the Far Asian religious traditions, which at this point exhibit much of the intellectual certainty characteristic of the premodern West. All of this is nearly hopelessly simplified, we know. If Nietzsche is right, we could be in for massive social despair, nihilism, and victimization by various supermen and superpowers (which are Nietzsche’s “superman” projected onto a political and social level). In any case, this is where we are. A participative approach to theology and religious studies takes place in the midst of society and history and does not pretend to some perspective lifting one above it all. If truth be forthcoming, it will have to be in and through the quality of our partici30. Ortega y Gasset, The Modern Theme, 134.

Consider Participation / 33 pation within society and history. If history be our problem, it will also have to be our “solution,” if one be available at all. In other words, a participative notion of truth requires us to imagine “truth” along the lines of whatever luminosity history may offer, at least in the first instance. This luminosity is present to the extent that the movement between familiarity and strangeness continues to flow, with the aid of the virtues, such that participation with our partners in society, history, and world, can continue and even progress. Participation, in other words, challenges us to submit to history. If knowledge be forthcoming, it will be so, not by fleeing history, but by virtue of the quality of our participation within it. But while we are called to submit to history, we are not called to be passive victims of it. The ability and quality of our participation gives us the real but modest hope that luminosity is forthcoming, if not totalistic. Not being totalistic, this luminosity also indicates that history cannot be reduced to the various transitions or periodizations adumbrated here. History is too complex and rich for that. History’s divine Ground, which itself arouses our faith, hope, and love, calling us into partnership with our fellow creatures, has a way of bursting our categories as we seem to find new resources for meeting history’s challenges. Looking back, we have suggested that this participative approach seems congenial with the revelatory events of Judaism and Christianity, somewhat representatively expressed for us by the burning bush and the burning heart of Emmaus. Luminosity came, not from fleeing either, but from willingness to participate in each. John’s Gospel offers us the celebrated formula in this regard: The Word becomes flesh. We can say, the Word becomes history. It is not that we have to go there; we are there. But the incarnation tells us to recognize it, accept it, and strive to learn its lessons. We owe much to the Greco-Roman thinkers. We have seen something of the attention to the virtues in Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Already, for example in our little study of Teresa’s Interior Castle, we sensed something of the importance and potential of the virtues in a participative perspective. Plato especially is the philosopher of participation. He has his mentor Socrates, for example, declare that “no other way [exists] by which anything can come into existence than by participating in the proper essence of each thing in which it participates.”31 The dialogue in its oral and literary forms, for which Plato is celebrated, corresponds with this, for what is a true dialogue but the free exchange of participants in the subject at hand, be it what it may? It is not that one seeks to participate and then looks around for the proper form in which to articulate the 31. Plato, Phaedo 101C; cf. Symposium 211B–E.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 34 nature of that participation. Rather, the dialogue form itself erupts through language in the event of participation. If Plato is correct, wherever there is genuine participation, there is some form of the dialogue at work. It is not difficult to sense an inner correspondence between at least this aspect of the Classical tradition and the Jewish and Christian inheritance, for the latter discloses a dialoguing God, who calls us into deeper and deeper levels of participation. The era of the Church fathers and mothers, and that of the medieval period, sensed this affinity between the traditions, which is why there is such a “Platonic” edge in the writings of those periods. Each of the modernities, early, late, and post-, in some manner may contribute to breaking any magic spell the earlier traditions have upon us. At best we seem in for what philosopher Paul Ricoeur named “a second naïveté,” a need to appropriate our tradition again, but only by way of the “detour” through the various challenges and criticisms posed by these modernities.32 We will seek to face these challenges as best we can at the appropriate places, striving for a participation of second naïveté. Obviously an intellectually responsible approach must seek to present explanations that are not scientific nonsense. In a book on Jesus we cannot simply sidestep, for example, the challenges this poses when we consider such matters as the many miracle stories of the Gospels or the ultimate miracle of the resurrection. A participative perspective, however, can sometimes reverse the challenge flow with respect to modernity, asking the physical scientists, for example, whether their perspectives and methods have not been excessively naïve and perhaps even hubristic at times, ignoring the role of personal participation and the various virtues in their own work and theories. One of the characteristics recommending a participative approach is that it recognizes that heads and minds are attached to bodies, and bodies are physically, socially, and historically interconnected. We are creatures with passions, drives, needs, interests, feelings. The Romantic period to some extent recognized this in its attention to the realm of aesthetics and affectivity, particularly from a positive perspective. The sciences of late modernity (psychology and sociology, for example) sought to attend to these passional dimensions as well, but from more of a negative angle, and in so doing attempted to be more practical in nature. That is, they somehow sensed that the schools of thought of early modernity and earlier were too cerebral and even politically passive. Our participative perspective finds this practical orientation congenial, for as earlier suggested, 32. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, 351.

Consider Participation / 35 participation can be considered a matrix connecting thought, affection, and action, enabling each to challenge the other and to work out in each instance their respective relations. The author in fact suspects he would not even be trying to work out this participative perspective had it not been for the pressure put by the recovery of the practical dimension by late modernity. The applicability of this practical orientation to our study is potentially rich. Jesus seems to have been a very practical person, much concerned with the needs of others. We usually do not call someone a “savior” unless we sense our needs being maximally met by this person. He was particularly in touch with the sufferings of people and able to give that suffering voice, in social theologian Gregory Baum’s eloquent way of putting it.33 The Bible as a whole also seems largely to be a very practical book, not always intellectually sanitized and noncontradictory, but bearing the marks of the practical and always confusing circumstances out of which much of it seems to have originated. It seems a matter of common sense that it would bare its secrets to more practical approaches of interpretation. At the same time, some of the thinkers of late modernity are known for fostering a certain suspicion toward the way our passions and interests can blind us and thus distort our human flourishing. By now most of us at least vaguely think of Freud as the initiator of the building of a science that would unmask the more personal sorts of blinders and distorters, such as complexes and neuroses. Marx, on the other hand, we regard as the father of the sciences of social distorters, his own personal recommendation being that of the distorting power of the economic dimension. Actually both thinkers have come in for a good deal of criticism themselves, and most readers know that the so-called initiators of such critical thinking are many more than Freud and Marx. In this book they are representative of late modernity, rather than exhaustive of it. At the same time, the reader will have noted our high regard for the realm of affectivity (the Bible speaks of the “heart” as the person’s center and best summary, for instance). Thus, we would want to complement a critical view of the passions with a more positive, integrative one. Having said that, we can sense a certain congeniality between the suspicion of the blinding powers of varied pathological orientations and Judaism’s and Christianity’s alertness to the reality of personal and social blindness and sin. The prophets 33. Baum, Religion and Alienation, comments on Max Weber’s category of the charismatic: “the charismatic person has power over people because he touches them where they suffer . . . [He] gives voice to the common suffering; he articulates the alienation of the community; he speaks with an authority ultimately derived from the misery or unredemption of the many” (170).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 36 offer one exposé of such blindness after another, and in this regard Jesus continues in the line of the prophets. Minimally, then, the late-modern attunement to pathology might challenge us to reappropriate with yet another second naïveté the critique of evil and sin present in our religious heritage, without necessarily identifying the one with the other in all respects. The challenge to our participative approach thus intensifies. Not only is intellectual superstition a potential danger, but pathology and sin as well. While we humans are called to participate with our partners, the quality of that participation can vary widely, it seems, from the simply imperfect (which would seem to be always a relevant feature) to the superstitiously naïve, to the personally and socially pathological, on to the sinful as well, and all of this possibly simultaneously. The even-moreradical stress by postmodern and postmodern-like thinkers upon historicity and cultural conditioning, and now the multicultural challenges of an increasingly global world, even further intensify the challenges posed to our participative perspective. Are we caught in a vortex of blinding cultural perspectives, such that sociocultural conditioning is actually sociocultural determinism? Or is it also possible and even plausible that our participation with our partners in the world, while it is the very factor bringing us into our struggles and challenges, may supply us as well with the means to cope with them in sufficiently adequate ways? It will be one of the goals of this book on Jesus to suggest the latter alternative.34

Three Forms of Participating in Jesus We began this chapter by speaking of participation as a point of entry into Jesus studies. As we proceeded, we explored and amplified some of the key dimensions involved in participation. It is quite a venture indeed. But who is this “we” doing the participating? The most immediate one doing the participating, whether in Jesus or anyone or anything else, is ourselves, our single, personal selves. The “unique I,” we sometimes say.

34. For helpful interpretations of the various “transitions” other than the Jewish and Christian see, for the Classical, Voegelin, Order and History, and Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?; for the medieval, Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400–1400; for modernity, Dupré, Passage to Modernity, Taylor, Sources of the Self, Livingston, Modern Christian Thought; for late modernity, Hughes, Consciousness and Society; for postmodernity and its cousins, Critchley and Schroeder, eds., A Companion to Continental Philosophy, part 9; for globalization, Schreiter, The New Catholicity.

Consider Participation / 37 At the burning bush, Moses hears God address him uniquely, and so his discovery of his “I” deepens. What the Bible expresses is his discovery of his faith, hope, and love, his courage, and yes, his fears and much more as well. It does not name all this under the more generalized symbol of the “I.” That is something of a later philosopher’s articulation. But Moses knows and feels in some sense that he is an “I,” summoned to responsible action. As the reader likely knows, an extensive debate exists about just when the notion of the unique person emerged. Some think of that as a specifically modern notion, linked to the modern emergence of human rights such as liberty (freedom). This book, along with others, suggests that although its more articulated expression in some respects may be modern, its emergence in consciousness goes back to the discovery of the divine Ground. Openness to the Ground is what generates the open soul, so to speak, the person open to following and questioning reality’s lead. The “soul” is our symbol for our questioning openness to the divine Ground. It is not easy to be an individual, as we know. It can be lonely. Abraham and Sarah, Deborah, Moses, Jesus, his mother Mary, the other Mary, the Magdalene, and others, to name just a few in our Jewish and Christian traditions, knew what it is to remain true to oneself, despite society’s massive opposition. When the voice of the divine Ground becomes articulate, it may lead us along a road that few if any seem to be walking besides ourselves. If it be the voice of the divine Ground, it should be formative of genuine community, to be sure, for the Ground grounds us all. Yet the “all” may not be willing to heed its voice, in that way cramping the emergence of yet greater community. This book will seek to be attentive to this tradition of the unique call as it plays itself out in our Christian tradition, following Saint Paul’s testimony that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). Paul himself is a rather good example of one who submitted to the charisms (gifts) being offered him through his participation in the reality of Jesus, regardless of how demanding that could be. Teresa of Avila’s reappropriation of the humanity of Jesus, noted above, is another example of this personal participation in Jesus. Ignatius of Loyola is somewhat special in this regard. His rules for the discernment of spirits in his Spiritual Exercises is among the first “modern” reflections on how we can come to know and appropriate our unique summons to our “state of life.” His “exercises” are self-consciously designed to foster our active participation in the various aspects of Jesus; they are exercises, after all. At the same time, his manual manifests something of a modern self-consciousness of what it is to be an individual, one freely and uniquely called.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 38 Each reader of this book, then, is invited to consider this dimension of christic participation in his or her life. How are we each called or attracted? Are we called to rehabilitate some dimension of the reality of Jesus that has been dormant for too long, although it was once more widely appreciated—as Mark’s Gospel, for example, stresses Jesus’ servant-form of messiahship in an atmosphere all too eager to make him into another kingly Lord; or as Paul stresses the humble, loving, and suffering Jesus in a Corinthian community that wants prematurely to rise above such sensitivities, glorying in its alleged new state of perfection; or as Teresa of Avila reowns Jesus’ humble humanity, and in so doing reowns her and her sisters’ humanity against the spiritualists and angelists who think they are above such pedestrian realities. Or more radically, are we perhaps summoned to risk the discovery of some dimension of Jesus and his work that has not yet emerged into adequate clarity? This would be the case, not simply of reowning what was once known and accepted and has become forgotten or suppressed, but of the breakthrough of something more novel. The newness of such a charism could be considered something of an echo of the newness brought by Jesus himself, expressing the caesura he brings, the shift from Hebrew Testament to our New Testament, despite much continuity between us as well. How novel is Jesus and his work? How novel can our charisms of participating in him be? When the female and male disciples find themselves proclaiming Jesus’ resurrection, when John’s Gospel says that the Word becomes flesh, when the four Gospels teach the message of a suffering Lord, is all of this not something rather novel? When Athanasius says that the Word does not just enter into a human being, but becomes a human being, he is claiming that only this expresses the radical newness of the New Testament teaching. His opponents suffer from “old think”; they cannot get past the idea that God remains transcendent and spiritual, he argues. God was more humble, as Augustine wrote, and the philosophers were too proud.35 When today’s thinkers, sensitized by women’s historical experience, note the role, however hidden, of women in Jesus’ ministry, and particularly their role in attesting to Jesus’ resurrection, is this another of those novel insights into the radical newness brought by Jesus? To counter by arguing that women are perhaps the “unofficial” witnesses to the resurrection is precisely to fall back into the “old think” of preresurrection thinking. And when today’s political and liberation theologians write of the preferential option for the poor in the Gospels, and when they seek to articulate the historical reminiscence that Jesus proclaimed 35. See Athanasius, Orations against the Arians, 3.30; Augustine, Confessions, 7.9.

Consider Participation / 39 a new kind of “kingdom,” which is a social and not simply a private reality, are they yet another example of the newness of Jesus? And our list can continue. Obviously all of these are matters for thinking through, and even of contesting, one by one. But we raise them here to indicate at least the possibility of the more radically novel charism in the historical partnership with Jesus. They also provide the reader a hint of this writer’s orientation. Jesus’ disciple-partners were an ecclesiola, a little group called together, the little ecclesia (church) within the larger church of the time. Biblical scholars plausibly argue that the different Gospels emerged from and on behalf of different communities, expressing the received theology and Christology of their little churches. Ignatius Loyola and his partners practiced the art of the communal discernment of spirits as they sought to give shape to their new “Company of Jesus.”36 The Spirit’s gifts are given for the common good, we saw Paul teaching. Besides the unique way of participating in Jesus, there is the group way. This is not a “group think” destroying the genuinely unique and personal, which latter may well be the originating inspiration for the emergence of the group. But groups do sometimes bring their own special shape and perspective to a project, along with a certain covalidation of the alleged charism. We recall Heraclitus’ counsel to follow the common, not in the pejorative sense of following the herd, but in the deeper sense of pursuing what it is that forms genuine community. Groups at their best can be harbingers of new possibilities of community. So then participation in Jesus and his kingdom should be formative of community. As little communities within the larger community of church and world emerge, we may indeed be witnessing authentic forms of the charism of the group in action. As with the unique charisms, so with the group charisms, it is plausible to see them as ways of recovering or discovering dimensions of Jesus and his work needed at a particular time in history, perhaps for the sake of ecclesial reform, as with the Reformers and their reforming movements, perhaps for the sake of simply widening the ability of the faithful to participate more fully in Jesus, perhaps for the sake of contributing to the wider benefit of society at large. Finally, Christians have traditionally believed that all are called to participate in Jesus and his saving work. In other words, Jesus is traditionally believed to be of universal relevance. The “great commission” at the ending of Matthew’s Gospel, for example, voices this notion of the universal call: “Go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them . . . and 36. See Egan, Ignatius Loyola the Mystic, 146–80.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 40 teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19–20). Ephesians voices this universalism even more robustly: God “destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ . . . as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him.” (Eph 1:5, 10). Not simply individuals, not simply groups, but all are called. At an earlier time, this was perhaps less contentious. In fact, it seems likely that the universal may have taken precedence over the unique and group forms of participation, sometimes perhaps at the expense of the latter two. As the appreciation for the unique and the diverse develops, we find ourselves needing to discriminate. Jesus calls us all, but not necessarily in the same way. All of what he said, did, and does is perhaps universally relevant, but not necessarily all of this in equal significance and relevance for all. And if in the past we have tended to stress the universal over the particular, perhaps in today’s global world we are in for a new struggle over whether the global should not or might not once again override the particular. Ecclesial fascism is not unheard of. On the other hand, in today’s postmodern thought, the opposite issue emerges, namely, can we still accept anything truly universal? Are we not really simply clusters of the particular scattered throughout the globe? Jesus is perhaps relevant to the particular groups of Christians and others who may be interested, but it is problematic to assert the universal adoption by all of Jesus in a world so aware of cultural particularity. These are some of the questions we encounter, at any rate. Much of the excitement and challenge of today’s Jesus studies and Christology comes from the interaction and friction among these three forms of participation, particularly when we remind ourselves that each of these is shaped by our various historical transitions in differing ways, not to mention the distorting effects of sin, finitude, and pathology. If all are called to participate in Jesus, why do so many pay no attention to him? If all are called, why do so many differing individuals and groups even within the body of Christians think they are excluded from fair participation? If all are called, why are there so many victims in history who do not seem to have experienced in any palpable manner the benefits of his offer of salvation? A participative approach to Jesus certainly imposes its challenges upon us. This book promises no totalistic perspective rising above the somewhere of the author’s own experiences of participation in history, but it does accept the wager of the incarnation that our historical place is not only the somewhere of our problems but also the somewhere of our solutions. “Come now, let us argue it out, says the Lord” (Is 1:18).

Consider Participation / 41

For the supplement to chapter I (“I/For Further Study”), go to www.home .duq.edu/~thompsonu. Topics covered: 1. different approaches to faith and reason (reason only; faith only; faith and reason in various forms of combination; faith and mysticism; faith and Gnosticism); problems of evaluation; 2. more on the theme of participation, with a special recommendation of Eric Voegelin’s philosophy of participation and symbol; 3. a recommendation of Luce Irigaray’s and Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophies as critical partners alerting us to some dangers in a participative perspective.

CHAPTER I I

Jesus, His Companions, and Their Movement T HE E NGENDERING E XPERIENCE

AND THE

B IBLE

The things he saw strengthened him then and always gave him such strength in his faith that he often thought to himself: if there were no Scriptures to teach us these matters of the faith, he would be resolved to die for them, only because of what he had seen. — I G N AT I U S L OYO L A

Participation and Interpretation What is the Bible? Our participative approach offers us some suggestions that are disarming because they are so few and simple. The Bible, like any book, results from participation in the community of being. It reflects varying grades of our partnership with the members of this community: God, human beings, society, and world.1 The Bible, like other books, is itself an expression of this partnership and a window into it for willing others. It can be a window because willing others are already connected to it, themselves partners in the same community of being and so able, through imagination and the virtues noted in the last chapter, to receive and be challenged by its results. In the first instance Bible readers do not need to build a connection with the world of the Bible. The Bible’s world is their world, inasmuch as both reader and Bible inhabit the same community of being. This may not seem like much, but it is all that seems 1. Obviously my debt to Voegelin on this matter is great.

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Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 43 to matter. Again, we return to our dialectic of familiarity and strangeness. Because we dwell within the same community of being, we know ourselves to be on somewhat familiar ground. And yet to some extent the ground is strange, for it represents varying intensities of participation in the community of being, some of which will almost surely be new to the reader, however well disposed. So our participative approach to interpretation is an optimistic one. We can be a community of co-understanders, because we are already a community in being. But if this approach is optimistic, it is not meant to be naïve. The familiarity grounds and nourishes our optimism. The strangeness brings home to us the distance we often need to travel before we achieve an adequate interpretation. This way of expressing the matter somewhat relativizes the Bible, to be sure. We have just compared it to other books, assimilating them all together as varying reflections of our human participation in the community of being. Sensitive readers are aware of the fact that books can represent a rather vast scale of such participation, some works even seeming to hinder rather than aid our participation in this community; and I would agree. Something of this range even seems exhibited in the Bible itself. Not everything in the Bible can or needs to be considered as on the same level. Some forms of participation seem to go haywire. From the last chapter we recall the issue of second naïveté. Human error, problems of ideological distortion, and sin all contribute to hinder the flow of participation. This affliction characterizes, not only those being written about in books, but those doing the writing as well. Thus, we approach our books, even our sacred books, with something of a second naïveté. The Bible is relativized in our participative perspective in another way. We have used the metaphor of the window. It is a window onto participation in the community of being and presumably can aid us in our attempts at such participation; but the goal is not precisely the book. The book remains a means, rather than an end. The epigraph from Saint Ignatius Loyola is meant to express this.2 Even did the book not exist, the community of being would still remain. Even did Scripture not exist, there would still remain the divine-human and risen Christ, himself a partner in the community of being, whom Ignatius experientially knows in his mystical experience at Manresa. Because Ignatius Loyola “knows” this Christ somehow already, because he is familiar with him, he can imaginatively enter into the world of the Bible, initially understand its message, and even expand his own self-understanding. 2. Autobiography of St. Ignatius Loyola, 39.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 44

The Bible as Window Let us dwell a bit more on the image of the window, which evokes the notion of something we must look through in order to see. Obviously this is an image for the Bible as a linguistic medium, through which we are offered access to the partnership in the community of being. The Bible has been called a sacrament, a sign, and also a witness. The very word testament, as in the Hebrew and Christian Testaments, carries the meaning of “witness.” We could use the word symbol as well. Each of these terms expresses a subtle but important nuance. Symbol, sign, and sacrament, for example, seem to accent the medium through which we are enabled to participate in the community of being. Witness, while not ignoring the medium, accents that to which it leads us, namely, the community of being. Like John the Baptist, a witness points to another. The word icon might also be particularly appropriate to the Bible, evoking the medium to be sure, but never isolating the medium from the mysterious Ground of being it reflects and into which it invites us. In any case, all these terms in one way or another remind us of the medium through which we must move. Here we are back at the mystery of language as the means through which the flow of participation occurs. This is one of those givens of our psychosomatic makeup. Our mind seems to operate through the images supplied by our body and its embeddedness in nature and social context. These images then become generators of our language. We can overestimate this linguistic medium. An example that comes to mind is the way learners of a foreign language can become so entangled in learning word and grammar forms that they cannot really communicate meaning to others. The language is more obstacle than help. The danger here is mere formalism, forms devoid of meaning. The medium has somehow been divorced from the community of being. The other tendency is to ignore the linguistic medium and thus to forget how grammatical and cultural forms shape our access to meaning and truth. Our participative approach seeks to honor the linguistic medium, but without pretending to a comprehensive understanding of this mysterious reality of language. Somehow our experience of participation in the community of being is effected through language, and the language varies in its appropriateness, it seems, much like the range of our quality of participation seems to vary. The language always seems to shape the quality of our participation, and yet the quality of our participation also seems to shape our language. A particularly fine artist somehow is led to the appropriate pictorial form; a particularly attuned writer is led to the appropriate lit-

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 45 erary form. When this happens, the form and the content compellingly seem to coincide, each becoming productive of the other. We spoke earlier of the productive role of the imagination. A keen imagination is able in the experience of participation to make its way to the images and words that will be productive of the flow of participation.3

On Not Bypassing the Gospel Form We will heed our own common-sense advice that the content reaches us through the form. In our case here, we will concentrate on the fact that the “good news” of Jesus’ message and work (gospel in the lived sense) reaches us through the literary form of the Gospel narratives (Gospel in the literary sense). We can usefully interrogate what difference this form makes in our appropriation of the full reality of Jesus. The Gospel as a literary form is obviously a device of classification; a Gospel differs from an epistle or a hymn or a parable or an apocalypse or a prophetic writing. But we are interested in thinking about why one would be led to develop a Gospel form. Why choose it rather than another form? In other words, we are wondering about the form of the Gospel as a productive reality. How does it work to produce meaning and enable us to participate in reality’s truth? The productive energy of this form seems to be what draws us to it. Let us begin by wagering that the authors of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John did not so much choose the Gospel form as that the Gospel form chose them. They were not sitting around asking themselves, “Let’s see: should I write an apocalypse, or a hymn, or a string of aphorisms, or a Gospel?” Rather, let us wager that as they were caught up in their participation in Jesus and the historical shocks of his public ministry, death, and resurrection episodes, their experience of such participation took the eventual form of the Gospel. An affinity or correspondence existed between the shape of their experience and the Gospel form. We need not imagine that the form of the Gospel dropped out of nowhere, like dew from heaven above. Inasmuch as the Gospel is a mix of biography and historical narrative, the elements making it up to some extent preceded it. A skilled and sensitive author or authors, trained in the arts of both biography and historical narrative, would be the likely originator of the 3. See Voegelin, Order and History, vol. V, In Search of Order, 52; also, Kearney, The Wake of Imagination, esp. 359–97, on the interplay between the poetical and the ethical in imagination.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 46 form, or should we say “cooriginator”? For we should deprivatize authorship somewhat, recognizing forms of poly-authorship, along with the generative influence of the communities within which authors dwell. We should also suppose that the primary originators would be the reality of Jesus, his work, and his companions and others attracted to him, participating in his work and person and handing on their important memories of and insights into these. Something about that and later participation in it suggested and led to the Gospel form as the appropriate way in which Jesus’ message and work could become transparent for its meaning. Clearly there were other kinds of experiences of Jesus, of his companions and followers, and their after-effects, and they cooriginated other literary forms of expression. Paul’s letters come to mind, or the Acts of the Apostles, or the theodidactic sermon of Hebrews, or the labyrinthine Book of Revelation, not to mention the noncanonical writings of the gnostics and others. We will need to wonder about these too, but for now we will attend to the Gospels, which obviously achieved a certain prominence and primacy among the various forms of the Jesus tradition. Many factors entered into this eventual prominence of the Gospel form, but we are wagering that its productive nature was one of the central factors behind this. Before going further, let us note that we are using the term Gospel rather than simply narrative or story to denote the literary form under consideration here. We could, I think, use the latter terms, as we shall see, but the term Gospel expresses the uniqueness of this particular narrative form, corresponding to the uniqueness of Jesus and his impact upon others. The word itself, a middle English and Anglo-Saxon rendering of the Greek euaggelion (good news), has its origins in Paul (e.g., Rom 1:1–6) and in the synoptic Gospels (e.g., Mk 1:1) as the term used to express the message and work of Jesus. As a working definition, we will follow that proposed by James Bailey and Lyle Vander Broek: “A Gospel is a narrative fashioned out of selected traditions, that focuses on the activity and speech of Jesus as a way to reveal his character and develops a dramatic plot that culminates in the stories of his passion and resurrection.”4 However, we need to remind ourselves, as we work with this helpful definition, that Jesus’ activity involves his relationships with peoples and groups of all sorts. Jesus is shaped by his circles of interaction, and those circles are shaped by him. Thus, a Gospel, which derives from those circles, has an intrinsically social dimension to it. Our participative

4. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 91.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 47 perspective always seeks to underscore how we are intertwined with various circles, closer and further out, of participative relationships.5 Bailey and Vander Broek also note the two rather prominent theories about the Gospels, namely, the earlier one that they are a unique biblical creation stemming from the early oral proclamation of the gospel (which, of course, would reflect the influence of the Hebrew scriptures and “sacred history”), and a more recent one holding that they reflect the influence of Greco-Roman ancient biography. Following Klaus Berger, among the features of the latter biographical tradition would be (1) the use of sayings and anecdotes as a way of disclosing a person’s character; (2) a focus upon the ideal and typical; (3) the presentation of a person’s character “as fixed rather than changing”; and (4) the apologetic function often found in such ancient biographies. Readers of the Gospels can easily see elements of both of these views and so, unsurprisingly, the view is emerging that the Gospels are a “mixed genre” or a new blending of Hebrew, early Christian, and Greco-Roman elements. Their novelty as a genre reflects something of the novelty of Jesus and his movement as a “‘new’ alternative in both the Jewish and Hellenistic world.”6 A certain willingness to be open to novelty, or to the pole of strangeness within the interplay of familiarity and strangeness, is then an experiential prerequisite for the emergence of the Gospel form. The impact of Jesus and his movement entails something of a crossing of known boundaries, and as one shares in that experience one is participating in what the Gospel makes transparent. Literary critic Leland Ryken has referred to the Gospels as “encyclopedic forms,” and this term even more forcefully captures this theme of the crossing of boundaries.7 The Gospels have a way of taking up and incorporating all sorts of other forms. Besides the elements of Hebraic history and Greco-Roman biography, we find parables, dialogues, sermons, proverbs, apocalyptic, hymns, poetry, prayer, and so on. Perhaps this encyclopedic nature of the Gospels was also a factor in their achieving such prominence in the Jesus tradition. That is, they render transparent the appropriateness of all sorts of supplementary genres in the transmission of the Jesus tradition. The Pauline and other letters, the 5. See Soelle and Schottroff, Jesus of Nazareth, 35, on how recent feminist and social history questions “the individual hero with his absolutely ‘new’ qualities,” forgetting “the community of brothers and sisters formed with and through Jesus.” This implies that Jesus was himself “shaped” by his community. But Soelle and Schottroff, with their strong commitment to a transcendent and liberating grace in history, in no way incline to a social determinism. 6. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 91–92; for Berger’s work, see 97. 7. Ryken, Words of Delight, 371–72.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 48 theological sermon of Hebrews, the historical narration of Acts, the mysterious Apocalypse—all of these find their approbation, seal of approval, introduction, and even suggested commentary, so to speak, in the Gospels.

Originary Genres and Engendering Experiences The Gospels are “originary” genres that seek to root us in the engendering experiences from which they emerge.8 Whenever we attempt to express the dense texture of the richness of our human experience, we find ourselves telling stories. Experience, in the ample, humane sense meant here, is never less but always more than sense experience, embracing all the capacities of the human person in partnership with all the partners in the community of being. The coordinates of the space and time within which our experiences occur are given expression by the temporal flow of the story from beginning to middle to end and by the geographical settings of the events told. The psychospiritual dimension is expressed through the agents’ struggles for meaning and truth in the midst of reversals, pulls, and counterpulls. This struggle for meaning and truth is the focus of the narrator’s art of characterization of the agents and the unfolding of a plot or even multiple plots. The story form entails both the event character of our experience in all of its amplitude and the narrative aspect bringing out the meaning and truth struggling to emerge.9 The Gospel form, then, is a unique expression of this story form, expressing the density of the engendering experiences of the encounters associated with Jesus. As a form, it roots us in this density, and in that sense keeps us linked with the originating events of the Jesus tradition. Again, it would seem a matter of common sense that the Gospels, given their relative ability as forms to express the richness of the engendering experiences with Jesus, would emerge as the most authoritative sources for Jesus in early Christianity. Something of the significance of this is suggested to us by a text from the Jesus tradition itself. The context is the disciples’ asking Jesus why it is that he speaks to the crowds in parables. His response is based on the earlier text of Isaiah 6:6–13. “The reason I speak to them in parables is 8. For the notion of the “originary,” see Paul Ricoeur, “Toward a Hermeneutic of the Idea of Revelation,” 73–118. (Ricoeur’s writings on genres are the inspiration behind my understanding of literary forms as productive.) For “engendering experience(s)” and “gospel movement,” see Voegelin, Published Essays, 1966–1985, 52, 189, etc. 9. Here I follow Voegelin’s view of the story form as a blend of event and narrative; see his In Search of Order, 38–41.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 49 that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’” (Mt 13:13). The parables, which are miniature stories with typically improbable plots, force their hearers back onto a field of new experiences requiring on the part of the listeners an effort of imagination, openness, and just plain work as one seeks to find the “point” of the story. The parables require participation, in other words. The truth they yield will only be found in the experience of participation, with its always demanding interplay of familiarity and strangeness. The minute one tries to collapse the tension of this interplay, so that only familiarity remains, so to speak, we are back with the phenomenon Isaiah exposed: “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them” (Mt 13:15). Jesus, with his constant ability to dialogue with his closer disciples and apostles, did not always need to employ the device of the parable with them. He could keep the capacity for imaginative participation alive through the dialogue situation with them. But for the crowds in general, how could he ward off the dullness of heart? Recourse to the parable is one strategy that may help in this regard. Analogously, then, we (readers today) are removed from the original dialogue situation with Jesus enjoyed by the closer circles of his disciples and apostles. Our relationship with him is somewhat more distant, in a way, like that of the crowds. How is our relationship to avoid falling into the trap exposed by Isaiah and Jesus of the dullness of heart, that tendency to want to wrap revelation up into a simple exercise of memorizing definitions or ingesting the current religious orthodoxy without much real effort of inner conversion? In Voegelin’s terms, how to keep the distinction between “information” and truly “formative knowledge” (revelation) alive and well? One must be rooted in the originary, engendering experiences with Jesus, with all the demands of personal participation that entails. Such is part of the productive power of the Gospel genre.10

Abstract, Portrait, and Photo A number of scholars have suggested likening the Gospels mainly to portraits, bearing in mind the distinctions between portrait, photo, and 10. Eric Voegelin, “The Gospel and Culture,” 202; cf. also Meyer, on the interplay between the esoteric and exoteric in the Jesus tradition, in “Jesus Christ,” 786–90. The word esoteric, however, requires caution; the appropriate notion is, not elitist exclusion of classes, but rather attentiveness to different levels of formation.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 50 abstract. Let us explore this idea. The “abstract” is a form of painting that maximizes the painter’s personal viewpoint or interpretation. It stresses subjectivity and its creative wellsprings. The photo(graph), on the other hand, is rather more object-focused, giving us a sense of the “already out there now real,” as Bernard Lonergan might express it.11 Its emphasis is upon what is, when shorn of our personal slant or view. The portrait, on the other hand, is more of an acknowledged blend of these first two. A good portrait painter studies his or her subjects, interviews them over a number of painting sessions, and recognizes that good portraiture requires personal involvement with the subject and the risk of personal interpretation. The goal is not simply surface perspective, but expressing something of the soul, if you will, of the subject. The more one seeks something of the soul, the greater the interpersonal involvement required. At the same time, the portrait painter seeks to know the other, the subject, in his or her reality, including relationships, rather than simply expressing the painter’s own personal proclivities. Subject and object, if you will, blend, and in a way the portrait, if it be good, exhibits the features of the act of faith described by Karl Rahner: “precisely what is ‘most objective’ is disclosed only to the most radical subjective act, and at the same time precisely the ‘subjective act’ knows itself to be empowered and justified by the objective facts.”12 This portrait analogy seems congenial with our movement of thought so far. It coheres with the Gospel genre as a blend of Hebrew and Hellenistic features, it captures the dimension of participation required for growth in knowledge of Jesus and his companions and work, and yet it does not undervalue the importance of “objectivity” as a factor of great concern for the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole. I place “objectivity” in quotation marks because the portrait’s participative perspective stresses the interplay between personal involvement and the emergence of insight and truth, particularly in the area of human persons and human events. Objectivity, if you will, only occurs within this interplay. This portrait perspective, as we can surmise, would value the ways in which Jesus and his circles of companions and participants were attracted to each other. It would consequently value their shared memories, the ways in which they kept those memories alive and cherished them and sought to participatively understand them. The biblical texts, then, would be thought of, in the first instance, not as an obstacle to what 11. Lonergan, Insight, 276; see index, s.v., “Real.” 12. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith, 230. For the example of abstract-photoportrait, see Ryken, Words of Delight, 376; Guelich, “The Gospels: Portraits of Jesus and His Ministry,” 117–25.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 51 we seek to know, but as a precious mode of access. At the same time, we realize the need for second naïveté, toward ourselves, surely, but even toward our cherished texts. Good artists recognize the need for combining critical skill with personal engagement. Both the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman traditions stress the interplay between these features, albeit somewhat differently. I will follow Voegelin’s view that Hebrew historiography (and the Christian, by extension) tends to stress the “historically unique,” while Hellenistic historiography tends rather to stress the “generically human,” although it is always a matter of a continuum between each on a scale of compactness and differentiation. Both traditions are articulating the reality of history, and they understand history to be a reality that embraces the humane, that is, the dimension of the soul, or the meaning and truth emerging as humans participate in the community of being. “When the order of the soul and society is oriented toward the will of God, and consequently the actions of the society and its members are experienced as fulfillment or defection, a historical present is created, radiating its form over a past that was not consciously historical in its own present,” writes Voegelin of Israel’s experience.13 The sense of the divine Beyond, so emphatically experienced by Israel as “descending” into its life and summoning it to follow God exodus-like, opens up an awareness of a historical present moving into a future and leaving the past behind. A more compact experience of history occurs in the Greco-Roman sphere, it seems. There is less of a sense of the irruption of the divine Beyond “descending” into experience and so creating a present under God. In some, like Plato and Aristotle, we find the articulation of the human soul in openness to a divine Beyond’s lure, but the stress falls more upon the human openness than upon the divine descent. In any case, Hellas generally prizes the generic and constant, it seems, within the flow of time (Heraclitus, we have noted, being the delightful exception). As we speak of history in this humane and “religious” sense, the reader may experience a certain alienation, given his or her more accustomed view of history. For the latter may be less humane, in the sense that history may be viewed as an enterprise concerned less with the human struggle for meaning and truth and more with “surface facts” like chronology (time), location (space), and detailing “events,” but by focusing upon the action rather than the issue of truth. This view of history comes close to the older “positivistic” view of history (just the “facts”; meaning is just a jumble of subjective values the historian may record but need not really 13. Voegelin, Order and History, vol. I, Israel and Revelation, 550, 169.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 52 struggle with). To some extent this “older” positivism is increasingly out of favor, as historians recognize the inevitable interplay of subjectivity and objectivity, although there is a wide variation in whether one can really reach “objective truth” in history, as we noted in the first chapter. But what most distinguishes the Hebrew-Christian and the Classical views of history from much contemporary historiography is the link the former make between the divine Ground and historical awareness. The person’s openness to the divine Ground’s gracious descent is what creates a present under God moving into the future and leaving the past behind. All humans have experienced this, and so all humans have lived in history. But not all humans have been equally aware of the dimensions involved in this, and so their historical consciousness has not been equally developed. Where the awareness of the divine Ground is left out of an account of history, there the historical consciousness is correspondingly truncated, not reaching the deepest foundation of its own reality, on the Classical and Hebrew-Christian views of history. Gospel portraiture, then, inevitably carries us into these heady waters of just what history is. Depending upon the view of history operating, one will or will not be willing to accord the title “history” to the Gospels. Our perspective is to look to the Classical and Hebrew-Christian traditions particularly for questions of the humane and transcendental dimensions of history, but to look to the rich enlargement of our historical horizons since modernity for a critical sharpening of aspects of the chronological, geographical, and sociopsychosomatic dimensions of history. But there is a feedback between all of these, to be sure, and at times one’s assessment of the humane and transcendental dimension will greatly influence one’s assessment of the spatio-temporal and sociopsychosomatic event dimensions (for example, with regard to miracles).

The Jesus Christ of History, His Companions, and Their Gospel Movement Given the more holistic and yet somewhat traditional view of history just noted, it would seem to follow that we should not separate a “Jesus dimension” having to do with an allegedly humanly accessible man (the province of history) and a “Christ dimension” demarcating a theologicalfaith perspective extrinsic to the historical process. Rather, history is the site in and through which we meet Jesus, his companions, and their movement in all of their dimensions, whatever they may be. There is no

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 53 other locus than that of the history within which we live and think and believe and hope. If the theological Christ-dimension is not available to us in history, then it is simply not available. Period. Obviously those of us who want to practice the craft of history in the more inclusive and holistic sense adumbrated above are engaged in a conflict of the practice of historiography. It cannot be avoided. But from the perspective we have sketched, the humane and transcendental dimensions of history, especially the divine Ground, belong to history as much as and in some ways even more than the more surface spatial, temporal, and pragmatic (event) features of the historical process. The humane and transcendental dimensions are what transform temporality into history. We can then formulate a guiding maxim: The Jesus Christ of history and his companions and their movement emerge from the history of Jesus Christ and his companions and their movement.14 Following this maxim, we will offer a historical sketch, keeping in mind that this is but a sketch, which is all that this work allows. Chronology and Geography Let us begin with some of the more surface features. “Surface features” demarcate facets requiring less personal investment and participation on the part of the historian, although all knowing would seem to demand varying forms and grades of personal investment. But coming to know when and where people lived typically requires less personal investment and commitment than coming to know what they may have said, and coming to know what they meant by what they said requires even more investment, and allowing oneself to be challenged by the possible truth of what they said and meant even more, and so on. There is a certain interplay between all of these levels, for the historian is engaged in personal participation all along the line, but the quality of the participation varies. The reality of participation naturally means that there can be arguments of interpretation all along the line too, and one would typically suspect that the arguments become more intense the more one moves from the more surface to the more humane, transcendental, depth dimensions of history. Employing the almost common sense historical criteria of looking to internal (biblical) and external (sources outside the Bible) sources, we can 14. This is a Christological transposition of Voegelin’s celebrated first sentence in Israel and Revelation, in the preface to his series, Order and History: “The order of history emerges from the history of order” (1:19).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 54 credibly hold that a man Jesus called the Christ lived, in Palestine, between somewhat before 4 BC and AD 30. Besides the New Testament, references to Jesus and/or Christ and his followers are found in Roman writers (Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny), in the Jewish historian Josephus, and perhaps the Stoic philosopher Mara bar Sarapion, and in the gnostic and apocryphal Gospels. This may not seem like much, but given the few writing historians of this early period, and given the relatively insignificant influence of Jesus and his companions as compared with, say, Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great, at least until Christianity “captured” the Roman Empire under Constantine, the amount of notice that Jesus along with his followers received seems fairly significant.15 In other words, our sources provide us with the spatial and temporal coordinates of the original Jesus movement: Palestine, within the Roman Empire and the GrecoRoman culture of, primarily, the early first century AD. These sources, but now mostly those of the New Testament, further amplify our knowledge of these coordinates. They indicate that Jesus was born in either Nazareth or Bethlehem in the reign of Herod the Great and that he lived in a religiously serious Jewish family in lower Galilee for around thirty years. His baptism by John the Baptist marked a significant break in his life, indicating that he in some way was a “disciple” of the Baptist or at least that he was attracted to the latter’s mission. Soon we find Jesus, when he is around thirty-three, pursuing his own mission of preaching, teaching, and action within Galilee, Jerusalem, and even the larger Judean area. That Jesus would engage in this kind of itinerant vocation in the areas specified fits the pattern of what we know of Jewish reformers. The data cohere with our knowledge of the times from all sources, internal and external. Near the end of his short life we find him in Jerusalem for the coming Passover Feast, although we are unsure of the precise days on which the events of his arrest, passion, and crucifixion occur as a result of the opposition he meets with there from the Jewish and Roman authorities. Our sources, internal and external, testify to his crucifixion. His public ministry lasted between one and three years; we cannot be more precise than this. All along the way he was influenced by and in turn influenced overlapping circles of relationships: his family (Mary, his mother; Joseph, his father; sisters and brothers), his apostles and disciples, his sympathizers, and others who likely made up the “crowds,” and finally the diverse groups within the Judaism of his day (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, scribes, Herodians, reformists, etc.). He was approximately thirty15. A convenient summary of the extra-biblical sources is available in Forward, Jesus: A Short Biography, 7–16.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 55 four years old when he was crucified.16 Beyond this, given the differences among the sources on more specific spatiotemporal data regarding Jesus and his movement, we have less historical agreement. For example, what is the precise order of some of the better attested events in Jesus’ career? Was the cleansing of the Temple early (Jn 2:13–22) or just before his arrest (synoptics)? When more precisely did he deliver his significant addresses, and where—for example, on the plain (Luke) or on a mountain (Matthew)?

The Humane and Transcendental Dimensions What converts chronology and geography into history is the specifically spiritual (humane and transcendental) dimension of human beings acting in society and history. As we move into this “depth” dimension of the movement of Jesus Christ, the personal challenges facing would-be followers and interpreters in Jesus’ time and later intensify. It is now increasingly not a matter of a “video” recording of the “already out there now real,” although we know it never was simply that, even with respect to matters of time and space. Now we are dealing more directly with matters of spirituality, that is, with the quality of development of the human person (the soul) as he and she interacts, and strives to appropriate, acceptingly or unacceptingly, the meaning and truth coming to luminosity in the words and deeds of Jesus and his companions.17 Here we are faced immediately with that paradox of paradoxes, namely, that personal involvement is the royal road to knowledge of human persons as personal beings, and yet that such involvement intensifies the possibilities of our going astray. If commitment may bring insight and truth, it also may bring blinding bias and passional obscuration. And yet there is no other alternative, if we are to go forward. For personal involvement is the generating source of the imagination, creativity, attunement, and openness through which, and seemingly only through which, we have access to 16. See Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:372–433, for the general chronology; see index to vol. 1, “family of Jesus,” esp. 317–71; all of vol. 3 is devoted to the various circles of relationship. Meier favors ca. 7 or 6 BC as the date of Jesus’ birth, and he says Jesus “was dead by the evening of Friday, April 7, 30” (1:407). Soelle and Schottroff, Jesus of Nazareth, are helpful in awakening our imaginations to those who were (likely) present but often overlooked or left in anonymity by the available sources, namely, women, children, the desperate; e.g., 53–56. 17. I am using companion(s) as a term embracing Jesus’ original circle of friendly relationships, but also at times all later followers. The reader should be able to know which is meant from the context.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 56 persons, world, society, and God. At the same time, these features can go astray, given insufficient development. (1) Challenges from Matthew, Mark, and Luke (1.1) Beginning with the Synoptics No simple technique exists which can spare us that passional obscuration just mentioned. All personal ventures are adventures, entailing vulnerability and risks. The authors of the synoptic Gospels, and we their later readers and interpreters, can be in varying ways afflicted by these obstacles. We can only rely upon the quality of one another’s spirituality or level of participation in the community of being and allow this to be the power of discernment bringing us to luminosity. But to guard against unnecessary obscuration, we do need something of a discipline or asceticism that protects and nourishes our interpretive skills. A minimally alert spirituality knows this and abides by it. Thus, just as with respect to geography and chronology we measured our insights against the internal and external sources, all the while employing our imaginations, so here too as we try to go deeper we will need to fall back upon common sense and even-more-refined criteria to aid us in not going astray. These criteria depend upon an alert imagination nourished by many virtues, and they are something of a work in progress as we move along. Participatory interpretation is an art, not an exact science. We will begin with the synoptics and offer a too-brief interpretation of some key themes. Contemporary New Testament scholars tend either to start with them or even solely consult them, for they are regarded as our earliest sources for a more comprehensive knowledge of Jesus’ words, deeds, and interactions, albeit offering us nothing like a “modern” biography, and certainly not an autobiography. Actually Paul’s letters are earlier, and they offer us some data of a corroborative nature. The tendency to begin with the synoptics reflects the modern view of history, which is less interested in the humane and transcendental, and more interested in the surface data, as we have defined that. The “modern” emphasis is typically not so much “What did Jesus mean by his preaching of the reign of God, and is it true and therefore binding upon us?” The emphasis is rather “Did Jesus really preach this message? How can we be sure?” As we have noted, we are interested in a more holistic historical approach, combining the modern proclivity, which has its value, with the emphases of the more Classical and biblical views of history. Still, because Christianity is centered upon the real historical person of Jesus and his relationships, and not simply upon ideas or theories, it is neces-

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 57 sary to attend to the humble issues of surface facticity. These may be banal to more heady types, but such “pedestrian banality” and ordinariness is very much a part of an incarnational faith like Christianity; so we do not in the least intend to ignore this dimension. The very nature of our faith and the very nature of the sources intensely challenge us along these lines. We may not be inclined to think that Luke, for example, was adequately critical by the standards of modern historiography when it comes to questions of more surface facticity, but his attunement to the importance of such questions, entailed in the very nature of an incarnational faith, comes through as we read his words: “Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events . . . just as they were handed on to us by those who were eye-witnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account . . . so that you may know the truth” (Lk 1:1–4). This “orderly account” is the narrative form, actually, and Luke’s way of putting it helps us grasp another reason why the story genre became the chief literary form of the Jesus tradition. It brings out the correspondence and affinity between an incarnational faith, which does entail issues of surface facticity, albeit not only that, and the narrative with its very incarnational manner of expressing the spatiotemporal texture of human experience. To say that we begin with the synoptics because they are regarded by historians as our earlier sources (along with Paul’s letters) does not necessarily mean that they always offer us the best or even the correct view of the matter under consideration. In general, on matters of surface facticity, they likely do, as we will argue, but on matters of depth perception they may not. Personal, participative knowledge ripens and matures over time and prolonged experience. In this respect, one might expect the Gospel of John to have some special insights to offer, given its likely later emergence. In other words, what is earliest is not necessarily what is most profound. This is a minimal counsel coming from a participatory approach, which is quite different from the sometimes archaizing approach of more neutral, “cold” approaches to history. (1.2) The Alternative Community of God’s Reign Probably the key conclusion of contemporary research into the work and message of Jesus, from almost any perspective, is that of the central role of the reign (kingdom) of God as set forth in all three synoptics (Mk 1:14–15; Mt 4:12–17; Lk 4:43). To some extent this displaces Jesus himself from central focus. To some extent it also displaces God from the sole

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 58 focus. For however one construes it more amply, the reign of God places the focus upon God and what that God is doing with and for people. The center of gravity, in other words, is the work of salvation. A reign or kingdom involves people, with their needs and struggles. A king would not be a king without subjects and would look rather silly without them. Right away the centrality of the reign of God in Jesus’ work entails his being God-centered and people-centered, simultaneously. As we today think of kingdoms, our imaginations will likely think of political institutions, for kingdoms are sociopolitical entities, ways of organizing people. Thus, the renewed emphasis upon the reign of God in our way of imagining Jesus stimulates a more sociopolitical perspective on him. He is not depersonalized, but he is deprivatized, as some of the earlier political theologians liked to say, following the lead of Johann Baptist Metz.18 This way of imagining the matter is likely quite similar to the way both Jesus himself and his audience viewed the matter as well, given the inseparability of matters religious from matters sociopolitical in their cultural context. At the same time, this perspective underscores the growing insistence upon not isolating Jesus from his social interactions and complex influences upon others and their influences upon him. It also again brings home the role of his community in his work, whose members preserved their shared memories for the sake of this reign of God. How have we recovered this? The proclivities of modern history, the sociopolitical sciences, and various forms of feminist, liberation, and political critique have renewed attention to the synoptics on their own terms, apart from the lens provided by the Gospel of John. For the theme of the kingdom of God occurs less frequently in John, which is rather more emphatic about Jesus himself. Raymond Brown tells us that the synoptic formula “kingdom of God” occurs only in John 3:3, 5, while John does refer to Jesus as king some fifteen times. One can overdo this contrast, as Brown notes, for after all, even in John, Jesus is a king with followers. Still, Brown sums the matter up by writing: “The synoptic emphasis on the basileia [kingdom] making itself felt in Jesus seems to have become in John an emphasis on Jesus who is basileus (king) and who reigns.”19 The influence of the later creeds with more of a Johannine tone to them had much to do with filtering the synoptics through John. Today’s biblical scholars and others are seeking to redress the balance, looking at the synoptics in their own right. 18. See, for example, Metz, Theology of the World. See the lucid study of Metz in Martinez, Confronting the Mystery of God, 21–88, 216–51. My most vivid memory of being awakened to the social dimension of the kingdom stems from reading Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach. 19. Brown, The Gospel according to John, 1:cx.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 59 This theme of the reign of God is attested in all the synoptics, and somewhat in John, too. Thus the internal sources for its centrality are strong. The fact that John stresses Jesus as the king seems, from a common-sense point of view, to be typical of a later stage of thinking in the Jesus tradition. In the synoptics it is rather God the Father who is at least implied to be the king; Jesus is this king’s agent. Thus, scholars are inclined to look to Jesus himself as the source of this teaching on the reign of God. To some extent he would have been influenced by earlier Jewish “kingdomology,” especially by tendencies of the intertestamental period (cf. Dan 2:44, 4:3, 7:27). Nonetheless, certain features about the way Jesus presents the message of the divine reign distinguish his vision from others. Some scholars will say, at this point, that we have fallen back upon the criteria of multiple attestation (all the synoptics, along with John, note the theme), and of dissimilarity (Jesus’ view of the reign is uniquely different from, or dissimilar to, that of earlier Jewish tradition and even later, Johannine tradition, at least to some extent. For example, Jesus does not call God “King,” but “Father,” whereas earlier Jewish tradition tends to emphasize the title of king in referring to God [e.g., Ps 5:2, 10:16, etc.; Is 6:5, etc.]). Our own participatory approach finds such criteria helpful in reducing needless obscuration in interpretation stemming from a distorting kind of bias.20 They are a way of keeping our participation disciplined. On the other hand, they are embedded within the experience of participation, and they do not function like magical charms leading to instant “objectivity.” I believe the tendency by some to so treat them has led to the opposite tendency to completely discard their value, thus opening the door to sometimes groundless opining. There is no replacement for imagination, but it must strive to be a disciplined imagination. What does the reign of God mean in Jesus’ proclamation? What is the truth-challenge coming to luminosity for us in this symbolism? The extensive use of parables by Jesus indicates that we need to use our imaginations when thinking of the reign of God. It is a matter, not of a simple definition, but of participating in a reality of dense texture. We are in the realm of the formative knowledge coming from the challenge of the God of Jesus, rather than in that of simply conveying a piece of information. Our term symbolism needs to be taken with great seriousness, so that we stay attuned to the depths of the engendering experience of participation involved. We can and do try to articulate dimensions of this symbolism 20. For one account of the various criteria proposed, see Meier, A Marginal Jew, 1:167–95.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 60 through more precise “concepts,” but the concepts are always to be understood as embedded within and comprehended by a reality finally outstripping exact conceptualization. The engendering experience embraces the virtues noted earlier, along with thought, affectivity, and deliberative action, or our mind, heart, and will, and so we must approach the reign of God from all of these angles. Our participation in the reign leads us to this. As we have suggested, “kingdom/reign” evokes a gathering of peoples. It is a symbol emerging from the realm of the sociopolitical, and it has to do with the issue of social order or organization. So right away we need to be thinking of an emphasis upon the social. Naturally, kingdoms can be organized in many ways, ranging from the most tyrannical to the most liberating (at least in imagination). And for us in the modern and postmodern Western democracies, the very term kingdom/reign is off-putting at times, and so we need to work our way through a good deal of strangeness as we wrestle with the always present dialectic of familiarity and strangeness noted ample times before. To start with, let us entertain the notion of an “alternative community” as a way into our question. Jesus is proposing an alternative to the other forms of social organization of which he is aware. He does not necessarily indicate that this alternative simply replaces all other forms of social organization. In some cases it might be opposed to other forms, at least in principle, although it may be unable to do little about that fact in the concrete order. Forms of social tyranny immediately come to mind. For example, we read that Jesus said to his apostles, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great one are tyrants over them” (Mk 10:42). On the other hand, Jesus’ alternative community may be compatible with other forms of social organization in varying ways. The texts are not always so clear on this matter, and the long history in the later Christian West of the struggle to clarify the varying relations between the sacred (sacerdotium) and the empire (imperium) bears this out. The famous text “Give to the emperor [Caesar] the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mk 12:17) implies a certain recognition of sociopolitical institutions other than the new community. (1.3) Inclusiveness and Divine Personalism What, then, are some of the features entitling us to name Jesus’ view of God’s reign as an alternative? At this point in our meditation, let us single out the themes of inclusiveness and the nature of Jesus’ God as repre-

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 61 sentative of the salvation-oriented alternative Jesus is proposing. Jesus’ teaching on love of the enemy and his practice of open-table hospitality may serve us as windows into inclusiveness. These examples embrace many of the virtues we have noted, as well as the dimensions of mind, heart, and will, and thus illustrate something of their interpenetrability. At the same time, a certain focus upon action stemming from a disciplined will typifies the practice of open hospitality, while a focus upon thought and feeling typifies the teaching on love of the enemy. The counsel to love the enemy, particularly as expressed in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, brings out the unlimited, universal extent of the inclusiveness imagined by Jesus: “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mt 5:44–45). Just as the sun and the rain exclude none, so too the children of Jesus’ Father exclude none. The fact that Jesus is accusingly remembered as dining with “tax collectors and sinners” in an effort to display “mercy and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:11, 13) shows that his action corresponds to his thought and feelings, for such were considered the unrighteous by the typical standards of the time and place. We are on fairly secure ground in arguing for the attribution of these traditions to Jesus, for they cohere with his special view of God, as we shall note more fully in a moment, they are multiply attested (Lk 6:27–28; Mk 2:13–17; Lk 5:27–32), and they even appear to be unparalleled in some respects (dissimilar from other religious perspectives).21 Working through the various depths of the inclusiveness entailed in the alternative community seems to have been a struggle for Jesus himself. It has clearly been a struggle for the rest of us, then and now. That it would have been a struggle for Jesus seems a matter of common sense, coupled with a mild use of our imaginations, given the novelty and sociopolitical costs of the practice and insight. But one intriguing encounter between Jesus and a Syrophoenician woman recorded by Mark 7:24–30 and Matthew 15:21–28 perhaps offers a special window into his own struggle over the matter. When the woman requests Jesus to exorcise a 21. Daniel J. Harrington expresses this in his characteristically careful way, referring to the command to love the enemy: “While there is not a direct parallel in the OT or rabbinic writings, many biblical and rabbinic teachings point in the same direction as Jesus’ teaching does” (The Gospel of Matthew, 89). We should also point out that a tradition can be attributed legitimately to Jesus also, even if it is not unparalleled in all respects, for common sense tells us that Jesus was a person of his times and shared many or at least some of the assumptions and beliefs of his inherited religion and culture.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 62 demon from her daughter, he responds with what appears to be a more restricted view of God’s kingdom: “He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs’” (Mk 7:27). This response seems to reflect the earlier Jewish view that in the endtime the various nations of the world will come to Jerusalem and learn of God’s ways, but until then the mission takes place within the Jewish nation itself (Is 2:2–5). But the way Jesus puts it lacks the ecumenical sensitivity or optimism of an Isaiah, and actually seems downright insulting. The woman seems to best Jesus in a wonderful riposte: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mk 7:28). This response seems to have been enough to awaken Jesus to the further implications of his teaching (in the context here, that purity is not determined by the food one eats but by the inner depths of people [7:15]): “Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter’ ” (7:29). The irony of this event is thickened by the remembrance that it was a woman teaching Jesus about the implications of the reign’s inclusiveness, given the inferior place of women in Jesus’ culture.22 The role of the woman presents a further argument for historical facticity, namely, the criterion of embarrassment; for it likely would have been embarrassing for the tradition to present Jesus in the supposedly inferior role of learning, and yet it did so. This is compounded by the further embarrassing observation that it was a woman doing the teaching. This startling inclusiveness is matched by and grounded upon Jesus’ relation to and understanding of God. Jesus apparently draws upon the late Jewish tradition, which differentiated with great clarity the universality of the one God, as we find, for example, in Second Isaiah 44:6, 45:14, 18, and 46:9. It is not so clear that this had been grasped by Israel’s leaders and writers earlier, for even after the revelation experience of Moses, for example, we have someone like David worried that he will have to worship foreign gods, should he be exiled by the jealous Saul (1 Sam 26:19).23 It took time and experience to grasp that the one God of Moses truly transcends all borders, including those of Israel. When Jesus speaks of God as shining on all, just like the sun, we have a beautiful image of this sense of transcendent universality. A truly universal God is a God who can make room for all, indeed. In principle, this is a sine qua non for radical inclusiveness. At the same time, Jesus adds a sharper note of personalism and intimacy to his view of God than we typically find in earlier Israelite thought. 22. Very helpful here: Donahue and Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, 234–38. 23. Nikiprowetzky, “Ethical Monotheism,” 69–89.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 63 Obviously a transcendently universal God can be rather cold and aloof, or warm and present. Both sides are varyingly attested in the Hebrew scriptures, but Jesus’ emphasis usually falls upon the warm current. Typically the Hebrew scriptures rarely or sparingly speak of God as Father/Ab (Hebrew)—perhaps fifteen times in all—while Jesus nearly always does so. As we have seen, Israel prefers the titles of King and Lord, among others. Intriguingly, the New Testament sparingly portrays Jesus as referring to a divine sonship experienced by all (Mt 5:9, 45), reserving this title for Jesus, while the Hebrew scriptures will speak of the sons (and daughters?) of God more commonly, but within a more collective context.24 That is, either Israel as a whole is meant, or the king (who by virtue of office is a representative of the collectivity of Israel). It would seem that it is this affectionately warm, transcendently universal God who pushes Jesus toward his radical openness and his liberating reformism. The openness to all builds a space within which the excluded and marginalized can breathe. And this must have been a great attraction for many in Jesus’ time and later. At the same time the personalism, even to the extent of love of the enemy, seeks to cauterize temptations to vindictiveness, from whichever side they may come, even as it helps us understand Jesus’ preferential effort for the most needy and vulnerable within this reign of God (Lk 4:18–19, 6:20–25),25 a theme that certainly seems consistent with the other themes of inclusive openness and personalism. (1.4) The Alternative Community’s Temporal and Geographical Dimensions The temporal coordinates of the reign of God merit some consideration at this point. If the divine reign were simply an episode of the past, then it would become a symbol of a paradise lost or an archaic utopia. It would also imply that God no longer reigns and that world and history are subject to other powers. If this reign were only a present reality, then what would become of the world-transcendent God whose reality and work cannot be crammed into finite time? But if it were only a reality to be hoped for in the future—a futuristic utopia—then again what would happen to Jesus’ inclusive and intimately personal God? Would this be mere dream 24. O’Collins, Christology, 118–22. 25. For the theme of the preferential option for the poor, as worked out by Latin American theologians and bishops, not without some earlier aid from Pope John XXIII, and also as received by Pope John Paul II, see Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation, xxv–xxviii, 160–61, 162–74; John Paul II, On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum, no. 11.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 64 work? Is God not actively present in the world and “reigning” in some sense? Jesus’ alternative reign emerges in his imagination, which is partly shaped by his Jewish past. This past celebrated the acts of the divine King guiding Israel, who ruled over nature and history, particularly in the liberating Exodus events (Ex 15; Num 23:21; 1 Sam 8:7, 10:19, 12:12; Ps 8, 24, etc.). The trust in this reign was also apparently very vivid in the Jewish intertestamental period, where it took on a more futuristic (eschatological) and even apocalyptic tonality. The experiences of Hellenistic and Roman subjugation plausibly stimulated this futuristic orientation. What was known in the past became hoped for in the future. Jesus himself was likely influenced by both traditions, even if the precise phrase he is remembered as using, namely, “reign of God,” seems very rare, although its equivalents are common (“reign of Yahweh” or “King who rules,” etc.).26 What is peculiar about Jesus’ usage is the consciousness that this reign is both present and future, here with us once again (Mt 12:28) and yet not fully here (Mt 6:10). Granted, these are issues hotly contested, but at least the view offered here has some coherence to it. That the reign is present coheres especially with the inclusiveness and personalism present in Jesus’ thought and action; that it is future, with the world-transcendent nature of Jesus’ God. We may surmise that within a more cosmocentric perspective,27 in which the world-transcendent nature of the Divine has not received adequate articulation, the tendency is to wobble back and forth between a simply present or a simply futuristic view of the god’s reign. If one’s group is prospering now, then the god of one’s group is indeed reigning; if the group’s fortunes are more febrile, hope for the manifestation of the deity’s reign shifts to the future prospects of the group. In other words, where divine world-transcendence remains rather confused and compact in its articulation, such to-and-fro tendencies would likely occur. Jesus’ imagination has been able to benefit from a more adequate experience and articulation of both God’s world-transcendence and the divine intimacy: hence the peculiar articulation of God’s reign as necessarily coming out of the past and vibrantly inbetween present and future. We also surmise that the peculiar sense of nearness or urgency (Mk 1:15; Mt 22:3, 24:33, 25:13, etc.) in Jesus’ presentation of this future reign

26. See Duling, “Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven,” 49–69; he notes that in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature only Psalms of Solomon 17:3 uses the exact phrase “Kingdom of God” (4:51). 27. For more on this, see Voegelin, Israel and Revelation, 41–50, 51–150.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 65 of God—it is drawing near, it is not simply way off—has something to do with the way in which God’s intimacy qualifies God’s transcendence in Jesus’ experience and consciousness. It is an affectionately warm transcendence, we suggested. This sense of intimacy and personalism is, we will suggest, the new dimension breaking forth through Jesus and his companions that decisively qualifies this reign, constituting it truly an alternative community to the possibilities of community-formation heretofore existing. This interpretation may, by the way, cast some light upon the few texts that portray Jesus as offering us a “date” for the reign’s realization (Mt 10:23; Mk 9:1 parr; 13:30 parr).28 The reign’s urgent nearnessas-intimacy would seem explicable as a peculiarly intense expression of a futurity (transcendence) known as intimately present as well: neither one nor the other, but both in their tensive friction. This potentially creative tension makes the experience of history something kairotic rather than simply chronologically linear. Time becomes a hopeful opportunity (kairos rather than chronos in Greek), a space of commitment to truth, loving intimacy, and challenge to action. If this view is correct, then Jesus’ present and future reign of God might well be drawing on and radicalizing earlier Jewish traditions about time as kairotic (,eth in Hebrew).29 With respect to God’s personalism reaching out in history, Jesus was not mistaken, we surmise. This is too bound up with the core of his identity and mission. At the same time, we can and should leave room for narrative heightening of this recollection of the present and future reign of God in the later Gospel tradition. Time has been our chief focus in these considerations, and this likely reflects the challenges of modern history in today’s Jesus studies. A more recent interest in space, land, and geography has emerged, reflecting any number of currents, namely, the social sciences, postmodern philosophy, ecology, territorial claims under scrutiny in (post)colonial studies, etc. Some thoughts on Jesus, the Gospel movement, and land are, then, appropriate as well. The kairotic view of the inclusive community of the divine reign suggested here would seem to carry significant implications for geography. On the one hand, geography is in principle relativized. A world-transcendent God inclusive of all cannot be shrunk into one space, nor even into all spaces. Space by very definition is finite; a world-transcendent God is infinite. While this could lead in the direction of insensitivity to space, and 28. See Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2:336–48, for the spectrum of views; he inclines to the view that these sayings come from the post-Easter community, although they are rooted in the historical Jesus (2:348). 29. Cf. Marsh, “Time, Season,” 258–67.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 66 while it historically has done so, it need not and should not. For a worldtranscendent God permeates all space, and so all space becomes sacred in some sense. At the same time, Jesus’ affectionately warm and personal view of God would seem to call us toward personalizing space, that is, enabling it to be the site of truly inclusive love between all. In this way, space becomes “place,” in a postmodern, sociological sense of a site where we experience true belonging.30 These thoughts are rather formal, admittedly, and need concretization from the historical materials themselves. These thoughts look more to what is implied in principle, but they need a more concrete amplification. As an itinerant, Jesus practiced a living form of relativizing of space, to be sure. What seemed uppermost was the kairos, the challenge of the new community, whose inner dynamism was to drive Jesus and his companions forward toward greater and greater inclusivity. The movement toward Jerusalem is a fascinating one in this respect, indicating on the one hand a respect for the holy site of Israel, and yet on the other the challenge put there, at the holy site of the Temple, to transcend a too limited view of the land and the people. This dialectic seems in varying ways reflected in the later narratives of the Gospels themselves, and it is continued to some extent by the later disciples, as noted in the Acts, for example, or in Paul’s letters, where it is extended to Rome, and to all the known regions of the earth.31 (1.5) The Paschal Shape of the Gospel Stories This is an appropriate place to recall that these recollections come to us through the later literary forms of the New Testament, which we have endeavored to view as a productive help in our effort to participate in and with Jesus and his companions and their work. Commonly this is thought to be the result of at least a three-stage process, beginning with the period of Jesus’ own oral preaching and his other deeds, moving to a later stage of the preaching, teaching, defending, and celebrating in worship of Jesus’ words and other deeds by his followers, and finally culminating in the writing of the Jesus tradition, in letters, Gospels, and other literary forms. Obviously in some ways this later transmission through narrative and other literary forms forces us to grapple with the fact that surface facticity is embedded within the larger humane and transcendental aspects of the events and interactions of Jesus, and that it is these latter as30. See Sheldrake, Spaces for the Sacred, for some stimulating suggestions. 31. See Janzen, “Land,” 143–54.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 67 pects which color our access to the former.32 Modern history’s desire for greater precision in surface facticity is often frustrated by this narrative/literary setting, but this narrative or narrative-like (the other varied literary forms) transmission of experience, even on the nonwritten level, would seem to be a feature of human experience in general, even today. Let the reader conduct a simple experiment and attempt to “reconstruct” even an allegedly well-remembered personal event from, say, a year ago. Likely he or she will encounter the same narrative or narrative-like framework within which the facticity is to be had. Likely he or she will also sense the need to turn to others, especially the circles of intimates, for perspectival insight. The narrative of our lives is co-constituted by our relationships, we continue to learn. This would seem to indicate that the more “historical” and so “incarnational” perspective is the one that recognizes this narrative dimension, submitting to its nature, and accepting with a second naïveté the lessons it will yield. The attempt to cut through the narrative or eliminate it is actually a more gnostic (history-denying) approach, because it seeks to anesthetize history, and/or to manipulate it for propaganda purposes. As we follow the form, so to speak, we note that the Gospel of Mark33 seems in a hurry. It is the briefest of the Gospels: sixteen chapters. The Greek word euthus, or its cognates, which can be rendered as “immediately,” “at once,” or “then,” show up some forty times. For example: “And the Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness” (Mk 1:12). Or: “And immediately they [Simon and Andrew] left their nets and followed him” (Mk 1:18). Or, regarding what the disciples are to say about the colt to be used for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem: “Just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately’” (Mk 11:3). Especially significant for Mark is 10:32, which brings out the destination of this rush: “They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were 32. “The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form, others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus” (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, no. 19 [761]). Naturally our need for a second naïveté needs to qualify this statement somewhat. For the three-stage process, see ibid. and Pontifical Biblical Commission, Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels. 33. As we speak of the Gospels under the traditional names, we do not mean to ignore the crucial role of the various communities that went into the shaping of the narratives, but neither do we want to diminish the work of some final author (or few authors). The latter seems called for by the careful way in which the texts are written. It does not seem implausible that a husband and wife or a male and a female together may have been the final authors of at least some of these texts.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 68 afraid.” Jerusalem is the site of the arrest and crucifixion, and thus the rush suggests something of the profound commitment and urgency felt by Jesus in his effort on behalf of the new community. He is not a utopian dreamer, but someone who quite really seeks to challenge and help transform the plight of God’s people, let the personal cost be what it may. Thus, he goes to Jerusalem, the site of practical influence, and does not remain lost in the security of an undisciplined imagination. Mark seems quite taken with this and is certainly stressing this “procession to the ‘throne’ of the cross” in a narrative manner. This haste casts light upon the deceptively simple narrative structure of Mark, namely, a prologue (1:1–13, featuring Jesus and the Baptist, Jesus’ baptism, and his wilderness experience), a ministry in Galilee (1:14–9:50, featuring Jesus’ and his disciples’ training in commitment to the new reign, amid much opposition), and the journey to Jerusalem and Jerusalem period (10:1–16:8, featuring the crucifixion and brief resurrection encounter). The simplicity whittles down the matter to the essential, namely, complete commitment in nonsentimental and costly love. Thus correspondingly we find the love commandments given within the final, “most costly” period of the narrative plot (Mk 12:28–34). The simplicity of chronology and events heightens the simplicity of single-pointedness that should characterize the heart and soul. The prologue now looks more like an initiation or readying for the struggle that will likely come as the ministry unfolds. Jesus must himself undergo a testing in the wilderness if he is to endure and overcome the opposition he will surely encounter. Bailey and Vander Broek helpfully note the combination of Hellenistic tragedy and apocalyptic (contest?) motif running through this Gospel. Perhaps most intriguingly, the brief encounter with the risen Jesus, but only indirectly through a mysterious messenger, tells the disciples that they will find Jesus in Galilee. He is still going “ahead of [them] to Galilee” (Mk 16:7), which was the place of struggle, where he encountered rejection (Mk 6:1–6). Presumably they must expect the same fate. Jesus’ resurrection does not seem to eliminate the struggle, although surely it invites us to ponder anew the struggle’s outcome. If we end Mark with 16:8, as we have in this interpretation following the historical critics, it seems that this Gospel either lacks an epilogue corresponding to its prologue, or at least leaves us with an unfinished epilogue. Perhaps this is to remind us of our own need to journey back to our own Galilees, like the disciples, if we are to appropriately participate in this Jesus. The work on behalf of the new community remains still in progress.34 34. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 93–94. See Thompson, The Struggle for Theology’s Soul, 64–152, and references, for influences on the interpretation of the Gospels proposed here.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 69 Scholars will speak of Mark’s Gospel as one strongly characterized by an eschatological tension, that is, we find ourselves in the “end-time” period in which the forces of darkness are waging their intensive and laststand battle against the forces of goodness. Jesus’ death is an expression of this final battle, but his resurrection manifests that the demonic forces are at the last act (see Mk 13, for example). One of Mark’s special charisms, it would seem, is a heightened attunement to the nearness of Jesus’ personal God and that God’s community-forming work, along with the powerful opposition it will arouse. Mark may have overstressed or inadequately expressed the reign’s nearness, but this Gospel certainly articulates forcefully the dimension of struggle entailed in this reign’s inauguration. The Gospel of Matthew, on the other hand, seems to have somewhat softened Mark’s eschatological tension. It senses that we are in for a longer wait, and thus it swings to a stress upon the present needs of the church community on behalf of the reign of God. Jesus will be with the disciples “to the end of the age,” and this brings much consolation as they are charged to go forward “and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:20, 19). Meanwhile, this Gospel fashions something of a pastoral manual for the followers of Jesus, as the alternative community begins to recognize that it must organize itself for action within society and history.35 Unsurprisingly it is here in Matthew that we find the word church occurring among the Gospels (13:53–18:35, the ecclesiological treatise within the Gospel). Bailey and Vander Broek characterize Matthew as a “didactic biography,” which accords a certain primacy to the teaching ministry of Jesus. They suggest that elements of Jewish Deuteronomistic historiography (Moses the teacher) combine in Matthew with Hellenistic biography (the birth stories, for example, in Matthew), although we can find such birth stories in the Hebrew scriptures as well (the story of Moses’ birth, for example, in Exodus 2).36 Matthew certainly seems particularly attuned to the teaching of Jesus, which the new Jesus community now needs for its growing understanding of its mission. It has long been noted that the Gospel’s literary center of gravity is found in the five sections or books running from chapters 3 through 25.37 Here we find a combination of narrative and teaching discourse set forth five times, in what naturally seems like an echo of the five-fold (Pentateuch) teaching of the Torah by Moses. Jesus, it seems, is being presented as something of a new Moses, 35. A characteristic Voegelin phrase. 36. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 94–95. 37. Each section signaled by a clause like “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things . . .” (Mt 7:28, 11:1, 13:53, 19:1, 26:1).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 70 offering a new Torah of higher righteousness (Mt 5:20) as the charter of the kingdom of heaven. The celebrated Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:1–7:29), in combination with its introductory narrative section (Mt 3:1–4:25, covering the baptism by John, the temptations in the desert, and the launching of the ministry in Galilee), is the first and perhaps most noted book within Matthew, and its pattern is illustrative of all five books/sections. Matthew places Jesus’ teaching first in his listing of various activities: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people” (Mt 4:23). The manner in which Matthew amplifies the didactic lessons even within the narrative sections (note how the brief mention of the ascetic training of Jesus in the desert in Mark 1:12–13 becomes a series of lessons on the dangers of idolatry in Matthew’s portrayal of the desert temptations in 4:1–11) underscores this Gospel’s concern for teaching. Teaching here in this very Jewish Gospel needs to be understood in an ample Jewish sense as involving moral living; it is a practical teaching, meant to guide our way of life. It is halakic, in other words. But, reminiscent of Jeremiah’s covenant of the heart (Jer 31:33), Matthew senses that Jesus’ teaching is deeper than legalistic casuistry: All of Matthew 5 is an attempt to get to this deeper level of an inclusivistic and personalistic love like the Father’s (5:48). Not only murder, but even anger, brings judgment (5:21–22). Perhaps something of this personalizing of perspectives is involved in the way that the Sermon on the Mount speaks of “the poor in spirit” (5:3), unlike Luke’s more simple “poor” (Lk 6:20). Personalizing is perhaps a better word than interiorizing, which might be too introspective and possibly more Hellenistic than Jewish. It seems again a matter of common sense that Matthew, and perhaps even Jesus himself, was influenced by the late Jewish tradition of speaking of “the poor in spirit,” but it would also seem that Jesus has added a certain twist to it all through his own spiritual experience.38 Matthew is then fascinated by Jesus’ reworking of this Jewish tradition and develops its implications in his portrayal of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, in other words, is following the participatory curve of the teaching of Jesus within his own early Jewish-Christian social context. If you want, this curve is one of the ways in which Jesus is the “Em38. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, suggests that the “qualification ‘in spirit’ . . . defines the ‘poor’ as those who recognized God’s kingdom as a gift that cannot be forced. The expressions ‘poor’ and ‘poor in spirit’ were used by members of contemporary Jewish communities to describe themselves as Psalms of Solomon 10:6; 15:1 and the Qumran War Scroll 14.7 show, respectively” (78).

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 71 manuel,” the God with his people (Mt 1:23), in the experience of the author of Matthew. Another way to think of Matthew’s presentation of Jesus as the Teacher is to think of this teaching in the perspective of the Jewish wisdom traditions. Matthew 11:28–30, for example, echoes Sirach 51:23–30, presenting Jesus as a wisdom teacher whose school of learning brings rest to one’s soul. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29). Likewise, the beatitudes of the great Sermon on the Mount exhibit features of the wisdom tradition, where the beatitude form is found, but with something of an apocalyptic twist. Thus, Matthew may well be narratively heightening Jesus’ work as a teacher of wisdom on behalf of the new community.39 Scholars debate what to make of Matthew, chapters 1–2 (the birth stories) and 26–28 (passion and resurrection stories), which lie outside the central five books. If we approach Matthew as a literary whole, written by an author who knew what he (likely a “he”?) was doing, then it becomes at least plausible to entertain the notion that the birth stories may function more as a literary prologue or overture, announcing the themes that will be enacted and taught in the central sections. The drama of Jesus’ birth contains in anticipatory form what is to follow in Jesus’ public ministry. Accordingly, we find the higher righteousness of the Sermon on the Mount anticipated in Joseph’s righteousness (Mt 1:19), as he takes Mary for his wife, despite his great misgivings; the new Torah is anticipated in the novel birth (Mt 1:18–25) and even in the novel genealogy in which four irregular women are noted as ancestors (Mt 1:1–17); the suffering of the passion finds its anticipation in the slaughtering of the innocents (Mt 2:16–18); and the homage of the wise men (Mt 2:11) looks forward to the homage of the disciples to the risen Jesus at the Gospel’s conclusion (Mt 28:17). The events of the passion and the resurrection-encounter stories at the Gospel’s end seem to function in part like a literary climax or conclusion. The suffering and death are the cost of the new Torah and righteousness, disclosing its radical dimensions even more than the Sermon on the Mount, or at least expressing it vividly in thought and action. The resurrection stories, while forming a part of this concluding climax, seem to break it 39. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 2:323–36; Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, 166–71; and Witherington, Jesus the Sage, for perspectives on this sapiential dimension of Jesus and his movement. For more radical attempts to argue that Jesus was a teacher of wisdom rather than an eschatological-apocalyptic visionary, see the overview of positions in Wright, “Quest for the Historical Jesus,” 799–800.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 72 open somewhat, giving the conclusion something of a sustaining and ongoing quality. Jesus in a new risen form is with the disciples, who find themselves commissioned now for further action on behalf of the new community within society and history. If you want, the conclusion is like a literary epilogue, a “supplement,” somewhat in the postmodern sense of a telling of an event whose effects defer the full presence of the reign but whose deferral is not an absolute absence either. At least some still hesitate or even doubt the presence of this Jesus (Mt 28:17), and so this is a presence whose transparency remains also somewhat opaque.40 Perhaps Matthew is signaling by this supplement that participative faith, hope, and love are the way we work through the hesitation. This would cohere with our natural tendency, in following the lead of the literary form, to focus on the center of this Gospel, that is, upon the message and moral teaching of the new community. It is as we participate in this message, rendering it our “center” too, that we experience the risen Jesus. Running throughout all parts of Matthew is a heightened expression of the miraculous dimension commonly found in accounts of profound revelatory events. The miraculous dimension in the prologue (especially the virginal conception stories) anticipates the many miracles in the Gospel’s central portion, and the miraculous resurrection encounters in the epilogue seem both to point back to the earlier miracles in confirmation of their authenticity and to point forward in hopeful anticipation of a successful outcome of the commission to make disciples of all nations. At the very least, this miraculous tonality expresses vividly something of Matthew’s community’s experience of the extraordinariness of the impact of Jesus. Not only is Jesus extraordinary; so is this new community. But obviously here our movement from surface to depth in history has reached its greatest tension, and we are on the borderland of experience in which something of a theological use of myth or symbolism (like Plato’s philosophical use of the myth) begins to necessarily play a heightened role, with all due regard for facticity.41 History, in other words, is ambiguous; its polyvalent nature is not a place for the injudicious. 40. See Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew, on the verb distazo¯ in Mt 28:17, which can mean either “hesitate” or “doubt”; the exegetes also do not know whether all eleven disciples did this, or whether some paid homage and others doubted/hesitated (414). 41. Miracle accounts (regarding the multiple levels of history: surface facticity, humaneness, and transcendence) need to be studied on a case-by-case basis for their coherence with the directional movement of the Jesus event in all its amplitude. Latourelle, The Miracles of Jesus and the Theology of Miracles, is helpful. For Plato’s subtle use of myth, see Voegelin, Order and History, vol. III, Plato and Aristotle, 237– 68, and Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 73 The Gospel of Luke and its sequel, Acts, exhibit a developing and heightening of the earlier tradition of Jesus and his work, much like that in Matthew, with the qualification expressed by Bailey and Vander Broek “that certain features move the volumes closer to more sophisticated literary forms in the Hellenistic world” (the polished Greek, typical classical techniques, such as speeches and travel stories, for example).42 It is this polish that inclines historians who are more interested in questions of chronological facticity to be somewhat skeptical of this Gospel’s accuracy: Too much polish may indicate apologetic factors at work. On the other hand, even on questions of surface facticity there is much overlap between Luke and the other synoptics, while Luke’s cultural sophistication brings its benefits as well. For example, Luke displays a sensitivity to the role that women play in Jesus’ ministry (Lk 7:36–50, 8:2–3, 10:38– 42) and in the later ministry of his disciples (Acts 1:14, 12:12–17, 16:14– 15, 17:12, 18:1–3). This sensitivity may reflect an enlightened Hellenistic view of women, but it also coheres with what we know of Jesus’ own rather untypically liberal or inclusive relationships. In other words, Luke may well be attuned to dimensions in the ministry of Jesus overlooked or too sparingly noted by the other Gospel writers precisely because of his cultural horizons.43 The Gospel of Luke resembles Mark in the way in which the journey to Jerusalem plays a central role in both. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem,” we read in Luke 9:51, echoing both earlier (Lk 2:22, 4:9, 9:31) and later references to Jerusalem (Lk 13:22, 33–34, 17:11, 18:31, 19:11, 28). This suggests that the death and resurrection of Jesus are central, although Luke seems more fascinated by the resurrection side of the “equation,” while Mark dwells more upon the crucifixion side. The author of Luke is similar to Matthew in that the former focuses on the work of the new community of God’s reign, which is in need of some guidelines as it settles down for its mission in history and society. We note this especially when we remember that Luke and Acts belong together; they parallel one another, Acts being something of an ecclesial meditation on the Gospel. Acts narrates the continuation of the work of Jesus and his companions in the post-resurrection situation as the new community moves out beyond Jerusalem to embrace the entire Roman Empire. Jerusalem, the place of Jesus’ death and resurrection, remains central. Acts begins by noting that the disciples were “not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father” (1:4). 42. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 95. 43. See Witherington, “Women (NT),” 957–61, for an overview and bibliography.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 74 The outpouring of the Spirit consequent upon Jesus’ resurrection and ascension in Jerusalem remains the source (center) of the new community’s work. There may well be another similarity between Luke and Matthew if Luke Timothy Johnson is correct in his suggestion of a Moses analogy in Luke’s two books.44 Acts 7:37 is crucial in this interpretation: “This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up’” (we read in Stephen’s speech). Moses went to his people twice, once in weakness and rejection, then in the power of “wonders and signs” (Acts 7:36). These two comings of Moses may well correspond to the two volumes of Luke and Acts. On this view, Luke’s journey to Jerusalem primarily focuses upon the Moses-like experience of rejection, although the resurrection and ascension anticipate and inaugurate the second Moses-like coming in signs and wonders of the victorious followers of Jesus found in Acts.45 The many parallelisms between Luke and Acts seem to be the governing literary form whose arc we need to follow. As we do so, the energy of the arc moves us into the work of the Church as it fans out into the empire. In other words, the stress once again falls upon the new community. The birth of Jesus through the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:26–38) parallels the birth of the Church at Pentecost (Acts 2). Jesus’ ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem in the Gospel parallels that of Peter, Paul, Mary, and the other male and female disciples in Acts. The Gospel’s famous Good Samaritan parable is matched by the focus on the mission in Samaria in Acts (1:8, 8:1–25, 9:31, 15:3). Both express the passion involved: Jesus’ in Luke and Peter’s and Paul’s in Acts. But as noted, the author of these works inclines more to the resurrection side of the paschal mystery: Jesus’ ascension (Lk 24:51; Acts 1:9) finds its parallel in Peter’s and Paul’s “ascension” to Rome: “Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen” (Acts 28:28). A participatory hermeneutics, honoring diverse levels of participation by authors, readers, and the communities of both, enables us to honor polyvalent dimensions of the community of being opened up through the text. On the one hand, Raymond Brown inclines to the view that “the whole flow of Luke-Acts suggests an endeavor to explain the status quo.” That is, the disciples of Jesus can trust that God’s providential plan is being fulfilled in their work. What God started in Jerusalem will reach its fulfillment in Rome. And the disciples can trust that they are preaching some44. Recall the Moses analogy in Matthew: Jesus as the new Moses with his five great “books” paralleling the Pentateuch. 45. Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, 17–21, and The Acts of the Apostles, 12–14.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 75 thing authentic, based upon eyewitnesses.46 The authentication by eyewitnesses and mighty signs clearly typifies both books. At the same time, the author of these works seems to have fastened upon something of the intercultural inclusiveness of the work of Jesus. From our contemporary global and postmodern perspective, it seems possible to argue that LukeActs also expresses something of an experiment in intercultural dialogue. At Pentecost, the many languages expressive of diverse cultures are good and to be celebrated, because they express something of the explosive richness of the Spirit unleashed by Jesus’ ascension (Acts 2:7–12). Diversity of language was something to be overcome, we recall from the story of Babel (Gen 11:1–9); after Pentecost, this diversity may be celebrated, albeit in and through the Spirit of Jesus. In this brief sketch, the discussion above will have to suffice in our effort to give some indication of the narrative context in and through which we must move in our efforts to participate in Jesus, his companions, and their work together in society and history. We have endeavored to give an indication of the levels of luminosity emerging in and through participation by authors, readers, and their communities and social contacts. In some respects the humane and transcendent dimensions seem to deepen, as we might expect, although there can be narrowness of vision and a certain loss, too. For example, the further we move from Mark, the more the scandal of the cross softens and the “unfinished” and conflictual elements involved in building the new community recede from focus. To be sure, the cross is present in Matthew and Luke, but the resurrection side tends to overshadow the cross. At the same time, the dimension of surface facticity becomes more blurry the further we move along the participatory arc. Real history is like that, we suggested, but we should not therefore become complacent about matters of surface facticity. To do so would again be to run the danger of falling into an antihistorical gnosticism. We have referred to these Gospel narratives as paschal in form. What did we mean by that, and what difference does it make? We have noted that the energy of both Mark and Luke is flowing toward Jerusalem. The new community has a Jerusalem orientation. The Acts ecclesially mimes this orientation, for Peter and Paul, who represent the growing churches in the new post-Easter situation, will follow the first martyr Jesus and in a way carry the Jerusalem focus to the Rome, which will be the site where they mime Jesus’ martyrdom. We readers, as we participate in this energy flow, find ourselves moving in this direction too. But Mark seems to stress the cross side of the paschal death-resurrection mystery, while Luke-Acts seems to glow somewhat more in the confidence coming from 46. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 272.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 76 the resurrection and ascension dimension. Even on the cross Luke’s Jesus exhibits the confidence of resurrection victory as he tells one of the criminals crucified with him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). This is quite distinct from the Jesus of Mark, whose only words on the cross are the puzzling “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and the subsequent “loud cry” as he “breathed his last” (Mk 15:34, 37). From our participatory perspective, such is the lens through which we are invited to appropriate the paschal event. How much of this is accurate in terms of surface facticity will likely forever remain rather ambiguous. Our participative approach invites us to see in the synoptics a heightened attunement to the revelatory truth coming to luminosity in these events. That the crucifixion occurred as a temporal event should not be doubted, of course, given the internal and external evidence. As we move to the deeper truth, however, again we are confronted with the phenomenon of participative faith, hope, and love, and an imaginative reason and affectivity willing to follow their lead. Thus we should expect diversity of interpretation about the why of Jesus’ death. Was it a desire for simple convenience by the public powers, a sort of removal of a minor but potentially dangerous pest? Common sense would indicate that Jesus was thought to be something less than a great threat to the might of Rome and its Jewish collaborators. But if he was not a “great” threat, he was likely thought to be a significant threat. Perhaps the Temple “incident” recorded in all the Gospels, although John places it early in the ministry, as noted (Jn 2:13–22; Mk 11:15–16, etc.), is a central indication of the significance of the challenge Jesus posed to the authorities of his day. For certainly the Temple worship, along with the economic infrastructure supporting it, was a central symbol of Jewish belief and practice. Jesus’ dramatic critique certainly challenged a key component of Judaism and raised significant questions about his alleged authority to do so. It likely brought upon him a great measure of public notice and unwanted wrath as well, eventually leading to his cruel crucifixion by the Roman authorities, as current scholarship increasingly notes. At the very least, something about the inclusiveness of Jesus’ message found the Temple practice, or some of the practice, uncongenial and simply wrong.47 47. See Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 96–98, for a helpful assessment of the views on the temple incident. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, especially stresses its centrality and even argues that Jesus wanted not simply to cleanse but to destroy the temple (416), basing himself on the references to its destruction in the New Testament and the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 77 A polyvalent perspective strives to honor what is asserted in the Gospels concerning the charges against Jesus, namely, that he claimed to be a messiah (Mk 14:61) or at least was thought to be one by some (Mt 26:63–64), or that he was thought to be the king of the Jews (Lk 23:3; see Jn 18:33–37) and even committed blasphemy in some way (Mk 14:61, 64 parr). These heightened insights seem to come from a community looking back after years of participative reflection. We have seen enough to make the claim that each of these assertions has some basis in the Jesus tradition. That of king and messiah would be linked with Jesus’ connection with the new reign of God; the kingship charge (a royal messianism) also coheres with the opposition from some Jewish authorities (likely some of the Sadducees) and from Rome that ultimately killed him. The blasphemy charge seems to imply that Jesus lays claim to an authority equal to God’s. This charge might well trace its origins to the kind of authority Jesus claimed as he spoke on behalf of his new community of God’s reign.48 In any case, the Gospel of Matthew offers a possible perspective on the matter. Its narrative center is the living out and building up of the new, inclusive community, centered representatively on the great charter of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew is narratively suggesting that as we make this our center, we too will experience its outcome, namely, the deathresurrection paschal mystery (expressed narratively as the Gospel’s climax and epilogue), with the deepened insights this brings. If we remain with our narrative interpretation, we might say that the synoptics offer a form of tragicomedy, the cross symbolizing the tragic element in existence, and the resurrection, the human capacity to find joy, humor, meaning and truth, and a measure of happiness in our lives. Our use of the term paschal, however, further thickens the matter, for it evokes the paschal lamb of the Jewish exodus experience (Ex 12:1–13; Dt 16:1–8), and thus we are invited to think, beyond isolated individuals, in larger social terms of the tragicomic liberation and salvation of a people, and particularly of an oppressed people. This exodus-paschal dimension is a further necessary dimension of the last supper–passion–resurrection events suggested by all the synoptics, for the events are introduced by the question of Jesus’ disciples: “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” (Mk 14:12 parr). This paschal dimension was likely celebrated and elaborated in the Church’s Eucharistic experience, recalling the last supper tradition (Mk 14:12–25, etc.), and it may even give us a glimpse into Jesus’ own understanding of 48. See Forward, Jesus: A Short Biography, 95–121, esp. 108–13, for a succinct overview of possible interpretations of the causes of Jesus’ death.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 78 his death as somehow salvifically fruitful for humanity. The salvific work on behalf of the new reign of God and Jesus’ death are connected in a paschal way, and perhaps Jesus’ words as expressed in Mark 14:25, at the last supper, echo this: “I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” This seems to hint that Jesus viewed his death as prelude to and somehow the costly means that could not be avoided toward the vindication of the coming reign of God. Eventually this would be more elaborately developed in the Church’s theology of salvation.49 Thus, the death-resurrection events should be deprivatized. The focus is not only Jesus as an isolated individual but his work on behalf of the new community. In other words, the focus is upon the work of salvation. In this respect, then, Matthew’s focus upon the post-Easter Church and Acts’ Pentecostal focus upon the birth of the Church is a deepened insight into the meaning of this paschal tragicomedy. The emerging new community of the Church with its martyrs and yet its advancing victories is a dimension of the paschal mystery. Mark brings a special sensitivity here, inasmuch as this Gospel’s call to return to Galilee to meet the risen Jesus seems to highlight the committed form of ministry involved in building the new community. Galilee was the site of Jesus’ rejection, we recall. Mark always seems worried that we will prematurely settle down, as if we believed that a utopia had emerged in its fullness. Somehow Jesus’ resurrection has not abolished our obligations regarding the saving work of the new community, even in the face of possible rejection. It does, however, encourage us to go forward. Mark’s Gospel particularly helps us grasp that the death and resurrection, the tragedy and the comedy, should not be understood in a simply linear way, as if the latter at some point simply erases the former. Somehow committed love (we must meet in Galilee!) is an intrinsic dimension of the resurrection victory. It is not any kind of life, but that kind of life of commitment on behalf of the new community, which issues forth in resurrection. Mark’s community may well have been in danger of the simple linear interpretation, as historical critics have often suggested. That is, this Gospel’s stress upon a suffering Jesus may be directed against circles of believers likening him to a victorious miracle-worker. Paul seems to have encountered a similar problem in his Corinthian community, well blessed with resurrection-like gifts (1 Cor 2:14) but missing the love which is the sign of the real resurrection gift. Thus his decision “to know nothing among [them] but Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). 49. See Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 105–6.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 79 On the other hand, if committed love on behalf of the alternative community of inclusiveness remains an intrinsic dimension of the paschal mystery, apparently suffering does not, at least not necessarily. Suffering is a form that such love all too commonly takes, to be sure, but the synoptics are suggesting that the linear view of the paschal mystery has its element of truth. Death and resurrection are not equal partners, for Jesus has indeed risen as a unique person, and in some way death has been defeated in him. The paschal mystery is not just a symbol of the tragedy and comedy dialectic we always meet endlessly in human existence. In Jesus we are invited to accept the view that this cycle is in principle defeated. Luke particularly brings this out with his motif of the ascension: “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (24:51; Acts 1:9). However, the final overcoming both of death and of the usual limitations of our existence in history are also suggested by the climactic nature of the resurrection in all these synoptics, as well as by the various resurrection encounter stories. Here our participative form of interpretation meets with perhaps its greatest challenge. The dialectic of familiarity and strangeness present in every form of participation here swings greatly to the strangeness pole. We are familiar with the more usual alternations between tragedy and comedy that we meet, or see others meet, in existence. But that there is a final victory over tragedy, already anticipated in Jesus’ resurrection victory and promised to us all as the alternative community takes shape in society and history, is something else again. I think we can say that our modest experiences of the comic and the resurrectional—our occasional physical healings, and our perhaps more common capacities, often in great suffering, to keep loving, to keep hoping, to remain faithful to the pull of our partnership in the community of being, to laugh and smile and nourish a sense of humor, to seek and find meaning and truth, to be there for the other, especially for the most vulnerable—are something of an analogy to the final resurrection victory, and this may be enough to nourish our faith. But here the strangeness of the always present familiaritystrangeness dialectic of analogy seems mostly to prevail. The New Testament indicates that such strangeness, within our familiarity-strangeness polarity, should prevail in this case of Jesus’ resurrection. For clearly Jesus’ resurrection itself is an event his followers can only know partially, through its effects upon their hearts, minds, and wills. In itself, as such, it is an event that transcends life as we experience it now. The New Testament never describes it. It should not, then, be equated with a corpse’s resuscitation. What the New Testament invites us to imagine is a series of encounter episodes, something like visionary and accompanying

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 80 sensorial experiences, through which the disciples under grace experience in mind, heart, and will the personal presence of Jesus in their lives. But Jesus, as risen, is “strange” in some startling ways: He cannot be recognized at first (Lk 24:16, Jn 20:14), he seems able to transcend the normal limits of space and time (appearing here and there, penetrating closed doors, and so on [Jn 20:26, etc.]), and recognition of him requires a faith that is sensitively open and humble, although the initiative always is from the divine side. At least this is the cumulative effect of the Easter narratives as they have endeavored to assimilate and elaborate the experience of Jesus’ resurrection. This strangeness invites us, not to literalize these encounter accounts, but to see here a transcendental, theophanic experience that can be pointed to through narrative suggestions and religious symbols. (Here it might be appropriate to revisit our study of the “burning heart” experience of Emmaus in chapter I.) A theologian’s use of myth, in other words, seems at work here, analogous to Plato’s philosopher’s use of myth. This use of myth is to varying degrees critical, not simply primitive and naïve, and in no way negates the historical dimensions of the events under consideration. It does, however, recognize that the Divine and transcendent cannot simply be reduced to objects of sense experience. Thus, despite the seeming oddities and paradoxes, which even invite scoffing dismissal, the writers of the New Testament strive to etch the contours of the resurrection encounter episodes in a way that is faithful to the dimensions of those episodes. In the end, the resurrection itself remains “beyond” and transcendent, and ethically demanding in terms of service. I take this as the crucial factor demarcating a critical from a naïve appeal to myth. The strangeness of the resurrection, however, cannot be so strange that we would have no point of connection with it. The event could hardly be good news in that case, and we would be hard-pressed to grasp how it could have launched the Jesus movement if it were an utterly unfathomable event. Thus, it seems entirely appropriate to seek analogous points of connection with the encounter episodes in our more ordinary and less ordinary experiences. These connections give us hope that we are not simply hallucinating, and they serve us as hermeneutical bridges toward a somewhat deeper understanding of the events in question. Mystical experiences of visions, for example, with their activation of the human senses, seem similar, although not identical, to the resurrection encounter episodes. Still, the way the transcendent divine Ground can irrupt in the mystic’s experience and penetrate the full sensoria, even bringing a loss of balance and understanding and yet filling one with great conviction and joy and reconciliation and heroically ethical discipline, seems at least

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 81 analogous. At least this helps us understand that such experiences are not simply “intellectual” events unattached to hearts and wills. Despite the need for familiar analogies, the dimension of strangeness predominates, and should, when it comes to the resurrection of Jesus; for after all, the event brings Jesus beyond our experience of life and to the other side of death, so to speak. It is rather eschatological, or definitive, inasmuch as it gives expression to humanity’s ultimate destiny. The resurrection belief was, additionally, a latecomer to the Jewish tradition, found in the second century BC book of Daniel (12:3) and in other late apocalyptic and Wisdom literature. It was new and “strange,” in other words, and not yet fully accepted, as Jesus’ dispute with the conservative Sadducees on this issue illustrates (Mk 12:18). Still, this relatively new belief in resurrection likely helped Jesus’ followers to enter into and articulately respond to Jesus’ own resurrection. But to compound matters, Jesus’ own experience of resurrection seems to have been even more strange, for it was not the expected resurrection of the collective dead at the apocalyptic end, but the unexpected resurrection of this one person now.50 The ultimacy or definitiveness of this event seems to indicate the definitiveness of Jesus’ person and work. And so, it seems, this rather strange event caused the New Testament authors to make this belief in resurrection, still so marginal in the Judaism of the time, so central in the New Testament.51 (2) Challenges from John The synoptics are written in the glow of the paschal mystery. The narratives suggest that, and historical common sense underscores it, for the texts only emerged generations after Jesus’ death. Jesus’ death was the great hurdle that had to be faced, as Paul very early noted: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, 50. The stories of the “assumption” or “exaltation” of Elijah (2 Kgs 2:11) and of Enoch (Heb 11:5) indicate that belief in life beyond death for an individual before the apocalyptic end was not entirely unprecedented, and these may also have played a formative role in the disciples’ own resurrection encounter experiences. 51. See, among others, Evans, Resurrection and the New Testament, and Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives. Much remains speculative: for example, the possible stages of historical development, that is, whether a resurrection symbolism was original, or whether various symbolisms (resurrection, exaltation, glorification, etc.) developed simultaneously; and the more precise nature of the encounter episodes, that is, were they experiences of forgiveness, or of recognition primarily, or both, etc.? See Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 111–24, and Thompson, The Jesus Debate, 220–47, among others.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 82 a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:22–23). The paschal mystery is, then, an interpretive lens through which the synoptics’ communities and authors are inspired to write their narratives, to participate in the polyvalent reality of Jesus and his companions, and, in doing so, to come to varying levels of luminosity regarding him and his work. This paschal kind of participation brings not only its own deepening understanding but also likely a fair measure of disorientation, fear, and intellectual fumbling. This participation also brings its transformation for those undergoing it: Jesus, his companions, and the rest of us. This is another way of saying that the paschal mystery was a cognitively, affectively, and volitionally transformative event. There is also no reason, I believe, to dwell one-sidedly upon the aspects of this that always go along with the interpreters’ biases. Profound events in history typically bring their clashes and struggles, their obscurities and blessings. This typically holds for the more modest critical events in each of our personal biographies as well. That the Gospels did not get it all just right should not come as a great surprise. Interpreters who sanitize the Gospels, or those who always seek to stress the dark side, each miss the much more exciting drama and tension of a multivalent reality. As we turn now to John all too briefly, some interpreters’ biases are liable to flare up all too strongly. If John has been one-sidedly overstressed until modern times, the synoptics all too commonly receive one-sided attention by critics of the more “modern” historical orientation as we have sought to define that. The Gospel of John is one long transfiguration story, as has been commonly suggested. We will not find a special transfiguration story within it. Whoever was responsible for it obviously underwent a profound experience of great mystical and theological depth. Hence a participative theory of interpretation will be attracted to this Gospel, because it senses profound levels of participation at work within it. At the same time, we need to practice our second naïveté and remember the paradoxical lesson that passion can both blind and illuminate. We can only seek to cultivate a critical form of participative involvement to cut down on our blindness; but we should modestly entertain the proposition that the second naïveté needs to be directed not only at the texts of an earlier age but also at ourselves and our own at times uncritical acceptance of distorting perspectives. In this regard it is good to remember a still relevant work of Raymond Brown’s in which he suggested how John could be read in a gnostic, humanity-denying way, and how the later letters of John strive to correct this protognostic reception of the

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 83 Gospel.52 This biblical openness to correction is a good model for the would-be biblical interpreter, too. Here we will follow Brown’s suggestion that John particularly represents a shift in accent from that of the synoptics, with their focus upon the reign of God, to a focus upon Jesus himself. This contrast can be overstressed, of course. For while the Gospel of John occasionally speaks of the kingdom of God, as we noted earlier (Jn 3:3, 5, 18:36) it also offers some equivalent expressions for the synoptic theme of the kingdom, but with something of a Johannine twist. For example, we encounter baptismal (Jn 3:5, 7:37–39) and eucharistic (Jn 6:51–58, 60–65) references, possibly even both at once (Jn 19:34), in a manner evocative of the church community, for which these “sacraments” would be central. To the extent that the growing church community is an at least partial expression of the new reign of God, we would seem to be justified in viewing these Johannine themes as something of a Johannine equivalent to the synoptic reign of God. The symbol of the vine and its branches (Jn 15:1–11), together with the mysterious Paraclete passages (Jn 14:15–17, 16:13) which suggest how the branches (the churches) remain connected to the vine (Jesus) through the Spirit-Paraclete, seem to further express a Johannine view of the new community of the reign of God. Raymond Brown gets at the Johannine twist, however, both in his view of how Jesus is more in focus in this ecclesiology, as we have noted, and in his suggestion that Johannine ecclesiology seems less institutional and more charismatic. The pneumatological (Paracletic) ecclesiology “would relativize the importance of institution and office at the very time when that importance was being accentuated in other Christian communities.”53 Inspired by this interpretation, this book frequently uses the expression “community” rather than “the reign of God” precisely to emphasize that in Jesus’ view the reign is something deeper than institutional structures, namely, the divinely grounded inclusiveness noted earlier. Institutional structures are needed and have their relative place, but they can always be manipulated, as history teaches us. We can be “together” in a common institution and still not be a “community.” The latter requires that real union in and with one another, as suggested by the symbol of the vine and the branches, and also by the celebrated John 17, which prays “that they may all be one . . . as you, Father, are in me and I am in you” (17:21). The fact that John gives us the washing of the disciples’ feet story in his telling of the last supper, completely omitting the sharing of 52. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple. 53. Ibid., 87.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 84 the bread and cup, perhaps gets at this deeper-than-institutional dimension rather poignantly (Jn 13:1–11). We all have our favorite examples of the interplay between institution and pneumatology, understanding of course that the institution and its administration is itself one of the Spirit’s gifts; John only seems to be suggesting that these latter must not lose their essence. The role of Mary Magdalene as the “apostle to the apostles,” in the traditional phrase, in first announcing the resurrection (Jn 20:2, 18) to the male apostles certainly suggests something of this charismatic dimension needed at the very heart of the institution.54 The “other disciple” (the Beloved Disciple, it seems) and Peter arrive at the tomb, but the Beloved Disciple arrives there first. Does this mean that love has a primacy over structure (represented by Peter, the institutional leader)? And yet the Beloved Disciple waits until Peter enters the tomb before he enters. Is this suggesting a due regard for structure and institution nonetheless? (See Jn 20:2–7.) One final example: Even Peter, the institutional representative par excellence, confesses three times his love for Jesus at the Gospel’s end (Jn 21:15–19), suggesting that the charismatic, deeper-than-institutionalstructures reality of love is the ultimate key of the new community. Thus, John is not simply focused upon Jesus in an exclusive sense, such that the new community of God simply recedes or, worse, vanishes. The new community remains, and its significance is in some ways deepened. At the same time, intriguingly, another reason why we should not overstress the differences between John and the synoptics is that the synoptics themselves present us with an impressive emphasis upon the specialness of Jesus within the new community, a specialness by which John seems transfigured. In Mark, Jesus is usually presented as “ahead” of his disciples, who remain, after all, his disciples. In all the synoptics, Jesus is the one forming his disciples for action within society and history. He is the one linked in a special way with the reign of God, whose mediation brings it into reality: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Mt 12:28). The new community, it would seem, cannot be understood, nor can it be experienced, apart from Jesus. This reminiscence from what seems to be the earliest strata of the Jesus tradition would then provide us with the source of other reminiscences noted in the synoptics, namely, that Jesus was thought to be a messiah and prophet (Mk 8:27–30), given his unique role in this new community of God; that he took unto himself an authority normally re54. Cf. e.g., Bérulle, Elevation to Jesus Christ our Lord concerning the Conduct of His Spirit and His Grace toward Saint Magdalene, 7.4 (179).

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 85 served for God alone (“But I say to you . . .” [Mt 5:22, 28, etc.]); that he used the perplexing title of “the Son of Man” in ways at least at times suggestive of an authoritative role in the final establishment of the kingdom (Mk 8:38, 13:26, etc.), albeit also a Son of Man known for great suffering (Mk 8:31, etc.); and even that he thought of his work on behalf of the new community as within the tradition of the suffering Jewish prophets whose work would meet with future vindication somehow by God, perhaps by resurrection or ascension (Lk 22:16; cf Wis 2–5; 2 Mac 7:14, 23, 37–38). These historical reminiscences come to us through the finished narratives of these Gospels, of course, but they cohere with what we have seen in the earliest phases of the ministry of Jesus. Naturally this post-Easter narrative lens will be seen as a distorting one for those who view the post-Easter situation as one long “projection” of one sort or another of distortions back onto Jesus himself by his followers, however well intentioned or not. As we have suggested, our participative perspective argues that the issue is more polyvalent, and that later participative insight, while it may heighten and even exaggerate earlier traditions, can also preserve them, at times at a more profound level of appropriation. At a minimum, these examples of focus in the synoptics upon “a something extraordinary” in the ministry of Jesus cohere with and correspond to the earlier, less-disputable extraordinary nature of the kingdom in Jesus’ ministry as radically inclusive. In the light of the paschal experiences, these synoptics arguably have to some extent, like John’s Gospel, seen in Jesus more pieces of the puzzle, so to speak. The Jesus-gestalt is beginning to take greater shape in some respects as the levels of participation in Jesus and his work are entered into. Thus, without losing the major focus upon the theme of the reign of God, the synoptics present a Jesus who is named with titles known already from the Jewish and/or Hellenistic traditions (Son of God, Messiah, Lord, Savior especially), to be sure; but they seem to give these titles something of a twist in meaning in the narratives as a whole, which brings him very close to the Jesus of the Gospel of John in some, but not all, ways. For this one has all authority on heaven and earth (Mt 28:18) and is worshiped (Mt 28:17); and his being Savior, Messiah, and Lord causes the shepherds to burst forth in praise of God (Lk 2:11–14). Even the postmodern-like Mark ends his narrative with the perplexing bewilderment of the disciples as they learn of the risen one, a bewilderment that can just as easily be holy awe in the face of the Divine (Mk 16:8).55 55. Donahue and Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, 459. See Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 125–46, for views of the likely stages in Christological understanding and expression,

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 86 However, the Gospel of John is still special in the manner in which it brings Jesus front and center in the light of the paschal glow. To a great extent, this is its real challenge to us. We do not want it to overshadow the challenges of the synoptics, but neither do we want to miss its real jolt. That jolt to some extent results from the paradoxical tension between the sublime and the ordinary that the reader meets in this Gospel. The tension, though present, seems less startling in the synoptics. In John we find much the same narrative plot of the synoptics: Jesus’ public ministry, beginning with the encounter with John the Baptist, and moving on to his ministry in Galilee, but with work in Jerusalem included; his passion and death in Jerusalem; and his resurrection.56 This narrative feature keeps the Gospel rooted in the engendering experience of Jesus and his companions. No matter how sublime this Jesus, he is in the flesh and within the real coordinates of space and time. On the other hand, in a way he seems to transcend these coordinates of humble humanity: “My kingdom is not from this world,” he tells Pilate (Jn 18:36). Later he adds: “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (Jn 19:11). These statements are representative of what we find throughout this Gospel, as is well known. The rather poetic and sublime discourses of Jesus in the upper room to his disciples (Jn 13–17) are much the same in tone. It is this heightened transcendental focus that caused the attraction of later gnostics to this Gospel, calling for the internal corrective of the letters of John,57 and it is likely this same focus that brings a fair measure of alienation to many modern readers. We simply are not accustomed to people saying of themselves, “I am the bread of life,” “the light of the world,” “the gate for the sheep,” “the good shepherd,” “the resurrection and the life,” “the way, and the truth, and the life,” “the true vine,” and so on (Jn 6:35, 51, 8:12, 9:5, 10:7, 9, 11, 14, 11:25, 14:6, 15:1, 5). from the earliest post-Easter stage (perhaps stressing the second coming, e.g., Acts 3:19–21), on to the phase(s) of thinking of Jesus as becoming Messiah or Lord, etc., upon his resurrection or exaltation (e.g., Rom 1:3–4); in time these titles were pushed “back” into Jesus’ early life and ministry (the synoptics); and finally Jesus is viewed as born as Messiah and Son of God (Matthew and Luke) and divine “in the beginning” (John). Rausch, with others, places a lot of stress upon the hypothetical sayings source “Q” (Quelle, German for “source,” referring to the sayings of Jesus found in Matthew and Luke) as providing us with indications of our earliest stages of Christological thinking. 56. See Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 364–65, for a judicious overview of the overlap between John and the synoptics. 57. “We declare . . . what we have looked at and touched with our hands” (1 Jn 1:1); “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (2 Jn 7); etc. The first two letters continually underscore Jesus’ real humanity and historicity.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 87 The interplay between the poetic and the prosaic on the level of literary form seems to correspond to the interplay between glory and a committed love willing to suffer on the level of content. It is impossible to separate these. As we participate in the literary form we experience analogously something of this paradoxical tension, and as we do so we are invited to consider such down-to-earth events as a wedding feast or a foot washing as manifestations of glory. But as always with John, the glory side seems preponderant. It can be so emphatic, in fact, that one is led to wonder if we have not left the real earth. In a way we have: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself,” says Jesus (Jn 12:32). This peculiar exaltation is the hour in which Jesus will give glory to his Father’s name (Jn 12:28). That it draws all people to him seems to intimate an absolute and universal centrality associated only with God. And yet we read on the other hand that Jesus is referring to his upcoming death (Jn 12:33), and so on the other hand we really do not leave the earth after all.58 One way of viewing this Gospel, then, would be to see this paradoxical tension as governing its structure as a whole. The prologue of chapter 1 is largely governed by the theological theme of divine glory expressed through its sublime and poetic literary form. But the way in which this poem or song is spliced with the narrative to follow, along with the way in which it announces in the manner of an overture the many themes to follow in the Gospel, including the more earthly and human dimensions of Jesus’ work (his connection with John the Baptist, his rejection [“his own people did not accept him,” Jn 1:11], his human birth in the flesh of a sinful world), keeps the poetry/glory in tension with the prosaic/earthly. The remaining structure of the Gospel seems to display, then, this tensionfilled interplay anticipated in the prologue. Recognizing that the entire Gospel might well be considered a sign (see Jn 20:30–31), because it challenges us with this glory-in-human-humility theme, we will build on the work of many exegetes and suggest the following: After the prologue, we have what is traditionally called the Book of Signs (Jn 1:19–12:50), because it singles out certain special disclosure episodes,59 followed by Jesus’

58. See Beasley-Murray, John, 214. 59. According to Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:cxxxix: changing the water to wine at the Cana wedding feast (Jn 2:1–11), curing the royal official’s son at Cana (Jn 4:46–54), curing the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda (Jn 5:1–15), the multiplication of loaves in Galilee (Jn 6:1–15), walking upon the Sea of Galilee (Jn 6:16–21), curing a blind man in Jerusalem (Jn 9), and the seventh and final sign of the raising of Lazarus from the dead at Bethany (Jn 11). Beasley-Murray, John, xc, gives a slightly different list.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 88 ministry to his own disciples in the upper room, along with the passion and death, in what is traditionally called the Book of Glory, for the death seems to be the climactic disclosure of this glory in some ways (Jn 13:1–20:31), followed by the resurrection stories (Jn 21:1–25), which perhaps match the prologue, like an epilogue, inasmuch as they largely remove any doubts about the deeper glory at work throughout Jesus’ life and work. The prologue gives the whole reality in a nutshell in the paradoxical tension of a divine Word that becomes flesh, while the entire Gospel displays this in the manner of a spiral, if we follow Marinus de Jonge’s helpful suggestion.60 Like a spiral, John is a meditation, and like a meditation it savors, intensifies, and amplifies themes as one sounds them at deeper levels. It is interesting to note that this would seem to be how “real” history happens, as long as we add the caution that regression (of insight) all too commonly accompanies progression. Also helpful is the recognition of the chiastic structures present throughout this book, for the chiasm is a pronounced example of the spiral-form at work. The a, b, c, b’, a’ chiastic form, in which the reader moves toward the center (c) but then wraps back around what led up to this center (a, b) through the device of b’ and a’, shows how this Gospel is a fairly tightly woven spiral, confirming Bailey and Vander Broek’s view that John is “more literary than the other Gospels,” one that is “less episodic,” for its “story line [features a] more explicit interplay between parts of the narrative.”61 Simplifying, then, let us suggest that the entire Gospel’s chiastic center (c) is the Word’s becoming flesh of John 1:14, along with our “seeing” the glory therein, and that the Gospel in its entirety spirals round this much like musical variations on a theme. In this sense, 1:14 is like a mantra whose meaning is sounded at varying depths as the Gospel’s author and we the readers make our way through the “signs” of the Gospel’s rosary-like beads. If you will, the divine Word (a) that descends into the world (b) is one side of the chiasm as it moves to the center in which Word and humanity 60. Jonge, Christology in Context, 140. 61. Bailey and Vander Broek, Literary Forms in the New Testament, 95. I follow Brown’s analysis of John’s chiasms. For example, 15:7–17 flows from 7 (a), 8 (b), 9 (c), 10 (d), 11 (e), then back around from 12, 14 (d’), to 15 (c’), 16 (b’), 16–17 (c’) (The Gospel of John, 2:667). Other examples Brown offers: 6:36–40 (1:276); 16:16–33 (2:728); 18:28–19:16a (2:859); 19:16b–42 (2:911). Also helpful to me, but more controversial, is Barnhart, The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center, 47 and passim, which suggests that the entire Gospel is a chiasm: 1:19–4:3 (a), 4:4–6:15 (b), 6:16–21 (c), 6:22–12:11 (b’), 12:12–21:25 (a’). The prologue itself may be chiastic: 1:1–8 (a), 1:9–11 (b), 1:12–13 (c), 1:14 (b’), 1:15–18 (a’). Cf. besides Barnhart, Brodie, The Gospel According to John, 21, 135–36 n 1.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 89 (Jesus and all others through him) are one (c), and the wraparound movement (the b’ and a’) is the corresponding ascent through kenosis and cross (b’) to divine glory through resurrection and exaltation (a’). But the reader should beware: The irony and polyvalent symbolism of John indicates that these chiastic structures can indeed in one way be read in a simple linear way, for in history we do move in a temporal way, sometimes progressively, sometimes regressively. On the other hand, in a somewhat more mysterious way, the divine and the human are one even before incarnation, for “all things came into being through” the God-Word (Jn 1:3). So there is a movement forward: Something new is occurring in history with the incarnation of John 1:14. But neither is creation bereft of God from its origins. The prologue cannot replace the Gospel as a whole, so our concentration on it here should be taken as representative of the movement or current of the entire narrative. At the same time, we have endeavored to show how the prologue is itself inseparably connected to the narrative. In terms of form, it is spliced with narrative anticipations and connected to the remaining narrative in such a way that the borders between prologue and narrative are leaky and always contestable. In terms of content, if the Word has indeed become flesh, then one would expect to find the narrative form, for it is the genre typical of the temporal and historical nature of things human. Interpretations of the prologue’s center (Jn 1:14), the Johannine mantra par excellence, are numerous and highly contested. Here I will all too schematically note some broad possibilities. First, one might argue that the prologue is a myth in the naïve and primitive sense. That is, it should be thought of as a regression to earlier mythical traditions prior to the Mosaic and late prophetic breakthrough to monotheism. The divine Word’s act of becoming flesh is then something literalized after the manner of innerworldly beings in the flesh. Today, so this line of interpretation goes, we know that a really transcendent deity would not “become flesh,” nor would it become anything, since it transcends the world of becoming. At most it can be thought of as present in the world of becoming, since divine transcendence is not limited to any space-time coordinate.62 This interpretation is possible, and the later history of gnosticism and various Christological heresies that seem to have changed Jesus into a sort of demigod for one reason or another are there aplenty in proof. And 62. Some forms of process thought might, however, be comfortable with a deity that more literally “becomes,” but then this view comes at the expense of a more limited view of deity, which seems nearly cosmocentric in some ways.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 90 respectfully, our mother faith of Judaism wonders whether John has not derailed into such “idolatry,” and our younger sister faith of Islam wonders the same. Is it likely that this is the reality whose truth is seeking to become luminous in the Gospel of John? The Gospel itself is heavily transfigured by the inrush of the transcendent, as we have noted, and we need not deny that this can cause imbalances in presentation. At the same time, if we recall Jesus’ declarations that his “kingdom is not from this world” (Jn 18:36) and that he is “leaving the world and . . . going to the Father” (Jn 16:28), we might argue that the Gospel knows of the world-transcendent nature of God and should be read in the light of later Judaism’s clear differentiation of the Divine Ground as beyond the cosmos.63 Whatever the original hymn may have meant if it existed in separate form before its incorporation in this Gospel, its splicing into the narrative and its anticipation of themes therein would argue that it is a stretch to read the prologue as a regression to primitive myth when these factors are noted. On the other hand, perhaps this Gospel’s prologue, given its subtle use of symbolism, is simply expressing in somewhat colorful metaphors the truth that we are all made in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). This allegorical interpretation could point to a few texts in Paul’s letters, for example, that seem to rehabilitate this teaching of being in God’s image (1 Cor 11:7 [only for man!]; Col 3:10). The Johannine incarnation, then, would be a startling way of expressing God’s image in a human being, in this case, in the human being Jesus, an image like that found in other human beings, particularly the extraordinary prophets, for example. In fact, if the prologue is a Johannine parallel to the Genesis creation story, inasmuch as the beginning of creation is the beginning meant by “in the beginning was the Word,” then this allegorical view receives added corroboration. For it is the beginning of creation that establishes humans as images of God (Gen 1:26). Of course, the difficulty here is that this allegorical interpretation cannot account for the novel elements about the incarnation noted in John’s Gospel. That we are all made in God’s image, while crucially important, was nothing new in the Jewish context of the early Jesus movement. John, however, seems to be expressing something new, which perhaps does not negate this important teaching but somehow goes beyond it. This is true for Paul, too, who typically links the mediatory role of Jesus 63. A radically transcendent Ground permeates all reality. In actual historical fact, however, it is possible that the new differentiation of radical transcendence might cause initial imbalances in understanding and practice, leading to an inappropriate devaluing or even rejection of the cosmos.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 91 with the restoration and even perfecting of the image of God in whose image we are made (Eph 1:6, 20–24; Gal 2:20). John will write of Jesus as “God the only Son” (1:18) who brings a “fullness” of grace (1:16). This Gospel calls only Jesus “God’s son,” reserving the title of “children” for the rest of us (1:12). This goes along with the “I am” statements on the lips of Jesus, sometimes absolutely (Jn 8:24, 28, 58, 13:19), sometimes with predicates, as we have seen above. At least some of these seem evocative of the “I am” of Moses’ thornbush theophany (Ex 3:14). Perhaps most startling, we find Jesus addressed as “God” (Jn 20:28), and the Word that has become flesh seems in some special way identical with God (“the Word was God” of 1:1). In the light of this, the allegorical interpretation we have been considering seems to miss the challenge of John, although it is not completely off the mark. A third possibility would be to think of the prologue as an example, not of naïve myth, but of a deliberately theological use of myth, analogous to Plato’s philosophical use of myth in his dialogues. Just as Plato at times seems driven to write his “likely stories,” which are nonetheless “true stories,” when he seeks to articulate the more mysterious dimensions of the intersection of transcendence and immanence, so, too, perhaps the author of John is inspired by a similar recourse to the myth.64 This would not be a naïve regression to earlier myths as we find them, say, in premonotheistic cultures, but a more critical attempt to articulate in a “likely yet true story” the actions of the Divine, which always in some ways outstrip our comprehension. The subtle way in which the Gospel is crafted, and the deliberate recourse to symbolism and the poetic, plausibly incline us to this interpretation, although we would not claim that the author of John is a subtle philosopher like Plato. Plato not only had recourse to the myth for philosophical purposes, but articulated in many ways a selfconscious interpretation of such recourse. We do not find that in John. John’s Gospel is, considered philosophically from the standard of Plato’s more self-conscious recourse to myth, somewhere between compact naïveté and Plato’s usage. Additionally, if we follow Plato’s lead, in these divine-human frontiers we cannot eliminate our need for the likely story, even if to some extent we can and must seek through analogous concepts to give as much philosophical and theological precision as possible to our appropriation of reality. Only the concepts are a small moment within a larger recourse to the symbols of likely myth. The myth conveys our experience of embeddedness 64. See Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle, 224–53, for Plato’s subtle interplay between truth and likely story in the Timaeus. The story (myth) is a “true word” (26e; 92c).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 92 and participation within the cosmos. It is originally, inasmuch as we have access to it, a cosmocentric symbolism, our original, primary manner of experiencing reality. Within the earliest myths, humans, animals, world, and gods flow in and through one another, such that the lines between them blur. We may in some ways through philosophy and revelation find ourselves enabled to differentiate dimensions of reality that the cosmocentric myth only compactly intimates (God’s sheer transcendence and human participation in God through the soul and human individuality, for example), but we never quite outgrow our embeddedness within the cosmos. We must even use the language of the cosmos to express our consciousness of dimensions that transcend it. The difference seems to be that our recourse to myth becomes, potentially at any rate, less naïve in the light of transcendence. The breakthrough to logos (philosophical and theological) relativizes rather than eliminates the myth, but the myth also relativizes the pretensions of logos.65 Obviously, the critical, theological appropriation of myth is not a denial of history but only a recognition that our historical consciousness does not simply lift us out of the cosmos. Likewise, the theological use of myth, which is a critical use of it, perhaps goes along with the more historical and narrative quality of Hebrew and early Christian experience. Scholars will often speak of the more functional perspective of the New Testament’s Christologies, as distinct from the more ontological perspective of Hellenism. There is some truth in this distinction, but at least a Plato could be quite “functional” too in his recourse to the philosopher’s myth. Myth and logos need each other, we suggest: Logos strives to articulate the ontological implications of reality, but such an ontology can never eliminate the richer historical manifold of human experience. The Gospel of John’s rather articulate and critical use of myth, then, indicates a rather more differentiated ontological employment of logos, we might say. John’s Gospel had theological recourse to myth because of imaginative openness to and profound participation in Jesus and his movement, not from more theoretical considerations on the nature of our inability to fully

65. I am largely following Voegelin on this, along with some others. See the studies, with references, in Germino, Political Philosophy and the Open Society, 27–65; Hughes, Mystery and Myth in the Philosophy of Eric Voegelin. Myth encompasses a large range, from the earliest, most compactly cosmocentric (oral, sculpted, and painted) types in, for example, the caves of Lascaux, Altamira, and Chauvet, on to the still cosmocentric but more differentiated myths of early writing cultures and empires, on to philosophical and theological uses of myth in the light of the differentiation of the worldtranscendent God and the spiritual soul able to know this God, etc.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 93 eliminate the myth. In this theological likely yet true story, then, we are invited to imagine the beginning. We must imagine it, for none of us were there. Its precise features remain, and must remain, fuzzy. Is this God’s inner, eternal nature, or the first temporal moment of the created world, or something in between? We can sense that the later precisions of philosophy about the distinction between eternity and time are not in evidence. But even if they were, one could still not eliminate our need for the likely story of the symbol in these frontier regions. Something has caused this Gospel to identify God with the “Word”66: “the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). Following the flow of the prologue, we would seem to find our reason in John 1:14, in which we are told that this God “became flesh,” along with John 1:9, which speaks of God as “the true light, which enlightens everyone.” Why is God a Word? Because God communicates and enlightens, and does so as we humans do so. God has become flesh, and we have received from this fleshly Word’s fullness. The characteristic of the human qua human is to communicate, we might say. We are then invited to imagine Communication as in some sense God’s own reality. The divine Ground does not simply offer us communications through or from others, but the divine Ground is in very truth Communication.67 This is a way of saying in the language of later philosophical theology that God is in the divine being personal and even in some ways “person.” At the same time, in the same verse (Jn 1:1), the prologue also distinguishes the Word/Communication from God in some mysterious way (“the Word was with God”). God is with the divine Word/Communication. “Being with” suggests diversity, interchange, openness to others. Is God like this too? Is this another reason why God can and does become flesh? God has room for the other? But in a personal way, relating to others in highly subtle and personal ways calibrated to the personalities of each, so that the appropriate communication is offered? Again, in the language of later philosophical theology, there is a “withness” in the divine Ground, that is, a relational orientation. God is a sharing Communicator rather than an isolated or solipsistic monologue. How did this Gospel’s author,

66. To what extent is this masculine word (in Greek) a loss for women needing the corrective of the feminine “wisdom” (in Greek and Hebrew) indicated by Paul among others (1 Cor 1:21, 2:7; Col 2:2–3)? For suggestions, see O’Collins, Christology, 41–44, and the retrieval suggested by Johnson, She Who Is. 67. Later theology will commonly speak of the Word’s “preexistence,” which seems implied and even compactly stated in the Johannine theological myth; likewise in Col 1:15–20 and Phil 2:6–11; see Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 139–45, and O’Collins, Christology, 127–34.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 94 and the likely many within this Gospel’s community out of which it originated, come to this insight? Was it because they cherished the memory of Jesus’ dialogical interchange with the Father, his filial consciousness, along with the way in which this God was perceived by Jesus to be there for all of us others too? “You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (Jn 14:20). Is this the source of the likely story that there is a “being with” that somehow defines God? This filial consciousness is another of those important reminiscences multiply attested in the earliest Jesus traditions (Rom 8:15–17; Gal 4:6; Mk 14:36; Mt 26:39; Lk 22:42, etc.).68 There is one further hint in the prologue: The Word gave power to those who receive him to “become children of God” (Jn 1:12). That we are dealing with a non-naïve use of myth here is at least suggested by the comment that this is a birth “not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:13). This would not seem to be a regression to cosmocentric naïveté inasmuch as this divine power transcends the matter of the cosmos. But what is this power to become God’s children? And is this power to become a child also the power somehow behind the birth in the flesh of Jesus? The prologue nowhere mentions the Paraclete theme, but perhaps this power noted in John 1:12 anticipates that Paraclete-Spirit later encountered in the Gospel. For the Paraclete is the mysterious one who empowers and connects and outflows, so to speak. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (Jn 14:26). At the very least, this Paraclete would seem to be the power of participation in the Word with God, and this invites the further thought that participation itself is a divine reality. How else would this Gospel, or we its readers, “know” these things, were we not able to participate in them? In the Beloved Jesus we experience ourselves as beloved too. We form a part of this communication event. This must mean that we are participating in the divine outflow of love. The Communicator’s Communication is in very deed Communicating. And if we know the Communication, somehow, then, we know the Communicator. “So then there are three: the lover, the beloved, and the love,” wrote Saint Augustine.69 Or, so there are these three: Communicator, Communication, Communicating. John’s Gospel’s participation in the engendering experience of Jesus and his companions would seem to be uncovering the outlines or gestalt of a trinitarian reality. With this Gospel’s aid, and encouraged by it, we 68. See Ashton, “Abba,” 7–8. 69. Augustine, The Trinity, 8.10.14 (266).

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 95 can perhaps glimpse something of the same gestalt in the other biblical writings, even in the Hebrew scriptures, and not implausibly in the cultures beyond the Jewish and Christian orbit. For “all things came into being through him . . . [and what] has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (Jn 1:3–4). (3) God, Community, and Jesus: A Glance Back While there is substantial overlap between the synoptics and the Gospel of John, our suggestion is that the alternative, inclusive community tends to glow in the former, while the person of Jesus tends to radiate in the latter. The overlap keenly suggests that we amputate the polyvalent phenomenon of Jesus the Christ if we isolate him from his vision of and work with and for his companions and the radically inclusive community of a radically inclusive God. At the same time, we amputate his companions and their movement if we isolate them from him. As we are invited by these Gospels to move back and forth between them, we experience something of the challenging tension created by this interplay. The Jesus Christ dimension suggests that there is a “Christological principle” at work in the formation of community, as long as we understand by principle not an abstraction but in the first place a dynamic that occurs in and through human beings. The mediation of Jesus, the encounter with his person, injects a critical element of the uniquely personal and individuated into the community, such that we ourselves are challenged to own our own gifts and discover our own irreplaceable worth. “The shepherd . . . calls his own sheep by name” (Jn 10:2–3). We are called into a community, not a mob, and one of the key elements in this community is the nourishing of this dimension of the uniquely personal. At the same time the commitment to the effort on behalf of the alternative community of radical inclusiveness keeps this personalism from degenerating into narcissism and isolationism, however subtle and camouflaged. The synoptics are particularly attuned to this, especially Mark, although each of the four Gospels has seen something critical in the building blocks of community, as we have sought to indicate. Thus, the “Jesus Christ principle” and the “community principle” need one another and challenge one another. To some extent these dynamics were (even before Jesus70) and are at work worldwide, as we 70. All things somehow come into existence through the Word (Jn 1:3), and all have been chosen by Christ “before the foundation of the world” (Eph 1:4), and so, evidently, even before the incarnation.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 96 have suggested; and in a way very close to that of the New Testament, they were and remain at work within the experience of the Jewish people. Whether corporate personality is the best term can be debated, but there does seem to have been a movement from an earlier, more collectivist (corporate) experience of group identity to a more individuated and personalized experience of community in at least some trajectories of the Hebrew Bible, as we have too briefly indicated. It is this strain that bursts out rather strongly in the Jesus movement within Judaism.71 And with the aid of John, but also that of the synoptics, this seems to happen because of the growing awareness that the dimension of the personal and individuated is “located” in the divine Ground itself. God is Word. However, this needs to be complemented by the equally important intimation that somehow community is “located” in the divine Ground too. For God is not a monologue but a dialogue. There is a relational “withness” about God; and this withness reaches out, inviting and bringing others into the dialogue. For in the power of the Spirit we are made creatures of participation within it. In a somewhat fascinating way the literary form and content of the letters of the New Testament, especially those from Paul and his community and the Johannine community, combine this dialectic of community and Jesus Christ. For what is a letter, at least typically, but a way of addressing some one or some people in a more personalized manner, appropriate to one’s circumstances? It is a way of indicating that the participation in Jesus continues and that the Shepherd is continuing to call the sheep by name. At the same time, in and through responding to the call, opened out through the letters, the community of the saints is indeed built up and increasingly organized for action within history and society. But it is a mysterious community, this postcollectivist, personalizing community, for it is grounded in a mysterious divine Ground, and we still await its coming in fullness. The apocalyptic strain agitates us because it reminds us of this, and sometimes rather dangerously so, I fear (see, for example, the warrior Christ on the white horse leading his army in Rev 19:11–16). Paul seems to articulate it more compellingly when he writes: “But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits [the Christological dimension], then at his coming those who belong to Christ [the community of inclusiveness]. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father” (1 Cor 15:23–24). Paul would seem to be speaking in 71. I have in mind the covenant of the heart of Jer 31:31–34, which is said to be “new,” along with Ez 11:19. See Ez 19 for perhaps the clearest articulation of individual responsibility in the Hebrew Bible. Cf. Rogerson, “Corporate Personality,” and esp. Voegelin, Israel and Revelation, 279–89.

Jesus, His Companions, Their Movement / 97 terms of his historical experience rather than in the more theological terms of a later time that has pondered even more the dynamics of this triune shape (Father, Son, and Spirit72). Still, his letters put us in touch with the engendering experience through which such a theology can emerge and by revisiting which we might avoid an arrogant lapse into conceptual overdefining.

For the supplement to chapter II (“II/For Further Study”), go to www.home.duq.edu/~thompsonu. Topics covered: 1. The relationship between participation and interpretation theory (hermeneutics); 2. the Bible as a canon or norm; 3. Jesus research (the various “quests” for the historical Jesus, Jesus’ Jewish dimension, Satan and the demonic in the New Testament, and the miracles of Jesus); 4. comparisons between this book’s participatory approach to interpretation and patristic and medieval hermeneutics.

72. I associate the Spirit with the principle of participatory inclusiveness and community.

CHAPTER I I I

Affection, Action, and Thought in the Advancing Jesus Movement One only has to enter most of our public places, particularly religious ones, to see that scant attention is paid to the need for ventilation. Yet the (holy) spirit supposedly comes of breath. . . . People who pay no heed to respiration, who breathe poorly, who are short of air, often cannot stop speaking, and are thus unable to listen. — L U C E I R I G A R AY

Typically, books on Jesus move from the biblical materials, which we have just sketched, to the emergence of the Christological doctrines (creeds) in the era of the seven ecumenical councils (325–787). The emphasis falls upon the formulation of doctrine regarding Jesus, giving the impression that doctrine is the goal, the summit of achievement, for Christianity, and perhaps for any mature movement. This is an intellectualist approach to reality, which our participative perspective seeks to resist. Christological doctrines emerge from within the Jesus movement and are meant to serve its mission. Severed from their engendering experiences within the movement, they become at best isolated items of information, which one can take or leave, rather than guides to formative participation in and with Jesus and his movement. Or worse, the more detached the doctrines are from their engendering experiences, the more they become reified (hypostatized) entities, fostering the illusion that one can wrap up the uncomfortable edges of the mystery of reality in a safety box, thus promoting closure, arrogance, lack of growth within the move98

Affection, Action, and Thought / 99 ment itself, and the other even more destructive consequences known to follow from ideologically closed souls. Luce Irigaray suggests that such a use of words suffers from “a logic unsuited to life and its breath. It has been uprooted from its engendering in the present, from its connections with the energy of my own and the other’s body, and with that of the surrounding natural world.”1 This chapter, then, seeks a logic suited to the “life and its breath” of Jesus and his movement. We hope the reader will not think we are presenting another form of the thesis that it is social factors, not ideas, that count; hence our stress on the Jesus movement. We hope we have presented sufficient arguments for the view that a participative perspective places that old argument between social forces and ideas (or practice and thought) into a new and higher perspective. The cognitive dimension of participation suggests that both factors are always at work in simultaneous and subtle ways, with perhaps shifting emphases. Actually, our earlier sketch of dimensions of participation prompts us to include the entire realm of the “heart” or affections, involved in the holistic fidelity of our being to the appeal of reality, as another cognitive dimension united with and seemingly even grounding the thought and will-decisions involved in our action. The logic appropriate to the Jesus movement, then, involves at least a three-pronged form of participation, embracing the heart (affection), the mind (thought), and the will (decisions regarding action). We will strive to present a representative perspective of that logic by noting three typical forms of participation by which Jesus’ (and any) movement remains vital. Earlier we presented a sketch of personal, group, and common participation in the Jesus movement and their possible interrelations. Now we would like to offer some more textured examples.

Groups in Participation Should we begin with individuals, with groups, or with common forms of participation? If we heed Voegelin’s suggestion, we are already within the community of being. In a certain sense, the issue of where to begin has already been decided. We are in this community. Perhaps the wise choice, then, is to listen to this community and seek its ventilation. At times that may mean a choice for “beginning” with the self, or with others in a small group or small groups, or for following the common pulse. Keeping that in mind, what follows is but a sampling of possibilities. 1. Irigaray, i love to you, 122–23; for the epigraph of this chapter, 121–22.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 100 We have already noted that the earliest Jesus community formed a distinctive group within a larger Judaism composed rather pluralistically of competing groups within the larger Roman Empire. Its work was centered on an alternative community of inclusiveness, grounded in agapaic, unconditional love. Jesus and his companions aimed, not at social fragmentation, that is, the breaking up of community, but at building community and even lifting it to a new, higher plane. And if John Meier is correct, Jesus himself was particularly good at this. He carried over his skills as a craftsman (tekto¯n) in his woodworking trade at Nazareth (Mk 6:3) to his work in community crafting. “What is perhaps not so clear is that, before the Christian church ever got off the ground, the Jesus movement survived and spread between AD 28 and 30 because Jesus himself was fairly adept at creating identity badges, embryonic structures, and support systems for his movement within 1st-century Judaism.”2 The distinct groups shaped by Jesus—disciples, the “Twelve,” women attached to his movement, other supporters—offer us a model of what we mean by group participation within the Jesus movement. Such groups optimally aim to enhance the flourishing of the inclusive, agapaic community. By “groups” in this context we mean individuals experiencing a certain likemindedness stemming in some recognizable way from their participation in the Jesus movement. The nature of the likemindedness will surely vary, depending upon its focus, but it is the key bringing these “Jesus groups” into existence. This likemindedness will in turn find expression in various practices, which sustain and develop the groups in question. We are wagering that these group experiences were channels of the emergence of a Jesusology, Christology, and soteriology, but not only that. The group focus may have been very practical, with the speculation remaining secondary. On the other hand, as for example among early Christian teachers, the focus may have been more on the growing understanding of Jesus and his significance. In this latter case, the emphasis falls on thought (philosophy and theology in wider and more specialized senses), always recognizing that thought involves physical energy and disciplined practices as well. Our affectivity was naturally implicated, all along the line, and perhaps received special focus through art, singing, ritual and liturgy, and a host of other subtle experiences. Our participatory perspective wants to underline that the formative nature of the thinking through of Jesus and his work—how it “shapes” the soul, so that it is not simply information abstracted from the human experience—is best kept in view by seeking its rooting in these engender2. Meier, A Marginal Jew, 3:632; see 620, 626–32.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 101 ing group experiences. Otherwise, it falls under the gospel critique: “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive” (Mt 13:14). Jesus knows how formative insight can degenerate into items of information. Participation within the group in question offers a chance of avoiding Jesus’ charge: “For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn—and I would heal them” (Mt 13:15, citing Is 6:9–10). We will note a few of these groups, considering them to be somewhat representative of the interchange between group participation, Christology, and soteriology, which we have in mind. We are not seeking anything at all like an exhaustive historical survey of such groups, which is beyond my competency in any case. We are more interested in the logic of the interplay between mind, heart, and will, on the one hand, and group experience on the other, an interplay that continues today among various groups of enormous varieties. Let us consider the experience of Christian friendship. On almost any account, this is a rather common group experience reaching back to Jesus and his companions, and reaching forward to our own times. Precisely because it is somewhat common, its potential significance is likely to be ignored. Let us resist that temptation for a moment. Its relevance seems particularly promising, in terms of heart (affection), mind (thought), and will (decisions). John 15:12–17, particularly verse 15 (“I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father”), may launch us on our way. The text indicates not only the experience of Christian friendship, but a growing reflection upon such experiences and their fruitfulness for an understanding of Jesus and his movement. John’s Gospel at this point is reflecting upon the theme of the vine (Jesus), the vinegrower (the Father), and the branches (the disciples), explaining that one remains united with Jesus through keeping the commandment to love one another, like Jesus. To the extent that one does this, he/she becomes a friend of Jesus and a friend of one another. The word for friends, philoi, expresses a relationship of intimacy (“I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father” [Jn 15:15]), along with a dimension of affection, intimated in the comment that Jesus has “said these things . . . so that [his] joy may be in [them], and that [it] may be complete” (Jn 15:11). This affectionate knowledge, which reveals intimate secrets, expresses a

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 102 theme common to the rabbis, Qumran, and Greco-Roman classical literature, along with the later Fathers of the Church.3 In the context of John’s Gospel, we are not speaking of elitism, given the inclusive nature of Jesus’ community; rather, John has brought out the depths of affectionate insight that come from committed service in love to the community. John says that this friendship eliminates the unfreedom of slavery (“servant” in that sense) but not the service of love for one another (being a “servant” in that sense). If you want, one does not have any choice as to the family one is born into, but friendship is an experience of freedom. Raymond Brown, referring to several texts (Lk 17:10; Rom 1:1, etc.), writes that the New Testament teaches that the Christian “remains a doulos (servant) from the viewpoint of service that he should render, but from the viewpoint of intimacy with God he is more than a doulos.”4 This kind of Christian friendship, first sketched here in the Gospel of John, has become a constant in the long Christian tradition. At its healthy best, it is not an alternative to unconditional and radical Gospel agape, but rather brings out the depths of intimacy and affectionate insight that come from committed service to one another. The more committed our service in Jesus’ movement, the more warm insight and knowledge we receive. Agape frees friendship love from elitism, or at least challenges the latter not to fall into elitism. On the other hand, friendship love challenges agape to achieve depths of affection, intimacy, and freely chosen mutual exchange. Such friendship experiences, we may suggest, contributed much to the strength and solidity of the bond holding members of the early Christian movement together, particularly the leadership in its moments of struggle and persecution. Sociologist Rodney Stark has proposed that Christianity “grew because Christians constituted an intense community, able to generate the ‘invincible obstinacy’ that so offended the younger Pliny but yielded immense religious rewards.” Rather than needing to postulate rather incredulous reasons for Christianity’s successful emergence, simple arithmetic projections “reveal that Christianity could easily have reached half the population by the middle of the fourth century without miracles or conversions en masse.” And the principal means through which this would occur would be “the united and motivated efforts of the growing numbers of Christian believers, who invited their friends, relatives, and neighbors to share the ‘good news.’ ”5 3. See Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:448–51, for references. 4. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2:683. 5. Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 208, 14; he follows the view that Christianity was primarily an urban phenomenon among the more privileged classes, rather than a proletarian movement, which would likely have been crushed by the empire (29–47). Cultic and philosophical decadence, the inclusiveness of the Jesus movement, and the

Affection, Action, and Thought / 103 Such friendships occasionally received the written reflection they always merited. Augustine, for example, offered a lengthy meditation on Christian friendship in his Confessions, even proposing something of a near-definition: “no friends are true friends unless you, my God, bind them fast to one another through that love which is sown in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us.” He was influenced by the earlier reflections of Cicero, for example, but he naturally was working through some of the Christian dimensions of his friendship experiences. Awareness of the agency of the Holy Spirit, which this description notes, is a fact of the Christian dimension, which evokes the bonding and participationenabling work of the Spirit noted in our earlier chapter on the biblical materials. Augustine was also very attuned to the affective dimensions in friendship. He wrote of the “charms” with which friendship could “captivate [his] heart.” Talking and laughing together, kind deeds, sharing the pleasures of books, gravity and lightheartedness, even the rare spice of disagreement, missing and welcoming friends—all these were the “heartfelt tokens of affection between friends . . . signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, [able to] kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one.”6 As we earlier suggested, agape and philia, unconditional love and friendship love, challenge us to think through their relationship. Joseph Lienhard notes how Augustine indicated in one of his letters that friendship “adds to charity . . . an attraction or liking that we experience more eagerly toward some and rather more hesitantly toward others.” On the other hand, we can see the agapaizing of friendship love in this brief prayer from the section on friendship just noted in the Confessions: “Blessed are those who love you, O God, and love their friends in you and their enemies for your sake.”7 Friendship love does not normally concern itself with friends’ enemies, but in the Christian view agape is always pushing love’s limits beyond closed circles. Given the very human and now “Christian” valorization of friendship

impressive courage of the martyrs would be sufficient to attract privileged urbanites, among whom in time would be the Emperor Constantine. Stark proposes a growth rate of 40 percent per decade (4–13). The reference is to Pliny the Younger’s letter to the Emperor Trajan (ca. 111), in which he writes of the “stubbornness and unyielding obstinacy” of the Christians (in Bruce, Jesus and Christian Origins outside the New Testament, 25–26). 6. Augustine, Confessions 4.4, 4.8 (trans. Pine-Coffin, 75, 79). 7. Augustine, Epistula 130.6.13, as explained by Lienhard, “Friendship, Friends,” 373. “Friendship is not confined by narrow limits; it includes all those to whom love and affection are due, although it goes out more readily to some, more slowly to others, but it reaches even our enemies, [for] whom we are commanded to pray” (in Augustine, Letters, 2:83–130 [386]); Augustine, Confessions 4.9 (Pine-Coffin, 79).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 104 love, it is not too surprising to come across occasional reflections on the Christological and soteriological significance of this experience. That is, by keen attention to their friendship experiences some thinkers gifted with a more reflective talent were able to think through the connection between their experiences and the person and action of Jesus. Political philosopher James Wiser has noted this most poignantly in his description of the Christian emphasis upon God’s descent in grace to humanity and the consequent mutuality between God and humanity felt and reflected upon in the Christian experiences. He points out that Aristotle, for example, expressly ruled out friendship with God on the grounds of the lack of even a minimal equality between the gods and humans. On the other hand, it is precisely this experience of equality, at least in the sense of mutuality, that characterizes the Christian experience. Wiser may have in mind a passage from Aristotle like this: “when one party is removed to a great distance, as God is, the possibility of friendship ceases.”8 Aristotle does speak of a friendship of humans with the gods, along the lines of a friendship for something good and superior, like children’s friendship with parents. This is perhaps a reference to two forms of imperfect friendship, based on either pleasure or usefulness, rather than love for the friend as such. He also characterizes someone devoted to intelligence as “loved by the gods.” This last reference particularly calls into question any simplistic comparison between Aristotle and Christian revelation. Plato, further complexifying matters, also speaks of being a “friend of God.”9 At the very least, we have intimations of the personal view of the Divine in the Greek tradition as also, but more emphatically, in the Hebrew. Each is involved in the shift from a more cosmocentric [Greek] and transcendental [Hebrew] to a more personalistic experience of God [Christian]. This “being in a shift-mode” likely accounts for these ambiguous evocations. We can quickly grasp Wiser’s point by noting, for example, Thomas Aquinas’ counter-observation to Aristotle. Noting with Aristotle that a “certain equality” occurs between those within a friendship and that the fact of significant inequality renders friendship impossible, Aquinas reasons: “Therefore, to get greater familiarity in friendship between man and God it was helpful for man that God became man, since even by nature man is man’s friend; and so in this way, ‘while we know God visibly, 8. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1159a5; cf. Wiser, Political Theory, 82–83. Wiser references Voegelin, The New Science of Politics; see Modernity without Restraint, 150–51. 9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1162a5, 1156a5–a20, 1179a23–24; Plato, Symposium 212a (563), for example. Also see Day, Voegelin, Schelling, and the Philosophy of Historical Existence, 210.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 105 we may [through Him] be borne to love of things invisible.’ ” Here the familiarity with humans forming the basis of friendship occurs from God’s side and initiative: “But God’s love for men could be demonstrated to man in no way more effective than this: He willed to be united to man in person, for it is proper to unite the lover with the beloved so far as possible.”10 The incarnation is an act of divine friendship with humans, reasons Aquinas. Aquinas seems to have meditated deeply on the relationship between the incarnation, friendship, and agape. In this, he was obviously aided by Aristotle’s study of friendship, as is evident from the many references to Aristotle. At the same time, behind Aquinas stands a long if modest tradition of Christian theological reflection on the incarnation and friendship, as we have noted in Augustine.11 For Aquinas, the incarnation is clearly an act of agape, but one that integrates the familiarity of friendship within it. In this respect, Aquinas presents a view within the line of Exodus 33–34, which notes how God spoke to Moses “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Ex 33:11), although Aquinas reflected the Christian view that the incarnation brought about a personal intimacy from God’s side that was pleromatic, basing himself on 2 Corinthians 3 as interpreted through the later Christological councils of the Church.12 That is, the incarnation is not simply like a friendship, but it is in fact God as friend in person for us. Still, the continuity with the Moses experience is there, and not to be underrated. The difference between the kind of mutuality offered through the prophets and that offered through incarnation is, in fact, one of the key issues to emerge in the Christian experiences; and understanding this difference, inasmuch as we can get to it, remains one of the great Christian questions to this day. The familiarity of friendship that the incarnation brought with it led Aquinas to return to the theme of friendship when he was considering the Holy Spirit’s work in us. Referring to the mysterious Spirit-Paraclete text of John 14, among similar texts, in which Jesus promises that he will be united with his disciples through the Spirit, Aquinas writes of the Holy Spirit as the one who introduces us into the deeper dimensions of friendship’s familiarity with God. Because we are friends who have received what Jesus wanted made known to us (Jn 15:15, referred to earlier), 10. Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa contra Gentiles 4.54.6, 4.54.5. In 4.54.6, Thomas is citing the traditional preface for Mass of Christmas and Corpus Christi. 11. See Aquinas, Summa theologiae 2–2, 23–27. Clement of Alexandria and Origen seem to have especially reflected on the incarnate Word’s role in bringing about friendship between God and humanity. See Mara, “Friendship,” 330. 12. See Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles 4.22.2.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 106 Aquinas reasons that we are already participating in the divine friendship. Such participation is the proper role of the Spirit. Revealing secrets to one’s friends is “the proper mark of friendship . . . [that] unites affections and makes, as it were, one heart of two,” and it is “by the Holy Spirit we are established as friends of God.”13 Aquinas goes on to chronicle further effects flowing from this friendly familiarity as the Spirit dwells within us. Our very speech is formatively shaped into prophetic speech, and our unity in affection with our friends brings about a sharing with them. Because “friendship and offense are contraries,” the Spirit forgives us our sins. Further effects are an ability to converse with God, as with a friend; to experience delight and joy and friendly consolation; to consent to what our divine Friend wills; and to experience the freedom proper to friends, rather than the constraint proper to slaves.14 We can see that Aquinas’ reflections on friendship and incarnation have led him into considerations on the Trinity, salvation, and the personalistic dimensions of the incarnation itself. The Christian experience of friendship has a Christological, soteriological, and trinitarian shape, varyingly noted by Aquinas, Augustine, and others. These thoughts can serve as a model of the kind of Christological and soteriological insight, affection, and impulsion toward action that the ongoing experience of Christian friendship affords. More often than not, the reflection remains intuitive. Love brings its knowledge, along with its accompanying affections and actions, but more commonly the latter dominate. Occasionally, however, thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas take a cognitive pause, so to speak, as they are drawn into exploring some of these dimensions a bit more analytically. Becoming “one heart, from two,” in other words, participating in the friendship experience on its various levels—such is what we mean by a representative engendering experience out of which Christological and soteriological insights, along with ecclesial doctrines, emerge. To the extent that such friendships continue today, and they most assuredly do, analogous engendering experiences are offered us from which we too may come to know the Christ and his movement, in action, affection, and knowledge. Moving from the warmth and affection of friendship, let us consider the apparently cold callousness of martyrdom. If friendship brings out the personal intimacy of Christian love, the martyr’s experience brings out the self-emptying, agapaic dimension of the same love. The two are not contraries but overlapping experiences with different emphases, at least 13. Ibid., 4.21.3–5. 14. Ibid., 21.6–7, 10, 22.1–5. I recommend, for more, Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2, Spiritual Master, index: “friendship.”

Affection, Action, and Thought / 107 typically. We might venture to argue that these two need each other. We have already suggested how friendship without the outward push provided by agape might shrivel up into a narrow narcissism. Augustine especially was aware of this. Likewise, agape itself can degenerate into an impersonal “love of anyone and anything” that avoids really serious depth of encounter with the other, apart from the friendship factor provided by our friend Jesus. Jesus’ great command speaks of loving “with all your heart,” and not simply with the mind (Lk 10:27, etc.). If agape needs the friendship love, then the martyr needs friends too; and it is doubtful that many could endure the test of martyrdom apart from such friends, and especially apart from the mysterious martyr’s friendship with Jesus himself. The interesting martyrdom-vision of Stephen, the first martyr after Christ, in which he saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55), is suggestive in this regard. Jesus, his friend, is there with him, “standing,” which is the traditional posture of both advocating before the Father on behalf of his friend and perhaps also “welcoming” his friend home. Good hosts stand out of respect and concern for their guests.15 Right there, in the midst of the utter impersonalism of the martyr’s impending torture and death, we find the personalism of Christian friendship. Like friendship, martyrdom is a continually occurring experience for Christians, typically experienced with others, in groups. For this reason we will consider it here as a representative group phenomenon, although we realize it can be undergone by the solitary individual. Unlike friendship, however, martyrdom historically has received more notice, and common sense can easily grasp why. Obviously, martyrdom fascinates and challenges, not always for the highest of reasons. There is also the problem of how to define it, as well as how to distinguish it from fanaticism. Many a movement has had its martyrs, but not all movements are above suspicion. Even movements deemed good can attract followers with very mixed motives. We will need to address these issues at least somewhat, if only to demarcate properly the limits of our discussion. At the same time, the central theological factor behind martyrdom in Christianity would seem to be the example and energy unleashed by the martyrdom of Jesus himself. If the disciple is not above the master (Mt 10:24), martyrdom would be an expected if not always necessary dimension of the Christian way. Martyr is the Greek word for “witness,” and when Paul in Acts 22:20, confessing his complicity in Stephen’s martyrdom, is credited with de15. See Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, 139. The possible reference to Ps 109:1, the Lord at the Father’s right hand, is the likely source here for Luke, but the change from sitting to standing is provocative. Johnson also suggests cultic and prophetic intimations in the symbol.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 108 scribing Stephen as the Lord’s “martyr,” the precedent for limiting the term to those who shed their blood for the Lord was set. Of course, witnesses do not always shed their blood, but the example of Stephen, along with the lengthy era of martyrdom in the early Church, perhaps sealed the trend. Christ is also named “faithful martyr” in Revelation 1:5 and 3:14, both contexts indicating his witness through his death, and this also may have intensified the restriction of the word to those shedding their blood in the cause of Christ.16 In fact the link between the shedding of one’s blood for the Lord Jesus and the phenomenon of witness is rather suggestive and has its own compelling logic. The witness who sheds her or his blood is the limit case, the paradigm, of what the true Christian witness is. The simple phenomenon of witnessing presupposes at least three dimensions: the one witnessing, the reality witnessed to, and those before whom one witnesses. In the Christian case, Christ, his cause and work, is the reality witnessed to. Thus, it is not any movement, but the cause of this movement that partly delimits the Christian martyr. Augustine was getting at this when he wrote that it is not the suffering but the cause (non . . . poena sed causa) that is the key in evaluation of authentic martyrdom.17 This does not remove all ambiguity in discerning the authentic martyr, for there were and still are conflicts in interpretation over what constitutes the cause of Christ. Despite the ambiguity, the cause of Christ has a primacy in the act of witnessing, and so an important dimension of witnessing is that the witness points away from herself or himself, toward the other of Christ. The witness does not disappear, to be sure, but the energy is away from the self. Decentering the self toward the other self of Christ seems uppermost. This decentering of the witness’ self toward the other to whom one witnesses links up with the importance of love as central in Christian martyrdom. Augustine indeed also noted how it is love that constitutes the martyr, and he made Paul’s teaching on this matter a central argument: “if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor 13:3). A decentered self is a loving self, willing to suffer for the sake of love, although it is not the suffering but the love that is crucial. Augustine seems to have thought about this rather deeply, and he grew rather skeptical of the strain in the tradition that seemed to exalt the suffering and even seek it, failing to recognize that many a sufferer can go through horrendous pain and still lack love. As Carole Straw has noted, Augustine looked to the example of Peter in John 21:18–19. Peter was 16. See Murphy and Dicharry, “Martyr,” 227. 17. Augustine, Epistola 89.2 (419); see Straw, “Martyrdom,” 539.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 109 willing to suffer if need be, but his first wish would be to avoid it. Straw’s comment is that “Augustine’s martyr is far from the eager Pionius or bloodcurdling Ignatius, who willed fiercely to suffer extravagant tortures as sacrifices to God.” Rather, Augustine looked to the example of Stephen, suggesting that we should imitate him who prayed for his enemies.18 Praying for the enemy is a good example of the decentered or loving self, and it is this love the martyr seems to express in the most intense manner: to the point of the gift of one’s entire self. Here the witness of the martyr to Christ becomes an act of participation or engagement in agape to such an extent that there is a virtual identity or fusion between the martyr’s self and such agape. This fusion would seem to be what is behind “the constant teaching of the Church that such an intensity of love is expressed as to justify the sinner, baptized or unbaptized, and bring him the forgiveness of all his sins, removing all guilt and stain, pardoning all debt of temporal punishment, and adorning him with a special crown, or aureole.”19 In this respect we can think of the martyr as the paradigm and limit case of the “witness” in the Christian sense; and we can also see why the notion of martyrdom almost inevitably gets more widely extended to others who seriously live the Christian life, for example, the “white martyrdom” of the desert fathers and mothers, of the monks and nuns, and of the lovers of God, along with the “green martyrdom” of the serious ascetic.20 A connection exists between this love dimension of martyrdom and the work of the witness in the presence of others. There is an “on behalf of others” always implied in the act of witness that the martyr performs. How else can one witness, if not before others? The witness takes the truth seriously, to be sure, in this case the truth that is Christ and his movement; but the witness also takes seriously those before whom one witnesses. They are owed the truth. The decentered self of the martyr follows the flow of the love of Christ for his people, and an aspect of this love is its desire to offer others the truth that can bring them greater flourishing. Witnessing to the truth, paradoxically enough, is an act of love, not 18. Straw, “Martyrdom,” 539–41; Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John 1–10, 6.23 (150); On the Psalms, 118 (557–600); Tractates on the First Epistle of John, 5.4 (188–89). Augustine did not consider suicide an act of martyrdom; see the case of Lucretia in City of God 1.19. The approach of Ignatius is also distant from Augustine’s mature view: “I am writing to all the churches and assuring them that I am truly in earnest about dying for God—if only you yourselves put no obstacles in the way. I must implore you to do me no such untimely kindness; pray leave me a meal for the beasts, for it is they who can provide my way to God” (Ignatius, “The Epistle to the Romans,” 4 [86]). 19. Gilbyl and Cunningham, “Martyrdom, Theology of,” 231. 20. Murphy and Dicharry, “Martyr,” 229.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 110 only to other Christians who can benefit from the example of fortitude of the martyr, but also to the persecutor and torturer, who engages in such heinous acts as torturing and murdering precisely because of a distorted orientation to truth and its authoritative appeal to conscience. Love quickly slides into license once it is disconnected from truth. The martyr recognizes this and commits her or his life to its supreme importance. In witnessing to the truth of Christ the martyr is making an appeal to the conscience of the torturer, seeking to arouse the torturer’s natural orientation to truth and its obligations. In this way, martyrdom is an act of love and even hope for all parties concerned. Few have returned to this theme of the interconnection between love and truth, especially as embodied in the martyrs, with the eloquence and insistence of Pope John Paul II. He writes of them, for example, as following “the Lord Jesus who ‘made the good confession’ (1 Tm 6:13) before Caiaphas and Pilate, confirming the truth of his message at the cost of his life.” Like him, martyrs recognize that “the love of God entails the obligation to respect his commandments, even in the most dire of circumstances.” Further, the Christian history of the martyrs finds its analogous manifestation among “the great religious and sapiential traditions of East and West,” for whom the “voice of conscience has always clearly recalled that there are truths and moral values for which one must be prepared to give up one’s life.” Without this, both civil and ecclesial societies would experience “a headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis which can afflict [them]: the confusion between good and evil, which makes it impossible to build up and to preserve the moral order of individuals and communities.”21 Martyrdom always is conflictual and ambiguous. What the martyr believes to be truth, the torturer likely considers foolishness. Thus surfaces the connection between martyrdom and the trial, for witnesses need to be tested. In our times of radical relativism, this testing of the truth is perhaps even more to be expected. At a minimum, the ordeal of the “trial” inflicted upon martyrs tests the martyr’s sincerity of conviction; but many a sincere person can endure torture and even death for bizarre convictions, and so sincerity by itself does not “prove” the authenticity of the truth being attested. Still, it is an important sign. The martyr’s suffering also may be a sign of the power of conscience and its arousal by the transcending power of truth, even if the interpretation of the precise nature of that truth by the potential martyr may be inaccurate in a particular case. Still the ambiguity remains. The ambiguity to the undisposed likely will never be completely erased in the case of the religious and Christian mar21. John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth, nos. 90–94.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 111 tyr, given the need for openness to participation in the love of the divine Ground.22 For the disposed, however, matters are different. The truth in which the martyr participates is the same truth in which all may participate, for it is a manifestation of the relationship with the divine Ground, which forms the “ultimate bond of love” between all and which in the end “sustains and guarantees” the validity of the testimony being given.23 To the extent that the torturers remain open to this bond present within them, they can themselves experience that turn around which Saint Paul himself underwent as he reflected upon his complicity in the death of Stephen. The martyr’s act can also be one of the means through which the divine Ground reaches the torturer and arouses his or her conscience. Here we come upon the ancient theme, famously articulated by Tertullian, that “the blood of Christians is the seed” of the replenishment of the Church. “As often as you mow us down, the more numerous do we become.”24 The traditional connection between the good (love), the true, and the beautiful is another way of understanding how it is that the martyr’s witness becomes a powerful wave nourishing and purifying others. If we recall the crucial role that agapaic love plays in the witness of the martyr, and if we connect this with our earlier suggestion that participative love is a mode of knowledge that allows the truth to manifest itself for us, then we have a way of linking the martyr’s witness both to love and to truth. Love, which is an affective mode of participation of a very intense form, yields truth. Here the good (love) and the true are in some way one. Insofar as one comes into the sphere of influence of this love, whether as martyr, as friendly supporter of the martyr, or as torturer and murderer of the martyr, this love has its uplifting power that enables some measure of cognitive truth to break through. We also know experientially that beauty in the form of art, music, literature, nature, has its way of bringing insight and arousing our desire to love. There seems to be an element of beauty in truth and love, and vice versa, although the interchangeability of these is difficult to explain in a convincing way. In what way can we speak of a martyrdom as beautiful? Perhaps inasmuch as the experience of the beautiful lifts us beyond 22. Cf. Ricoeur, “The Hermeneutics of Testimony,” 144–53. 23. Rahner, “Theological Observations on the Concept of ‘Witness,’” 159. 24. Tertullian, Apologeticus, 50, in Bettenson, ed., The Early Christian Fathers, 166. Cf. The Epistle to Diognetus, 7: “Christians under daily punishment flourish all the more” (ibid., 54–55); Basil, Ep. 164: “The blood of martyrs watered the churches and reared up many times as many champions of piety” (as translated in MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, A.D. 100–400, 29, 134 n 13).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 112 our own petty concerns and brings us into the experience of contemplation of the true and the good, we might say there is no experience of the true and the good without some measure of beauty. We do the good and know the true, in however small a way, because we have been emotionally attracted by them and lifted in some way beyond our narrow selves. But in the case of the martyr what we mean by beauty is radically transformed along the lines suggested by Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar of the divine glory shining out in the crucified form of the cross. The cross in this instance highlights the purity of selflessness involved in the experience of the beautiful.25 We do not know how many Christians were martyred in the early Church’s celebrated period of persecution. Estimates vary, given the problematic nature of the sources, and they range from Tacitus’ “immense multitude” in the first century, to one hundred thousand, to ten thousand, and most recently to “fewer than a thousand.” Frend, for example, suggested “hundreds rather than thousands.”26 The tendency to trim the numbers down might be motivated by a desire to desupernaturalize the Christian movement, suggesting that it grew for other reasons, namely, the decadence of the competition, the favor of the imperial apparatus, normal growth rates, and so on. On the other hand, the numbers may well be proportionately small in this early period of the advancing Christian movement. However, if we keep in mind that the martyr represents the limit case of a much more common phenomenon, namely, the reality of a Christian witness that may not have typically resulted in the shedding of blood, then the argument that the witness’s love is generative receives greater legitimacy. The good (love), truth, and beauty of the witness, whether “red” or “white,” is the key. We are wagering, finally, that insights into the Christian movement’s nature emerged from such experiences. It is difficult to believe that Jesus’ martyrdom, and the trail of martyrs in his image, did not bear cognitive fruit. The passion narratives of each of the Gospels, along with the passion narratives of Peter and Paul in Acts, are the literary beginnings of this cognitive generativity. Martyrdom is, in other words, an engendering experience of the Church’s Christology, soteriology, and even pneuma25. See Sorokin, The Ways and Power of Love, 15–35; Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2/1:640–77; Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, 7:13–29. Barth and Balthasar note the difference between the divine glory (that is, the attractiveness in itself of God) and beauty (the earthly mode of communication of the divine glory). 26. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church, 413. Cf. Murphy and Dicharry, “Martyr,” 229–30, who reference Tacitus’ ingens multitudo from Annal. 15.44.4; Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 164.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 113 tology (inasmuch as the Spirit is the power of participatory witness), and our own attempts to analogously participate in these experiences through our own support of the martyrs, even today, as well as from our being lifted up by their example and even intercession, keeps our own theological insights linked to these engendering experiences.27 It is perhaps especially the soteriological dimension of Jesus’ work which the martyrs throw light upon, namely, the generativity of the love flowing out from the martyr. At the same time, martyrdom shows up the intrinsic link between Christology and soteriology, inasmuch as the martyr’s work of love characterizes Jesus the Christ himself, who is the first martyr of the Christian movement. Soteriology is not simply about Jesus’ work for his followers; it is about him, but it is about him because it is about them.

Individuals in Participation We have been considering the interplay between group experience and Christology’s and soteriology’s emergence. We have been focusing upon something like a Christological cuadrilla or txikiteo, to borrow the Spanish and Basque terms for close friendships and groups regularly meeting for social interaction. But groups are empty abstractions apart from the individuals making them up, even if the energy of a group is something more than any one individual’s contribution. Both Judaism and Christianity have generated a rich tradition of the individual. A God calling each of us by name is a highly personal God. If this personal, “individuating” dimension of the divine Ground reaches a maximal differentiation through the emergence of Jesus and his movement, as the biblical materials indicate, then it should be manifested in the history of personalities of that movement. And occasionally, it ought to become a matter of articulated analysis. Again, our wager is that significant Christological and soteriological insights emerge from such a history of Christian personalities, and occasional reflections emerging therefrom. Actually, we have already seen this individual principle at work in our little study of Christian friendship and martyrdom, for it was the quite personal work of an 27. See now Water, ed., The New Encyclopedia of Christian Martyrs. Pneumatology and martyrdom is an area deserving of much more study. The “Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas” (Carthage, 203), for example, introduces their martyrdom as the work of “the one power of the one Spirit all down the generations.” Occasionally the martyrologies render this pneumatological aspect explicit. See Chenu et al., eds., The Book of Christian Martyrs, 61 (Perpetua and Felicitas), and, for example, 41–42 (Polycarp) and 45–46, 49 (Martyrs of Lyons), etc.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 114 Augustine and an Aquinas, among other examples, that articulated something of the theological relevance of the group experiences under consideration. The tradition, whether Roman, Eastern, or Protestant, typically recognizes the phenomenon of the saint, the individual “holy” person who representatively expresses what the Christian life is all about. It is interesting, too, that the tradition speaks of the communion of saints, recognizing the social bond formed by all the saints in union with the divine Ground. So we may say that the recognition of the saint is one of the ways in which the recognition of the individual takes place within the tradition, while the tradition of the communion of saints helpfully balances this stress upon individuality with a corresponding stress upon social solidarity.28 Individuality without solidarity derails into narcissism, while solidarity without individuality derails into impersonal collectivism. If we translate this into Christological terms, we could say that Christology derails into a form of narcissism when it severs Jesus from his work on behalf of the alternative community of the reign of God, while the latter becomes another collectivistic empire when severed from the individual Jesus and his intimate relationships with all within the community (the “Christological principle” of the previous chapter).29 The tradition, we might note, does not typically speak of the communion of mystics. It speaks of the mystics, and naturally we can argue that mystics do in fact form a communion; but it is curious, and perhaps intellectually significant, that language about a communion of mystics is not typical. It is almost as if the “mystical” makes us nearly automatically think of the individual, not in the perhaps stereotypical sense of the odd person, removed from social interaction, but in the sense of someone who is highly self-reflective. That is, we think of the mystic as someone who holds up in a mirror, so to speak, the processes going on in the individual as she or he responds to the inflow of grace.30 If this be so, then the mystic becomes a particularly concentrated representative of what we mean by the individual in Christianity. In this particular case we are probably thinking of the mystics gifted with literary eloquence, that is, of the writing mystics, for it is in their literary works that we have come to recognize this mirrorizing of the Christian life as it takes place within the individual. These writing mystics are mirrors in a double sense: originally, of the 28. Brilliantly suggestive is Rahner, “On the Significance in Redemptive History of the Individual Member of the Church,” esp. 139–40. 29. See Wiser, Political Theory, 87–92, for some suggestive insights. 30. Rahner has developed this theme insightfully; see, for example, “Experience of Transcendence from the Standpoint of Catholic Dogmatics.”

Affection, Action, and Thought / 115 engendering experiences of grace occurring in the individual Christian; then of the mystic’s own more concentrated experience of the transformation brought by grace. Let us define the Christian mystic as someone radically transformed by the encounter with the divine Ground through participation in Jesus. The word radically is a cipher indicating that the experience of Jesus has altered the deepest roots and orientation of the Christian. Such people are appropriately named “mystics,” in the sense that they have participated deeply in the “mysteries” of the divine Ground and know through their participation that which only intimates may know. The words mystical and mystery are thus meaningfully, and likely etymologically, related. The so-called mystical phenomena, such as levitations, ecstasies, dark nights, ligatures, etc., if and when they occur, may be understood as manifestations of the gradual transformation of the entire bio-psycho-social reality of the Christian.31 As that transformation proceeds and is integrated, these phenomena typically cease. In other cases, they hardly occur at all, which we can take as an indication of an even greater level of integration of grace. People of a more “angelic” orientation may find these phenomena alienating, but if we think for a moment of the analogous “ligatures” we have experienced in our more intense moments of love with our human beloveds, perhaps the matter may not be so strange after all. Obviously not every Christian is a mystic, but the logic of our definition asks us to consider every Christian a potential mystic, that is, someone capable of a radical transformation of one’s being along Christian lines. In an analogous way, all humans are potential mystics, in the sense that they are quite capable of being radically transformed by their participation in the divine Ground, after the distinct manners in which they experience that. Beyond this, we might suggest further differentiations. For example, we have already spoken of the writing mystics, that is, those mystics with the further gift and responsibility of eloquently and appealingly expressing their mystical experience. Others may enjoy this gift of expression in other or additional ways, for example, orally, or through various forms of artistic expression. These are the paradigmatic and classical mystics, whom we find ourselves consulting and returning to, time and again. Some of these are also to be found among the prophetic mystics, that is, those charged with the gift and responsibility of articulating the social and political challenges of the mystical experience. Harvey Egan, for example, has described the prophets of the Jewish scriptures as 31. See Hügel, The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends, 2:3–61, and Egan, Christian Mysticism, 1–29, 303–59.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 116 “essentially mystics in action . . . sensitized . . . both to what God had done for his people in the past and to the contemporary religious, social, political, and economic scene.” Johann Metz has written, similarly, “that biblical-Christian mysticism is not really a mysticism of closed eyes, but an open-eyed mysticism that obligates us to perceive more acutely the suffering of others.”32 What is the relationship between a mystic, a saint, and a martyr? The answer to that question depends on definitions. If by saint we are following the typical usage of the churches, namely, the paradigmatic figure who has been profoundly and radically transformed by grace, then it would seem that mystic and saint are equivalent expressions. If by saint we mean the sometimes wider usage of the New Testament, for example, when Paul addresses the members of a congregation as “saints” (Rom 12:13, 15:25, possibly 1:7; cf. Acts 9:13), then we would suggest an equivalency between this wider usage and our notion of the potential mystic. Inasmuch as martyrs are quite radically transformed through their witness, even irrevocably so, they are mystics, that is, paradigmatic examples of the transforming power of cruciform agape. Some of these have even been gifted with the charism of expressing something of this in oral and/or written form, for example, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Perpetua, or, in our times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edith Stein, Oscar Romero, to name a few. Thus, all martyrs are mystics, but not all mystics are martyrs. Obviously not all mystics, saints, and martyrs receive an official, public recognition on the part of their respective social and ecclesial authorities, often through a process of canonization, liturgical commemoration, and so on. Whether they should receive such recognition is a further question, which might be fruitfully adjudicated by applying a stiff dose of prophetic-mystical critique to particular cases in question. The mystics, then, will serve as our representatives of the individual forms of participating in Jesus and his movement. They illuminate for us in a concentrated way the challenge to each of us who are attracted to Jesus, his work, and his movement. While always Christologically and soteriologically relevant, those gifted with theological expressivity particularly provide us with Christological and soteriological insights. At least, our participatory perspective would suggest this. Inasmuch as the mystic participates in Jesus, something of that strange familiarity occurs through which no absolute line of demarcation needs to be thought to exist between the one and the other. Were that the case, participation would be impossible. At the same time, participation presupposes a certain poten32. Egan, Christian Mysticism, 18–19; Metz, A Passion for God, 69; see 163.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 117 tially creative distance, within which the differences of each remain and through which a familiar sharing and even mutual challenging might occur. Chastened by Levinas and Irigaray, we also need to worry about the language of “mirroring,” which I employed above. As long as we recognize that mirrors reflect rather than perfectly repeat and that they also at times distort and even represent something of a frame rooted in the perspective of the mirrorer, then we can hope to see in the mystic, not a simple projection of himself or herself onto Jesus, but a reflection of the sameness-in-difference (neither the same, nor more of the same, but the same in the other) existing, in this case, between Jesus and the mystic. At this point, let us note how the mystics have offered us a superb differentiation of the participative dimensions of Christology and soteriology. By this I mean that they are something like an MRI of the engendering experience of Christian living and of theology itself, of the process through which Christological witness and insight emerges. Christology and soteriology are not precisely or primarily propositional abstractions or even dogmas but the fruit of engagement, of faith, hope, and love, of imagination, of mind, heart, and will, of the transformation wrought through purification of all the dimensions of the mystic, the dark nights of body and soul that slowly become the dawn of illumination, and then the insight through union with the Beloved and the contemplative action that is so powerful because so superbly noninvasive. The mystical genres of journals, diaries, letters, autobiographies, art (including music and dance), treatises with a very practical orientation, meditative prayer and liturgy, and committed apostolic action preserve as much as possible of the participative and engaged nature of the theological act and seem in fact to be cogenerated in the mystical experience itself. This is not to say that mystics may not also fall under the influence of the climate of opinion of the times. Nonetheless, much of the fresh, originary nature of the Christian experience still breaks through in these mystical writings.33 For the mystic, clarity of thought and action follows rather than precedes love of Jesus. “Let us try to enter with reverence and love into this clarity, rather than enter by clarity into his love,” wrote Cardinal Bérulle.34 We need to return to these mystics time and again in order to do our work with maximal ventilation, to recall Irigaray once more. Occasionally, theology itself in the professional sense becomes a form of mysticism, and we can sense the profound transformative power opened up to us in the works of the theologian 33. See the remarkable series of Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. 34. Bérulle, Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus, 2, 1 (115).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 118 in question. Not all theologians or religious philosophers are mystics, nor are all mystics theologians in the professional sense, but when they are, the engendering nature of it all comes through.

Common Participation All are called to participate with and in Jesus and his work. That conviction, reaching back to Christianity’s earliest days, finds its classic New Testament expression in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” The Jesus movement cannot be confined to individuals or select groups: Its intrinsic energy is inclusive of all. Among the many strategies spontaneously developing in furtherance of this inclusiveness, a minimum code of doctrine, ethics, and law, along with regularized patterns of liturgical and ritual practices, have typically served as the channels for ensuring at least an adequate level of participation in the Jesus movement on the part of as many as possible. Each of these has its precedents in the New Testament, reaching back to Jesus himself in some recognizable way. Later we will offer a few observations on the relationships among group, individual, and common participation in the Jesus movement. But already we can sense that the danger of the first two would be subtle forms of elitism and narcissism, were they to be severed from their connections with and obligations to our common forms of participation. Alternatively, the danger of the latter would be to whittle down the Christian life to a lowest common denominator, a minimalism, without the challenges and potential enrichments stemming from variously inspired groups and individuals. I am referring to a “minimum code” on common-sense grounds. Looking back at the first millennium of Christian history, the tendency seems to have been to avoid as much as possible too much doctrinal pinning down. The formative church councils, which declared in doctrinal form the minimal beliefs of the faith, typically met, for the Church’s health, only in what was thought to be “emergency situations.” There was the sense alive that in order to preserve as much unity as possible, positions should be narrowed down only when absolutely necessary. Nor will one find the conviction that a belief achieves its normal and consummate conclusion once it finds doctrinal formulation at some ecclesiastical council. There is a natural tendency, of course, for thinking people to attempt to

Affection, Action, and Thought / 119 think through their beliefs. This tendency is likely intensified once the faith tradition gains significant thinkers to its fold, as it did in its missionary thrust into the Greco-Roman world. Most important, there is something about Christianity’s inner nature itself that seems to lead in the direction of a thinking theology. God is a “Word,” in the terms of the Gospel of John. God desires to communicate with us, and the incarnate Jesus and his movement is that communication in its most intense form, Christians believe. Still, there is a difference between the thoughtful expression of the faith’s content and the official formulation of doctrines. The latter are in the service of the former, not the reverse. At the same time, the latter (doctrines) are more narrow in scope, deliberately so. Typically, they are devices meant to preserve, protect, and/or clarify some quite specific dimension of Christian belief. Consequently their literary genre tends toward the propositional and conceptual rather than the more experiential fullness of narrative and narrative-like genres. They are further removed from the engendering revelatory experiences. At the risk of being too provocative, I would argue for a strategy that seeks to minimize doctrine and to maximize contemplative participation in Jesus and his work. Maximizing doctrine seems to me to be a sign of weakness and insecurity. It is somewhat like building too many castles and forts. At a certain point the landscape is too restricted, and one starts living in fear and with a sense of being cramped. An attitude of minimizing doctrine (or better, of minimizing a code of doctrine, ethics, law, and liturgical practices) would respect the need for a minimum code and would even be quite thankful for its ability to foster unity and participation on the part of as many as possible. At the same time it would recognize that the Jesus movement honors the mystery of the divine Ground as well as the call to individuated participation made possible through our individually personal relationships with the Lord. The Jesus movement is not a new form of collectivism but a form of post-collectivist, individuated, interpersonal solidarity. At least that was one of our suggested conclusions in our previous chapter. As a result, there is always a transcendent depth and a dimension of individuated appropriation that exceeds doctrinal conceptualization, necessary as the latter may well be. Minimizing doctrine and maximizing contemplative participation leads to the role of prayer and liturgy. The latter entail their doctrinal dimensions, to be sure, but typically seek to integrate them into a more prayerful, indeed mystical, context. Patterns of prayer and liturgy can be viewed as ways in which the tradition seeks to maximize contemplative participation and to integrate the necessary role of thought and doctrine into a larger context. The traditional adage, “the rule of prayer is the rule of

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 120 faith,” gives expression to this matrix of prayer and worship as the fecund source of thoughtful faith. In terms of one of this book’s major themes, the adage expresses the role of spirituality, or formative participation, as the source of mind, heart, and will. Historically it is a matter of supreme importance that the formulation of the creedal statements by the early Church councils commonly took place in the context of worship and prayerful reading of the Scriptures. These were not pious acts added on to the councils, but expressions of the doxological context in which thoughtful faith emerges and in the light of which such faith is given a proper perspective. We will now offer some observations on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is accurately considered one creed or confession of faith, since the First Council of Constantinople (381) was deliberately supplementing the earlier creed of the Council of Nicaea (325) rather than issuing a new creed.35 This creed of Nicaea and Constantinople is a representative example of a minimum doctrinal code that has arguably played a centrally unifying role in the history of Christianity up to our own postmodern times. Christologically, it is the central creedal formulation, received as authoritative by the major expressions of Christianity (Eastern, Roman, and Protestant), albeit in varying ways. The other five of the seven ecumenical councils of the Church may be viewed as offering interpretive commentaries on the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, rather than as issuing new creeds in their own right. The Apostles’ Creed is briefer than that of Nicaea and Constantinople, and arguably more biblical and narrative-like in its form, but it was a Western development, and it never received the authoritative reception in both East and West accorded that of Nicaea and Constantinople. THE CREED OF NICAEA AND CONSTANTINOPLE

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the onlybegotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things were made, Who for us . . . and for our salvation came down from heaven, and became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man, And was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, And rose the third day according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father, And is coming again with glory to judge both living and 35. See Fries and Rahner, Unity of the Churches, 15–23.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 121 dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end; And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is jointly worshipped and jointly glorified, Who spoke through the prophets; In one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, We look for the resurrection of the dead, And the life of the world to come, Amen.36

First, note the central, Christological portion of the creed, beginning “And in one Lord Jesus Christ” and extending to “Whose kingdom shall have no end.” This portion is a huge bulge, suggesting the weighty centrality of its subject matter. Form and content seem to coincide. Note, too, that the center of this center is the soteriological confession of faith, thus suggesting the centrality of salvation in the work of Christ, along with its intrinsic connection with the Christological confession: “Who for us . . . and for our salvation.” Christology and soteriology, person (Jesus) and work (the reign of God) form an interconnected whole, which is central in Christian experience. We will likely never know with certainty why this portion moves immediately to Jesus’ passion after noting his human birth. Perhaps it is the influence of Paul, whose own creedal summary concentrates on the passion, death, and resurrection (1 Cor 15:3–4). Some have speculated that the death is the soteriological center of Jesus’ work on behalf of God’s reign, and so the synoptics’ stress on Jesus’ proclamation of that reign is certainly implied in this creed.37 It is even more than implied, for the Christological bulge ends with “Whose kingdom shall have no end.” There is no reason why this mention of the kingdom does not reflect back upon all of the Christological portion, indicating the intrinsic connection between Christ and his work for the new community of God’s reign. Second, note the technical language of the earlier Creed of Nicaea in the Christological portion: “begotten, not made” and “of one substance with the Father” (the famous homoousios). Here the reference is to what we today would call the divinity of Jesus (the creed refers to “the only-begotten Son of God”). It is not Jesus’ humanity that is of one substance with the Father or begotten rather than made. Jesus’ humanity is definitely “made” through his human birth in time. His humanity remains human and does not somehow change into God. It is his divinity, then, that is homoousios with the Father. These theological precisions are important and should be noted. The Fathers struggled hard to make them, and if we 36. As found in Davis, The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), 122. 37. For example, Balthasar, Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed, 51; Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 101–2.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 122 follow their guidance, we will avoid needless pseuodotheological perspiration. Of course, this only-begotten Son of God is one with Jesus the human being. This oneness, occurring at the incarnation, was not in dispute at Nicaea or Constantinople. What was in contention was the nature of the “divine sonship,” namely, was it truly the divinity enjoyed by God the Father, a divinity then that is not created in time? Or was it an inferior divinity of some kind? Behind these creedal precisions was the struggle over the fourthcentury heresy of Arius (Arianism), which was understood to teach a form of subordinationism with respect to Jesus’ divinity. Arius believed that there was a “something divine” about Jesus but that this “something” was, not the full, unoriginated divinity of God the Father, but a creation of the Father who only began to exist in time once he had been created. This subordinate being was not truly eternal like God the Father. To counter this, the Council of Nicaea limited the term “begotten” to the side of eternity, namely, Jesus’ divinity is indeed “begotten” from the Father, but this “being begotten” refers to an eternal happening within the Godhead, not to something happening only in historical existence. Humans are “made” in time; God is not made in time, but is eternal, and the source of time. Jesus’ divinity is then eternal, not made. It is “begotten” from the Father, for the Scriptures speak of the Father and the Son, but it is not made (in time).38 Third, then, the gist of this Nicene declaration is that what was at stake in whether it was truly God in the Godhead’s fullness or an inferior, divine-but-created “something” that entered into time “and became incarnate” was nothing less than humanity’s salvation. Whatever salvation may be, and the matter was not technically clarified by the creed, such can only come to us from God, not from something inferior. Evil, sin, and death, traditionally summed up under the notion of corruption, could only be conquered by the “incorruptible” and immortal Godhead. It was this Godhead that became incarnate for us. “He was humanized that we might be deified,” in Athanasius’ celebrated expression of the matter.39 Fourth, the Council of Constantinople, in receiving Nicaea’s creed, supplemented it with a significant revision of the third article on the Holy Spirit. Behind this was a growing body of reflection on the Spirit (called “pneumatology”), built up through the labors of Athanasius, the Cappadocians (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, likely Macrina 38. Arius does not precisely deny Jesus’ “divinity”; he attributes to Jesus an inferior divinity, a kind of created demiurgic status between full divinity and simple humanity. See Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, esp. 99–128. 39. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54 (107 n 79).

Affection, Action, and Thought / 123 the Younger), and some others in the context of the need to counter the so-called Macedonians and others who tended to teach a subordinationist pneumatology. Paul had written that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3), and Constantinople’s revision of Nicaea reads like a Pauline move motivated by the same energy that led Paul to make his own declaration. If Nicaea’s burden was to defend the insight that “Jesus is Lord” through its teaching of the full divinity of the Savior, then Constantinople’s burden was to complete this with the insight that such a confession can only happen “by the Holy Spirit.” Christology and pneumatology go together, insights into one generating corresponding insights into the other. The burden of the pneumatological revision is to confess the full divinity of the Spirit. But the creed does this in a somewhat conservative way, in keeping with the tendency to avoid imposing dogmatic novelties as much as possible. Thus, the Spirit is not named “God,” likely reflecting the Scriptures. At the same time, reflecting the same Scriptures, the work of the Spirit is the life-giving work of the Father and Son, and so the creed teaches an equivalence between the being and work of the Spirit and that of Father and Son. Jointly they are all worshiped and glorified. Like the Father and Son, the Spirit gives life; like the Son, the Spirit is Lord; like the Son, the Spirit enjoys a unique and eternal relation with the Father, simply confessed as one of “proceeding” from the Father, while the Son is begotten of the Father.40 From this book’s participatory perspective, the creed’s conjoining of Christology and pneumatology is immensely suggestive. We have noted throughout this book how the work of the Spirit is typically connected with our participation in the Godhead. The Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople follows this trend. Note, for example, how the incarnation is confessed as made possible “from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,” echoing Matthew 1:18 and Luke 1:35. Jesus’ participation as human in the Godhead takes place in the power of the Spirit. His mother’s participation in this event through her maternity likewise occurs through the Spirit. Note as well how the final section of the creed, that on the Church, follows immediately upon the work of the Spirit. A venerable tradition exists that views the creed as divided only into three sections, that of Father, Son, and Spirit. The third section of the creed, that of the Spirit, enfolded the Church, baptism, forgiveness of sins, and our resurrection into the heavenly reign of God within the mission of the Spirit. That is, the entire range 40. See Studer, Trinity and Incarnation, 156–58.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 124 of our participation in the Godhead as community (Church) and as individuals was embraced under the work of the Spirit. (It is interesting to note that Constantinople I had also amplified Nicaea’s teaching on the Church.) Again, we are back with the theme of participation, but not in the sense that the Spirit is reduced to our participation in the Godhead. Were that the case, we would be worshiping ourselves rather than God. Rather, the Spirit as the personal power of our participation in the Godhead suggests that the Godhead itself is a power of participation in its very own being. With this pneumatological supplement the early Church arrives at the basic Trinitarian understanding of its faith. Henceforth Christian monotheism will always be known as a Trinitarian monotheism. According to the “Tome of Constantinople,” a document known to us not in the lost original but in a synodical letter issued a year later, the Council of Constaninople accepted the language suggested by the Cappadocians of God as “one ousia (nature) and three hypostases” as a technical way of speaking of this triune God. Ousia was equivalently rendered as substantia, and hypostasis (in the singular) was equivalently rendered as persona in the Latin West, reflecting terminological distinctions worked out there through the efforts of Tertullian, Augustine, and others. Hence our contemporary language of referring to God as one divine nature in three persons.41 The modern notion of person as an “individualistic someone” almost inevitably leads people to think of the Trinity more along tritheistic lines as three separate gods, and once we are into tritheism we are into pseudotheological absurdities. The Cappadocians interpreted hypostasis as a way of articulating the one Godhead (the ousia) as thrice differentiated. It was the threefold manner in which the one Godhead existed, or the “onto-relations” of the Godhead.42 The images used by Gregory Nazianzus seem quite helpful at this point: “When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one Torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided Light.” Or: “the Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided in being divided; and there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other.” Gregory is asking us to think three dimensionally when we think of God, such is the seismic rethinking necessitated by the incarnation. God is the transcendent one, to be sure, but this transcendence is known as a loving Giver (Father), a beloved Gift (Son/ Word/ Wisdom), and a loving power of Giving (Spirit). Or we might fall back upon C. S. Lewis’ suggestion, namely, that our ex41. See ibid., 158, 97–98, 141–45, 161, 182–83. 42. See Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons, 157.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 125 perience of prayer lights up for us our Trinitarian experience of God. For when we pray, we lift our minds and hearts up to God, the transcendently loving Father. But we pray because we somehow know that God is addressable, someone with whom we may speak (the Son/ Word). But we engage in prayer only because we are first attracted to this God, somehow lovingly brought into the circle of participation of the triune Godhead (Spirit).43 Fifth, let us dwell for a while longer on the Christological and soteriological reasons for this Trinitarian form of monotheism. Admittedly I am offering an interpretation of the creed, but the central Christological bulge in the creed, along with the origins of the creed’s formulation within the history of the early Church’s struggle over the nature of Christ, lends itself to a Christological loading, so to speak. Notice how the first article, that of the Father, is not content to refer to God as Creator. The Creator is the Father, and when we think of Father we must think of the Son as well. The creed suggests, then, that in the light of the Son Jesus we come to a knowledge of God as more lovingly personal and intimate than that offered by knowledge of a Creator, which might well be more impersonal. So, the divine Ground is transcendent, to be sure, but a lovingly personal transcendence. Recall O’Collins’ helpful suggestion noted earlier that the Hebrew scriptures only refer to God as “Father” fifteen times; the usage is relatively rare, and typically in reference to the people of Israel rather than to an individual. Jesus’ usage as recorded in the New Testament seems to build on this Jewish background, to be sure, but the term is more a form of personal address than a title. Athanasius, accordingly, made much of this heightened sense of personalization evoked by the word when he wrote: “It would be more godly and true to signify God from the Son and call him Father, than to name God from his works alone and call him Unoriginate.”44 The third article of the Spirit also has its Christological loading, as we have already somewhat noted. Here let us further notice how the work of the Spirit is confessed as paralleling that of the Son. However, when we say “parallel,” we do not mean that the Spirit works independently of the

43. Gregory [of] Nazianzus, Orationes 40.41, 31.14, as rendered by Torrance, ibid., 112. (See The Theological Orations, 202.) “The being of God is to be the Giver of gift Given and Gift/ing, to express (Word) Love (Spirit),” writes Downey (Altogether Gift: A Trinitarian Spirituality, 65); Lewis, Mere Christianity, 142–43. 44. O’Collins, Christology, 118; Athanasius, Contra Arianos, 1.34, as rendered by Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons, 117. (See Orations against the Arians, Book 1, 96). Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 42–45, is also quite helpful here.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 126 Son, but rather we mean that what the Spirit does is to christify, so to speak, by bringing us into participation in the various mysteries of Christ. In this respect, then, note how our baptism and remission of sins parallels, by way of analogous participation in the Spirit, Jesus’ own coming among us and dying for our salvation; how our future resurrection looks back to his own resurrection and ascension; and how our expectation of the life to come looks back to his kingdom, which has no end.45 Sixth and last, let us attend momentarily to a guiding interpretation of our creed provided by the Council of Chalcedon (451). It offers us a declaration that reads like a summary of the various Christological heresies of the Church’s early period, along with corrective declarations. Perennial problems, such as the need to defend the full humanity of Jesus against various tendencies to curtail it, are notable in Chalcedon’s many declarations of Jesus’ complete humanity, “coessential with us . . . as to his humanity, being like us in every respect apart from sin.”46 Obviously the belief in Jesus’ full divinity somehow obscured, for some, the reality of his full humanity. One can sense how hard, within the Jewish context of monotheism or within a more learned context of Hellenistic philosophy, with their strictures against polytheism and idolatry, it would be to affirm Jesus’ humanity, once given the belief in his divinity. The three major forms of this tendency to curtail Jesus’ humanity, or even to deny it, were docetism (a form of gnosticism denying Jesus’ truly possessing a human body and nature); the teaching of Apollinaris that Jesus dwelled in a body but that his divine reality made it unnecessary for him to have a human, rational soul (Constantinople 381 had rejected this teaching as well); and monophysitism, which in the end seemed to transform Jesus’ two natures of divinity and humanity into the one divine nature. Eutyches was an influential abbot (archimandrite) in Constantinople who seems to have taught a form of monophysitism, and it was his teaching’s influence that precipitated the convening of Chalcedon. Again, behind this affirmation of Jesus’ full humanity was the same soteriological motive guiding the affirmation by Nicaea of his full divinity.47 Only God can save us (Nicaea’s burden), but only by fully assuming our humanity in all its dimensions can this truly occur (the Chalcedonian interpretive principle, summing up many earlier declarations to the same effect). The classic axiom in this regard was provided by Greg45. Besides Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 137–55, Ayo, The Creed as Symbol, has been suggestive. 46. I am using the text as given in Norris, ed., The Christological Controversy, 159. 47. Like Nicaea, Chalcedon affirms, again in the center of its declaration: “for our sake and the sake of our salvation.”

Affection, Action, and Thought / 127 ory Nazianzus: “What is not assumed is not healed; what is united with God is saved.”48 A further interpretive guide provided by Chalcedon, building on much theological and conciliar labor occurring since Nicaea, has to do with how to approach the union between Jesus’ humanity and divinity. Already the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople had spoken of “one Lord Jesus Christ.” Again, it is the soteriological pressure that exercises the determining influence here. If humanity in all its dimensions within the cosmos and history are not assumed, really and truly and completely assumed, then salvation seems to be compromised. The union, then, of humanity and divinity must be thorough. “The cleansing power had to penetrate [our human life] entirely,” wrote Gregory of Nyssa.49 To aid us in affirming this correctly (this is what “orthodox” means), Chalcedon offers us two nouns and four adverbs. Jesus’ humanity and divinity constitute “one person [prosopon] and one hypostasis.” Those are the nouns. The four adverbs help us understand the nouns. In this one prosopon and hypostasis, the two natures of divinity and humanity are “acknowledged to be unconfusedly, unalterably, undividedly, and inseparably” together. The first two adverbs indicate that each nature remains itself, not mutating into the other; the final two indicate that these natures, while remaining distinct, are not separate. “Distinct, but not separate” has become an abbreviation for this interpretive guide. The union, then, is one of distinction but nonseparation. The two nouns refer to this union as prosopic and hypostatic. We are not completely sure of the meaning to be given to these terms. Prosopon came to mean “person” etymologically and seems to evoke the notion that the union constitutes a personal “someone” rather than an impersonal “something.” We are in the sphere of personal relations here. God is personally relating to us in this union with the human Jesus. Hypostasis carries a more ontological note. We recall that the term had been used at Constantinople 381 to speak of the Trinitarian differentiations. Perhaps in the light of the hypostasis of the Trinitarian Son, this union is being understood as a uniquely real personal and even interpersonal reality. There are not two Sons (hypostases); so there are not two beings in the incarnation. The duality of natures is one personal being. John Henry Newman put it this way: “The Son of God became the Son a second time, though not a second Son, by 48. Gregory [of ] Nazianzus, Epistle 101.7.32, as found in Studer, Trinity and Incarnation, 195. See To Cledonius against Apollinaris (Epistle 101), Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Hardy, 218. 49. Gregory of Nyssa, An Address on Religious Instruction, 27, in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. Hardy, 304.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 128 becoming man.”50 This is about as far as we can go on the basis of the Chalcedonian declaration itself. If the declaration does not completely pin down its terms, then one might draw several possible conclusions. One might say that the council fathers were sloppy thinkers, or simply somewhat unlearned at their particular stage of development. Or, my view, one might argue that they left certain ambiguities for pious but deliberate reasons. Certainly they took over terms used in other literary and philosophical contexts; but those terms now become conduits for new insights into the mystery of the incarnation and must be given their core meaning by the declaration itself. At the same time, the mystery itself defeats our efforts to completely pin it down. This is one reason why both the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople and the declaration of Chalcedon end with the note that they are teaching what the prophets and Jesus taught. That is, they are urging us to return to Scripture and the engendering experience of faith and worship that the Scriptures open up to us. At the moment we recall the worshipful faith origins of our insights, reason is tempered by reverence. “We have no doubt, from the recorded miracles, that God underwent birth in human nature,” wrote Gregory of Nyssa. Then he added: “But how this happened we decline to investigate as a matter beyond the scope of reason.”51 It would seem that Chalcedon’s doctrinal reserve reflects this pious use of reason in the service of faith.

The Conspiracy of the Three Types of Participation The word conspiracy can evoke a range of possible meanings. Overridingly it suggests a spiration or breath-giving energy working in and along with things, persons, and events. So we can say that our three types of participation share an energy, and this sharing somehow reverberates in varying ways among the three. Sometimes that shared energy is more like a concelebration, suggesting harmony of action and likemindedness in thought and spirit. Sometimes, however, a certain friction or tension or even a kind of subversiveness operates among the three. At the extreme, one might even think of a revolt emerging, given a sufficient degree of repression of, or inattention to, one or another of the three forms of participation. So the Jesus movement is a complex, polylayered movement, knowing its concelebratory, tension-filled, friction-laden, subversive, and possibly revolutionary moments. And, of course, this movement is still in process. This opens us up to areas vastly beyond our competence, namely, the so50. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 187–216; Newman, “Sermon 5,” 1213. 51. Gregory of Nyssa, An Address on Religious Instruction, 11 (288).

Affection, Action, and Thought / 129 ciology and politics of religion and culture, particularly when we situate the Jesus movement within its own larger, sociopolitical context. The Jesus movement, for example, at first forms a movement within a larger constellation of movements within an overarching Roman-Western empire and civilization. Obviously this Jesus movement knows its frictionladen moments vis-à-vis the other movements and the empire itself, from which in a somewhat subversive way, as it turns out, it emerges after the first age of the martyrs as the established imperial civil religion. The various forms of tension, friction, subversiveness, and revolt undergo further mutations vis-à-vis the larger sociopolitical context as the Roman Empire gives way to the Holy (Christian) Roman Empire of premedieval and medieval times, and then to the modern secularized empires and states, and on now to our contemporary age of intercivilizational and interreligious contacts. As we focus upon a developing view of Jesus (Jesusology and Christology) and of his saving work (soteriology), our three types of participation need to be viewed in relationship to the larger, enfolding sociopolitical context. Each has an impact on the other, in often surprising and never fully calculable ways. Simultaneously the three types of participation within the Jesus movement itself in all their concrete forms and variations potentially affect one another. The conspiracy is a very thick one indeed. Such is the source of the engendering experiences in the community of being, history, and society from which insights into Jesus and his movement emerge. The reader might fruitfully at this point engage in a thought experiment. What would happen were the Jesus movement to cut itself off from the potential enrichment and challenges coming both from the larger sociopolitical context as well as from the various types of participation within its own movement? The movement would cease moving, likely, or it would live a ghetto existence of little relevance to anyone else. This would be, however, a betrayal of its own inclusive nature. Such stasis is a selfcontradiction. We need not worry too much about this, however, for the pressures of reality do not seem to allow the Jesus movement, or any movement, such seeming luxuries of stasis. The more likely possibilities would seem to be repression of possibilities, on the one hand, or their opening and flourishing on the other, or, most likely, some combination of both. Each of us knows, from his or her personal journey, this constellation of possibilities and the struggles involved, as each seeks personal flourishing in the context of history and society. Analogously, we are suggesting something similar for the Jesus movement, only now on a vastly wider social and historical scale. Our example of common participation, namely, the Creed of Nicaea and

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 130 Constantinople, and its role in fostering common adherence within the Jesus and now Christian movement, is a complex doctrinal form whose structure and content is to some extent shaped by earlier and wider sociocultural precedents. Most immediately one thinks of the Jerusalem Council noted in Acts 15:12–29, with its legislation regarding kosher foods and its teaching on the inclusion of the Gentiles within the movement. Further examples of minimal doctrinal codes are available in the scriptural inheritance as well (Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 12:3, 15:2–5; 1 Tm 2:5–6, 3:16; Dt 6:20–25, 26:4–9).52 Further afield, one might think of Plato’s Laws, with its articulation of a “minimum dogma” as a philosopher’s example of “the creation of a minimum set of dogmas that would leave the utmost liberty to individuals who might wish to embellish the bare structure with details of their own, while it would be sufficient as a religious bond for the political community.”53 Obviously, more complex influences from scriptural and Hellenistic philosophy also enter into the articulation of the Christian minimum dogma, as we have noted. The point, however, is simply to call attention once again to the creed’s larger religious and sociocultural context and representative lines of influence. As any reader will easily note, the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople requires a serious effort for its adequate comprehension even today. More than likely, the creed functioned as a guide for the Christian leadership, while others in the movement would be affected by such leadership and by artistic, architectural, legal, and liturgical expressions of the creed’s rather complex theology. This creed in turn provides a common guide for groups and individuals within the advancing Jesus movement, affecting these as they affect it. The friendship Christology developed through the experience of Christian friendship, for example, warms and personalizes the experience of Jesus the Christ confessed rather more abstractly in the creed, providing something of the fuller texture of the engendering experience out of which Christian beliefs emerge. The experience of personalism, known in Christian friendships, provides a context within which a divine incarnation receives greater intelligibility. The experience of Christian martyrdom, on the other hand, deromanticizes the experience of friendship, providing a context within which the costly, inclusive love lived and preached by Jesus and his martyred companions shines out. This in turn provides something of the engendering experience out of which the “for us and for our salvation” of the creed can be given greater intelligibility. At the same 52. Fries and Rahner, Unity of the Churches, 15. 53. Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle, 317, referring to Plato and to Spinoza’s Tractatus Politicus.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 131 time, gifted individuals (our mystics) with reflective, theological talent are able to articulate something of the theology implicit in experiences of friendship and martyrdom, and they are the ones guiding the growing Christian movement to articulate a common code through which greater numbers of Christians might be enabled to enter in analogous ways into the experience of Jesus and his movement. Another way to view the conspiration between the various forms of participation within the Jesus movement is to recall the Jesus Christ principle and the community principle noted at the conclusion of our second chapter. The Jesus Christ principle refers to the individuated form of relationship enabled through the mediation of Jesus the individual person, while the community principle refers to the new community of inclusive love etched out in Jesus’ teaching and work on behalf of the reign of God. The Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople looks to both dimensions: Its second article focuses upon the Jesus Christ principle; its third, pneumatological article focuses upon the new community. Experiences of Christian friendship and mysticism provide concrete examples of the principle of Christian individuation at work, while the selfless love of the martyrs poignantly concretizes the creed’s third article. The Creed is one way in which at least a minimal experience of the individuating and community dimensions of the Jesus movement might be facilitated, while the other forms of personal and group participation provide avenues of access to potentially maximized forms of participation in the Jesus experience. Such is what was meant by doctrinal minimalism and contemplative maximalism. Besides the forms of participation (individual, group, and common) representatively noted in our brief study of friendship, martyrdom, mysticism, liturgy, eucharist, and creed, there are failed forms of participation also needing attention. The phenomenon of heretics and schismatics would exemplify one extreme but hopefully not too common form of failed participation in the advancing Jesus movement. Heretics and schismatics were perceived to be threats to the community of the Jesus movement; hence a not uncommon punishment for recalcitrants was exile. Both Arius and Eutyches were exiled, for example.54 Beyond these, one might speculate on how many other individuals and groups were unable to share their talents with the advancing community on both practical and theoretical levels for various reasons. The slow advancement in the democratization of individuality; the overcoming of rigid class barriers, 54. Simonetti, “Arius-Arians-Arianism,” 77; Berardino, “Eutyches,” 305; Grossi, “Heresy-Heretic,” 376–77.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 132 along with the misery of slavery, tolerated even in Christian polities; the slow advancement in honoring women’s dignity; a growing intolerance in matters theological and practical, to name a few—all of these certainly curtailed a more fulsome flourishing of participation in the Jesus movement. Always a question to be asked is how much of the cramping of participation was due to the community itself of Christians, and how much to the obduracy of the other parties involved. Error and sin cut across all. Since we have concentrated on forms of participation, within the Jesus movement, that resulted in more positive Christological and soteriological gains, it will be well in the interests of balance to end this chapter with a more ambiguous example of common participation, namely, what Basil Studer refers to as the emergence of an “imperial Christology.” With the changed political situation of the Church in the fourth century, as it becomes increasingly the civil religion of the Roman Empire, we note a corresponding Christological development. “The Christ of the imperial Church was no longer the Christ of the martyrs’ Church; he was rather a Christus imperator, the Rex gloriae.”55 The standard example of this phenomenon is the rather triumphalistic theology worked out by Eusebius, the bishop of Palestinian Caesarea. “The preexistent Word . . . who holds a supreme dominion over this whole world,” writes Eusebius, is he “from whom and by whom our divinely favoured emperor, receiving as it were a transcript of the divine sovereignty, directs in imitation of God himself the administration of this world’s affairs.” The emperor is then the image on earth of the heavenly Logos (Christ), who participates in a privileged way in the Christ and whose participation promotes “a kind of exchange between Christological and imperial titles,” according to Studer. Christ, then, receives the imperial titles of rex universitatis (king of the universe) and pambasileus (king of all); and biblical titles such as Lord, Savior, King of the nations, and Creator are loaded with imperialistic resonances. Likewise, “our divinely favoured emperor partakes even in this present life” in the favors of the Word, deserving “the imperial title [because] he has formed his soul to royal virtues according to the standard of [the] celestial kingdom,” writes Eusebius. Studer particularly notes how the theme of salvation is contaminated in this way. The Roman concept of salus is transferred to Christ, and the welfare of the emperor and his empire becomes associated with the Christian experience of salvation. The cross of Christ, a sign of divine humility, becomes connected with the victorious cross of Constantine (“With this sign you shall conquer”), and the biblical theol55. Studer, Trinity and Incarnation, 129.

Affection, Action, and Thought / 133 ogy of Christian glory now becomes a somewhat more ambiguous imperialized form of glory. “Our emperor, secure in the armour of godliness, opposed to the numbers of the enemy the salutary and life giving sign [i.e., the cross] as at the same time a terror to the foe and a protection against every harm, and returned victorious at once over the enemy and the demons whom they served.”56 We will never know with certainty the practical consequences of this imperial Christology and soteriology. We note it here as a cautionary example of participation. Participation, after all, is of varying kinds and depths, and is likely marred by some error and not a little sin. It is sobering for the Christian to note these facts. If one needs some more sobering, it might be well to read Ramsay MacMullen’s depressing chapter on the development of “conversion by coercion,” setting in with the emergence of Christianity as the empire’s civil religion. MacMullen notes that “by A.D. 407 it could fairly be claimed that non-Christians were outlaws at last, and (it followed) that a state religion had at last emerged.”57 This is not a very promising engendering experience of Christology and soteriology, except perhaps by way of contrast.

For the supplement to chapter III (“III/For Further Study”), go to www.home.duq.edu/~thompsonu. Topics covered: 1. a consideration of the role of eschatology (speculation about time, especially the “end”) and geography (the refiguration of space) in the advancing Jesus movement; 2. further notes on the Christological creeds and creedal theologians (Alexandrines, Antiochenes, Logos-sarx and Logos-anthro¯pos as technical categories, a glance at the Western and Syriac traditions, and the “hypostatic union”); 3. the development of the theology of salvation.

56. Eusebius, “From a Speech for the Thirtieth Anniversary of Constantine’s Accession,” 1 (60), 5 (62), 9 (63). Studer, Trinity and Incarnation, 128–30, 130–32. Eusebius’ De laudibus Constantini is a key source for this material. See In Praise of Constantine: A Historical Study and New Translation of Eusebius’ Tricennial Orations. Also suggestive is Schmidt, “Politics and Christology: Historical Background.” 57. MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire, 101; see 86–101.

CHAPTER I V

Not Afraid to Be Partners C HALLENGES

AND

H OPES

We Christians call rulers happy . . . if, more than their earthly realm, they love that realm where they do not fear to have partners. — A U G U S T I N E

Soul, Self, Subject, or Heart? We have seen that much of the labor of Christology has been directed at the question of the makeup of Jesus’ identity as a person. In fact, this has been and remains a real battleground. If we swing too far in the direction of emphasizing Jesus’ work on behalf of his alternative community of inclusive love, we open ourselves to the charge of dissolving the personal uniqueness of Jesus into his social relations. Jesus’ identity and even Christology would be absorbed by soteriology. If we were to swing too far in the reverse direction, we would open ourselves to the danger of separating Christology from soteriology, Jesus from his companions and those on whose behalf he came to labor. Salvation would be absorbed by Christology. This can all seem rather arcane, until we recognize that similar perplexities addle us as well. Sometimes when we are acting, do we wonder whether we ourselves really are acting, or is there merely a stream of social forces at play? When we find ourselves caving in to social pressures, as if any remnant of independent selfhood simply collapses, do we not ask ourselves questions similar to the “arcane” questions we find in Christology and soteriology: What is a self, or a person, or the “I”? Do 134

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 135 we not sometimes wonder whether there is really any “I” at all, so compelling are the social forces over us? Or, reversely, do we find ourselves so absorbed by ourselves that we barely notice, let alone care about, those around us? At a minimum, questions about Jesus’ identity quickly entangle us in questions about our own identity. As we are snarled by the one, so we are snarled by the other. It would be unsurprising if our attitudes to identity in general did not rather thoroughly soak our attitudes toward Jesus’ identity. So let us assume a certain feedback between experiences and views of human identity in general on the one hand, and our experiences and views of Jesus’ identity on the other. The feedback can work both ways, naturally. The way we have experienced in a conscious manner Jesus’ selfhood can influence our own self-appraisal, for better or for worse. It may be that our received views of his person alternatively encourage us, scare us; challenge us, depress us; enrich us, or pauperize us; magnify us, or miniaturize us. To bring some order into this discussion, we will use the words of the subhead at the beginning of this chapter as a litany to guide us. Soul can serve as our symbol of the way the classical philosophers viewed human identity; self evokes the early and late modern conceptions; subject, roughly the postmodern. Heart reminds us of the Jewish and Christian experiences of identity. These characterizations are rough but workable. The boundaries between them are overlapping and leaky, as we shall see. Soul Heraclitus (fl. ca. 500 BC) was among the first to discover the soul among the ancient Greeks. “I inquired into myself,” he is famously remembered as saying. His soul-exploration led him to the conclusion that the soul opens up to a limitless horizon: “If you travel every path you will not find the limits of the soul, so deep is its account.” He also articulated the tight connection between soul and unlimited horizon: “The path up and down is one and the same.” In ascending toward the Unlimited (the path up), the soul discovers itself and its own capacity for attunement to the Unlimited (the path down). The soul or psyche is, as it were, simply a capacity for such attunement. As such it is on the move, “for it is not possible to step twice into the same river.” Heraclitus was intensely aware of the changing, dynamic nature of the psyche, apparently. But this did not lead him to a hopeless skepticism or relativism: “We step and do not step into the same river, we are and we are not.” In the midst of change, we experience as well certain constants. One perhaps is the psyche itself, as a

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 136 capacity for exploration; another, the unlimited Ground toward which psyche ascends. Another, perhaps the shared logos or intelligibility that psyche brings to all who are open to it: “follow what is common.” Perhaps we remember this last aphorism from an earlier chapter.1 Obviously, Plato and Aristotle carried this early articulation of the soul as a spiritual capacity of learning, exploring, self-awareness, and openness to others and the Ground in faith, hope, and love (recall our earlier comments on this in chapter I) further. Plato’s celebrated allegory of the cave in his seventh book of the Republic, while demanding several lines of interpretation, plausibly expresses the insight that the human being possesses a capacity to be attuned to the Transcendent, which is a luminous Light, bringing an ability to discriminate between mere unfounded opinions and true insights, although we never actually can leave the cave of the cosmos and polis in which we live. We are creatures of matter and spirit within the womb of time and history, cosmos and city. “Picture men dwelling in a sort of subterranean cavern with a long entrance open to the light on its entire width . . . consider the manner of release and healing . . . when one was freed . . . and compelled to stand up suddenly and turn his head around and walk and to lift up his head to the light . . . but you must . . . accustom yourselves to the observation of obscure things there.”2 Obviously, humans have always had souls, if the Greek thinkers are correct. What Heraclitus, Plato, and others did was to become aware of, and differentiate articulately in language symbols, the soul as the site of certain experiences and capacities. Noteworthy among these is the sense of the “person” as intelligently discriminating, at least potentially, and the link between this capacity and the divine Ground, along with a sense of common bondedness among humans, through sharing commonly in the Ground. Plato’s cave allegory indicates the sense of bondedness with matter and cosmos as well, although this feature, more characteristic of the earlier Greeks, was now “reduced” to a lower rank by the discovery of transcendence. This may also, unfortunately, have been connected with a cultural subordination of women, inasmuch as the feminine was analogously associated with the earth (the cave/womb).3 As we noted in an earlier chapter, it is the characteristic feature of humankind’s early myths to 1. Heraclitus, B 101, 45, 60, 91, 49a, 2 (113, 106, 103, 117, 101); for the source of this interpretation, see Voegelin, The World of the Polis, 292–313. 2. Plato, Republic 514a–520d (747–52). See Voegelin, Plato and Aristotle, 166–71, and Wiser, Political Theory, 78–79. Voegelin, “Reason: The Classic Experience,” is perhaps a nonpareil articulation of the matter greatly inspiring the presentation here. 3. See the challenging interpretation of Irigaray, “Plato’s Hystera,” 241–364.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 137 express the sense of consubstantiality among all the partners of the cosmos, whether divinity, world, persons, or societies, for all these were more or less compactly experienced and not yet differentiated with much clarity and distinction. With the discovery of the soul and its transcendent Ground, we might say that the world now becomes something like a background to the foregrounded psyche and divine Ground. It is unlikely that the early Christian writers and leaders would have followed the path of exploration they did regarding Jesus’ own identity without this history of soul exploration, just recounted, among the Greeks. Once the discovery of the soul occurs, there can be no simple turning back to an earlier period of human existence. But before we wade more fully into possible connections with Jesus, it will be convenient to move to our other symbols for human identity. Self Following political philosopher James Wiser, we are using “self” as a symbol for a distinct experience of personal identity associated with both early and late modernity. Early modernity moves in the direction of, first, emphasizing the originative power of the “I,” as in Renaissance and modern science’s ability to discover and codify the laws governing the physical cosmos itself; and, later, in the direction of splintering the human I’s connections with cosmos, society, and their divine Ground, rendering the self more and more autonomous. Wiser notes a number of representative thinkers expressive of this trend, beginning with the fifteenth-century Pico della Mirandola’s retelling of the Genesis creation story: Therefore [God] took up man, a work of indeterminate form; and placing him at the midpoint of the world, He spoke to him as follows: “We have given to thee, Adam, no final seat, no form of thy very own, no gift peculiarly thine, that thou mayest feel as thine own, have thine own, possess as thine own seat, the form, the gifts which thou shalt desire. A limited nature in other creatures is confined within the laws written down by Us. In conformity with thy free judgment, in whose hands I have placed thee, thou art confined by no bounds; and wilt fix limits of nature for thyself . . . Thou, like a judge appointed for being honorable, art the molder and maker of thyself; thou mayest sculpt thyself into whatever shape thou dost prefer.”4

4. Pico della Mirandola, On the Dignity of Man, 4–5; Wiser, Political Theory, 87–105, for this section on the autonomous self; McKnight, Sacralizing the Secular, 50–70.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 138 Plato and Aristotle were aware of human freedom too, and of the capacity of human beings to construct polities based upon the range of human virtues that these humans had either developed or failed to develop. But for both of them there was a human nature that prescribed proper limits and ends for human achievement. Humans were part of a larger “world” and found their fulfillment through an appropriate participation within that. Pico moves beyond this, seemingly recognizing only God as somehow “beyond” the human being, although one has the impression that he nearly has the human being claim a status of equality with God. Wiser thinks the following passage from John Stuart Mill in the nineteenth century is evocative of Pico’s sentiments, showing the connection between modern liberalism and Renaissance humanism: There is no reason that all human existence should be constructed on some one or small number of patterns. If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own way of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself but because it is his own mode.5

If there is not even one pattern limiting the human being, one wonders whether we have not really moved rather far in the direction of an autonomous self. Admittedly Mill is an extreme example, and arguments abound on how best to interpret his utilitarianism. It is not advocating a sheer relativism, inasmuch as useful living is still bound by the discovery of true utility and its dictates. In this sense, there is a residue of a higher law at work here, although the self ’s own interests are made the key for deciding these matters. This stress upon one’s own interests is a signature feature of modern liberalism, found varyingly in thinkers like John Locke (1632–1704), Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), and Adam Smith (1723–1790), albeit in varying proportions. Political liberalism in all its forms is characterized by the goal of protecting the interests of individuals, whether from the control of church or state (as in its early period), or from the control or interference of other factors (in its more recent period), such as ignorance, disease, and poverty, or even from any restraints at all to one’s calculated self-interests. In this latter respect, as Wiser notes, more current liberalism tends to favor the aid of government as an ally in promoting one’s goals. Wiser approvingly cites C. B. Macpherson’s characterization of the classical liberal view as one of “possessive individualism,” and concludes, “Whereas the classical ‘soul’ sought participa5. John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty,” 75; Wiser, Political Theory, 92.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 139 tion, the liberal ‘self ’ requires emancipation[;] . . . the politics of the liberal era is inevitably a politics of liberation.”6 The Romantic wing of early modernity was a hint, to some extent, that the human being remains mysteriously linked to mysteries within which we are rooted by deeply practical and affectionate ties. This could lead to an inner corrective to excessive emancipationist thinking, and in some cases it did. In other cases, it seems to have served as a recognition of feeling and emotion as something of a second-best, fallback position, when “pure reason” is not able to function. John Wesley, for example, represents the former option, it seems, even while giving a bit too much to the latter, not unlike others: I have sometimes been almost inclined to believe that the wisdom of God has, in most later ages, permitted the external evidence of Christianity to be more or less clogged and encumbered for this very end, that men (of reflection especially) might not altogether rest there, but be constrained to look into themselves also and attend to the light shining in their hearts.7

In our first chapter we noted the period approximately between 1890 and 1930 as demarcating a distinct thickening of modernity. Without abandoning the central aim of modernity, that of constructing a universal science of humanity on the basis of a liberated human reason, the late modern thinkers attended more fully to the individual and social obstacles to such a project. If the breakdown of the ordered and somewhat harmonious classical and medieval worlds brought with it the emergence of the early modern self, seeking its interests against the fetters of church and state, so the underside of early modernity brought a growing recognition of the forces in self and society continuing to inhibit the fuller emancipation of the self. Wiser features the work of Karl Marx and accordingly stresses the emergence of the social self, that is, Marx’s view that liberalism, while bringing a measure of emancipation for human beings, was too limited in its understanding and goals, overlooking the social, “species-nature” of humanity. Liberalism confused a certain stage of human development, namely, that of a limited emancipation of the middle 6. Wiser, Political Theory, 95–96 (referring to Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism, 3), 103. 7. Wesley, “A Plain Account of Genuine Christianity,” 3.5 (192). See Pelikan, “The Theology of the Heart,” in The Christian Tradition, 5:118–73; and Walsh, The Growth of the Liberal Soul, for a sympathetic critique; Walsh also notes a late Romantic strain in Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (189). For Romanticism in general, see Brinton, “Romanticism,” and Beiser, “Romanticism, German.”

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 140 class through capitalism, with the unchanging essence of human nature. Eventually as workers in the lower, proletarian classes would come to experience more intensely, and see the alienating effects of, a capitalistic economy, namely, the manner in which it reduces workers to objects and instruments, severed from the fruits of their efforts, increasingly alienated from themselves and from one another (the species), a growing recognition of the interests of all would eventually assert itself. The autonomous self would be replaced by the species-social self.8 Communism, for Marx, is “the complete return of man to himself as a social (i.e. human) being—a return become conscious and accomplished within the entire wealth of previous development.”9 We note Marx here only as an example, albeit a major one, of a deepening interest in the social dimensions of the self. The classic work of H. Stuart Hughes10 can be consulted for stimulating analyses of other early “sociologists,” such as Emil Durkheim in France and Max Weber in Germany. In each of them the social as a distinct category of thought was coming into view, raising questions about the interaction between social forces on the one hand, and individual human initiative and creativity on the other. Also festering, somewhat below the surface, was the issue of social and cultural conditioning of thought, namely, to what extent a science of humanity yielding universal and always valid truth was available. Weber’s appeal was in his refusal to resolve the tension between “fact” and “value,” science and thought, arguing for something of a dialectic between each. Subject Marx, at least in one of the major threads of his thought, stressed the economic forces of production as determinative of human thought and aspiration. Weber powerfully articulated the power of social and economic forces in shaping human thought, never really resolving the question of whether human values transcend such forces or simply mime them. To some extent already anticipated by the early modern Romantics, a number of other late moderns, like Freud and Jung, excavated what they called the unconscious, a somewhat rough term denoting the dark source of passional and emotional dimensions of the self, while some others, like Henri Bergson and William James, rehabilitated the vitalistic and intuitive di8. Wiser, Political Theory, 106–27. 9. Marx, “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,” 84. 10. Hughes, Consciousness and Society.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 141 mensions of the self.11 As the articulation of a science of the self became ever more illusive and shifting, a number of thinkers emerged who pursued a deliberate strategy of problematizing the self, that is, pointing out its shifting, unstable meaning. “Subject,” then, roughly evokes the work of postmodern thinkers and their cousins, the neo-historicists, like Foucault. I am using the symbol “subject,” somewhat influenced by Michel Foucault, for this deliberate strategy of problematizing identity. A subject is a shifting “something,” in the sense that the process of becoming a subject (subjectification) corresponds to the varying manners in which subjects become objects of power and knowledge (objectification). Objectification and subjectification correspond to one another. Foucault wrote of various modes of objectification in societies and their corresponding sciences concerned with medicine and caring for the insane, penal institutions, and sexual practices, proposing hypotheses about how, through these varying forms of objectification, “a human being turns him- or herself into a subject.” One quickly notes that the fields just mentioned attend to areas usually subject to severe repression on the part of society. For Foucault, these would likely yield insight into the repressed elements in a society and, by way of contrast, into the dominant power centers and values at work. Hence, much of Foucault’s work is charged, resistance oriented, and highly critical of “totalization procedures” through which persons are objectified and so limited in their ability to be subjects.12 However, near the end of his relatively short career, Foucault was turning his attention in a more positive direction toward techniques and procedures through which subjects could enhance their ability to be subjects.13 Foucault immediately reminds one of Nietzsche. Like the latter, the former practices “genealogy, that is, a form of history which can account for the constitution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects, etc., without having to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of history.” Evoking Nietzsche’s Gay Science, Foucault will write of truth as a sort of error needing to be corrected by the patient labor of genealogical history. For “truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in power . . . Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint . . . it induces regular effects of power

11. Ibid., 105–60. 12. Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 208, 213. 13. See Smart, Michel Foucault, 94–95, and Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, 331–90.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 142 . . . Each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth.” What are we then to do? “The problem is not changing people’s consciousnesses—or what’s in their heads—but the political, economic, institutional regime of the production of truth.”14 All of these sketches or models are rough, and nowhere more so than here in the postmodern/neo-historicist family of thought. Foucault will have to serve us as our representative, as long as we recognize this roughness of characterization. William Schroeder, in his very helpful evaluation of trends within Continental philosophy, suggests that both Derrida and Foucault view interpretations of the self “as a tool which the dominant order uses to control persons rather than tactics of emancipation.” We have seen enough above to make us appreciate the validity of this remark for Foucault, although we have also noted how the later Foucault was beginning to draw constructive lessons from his genealogies of the self. Schroeder characterizes Derrida’s view on the self as more negative: Derrida “challenges the efficacy and veracity of any form of selfconsciousness, suggesting that reflection is an entry into a mystifying hall of mirrors that proliferates images rather than producing a coherent self.” On the other hand, Derrida himself seems more positive: To deconstruct the subject does not mean to deny its existence. There are subjects, “operations” or “effects” (effet) of subjectivity. This is an incontrovertible fact. To acknowledge this does not mean, however, that the subject is what it says it is. The subject is not some meta-linguistic substance or identity, some pure cogito of self-presence; it is always inscribed in language. My work does not, therefore, destroy the subject; it simply tries to resituate it.15

Derrida would then likely regard the effects of subjectivity as the “traces,” that is, the language of a “language before language”; the forms of an undecidable formlessness within which “determinate forms are inscribed,” to use Caputo’s paraphrases. But if these traces “of the place ought not to be conceived as a surrounding transcendental condition that makes safe, but as a quasi-transcendental open-endedness that leaves us at a loss,” as Caputo also suggests, perhaps Schroeder’s assessment is not 14. Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” 79, referring to Nietzsche, The Gay Science, nos. 110, 265; Foucault, “Truth and Power,” 59, 72–73, 74. 15. Jacques Derrida in Kearney, Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers, 125. Caputo, thus, thinks that “Derrida’s efforts are always bent toward minimizing the effects of regularizing subjectivity and maximizing the possibilities of alterity, of inventing new forms of subjectivity” (The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, 345 n 19).

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 143 far off.16 Schroeder’s summary of recent trends in Continental philosophy as a whole regarding the self seems, then, accurately generous: “[It] is suspicious of the concept of the self and tries to comprehend human life without relying on the concept.”17 Heart As noted, we are using “heart” as a symbol for the Christian and, back of that, the Jewish experiences, which were formative of personal identity. The Hebrew leb (heart) is mostly rendered by the Greek kardia (heart) in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) as well as in the New Testament. Other key anthropological symbols, like dianoia and nous (both meaning, roughly, “mind”), occur as well, but kardia is the overwhelming favorite. In the New Testament, we find dianoia 12 times; nous, 24 times; kardia, some 150 times. The Septuagint’s breakdown seems to correspond, with kardia occurring around 700 times; dianoia, around 45; and nous, 11 times. There is some interpenetration of influence between these words, it seems. For example, as E. C. Blackman suggests, “Hebraic influence has made itself felt in Eph. 2.3, ‘desires . . . of the mind’ (dianoia), and in Col. 2.18, ‘mind (nous) of his flesh.’ ” On the other hand, kardia carries a cognitive sense, like dianoia and nous. For example, “The Lord opened her [Lydia’s] heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul” (Acts 16:14). Blackman summarizes in this way: “in the New Testament as in the Old Testament the heart is the seat of the reason and will (cf. Mark 7.21) as well as of the emotions; that is, the New Testament follows Old Testament, both in the specific senses of the term ‘heart’ and in the general meaning of ‘inner man’ (cf. 1 Pet 3.4).”18 As we proceed, let the reader be aware of the leaky borders between the models of identity sketched here. We are not interested in simplistic and reductionistic characterizations of positions, like, for example, arguing that the Greeks were intellectualists and the Jews and Christians emotionalists, the former people of the mind, the latter, people of the will. A careful attention to the role of eros in Plato, for example, along with his very experiential and practical rooting of knowledge in the virtues, ought to be enough to make one severely hesitate when meeting the kinds of simplistic stereotypes that one still unfortunately encounters in alleged 16. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, 57, 58. 17. Schroeder, “Afterword,” 621, 622. 18. Blackman, “Mind, Heart,” 144–46.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 144 constrasts between Greek thinkers and Jewish and Christian believers. The very word developed by the Greek thinkers, philosopher, which means lover of wisdom, after all, and not just knower of it, ought to be enough of a cautionary hint. At most, we are suggesting emphases and tendencies of direction, the latter sometimes remaining unpursued to their furthest implications. The emphasis we mean to highlight in the Jewish and Christian formative experiences is that of the articulate differentiation of the “divine descent” in intimacy with human beings. “Heart” seems an apt symbol for this stress upon intimacy. Here the reader might appropriately recall our section on the experience of Christian friendship, in which the incarnation leads Thomas Aquinas to write of friendship now becoming possible and even real between God and human beings. We are now “one from two,” to recall Aquinas’ language. Indeed, Aquinas is led, almost counterintuitively, to posit a “certain” equality (or mutuality) available in the post-incarnation era. The commandment of loving God with all our hearts, and souls, and minds (Dt 6:5; Mt 22:37) is understood, especially in the Johannine community, to be based upon something new that comes with the incarnation: “we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you may have fellowship [koino¯ nia] with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Jn 1:3). This fellowship, which John also refers to as friendship (Jn 15:15), helps the Johannine community take the unprecedented step of declaring, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8, 16). So unprecedented was this, that only in this one place in all of Scripture do we find such a declaration. Of course, looking back from the vantage point of 1 John 4, along with the considerable labors of the experiences and reflections we have sampled in the preceding chapters, we can sense that such a declaration seems fittingly to be the teleological direction, the moving curve or plot line, of revelation itself. And what is the experiential breakthrough enabling this articulation of revelation’s directional tendency? Incarnation and Trinity, apparently: By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us (1 Jn 4:13–16).

Let us, then, entertain the proposition that the considerable labor invested in coming to terms with the identity of Jesus simply reflects the inner dynamics of the heart itself, that is, the opening up of a space in

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 145 which divine intimacy’s mutuality and companionship with us may develop, yet without lapsing into a voyeurism that violates the subjectivities involved. We probably more properly should speak of mutuality rather than equality between God and created persons. However, in a qualified sense, God may bring about something of an equality in intimacy, but it would need to come from the divine side. The philosophical and theological endeavors invested in the articulation of this space are a part of, but only a part of, this inner dynamic. The inner dynamic is most of all an experience of mutuality, between God, humanity, and all creatures in some derivative sense, with all its cognitive, affective, and practical dimensions. The personal identity of Jesus the Christ is such that it is this “space.” Whatever it is that is required for the constitution of such a “space,” that itself is what the symbol of Jesus’ “personal identity,” his “hypostatic union,” means. This view of Jesus’ identity shares much with the Classical notion of the soul. In actual fact, the patristic, conciliar, and medieval articulations, only some of the more representative of which we have sketched in the preceding chapter, were made possible through the guidance of the Classical tradition, although the result was a complex and constant reworking of that tradition. With the Classical inheritance, the overriding context is one of participation in the divine Ground of reality. Where this overriding context is lost from view, the basis of any meaningful appropriation of Jesus’ human and divine reality is rendered impossible and absurd. The “soul” demarcates the human being as a site of conscious participation in that Ground and, through that Ground, a site constituted by a conscious bond with all other humans and creatures. The chief feature of the soul is its consciousness, its self-awareness, rooted in its openness to the Ground and to others. Jesus’ identity obviously involves a human soul in this Classical sense, at a minimum, if we are to heed the scriptural evidence and avoid Apollinarianism, monothelitism, and monoenergism. The early and late modern conceptions of the self, despite their ambiguity and problematic nature, have also made their notable contributions, minimally by positing some critical challenges to the Classical and Christian views, but more maximally by plausibly differentiating, albeit somewhat one-sidedly, important aspects of the individual and social dimensions of human identity. Early modernity’s autonomous self, especially as finding expression in liberalism’s articulation and defense of human rights, has its truth. Authentic human identity does imply a certain measure of autonomy, at least in the sense of the sanctity of the human conscience, and of its freedom. No freedom, no responsibility. No

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 146 freedom, no individuality. No freedom, no imagination and creativity. No freedom, no love, in the sense of freely offered and freely returned love. While all of this was plausibly implied and partially differentiated in the Classical and founding Jewish-Christian experiences, it was only very unevenly realized as a reality enjoyed by all, not simply the largely male elite and privileged. The struggle in modern scholarship to recognize and in some respects more fully differentiate the full humanity of Jesus, his own freedom and struggle, along with his recognition of the sanctity of the individuality and freedom of others in the new reign of God, is at least in part something deserving of our thanks. Likewise, Romanticism’s attentiveness to the realm of affectivity is also an important sensitizer for Christology, challenging us to appropriate the fuller, affective dimensions implied in the Christian symbol of the heart. Late modernity’s recovery of the social dimensions of the self seems, in part, a needed corrective to the tendency of the autonomous self to slide into the isolated self, whose self-interests run roughshod over others’ interests. Our social connections, whether the circles of our families and relatives, or our religious societies (churches, synagogues, mosques, communities of all kinds), or our sociopolitical social groupings, all have the capacity to stretch the self, to issue appeals of varying sorts. In this souland self-stretching, the person discovers elements of his or her own intrinsic bondedness with others in the community of reality. Our very appropriation of the humanity of Jesus is correspondingly stretched. The autonomously human Jesus is not an isolated human Jesus, although at times it seems as if that has been an all-too-common tendency in Christological thought and even in Jesus studies generally. The recovery of Jesus’ intimate connection with others, his own efforts on their behalf, and their own formative influence upon him, is in part something owed to the efforts of late modernity. What are we to make of postmodernity’s and neo-historicism’s subject? Painting broadly, we believe it has its truth, too. Perhaps a common thread uniting all, or nearly all, within this family of thought is the resistance to “totalization procedures” (Foucault), which by way of thought and action “jam” the subject, inhibiting its freedom from constraint. Hence the enormous suspicion of and resistance to totalizing systems of thought, whether modern, late modern, Jewish and Christian, or Greek Classical, which might claim to have in possession the word providing the full presence of the truth of humanity. Hence the deconstruction and interruption and breaching of such systems, by emphasizing the shifting bodily and sociohistorical sites of such perspectives. This stress upon the body is a second common feature of this trend, and naturally this leads to

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 147 a very critical resistance to early modernity’s more abstract systems of thought and some trends within Classical thought, especially that trend which isolates a “soul” apart from a body. A third common trend is the break from conceptions of historical linearity, that is, the notion that history moves along a simple progressive line. Rather, the constantly shifting sociohistorical sites and interests of perspectives breeds a nonlinear, regressive-progressive, simultaneity of viewpoints, with no clear telos or goal. Fourth, a more or less common trend is the consequent stress upon the linguistic, narrative nature of existence, given the embodied and socially located makeup of human action. Societies speak many languages and tell many stories in all their concrete richness of detail, working the stories out as they go along. However much societies may aspire to universalize and eternalize their stories, they remain embodied, localized, and caught within a web that people cannot totally transcend. Parenthetically, these four trends seem in many ways to be continuations of late modernity’s rediscovery of the social, the bodily passional elements of human beings, and of the social sites and interests conditioning human thought and action. It is in the disavowal of any telos that this family of thought moves beyond late modernity, or at least draws out the possibly radical option toward historical relativism that always lurked at least as a possibility within modernity, early and late. The heart anthropology of early Judaism and Christianity shares much affinity with the stress upon the bodily nature of the human being, the embodied soul, as well as the stress upon the radically historical nature of things human. Jesus’ full humanity, bodily and spiritual, along with the bodily and spiritual nature of the new community of love, nicely coheres with this. Even the miracle tradition, with its bodiliness, which can seem so distasteful to more spiritual types, in many respects nicely coheres with this. Such sensitivity to bodiliness also brings something of a new lens on the issue of the bodily resurrection of Jesus and of us all. However, in the Jewish and Christian traditions, it is the openness to the divine Ground, rooted in the Ground’s openness to and sharing with us, that transforms time into history and keeps the historical process open, enabling it to avoid being jammed. The divine Ground breaches and interrupts our totalizing jamming. This is basically what the “burning heart” narrative from Luke 24 (especially verse 32), noted at this book’s beginning, is all about. The Emmaus journeyers thought they possessed the “total” view of things. Yet this cold heart becomes intensely warm! The divine Ground is the reality enabling us to trust that there is a way to avoid totalization without falling into total relativism and the dissolution of personal identity. But accepting this requires that reason itself

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 148 remain open to and recognize its rooting in a larger matrix of faith and trust. This larger matrix is the originary experience, if you will, whose shape is narrative, that is, a struggling fidelity to meaning and truth within the concrete, social context of the ascent to and descent from the divine Ground, with all its dramatic vicissitudes. Reason itself needs to be breached by this narrative kind of faith, and to the extent that postmodernity and neo-historicism cannot do this, perhaps they still remain more “modern” than they think. Christianity, then, confesses a telos in history, but it does so in faith and humility and modesty. At the same time, no claim is being made that Christianity has not itself jammed its faith and reason, by much totalization itself. However, what the traditions other than the heart tradition of Judaism and Christianity did not or will not entertain, although at times some within them have come very close, was the extent of the divine Ground’s descent in intimacy and friendship. The Jewish and Christian experiences appeal to us to widen the Classical notion of the soul and those notions in agreement with it, and think of a more complex, or of a special case of, such a soul site, involving not only an articulated openness to the Ground but the Ground’s correspondingly articulate, intimate communication with us. The Greek experiences differentiated the soul’s openness but left the Ground’s descent more or less dim and obscure. Think of the “ladder of ascent” of Socrates’ Diotima in the Symposium: “Starting from individual beauties, the quest for the universal beauty must find him ever mounting the heavenly ladder, stepping from rung to rung.”19 It is not that the divine Ground was not in actual fact in some kind of “descent” or actual communication with the Greek soul. Surely this must have been so, in some way, for Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others know of and even speak of participating in the Ground, and openness to the Ground is in any event a form of participation therein. In the parable of the cave, the divine Light is penetrating the cave to a certain extent, and this light in some way draws one toward it. Still, the Ground’s descent remained rather compactly articulated at best. It is our striving toward the Ground rather than the Ground’s “striving” toward us that is the focus. Hence the use of the “ladder” metaphor. It is the “descent” that articulately burst out in the Jewish and especially the Christian experiences and that the New Testament and the early Church were seeking to articulate in response to the mystery of the incarnation. “For in him [i.e., Christ] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority” (Col 2:9–10). The Greek 19. Plato, Symposium 211c (562–63). Here Plato speaks of being called “the friend of God” (212a).

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 149 articulation of the soul as a site of openness to the pull of the divine Ground, or at least an equivalent articulation, remains the irreplaceable context within which the revelatory traditions of Judaism and Christianity are not rendered utterly absurd or contradictory to what it is to be human. Yet the experiences of the revelatory traditions of the Hebrews and Christians appeal to us to widen our view of the soul even further. The identity of Jesus the Christ, we propose, is a special case of the coalescence of human ascent to the divine Ground and the Ground’s corresponding descent in intimacy. This ascent-descent pattern is always at work in human identity, we believe, whether recognized or not, but not always at work in the same manner. The divine descent does not negate the human ascent but grounds it. In the case of Jesus called the Christ we recognizably encounter this intimate descent in its personal uniqueness. The Thou of the divine Ground meets us in Jesus the Christ, and so the divine Ground becomes articulate and recognizable as a divinely personal Gift within history. There can be only one incarnation, it seems, if the divine Ground is knowingly to be encountered as a uniquely personal Thou. Jesus the Christ becomes the uniquely personal site of encounter with the divinely personal Thou. Multiple incarnations would end up depersonalizing the divine Thou, rendering it impossible for the divine Ground to do what we think we can do: that is, enter into personal, individuated relationships. On the contrary, it is the personal Thouness of God that grounds personal relationships in the first place, albeit on a vast range of levels (intimations, traces, anticipations, hints, signs, words from others, “in person,” and so on). As a result of the incarnation, we should say that the divine Ground grounds others in personal mutuality through the encounter with Jesus the Christ. In this experience of mutuality, human beings discover their own deepest self-identity as well. Echoing Paul above in Colossians 2:10, we come to share in the divine fullness through its pleromatic presence in Jesus Christ. Jesus the Christ is in some true sense an autonomous self, but not an isolated one, for through the divine Ground we are social and even cosmic in some way, relatively autonomous but not isolated. This expression of the mystery is at best a feeble approximation, needing always to return to the revelatory engendering experiences it seeks to serve. Admittedly, its stress upon the differentiation of the uniquely personal in revelation owes not a little to early modernity’s and liberalism’s greater differentiation of human freedom and individuation. Some will think I have done nothing other than illegitimately project onto the deity, and then onto the divine and human Jesus the Christ, the characteristics of personal individuation discovered by modernity. However, I believe these were but further implications made discoverable by the personal

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 150 God revealed in Judaism and Christianity.20 At the same time, this view seeks to be guided by the New Testament and the councils and does not intend to replace their teaching, but strives to be an adequately equivalent expression in our own contemporary context. We have sought to return to the engendering Christian experience of Jesus the Christ. The conciliar teachings remain normative, given the guidance of the Spirit from which they originate. As Karl Rahner suggested, we can sense the “inner correspondence and equivalence” between the conciliar teachings and “the original experience of Jesus”; so too, we hope, we can sense through our faith experience the inner correspondence and equivalence between the proposal set forth here and the former.21 My impression is that the Christological confessions were particularly fine on differentiating the depths of the divine descent in Jesus, but somewhat compact and undifferentiated in linking this with the larger openness to and participation in the divine Ground experienced by us all in varying ways.

Society, Community, and Institution On the Christian view as proposed here, then, we are living in the incarnational epoch. At least part of the meaning of the epoch-creating “fullness of time” in which “God sent his Son” confessed by Paul (Gal 4:4), we suggest, is the emergence of mutual, personal relationship with the divine Thou through Jesus the Christ. In this relationship, we are enabled and challenged to discover and own our own personal identity. It is intriguing, too, in this regard, how Paul in describing this fullness of time notes the coalescence of human ascent and divine descent: “Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God . . .” (Gal 4:8). We are reminded of 1 Corinthians 8:3: “but anyone who loves God is known by him.” Just as a lot of the labor of Christology has been concerned with the personal, so has much of its labor been directed at the social. Jesus is never without his mission on behalf of the new reign of God, the alternative community of inclusive love. In fact, because every individual may discover his or her deepest individuality through the individual encounter with the individual Jesus Christ, and because Jesus Christ’s own deepest 20. Vattimo, After Christianity, from a Heideggerian and postmodern viewpoint, and Z˘ iz˘ek, The Fragile Absolute, or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? from a Neo-Marxist and Lacanian viewpoint, have noted much of this as well, albeit with a considerable thinning of transcendence. 21. Rahner, “Christology Today?” 35. See Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 215, for some ideas that have stimulated and helped my proposal here.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 151 identity involves personal relationships, the social dimension is itself an intrinsic dimension of personal identity on the Christian view. This is why we have chosen as our chapter title the phrase “not afraid to be partners,” inspired by an insight of Saint Augustine.22 True, we have, with qualifications, accepted modernity’s idiom of an autonomous self as having its appropriateness. We hope the reader sensed that we meant a relatively autonomous self, enjoying a true identity, with a unique conscience, freedom, and sacred dignity. We did not mean an isolated self. A key theme of this study is that of our partnership with Jesus, and his with us. The mutuality between these partners is the space enabling participation to occur, and through the quality of participation on all sorts of levels the new community of Jesus advances, or regresses, and Christological and soteriological action, affection, and insight is forthcoming. We have tried to illustrate this mutuality through the varying forms of participation sketched in this book, beginning with Jesus himself, along with the earliest circles of partners with Jesus who formed the advancing Jesus movement, on through to the sampling of group, individual, and common forms of participation sketched up to this point. In this final chapter, we propose to consider, first, some representative challenges about the nature of the social for our study, along with something of the corresponding challenges coming to the social from Jesus and his movement. Our accent is upon the word representative. This goal might be too adventurous, although it is my hope. This book is being written by a U.S. American, Roman Catholic, influenced by his Basque ancestry, and aspiring to as generous an ecumenical and cross-cultural openness as possible. I am within the middle space of an ongoing partnership already existing, and I make no claims to a totalizing system. My personal attraction is, as noted, toward contemplative maximalism and doctrinal minimalism. The minimalism extends not simply to ecclesial doctrines, but perhaps more especially to the tendency of scholars to elevate their own proposals into doctrines. What is good for the ecclesial goose is good for the scholarly gander, too. Representative Acutely Social Tensions We will begin with some basic distinctions between social fields, societies, community, and institution. All of these form important aspects of 22. Augustine, City of God 5.24 (Knowles, ed., 220) (“non timent habere consortes” [CCSL, 47:160]). Augustine says, “not afraid to have partners”; Bettenson in Knowles translates it: “they do not fear to share”; we have slightly changed it, for our theme, to “not afraid to be partners.”

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 152 what we are calling the “social,” although no claim is being made that these aspects are exhaustive. They represent more a minimalist understanding. Here I am again inspired by Eric Voegelin’s political proposals, beginning with the simple observation that we should not hypostatize the social, as if “society is a subject endowed with a consciousness that could interpret itself through symbols.” We do sometimes speak in this way, namely, we say that society (including churches as societies) acts, society speaks, or proclaims, or demands; or we speak of a social or collective consciousness, or of a social identity, and so on. These are, again following Voegelin, “abbreviated expressions of the process by which concrete persons create a social field, i.e., a field in which their experiences of order are understood by other concrete individuals who accept them as their own and allow them to inform their motives and habits.” These social fields “are called societies, [when] their size and relative stability in time allow us to identify them.” At the same time, Voegelin was an acutely historical thinker, and he consequently stressed the process-nature of these social fields. He said of them that because they “are processes rather than objects given once and for all, they manifest not only the process characteristics of their founding and preservation but also those of resistance and mutation, of tradition and differentiating development, of ossification and revolt, and so on, up to and including their final disintegration and disappearance.”23 We have already illustrated something of what Voegelin is suggesting in our previous chapters. The Jesus movement began as a social field, exhibiting many or most of the process characteristics just mentioned (founding, preservation, resistance to other social fields and societies, ossification in the imperial Christology). This social field went on to become, and has remained, a recognizable society, given its relative size and stability. Actually, it has gone on to become multiple societies, stemming from multiple social fields making it up, and these social fields have existed from the beginning (for example, the various communities producing and preserving the New Testament writings). In this regard, Voegelin offers a crucial insight that has long been recognized in Classical natural law treatments of civil society but has not been so easily recognized by all views of civil and ecclesial society. He puts it provocatively: “The social fields of concrete consciousness are not identical to organized societies, even though the ideologists of power like to assume that social organization exhausts all political reality.” Voegelin recognizes that every organized society has a power center, so to speak, 23. Voegelin, Anamnesis, 400.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 153 that is, a sustaining social field of consciousness. He refers to the civil theology of a civil society, for example, as one such sustaining social field. We could refer to its equivalent in ecclesial social fields, namely, the minimum ritual, doctrine, and law sustaining them. Voegelin’s point is that the “sustaining field is not the only field in the society; many of these other fields extend far beyond the sphere of its power.” What is the reason for this? Voegelin’s answer is human freedom (“concrete consciousness’s realm of freedom”).24 Parenthetically, Voegelin’s approach to the social and political bears some resemblance to the postmodern stress upon the fluid nature of the borders of societies and cultures, along with its awareness of the rich diversity of the social field (the “other” and the “different,” in typically postmodern discourse). Unlike many postmodern thinkers, however, Voegelin has a strong notion of the human person and her/his freedom, stemming from the person’s participation in the divine Ground. The bondedness with the divine Ground brings about a shared bond between humans and certain constants among all humans (human “nature”), not the least of which is the human’s transcendent destiny. Voegelin, then, shares something of the Classical and modern stress upon the constant or universal, and much of late modernity’s attunement to human and social pathology. But unlike these latter, he recognizes that reason is rooted in faith (in his wide sense), which in turn is rooted in the historical, engendering experiences of human existence. These are some of the reasons for my attraction to his philosophical guidance here.25 Here might be the appropriate place to say something about two further notions, namely, community and institution. These further thicken social fields and societies, deepening the potential for social richness as well as chaotic turbulence. The institutional dimension of the social, so far as we know, has been a constant in human affairs, and its articulate recognition by the political theorists (not the least among whom would be Plato and Aristotle) has generated a rich tradition of thought. Partly stemming from the embodied nature of human persons, partly from their social nature, the institutional denotes the concrete structures through which societies organize themselves, that is, the way they articulate themselves concretely for action within society and history through representatives. One might think of democratic, aristocratic, monarchical polities, or of mixed polities, along with their even more concrete minimum dogmas, 24. Ibid., 400–401. 25. In other words, our appropriation of Voegelin in this context parallels our treatment of the human person in the first section. For postmodern views of the social and cultural, see Tanner, Theories of Culture.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 154 laws, and rituals, as expressions of the institutional. If one adds to these types their corresponding corrupt forms, as the Classical thinkers did, one begins to grasp why we return to these Classical thinkers time and again for our organizational bearings. Ecclesial polities sometimes tend to resist fitting into these patterns, arguing for a sacred, special origination. But at least there are basic analogies between all known forms of religious structure and these types, and it would seem that incarnational churches especially should recognize these very human mediations of revelation as typical.26 Returning to the civil realm, we should also think of further complexities, namely, different kinds of polities with various ethnic features that have become nation-states, or that have turned into empires or have remained empires, or the intriguing phenomenon of stateless nations (like the Basque Country and Catalonia, in Spain).27 The term community is more complex and contentious. “What is community?” is one of the great political questions, as well as one of the great human and religious questions. On one level, we cannot simply ignore a certain overlap between the institutional and community. We are embodied and social creatures, the latter partly because of the former. Where is the community among humans that does not find some form of concrete configuration and that is not shaped in a multitude of ways by subtle and not so subtle experiences of such configuration? Jesus was shaped by the traditional Jewish forms of family structure. With his family, he lived out many of the traditional practices of the Jewish faith, namely, prayer, temple worship, celebrating the holidays, and so on. He plausibly developed his acute social sensitivity partly by being brought together with others in social activities. We also earlier noted John Meier’s observation that he was quite adept at social organization, with respect to his own disciples and their work for the reign of God. So much seems a matter of common sense. On another level, however, we realize that institutional structures can become empty shells, and that they have a way of doing this rather regularly. The history of political and ecclesial institutions is littered with the debris of such empty shells. In this respect, it may be sufficient to cite Mark’s Jesus: “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is Lord even of the sabbath” (Mk 2:27–28).28 Consequently, community evokes a “something” that, while 26. For example, by way of analogy, the monarchical = papal ecclesial structures; aristocratic = episcopal; democratic = priestly, ministerial, and congregational; etc. 27. Helpful is Smith, Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. 28. This text “fits in with a ‘restorationist’ eschatology (see 10.2–9) where [Jesus’] ministry is the harbinger of a return to the original will of God at creation in prepara-

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 155 typically expressing itself through structures, cannot be reduced to them. Just what this may be seems the great issue of what constitutes the good life. Voegelin once distinguished between elemental, existential, and transcendental forms of representation, in a discussion of how societies organize themselves for action within society and history through representatives. Roughly, what we have called the institutional dimension of societies corresponds to the elemental dimension of representation, that is, the external agents holding society together physically, such as the officials, laws, constitutions, voting mechanisms, and so on. We all know of external agents that are not truly representative of society, because they do not express the spirit or truth of the society, but are imposed by force of law, for instance, or other ambiguous means. A representative is existential when it truly actuates a society into existence, animating it and arousing a resonance from the people making it up. When the elemental and the existential do not adequately match, the elemental form more than likely will not endure. Such a case might be that of trying to impose a liberal democracy upon countries that are not adequately prepared for it, lacking a citizenry with adequate skills, developed virtues, and so on.29 This distinction carries us a little more deeply into the problem of community. What is it that truly enables a representative to arouse a resonance from people, and in this way to form a recognizable bond between them? Is this “something” the spirit or truth of the society to which the people are themselves attracted? Is it this which existentially brings a society into existence, a true society, and not just an external gathering of people? And would this, then, be what we mean by community? The difficulty, naturally, is that we know of corrupt societies, or severely diseased ones, in which a resonating response between representatives and people does indeed exist, but that which creates the resonance is evil and corrupting of true society. For this reason Voegelin writes of a society’s obligation to represent the truth through its forms of representation. What is meant is the need for a society to be just, which brings with it the problem of how to actuate people so that they “can be made active participants in the representation of truth through Peitho, through persuasion.”30 Apparently what people may regard as the truth that existentially bonds tion for the gathering of the elect,” according to Donahue and Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, 113. 29. I am building upon Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, in Modernity without Restraint, 109–28, 147–48, 149; see von Heyking, Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World, 79. 30. Voegelin, The New Science of Politics, 147.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 156 them may not be so true after all. In a general way, Voegelin is referring to a representation of truth in the sense of that which is transcendent, that is, it comes from the transcendent Ground of existence and truly articulates aspects of that. A just society, we might say, is animated by what is in harmony with our humanity as properly responsive to the divine Ground. If people are not somehow closed to this (this is the soteriological problem of evil and sin), Voegelin believes that they will resonate with transcendental representatives, and together with them they will make up a just society. In this case the existential and transcendental forms of representation will coalesce, and presumably this will ensure, or at least bring about the necessary conditions for, a more or less adequate institutional/elemental form of social articulation as well. Obviously the social conditions would have to be adequately favorable. Such a series of coalescences, I suggest, would be what we can regard as community. If we sum up at this point, we can say that a workable goal would seem to be the maximizing of social fields of the community type becoming societies that are truly expressive of community, which in turn become the core organizing societies among the various social fields and societies at hand. When we attempt to remain concrete in our thinking, however, we begin to gain a sense of how precarious such political achievements really are. For we need to recall that many social fields may well inhabit particular societies. For example, a Christian, belonging to the Christian society, may belong to several social fields at one time. He or she may be an academic affiliated with particular cultural and political groups that do not always fully agree with the aims of the Christian church to which the person belongs. At the same time, this particular Christian society will likely not be the organizing, core society in today’s pluralistic democracies in which there is no state establishment of religion. Thus a society, and really, many societies, find themselves in varying postures of alignment with the core organizing society in which they find themselves. The difficulties compound when we are considering, say, a nation-state or an empire that embraces rich civilizational complexes which historically transcend particular nation-states, like the Christian, the Jewish, the Islamic, the Chinese. And in today’s increasingly global world, the borders between societies are even more leaky. Jesus’ Alternative Community Jesus’ alternative community of inclusive love, the reign of God to which he was so committed, on whose behalf he died, and which he uniquely mediated in history and continues to mediate, Christians believe, in his resurrected and divine life, but in his special partnership mode,

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 157 is a society among all these other complex social fields and societies. Inasmuch as all the historical Christian churches originate in this alternative community of God’s reign, they form one society, even if, from a more structural point of view, they are also numerous social fields and societies in a certain measure of competition with, or antagonism and even hostility toward, one another. None of these churches is simply identical with the alternative community of God’s reign, for this reign is, as we recall, historical and eternal, local and universal, where universal means an openness to and inclusion of all humans and creatures, past, present, and future.31 This universal openness to and inclusion of all perhaps brings us a little closer toward understanding the saving mission of the Jesus movement and the churches it has originated. Hopefully our little discussion about community opens up yet another layer of this mission. The inclusivity should express genuine community, the good life, in the Christian sense of experiencing the intimacy of the divine Giver and the bond of likemindedness and like-action this generates. Obviously this also entails the institutional dimension, as we have characterized it, but it goes beyond that. Jesus himself provided for these communal-institutional dimensions, it seems clear, most notably through his establishment of the leadership role of the twelve, at the center of which seems to have been Peter himself.32 The reign-of-God principle was one of our ways of denoting this community reality, and the Christological principle was our way of suggesting how Jesus and his movement made this community reality more complex by intensifying the element of personal individuation. Community and personal individuation are not opposites, but simultaneous phenomena. In this alternative community, each is to be intimately known by name and appropriately challenged to live out one’s gifts for the common good of all. The Christological individuating principle decollectivizes community, while the reign-of-God principle deprivatizes the individual. All of this, Christians believe, takes place for us in the between space of history and our geographical locations in tension toward 31. See Richardson, ed., A Theological Word Book of the Bible, s.vv., “Church, Assembly,” and “Kingdom of God,” for biblical background. At times church and kingdom seem roughly equivalent, when those who are “called” (“churched”) to salvation embrace all creatures, as in Eph 1:10. But of course this would transcend any earthly church in some way and be an eschatological notion, pointing to God’s loving embrace of all, past, present, and future. Voegelin, The Ecumenic Age, 192–93, 376–77, 387, is one of the few to confront this issue philosophically. 32. See Meier, A Marginal Jew, 3:125–285, stressing especially the symbolic, prophetic role of the twelve as evocative of Jesus’ desire to regather Israel in the end time (248). On the range of meanings of apostle and its relation to the twelve (they are not always identical), see 126–27, 166–68.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 158 the divine Ground. The “second coming” is a symbol of this further realization of this post-collectivist community to come, now but fragmentarily realized. The history-eternity tension, which has become articulate since the differentiation of the world-transcendent God, was not eliminated but was made more complex by the Christian revelatory experiences. Divine intimacy and divine transcendence exist in “hypostatic” unity. The intimacy can lead the Christian toward excessive familiarity; the transcendence, toward world-denying alienation. Keeping the tensive balance, if that be appropriate terminology, is a discipline both for Christian individuals and for Christian social fields and societies. Within the ecclesia itself there have always been ecclesiolae (“little church communities” as social fields and societies within the larger ecclesial core society) seeking to preserve this tensive balance in a “just so” manner, especially when the churches were established as state religions, with all the attendant dangers of excessive accommodation and domestication. The monastic experiments, for example, are a good example of the ecclesiola dynamism at work; but alas, they, too, fall victim to ossification and so give rise to further reformist efforts. Our earlier studies of individual and group participation in the Jesus movement were designed to exemplify further this experimentation within the body of the Christian movement. The process must continue, if the movement is to endure.33 Voegelin in one place wrote of Christianity’s ability to absorb these experiments for its own health and suggested that this broke down rather miserably even before the break-up of the Reformation. The capacity to absorb is perhaps a not too inadequate way to think about the historical and geographical struggles to preserve the tensive balance of the reign of God. Luce Irigaray’s notion of “ventilation” is provocative also. Voegelin’s absorption emphasizes unity and runs the danger of toning down the diversity; Irigaray’s ventilation emphasizes diversity, running the danger of toning down the unity. In any case, there are times when one might want to lean more toward the absorption pole; other times, one might want to lean toward the ventilation pole. This fruitful dialectic is all part of the necessary discernment process needing to be followed in these matters. But something of each seems always needed.34 The key is to sustain the health of the 33. Baum, “Present Impasse, Future Hopes,” 1–5, offers a sampling of “countervailing movements” of the kind we have in mind; naturally the discernment of movements is a part of the matter. 34. Eric Voegelin, History of Political Ideas, vol. IV, Renaissance and Reformation, 136–38; see the entire chap. 3, “The People of God,” 131–214; Irigaray, i love to you, 121–28.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 159 movement of Jesus, the ultimate criterion of discernment.35 Here is an appropriate place to recall our earlier meditation on the eschatological and apocalyptic dimensions of history and place as well. This history-eternity tension also has colored and continues to color the churches’ relations to the civil realm. If the danger of collapsing the intimacy-transcendence poles is problematic within the “body” of the churches, it will surely be so when one fans out into the civil realm, even if that civil realm be officially a Christian one. But I would hesitate to generalize too much beyond this. For example, where lie the greater dangers of corruption: within the ecclesial or within the civil realms, even if the latter be somehow a dimension of the former? One could argue it both ways and likely come up with enough historical examples to make one avoid hasty generalizations. The cleric within the sanctuary can easily be blinded by self-righteousness, just as the Christian within the civil realm will likely get his or her hands rather dirty by having to make all sorts of compromises when confronted with rather narrow choices of action. Historically, the Christian churches in both East and West have typically developed a differentiation rather than a separation of spheres, somewhat on the basis of an analogy to the distinction but not separation of the divinity and humanity of the Savior. The Christian empire looked mainly to the affairs of this passing historical world, and the sacerdotium or ecclesial hierarchy, clergy, and other “consecrated” persons looked mainly to the work of witnessing to the promises entailed in the full realization of the Christian community of God’s reign, through doctrine, teaching, liturgy, and ethics, and intensely committed ways of living, often in community. Originally each comprised one great church (no separation between the spheres), although each was distinguished by particular missions. It is well known that the tendency in the western part of the empire, in its pre-Reformation period, was toward some form of papal caesarism, while that in the East was toward a caesaropapism. These are almost hopeless generalizations and should be taken with a grain of salt; but they are offered as something of a map through a rather thick forest. We can have some sympathy for clerics acting like caesars in the uncultivated, “barbarian” West, and we can have some sympathy for caesars acting like hierarchs in order to preserve order and unity among rather fractious clerics in the East. But we can also see how the tensive balance was compromised, sometimes almost mortally.36 This loss of tensive balance 35. For a representative approach to discernment, see Egan, “An Ecclesial Mysticism of Discernment, Election, and Confirmation,” in his Ignatius Loyola the Mystic, 146–80. 36. See Siniscalco, “Church and Empire,” 167–78; Voegelin, History of Political Ideas, vol. II, The Middle Ages to Aquinas.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 160 has got to be one of the main reasons for the execrable separations between Eastern and Western Christianity; and within Western Christianity, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism; and within the latter, between all the denominations. It is also patently one of the great reasons for the hostility toward all things ecclesial on the part of many in and outside the churches. In today’s liberal democracies, with their typical disestablishment of churches in states, the churches find themselves in a new pastoral situation, and no simple concrete imperative can be given. Jesus’ counsel to be innocent as doves and wise as serpents (Mt 10:16) needs special heeding. We may take this counsel to be something of a Christian equivalent to the master virtue of prudence, or the virtue of phronesis. In other words, there is no magic blueprint as to how to maintain the tensive balance, the absorption and ventilation needed effectively to witness to the alternative community of God’s reign so that it is attractively compelling to others. We would seem to need to experiment. Secularized states can seek to suffocate this tension, and the Jesus movement will, it is hoped, search out effective and appropriate ways to keep this from happening, from resistance to dialogue. On the other hand, the churches themselves can suffocate this tension by political quietism, by apocalyptic or gnostic alienation from the larger society, or by subtle forms of collusion in the evil and sin present in human existence. The Cross-Cultural Challenge and Mystical Tolerance In our first chapter we noted the phenomenon diversely called globalization, cross-cultural and inter-cultural relationships, and transculturalization. The terminology varies, and each hits at different dimensions and implied presuppositions. Transculturalization implies and even emphasizes the capacity to transcend cultural separateness and is ambiguous on how different cultures contribute to the end-result. Cross-cultural and inter-cultural stress the process, fluid form of cultural interrelationship and are more upfront about the ways participating cultures affect the process and its results.37 Globalization is a more neutral, even cold, term, simply recognizing the reality that this planet, at any rate, is rather tightly locked into a complex web of environmental, capitalistic-economic, technological, genetic-experimentational, political, and telecommunica37. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, is a much noted expression of such cross-cultural exchanges and their possible future forms, mainly from a rather negative perspective.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 161 tional relationships, for better or for worse. The social is now the global, with all the challenges this brings. The other is very other indeed: different cultures, with their strange languages and religions and traditions. And yet this other is very evident to all or many. The phenomenon is not totally new, of course. When have different cultures not been meeting one another, in migrations, hunting, warfare, the spreading of horrible diseases, colonizations, missionary expeditions? This history of intercultural contact ought not to be passed over too quickly. In Western literature, the Bible and Herodotus’ Histories provide us with two fascinating examples of multiple cross-cultural encounters. To some extent the past provides us with some hope that humans can make their way through these encounters and come out somewhat enriched as a result. On the other hand, the enormous violence and misery and devastation that were also a part of these exchanges offer us a rather dismal cautionary tale and provoke some of the great questions about evil and sin. We Christians, for example, believe that the Jesus movement has spread through some of these migrations and encounters, and we are the beneficiaries. But what about the history of misery and violence that all too often accompanied the movement’s expansion? What are we to make of that? The soteriological problem is right there in the inner sanctum of the Jesus movement. Thus, along with a certain measure of hope provided by the historical record, there is a huge pile of history’s victims too, indicating that we are not as good at the cross-cultural challenge as we would like to think. So the past record is very ambiguous; and today’s cross-cultural exchange is in many ways more complex and far-reaching. Where is the space that is untouchable by any culture today? Can we imagine a so-called global person, who really masters the languages, cultures, and intellectual heritage of the globe? It is hard to imagine any large disaster occurring somewhere would not horribly affect every space on the globe. What about a nuclear devastation? Could that be localized in a global world? Were we to think beyond this planet and imagine scenarios in an interplanetary manner, the range of possibilities suddenly undergoes another quantum leap. Philosophically, we might say we are speaking of the problem of the one and the many; or in postmodern discourse, we are speaking of the other and what we are to make of this other. In biblical terms, we are asking the question: Who is the neighbor we are called to love (Lev 19:17; Lk 10:29)? And what might love mean when the others are so diverse, some of whom seem to be seeking to murder me? Put in these ways, the cross-cultural encounter of today seems to be something of an intensification of encounters

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 162 occurring since the dawn of humanity; in a way, it is something occurring within each one of us. There would seem to be much otherness in individuals, making it patent that an isolated self is a delusion. For each of us is a complex result of biogenetic evolution and cross-cultural formation, much long forgotten or making up our selves in ways too subtle to be noted.38 The cross-cultural challenge, then, is a challenge for us all on the globe, individuals and social fields and societies, the churches naturally among these. An early form and analogous foretaste of today’s global pluralism is that of the wars of religion in the modern period. Perhaps some lessons learned then would be applicable to today’s globalization. One of the ways the liberal democracies sought to cope with cultural and religious pluralism was through developing a workable code of tolerance. This issue transcends the question of religion, implying consequences for society, politics, and culture in general, but we will naturally focus a bit more on the religious dimension. The religious wars of the Reformation period had taught many political leaders that the best one could hope for is a rather severely minimum dogma for the state and as wide a region of individual freedom as possible. “[One needs to consider] how it comes to pass that Christian religion hath made more factions, wars, and disturbances in civil societies than any other, and whether toleration and latitudinism would prevent those evils,” wrote John Locke.39 He and John Stuart Mill, for example, would promote state encroachment on individual liberty only when absolutely necessary for the preservation of the state; otherwise, toleration should be practiced. Rousseau was more of an advocate for state control, it would seem, given his proto-socialism. Hence his minimum dogma was more complex, but toleration was nonetheless an important part of it: The existence of a powerful, intelligent, beneficent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of the wicked; the sanctity of the social contract and of the laws. These are the positive dogmas. As for the negative dogmas, I limit them to just one, namely intolerance. It is part of the cults we have excluded.40

This code of toleration, for the liberal thinkers, was not advocating a simple moral or political relativism. The complex philosophies of Locke, Mill, or Rousseau are different and subject to varied interpretations, but 38. See, for example, Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve. 39. Locke, “An Essay Concerning Toleration (1667),” 209–10. 40. Rousseau, The Social Contract 4.8. Helpful is Hallowell and Porter, Political Philosophy, 417–86.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 163 each is aware of the needs of the state (the social), recognizes the need for limits upon the individual in the interests of protecting other individuals (or the state in a more socialist sense, it seems, in Rousseau’s case), and typically recognizes some minimal virtues the state should foster, along with religious beliefs and practices of some sort they thought were defensible on “philosophical” grounds. Locke, for example, recognized a special place for the deity in the state but in fact was rather anti-Catholic in his writings, sensing an intrinsic incompatibility between Catholicism (at least as he knew it) and the proper interests of the state and its individuals.41 We cannot abstract this liberal code of toleration from its historical context, namely, that of the Enlightenment and early modernity. This code expresses the spirit and epistemological premises of the period: a strong suspicion toward religious doctrines and supposed revelatory traditions, along with a turn to the scientific method and its rootedness in sense experience. On these grounds, faith was always something of a problem for reason, considered too easily giving way to blinding enthusiasm. The unending religious wars were evidence of this. The eventual acceptance of the liberal thinkers’ code of tolerance was, then, an important contribution toward carving out a space in which freedom could be more maximally realized. Naturally, as modernity gave way to late- and then post-modernity, the problem emerged of tolerance turning into indifference to truth and even truth’s denial. As this happens, the state can maintain its order, its organizational minimum code, only through force. The intrinsic majesty and authority of the law turns into a hollow legalism maintained through coercive force. Eric Voegelin suggestively and repeatedly noted another tradition of tolerance, namely, the mystical, which avoided the indifference and relativism lurking in the later forms of liberal toleration. In the period of the religious wars he especially noted the contributions of Nicholas of Cusa and Jean Bodin; in the modern period, that of Henri Bergson. Each of these turned to mysticism as a way out of the chaos of their times, albeit somewhat distinctly. In a general way, describing this turn, Voegelin wrote of “the differentiation of layers of depth in the ground of being, as expressed in mysticism, and it is on this differentiation that tolerance and 41. See Locke’s 1667 essay as well as his letters on toleration. In “A Letter Concerning Toleration (1685),” for example, his frustrations with the Christian religion extended to others besides Catholics, referring to Lutherans, Calvinists, and others: “I cannot but wonder at the extravagant arrogance of those men who think that they themselves can explain things necessary to salvation more clearly than the Holy Ghost, the eternal and infinite wisdom of God” (435). An excellent reevalution of the liberal thinkers can be found in Walsh, The Growth of the Liberal Soul.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 164 the balancing out of every symbolism of order by the ineffable is based.”42 Inspired yet again by Voegelin and building upon his suggestions and hints, and keeping in mind our earlier observations on mysticism in our last chapter, how might a Christologically informed mysticism generate a form of tolerance that could make a helpful contribution to today’s crosscultural world? First, to some extent today’s global challenge is a new challenge, and so it cannot simply be a matter of looking in our Christian closet and finding our neat, prepackaged mystical tolerance that can solve our current stresses. A cross-cultural mystic will to some extent be someone who is undergoing the dark night of purification of our cross-cultural world, and out of that furnace coming to an illumination that might be useful for us today. We probably should not overdramatize the matter though, making this mystically tolerant person so heroic and strange that she or he transcends the reach of most of us more fragile folk. Inasmuch as we all have our cross-cultural experiences, sometimes quite frequently, and inasmuch as all of us are somewhere on the continuum between purely potential and fully realized mystic, we too can resonate with the mystically tolerant heroic pioneers43 and follow their lead, and perhaps even make some vital contributions of our own. Second, a key feature of mystics, whether Christian or other, with or without the charisms of writing or prophetic leadership, is the participatory quality of their experience of the divine Ground, whether the experience seems to accent more the dimension of our “human ascent” to the Ground, as in the Classical experiences, the Confucian, the Taoist, and many of the Hindu and Buddhist experiences, among others, or whether the accent falls more upon the “divine descent,” as in the Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), or Bhakti Hinduism, or Pure Land Buddhism, or whether the experiential quality be more compactly bound up with our cosmos and obscure and more undifferentiated in some ways, as among transcendentalists, many of the oral religions, and others. And naturally, each of these is truly mixed in varying ways. This participatory quality is such that we are speaking, among the more realized of 42. Voegelin, Anamnesis, 406; see 393–98; see his treatment of Bodin, esp. Bodin’s wonderful Heptaplomeres, a fascinating interreligious and intercultural dialogue that includes the nonbeliever’s voice, in his History of Political Ideas, vol. V, Religion and the Rise of Modernity, 180–251; and of Nicholas of Cusa in his History of Political Ideas, vol. III, The Later Middle Ages, 256–66, esp. 257: “It was [his] mysticism that prevented him from becoming dogmatic and taking sides in the factional struggle [conciliarism].” 43. Let the readers supply their own favorites; among mine, besides Voegelin, are Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, William Johnston, James Fredericks, John Carmody, and Denise Lardner Carmody.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 165 these mystics, of knowing, rather than knowledge about. The degree of insideness is like the “inscape” and “instress” noted by Gerard Manley Hopkins. “I saw the inscape though freshly, as if my eye were still growing, though with a companion the eye and ear are for the most part shut and instress cannot come.” He was referring, among other things, to “ground sheeted with taut tattered streaks of crisp gritty snow.”44 Third, the inscape and instress bring a heightened sense of the multiple dimensions of the revelatory engendering experience: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” (Jn 14:2); “consider our soul to be like a castle . . . in which there are many rooms, just as in heaven there are many dwelling places[;] . . . it is impossible that anyone understand them all since there are many” (Teresa of Avila).45 This sense promotes a humility and even playfulness about our understanding of the depths of the divine Mystery and the community of being’s participation therein and breaks through the totalizing tendency to fall into a dogmatic literalism and arrogance. “Tolerance is possible, when the symbolism of faith does not degenerate into literalism, when a consciousness of the symbolic character of dogma is kept alive through experiential faith in the practice of contemplation,” Voegelin proposed, and the experience of mystical humility would seem to be the key factor here.46 Not every mystic has necessarily achieved a fully developed comprehension of this humility and sense of play and their implications for tolerance, surely. But Voegelin in this particular citation is commenting upon Bodin; and extrapolating from this, we can hope and trust that today’s cross-cultural experience can generate a mystical humility and tolerance adequate for our times. The divine purposes exceed our totalizing grasp, and so we really can entertain an openness to multiple modes of participation in the divine Ground, and we should. Such a humility can sympathize, for example, with the tolerance of liberal democracies, appreciate its mode of participation in the divine Ground, and even humbly admit learning from it and being stimulated by it, even while appreciating the dangers and need to stretch it further. Fourth, family quarrels exist about the nature of mysticism, to be sure, including among the Christian scholars of mysticism. One of the larger fault lines is between the apophatic (negative) style of mysticism and the kataphatic (affirmative) style. The former, as we know, accents the way the Ground transcends categorization; the latter accents the Ground’s affirmability and nameability on our part. Common sense would seem to 44. Hopkins, Journal, Dec. 12, 1872, in Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Critical Edition of the Major Works, 214. 45. Interior Castle 1.1.1, 3 (283–84). 46. Voegelin, Religion and the Rise of Modernity, 218.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 166 argue for a mix at all times, for how else would we even entertain the unknowability of the Ground if we did not in some sense already know it? And to know is in some way to express through language symbols of some sort. I side with common sense here, although this is a hornet’s nest of controversy. Christianity accents the kataphatic side more than most, it seems, given the differentiation of the divine descent through the experiences of Jesus and his movement. In any case, our support for mystical tolerance need not take the form of saying that we can transcend all kataphatic, linguistic-symbolic expressions of the Ground, such as we find them in the religions and churches, or that such expressions are only of temporary significance, or worse, of no intrinsic significance. We would not so much be in the spirit of toleration of the other in that case; it would be more a matter of indifference or annihilation (at least mentally). Certainly for Christianity the human medium of revelation, including especially that of Jesus’ humanity and his ecclesial companions and their ecclesial practice, cannot be properly thought of as a hindrance to the encounter with the Ground. When evil and sin enter in, then, yes, we have hindrances. But the sin dimension, given the special nature of Jesus’ identity, is a reality he undertakes to battle, not something he voluntarily commits or that somehow diminishes his identity. “Sin” would seem to be a contradiction to the nature of his identity, a sort of anti-identity (the “anti-Christ”). Fifth, tolerance is a term crying out for differentiation. It does not necessarily imply agreement, nor that all positions are equal, or that one should not strive to rectify positions that are thought in conscience to be evil. It simply implies that one does the best one can in given circumstances; that one does not understand the full depth of the purposes of God; that one strives to approach all others in the agape love that is fully inclusive, although it is a love which seeks to be appropriate to the genuine needs of each person concerned; that one recognizes that evil and sin have no rights but that the doers of evil and sin do. In terms of the various religions and religious perspectives, except when we are dealing with clear cases of error or evil and sin, one professes that this is a matter of the depths of the Ground and of our participation therein, and that therefore the surplus here, exceeding our comprehension, must be left to God. The mystic existentially knows the depths to which we are referring and understands our inability to transcend the ambiguities they raise for us, and that it is thus a matter that lies with God. Finally, the Christian mystic will live with the paradox and tension that comes from his or her participation with other partners in the mystery of Jesus Christ, believing this to be the fullness of time and pleromatic personal presence of God, all the while knowing that “it has not pleased God”

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 167 to establish this faith experience as the one, true religion among all humankind. At least not yet, nor in our earthly foreseeable future. Other mystics of other religious traditions have analogously paradoxical convictions. The diversity of the religions creates its paradoxical tensions, then, especially now in our global, friction-heavy world. The diversity does not shake the mystic loose from his or her conviction about the truth of the one, true religion. The Christian mystic, for example, does not avoid the issue of truth and is not afraid to witness to it, even unto death. That is what our exploration of martyrdom was about.47 For the Christian mystic, Jesus the Christ is the definitive Savior of all, the pleromatic disclosure of the Divine. But such a mystic senses in humility and hope that our comprehension of that might well be struggling in a cloud of unknowing that occasionally clears, giving us hints of a truth beyond the paradox of the many rooms along with the room of Jesus and Christianity in the Father’s house (Jn 14:2).48 “Had God pleased, He could have made of you one community . . . it is His wish to prove you . . . Vie with each other in good works, for to God shall you all return and He will resolve your differences for you” (Koran 5:48).49 The mystical tolerance we have been sketching seems to be a rather humble virtue. Tolerance even in the best liberal sense, with which we began, is of this humble, nondramatic nature. It does not make the grand impression that agreement, or mutual resolution among competing others, or that shared compacts of understanding and action can make. At the same time, a mystical tolerance of the Christian sort, we believe, has an eschatological edge to it, which pushes the mystic to strive for more than simply tolerance. For example, Melkite Father Elias Chacour’s goal, referring to the intercultural and interreligious (Israeli, Christian, and Arab) school and university he has founded in Israel, seems perfectly appropriate, and expressive of this eschatological “more.” I mean real community, not mere tolerance. I hate being tolerated. We need to see our differences not as something we tolerate but as something that enriches us. What we are doing here could be a model not just for the region, but for all human society.50 47. Particularly suggestive on this, focusing upon the role of the prophetic Spirit, is Lampe, “Martyrdom and Inspiration,” 118–35. 48. For a fascinating and subtle example of this paradoxical comprehension, see Nicholas of Cusa’s De Pace Fidei and Cribratio Alkorani: Translation and Analysis. See O’Collins, Christology, 303–5, for further observations and helpful bibliography for various positions. 49. The Koran, trans. Dawood, 85. 50. Cited in Raspberry, “Meeting of the Minds”; see Chacour, with Hazard, Blood Brothers, and with Jensen, We Belong to the Land.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 168 So tolerance, even of the mystical sort, is very modest indeed. But its humble, nonarrogant nature accords well with the humbleness of the incarnation, and out of it can come further treasures. As we tolerate one another, so we can move toward noticing one another, then on to being challenged and stretched by one another in dialogue and other appropriate ways, then perhaps even liking one another, and then . . . What seems impossible at one stage of the participatory journey can suddenly seem not only possible but an obligation and even a joy at another stage. But mystical tolerance has the keen ability to understand that matters of divine profundity and human weakness, when they coalesce, might likely be doing quite well if mystical tolerance itself stay alive and well. It does not seem likely that any amount of dialoguing is going to erase completely the need for the tolerance of the cross-cultural mystic.

World Is divine intimacy’s epiphany in the incarnation good news for this world of ours, meaning here by world, now minimally, our natural habitat and all its sentient creatures? But in our interplanetary world, we need to think and imagine even on a cosmic scale. Naturally our Christian instinct is to answer in the affirmative, but at least for this writer it is difficult to articulate this very well. Obviously the God who brings us the incarnation is the same God who gives us the world. Redeemer and Creator, in the traditional terminology, are one and the same. The divine Ground grounds us all into a vast web of mysterious interconnections. Happily we have been blessed with mystical souls who have eloquently reminded us of this down the ages, when we might have forgotten, or who have fortified our faith that such must be so, even when we are tempted to doubt it. Those like Gerard Manley Hopkins, who could give glory to God “for dappled things—For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow . . . Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)”; a mystical poet who takes our breath away and yet helps us breathe more freshly, as he writes that “the grandeur of God . . . will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”51 Hopkins’ work suggests itself to me because it expresses something of that second naïveté we noted at this book’s beginning. “And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge.” Here is 51. Lines from two of his poems, “Pied Beauty” and “God’s Grandeur,” in Gerard Manley Hopkins, 132, 128.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 169 the awareness of our mechanical and technological intrusion into nature (the “ecological crisis,” or at least “challenge”). The paradox of it, which again raises the soteriological problem, comes out in the line that says “nor can foot feel, being shod.” I doubt that Hopkins meant we should all shed our shoes and return back to pre-footwear days. Still, somehow we have lost touch, that instress and inscape, with what helps us experience that “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.”52 The essence of technology may not necessarily lead to this loss or this insensitivity, but somehow, all too often, it has. Hopkins, who died in 1889, was earlier than Martin Heidegger, but somewhat shared this philosopher’s view that the essence of technology is more like an unveiling of things in their truth, but an unveiling that always takes place with a dangerous dose of veiling as well. Heidegger saw an analogy between the work of the artist and the work of technology, at the latter’s best. Could technologists learn to be artists, whose unveiling “saves”?53 Did Hopkins hold out hope for this, too? Still, were Hopkins and maybe even Heidegger more optimistic than they should have been? Is it true that “for all this, nature is never spent”?54 Besides the possible disasters that could befall our world, either through destructive technologies on the way to becoming totalitarian technocracies,55 or through interplanetary accidents, we have further matters to consider. The soteriological questions have a way of making their presence felt. Today’s astrophysics and astronomy, at least the kind that favors a big-bang model of the universe, brings forth strong evidence to suggest that while the universe might expand forever (an “open universe” or a “flat universe”), it might just as well start collapsing in “a kind of reverse big bang.” This would be the so-called closed universe, in which “the inward force of gravity is sufficiently strong to halt and reverse the expansion, just as a rock thrown upward with insufficient speed will reach a maximum height and then fall back to earth,” writes physicist Alan Lightman. In this case, he tersely states: “Such universes have both a beginning and an end in time.”56 If this be so, how is the incarnation still 52. Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” 128. 53. Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology,” 311–41. 54. Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” 128. 55. See Postman, Technopoly, esp. 48. 56. Lightman, Ancient Light: Our Changing View of the Universe, 34. In the “open universe” model, the outward, expansive motion overwhelms the inward, gravitational pull (imagine a rock thrown with enough speed to escape the pull of gravity, thus never falling back down, suggests Lightman); in a “flat universe,” which is midway between the closed and open types, the rock thrown has just enough speed to minimally escape gravity’s pull (ibid.).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 170 good news for the universe? Is it possible and credible to believe that the universe itself is a sort of technological experiment, with much of the paradoxical interplay between veiling and unveiling, concealment and unconcealment, and yet still the work of an artist, or artists in companionship, who know how to bring forth more fully the unveiling of the truth of it all? Christian hope is carried on the wings of the paschal mystery, the cross and resurrection dynamic. The resurrection of Jesus’ flesh mysteriously points to the inclusion of our bodies and of the rest of the material universe in the finally realized inclusive community of God’s reign, but the how of this remains puzzling, particularly in the closed universe model. We will never quite outgrow our need here for the likely but true story (like Plato’s philosopher’s myth) even as we push for conceptual precision. Hopkins’ likely but true myth writes of God’s grandeur, “shining from shook foil,” and while it does so, it is gathering “to a greatness, like the ooze of oil crushed.” The crushed oil makes one think of a kind of partnership between humans, other creatures, and matter, in which everything shares “man’s smell”57—a sort of concelebration of sweat, evoking an integration of a transformational kind between matter and spirit. This is not unlike the prophet’s likely but true myth in Revelation 5:6, where he writes of a vision of the heavenly “Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered.” The resurrected Jesus, that is, shines in heavenly glory; still somehow his bodily wounds (the cross dimension) are not left behind but share in the triumph. Crushed oil need not always be the result of slaughtering, to be sure. It may be more like the shining sweat coming from the labor of artists at work. Still, some of the crushing may be like the slaughter, the result of artists working under the conditions of error, evil, and sin. Somehow through it all emerges a shining that gathers to a greatness. Intriguingly, Hopkins notes the role of the Holy Spirit, the energy of inclusion in the incarnation: “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.”58 We will have to return to this. The so-called anthropic principle, more in its strong than weak form, gives us at least a physical scientist’s partial correlate to our Christian hope, and indeed to all forms of personalist eschatology, inasmuch as it indicates a purposive mind at work in the cosmos. To be sure, this strong form of the anthropic principle is a scientist’s equivalent to Plato’s philosopher’s myth and to the theologian’s myth, a likely but true 57. Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur,” 128. 58. Ibid.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 171 story. But it helps us faith-and-reason combinative types follow the pulls issuing forth from our fidelity to reality. Why did the universe expand at its precise rate, especially when only a fraction of a difference would not have made possible the kind of life we know in this world? Why do we find the specific relationship between expansion and gravity that we do, when again a fraction of a difference would not have resulted in our world? Why do we find our ratio of the mass of the proton to the electron, which is 2,000, instead of, say, 2 or 2,000,000, when neither of these latter would work together to “produce a physics and chemistry and biology [compatible] with living substance”?59 Meanwhile, back in the between space of time and eternity, how might the incarnation (in its inclusive sense of the entire mystery of Jesus and his movement) help our feet to feel, even though they be shod? That is, how might the incarnation promote a more full-throttled attunement to and affective connection with matter (the universe at the space we encounter it), so that it is place and home for us and all creatures, and a flourishing space at the same time? These questions are meant to push us toward a meditation on what we earlier called the Christological kairos of the already/not yet and here/there tensions. Chickasaw poet and novelist Linda Hogan is a helpful guide and companion on our way. She writes of our “forgetting” what the “first people” knew, so she is in some ways one of us, writing with a certain second naïveté, aware that we cannot simply return to the way of the first people. But in spite of this forgetting, there is still a part of us that is deep and intimate with the world. We remember it by feel. We experience it as a murmur in the night, a longing and restlessness we can’t name, a yearning that tugs at us. For it is only recently, in earth time, that the severing of the connections between people and land have taken place. Something in our human blood is still searching for it, still listening, still remembering.60

Hogan knows we have to make an effort to remember what we have forgotten of these first people and their mythical world. “In this kind of mind, like the feather, is the power of sky and thunder and sun, and many have had alliances and partnerships with it, a way of thought older than measured time, less primitive than the rational present.”61 59. Lightman, Ancient Light, 119, and Haught, Science and Religion, 126. The weak form of the principle simply means that “we can see in the cosmos only what the conditions that produced us allow us to see” (Science and Religion, 125). 60. Hogan, Dwellings, 83. 61. Ibid., 19.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 172 Hogan’s insights remind us of Heidegger’s “fourfold” (das Geviert) and Voegelin’s notion of consubstantiality, which he apparently borrowed from Egyptologists and then reworked a bit. Heidegger suggested that we always belong to the quadrate of earth and sky, divinities and mortals, even when we try to “turn inward,” forgetting our larger connections. Dwelling is precisely the ability to care for this fourfold, although Heidegger was aware that we must work our way through to this caring with much effort today. Similarly, Voegelin wrote of the “primordial community of being” of God and humans, world and society, which together make up a “quaternarian structure.” He suggested, from his studies of early humans and their search for social order, that the primary experience of humans, which we never fully outgrow, is one in which the community of being is experienced with such intimacy that the consubstantiality of the partners will override the separateness of substances. We move in a charmed community where everything that meets us has force and will and feelings, where animals and plants can be men and gods, where men can be divine and gods are kings, where the feathery morning sky is the falcon Horus and the Sun and Moon are his eyes, where the underground sameness of being is a conductor for magic currents of good or evil force that will subterraneously reach the superficially unreachable partner, where things are the same and not the same, and can change into each other.62

Perhaps, then, in this earliest experience of the “first people” this consubstantiality was so keen that the partners in the community of being were more or less compact and undifferentiated. In Hogan’s words, it was a time “when animals and people spoke the same tongue.” She tries, from our distance now, when the partners in the community of being have become much more differentiated, and sadly also torn apart, it almost seems, to imaginatively recreate the primordial consubstantiality: “Anyone who has heard the howl of wolves breaking through a northern night will tell you that a part of them still remembers the language of that old song.”63 If Hogan, Heidegger, Voegelin, Hopkins, and many others are correct, 62. Voegelin, Israel and Revelation, 41, 39, 123 n 57; see his Ecumenic Age, 118–28; Martin Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking,” 347–63, esp. 359; cf. John Macquarrie, Heidegger and Christianity, 65–66. 63. Hogan, Dwellings, 64. One of the best examples of early consubstantiality is the part animal, part human figure painted in the Paleolithic cave at Lascaux, France, views of which are readily accessible on the Web.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 173 in the first instance we do not have to build bridges between ourselves and the community of being. The community is first in the primordial sense, that is, we always exist within it, we never outgrow it, although we might through forgetfulness think we do. The community of being undergoes differentiations in which one or another of the partners becomes more luminous for the human being. But a differentiation is not a separation, although the human differentiator can hubristically out-imagine himself or herself and think it is. Much of this latter has historically happened, as the exploitation of nature and animals indicates. Consequently, we have to make an effort at remembering. Remembering is necessary, both because we have simply forgotten our partnership with the cosmos as such and because we have undergone epoch-making differentiations, whether they be that of the world-transcendent God, or of the relatively individual person, or of societies organized by such individuals according to models that promise a certain measure of more differentiated individuality within community, or of a nature that to some extent becomes our place and our technology. “Remembering” in this sense is a more complex task, involving effort and a recognition of our distance from what was.64 In what way, then, might a Christological anamnesis link up with this anamnestic challenge we have just mentioned? Again, we might put our Christological principle and our community principle to work while amplifying them. The Christological principle refers to the intimacy, friendship, and personableness made possible for us by the personal identity of Jesus the Christ and our personal relationship with him. Can we imagine a form of individuated consubstantiality with the cosmos and all its creatures that can be truly called, albeit analogously, intimacy and even mutuality? We do not become “equal” to or “less” than nature and all its creatures, at least not in all respects. There does seem to be something of a hierarchy in existence, spirit in relation to matter, after all, although the incarnation challenges us to imagine a servant form of hierarchy that truly brings flourishing and in turn knows how to receive the gift of being enabled to flourish, too. Simultaneously, the community principle of Jesus’ inclusive community challenges us to amplify this community, albeit from a Christological second naïveté, along the lines suggested by the “first people.” This would be connected with our understanding of the Holy Spirit as the principle of our inclusion into Jesus and his new community, as well as the principle 64. See Voegelin’s reworking of Plato’s complex symbol of anamnesis in his In Search of Order, index, s.vv., “reflective distance.”

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 174 of his own inclusion therein, and we will return to this theme more appropriately at another point in this meditation. (Liturgically, the Christological principle might be thought of as the Eucharistic consecration and its effects; the community principle, as the epiclesis and its effects. We are now being challenged to consider how the cosmos and all its inhabitants are a part of the eucharist.) This widening of the community would manifest itself cognitively and affectively in how we understand and feel our partnership with nature in all its creaturely forms, which would include our humility in learning from it. This widening of the community would manifest itself ethically, in our servantlike stewardship of nature, but also in our willingness to submit in obedience to its lessons; and aesthetically, in a Hopkins-like nonexploitative reverence for shining shook foil. All of these are forms of participation in the new community, and as we engage in such participation we are offered something of a foretaste of the resurrectional transfiguration that we await.

A Soteriological Transition The reader will have noticed that we are offering a Christological meditation on the partners in the community of being, particularly as evoked by Voegelin: God and humans, world and society. Logically we should pass on to the one partner not yet treated as such, namely, God, although God has been present in our considerations throughout, to be sure. But since we are striving to be as concrete as possible, we should more emphatically stare evil and sin in the face, for it would seem that we encounter a good deal of it in reality. Our view of the partners thus far considered risks being superficial, without our pausing now to consider these matters with more focused concentration. My inclination is to stare evil and sin in the face only while passing on. Stronger sorts may follow another strategy, perhaps of a more lingering concentration. But I believe the “look while passing” is a legitimate one too and, for those of us less learned in the ways of darkness, maybe the most prudent. We look long enough to gain needed understanding for our journey but not so long that we fall under its dangerous fascination. The thoughts to follow may conveniently be regarded as amplifications of our earlier suggestions regarding soteriology, along with the comments about Jesus’ struggles against oppression and the demonic in earlier chapters and their Website supplements. Our thoughts toward a Christian view of human identity, of social and ecclesial community, and of consubstantiality with the cosmos and all creation may be considered so many dimensions of our Christian “ther-

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 175 apy” offering at least anticipatory insights into the nature of evil and sin, realities we can effectively confront (diagnose) only by way of contrast with the former. Following this, then, let us think of evil roughly and heuristically as whatever effectively impedes the ability of the partners in the community of being to constitute the kind of community that indeed should be present. As this happens, suffering happens, although the suffering may be only subtly felt.65 Evil, then, denotes a something wider than sin, although all forms of sin would be evil. Sin introduces a moral quality and thus adds the element of human deliberation into the matter, although moral culpability spans a huge spectrum, given the massive degrees of personal and social obfuscation and distortion from which we all suffer. The essentially contrast nature of our knowledge of evil and sin seems to be fraught with an important consequence, namely, the parasitical nature of evil and sin. The community of being is the greater reality, which evil and sin work to distort. The community must “first” be there, before the distortion may set in. This gives us a certain hopefulness and, from a Christian perspective, intimates the cross and resurrection dynamic, in which the resurrection is an overcoming of the cross, and not simply a dualistic force in unending confrontation with the cross. Perhaps this stress upon the priority of the community of being within history offers us a helpful entry point for appreciating the Western teaching of original sin, extending back to Augustine. Might not the root of this teaching be the historically verified insight that we know no unhurt community of being within history? The community has been wounded, and it is from within this wounded womb that we are born and struggle our way forward. If we were to seek for the New Testament roots of this teaching, it would seem that Paul’s teaching of our solidarity as a family under Adam, a solidarity that has been rendered dysfunctional in many ways, would be a good place to go. “Adam” is the symbol, for Paul, based on his meditation on the Adam of Genesis, of our corporate solidarity, which has been wounded by personal sins and forms of suffering, but which is repaired, so to speak, by the new corporate solidarity introduced by Christ, the new Adam (1 Cor 15:22, 45). This wounded community is indeed in a crisis in many ways, but it is more than just an external situation. We internally absorb its effects, and through them the partners in the community of being in history experience their many destructive 65. Pope John Paul II: “Man [sic] suffers on account of evil, which is a certain lack, limitation or distortion of good” (On the Christian Meaning of Suffering, Salvifici Doloris, no. 7 [10]).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 176 moral and physical consequences. This is the “original” sin; at least it is one way of thinking of it. It is only analogous to our own morally culpable acts of personal sin, although these personal sins, so to speak, in some ways find a significant fertile soil in the “original” sin.66 As we used the heart symbol, given its biblical centrality, to evoke our understanding of Christian identity, correspondingly we will use the biblical symbol of the hardened heart, the skle¯ rokardia (Greek) or ,arelat lebab (Hebrew), to evoke the wounded and diseased identity, suffering from evil and sin (Dt 10:16; Mt 19:8; cf. Mk 7:21).67 In a way, Mark’s and Matthew’s Jesus says all that needs to be said on this matter: “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly” (Mk 7:21–22; cf. Mt 15:1–20). This list, as we have it here in Mark and Matthew, may reflect a later stage of the Jesus tradition when Hellenistic influences could be more felt, for we find similar lists among the latter. But the core message of the distinction between symptoms of evil and sin and their deeper source in the “heart,” the site of one’s personal identity, is certainly in line with Jesus’ and later prophetic Judaism’s personalism.68 Evil and sin are not etherealized and interiorized: They manifest themselves in quite concrete, bodily and psychic phenomena, such as infidelity and adultery and killing. At the same time, there is an effort to move toward a source, the site of consciousness, from which such deeds originate and which determine their intentionality. A rough equivalence exists here between this late prophetic and early Christian thinking about the heart and the classical thinking about the soul as an organizing center of one’s thoughts and actions. The text just cited from Mark may, as noted, indicate something of a fusion between the two traditions. However, the two symbols, heart and soul, point to the difference in emphasis between the two approaches. Again, the heart anthropology of Jesus and the prophets is emphatically holistic, thus anticipating, implicitly, later amplifications coming 66. Rausch, Who Is Jesus? 183–204, for the literature and a helpful commentary. The Eastern Christian tradition never articulated a doctrine of original sin as such, although this interpretation in terms of human solidarity (the kernel of truth behind the notion of this sin’s transmission by sexual reproduction?) might offer some possibilities of acceptance by the East. Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 404: “original sin is called ‘sin’ only in an analogical sense: it is a sin ‘contracted’ and not ‘committed’—a state and not an act” (102). 67. Spicq, “skle¯rokardia, hard-heartedness, etc.,” in Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:258–62. 68. See Donahue and Harrington, The Gospel of Mark, 225; Voegelin, “Reason: The Classic Experience,” 273–79, esp. for the Stoic exploration of diseases of the soul.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 177 from early and late modernity, postmodernity, and perhaps even from our growing cross-cultural experience. For example, modernity’s intense stress upon the emancipation of the self from the fetters of decaying church and government strictures is, to a degree, continuous with the courageous self called to “own” his or her charisms and responsibility, such as we find it in Abraham, Moses, Deborah, Mary (Jesus’ mother) and Mary Magdalene, Jesus, Paul and Peter, and others. Evil and sin is the refusal to own one’s charisms, so to speak, the refusal to be a person. Late modernity’s attentiveness to the social dimensions of the self, along with the individual and social sources of distortion and ideology that work to wear down the person, depersonalizing her or him, is also partly continuous with the holistic heart anthropology of Judaism and Christianity, and in some ways an intensification of dimensions already present within that anthropology. Persons cannot be abstracted from their societies. This is why Jesus and his movement was so concerned with the alternative community of inclusiveness and why they did not follow the route of separating themselves into an isolated enclave. Evil and sin, then, are the refusal to own the appeal to responsible action within society and history, to work toward the kind of community that maximizes the opportunities for post-collectivist personalism. But late modernity also notes, in a way that recalls and yet further amplifies the hardened heart tradition, the strangely complex way in which individuals and indeed whole societies, it seems, can be blinded. Passions can become habituated to evil and sin; the body itself can be de-energized by destructive habits and experiences; and instead of being the site of true intercommunication, the body becomes a sort of prison cell. Social ideologies, which ever more perniciously and subtly hold up models of action that reduce the person to his or her lowest appetites or rob persons of their individuality, also pollute society and church. Self and society become “hardened,” in other words. The Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators, along with the Nazi-Francoist destruction of the traditional Basque capital, Gernika, which foreshadowed the Shoah; the Communist gulags; the horrible Middle Eastern mimicry of Nazism and Communism in neo-fascistic totalitarian regimes; terrorism of all kinds; sexist and sexual repression and bigotry; ethnic cleansing (which is really a dirtying); the African American experience of racial slavery and bigotry; the native American trail of tears; the tribal savageries in Africa; the consumerism and ruthless exploitation of the person too often promoted by a market economy that has lost its soul; the needless and senseless killing of the helpless (unborn children, the elderly, sick, and challenged); the collusion of the many religious communities in all of these, perhaps the

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 178 saddest result of these ideologies—these are but representative of the hardened heart in its individual and social forms. So far as I can tell, a possible overlap between the soteriologies of a heart anthropology and that of postmodernism’s “subject” would be the implied resistance to totalization, that is, the meticulous problematizing of cognitive and practical systems of control that jam the heart/subject. Postmodern and neo-historicist thought is post-modern because it senses in the modern project a secularized equivalent to what it regards as the earlier religious or Classical systems of universal control. Keeping systems open through transgression and deconstruction, pointing out how they represent so many forms of self-interested power, usually of a destructive kind, seems central. Foucault uses Bentham’s image of the Panopticon somewhat symbolically as expressive of modernity’s “carceral system,” namely, the attempt to find “a perfect eye that nothing would escape and a center toward which all gazes would be turned.” But these panoptical “eyes that must see without being seen” are exposed by Foucault and postmodern thought in general.69 Postmodern thought and its allies, we recall, stress body, narrative, historical diversity, and nonlinearity. Each of these emphasizes the limited, nonuniversal nature of things, but this can be a blessing, freeing us from the panoptic gaze of control. For example, a renewed attention to the body might break the hold of tendencies to reduce it to the merely physical, which happens when “techniques of surveillance” reduce the body “to the laws of optics and mechanics . . . [a process] that seems all the less ‘corporal’ in that it is more subtly ‘physical.’ ”70 Very likely Foucault and others in his family of thought would regard the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the all-controlling, unseen, “perfect eye” toward which all must be turned. As such, it too must be deconstructed and exposed for what it is, namely, a result of the panoptical discursivity of the dogma’s creators. “God,” then, would not seem to be a very promising link between the postmodern thinkers and Christianity. However, perhaps a God who wants to be “seen” deserves a hearing not yet received from Foucault and others. This kind of God, available in body, history, and narrative, vulnerable to our gaze, a gaze that is all too often hubristically all-controlling, might offer us hope of a way to move beyond our jamming systems, but in a modest, humble, very incarnational way. If such be the case, what we can do is to remain attentive within history to a vulnerable God’s presence and beneficent power. The refusal to do 69. Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, 192, 189. 70. Ibid., 193.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 179 so would seem to be another one of those totalizing systems, those allcontrolling eyes, that incarcerate us. In other words, we are suggesting that the dimension of “construction” in “deconstruction” holds the primacy in a Christian view, and the negative prefix “de-” should be, at most, a minor, extreme moment in emergency situations in which error and evil can be confronted in no other way. As we glance back, we notice how impossible it was to speak of the person without speaking of his or her social interconnections as well. Self and societies mysteriously form a sort of conspiracy, in the double sense of a mutual spiration that brings ventilation (Irigaray) and in the other sense of either partner deleteriously jamming the other. Obviously the relation between person and societies is a matter of intense debate and conflict, but perhaps the debate can be lessened if we heed Voegelin’s caution to avoid hypostatizing society as if it were a super-subject controlling persons. True, it is constituted at a minimum by social fields, but these social fields are constituted by persons in relationship. In a way, postmodern thought has problematized the fictitiously hypostatized entity of “society” but seems unable to move beyond imagining the self as anything more than an alternative constellation of social forces offering other possibilities. Is this perhaps a residue of social hypostatizing, a remainder of the “modern” in postmodernity? Still, the image of society as a hypostatized entity has its element of truth inasmuch as it is a way of evoking the field of force constituted by the institutions (forms of elemental representation) and commitments (forms of existential and transcendental representation) of the persons constituting social fields. The late- and post-modern schools of sociological thought are particularly focused on these fields of social force, especially the institutional dimensions thereof, and they challenge us to attend to the crucial role these fields play in the flourishing or destruction of human beings, and indeed of nature and our living vegetational and animal partners as well. In certain respects this attention seems to be a welcome intensification of the attention to the social and political found in Classical and Christian political thought. In any case, when these social fields work in a destructive manner they are being viewed here as an equivalent to what some theologians have called “social evil” and “social sin.” Much of what we have said above, especially in relation to the panoptical mentality, is relevant here and needs to be incorporated into a relatively adequate Christian soteriology. The subtle relations between the elemental (institutional), the existential, and the transcendental forms of representation, the ways they can misfire, so to speak, seem central. Each powerfully affects the other. Something we might especially note, however,

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 180 in a heart-informed soteriology is the way the elemental (institutional) and existential may work to hide the person, subtly depersonalizing persons, robbing them of their ability to partnership forth alternative lifegiving social fields and societies. We may think of Adolf Eichmann as “the basic model and metaphor for a bureaucrat in the age of Technopoly,” meaning by the bureaucrat the consummate institutional figure who may perhaps be quite existentially fused with the institution but who has lost his or her ability to represent transcendental truth. “When faced with the charges of crimes against humanity, he argued that he had no part in the formulation of Nazi political or sociological theory; he dealt only with the technical problems of moving vast numbers of people from one place to another.”71 Eichmann has forgotten what it means to be a person, although not completely, for he still seeks somehow to legitimate his behavior. Something of the conscience peaks through, however hidden behind the mask of the bureaucrat. Naturally Eichmann, along with all torturers, are anti-icons, the most intensely grotesque expressions of the personless person, almost reducing persons to shadows. These figures reveal to us in a special way the “essence” of why so many postmodernists find it so difficult to accept the person in the Classical and religious senses as a site of freedom and responsibility and love. Like typical torturers, these figures engage in the “hooding activities,” the torturer’s wearing of masks and the blindfolding of prisoners, thus removing the face-to-face encounter, the “portal to the persons,” from view. This, along with other dehumanizing tactics (nakedness, brutal treatment, naming tactics seeking to render the victim a brute figure, numbing one’s affections and feelings), effectively enable the capacity for personhood to be hidden in a bureaucrat’s institutional prison. Here the institutional structures become the “hooding activity” par excellence.72 Occasionally the torturer will reveal his or her face. Zulaika and Douglass recount the experience of Enkarni Martínez. She was arrested in the summer of 1994 by the Spanish police, who were actually seeking her husband, on suspicion of terrorism in the Basque Country. “They came for my husband but since he was not at home they arrested me instead.” Immediately the typical hooding activities followed: “Here we are in charge; lower your head, close your eyes, and if you say or do anything we’ll hit you.” 71. Postman, Technopoly, 87. 72. See Zulaika and Douglass, Terror and Taboo, 191–226; “hooding activities” is a reference to IRA actions.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 181 They would fondle me a lot with their hands. I had my period and while in the bathroom they were staring at me. But much worse than the electric shocks were the threats against my son. That was the hardest. They pretended they had him there . . . And the insults: “whore fox,” “filthy one,” “sow.” They put a hood made of cloth over my head, and over it a plastic bag. What I feared most was losing consciousness and then being told that I had admitted to things I had not done.

But then came an apparent turnaround: When it was over they told me that they were very sorry, that they begged my pardon. Since everybody claims to be innocent how else could they learn the truth? They wanted to know what I was thinking about them at that moment. I told them that I hated them. Then they said that they would do me a favor, and the one that had tortured me the most forced me to look at his face. I hated it. He knew that I would be set free, and I think the point of showing me his face was that I would be left with the fear that I might see him again when I was out on the street.73

This revealing of the torturer’s face provokes questions. Is there also behind this unveiling a sort of twisted attempt at self-exoneration on the part of the torturer—and thus, in a way, something of a trace of the soul and heart, however hardened? The very hate it inspires in the victim offers the torturer yet another “legitimation” of his or her humaneness and the victim’s brutishness. This grotesque degree of depersonalization, seen much more fully in the torturer than the tortured, to be sure, is not the typical kind we will meet in today’s societies, at least in the Western and modernized technocracies and technopolies. Usually it is more banal and hidden, and on a smaller scale, although the social field of destructive power these can collectively create can be staggering. Postman, who is himself no antitechnological Luddite, offers us a cautionary tale in his analysis of the computerized age in which we live. One of the distinctive features of computers is their hegemonic nature, that is, they do not do work so much as they direct work while forming the connective glue of many of today’s institutions. Radio and television, medical technologies, telephones, cell phones, do work; the computer directs them. How much is metaphor, how much something more powerful, when we speak of “programming” or “deprogramming” ourselves, or when we refer to our brains as forms of “hard

73. Ibid., 201–3.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 182 wiring” that retrieve data, and of thinking as forms of processing and decoding? “Because of its seeming intelligence and impartiality, a computer has an almost magical tendency to direct attention away from the people in charge of bureaucratic functions and toward itself, as if the computer were the true source of authority.”74 The very technology that promises a massively democratized form of participation and connection with others can itself become another panoptical cage. The most important contribution a Christian anthropology can make, it would seem, is the defense of the person and of authentic community in which persons can truly flourish. Within a Christian view, authentic community in fact does not exist where the inviolability of the person remains unrecognized. This is the transcendental truth that revalorizes the existential and elemental forms of representation. This transcendental truth, we suggest, needs to find a realistic amplification and application in our relations with nature, vegetation, animals, and indeed the entire cosmos itself. That is, we need to recognize the “hooding activities” we employ vis-à-vis these entities and to practice, with a second naïveté, personlike relations of mutuality and respect with them. Here we ask the reader to revisit our comments about a form of consubstantiality with a second naïveté. This last-noted mention of our mysterious relations with nature, animals, and cosmos offers us the appropriate place to add some further comments about the many puzzles that resist our efforts toward fuller soteriological clarity. Nature, at least in the minimum sense of the material cosmos, in which our body shares, undergoes corruption, come what may. In our human and animal cases, this eventually results in death, a fate that may well await the cosmos as a whole, should the closed universe model prove right. Death, inasmuch as it is a form of corruption and a symbol of all forms of corruption, not surprisingly becomes a focus of Christian soteriological hope. That is, the defeat of death would signal the ultimate victory over evil and sin, the two grand forms of corruption. Corruption and death, then, set limits to our earthly hopes of soteriological therapy, opening up a surplus of cognitive and practical challenges to our realistic expectations of hope. Another, related surplus of challenge is the mystery of the victimization of the innocent. It is difficult to imagine any adequate soteriological therapy in this world for the millions who have innocently suffered in history, sometimes from simply being in the “wrong” place at the “wrong” time (earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, interplanetary disasters), sometimes from 74. Postman, Technopoly, 115, 107–22.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 183 being with or near the “wrong” persons (all the helpless and voiceless, like the unborn and born children, the elderly and challenged who are subjected to abusers and torturers, spouses married to batterers, prisoners subjected to abuse by fellow prisoners and prison police, whole peoples subjected to slavery by conquerors and others, those subjected to sexist and sexual repression and bigotry, victims of massively corrupt market and economic systems), the victims of war and genocide, of terrorism, of diseases coming from migration and cross-cultural contact. This is “Job’s problem,” and it is a very real problem indeed. Another problem, if we take our consubstantiality with our sentient partners seriously, is the victimization of the animal world, and indeed of created life in general. Is this a dimension of Paul’s concern when he writes of creation’s subjection to a futility against its will, its “groaning in labor pains” (Rom 8:20, 22)? Perhaps our own victimization of our bodies, through which we are linked with the material cosmos, may give us some realistic estimation of the issues. By victimization here I mean the needless wounding of our bodies, through various addictions and harmful habits and life styles (self-mutilation, drugs, smoking, obesity, anorexia to list a few). In what ways do our sentient cousins suffer analogous victimizations, sometimes from us, sometimes from fellow creatures? In any case, how does our therapy of consubstantiality work out here, at least on this earth or in this universe? In a strange way, we hear an eloquence here, in this valley of suffering.75 It is not that evil and sin are eloquent, but that the suffering accompanying it is; but the suffering is an eloquence that defeats our rational calculus, because it brings us to the borders of our reason. Here the valley of suffering links up with our earlier comments about Satan and the demonic, which at least partly seem to be our irreplaceable way of pointing to the surplus of challenge, the anti-reign, with which we have to do.

The Divine Ground Obviously only the divine Ground could offer us any promise of being at all adequate to the problems and challenges posed by suffering, death, evil, and sin. And only such a divine Ground could be at all adequate, from the contrasting side, to the community of being. For how else could 75. Here I am inspired by Pope John Paul II’s comments about “the eloquence which human suffering possesses in itself” (On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, no. 27 [48]).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 184 we all constitute one community, were we not linked in one vast partnership, extending from our present, back to all that has ever been, and forward to all that will ever be? The language of “being,” which is not without much contestation these days from postmodernist quarters, indicates a continuity between past, present, and future, despite all interruptions and breaches, and this seems crucial for any true community to really exist. Only a divine Ground, it seems, offers us any hope that interruptions are penultimate, not ultimate. We have used the language of “divine Ground” deliberately, because we are trying to evoke a certain solidarity with the mystical tradition of a more philosophical sort, which commonly uses this language. That is, “divine ground” suggests a reality that transcends the objects in the world. Objects are grounded, found on the ground and supported by it and limited by it. At the same time, “ground” is an image derived from our concrete, object-like experience of the world, of space and matter. When philosophical mystics speak of the divine Ground, they often do so with a sense of the paradox of it all, that is, our need to speak of what transcends objectification through borrowing the language of objects. This is significant, because it means we find ourselves already on the ground, in the midst of the community of being. We do not claim a position above this, but recognize that we must do our thinking and imagining from within the community, by way of our more-or-less trusting fidelity to the appeals coming from the community of being as we experience it. Whatever answers we may be able to offer to all the challenges coming our way from existence in this community, suffering being one of the most perplexing, those answers will originate in our experience of faith, hope, and love within this community. We believe and trust that we are within this community, for how else can we make sense of the strange familiarity we experience in participation? There seems to be enough oneness to justify our experience of familiarity; enough strangeness to move toward being challenged and enriched by our partners (the other) in the community. But not all partners within the community are equal, at least not in all respects, although if it be community we would seem to be able to speak genuinely of levels of mutuality. In particular, the divine Ground is the necessary presupposition, discovered and varyingly articulated in faith and reason in dialogue, by the sages and saints, of the participatory process as a whole. Without it, participation falls apart; familiarity evaporates into sheer strangeness, and strangeness becomes atomistic isolation. Without the Ground, the human partners lose their partnership or reduce that partnership’s ability to bring forth depths of wonder and imaginative creativity; they lose the sense of mutuality with, and respect for,

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 185 all sentient creatures, along with their consubstantiality with the cosmos and its obligations; they lose a sense of the equal worth before the Ground of all humans along with their unlimited potential in freedom; they lose hope in the midst of despair, and untold depths of heroic love. Without openness to the Ground, we, with capacities for faith, hope, and love, and reason, affection, and will, and imagination, deny the very demands and appeals coming to us from those capacities, and live in a lie of contradiction.76 Jesus and his movement emerge from within this community of being, and we Christians believe this constitutes one of those epochal events uniquely radiating a pleromatically transforming luminosity within and throughout this community. We have suggested dimensions of that luminosity in the heart-informed personal identity, social fields and societies (including the churches), and cosmic respect and mutuality, which seem to be entailed in the Jesus event. But all of this hinges on the divine Ground, the originary source of it all. We will summarize aspects of what Jesus and his movement contribute to our participation in the divine Ground and its community under the symbol of the “divine Heart.” The Christian community was led to reimagine the divine Ground and the community it grounds through its experiences of Jesus and his partners. The result, as we have noted, was on the one hand the varied insights and practices we have already sketched with respect to personal identity, existence in social togetherness, consubstantiality with sentient creatures and the cosmos, and all within the context of struggling with suffering, evil, sin, and death. On the other hand, the result, and in a way the deepest one, was the pull toward experiencing and imagining the Ground as triune. Each of these results is intimately connected, we believe. Here we will approach the trinitarian mystery, first, as an experience. To recall our earlier discourse, the trinitarian symbolism emerged from within the originary, engendering experiences that formed the Christian tradition. We intend, not to reduce the triune Mystery to our experience, but only to locate the site from which our awareness of it emerged.77 At the same time, remaining within the engendering experiences as best we can, meditatively, helps us avoid overthinking, pretending to a greater awareness of the Mystery than is truly available to us. We would also ask the reader to recall or revisit, as the essential background, our observations, in the previous chapters, on the trinitarian dimensions of Christian 76. See Voegelin, Anamnesis, 352–53, and Hughes, Transcendence and History. 77. For more on this, see Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 186 revelation. In what follows we are seeking, not to replace that theological and doctrinal material, but to meditatively elucidate some fragments of it. First, of course, the mystery of the divine Ground was known in its utter transcendence with increasingly differentiated clarity in the Hebrew revelatory experiences. Here the reader, by way of one example, may want to revisit our little meditation on the Burning Bush encounter with which this book opened. In our cross-cultural world it would seem patent that dimensions of this divine transcendence have also been differentiated in the Western Classical, Christian, and Muslim experiences, the Hindu Upanishads, the Buddhist experience of the no-thing of emptiness, the Confucian “Heaven” (T’ien), the Taoist Tao, in the intimations of transcendence of the oral religious traditions, and elsewhere. Even those who assert that they reject the transcendent Ground may in fact, at least at times, be objecting more to articulations of that Ground than to the Ground itself, witnessing in their own reverent ways, perhaps despite themselves, to the Ground’s transcending power. Second, the experiences of Jesus and his movement emphatically bring into differentiated clarity the personal nature of the divine and transcendent Ground. The One who will not reveal his name, at least clearly, in the Burning Bush encounter is typically known by Jesus and his companions as the “Father,” an address or name for the deity that seems rather untypical in the Hebrew experiences but very typical in the Christian. A “Father” requires a “child,” and so we find the “Son” as the correlate to the Father. This Father-Son symbolism evokes the personal nature of the Ground, and we catch a glimpse here of how the personal indicates relationship, dialogue, exchange, the back and forth of offer and response. Personhood is individuation through relationship. An isolated or sheerly autonomous person is a contradiction. Always the I involves a Thou. Our historical encounter with Jesus, who knows himself to be the Son, reveals and communicates this personal nature of the Ground for us and, in so doing, offers us a new form of more intensely personal relationship with the Ground. Third, the experiences of Jesus and his movement involve an increasingly differentiated awareness of our own attraction toward and participation in the personal mystery of the divine Ground. We find ourselves, almost despite ourselves, caught up in the Father-Son exchange, saying along with Jesus, our first partner, “Our Father.” Some find themselves witnessing to this, even to the point of death (martyrdom). This dimension of participation is symbolized for us in the language that speaks of the Holy Spirit. This should not mean that God as Holy Spirit is reduced to ourselves and the ways in which we experience and participate in exis-

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 187 tence. It more appropriately evokes the participatory nature of the divine Ground itself, first and foremost. The Ground is a transcendent, unlimited, and unlimitable power of participation. Another way to say this is to say the Ground encompasses what we experience in our limited ways as communion and community. It is best that we remain as close as possible to our engendering experiences and the language symbolisms emerging from those experiences. That way we will, it is hoped, cut down on hubristically “over-revealing” what the divine Ground has itself revealed. Here we heed Irenaeus’ advice that only God can reveal God. “For the Lord taught us that no man is capable of knowing God, unless he be taught of God; that is, that God cannot be known without God: but that this is the express will of the Father, that God should be known.”78 Among the primary language symbols is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The Ground, then, is one yet three. The oneness as transcendent Ground was more or less already known; it was the differentiated nature of the Ground that became luminously transparent in the Christian experiences, although intimations of this were and are surely found elsewhere. The Father-Son exchange evokes the dimension of the personal, indicating that personhood involves a loving interchange, a sharing, a dialogue. Personhood is individuation through relationship with the other. The less such an interchange occurs, the more we are veering toward the realm of the impersonal. So at a minimum, then, the Ground encompasses the mystery of the personal as a reality of loving dialogue. The language symbols of Father and Son evoke this. What we know of personhood is a form of participation in this greater mystery and source of the personal as dialogical relationship. John’s prologue introduced the symbol of the “Word,” and this too evokes the dimension of communication and exchange involved in the personal, which we encounter in the incarnation, as the Word becomes flesh (in John’s theologian’s myth). The primary language symbolism of the Spirit is more elusive, but at least a typical dimension of it in biblical and post-biblical tradition is its connection with the phenomenon of sharing, indwelling, and participation. Dialogue and exchange, if they really occur, involve sharing and participation. Otherwise they are pseudo-dialogues and pretended forms of participation. So right away there must be this mysterious “Third,” the Spirit, co-present with Father and Son, the breath through which the Word of the mysteriously silent Father breaks forth. This drawing into exchange is at work in all exchange, if it be exchange. Such exchange can be taken 78. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.6.4 (1:468).

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 188 to be a way of speaking of communion and community. The trinitarian community does not violate the personal but somehow includes and demands it, while the personal is always a mystery of communion and community. Notice here how the “Third” keeps persons open, decentered, willing to move beyond self-absorption. If the personal is dialogue, then the Third who brings community keeps the dialogue shareable and expandable. The divine Ground, then, is a lover’s transcendence, a beloved’s transcendence, and love’s transcendence, to use the language of Augustine. Michael Downey has eloquently suggested “Giver, Given, and Gift/ing” as something of a theophilosophical equivalence to Augustine’s triad and the Bible’s primary symbols.79 The personal as a mystery of I and Thou dialogue, and communion, but of a transcendent, infinite, and so always open and generative and surprising kind, seems at least a minimally adequate evocation of the matter. This is where the mystery of the incarnation and our salvational sharing in it has led us. Through the incarnate beloved Jesus we know ourselves as beloveds of the Lover in a generative love creative of the alternative community of inclusive love. Such is the divine Heart: “I will give you shepherds after my own heart” (Jer 3:15); “I am gentle and humble in heart” (Mt 11:29).80 The reader, we hope, will now take a glance backward, in the light of this trinitarian sketch, in an effort to add some further clarifications of issues still too sorely resistant to needed clarification. In this way we can work toward overcoming the tendency to make the Trinity’s image in our thought and practice “dysfunctional,” heeding Sixto García’s poignant advice.81 The Christian experience and view of personal identity, Jesus’ and our own through his; its experience and view of Church and society in all its forms; of our consubstantiality with nature; even of suffering, evil, and sin, through that strangely contrast form of insight we have noted: All of these are but so many analogous modes of participation in the originary Ground that is the triune Mystery. Obviously, our entire participatory approach to Jesus, Christology, soteriology, to interpretation and 79. Downey, Altogether Gift, 47, 40–59; Augustine, The Trinity 8.10.14. Also suggestive have been Hebblethwaite, The Incarnation, index, s.v., “trinity”; and Davies, A Theology of Compassion, index, s.v., “Trinity,” particularly on the constant reference to the “other” in the Trinity. 80. The seventeenth-century Bérullian family of spirituality, esp. that of St. John Eudes, offers a rich meditation on the theme of the heart; for Eudes the heart of the Incarnation lights up the trinitarian heart, our ecclesial heart, and our unique hearts, particularly the heart of Mary and the saints. See Thompson, ed., Bérulle and the French School, 32–76. 81. García, “United States Hispanic and Mainstream Trinitarian Theologies,” 100.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 189 language theory, and indeed to everything in this book would finally need to be rethought yet again in the light of the Trinity. Participation, that exchange between familiarity and strangeness, reflects the dialogue in language, communion, and involvement in and openness to community that is the triune Mystery itself. By way of conclusion, we will briefly revisit two questions and introduce another we have only hinted at in earlier pages. Evil, Sin, Salvation, and Trinity We noted earlier that one of the key reasons for the contemporary reemergence of trinitarian thought in today’s theology and religious philosophy had to do with the problem of suffering, so massively evident in this past century and showing no signs of letting up.82 This seems bound up with the Christian experience of salvation, which equally with the Christian experience of Jesus led the Church in the direction of a trinitarian experience and symbolization of the divine Ground. In other words, it was not just Christology, but also and inextricably soteriology, that led toward trinitarianism. Naturally trinitarian theology and doctrine do not solve or resolve the many imponderables that confront us in the valley of suffering; but the engendering experience of the triune God, guided by doctrine and theology, does console us and point us in the direction of the one possible answer, namely, a divine Mystery of love rather than of unconcern. A God of dialogue, communion, and community, who does not simply observe the human condition but quite personally enters into it, and does so in such a way that individuals, and analogously all creatures, are not simply so many expendable stepping stones toward the various human utopias that one or another ideological despot dreams up, but are themselves the gift of a quite personalizing love that builds up true community, does offer us at least an intimation of how suffering, evil, and sin might find their only adequate response. The personal and the social, to which we must add the cosmic-environmental-sentient, find in a triune Ground the promise of a future that is not just one more example of the throwaway societies in which we live. If the trinitarian shape of Christian experience be correct, this promised future will take the form, not of an egoism, collectivism, and cosmic amnesia, but of something along the 82. See, for example, the contributions of Moltmann, liberation theology, Balthasar, and others; convenient summaries can be found in Thompson, Modern Trinitarian Perspectives.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 190 lines of the post-collectivist personalism and consubstantiality we have found ourselves sketching throughout these pages. The Christological dimension of trinitarian theology particularly lights up the way in which the divine Ground participates in our suffering from within. The pneumatological dimension lights up the way in which we are connected with Jesus the Christ, and he with us, so that we become partners of the divine Ground’s therapeutic response to suffering. The Spirit, the Third who keeps the divine Love open and inclusive, opens up a future for sufferers, so that they may find the soul they thought they lost in their suffering, as Pope John Paul II noted.83 The how of God’s therapeutic participation in our suffering, evil, and sin is, like the how of the incarnation, a mystery that cannot be fully penetrated from our side. Here too we need to return to the primary language symbols of biblical soteriological teaching, approaching dimensions of the mystery now from one side, and now from the other, in a never-ending to-and-fro. In other words, we will never outgrow our need for the theological myth, the likely but true story, here in this land of evil, sin, and suffering. The reader may wish to revisit our earlier observations on this in the previous chapter and its Website supplement. If we heed the advice of Chalcedon, perhaps we should apply the “distinct but not separate” pattern of its Christological teaching to the Church’s teaching on salvation. That is, God’s loving and healing presence is inseparably, from within, united with all suffering through the incarnation, but in a way in which divinity remains distinct from creation. The divine, healing love is fully and intimately there, in the valley of suffering, through the incarnate Christ, but it remains divine, an unbroken and undiminished love, which heals the diminishment and distortion of being and love that suffering in itself, apart from such love, is.84 The tendency to attribute suffering directly to God seems to move in the direction of a soteriological monophysitism, absorbing the humanity into the divinity in some way. Suffering, as such, we are suggesting with the millennial tradition, is an evil: “Suffering is, in itself, an experience of evil.”85 To attribute it as such to God, whether from motives of compassion for those who suffer, or to accuse God of evil and abuse, from opposing motives: Both options strangely join hands. Obviously people have maintained inadequate views of the di83. John Paul II, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, no. 23 (37); see his entire meditation on Paul’s teaching about completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions (Col 1:24); the pope does this through a constant interrelating of Christology and pneumatology (nos. 23–26). 84. Here I side with Hügel, “Suffering and God,” 167–213. 85. John Paul II, On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, no. 26 (44).

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 191 vine workings which need purifying; some of this is even found in Scripture, as we have noted. But that is quite different from locating evil as such in God. The Trinity and the Other The Spirit as the divine Ground’s power of inclusion might afford us some further hints as to how a Christologically informed mystical tolerance is at best only an interim strategy, a sort of harbinger of something greater at work. We have opted for a mystical tolerance because we find ourselves within the seeming paradox of a transcendent Mystery that on the one hand reaches its pleromatic communication in Jesus and his movement, and yet on the other hand admits of many levels and depths of participation on the part of so many, who themselves do not accept and would seem unlikely in any clear way in history to come to accept this revelation as the “one true religion.” We recall the intercultural inclusivity noted, for example, by Luke’s Acts, inasmuch as it is through the work of the Spirit that the good news of the gospel fans out, moving to all the ends of the world. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The Spirit, then, is the link between all and Jesus, which is what we should expect from our little trinitarian meditation. This indicates, indeed, that no separation exists between Jesus the Christ and the Spirit; were such to be the case, genuine community would not be a dimension of the Trinity. This, then, fortifies and consoles the Christian mystic in his or her efforts to hold on to the truth that somehow Jesus and his movement represent the “one true religion.”86 At the same time, we note some other dimensions in the Christian experiences of the Spirit that shed some further rays on the matter. For example, Paul and Luke note how the Spirit, in addition to universalizing Jesus and his movement, as just noted, also particularizes the experience of revelation and salvation. The Spirit in Luke is the one empowering the witnesses, a Paul or Peter, Jesus’ mother Mary, and others. In Paul, the Spirit is given to each for the good of all (1 Cor 12:7). The Spirit particularizes, that is, inasmuch as the Spirit asks for and vitalizes the particular gifts of those receiving the Spirit. These are not annulled but energized. The Spirit is the one who “intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 86. See Rahner, “Jesus Christ in the Non-Christian Religions,” 39–50, on the link between Christ and the Spirit; and McDonnell, The Other Hand of God, esp. 203–11.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 192 8:26), thus enabling us to own our gifts and take responsibility for them. By extension, this gives us the hope that as the Spirit reaches out, bringing Jesus to all, both the witnesses as well as those who are addressed will not be asked to leave behind their talents and gifts. Personal particularity will be respected and integrated into the Jesus movement, and through this, that movement will be enriched. We encounter, in Luke’s Acts, another kind of pneumatic particularization too, which we might call religio-cultural. We are referring to the Pentecostal outbreak of tongues, in which the various linguistic, ethnic particularities become so many Spirit-energized expressions of the new kind of togetherness made possible by Jesus and the Spirit. Perhaps in today’s heightened cross-cultural world we might glimpse here something of the enrichment of the movement of Jesus that comes, not simply from particular individuals, but also from cultural and religious traditions that are other than Christian (at least at first). The Spirit knows how to make this happen; this is one of the Pentecostal gifts: “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11). As then, so now: We are still perplexed (Acts 2:12) and cannot fully see how this can happen. Some will now, as then, even sneer and think we are acting out of some kind of inebriation (Acts 2:12); but the tolerant mystic derives hope from this experience, which energizes him or her to move beyond simple tolerance. Finally, we should ponder the triune teaching that no subordinationism among Father, Son, and Spirit should be admitted in our trinitarian thinking and imagining. Neither “hypostasis” is inferior, and so this indicates to us that the richness the Spirit brings into the Jesus movement somehow challenges us to imagine a much more complex “something” being built in the “one true religion.” The Spirit discerns what does and what does not “speak about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11) in all the earthly religious and cultural complexes, including the Christian, and somehow is able to build these into the new and inclusive community of God’s reign. This is an intrinsic dimension of Jesus and his movement, too. The other, then, is an intrinsic dimension of this new reign. At the same time, while the Spirit is not inferior to Jesus the Christ, neither can we believe the Spirit is a separate or a parallel tract and province. That situation would mutilate the very real communion and community of the one divine Ground. The true religion is one religion, we believe. It is just a much richer oneness in diversity than we can rationally elucidate with complete comprehension. Again, the mystic quite experientially knows these things.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 193 The Trinity, Language, and Women We will end with some thoughts prompted by feminist criticism, which appropriately raises the issue of whether the Jesus movement can be truly inclusive if it in any way excludes women’s full participation. We have tried to make the case that Jesus’ alternative community is one that is, in principle, utterly inclusive. At the same time, it has been and remains a bumpy, sometimes depressing road, and we have tried, soulsearchingly and clearly, to indicate this. One of the most exciting and challenging signs of the vitality of the Jesus movement is the rich history of women’s participation through the many individual and group movements within the larger Jesus movement throughout Christian history. Oftentimes these movements displayed their own subtle forms of protest against the suffocation of the full ventilation of the inclusiveness of the Jesus movement. This is a story increasingly well known, thanks to the stunning research in feminist criticism and its cognate disciplines.87 “Ah! Poor women, how they are misunderstood!” wrote Thérèse of Lisieux. In a fascinating anticipation of today’s feminist criticism, she continued: “And yet [women] love God in much larger numbers than men do and during the Passion of Our Lord, women had more courage than the apostles since they braved the insults of the soldiers and dared to dry the adorable Face of Jesus.” She believed that heaven would be the final vindication for these women, “for then the last will be first” (Mt 20:16). But her “little way” was less patient, as she reacted to the many experiences of female exclusion she endured on her trip to Rome: “More than once during the trip I hadn’t the patience to await heaven to be first.”88 Did this “little” Thérèse know she was following in the tradition of the earlier “great” Saint Teresa of Avila, who had written: “Lord of my soul, you did not hate women when You walked in the world; rather you favored them always with much pity and found in them as much love and more faith than in men”?89 Both Thérèse and Teresa are mystics, and so they know how to live with the frequent paradoxes we encounter in the community of being. They practice that just-so impatience mentioned by Thérèse. Among the paradoxes we might note the following: Why is the new community not more inclusive? What does inclusiveness mean more precisely, inasmuch as some differences and diversity, like that between the sexes, are not 87. For example, Fiorenza, In Memory of Her. 88. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, 140. 89. Teresa of Avila, Camino de perfección, 2:68, as translated by Weber, Teresa of Avila and the Rhetoric of Femininity, 41.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 194 simply to be erased, but somehow to make their contribution to the new reign of God? Does inclusiveness always mean equality? It does not seem that everyone is equal in every respect, nor that this could ever be possible and perhaps even desirable. Yet, certainly we are equal in some sense before God and in his community: equal in dignity and worth and preciousness and the rights and obligations flowing therefrom. And why did the Savior, the uniquely hypostatic divine-human Jesus, come as a male rather than as a female? My impression is that these mystics are mystics because they are grounded experientially by profound participation in the depths of the triune Mystery. They know much of its depth and of the diversity of possible forms of participation within it. This has taught them humility and patience and tolerance and a host of other virtues. But above all they are grounded in the central conviction that the divine Ground as triune is a reality of love. And this must then be good news for women. Whatever else the incarnation means, it cannot mean bad news for women. In other words, recalling an earlier comment by Voegelin, these mystics are not literalists but are within the flow of the Mystery’s movement itself. There is a fascinating comment by Teresa of Avila in response to those who thought she was breaking the rule of silence and enclosure imposed on women in some biblical texts (Titus 2:5; 1 Cor 14:34) and church laws. At one point she wavers, as she thinks about “whether they who thought it was wrong for me to go out to found monasteries might be right.” But then she says she heard the words: “While one is alive, progress doesn’t come from trying to enjoy Me more but by trying to do my will.” Apparently she means, from the context, that if she spends her time in the cloister in prayer she may be enjoying the Lord, but that this is not what the inclusive reign of God is about. She goes on to say that people were making accusations against her “because of what St. Paul said about the enclosure of women.” She seems to mean the rule of silence in church imposed on women (1 Cor 14:34–35) and practicing submission to the males (Titus 2:5). Then comes the great insight: “Tell them they shouldn’t follow just one part of Scripture but that they should look at other parts, and ask them if they can by chance tie my hands.” I read this as her way of saying: Participate in the flow of the Mystery, and go where it leads. If the Mystery be one of triune Love, it will lead to love. Trust that. “As often as we think of Christ we should recall the love with which He bestowed on us so many favors and what great love God showed us in giving us a pledge like this of His love, for love begets love.”90 In this particular case, 90. Teresa of Avila, Spiritual Testimonies, no. 15, July 1571, in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, 3:328; The Book of Her Life, 22.14, ibid., 1:150.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 195 this participationist hermeneutic gave her greater clarity and even the courage to protest biblical and ecclesial literalism. So why was the Savior a male? We do not know, precisely, although we do know that the incarnation must be seen inclusively, in the sense that God’s hypostatic unity with Jesus brings about a saving unity and solidarity with all humans and creatures. For he is the “last Adam” (1 Cor 15:45), constituting a new people. The Savior’s male gender may be one of those questions that will never deliver the greater clarity we seek. Right now it is a question for many or some of us. Perhaps as we grow in mystical experience, we will consider it an improper question. Or perhaps we will simply grow convinced that it admits of a number of possible responses, all of which seem tolerable in the light of the impenetrable depths of the Mystery: Perhaps it is a sign of the divine accommodation to our human condition, namely, that of a male-dominated world. Or perhaps it is one of those biblical ironies: a male representing a new community that promises the transcendence of misogynism. Or perhaps . . . In any case, the mystic can, although it may be painful, live with the Mystery and not violate it. But with that just-so impatience. A final question requiring a just-so impatience is that of our language for God. This may be another of those paradoxes we must learn to live with, although for now many of us think and hope we might do better. We may fittingly end our chapter with this, here at the point of our thoughts on the Trinity. The primary language symbols for the triune hypostases in Scripture are male, at least for the most part, namely, “Father” and “Son,” and “Word” (in the Greek). We have tried to practice the hermeneutical rule that in the primary engendering experiences of revelation, the language symbols are not arbitrary, but intrinsically co-generated dimensions of the experiences. They are the medium through which we are enabled to co-participate, imaginatively and analogously, in those experiences. So in the first instance we should not arbitrarily ignore these language symbols or replace them. They must be respected as we try to follow the path they open up for us. Obviously with a transcendent Ground the language symbols cannot be literalized. The rules of symbolism and analogy apply here most intensely. But this does not necessarily mean that we can replace the symbols at will. Unless we can plausibly show otherwise, the languages symbols are the tutors, and we are the tutored. At the same time, we recognize a certain element of historical, cultural conditioning at work in the language symbols, and this necessarily causes us to approach them with a certain second naïveté. Language symbols do not simply fall out of the heavenly air. If we can indicate distorting elements in the symbols, consequently, we should engage in a certain purification of images.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 196 So we will try to heed the caution of these two hermeneutical rules as we proceed. “Father” and “Son” language, and “Word” too, indicate the personal, dialogical nature of the Ground, and so in this respect they would seem to be appropriate and, so far as we can see, irreplaceable, if we are to recognize the personal nature of God coming to luminosity in the revelatory experiences of Christianity. They cannot be literalized, of course, for the Ground transcends sex, gender, and person as we know it on our level. At the same time, working with the play of primary language symbols, we also find “Wisdom,” which is feminine in both Hebrew and Greek, used, particularly as an equivalence for the “Word” of the second hypostasis (1 Cor 1:24, 2:7; Prov; Wis). This, too, cannot be literalized, but it introduces a feminine symbol into our considerations. We know that the divine is symbolized as “Mother” or Nursing Woman too, but indirectly (Is 49:15, 66:13). We say indirectly here, for it is a matter of a comparison or the use of an explicit metaphor: “As a Mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you” (Is 66:13).91 If we add to this evidence that of post-biblical tradition, we would seem to have a strong argument for using both kinds of language.92 And naturally biblical use sanctions all kinds of titles (savior, king, etc.) and images from nature (rock, fortress, lion) for the deity. The inclusiveness of the language seems to point to the inclusiveness of the love of the triune God. Perhaps the best advice, then, is to follow the lead of the play of symbols that we find in the engendering, revelatory experiences. Its ecumenicity should be reflected in our own language usage, in our thought, our affections, our practice, our prayer, our liturgy. The diversity itself is a complementing one, each sounding the depths of a Mystery always exceeding our categories. Linguistic renewal and creativity are dimensions of the renewal of trinitarian thought deserving of more attention. By renewal, we mean a reattunement to the diversity of language symbolisms already available to us in the tradition, particularly those associated with the great revelatory irruptions. Linguistic reductionism is not a good way to reverence the depths of the Mystery. Linguistic creativity points to the new forms of 91. Thus, “Mother” language in Scripture is indirect, while “Father” and “Son” language is direct. All are metaphors, I believe (the “as” is implied in all God talk). The direct use seems to give a greater weight to the male language, but the female “wisdom” is also directly attributed to the second hypostasis (1 Cor 1:24), which would seem to imply a “critique” of privileging male language. 92. See, for example, Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:155–64; Johnson, She Who Is; more controversially, Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet.

Not Afraid to Be Partners / 197 language speech that sometimes accompany revelatory experiences, especially when there is a newness breaking forth. The Gospel genre, for example, is one such new language symbolism, its newness evoking the newness of Jesus and his movement. The very word trinity is not found in Scripture, nor is homoousios, for example, but each has found its way into our language usage, even in the liturgy, because the inner dynamics of our revelatory experiences demanded it. As always, this newness encounters opposition. Saint Basil, who was defending the “novel” teaching of the Spirit’s divinity in an age still thinking along more “Unitarian” lines, wrote of his “opponents . . . [who] call us innovators, revolutionaries, phrase-coiners, and who knows how many other insults.” And they do this, because Basil and the likeminded “finish the doxology by giving glory to the Father with the Only-begotten One, and do not exclude the Holy Spirit from this same glory.”93 The Spirit, as the mysterious Third power of openness, would seem to be especially linked with novelty, change, and creativity. As the Spirit is poured out in the last days, sons and daughters will prophesy, youth will have visions, and the old will dream (Acts 2:17). The gift of prophesy is a form of speech, but if it is spirited, it will be a visionary and imaginative kind of speech. The Spirit, then, is the power of imagination, the One enabling us to find the appropriate images leading into the Mystery. Artist, Image, Imagination. Such might be something of an equivalent to Augustine’s trinitarian formula: Lover, Beloved, Love.94

For the supplement to chapter IV (“IV/For Further Study”), go to www.home.duq.edu/~thompsonu. Topics covered: 1. prematurely ending history and absolutizing space in Christian belief and practice: a conversation with Eric Voegelin on history and historiogenesis (his term for a derailed form of historical thought) and a further application to the theme of space and its derailment through geogenesis, in the light of Jesus; 2. considerations on how being, becoming, and metaphysics are implied and presupposed throughout this book.

93. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 6.13 (28). 94. See Sayers, “Toward a Christian Esthetic,” and The Mind of the Maker. I have tried to present a more inclusive rereading of Jesus and his work, Christology and soteriology, throughout this chapter. For a stimulating example of an inclusive rereading of Christian theological history, I recommend Miles, The Word Made Flesh.

Reprise

Gu emen gabiltz gaztetxoeri zerbait erakutsi asmoz. Beste lan danak baino ere au maiteago degu askoz. Nere biotzak bere iritziz beti sentitutzen du poz. Bertsolaritza ez da galduko gazte berriak badatoz. (Here we are trying to teach something to the youth. Far more do we love this job than any other. Deep inside, my heart is always happy. The bertsolaritza won’t be lost if new youth arise.) —MANUEL LASARTE

Chapter IV was our conclusion. This chapter seeks to provide a brief recapitulation that we hope the reader will find helpful.

Considering Participation We began by wagering that participation would be a rewarding way to approach Jesus and his movement. The wager arose from the very ordinary and often simple experiences we all have of forms of participation 198

Reprise / 199 yielding rich rewards, although occasionally we are disappointed. A very obvious experience is that of marriage; another, that of friendship. As we participate in one another’s lives and interests, we come to a more profound appreciation of one another. We are transformed, typically in richer ways, in mind, heart, and will, or in our modes of thinking, feeling, and making choices and acting. While this seems to be true of perhaps everything—sports, physical science, language learning, and so on—it certainly seems true in the area of personal relations. If we are seeking greater personal knowledge, or affection, or mutual action, participation seems to be the way to do so. We also entertained the hunch, which we hope has proven on target, that participation is a mode of openness to people and things that stretches our horizons, keeps us alert and willing to take different paths, and so avoids reducing everything to itself. It is modest, in other words. And, of course, it occasionally fails, because we just do not seem to be always able to meet its challenges. All of this, then, added up to our decision to meditate on the dynamics of participation, along with a little of its biblical history, as a preparation for a participative approach to the study of Jesus and his gospel movement. Becoming participators in the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4); sharing intimately in the eucharistic bread and wine; the Johannine theme of mutual indwelling (e.g., Jn 17:21–24); Paul’s love for the preposition with and compound words containing with (the Greek sun), like his declaring that we are baptized with Jesus, we die with him, and we live with him (Rom 6:4, 6, 8): All of these indicated that the theme of participation constitutes something like a rich subsoil in the Bible. Like subsoils, it is easily overlooked, because it is almost too obviously something to be taken for granted. But its obviousness and simplicity are among the things that highly recommended the theme to us as worthy of more concentrated attention. In an effort to further unlock characteristics of participation, we offered meditations on the Burning Bush story of Exodus 3 and the Burning Heart story of Luke 24. Both are among the richest of participatory encounters in Scripture, and they also have the advantages of illustrating something of the debt owed the Hebrew revelatory experiences and texts by the New Testament. The rich interplay between familiarity and strangeness, or the old and the new in a hard to predict fusion, seemed to be likely dimensions of the dynamics of both Moses’ experience of participating in the Burning Bush theophany and the disciples’ experience, on the way to Emmaus, of similarly participating in the dialogue and encounter with the risen Jesus.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 200 If things or people are too strange, we have no way of sharing with them. If they are too familiar, we need not put forth the effort to share, for it seems that all is already known. But in truth, participation episodes are a blend, a very fascinating blend, helping us experience the new (the strange) in the old (the familiar). What is more familiar than a bush? What is more strange than a bush that burns but never disintegrates? Correspondingly, the Jesus of Luke’s Emmaus narrative seems strange, for he could not be recognized. On the other hand, through some of the old, familiar practices that Jesus used to engage in with his partners— reading the Hebrew scriptures and breaking the bread—the Emmaus travelers eventually came to a recognition of him. The strange became familiar while remaining strange. Participation, then, is dynamic: a flowing strangeness or newness in the familiar and the old. Keeping the flow flowing, that is one of the secrets of participation, one of the reasons we keep coming back to it, even when at times we are not equal to its challenges. In these biblical examples, which are really primordial paradigms of religious participation, we glimpse something of the rich yield in store for us as we work with the theme of participation. For the willingness to be stretched in the old unto the new helps us meet on new depths the divine Ground of all forms of participation, the Mystery drawing us into the new through the old. And as we are so drawn and correspondingly respond, we discover new dimensions of ourselves, too, as knowing, affectionate, and acting persons. A burning bush perhaps symbolizes, on one of its levels of meaning, the divine Ground’s purifying and nondestructive, transformative power as it leads Moses to new forms of leadership for his people on their journey to greater freedom, with all its ethical challenges. Burning hearts, likewise, perhaps evoke the mysterious bonds of affectionate insight and love aroused by the encounter with the risen Jesus. Faith, hope, and love were also featured as dimensions of the flow of participation. Fidelity to the potential richness of sharing, an alert expectation that it will preserve the best of the familiar and the freshness of the new, and the outgoing stretching of the self beyond itself: These are so many ways of speaking of faith, hope, and love as moments within participation. Perhaps this way of putting it helps us understand that the centrality of these three virtues in Christian history, while they owe much to Paul’s influence (1 Cor 13:13), seems to follow the curve line of human nature itself. Attending to participation, and thinking of faith, hope, and love within its context, brought home the importance of keeping these three master virtues always connected, at least in our imaginations. Faith becomes static apart from the outgoingness of love and the expectation of hope. One can

Reprise / 201 see how it almost freezes up and becomes discredited as a simple adherence to a dogmatic proposition detached from history’s dynamic movement. Faith also becomes cold and impersonal without love. Of course, something of the reverse happens, too. Without fidelity to participation in reality, hope can turn into illusionary dreaming and love into simple license and hedonism. This dynamic, flowing approach to these virtues within the context of participation led, almost inevitably, to a consideration of reason, imagination, images and language, along with affection and deliberative action. The push of love naturally draws us toward committed and active care and action, as well as toward warm affection and passion. The expectancy of hope arouses our wonder, activates our imaginations, guides us toward images and language, and stimulates and even brings out our questioning and analyzing reason, pushing us into new regions and further horizons. We began to glimpse something that our experience had already revealed to us and that we knew by common sense, namely, that participation in and with people, with other creatures, and even with things is a very full-throttled phenomenon, opening up, challenging, and in turn enriching an enormous array of capacities: faith, hope, and love, along with many other virtues, like courage and fortitude; imagination and reason; passion, affection, deliberation, committed action. Saint Teresa of Avila’s classic, The Interior Castle, finished in 1577, served as an example of this stunning circulation of features as she meditated on her own journey from the familiar to the strange in her relationship with Jesus, with her partner nuns and other committed persons, in the context of the society of her times. Saint Teresa was especially compelling and helpful, because she is so authentic. Her journey records, in the narrative form so close to our living experience, her struggles, her surprises, the many challenges coming from now this side and now that side of participating in and with her Jesus and his movement. The burning hearts of her and her companions’ journeys echoed the burning hearts of the journeyers to Emmaus. Hopefully it anticipated the burning hearts of future journeyers along the Emmaus path too. The Emmaus episode, along with the story of Teresa of Avila and her partners, reminds us of the situated nature of participation. It occurs within space and time, place and history, and somehow these dimensions are also a part of the matter. The historical dimension means we need to imagine participation in a vertical way, that is, as the heir of a vast history, still in the making, of participation, of various grades of quality. This is true of all forms of participation, and thus it is true of our special focus, namely, participation in and with Jesus and his movement. The geographical dimension makes us think of the social dimension; we exist

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 202 within concrete social fields and societies, and these make their mark on the quality of our participation as well. We endeavored to note some of the more significant sociohistorical challenges we would need to consider throughout this book: from the biblical and Classical periods; from the modern, late modern and postmodern; from our contemporary global and even interplanetary experience, for example. We wagered that Christianity, with its focus on the incarnation, challenges us to think and act historically and socially in an intensified way, for the incarnation celebrates God’s embracing of place and history, space and time. This is where we always are. Whatever answers we will be able to offer to the challenges posed for us by society and history will have to come from our participation within society and history itself. The option of social and historical escapism is not what a book committed to participation can take. On the other hand, depending upon the quality of our experiences of participation, we may be afforded sufficient luminosity to make our way and to keep participation flowing, hopefully and lovingly. Such was our wager; but naturally much of this was based on our trust that we are anchored in the divine Ground, Who grounds and valorizes the flow of all authentic encounters of participation in the depths of reality. Participation, then, was looking like quite a venture. But to make this venture a little more concrete in our first, somewhat abstract chapter, we ended with something rather obvious but pertinent. We can usefully think of participation in its unique, its more group, and its more commonuniversal forms. Participation brings home the unique right away, for if we were all simply the same, there would be no need for the venture from the familiar to the strange that participation is. This is true on our most local levels, and it is true of our relationship with Jesus. So this book would seek to honor this, and try to attend to how the unique person has her or his special contributions to make. Participation, in other words, highlights the role of the Jesus movement, not just Jesus himself. Jesus, to be properly known and loved, cannot be known and loved as an isolated person. We, as other persons, are essential dimensions of the Jesus phenomenon. A great part of the challenge of Jesus, even of just the study of Jesus, is the way in which it challenges us to be unique individuals too: our gifts (charisms) are very much something we must “own” if we are to engage in this venture.1 Christianity is in many ways a history of stun1. The word own in the context of the charismatic gifts may seem paradoxical, but it powerfully brings home the fascinating interplay between grace and freedom, I believe. Elizabeth Johnson, in a conversation she may have forgotten, existentially fortified me in “owning” up to this “own” dimension in the faith journey.

Reprise / 203 ningly unique individuals, and the specially noted saints and mystics, some of whom this book featured, were simply meant to highlight the challenge to all of us to own our unique charisms in the service of the Jesus movement and, in a related and wider sense, in the service of humanity and world itself. Typically today we think in terms of groups: family, friends, schools, educational associations, professional colleagues, church and other religious affiliations, civic alignments, ethnic groups, social organizations, reformist movements, religious and political action groups. Unique individuals typically discover their charisms in and with others, who recognize the individual’s charismatic talent and in some ways resonate with it. That resonance brings forth the likemindedness, like-feeling, and likeaction that constitutes the social fields of groups. Building on this, this book would endeavor to attend to various forms of groups as creative social fields within the long history of the Jesus movement. These creative groups were in many ways rich engendering experiences for the emergence of the Church’s thinking about Jesus and his movement. Groups like this remain today crucially important engenderers of the movement and its thought, affection, and deliberative action. Today’s groups, it is hoped, can learn much by attending to the rich group history that has preceded them in the Jesus movement and derive much consolation and fortitude from that rich history. We also noted the dimension of the most common and (potentially) universal forms of participation with which Jesus and his movement challenges us. A great deal of the ferment in today’s Jesus studies and in Christology and soteriology has to do with this universal dimension. For today’s postmodern climate is suspicious of claims to universality, and yet Jesus’ life and message seems to issue a challenge to all of us, past, present, and future. What does it mean to go out and make disciples of all nations in such a period as our own, in which so many local communities have felt and now strongly resist the destructive consequences of the imperial colonizers? How can the Jesus movement become an effective witness to the universal appeal of Jesus and yet avoid smothering the unique and the local? Or can it? This book wagered that our participative approach might shed a bit of light on this rather difficult question. For participation is a fusing phenomenon, but one in which all partners experience a blend between the particular and the more than particular. Individuals and groups bring their special talents and gifts; and yet in the encounter of sharing, if it is working at optimal or at least adequate voltage, all are brought to experience a bond that unites them. Our focus then was going to have to be on

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 204 what kind of bond Jesus and his movement offered us. Would it truly offer the promise of sustaining the flow of the movement between familiarity and strangeness, and between faith, hope, and love, and between mind, heart, and will, and between reason, imagination, affection, and deliberative action, and more? Would it keep these elements in participation flowing and moving in the forward direction, and would it promise compellingly to do so, not just for some, but for all, when all means all creatures, not only humans, and the all embraces those of the past, the present, and the future? That was the goal we set ourselves. We did so, because we had to, to be faithful to the matter at hand. I hope the reader will agree. In this first chapter’s supplement (for further study), we entered more fully into some of the alternative positions one might encounter.2 This enabled us to think through a bit more deeply the implications of our own position, but we hope it will also offer the reader more choices, better perspectives, a sense that we are working from within our own experience of participation, but also the sense that we are participating in a larger conversation—about Jesus, but in a way, about the entire community of humanity and creation. We thought it would be helpful to ponder, for example, the role of faith and reason somewhat more, given our emphasis upon them as existing in a challenging interrelationship within the experience of participation. We offered a grid of possible choices, ranging from reason-only perspectives, faith-only perspectives, various combinations between faith and reason, then on to those who think they can transcend both through a kind of gnosis, and more. Fidelity to (or faith or trust in) experiences of participation, with others, and with Jesus (our focus) arouses our questioning reason; once aroused, it can challenge the quality of our faith, widening it, confusing it, and so on. This in turn can lead faith, once it has made its peace, so to speak, with reason’s challenges, to challenge our reason once again, in a continuing process. Naturally we are speaking about participating in good experiences, not evil ones per se, although evil and sin can be present in various degrees in all kinds of relationships. That is one of those challenges with which our faith and reason must contend. The reader will note that we gave a rather wide interpretation to faith or fidelity, viewing it as the basis of our openness and attunement to participating in the human drama. Through it, we believe, anyone might be able to experience Jesus and the effects of his movement, thus moving from faith in a larger sense to faith in a more rigorous Christian sense. Obvi2. Chapter supplements are, as noted, found at www.home.duq.edu/~thompsonu.

Reprise / 205 ously this is a contentious viewpoint. Reason-only types will have issues with faith of any kind, and people of a more restrictive view of faith may have problems with our rather more expansive view. We can only respond that our little description of participation has led us to opt for the faith and reason (along with much else, as we have noted, e.g., hope and love, and imagination, affection, deliberative action) of our more expansive kind. The reader will have to judge whether we have succeeded in accurately attending to the dynamics of the matter. We also suggested to the reader who may be interested in more on the theme of participation that he or she consult the writings of political philosopher Eric Voegelin, particularly his five-volume magnum opus, Order and History, for it lays out a philosophy of participation in the community of being, suggesting that we are all partners in a vast community (God, humans, society, and cosmos) and that the quality of our partnership in this community has generated on a vast range our various human forms of “order” or community within history. This seemed to us a very congenial viewpoint, given our approach, and the reader will have noted our frequent return to Voegelin’s insights along the way. This was not exactly planned, but as we went along, we found ourselves somewhat spontaneously finding much of his thought illuminating. Behind his thought, to some extent, is a rather creative retrieval of Plato, who might be considered the great philosopher of participation. So perhaps it should not be surprising that in a book featuring participation we would be consulting these thinkers. On the other hand, given the Jewish and Christian focus of our subject, we would naturally be turning to other sources too, which might in turn amplify and challenge a philosopher like Plato.3 Participation argues for a combination of the same and the different. We are similar enough to be able to share in and with one another; we are different enough that we need to venture forth into the somewhat strange, through shared partnership. This goes by the traditional name of “analogy,” or similarity in difference. A book on Jesus is a book on the theme of incarnation. Incarnation particularly seems to be an event of similarity in difference, the radically Different (namely, God) sharing sameness with us. Because of that, we can participate in the divine Ground. So incarnation commits us to that bifocal form of thinking, feeling, and willing that is analogy. We thought it might be helpful, but also challenging, to pause at the 3. In the course of my writing, I was happy to discover a work sharing this one’s sensitivity to participation, namely, Allchin, Participation in God. A complementary perspective is offered by Goizueta, Caminemos con Jesús.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 206 end of this first supplement and listen to two thinkers of radical difference who distance themselves from analogy. In some ways, Emmanuel Levinas and Luce Irigaray argue, analogy always ends up violating the other in the interests of the same. These thinkers are not precisely in agreement, but they offer us a cautionary perspective, challenging us to be critical about mirror thinking and acting, that is, projecting our own wishes on to the other rather than really encountering the other as other. Participation’s experience of the strange and the new, which is really different, must not be swallowed up by the other pole, that of familiarity and the old. In other words, we hope that with the critical aid of Levinas and Irigaray we might become more sensitive to whether the flow of participation is truly and properly flowing.4 But the reader will have to decide whether we have even remotely adequately succeeded.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement in the New Testament In a way, our book has been asking the reader to become something of a portrait artist, as she or he seeks to encounter Jesus and his movement. This writer remembers sitting for a portrait as a young man, years ago, when my parents had all of the children in the family painted by a professional artist. I remember there was more than one session, although the precise number has faded from my memory. It was, after all, sometime around the time of my and my identical twin brother’s high school graduation. Why were there a number of sessions, during which we got to speak with the artist over a somewhat concentrated period of time? As I look back on it, I believe the artist was seeking something of a glimpse into our souls, our personalities. Of course, the surface dimensions of our looks were being noted too, but the artist wanted to know more than the surface. As it turned out, the portraits were a blend of surface and depth, body and soul, so to speak. In other words, portrait artistry is something between snapping a photo and painting an abstract. Photographs stress surface, requiring relatively little personal investment and interpretation. Abstracts move in the opposite direction, stressing interpretation, and sometimes straying very far from the surface dimensions. Portraits keep surface and depth, body and soul, in something of a greater tension and balance. When one looks at a finished portrait, one should immediately be able to see the 4. See Baird, On the Side of the Angels, for an example of how Levinas can be a critical dialogue partner.

Reprise / 207 resemblance to oneself, but one should also sense the interpretation factor at work. In other words, portraits are that subtle interplay between familiarity and strangeness. They are participatory phenomena. If they are good portraits, one senses something of the soul revealed through the surface. But that depends on the quality of the participation between painter and subject. We wagered, then, that the Bible, especially the New Testament, is like so many portraits. If we were to approach it through our participatory perspective, we might well be able to achieve a relative balance between surface information, like chronology and geography, and depth, that is, something of the souls and personalities of the people featured therein, especially Jesus and his partners. We also wagered that we are not cut off from the world of the Bible, at least not in the first instance. We do not need to build bridges to it. We inhabit the same world that it inhabits; the Bible is a result of participating in the community of being, as are we. Hence, as we pick up and read the Bible, we know ourselves to be on somewhat familiar ground, and we can form something of an initial and valid understanding of much that we are reading, just as a portrait artist is on somewhat familiar ground as he or she begins to paint a subject. And yet we come upon difference, too, the world of the unfamiliar. For the Bible, like people, represents varying intensities of participation in the community of being. So we are optimistic about our abilities to engage and appropriate the world of the Bible, and yet we are also aware of a certain distance, and this imposes a caution on our interpretation and challenges us to find ways to cut down on claiming more than we can in our interpretive efforts. The Bible has been called a witness, a sacrament, a sign, an icon, and more. In other words, it is something of a window onto surface and depth, body and soul. In and through the linguistic medium of it all we are challenged and yet enabled to participate in the movement of Jesus and in Jesus himself. But this would require our participation, our keen imaginations, our faith, hope, and love, our minds, affections, and willing actions, and more. But in and through it all, we wagered that we would be able to move beyond simply looking at a photographic image of Jesus and his partners, and glimpse their souls. Our portrait approach, then, honored the literary form of the Bible, and particularly of the Gospels, and did not in the first instance view it as an obstacle to our encountering Jesus. We trusted that the Gospel form resulted from the partnership between Jesus and his companions and followers. The story or narrative perspective of the Gospels did not simply drop down out of the heavens, nor was it a simply arbitrary phenomenon

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 208 that could just as easily have been replaced by other literary forms, like a theologian’s or philosopher’s essay, perhaps, or like a more surface factoriented treatise, like many “modern” historians might want. The Gospels as narrated stories are in the literary form congenial to our lived participation in people and their histories. They result from personal and community investment and participation, and they yield their secrets to those willing to make analogous investments themselves. We used the terms originary genres and engendering experiences as ways of evoking this narrated quality of the Gospels, since they are reflective and productive of the originating, engendering experiences of our lived participation in the drama of Jesus and his movement. Admittedly, this approach to the Bible raised a number of questions, and we endeavored to meet their challenge as best we could as we went along. For example, is the Bible historical? Well, much depends on what is meant by history. If it involves the soul (our depth) along with geography and chronology (our surface), then, yes, it is history. We even suggested that the soul factor is what converts temporality into history. This approach looked back to an older, more humane approach to history than is sometimes practiced today. We even suggested that history in the end is grounded in our openness to the divine Ground, which creates our movement into the future and enables us to look back on the past as a record of growth toward or defection from God’s drawing us into the future. Much of the Gospel seems concerned with this soul dimension, seeking to engage us on that level. At the same time, we recognized that while the soul factor in history valorizes the importance of a participative approach to the Bible, the surface data dimension still has its role, and indeed in our times creates something of a challenge for us as we approach the world of the Bible. We do seem to forget much of this as we look back on our participatory experiences, or we remember it rather vaguely and with some contradiction. Real human history seems to be like that, even today in our very surface data-oriented world. At the same time, this alerted us to the need to seek ways to be cautious and self-critical as we moved along. Given our holistic approach to history, in which we did not separate the divine Ground from the historical process, it seemed to follow that we should not separate a “Jesus dimension,” meaning the humanly accessible Jesus of Nazareth, from a “Christ dimension,” meaning the divine dimension accessible only to a theological-faith perspective. If there is a divine dimension, and we believe there is, it will and can only be available to us from within history. The divine Ground belongs to history just as much as the human dimension; and in fact, if we are correct that the attunement

Reprise / 209 to and awareness of the divine Ground converts temporality into history, that Ground is the crucial factor in the historical process. Reworking a celebrated axiom from Eric Voegelin, we then offered our own axiom: The Jesus Christ of history and his companions and their movement emerge from the history of Jesus Christ and his companions and their movement. We articulated a rough distinction, but not separation, between surface features of Jesus and his movement, among which we placed chronological and geographical aspects of human events, and the more humane and transcendental dimensions of history, the “depth” dimension. The latter, we surmised, would require relatively more personal, participative investment, as we have endeavored to explain that. We hope that this is one of the places where our study of some of the features of participation in the first chapter would now yield some dividends. For if the depth dimension typically requires more of these participative features, the reader will know we are thinking of faith, hope, and love, reason, imagination, affection, deliberative action, and the whole range of human virtues. More or less common-sense internal (biblical) and external (sources outside the Bible) criteria provided us with important chronological and geographical data. For example, Jesus lived approximately between 7 BC and AD 30 in the Palestine of the Roman Empire. He spent the first thirty years of his life in Galilee, raised in a pious Jewish family. His encounter with John the Baptist marked a significant turning point, helping him arrive at a clearer view of his own mission. That mission became much clearer and focused within a few years, and we found him finally coming to Jerusalem in accordance with that mission. As we know, it culminated with his arrest and death by crucifixion resulting from opposition from significant Jewish and Roman authorities. Along the way he was influenced by and in turn influenced many, from within his family and beyond, ranging from onlookers, to sympathizers, to committed disciples, to opponents, and so on. Our participative approach would accent the role of these partners and others, given the immense importance of the quality of our relationships to the kind of persons we become. The chronology and geography of human events are converted into history by the specifically humane and transcendental dimensions of human beings acting in society and history. This depth dimension, then, would require relatively more personal participation by the interpreter and reader. In other words, the dimension of our spirituality would be intensively challenged. And we then have that strange paradox with which to contend: that personal investment is the road to greater acquaintance and knowledge, while its passional obscurations can impede the quality of our knowledge, causing us to go astray as well.

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 210 We decided to divide the materials between challenges coming from the synoptic Gospels and challenges coming from John, with some attention to other biblical sources along the way. We began with the synoptics, as do many biblical scholars today, because it is widely thought that they provide us, on the whole, with the earliest materials on Jesus and his interactions. Paul’s writings are actually earlier, and naturally we should look to these for further corroboration. Scholars influenced by the more “modern,” surface data-oriented approach to history prefer the synoptics, and we believe this approach has its very important place in a historical perspective, especially for a faith based on a historical incarnation. At the same time, “earliest” does not always mean “best.” Earlier sources may, in general, be better on surface data, but not necessarily on matters of depth perception. After all, relationships require time and maturity. Thus, the Gospel of John, given its probable lateness, may yield rich fruit when it comes to depth perception. The centrality of the reign of God in Jesus’ preaching and work is perhaps the most agreed upon emphasis of the synoptics. The symbol of the reign evokes the community, sociopolitical, and salvific dimensions of what Jesus was about. It nicely coheres with our emphasis upon not separating Jesus from his companions and the larger network of his interactions. As we grow through social participation, so did Jesus. His Father’s “reign” is an invitation to certain kinds of social participation. As we worked with this theme, we found ourselves utilizing historical criteria such as multiple attestation (the synoptics) and dissimilarity (how Jesus’ use of the reign symbolism differs from that of his Jewish contemporaries). Some historians have stopped appealing to these criteria in reaction to a perhaps too simplistic appeal to them. We suggested that they are not magic modes of access to historical truth but are embedded within the quality of our participative investments. They do, however, help us cut down on passional obscuration, one of the great shadows of a participative approach. We argued that “reign of God” is a symbolism that cannot be simply nailed down in propositions, for it is not so much information as an invitation to formation of our characters and action. We suggested “alternative community” as something of a contemporary expression, and then went on to briefly survey some more specific features of this community noted in the synoptics. For example, Jesus’ teaching on love of the enemy and his practice of open-table hospitality evoked this community’s radical inclusiveness. His rooting of this community in a highly personal view of God, whom he typically addressed or named “Father,” thus intensifying the “warm, affectionate current” of God’s transcendence in the Jewish tradition, was also noted. The warm, open, and embracing God, we sug-

Reprise / 211 gested, nudged Jesus toward the open, warm, and embracing alternative community. That community’s “preferential option for the needy and vulnerable” was a coherent if startling expression of this. The warm transcendence also cohered with the theme of the community’s personal presence now in the thought, affections, and actions of Jesus and his companions as they convert space into the place of community and concern. At the same time, this transcendent Father, no matter how “warm,” is after all the transcendent One. His reign will also, then, remain future and “there” rather than “here.” The warmth of God’s inclusive love introduced a kairos, a kind of urgent call to transform our now and our place into an experience of inclusive love. We went on to sketch how we have access to these materials only through the lens of the narratives of the Gospels themselves, a narrative lens we characterized as paschal. Each synoptic Gospel, through its own engaged perspective, with its mix of strengths and limitations, offered intensified insights into one or another dimension of Jesus and his movement. Mark intensified the cross dimension, the love that saves because willing to suffer; Matthew, the formation of community; Luke-Acts, the impetus outward toward universal inclusiveness. All are tragicomic narratives, the cross evoking the tragic factor in existence, and the resurrection, that of the comic, our capacities for joy, humor, play, hope, happiness, our ability to experience salvation. The word paschal also looked to the earlier Hebrew Exodus experience, thus enlarging our view of these synoptic tragicomic narratives. We were invited to imagine the Jesus community and movement as the Exodus-like liberation of an oppressed people. The story is not only Jesus’ story as an isolated person. To isolate him from his people in need of liberation is, in fact, to participate inadequately in his movement and thus to understand improperly the challenge his work offers us. While tragedy and comedy interpenetrated throughout these synoptic narratives, they were not a kind of Manichean dualism. Resurrection remained the more powerful current, because the warm current of divine transcendence was at work in the man from Nazareth and his companions. The final resurrection event, narrated in each synoptic, then, brought out this greater power of the comic dimension and issued the great challenge to us, perhaps the most intense form of the familiarity/strangeness polarity we have yet encountered. For we are familiar with mini-victories (the comic) over tragedy in our lives. But that there is a victory over death, and over all possible forms of tragedy—that is something quite stretching. But it is what we were invited to accept: “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (Lk 24:51). The Gospel of John, we noted, represented something of a decided shift

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 212 in focus: from the reign of God to Jesus himself. However, we also noted that this contrast could be overdone, for there were ways in which the reign of God was noted in John, and ways in which a certain focus on Jesus occurred in the synoptics. Jesus was the principal agent of the reign of God in the synoptics, the one ahead of the disciples and principally forming them for action within society and history. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I [Jesus] cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Mt 12:28). Other references to Jesus’ specialness occurred in the synoptics too: He seemed to speak with the authority of God, or at least with an authority backed by God: “But I say to you . . .” He even seemed to place his work within the line of the suffering prophets whose work would be vindicated by God through resurrection and/or ascension (Lk 22:16). How much of this went directly back to Jesus himself in more or less the form we have it in the Gospel narratives, and how much was the result of the developing of perspective and insight coming from personal and community participation in the work of Jesus, will likely never be settled. Participation’s shifts in understanding are often subtle and barely noticed. We argued, modestly, we hope, for a coherence between the earlier, well-accepted principal role of Jesus as the reign’s agent and these other insights becoming luminous. A gestalt was appearing, which placed Jesus and his movement in something of a clearer focus, and if we follow the lens of the narratives, the paschal events of the death and resurrection were decisive in this regard. Our analysis of participation, with its dialectic of familiarity and strangeness, along with its other dimensions, has provided, we hope, something of a contemporary mediation of these events and insights in the Gospels. We did not intend simply to repeat the story of Jesus. That could not be done in any case. So the synoptics manifested an attunement to a “something extraordinary” about Jesus; but John brought this front and center. The paschal shape of the Johannine narrative was emphatically clear: Jesus was the glorified, transfigured one. We preliminarily noted this by saying that the paradoxical tension between the sublime and the ordinary in Jesus and his movement, while found in the synoptics, was more forcefully and joltingly present in John. Jesus was in the flesh, to be sure, but he was the Word that was God, and he proclaimed strange utterances that immensely intensified the strangeness pole of our familiarity-strangeness dialectic: “I am”; “I am the bread of life”; “I am the resurrection and the life.” Who speaks this way in our common experience? We admitted that the Gospel of John was especially challenging. We suggested that it was the result of profound personal and community ex-

Reprise / 213 periences of mystical participation in the saving work of Jesus. We saw no reason to think that such experiences were always clear and balanced. All of us have had our moments of blindness and loss of balance in our great love experiences. Why should we think it would be much different with the Johannine community? The later attraction of the Gospel of John to the Gnostics, for example, perhaps already indicated a certain quasi-gnostic danger already within the Johannine community. Why, otherwise, would the later Johannine letters find it so necessary to stress Jesus’ humanness? We concentrated our focus upon the celebrated prologue of John, for it was representative of the dialectic between the poetic and the prosaic, the transcendent and the historically narrative, running throughout the entire Gospel. We suggested that John was something of a theologian of the myth, somewhat as Plato was a philosopher of the myth. That is, myth was being employed in a critical way, with a second naïveté, in order to express dimensions of reality that could only be pointed to symbolically, since their full dimensions exceed our clear grasp. The prologue was not an example of primitive, naïve myth, as some have argued, as if God were being reduced to cosmic, innerworldly being. Nor was the prologue to be tamed by emptying it of its extraordinary nature through simply turning it into an allegorical way of speaking about how all of us are made in God’s image, although that had its place and importance. John had recourse to a theological mystic’s use of myth because he had to. John and his community were driven there, because the singularity of a most personal communication of God to us humans had occurred with Jesus. The Johannine, theomystical myth has birthed a rich progeny, as the later history of Christological reflection reveals; but that was a story we would attend to later. For now, we noted that as we endeavored analogously to participate in this rich theological and mystical myth we came upon the outlines or the intimations of a trinitarian gestalt. The Word was God, it said. We took Word to be evocative of the personal communication of God to us in the flesh or humanness of Jesus. Somehow his humanness could not be separated from God, and together they offered us God’s personal presence. Yet the Word was also with God. Was this a hint of the later Church’s belief that the divine Ground was itself a mystery of dialogue, of sharing?—what John’s narrative, with the synoptics, referred to as an exchange between the Father and the Son? Finally, the prologue spoke of our becoming children of God through the Word (1:12). Was this a hint that we, too, albeit analogously, participate in the dialogue between Father and Son, becoming daughters or sons in a way, or children, too, of this divine dialogue? Did this look forward to the Church’s

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 214 later articulation of the divine Holy Spirit, the Johnanine Paraclete, who brings us into communion with Father and Son? The divine dialogue was looking like a very open and inclusive one indeed. This theomystical myth, in other words, fascinatingly suggested a divine Ground that might be symbolized as Communicator (Father), Communication (Son), and Communicating (Holy Spirit), or in the more traditional language as Lover, Beloved, and Love. As we glanced back over this long look at the Gospel narratives, we suggested that a dialectic between a “community principle” and a “Jesus Christ principle” could serve as a useful summary of the biblical, and especially the New Testament, materials. The community principle was meant to indicate that Jesus and his gospel movement were about the formation of community. Present in him and his companions was a salvific power of community formation, but a kind of formation that was inclusive, inasmuch as it was grounded in the warm, transcendent inclusive love of God. The Jesus Christ principle was meant to indicate that Jesus himself as the personal presence of God kairotically qualified this community, inasmuch as through him and with him all of us were invited into and even brought into, through God, a form of community that was personal rather than collectivistic. Each of us was called and known by name, in the depths of our interiority. “The shepherd . . . calls his own sheep by name” (Jn 10:2–3). The alternative community, in other words, was emerging as a post-collectivist, individuated form of inclusive community within society and history. Additionally, the emergence of the letter genre of the New Testament, for example, those letters coming from Paul and John and their circles, indicated that this power of individuated community formation continues. For what is a letter but a form of personal address in the here and now, in the ongoing context of society and history? These New Testament letters are expressive of the ongoing working out of the alternative community of Jesus, manifesting something of that tensive now and not yet, here and yet beyond, that seemed to characterize Jesus and his work in the period of his ministry on earth. Such was also indicated in varying ways by the Gospel narratives themselves, of course: through the resurrection narratives and the missionary discourses, which together speak of a continuing presence of Christ calling us and forming us into the new community. All of this is what one might expect, given the trinitarian hints already found in Scripture. That is, the divine Ground is a dialogical, inclusive God, a Loving reality drawing us within the dialogue of the divine Lover and the divine Beloved. Naturally, our interpretation of the materials is highly contested, and

Reprise / 215 in some ways always seems to have been. Our second chapter’s supplement (for further study), then, sought to provide the reader, but also this book’s author, with something of a more developed dialogue with others on certain key points, or on issues hardly touched on but deserving of more notice. We thought the reader would appreciate connecting our participative approach to interpretation with some of the major trends in interpretation theory. This was helpful to this author too, forcing me to think matters through a little more fully. We suggested that participation provides us with a way of connecting and, we hope, understanding with a relative adequacy at least four fundamental dimensions of interpretation, namely, author(s), texts/works, the world of meaning and truth opened up by these, and the interpreters/receivers. Each of these, we suggested, could be imagined as interconnected, if we fell back upon Voegelin’s notion of the community of being, within which we all share in varying ways. Texts reflect the author’s participation in this community, and we are also able to enter into this world because in basic ways we already share in this community of being. Interpretation, from a participatory perspective, is another one of those familiar/strange experiences. We are familiar with these four dimensions, because we are these four in varying ways. But there is that strangeness, too, for we are not these four in the same way as others are. So each of the dimensions challenges us to refine the skills each requires. This approach somewhat relativizes the Bible because it asks us to think of interpretation as a process, not just limited to the Bible, but occurring with texts and indeed with our lives in general. At the same time, we did offer some suggestions about rethinking the nature of inspiration and canonicity along the lines of the extent to which a text discloses the truth of the partners in the community of being. Texts, in other words, are authoritative, not for arbitrary reasons, but because they compellingly disclose the truth of reality to us. Jesus research was another huge and complex area of reflection needing more attention. We offered a sketch of the high points of its history, ending with the recent third quest. Obviously how one evaluated the different approaches depended upon how each related faith and reason, which inevitably linked up with considerations in our first chapter. The terrain was mixed, and we sought to offer as fair a survey as we could. We singled out for further consideration the Jewish dimension in Jesus studies, much attended to in recent research; the exorcisms and other miracle stories of the New Testament, less attended to; and we ended with some considerations on the recent revival of interest in the older, patristic and

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 216 medieval styles of biblical interpretation. We argued for a somewhat mixed but respectfully thankful evaluation of this last element. Some maximized the Jewish dimension of Jesus, seeing little discontinuity between him, his work, and Hebrew revelation; others followed the minimizing path. We argued for a more polyvalent mix. The elements of novelty in Jesus’ work were not easily able to be grasped, particularly his inclusivism, but this was accompanied by a certain element of antiJewishness spreading its poison in the tradition. The shadow side of participation, that is, the way it is amputated through error, evil, and sin, surfaced rather intensively here, uncomfortably raising challenges to our soteriology from within the Jesus movement itself. As we know, at a later date this would feed into a more racial anti-Semitism, thus leading to the Holocaust. The exorcisms and other miracle stories were too central to the New Testament view of Jesus and of salvation to be ignored. John Meier has most compellingly made this case, but others have made significant contributions too. Our further considerations were meant to complement what we had suggested earlier, but too briefly. We appealed to our notion of the theologian’s myth (in the prologue of John) as a way of thinking through this material, without denying historical dimensions and the need to think through philosophically and theologically dimensions of the matter as best we could. We only intended to argue that even the best philosophy and theology cannot simply dispense with the need to make recourse to a non-naïve employment of myth. The miracle element seems to be one of those border phenomena that most radically challenge our view of the community of being. Just how open to the new and unexpected, to the caring and loving, is this community of being? How capable is it of reversing its shadow side, its evil and sin, its forms of demonic obsession and possession? Obviously the warmly transcendent God of Jesus makes an appeal for rather radical and extraordinary novelty and care, expressed most poignantly and fully in the event of his resurrection. This brought us back to the poles of familiarity and strangeness (the new) in our experiences of participation and raised questions about how the divine Ground of such participation may well savingly transform it.

The Advancing Jesus Movement While our book respects the role of doctrine in the history of Christianity, it also represents something of an attempted counterbalance to the

Reprise / 217 usual tendency to move from the New Testament’s views of Jesus to the various Christological doctrines that emerged in the early Church. That is an intellectualist approach to the faith that gives the impression that achieving dogmatic formulation is the summit and goal of ecclesial existence. Our approach was to suggest that the goal is the flourishing of the Jesus movement, and doctrines must be situated within that. Luce Irigaray had written of a logic suited to life and its breath, and we were seeking something similar here. We decided to stress representative engendering experiences of participating in Jesus and his movement as the source of the movement’s advancement. Keeping theology and doctrine connected with their engendering experiences of participation cuts down on reducing them to items of information rather than accenting their role as guides to formative participation within the movement itself. These engendering experiences are complex, involving mind, heart, and will, or thought, affection, and action. They could also be conveniently distinguished in their group, individual, and more collective/communal forms. We were not seeking a detailed history of these experiences, which would exceed the author’s competency in any case. We were looking only for examples that would illuminate the lived logic of the Jesus movement: How it advanced and how it enabled the emergence of the Church’s view of Jesus and his work. Christology and Christological-soteriological doctrine were a part of this, but only a part. They were, so to speak, the “mind” dimension at work, but the heart and will dimensions were at work too. All had their cognitive contributions to make, and all together kept the Jesus movement healthy. In other words, we were heeding Jesus’ warning, echoing the prophet Isaiah, to avoid dullness of heart and hardness of hearing (Mt 13:15; Is 6:9–10). Christian friendship and martyrdom offered us our representative group experiences of participation in the Jesus movement. The first was rather ordinary and for that reason was apt to be overlooked, but we wagered that such common group experiences were particularly key. We also wagered that such experiences continue to happen today, and to the extent that they do, the Jesus movement remains healthy and flourishes. But martyrdom also happens today, if less frequently than friendship, and we also wagered that it was and continues to be an important source of the Church’s thought, affections, and action. Each of these together might represent the fascinating engendering power of both ordinary and rather extraordinary (like martyrdom) participatory experiences. Beginning with the Johannine Jesus’ “I do not call you servants . . . but I have called you friends” (Jn 15:15), and on to the reflections of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas on the Christological and soteriological dimensions

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 218 of friendship, we noted how the experience of friendship fostered the insight that the incarnation brought a new experience of friendship between God and humanity, making “one heart, from two,” as Aquinas would have it. This kind of familiarity and mutuality, which is a sort of freely willed “equality” with us on the part of God, was indicative of the accent upon the personal communication of God noted in the New Testament and surveyed in our last chapter. It also marked a significant difference from the Greek world of thought, and even a somewhat subtle but significant shift from the earlier Hebrew experience of God. The martyrs’ experiences, on the other hand, accented the costly dimension of such friendly mutuality between God and humans. If friendship stressed the warmly affectionate and personal intimacy of divine love, martyrdom deromanticized this and freed it from tendencies toward exclusivism. The love broke out beyond friends and even—and perhaps especially—sought the supposed enemy, the torturer. Each was needed, and each manifested a certain dimension of the incarnation and the salvation it brings. There was even a likely overlap between them, inasmuch as the martyr’s experience of friendship with Jesus and other Christians in Jesus likely gave the martyr the support she or he needed to be able to witness so effectively to the agapaic love of Jesus. Martyrdom, we surmised, especially highlighted the soteriological dimension of Jesus and his movement. For the witness of the martyrdom was greatly a work “on behalf of others,” a testimonial appeal to others, arousing the consciences of those within its region of contact, and in this way bringing them into the orbit of love. Given our emphasis upon the incarnation (inclusively understood as embracing the totality of the Jesus event) as the divine Ground’s historical personalization for us, it stood to reason that Christianity should have generated a rich tradition of personalities, namely, the martyrs, saints, and mystics. These personalities, then, reflected the outworking of our Christological principle. We singled out the mystics as our representatives of individual participation in Jesus and his movement, given the writing mystics’ acknowledged gift and talent for reflecting upon and articulating the dynamics of participation in Jesus. They illustrated for us something of how the Jesus movement is truly a post-collectivist community, that is, one in which the individuated personality is enhanced rather than cramped. Because of the writing mystics’ talents for introspection, they could at times abstract themselves from their essential connections with others within the Jesus movement and beyond, in society at large. They could also at times succumb to something of an excessive influence from the cli-

Reprise / 219 mate of opinions of the culture of their times. But despite this, a significant number of them have left us stimulating MRI-like explorations of the engendering experiences of participation in Jesus and his movement, and thus of the dynamics of the process through which Christological and soteriological insight emerged. Their journals, letters, autobiographies, and art, for example, articulated for us in a narrative manner how Christian engagement resulted from faith, hope, and love, from reason and imagination, from affection and action, from intensive experiences of purification and transformation, from dark nights and theophanic moments of luminosity, as one’s mind, heart, and will were rendered more and more transparent of the divine Ground. In this way, they offered us an important glimpse into some of the deeper dimensions of the infrastructure of group and common participation in Jesus and his movement. The intrinsic energy of Jesus’ work was toward inclusiveness; it could not be confined to one or even to some, but it inevitably moved toward all. If it did not, it would land in self-contradiction. We singled out the genres of Christological and soteriological doctrines, from among other strategies, which developed in furtherance of this inclusiveness. We described these as a minimum code through which a sense of our common identity as partners with Jesus could be developed. Through these doctrines, along with laws, ethical codes, liturgical patterns, and of course a developing learned theology and philosophy, the faithful were tutored in the arts of Christian community. Doctrines, given their relatively more intellectual form, were characterized as typically somewhat more removed from the experiential texture of Christian engendering experiences; but when kept in tensive relation with our group and individual modes of participation, and also in relation with the liturgical and pastoral life of the community, they could make an important and even critical contribution. Given the wide ecumenic reception of the Creed of Nicea and Constantinople, we chose to accent its contribution to the Church’s growing Christology and soteriology. Its central portion was a Christological bulge, and the center of this center offered a focus upon the theme of our salvation. This suggested that the Jesus event and his saving movement especially were the creed’s heart. Its concentration upon the full divinity of the divine dimension of Jesus, countering Arius, represented an awareness of the belief that only God’s complete embracing of the human condition offered us the hope of a remedy adequate to evil and sin. This God from God “was humanized that we might be deified” (Athanasius). Nicea-Constantinople’s third section, on the Spirit, represented an important pneumatological supplementary contribution to the Church’s mind,

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 220 heart, and will. If Nicea’s burden was to defend the insight that “Jesus is Lord,” Constantinople’s burden was to complete this, proclaiming, with Saint Paul (1 Cor 12:3), that such a Christological confession can only happen “by the Holy Spirit.” Inasmuch as our experience of salvation is dependent upon the Spirit, then the Spirit must be fully divine, just as the Father and Son are, for it is only through God that salvation can be effected. The creed proclaimed the Spirit’s full divinity, then, and emphasized that it is through the Spirit’s work that we are enabled to participate in God and share in the benefits of the salvation brought by the divine Son Jesus. The Christological bulge of the creed, then, put our Christological principle in doctrinal form, while the pneumatological supplement put the community principle in doctrinal form. Or perhaps we should say more exactly that this creed thought through the divine dimensions of both principles, that it was the full God, not an inferior or subordinate semideity, who embraced creation through embracing humanity in Jesus, and the new community of Jesus into which we were introduced was none other than the community of this God, not some pale reflection of it upon earth. Both of these creedal sections also brought to doctrinal articulation the Church’s growing understanding of God as one and triune. That is, only such a thrice-differentiated God was adequate to the revelatory implications of Jesus and his new community in society and history. The way the Nicene Creed was supplemented by the First Council of Constantinople and then later clarified by supplementary confessions issued by the Councils of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and more, indicated that concentrations on one or another aspect of the mystery of the incarnation raised further questions about other aspects, or demanded further clarifications in the interests of protecting the full range of the mystery. Dwelling upon the person of Jesus, for example, might obscure the centrality of those he came to save, that is, Christology might obscure soteriology and pneumatology, or vice versa. Or a concentration upon Jesus’ divinity might require a balancing stress upon his full humanity, or vice versa. This constant need to keep ourselves anchored reverently in the full mystery was the major reason for our stressing the role of participating in engendering experiences as the living source of our faith. Doctrines emerged from this and in turn served this, and their contributions and yet limitations are acknowledged in a healthy manner by their remaining rooted in these engendering experiences. That is why we stressed the role of such representatively engendering experiences as Christian friendship, martyrdom, and mysticism, and noted some others, such as prayer, liturgy, and especially among these latter, the Eucharist and meditative

Reprise / 221 reading of Scripture. Together, all of our forms of participation, namely, group, individual, and common-creedal, conspired to enable the Jesus movement to breathe as fully as possible. Our example of the developing imperial style of Christology, under the influence of the Constantinian settlement, was presented as a cautionary tale, suggesting in the interests of balance that at times our forms of participation in Jesus and his movement have gone astray. Our supplement (for further study) in this third chapter focused upon questions of eschatology and geography, further Christological developments among schools of theology and at later Church councils, and the theme of salvation. The time period here was, as in this chapter as a whole, largely that of the “classical period” of Christology, namely, that of the age of the Fathers, Mothers, and the Medievals, to some extent. Our goal was to offer representative examples of how the Church’s view of Jesus and his movement advanced, thus suggesting to the reader analogous forms of advancement in our own times. The incarnation intensified the historical and geographical dimensions of revelation: A God becoming flesh happened at some time rather than at any or no time, and somewhere rather than nowhere. We could not really ignore what happened to time and space in an incarnational faith, and hence we were compelled to explore questions of eschatology and geography in the advancing Jesus movement. Inasmuch as Jesus and his companions mediated a more personalized relationship with the divine Ground, history was packed with an intensified promise of personal and social meaning and responsibility, and space was given the promise of becoming “place,” that is, a hospitable home for the new community. History has received more attention than have space and place in recent Christian thought, perhaps because of our heightened historical consciousness these days, along with a more traditional focus upon the person of Jesus, and a tendency to associate place and land issues with Judaism and other less person-focused religions. But humans exist within the coordinates of time and space; these dimensions do not disappear in a personcentered faith, although they do seem to go through complex modulations. In the period under consideration, we noted a certain loss of balance, in the sense that Christians had to work their way through to a new assessment of time and space after the initial shock wave of the resurrection experiences. History did not really end, nor did the final reign of God fully emerge, despite some initial expectations. Paul finally concluded that Christ was the first fruits of what is to come, and Augustine somewhat normatively developed this a bit more. Two tensions or poles remained and were increasingly differentiated in

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 222 mind, affection, and action: the historical already/not yet, and the geographical here/there. Jesus and his new community offered us the solid hope that the new community was at work, and as such, people could experience the sense of community that transforms space into place and time into historical opportunity. But depending upon how effectively this occurred, the experience of the poles could shift now to one side, and now to the other. The tension could also collapse under extreme conditions, breeding triumphalism or despair, and their resulting ethical and practical consequences. The supplemental notes on Christological creeds, surveying the seven ecumenical councils, and on creedal theologians was meant as something of a complement and a corrective to our more sketchy and condensed observations on Nicea and Constantinople in this third chapter. This classical period went through enormous efforts of consensus building, and it would be foolish not to recognize the magnitude of its contribution and the benefits of its clarifications. The Alexandrine attunement to the ontological unity of divinity and humanity in Jesus; the corresponding Antiochene sensitivity to the distinction between divinity and humanity, honoring the full humanity of Jesus in the interests, however, of recognizing divinity’s greater and distinct reality vis-à-vis things human and created; the complex Western tradition of the communication of idioms, equivalently expressive of the ontologically hypostatic union; the poetic and symbolic Christology of the Syriac tradition, expressive of the compact richness of the engendering experiences of Christian faith: Each of these offered us a map into varying depths of the Creed of NiceaConstantinople, if we view them as so many commentaries on that creed. The Third Council of Constantinople (680) highlighted the concern over a more balanced understanding of the union of divinity and humanity in Jesus, honoring both divine and human wills and energies, but noting that the human capacities achieve their fullness through obedience to the divine. Second Nicea (787) might be said especially to have reflected the dimension of salvation permeating all of these Christological efforts in its incarnational defense of icons. Second Constantinople (553), finally, was particularly concerned with the trinitarian dimensions of Jesus in its concentration on the triune Logos as the principle of the hypostatic union. All of the debates noted in this chapter’s supplement were driven by the soteriological concern. The hypostatic union was expressive of the depths of God’s embrace of all things created and human. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was expressive of the dynamism of our participation in that embracing union unleashed by the incarnation. Keeping these two together was crucial if Jesus and the rest of us were not to be artificially

Reprise / 223 isolated from one another. Salvation, we suggested, was the result of this richly textured union. As a way of summarizing the very dense materials of the Church’s efforts to think through its experience of salvation, we suggested the interplay between diagnosis and therapy. Diagnosis looked to assessing the problematic side of human existence, that which was in need of salvation. Therapy looked to the proposed remedy, namely, union with God. Inevitably, one could not engage in diagnosis without some preliminary understanding of the therapy, for the view of health determined by contrast the nature of the affliction. Divine intimacy, we suggested, was the therapeutic reality increasingly becoming luminous through the incarnation, in whose light we might arrive at a more differentiated diagnosis of what sickens humans and cosmos. Gregory of Nyssa’s flame (of love), shooting downward rather than upward, was representatively evocative of this healing intimacy.

Not Afraid to Be Partners: Emerging Challenges and Hopes The previous chapters illustrated how much of the labor of Christological thought circulated around the question of Jesus’ identity. We suggested that this was not accidental, although it could and did bring its loss of balanced perspective now and again. Most centrally this interest in selfhood, Jesus’ and ours (by implication), was an expression on the intellectual level of the engendering experience of personalized mutuality between God and humanity opened up by Jesus and his movement. Personalized mutuality involves persons. The heightened sense of the personal resulting from the incarnation more or less naturally resulted in a heightened exploration and differentiation of the nature of selfhood, whether Jesus’ or our own. The biblical symbol of the “heart” served as our evocative focus of this heightened epiphany of the personal, which we then brought into dialogue with the classical anthropology centered on the “soul”; the modern, centered on the autonomous self; the late modern, centered on the social self; and the postmodern/neo-historicist, centered on the “subject.” These anthropologies have enriched and challenged each other in the history of Christological exploration. They continue to do so. Necessarily this will remain an unfinished process, given the mysterious depths of the personal. This is another reason for returning to the engendering experiences of revelation, meditatively, so as not to prematurely foreclose on its dimensions. In the end we suggested that fidelity to the depths of the Jesus experience required us to view his person as a special case of

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 224 the coalescence of human ascent to the divine Ground and the Ground’s corresponding divine descent in intimacy. These two poles in varying ways would seem to characterize all persons, but in Jesus’ case we would seem to be encountering the divine Ground in its personal uniqueness as the divine Thou. Our own experience of personalization and individuation, we suggested, is mediated to us through the encounter with Jesus. The Classical and modern anthropologies have enabled us to articulate features of the human ascent most fully, although the Classical has made important contributions to our differentiation of the divine descent as well. Late modernity has heightened our appreciation of the social dimensions of selfhood. We note with interest that the postmodern critique of totalization seems to find its best protection in the openness to the divine Ground, an openness that does not foreclose on the Ground’s willingness to descend in personal intimacy. One of the ways in which Christology has lost its balance is in privatizing Jesus, artificially severing his person from the sociocultural and cosmic matrix within which it exists. Hence we moved from the heightened focus on the personal to a more sustained look at the social dimensions of Jesus and his gospel movement. This is why we have so persistently, and perhaps repetitively, insisted on speaking of Jesus and his movement, following the lead most especially of the synoptics’ stress upon Jesus’ work on behalf of the reign of God (the alternative community). As noted earlier, the community principle and the Christological principle need to be thought of together if the full nature of Jesus’ post-collectivist and personal community of inclusion is to come into focus. Our partnership with Jesus, and his with us, is one of the ways in which we have expressed this, reworking a theme from Augustine’s City of God, namely, that the city of God is one characterized by shared authority. We have been tracking this social and community dimension of Jesus’ movement throughout this book, especially by noting the interplay between individual, group, and more communal forms of participation within the movement, all within the broader context of the complex social fields of society at large. In this final chapter, we offered a dialogue with some sociopolitical experience and theory, seeking a mutually challenging and enriching interchange between the Jesus movement and its social audiences, so to speak. All of this, naturally, was only meant to illustrate the kinds of social challenges that participation in the movement of Jesus entails. We started by discussing some central tensions typically encountered in our social existence: “social fields” organized by persons, with which others resonate; “societies,” that is, those social fields that have achieved

Reprise / 225 a notable size and stability; “community,” as the humanizing bond between persons; and “institutions,” as the organizational structures through which the former express themselves. All are always in complex interrelation, we suggested, heeding Voegelin’s suggestions especially. Voegelin had also differentiated between elemental (institutional), existential (that with which people resonate), and transcendental dimensions of society, and we found this helpful as a further way of articulating what goes into the making of true community. The key challenge in the making of community is the coalescence between the institutional, the existential, and the transcendental truth of our rootedness in the divine Ground. Community, we further suggested, was in some ways the root and goal of social fields and societies. Jesus’ alternatively inclusive community, we suggested, is a society among all the other complex social fields and societies in our world. All the historical Christian churches, inasmuch as they originate in Jesus’ alternative community and movement, form one society, although from another perspective they are also complex social fields and societies in varying modes of interrelationship, ranging from antagonism to friendship. None of these churches, we argued, is simply identical to the community of Jesus, if by the latter we mean the radically inclusive reign of God, which embraces all creatures, past, present, and to come. Witnessing to this universal inclusiveness, as modified by the interplay between the community principle and the personal/Christological principle, is one of the singular contributions to be made by the Jesus movement as it acts within society and history. But as noted, this community and its work of witness occurs only in the between space of history and geography in tension toward the divine Ground. The post-collectivist community is now but fragmentarily realized, and maintaining a certain healthy tension as the community moves toward more adequate community realization is one of the great challenges. Voegelin at times wrote of the capacity of the community to absorb aspirations for renewal coming from various social fields, while Irigaray wrote of ventilation, which stresses the need to allow for maximal diversity. Absorption and ventilation, it would seem, challenge and enrich one another within the churches themselves; but also in a certain sense these might express the relation between the churches and the larger civil societies within which the churches exist. In any case, we offered a brief survey of the various strategies employed by the churches as they sought and seek to witness to Jesus’ new community within the various societies of history. However, the capacity for absorption and ventilation reaches something

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 226 of a limit at times, sometimes because of error and sin, but sometimes because of the complexities of the divine Ground and the varying manners of seemingly appropriate responses to its dimensions and depths. The wars of religions, which characterized the Reformation era, are an example, and the fragile development of a creed and ethics of tolerance in the liberal democracies of the West was a way of responding thereto. We ended this section on the social with some observations on today’s globalized world, which heightens our need for tolerance. We took another lead from Voegelin and argued for the development of a mystical form of tolerance, seeking guidance from such mystics as, for example, Bodin, Nicholas of Cusa, Voegelin himself, Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, and others. Such mystical tolerance, we argued, can enable the Christian to live with the many paradoxes and aporias challenging us in our global context, and yet it also impels us toward something better than tolerance. We briefly moved to a Christological meditation on the theme of the world as we pursued our consideration of contemporary challenges in terms of the four partners of the community of being: humans, society, world, and God. Deprivatizing Jesus pushed us to consider, not only human social contexts, but our relationships with animals, plants, other planets, and the cosmos as a whole. We noted some of the soteriological challenges that our cosmic habitat raised, namely, problems like ecological devastation and possible interplanetary destruction. Any relatively adequate view of Jesus’ salvific work would need to offer some meaningful responses to these. The paschal cross and resurrection dynamic, however, is our theomystical myth, which nourishes our courage that such answers might be forthcoming. Meanwhile, we suggested that our Christological and our community principles might offer us a way of recovering, with a second naïveté, something of the consubstantiality between the partners in the community of being experienced in varying but surely different ways by our earliest ancestors, Linda Hogan’s “first people.” The Christological principle, that of the intimate friendship effected by our personalizing friendship with Jesus, invites us to imagine a form of individuated consubstantiality with the cosmos and its creatures. Such a personalized consubstantialty might be called, analogously but plausibly, intimacy and even mutuality, even if there are various “hierarchical” gradients on different levels in this mysterious cosmic network. Simultaneously, the community principle is challenged to amplify its imagination and action. The inclusiveness of the reign of God includes, and has always included, despite our amnesia, all the partners in the community of being. This needs to translate itself into consequences for our minds, our hearts, and our wills.

Reprise / 227 At this point we offered a soteriological transition. We are striving for concreteness, and in this concrete world, error, evil, and sin abound, wounding the community of being. We have found, continually, that the challenges of soteriology thoroughly permeate the minds, hearts, and wills of Jesus and his movement’s partners. We tried, then, to build upon the strands of soteriological reflection put forth earlier in the book. Our views of Christian identity, of social and ecclesial community, and of consubstantiality with the cosmos and its creatures, we suggested, could be considered as varied dimensions of our Christian therapy offering us anticipatory insights into the nature of evil and sin, since these latter can only be effectively known by way of contrast with the former. Evil, and sin, which introduces a moral dimension, could be heuristically characterized as that which impedes the partners in the community of being from constituting the kind of community that should be present. The biblical image of the hardened heart (skle¯rokardia/a< relat lebab) evoked for us the wounded identity of the person on the Christian view. “Heart,” we recall, was a holistic image, offering important shades of difference between the Jewish and Christian anthropologies and other kinds. In such a view, the afflictions of evil and sin must be seen as permeating all the layers of human identity, including mind, heart, and will; body; and social and cosmic interconnections. At the same time, we noted mutual challenges and potential enrichments coming from our dialogues with classical, early and late modern, and postmodern thought. Evil and sin confront us in the crippled self, afraid of owning, or refusing to own, his or her legitimate autonomy and charismatic ingenuity (a lesson learned from the Classical and biblical traditions as amplified by the early modern). Evil and sin confront us in the social self, worn down by depersonalizing bureaucracies and de-energized bodies, blinded, tortured, and murdered by prevailing social ideologies, and crippled by passional pathologies (lessons learned with the aid of a dialogue with late modernity). Evil and sin confront us in the panoptical eye of the carceral systems of control of all kinds, intellectual and institutional, resulting in the totalitarian totalizations of which postmodernity warns us, reducing persons to “subjects” able to be constructed into whatever “objects” the prevailing systems may dictate. The cumulative result of such evil and sin manifests itself as so many blinded minds, hardened hearts, and crippled wills. Evil and sin also challenged us to rethink social fields and societies on their various levels, particularly the elemental (institutional), existential, and transcendental. We especially noted the subtle ways, given our heart anthropology, in which the institutional and existential dimensions of the social may work to hide the person, subtly depersonalizing people, robbing them of their ability to partnership forth life-enhancing forms of

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 228 society. The “hooding activities” used by torturers became for us a symbol of this depersonalization. Something of this hooding also occurs in our relationships with the cosmos and all its creaturely inhabitants, symbolizing the presence of evil and sin on a cosmic scale. While our belief in Jesus and his movement gave us and gives us hope that there is a therapy at work in the cosmos that can meet these challenges, still we came upon aporias. Nature itself on the microscopic level results in corruption and death; it may likewise do so on the macroscopic. What are we to make of this? At the very least we are challenged to recognize that our this-worldly hopes meet with their limit. Any fully effective soteriology will have to come from the divine Beyond. What are we to make, too, of the mystery of the victimization of the innocent throughout history (Job’s “issue” with God), human victims as well as the victims in the animal world and indeed in creation as a whole on all its bewildering levels? To some extent, we are brought to the borders of our rational capacity to make some sense of it all, and perhaps we should reconnect at this point with our earlier comments upon the demonic and satanic. At the same time these aporias remind us most particularly that only a truly divine Ground offers us anything like a viable hope that our therapy is truly adequate to our diagnosis. We turned, then, to some final thoughts on the divine Ground in the light of our Christological and soteriological explorations. The divine Ground is the necessary presupposition of the participatory process of the community of being as a whole, discovered and varyingly differentiated by sages and saints in faith and reason, imagination and hope, love and deliberate action, and much more. Without it, participation would disintegrate, and the community of being would splinter into isolated atoms. The rich interchange between familiarity and strangeness would simply collapse. Familiarity would become smugly narcissistic. Strangeness would turn into radically “other” bizarreness. Jesus and his community emerged from within this community of being, casting a radiance upon its partners. But the divine Ground is the source of it all, and so the crucially impelling concern was how this Ground became and becomes transparent in Jesus and his movement. We focused, in this regard, upon how Jesus’ gospel movement itself in all its aspects was drawn toward a trinitarian experience and imagination. We cautioned that this was and remains primarily a theophanic experience. Our thinking can at best give us some fragments of insight into mysterious depths, luminous fragments that we trust are adequate for our journeys, but fragments only disclosed by attunement to the more ample engendering experiences of revelation. The Ground’s transcendent oneness was more or less already known. Its differentiated nature became

Reprise / 229 increasingly luminous through the Christian experiences, although intimations of this were found elsewhere in many religious traditions. We focused upon the primary symbolisms of Father, Son, and Spirit. The Father-Son exchange evokes the dimension of the personal, but indicating that the personal involves a loving dialogue and interchange. Personhood is individuation through relationship with the other. John’s prologue introduced the symbol of the Word, which also evokes personal communication and dialogue. But dialogue requires participation, if it is truly to occur. Otherwise it remains a missed dialogue (a monologue). Hence, in the Christian experiences we encounter this mysterious “Third,” the Spirit, co-present with the Father and Son, the breath through which the dialogue takes place. This mysterious Third draws the partners beyond their isolation, keeping them open and decentered. This is a way of speaking of communion and community, in other words. The divine Ground, then, is revealing itself as the source of the personal and of community. We are back with our Christological and community principles, but now we glimpse their grounding in the divine and triune Ground. In fact, we really now should revisit every theme in this book, asking ourselves how their reality is a reflection of this triune mystery, which they must be. Participation, this book’s originary symbol, is of course a trinitarian phenomenon par excellence. We particularly noted how a God of personal dialogue and community throws some added light upon the phenomenon of evil, suffering, and sin. If the trinitarian shape of Christian experience is correct, our promised future will not be one of egoism, collectivism, or cosmic amnesia, but rather something along the lines of the post-collectivist personalism and consubstantiality we have noted throughout this book. At least our trinitarian faith offers us added hope that this will be so, pointing to a God actively at work transforming the impersonal into the personal, and the collectivist into true communion between persons and creatures. The more precise “how” of the triune God’s therapy working itself out in our suffering, evil, and sin remains, like the incarnation, a mystery that cannot be fully penetrated. It requires recourse to the likely but true theological myth. This is particularly so on the question of how God participates in our experiences of suffering. The triune shape of the divine Ground also seemed to offer some further light on a number of stress points in today’s Christological and soteriological thought. For example, with respect to the global encounter with the various “others,” especially the other religions, the Spirit’s work of universalizing the work of Jesus’ inclusive community, and yet also of particularizing, seemed helpful. We noted how this particularization manifested itself on both the personal and the larger cultural, religious level,

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 230 thus offering us hope that somehow the others on both levels will find their appropriate integration into the new community. This might, then, be an example of how the tolerant mystic is nudged to move beyond tolerance toward greater community. Another stress point circulated around concerns provoked by feminist theology and women’s experience in general. To some extent this area overlaps that of the “other,” just noted. For a key question here is this: Is the inclusive community of Jesus truly inclusive? If women are silenced, or ignored, or subordinated, and much worse, then in what way is Jesus’ movement truly faithful to its mission? We engaged somewhat in dialogue with Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux, seeing them as impressive examples of tolerant mystics who could practice the kind of “just so” impatience needed with the multitude of paradoxes and questions this entire area raises. This tolerance was not the same thing as codependent passivity, as we sought to illustrate, but rather an example of the powerful ways in which women are enabling the Jesus movement both to absorb difference and to foster maximum ventilation. We did suggest, however, on the question of the language symbolism for God, that Scripture and post-scriptural tradition offer us a much more ample and inclusive spread of symbols, from female experience, male experience, and even animals and nature, than is reflected in our doctrinal, theological, and liturgical practice. The Spirit as the spirit of openness and prophetic speech particularly would seem to be challenging our imaginations to be much more effective in this regard. Our final supplement (for further study) carried us into further questions about the Christian understanding of history and place in the light of our more complex historical and global horizon. The phenomenon of Jesus the Christ patently brought about a radically new sense of epoch, which Paul expressed as the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4). Time also goes along with space, and so naturally we were led to ponder how the Christian configuration of time shaped the Christian approach to geography. We were motivated by certain tendencies that show up analogously in various traditions, not just the Christian: for example, that of a reductionistic linearism, which simplifies the historical field by drawing a line from the divine intentionality to one’s own historical present as the divinely intended consummation of world history (Voegelin’s historiogenesis).5 We wondered whether there might not be something like a “geogenesis” as well, that is, an absolutizing of one’s own “place” or social configuration of space as the divinely intended summit of societal possibilities. This, of course, could easily fuel colonialistic tendencies of all sorts. 5. See Voegelin, The Ecumenic Age, chaps. 1 and 5.

Reprise / 231 We suggested that not eclipsing the historical and geographical fields required a recognition of their pluralistic, more than linear, makeup, their unfinished character, as well as their regressive tendencies. No living person or concrete society can quite exhaustively encompass or elucidate all their dimensions. Christians do believe in faith that history has undergone a pleromatic breakthrough in Jesus, but we suggested that this needs to be further differentiated today. We opted for a both/and in mystical tolerance and just-so impatience on the question of our Christian epochalism and geography. Somehow the others must be included therein, although we may not see precisely how this will work itself out. Minimally we would seem committed to the view that the event of Jesus and his movement represents one of those dominant lines of meaning that pleromatically lights up and even constitutes history’s telos, although it is a telos that needs to become more historically and globally complexified in the Christian imagination. Historiogenesis and geogenesis are forms of endowing one’s own historical experience and configuration of space with an unwarranted absoluteness. From a Christological perspective, we might view these tendencies as forms of monophysitism. Christian experience, because of its tensionlike participation in the hypostatic unity of Jesus Christ’s divinity and humanity, is always on the edge of the monophysitic derailment. For what is a union can become a blending. Witnessing to the union is Christianity’s special mission. Avoiding the monophysitic blending is one of the special challenges. Our supplement ended with some considerations on being, becoming, and metaphysics, given our commitment to the community of being within the context of historical becoming. Inasmuch as metaphysics is the traditional site of the study of being, our book obviously displayed some metaphysical commitments. The Christian revelatory experiences and symbolisms occur within history, but history would also seem to manifest a certain sameness throughout time, or a form of structured continuity in the midst of much interruptive discontinuity. “Being” evoked the dimension of sameness or continuity. Without it, how could we even have spoken of Christian revelatory experiences? Christians, as the carriers of these experiences, would simply have vanished. Treading cautiously into this highly contested area, we opted for a dialectical relationship between historical revelation and metaphysics. The relationship would be one neither of simple identity nor of domination by either partner. With Aristotle, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and others, we accepted the first principles of identity and of sufficient reason, or of being and being’s intelligibility. At the same time, our commitment to history entailed a commitment to becoming, both in the sense that being maintains identity

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 232 in the midst of change and in the more radical sense that beings at times undergo substantial changes of radical discontinuity. We argued that Aristotle’s potency-act dynamism as reworked by Thomas Aquinas was a relatively adequate view of the matter for our purposes. It presented us with a universe of all kinds of possible combinations of act and potency, ranging from the divine Pure Act with no potency that grounds all beings, all the way at the other end of the spectrum to the lowest possible forms of actuality mixed with much potency. But we also found ourselves siding with Plato on many important matters. Plato’s philosophy was a mystical philosophy, grounding the philosopher’s quest in an engendering experience of attunement to the divinely mysterious Ground. In other words, for Plato, philosophy was rooted in “faith,” analogously understood. Metaphysics, among other philosophical enterprises, could not really be a faith-neutral craft. Plato also kept the philosophical craft linked to the virtues, to dialogue, to the dialectic between language symbolisms and the mysterious supralinguistic depths of experience, to the dialectic between noetic analysis and the necessity of recourse to the philosopher’s myth, and more. When Aristotle and Plato, and their respective traditions, are brought into mutual dialogue, it seems to me that metaphysics inevitably becomes in some ways more modest, in other ways more credible. We may know being, we trust, but only by way of a detour through becoming, history, recollection, dialogue, language and narrative, faith, hope, and love, and more. But this is not a detour so much as that “longer way” noted by Plato’s Republic and that in-between site of historicity noted by his Symposium. This in-between situatedness of metaphysics means that our knowledge is rooted in fidelity to our participation in the social and historical community of being. We opposed, consequently, ontotheological pretensions to a totalistic and sweeping view of reality. We did not and really could not break with metaphysics or ontology, but we did seek to resituate them within the engendering experiences of participation within history. This, we trusted, would yield truth and guidance sufficient for our human pilgrimage. Correspondingly, we suggested that our knowledge and language is analogical, grounded in the analogy of participation found in Saint Thomas Aquinas and extending back to Plato. Our position, then, was more or less midway between a more radical rejection of metaphysical projects and what we might consider their mirror reverse, ontotheological, hypostatized views of being. The problem of evil was noted as an especially central issue for Christians, given our heavy investments in soteriological problems. Any metaphysics at all congenial to Christology must also be congenial to soteriology. Our objective, we suggested, was to take evil as seriously as possible, es-

Reprise / 233 pecially now in the post-Holocaust and still-Gulag era, and yet not to succumb to a fatalism contradicting our resurrection destiny. The challenge of all this was felt to be especially keen, given our commitment to an identification of being in its fullness with God. This implied that being itself is unqualifiedly good, and to the extent that creatures participate in it, they too are good. Consequently, we were committing ourselves to the old tradition that evil is, not being, but the lack of due being. While this came perilously close to undermining our obligations to take evil seriously, by seemingly evaporating it, nonetheless Clarke’s suggestion that we think of evil as essentially privative (a parasite on being), and that we also think of being as dynamic rather than static, somewhat lessened this peril.6 Evil manifests itself in action (being in its dynamic form) that is distorted, truncated, and chaotic. This did not resolve all aporias, by any means. What to make of certain forms of pain and the sufferings of the innocent, for example, are surely questions outstripping metaphysics. But perhaps a more modest metaphysics open to Mystery can recognize such aporias without falling into pessimism. Our dialogue with metaphysical inquiry was motivated by our obligations of surfacing and thinking through the metaphysical implications of Christian experience. Our dialogue, we hope, was two-way, heeding the challenges coming from both directions. But this kind of project will necessarily remain an unfinished project, given the mysterious depths of the divine Ground and the multitude of responses it may generate. We did suggest, however, that a Christian-sensitive metaphysics would be one in which the good (the ethical), the true (being’s luminosity), and the beautiful (being’s mysteriously attractive and arousing power) would be somehow one. For the divine and triune God is a lover (good), a communicator (true), and a power inviting and drawing us into communion (beauty). We ended our final supplement with some suggestions on the need to rethink metaphysics with a more global sensitivity. Being and becoming characterize all, not simply Westerners, and so we ought to expect some recognition of their reality among others and find a way to honor that. We suggested Eric Voegelin’s stimulating view of equivalences of experience and symbolization as one fruitful way to proceed.7 Our epigraph8 seemed appropriate for this recapitulation. The Basque bertso singer, or bertsolari, like so many folk troubadours of many cultures,

6. Clarke, The One and the Many, 275–89. 7. Voegelin, “Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in History.” 8. I discovered this verse amid a much longer Bertsolari competition in Zulaika’s anthropological study of the cultural dimensions which might throw light upon the di-

Jesus and the Gospel Movement / 234 is engaging, I suspect, in the art of turning back to what precedes. Amaia da hasiera (The end is the beginning) or atzekoz aurrera (reversed, or more literally, go forward by going backward) are typical slogans expressing the bertso singer’s creation of thematic rhyme, which expresses this forward-backward movement. In Lasarte’s case these rhymes find expression both in the vowels and in the consonants, and so his is a particularly creative example of bertsolaritza. Taking inspiration from this, we hope that this recapitulation is a similar going forward through turning back. While we cannot claim anything as pleasing as the fascinating rhyme scheme, we do hope that we have pleasingly “repeated” our book’s thoughts, but in a forward-moving (aurrera), somewhat new way. This newness seems especially important in a book on Jesus and his movement, for this is a theme that ought to be perpetually new and life-giving. This also links up with one of the special fascinations of the bertsolari, namely, the ability to compose spontaneously, weaving a complex narrative on the spot. This spontaneity is a mix of mastering established form and tradition, on the one hand, and the composer’s creativity on the other. Our recapitulation cannot claim an accomplished bertso singer’s creativity, but it does want to own and recognize its debt to the rich tradition of mind, heart, and will poured into our participation in Jesus and his movement, and it does hope that something of that tradition’s capacity to inspire creativity is in evidence here. Other reasons motivated our choice of this epigraph. Its Basque particularity is meant to symbolize the cultural particularity of thought and action characteristic of us all. We do not have a totalistic vista beyond the in-between space of our historical “somewheres.” Also, it is known that the Basque people have had to struggle for their recognition as a people and country. Our use of this epigraph, then, might represent something of a reminder of the political challenges raised in this book and the need to think through the relationship between Jesus’ gospel movement and legitimate movements for human and creaturely flourishing. However, no claim of simple identification between any of these movements and Jesus’ gospel movement is intended. Also, the theme of this particular verse by Lasarte, on teaching the youth and hopefully inspiring them to come forth, seems particularly appropriate to this teacher, who owes so much to his students over the years.

mensions of violence present in the political struggles in the Basque Country, among various groups, Basque Violence: Metaphor and Sacrament, 211; see 208–35.

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Index

Anthropic principle, 170–71 Anthropoiphany, 12 Antiochenes, 133 Aphorism (fragment), 15–16 Apollinaris, 126 Apophatic (negative) style of mysticism, 165–66 Apostles, 157 Apostles’ Creed, 120 Aquinas, Thomas. See Thomas Aquinas Arianism, 122 Aristotle: on being, 231; on freedom, 138; on friendship, 104–5, 217–18; on institutions, 153; on openness to the Ground, 148; on potency-act dynamism, 232; on soul, 51, 136; on virtues, 33, 138 Arius, 122, 131, 219 Ascension: of Jesus, 74, 75–76, 79, 126; of prophets, 81n50, 85 Ashton, John, 94n68 Athanasius, 38, 122, 125, 219 Augustine: on Christ as first fruits, 221; on city of God, 224; on divine Ground, 188; on friendship, 103, 106, 107, 113–14; on God as familiar and strange, 9, 11; on God as humble, 38; on love, 13, 15; on martyrdom, 108–9, 113–14; on not being afraid to have partners, 151; on original sin, 175; Psalms commentary by, 13, 15n6; on rulers, 134; on Trinity, 94, 106, 124, 188, 197; Voegelin on, 15n6

Abraham, 37, 177 Absorption, 158, 160, 225–26 Abstract painting, 50, 206 Action, 24–25, 26 Acts of the Apostles: on ascension of Jesus, 74, 75–76, 79; authentication of eyewitnesses and mighty signs in, 74–75; beginning of, 73–74; on Holy Spirit, 197; intercultural inclusiveness in, 75, 191, 211; on Jerusalem Council, 130; literary form of, 46, 48, 73, 74; on Lord at Father’s right hand, 107n; on Lydia, 143; on martyrdom, 107; Mary in, 74; Moses analogy in, 74; movement toward inclusivity in, 66; Paul in, 74, 112; Pentecost in, 11, 74, 75, 192; Peter in, 74, 112; on saints, 116; on salvation for Gentiles, 74; Samaria in, 74; and second coming, 86n55; as sequel to Luke’s Gospel, 73–74; Stephen in, 74, 107–8; women in, 73 Adam, 175, 195 Affectivity. See Feelings (affectivity) Agape, 27, 102, 103, 105, 106–7 Ahlgren, Gillian T. W., 21n14 Alexandrines, 133 Allchin, A. M., 205n Analogy, 205–6, 232 Anamnesis, 173 Anamnesis (Voegelin), 152n, 185n76 Animals, 172, 182, 183, 226, 228, 230 Ansell-Pearson, Keith, 16n8 Anselm, Saint, 18n

251

Index / 252 Babel, 75 Bailey, James, 46, 47, 68, 69, 73, 88 Baird, Marie L., 206n Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 112, 121n37, 189n Baptism: of Jesus, 54, 68, 70; in John’s Gospel, 83 Barnhart, Bruno, 88n61 Barth, Karl, 112, 125n44 Basil, Saint, 122, 197 Basque Country, 154, 180–81, 198, 233–34 Baum, Gregory, 35, 158n33 Beasley-Murray, George R., 87nn Beauty: of being, 233; divine glory compared with, 112n25; and love, 111–12; of martyrdom, 111–12; quest for universal beauty, 148; and truth, 111–12 Becoming, 197, 231, 232 Being, 184, 197, 231–33; community of, 172–75, 183–85, 215, 226 Being-with, 6–7, 94–96. See also Participation Beiser, Frederick, 139n7 Beloved Disciple, 84 Bentham, Jeremy, 138, 178 Berardino, Angelo Di, 131n Berger, Klaus, 47 Bergson, Henri, 140–41, 163 Bérulle, Pierre de, 84n, 117 Bérullian family of spirituality, 188n80 Bhakti Hinduism, 164 Bible: as canon or norm, 97; crosscultural encounters in, 161; as historical, 208; as icon, 44; Ignatius Loyola on, 4, 43; interpretation of, and participation, 42–43, 97, 207–8, 215; as practical book, 35; and second naïveté, 43; as symbol, sign, and sacrament, 44, 207; and testament meaning witness, 44; as window, 42, 43, 44–45. See also Gospels; New Testament; and specific books of Bible Birth: of Jesus, 54, 55n16, 69, 71, 87, 209; of Moses, 69 Blackman, E. C., 143 Bodin, Jean, 163, 165, 226 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 116 Brinton, Crane, 139n7 Brisson, Luc, 72n41 Brodie, Thomas L., 88n61 Brown, Raymond, 58, 74–75, 82–83, 86n56, 87n59, 88n61, 102 Bruce, F. F., 103n5 Buddhism, 164, 186 Bureaucrats, 180

Burning bush, 6–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200 Burning heart, 9–12, 80, 147, 199, 201 Cappadocians, 122–23, 124 Caputo, John D., 142–43 Carmody, Denise Lardner, 164n43 Carmody, John, 164n43 Catalonia, 154 Cave allegory, 136 Chacour, Elias, 167 Chalcedon declaration, 126–28, 190, 220 Charisms, 35n, 37, 39, 116, 177, 202–3 Chenu, Bruno, 113n Children of God, 91, 94, 213 Christ. See Jesus Christianity. See Church; Jesus movement Christological principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214, 226 Christology: and anamnesis, 173; balance between soteriology and, 134; and Chalcedon declaration, 126–28, 190, 220; and Christological principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214, 226; and community principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214; and consubstantiality, 173; derailment of, into narcissism, 114; doctrines on, 98–99, 105, 118–30, 133, 217, 219–20, 222; and friendship, 106, 113, 130, 217–18; and history, 52–53; imperial Christology, 132–33, 221; individuating principle of, 157–58; and Jesus’ identity as person, 134–35, 144–45, 149–51, 166, 173, 177; and kairos, 65–66, 171, 211; and martyrdom, 112–13; and mystics, 116–17, 219; and NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed, 120–24, 127–31, 219–20, 222; and participation generally, 4; and partnership between Jesus and humans, 150–51; and second coming, 158; and tolerance, 164–68, 191; and Trinity, 125–26, 189–91; and types of participation, 129–32; and world, 168–74, 226. See also Jesus; Jesus movement Christophany, 9–12, 80 Chronology. See History Church: apostles’ leadership role in, 157; corruption in, 159; differentiation of spheres between Christian empire and, 159; Eastern and Western Christianity, 5, 159–60, 176n66; as ecclesia, 39, 158; and history-eternity tension, 158–60; imperial, 132–33, 221; and

Index / 253 kingdom/reign of God, 157n31; in liberal democracies, 160; and little church communities (ecclesiolae), 39, 158; and martyrs, 78; in Matthew’s Gospel, 69; and monastic experiments, 158; and sacerdotium, 159; and sacraments, 83; social fields of, 156, 157, 158; society of Christian churches, 157, 225; vine and branches symbol of, 83 Church councils, 98, 105, 118–24, 126–28, 130, 150, 219–22 Cicero, 103 Clarke, W. Norris, 233 Classical tradition: on constant or universal, 153, 178; description of, as period of history, 28–29; and Ground, 164, 224; on institutions, 153–54; and soul, 135–37, 145, 147–49. See also Aristotle; Heraclitus; Plato Clement of Alexandria, 105n11 Colish, Marcia L., 36n Colossians, Letter to: on faith, hope, and love, 13; on incarnation, 148, 149; on mind of his flesh, 143; on preexistence of the Word, 93n67; on suffering, 190n83; on wisdom, 93n66 Common participation, 118–30, 203 Communion of saints, 114 Communism, 140, 177 Community: authentic community from Christian point of view, 182; Christological principle in, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214, 226; and community principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214; and consubstantiality, 172, 173, 182, 185, 188, 190, 226, 227; as corporate personality, 96; and cross-cultural challenge, 160–68; and divine Ground, 96, 183–84; and group charisms, 39; Heraclitus on, 39; and history-eternity tension, 158–60; and Holy Spirit, 97n; and institutions, 154–55; Jesus’ alternative community, 39, 57–60, 156–60; Jesus and community crafting, 100–101, 154; and love, 84; meaning of, 154–56, 225; in Old Testament, 96; and original sin, 175–76; and partnership between Jesus and humans, 150–51; and personal individuation, 157–58; and representative social tensions, 151–56; and saints, 114, 116; social fields of, 156; and society, 156; and tolerance, 162–68, 191, 230; vine and branches symbol of, 83. See also Jesus movement; Kingdom/reign of God; Participation

Community of being, 99, 172–75, 183–85, 205, 215, 226 Community principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214 Computers, 181–82 Concepts and symbolism, 59–60 Confessions (Augustine), 103 Confucianism, 164, 186 Congar, Yves M. J., 196n92 Constantine, Emperor, 54, 103n5, 132 Consubstantiality: and Christology, 173, 226; and divine Ground, 185; evil and sin contrasted with, 227; example of, 172n63; and second naïveté, 182, 226; and Trinity, 188, 190; Voegelin on, 172 Corinthians, First Letter to: on Christ as new Adam, 175, 195; on crucifixion of Jesus, 81–82, 121; and dialectic of community and Jesus Christ, 96–97; doctrinal code in, 130; on faith, hope, and love, 13, 78, 108; on gifts of the Spirit, 37, 39; on Holy Spirit, 123, 191, 220; on humans’ love of God, 150; on man being in God’s image, 90; on participation, 5; on rule of silence for women, 194; on wisdom, 93n66, 196 Corinthians, Second Letter to, 6, 105 Corruption, 122, 159, 182, 228 Council of Chalcedon, 126–28, 190, 220 Council of Ephesus, 220 Councils. See Church councils Councils of Constantinople, 120–24, 126, 127, 220, 222 Councils of Nicaea, 120–24, 126, 127, 219–20, 222 Covenant of the heart, 70, 96n Creation story, 90, 137 Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, 120–24, 127–31, 219–20, 222 Critchley, Simon, 36n Cross-cultural challenge, 160–62, 164, 186. See also Globalization Crucifixion of Jesus: date of, 55n16, 209; glory of, 112; historical sources on, 54–55, 76; in John’s Gospel, 86, 88; in Luke’s Gospel, 73, 75, 76; in Mark’s Gospel, 68, 69, 73, 75, 76, 78, 211; in Matthew’s Gospel, 71, 75; Paul on, 81–82, 121; reasons for, 76–77 Cunningham, L. S., 109n19 Daniel, Book of, 59, 81 Dark Night of the Soul (John of the Cross), 24n18 David, 62 Davies, Oliver, 188n79

Index / 254 Davis, Leo Donald, 121n36 Day, Jerry, 104n9 Death, 182, 228. See also Crucifixion of Jesus Deborah, 37, 177 Deconstruction, 142, 178, 179 Deification (theosis), 5 Democracies, 160, 162, 165, 226 Demons, exorcism of, 61–62, 84, 212 Depersonalization, 180–82 Derrida, Jacques, 142 Descartes, René, 29 Deuteronomy, Book of: on commandment to love God, 144; doctrinal code in, 130; on evil and sin, 176; and historiography, 69; paschal lamb in, 77 Dialogue, 33–34, 187–88, 229 Dicharry, W. F., 108n16, 109n20, 112n26 Divine Ground: and ascent-descent pattern, 148–49, 164, 224; Augustine on, 188; and Bible, 44; and burning bush, 6–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; as Communication, 93–94, 214; and community, 96, 183–85; connection between Jesus and, 3; and Emmaus story, 9–12, 147, 199–200; and friendship, 148; and history, 33, 53, 208–9; irruption of, in mystical experiences of vision, 80–81; and Jesus community, 185–89; Judaism on, 90; and love, 111, 188; meaning of, 184; multiple modes of participation in, 165; and mystics, 80–81, 115, 164–66; openness to, 37, 147–48, 185; and participation, 184–85, 186–87, 200, 228–30; as permeating all reality, 90n; and soul, 37, 136–37, 145, 148–49; tension toward, 157–58; Teresa of Avila on, 23; and theophany text, 9; transcending power of, 12, 186, 228–29; and Trinity, 185–89, 196, 229–30; Voegelin on, 153; and web of interconnections, 168. See also God Divine Heart, 185, 188 Docetism, 126 Donahue, John R., 62n22, 85n, 154–55n28, 176n68 Douglass, William A., 180–81 Downey, Michael, 125n43, 188 Duling, Dennis C., 64n26 Dupré, Louis, 36n Durkheim, Emile, 140 Eastern Christian Church, 5, 159–60, 176n66 Ecumenic Age, The (Voegelin), 15n6, 157n31, 172n62, 230n

Egan, Harvey, 39n, 115–16, 159n35 Eichmann, Adolf, 180 Elemental form of representation, 155, 179–80, 182, 225 Elijah, 81n50 Emmanuel: Jesus as, 70–71 Emmaus story, 9–12, 27, 80, 147, 199–200 Emotions. See Feelings (affectivity) Enemy, love of, 61, 61n, 63, 103, 109, 210 Engendering experiences, 48–49, 208 Enlightenment, 29–30, 163 Enoch, 81n50 Ephesians, Letter to: on Christ before foundation of world, 95n; on desires of the mind, 143; on mediatory role of Jesus, 91; universalism in, 40, 157n31 Epistles. See specific epistles, such as Peter, Second Letter of Eros, 27, 143 Eschatology, 69, 133, 154–55n28, 170 Ethnic cleansing, 177 Eucharist: and Christological principle, 174; in John’s Gospel, 83; and last supper, 77–78, 83–84, 86; participation in, 5, 199, 220 Eudes, St. John, 188n80 Eusebius, 132–33 Eutyches, 126, 131 Evans, C. F., 81n51 Evil: church’s collusion in, 160; and community of being, 175; contemplation of, 174–75, 232–33; as corruption, 122, 182; definition of, 175, 177, 227; as distorted action, 233; and hardened heart, 176, 177–78, 227; as hindrance, 166; as lack of due being, 233; passions habituated to, 177; as privative (parasite on being), 233; as refusal of responsible action within society, 177; as refusal to be a person, 177; rights of doer of, 166; second naïveté and critique of, 36; and slaughter of Lamb, 170; social evil, 179; and society, 155; soteriological problem of, 156; and suffering, 183, 190; and torturers, 110, 111, 180–81, 183, 218, 228; and Trinity, 189–91, 229; victory over, 182 Existential form of representation, 155, 179–80, 182, 225 Exodus, Book of: on birth of Moses, 69; burning bush in, 7–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; on Exodus events, 64, 77; on God’s relationship with Moses, 105; Mount Sinai theophany in, of Moses entering cloud, 9; paschal lamb in, 77

Index / 255 Exodus of Israelites, 64, 211 Exorcism of demons, 61–62, 84, 212 Ezekiel, Book of, 96n Faith: Anselm on, 18n; as Christian virtue, 12–13, 16; definition of, 13, 18; as fidelity, 13, 18, 200–201, 232; Heraclitus on, 14–17; and hope, 18; and love, 18; and participation, 12–16, 200–201; Plato on, 232; and prayer, 119–20; Rahner on, 50; and reason, 17–22, 25, 41, 148, 163, 204–5; in resurrected Jesus, 80; Teresa of Avila on, 19–22, 25; and tolerance, 165 Familiarity-strangeness interplay, 6–12, 79–81, 200, 215, 216, 228 Father image of God, 63, 125, 186, 187, 195, 196, 201, 211, 229 Fathers of the Church, 102 Feelings (affectivity), 25–27, 30, 34, 35, 146 Felicitas, 113n Feminist theology, 193–97, 230 Fidelity, 13, 18, 200–201, 204–5, 232. See also Faith Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, 193n87, 196n92 Fire: of burning bush, 7–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; of burning heart, 9–12, 80, 147, 199, 201 Fischer, Steven Roger, 23n17 Forward, Martin, 54n Foucault, Michel, 141–42, 146, 178 Fredericks, James, 164n43 Freedom, 137–38, 145–46, 153, 163, 185 Frend, W. H. C., 112 Freud, Sigmund, 30, 35, 140 Friendship: Aristotle on, 104–5, 217–18; Augustine on, 103, 106, 107, 113–14; and Christology, 106, 113, 130, 217–18; and divine Ground, 148; between God and humans, 104–6, 148n, 150, 218; and Holy Spirit, 103, 105–6; Jesus on, 101–2; and martyrdom, 130; and mystics, 131; Plato on, 104, 148n; rewards of, 199; and soteriology, 106, 217–18; Thomas Aquinas on, 104–6, 144, 217–18; and Trinity, 106 Fries, Heinrich, 120n, 130n52 Fuller, Reginald H., 81n51 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 8n, 29n Galatians, Letter to, 91, 150, 230 Galilee, 68, 78, 87n59, 209 García, Sixto, 188 Gay Science (Nietzsche), 141

Genealogy, 71, 141–42 Genesis, Book of: Adam in, 175; Babel story in, 75; creation story in, 90, 137 Gentiles, 74, 130 Geogenesis, 231 Geography: and here/there pole, 221–22; of Jesus and his companions, 53–55, 209; and Jesus movement, 133; of kingdom/reign of God, 65–66; and participation, 27, 201; pluralistic makeup of, 231; and revelation, 221; and time, 230 Germino, Dante, 92n Gifts of the Spirit, 37, 39 Gilbyl, T., 109n19 Globalization, 31, 32, 40, 160–61, 164, 233. See also Cross-cultural challenge Gnosticism, 76n, 86, 89, 126, 213 God: and being with (relational withness), 94–96; and burning bush, 7–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; as Communicator, 93–94, 214; as Creator, 125, 137; dialoguing God, 34; discovery of identity through relationship with, 150; as familiar and strange, 9, 11; as Father, 63, 125, 186, 187, 195, 196, 201, 211, 229; friendship between humans and, 104–6, 148n, 150, 218; humans’ love of, 150; as king, 59, 64; as Mother, 196; names of, 8; in NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed, 120–24, 219–20; as Other, 9; as perfect eye, 178; personalism and intimacy of Jesus’ view of, 62–63, 65, 66, 210–11; personal relationship with, through Jesus Christ, 150; sun image of, 62; universality of, 62–63; as vulnerable, 178–79; as Word, 93, 96, 119, 187, 195, 196, 213, 229. See also Divine Ground; Kingdom/reign of God; Trinity Goizueta, Roberto S., 205n Good Samaritan parable, 74 Gospel movement. See Jesus movement Gospels: as abstracts, portraits, and photos, 49–52, 206–8; concluding comments on, 206–16; definition of, 46–47; as encyclopedic forms, 47; final authors of, 67n33; and Greco-Roman biographical tradition, 47, 69; Jesus of history, with his companions and their gospel movement, 52–97; literary form of, 45–48, 66–81; as mixed genre, 47–48; as new language symbolism, 197; and objectivity, 50; and oral tradition, 47; as originary genres and engendering experiences, 48–49, 208;

Index / 256 paschal shape of, 66–81, 211–12; synoptic Gospels compared with John’s Gospel, 82–86; as term, 46; theories on, 47; three-stage process in writing of, 66–67. See also Jesus; New Testament; and specific gospels, such as Matthew, Gospel of Gregory of Nazianzus, 122, 124, 126–27 Gregory of Nyssa, 122, 127, 128, 223 Griffiths, Bede, 164n43, 226 Grossi, V., 131n Ground. See Divine Ground Groups: and charisms, 39; and friendship, 101–7, 113–14, 130–31, 144, 217–18; and martyrdom, 106–14, 116, 130–31, 167, 186, 218; in participation, 99–113, 118, 203 Guelich, Robert A., 50n12 Gutiérrez, Gustavo, 63n25 Hadot, Pierre, 36n Hanson, R. P. C., 122n38 Harrington, Daniel J., 61n, 62n22, 70–71nn, 72n40, 85n, 154–55n28, 176n68 Haught, John F., 171n59 Hazard, David, 167n50 Heart: burning, 9–12, 80, 147, 199, 201; covenant of, 70, 96n; divine Heart symbol and divine Ground, 185, 188; Eudes on, 188n80; hardened, 176–78, 227; heart-informed soteriology, 174–83; and identity, 143–50, 176–78, 223; of Mary and saints, 188n80; meaning of, in Old and New Testaments, 143 Hebblethwaite, Brian, 188n79 Hebrews, Letter to, 46, 48, 81n50 Hegel, G. W. F., 29 Heidegger, Martin, 169, 172 Heraclitus: aphorism (fragment) used by, 15–16; on community, 39; on faith, hope, and love, 14–17, 33; on Logos, 15; Nietzsche on, 14n5; significance of, 51; on soul, 135–36; Voegelin on, 14, 15 Heresies and heretics, 122, 126, 131 Hermeneutics. See Interpretation Herodotus, 161 Herod the Great, 54 Hinduism, 164, 186 Histories (Herodotus), 161 Historiogenesis, 197, 230–31 Historiography, 51 History: and already/not yet pole, 221–22; and Bible, 208; chronology and geography of Jesus and his com-

panions, 53–55, 209; Classical tradition, 28–29, 135–37, 145, 147–49, 153, 154, 178; and divine Ground, 33, 53, 208–9; facts of, 51–52; genealogical, 141–42; and globalization, 31, 32, 40, 160–61; Hebrew historiography, 51; Hellenistic historiography, 51; historyeternity tension, 158–60; humane and transcendental dimensions of, 55–97, 209; Jesus Christ of, and his companions and their gospel movement, 52–97; Jesus in historical sources, 53–55; modernity and late modernity, 28–36, 138–41, 145–46, 151, 163, 177; modern view of, 56; and participation, 27, 28–33, 201–2; pluralistic makeup of, 231; of political and ecclesial institutions, 154; positivistic view of, 51–52; postmodernity, 28, 29, 31, 32, 40, 66, 141–43, 146–47, 178–79; revelatory events of Jewish and Christian history, 31–32; Romantic period, 30, 34, 139, 146; soul factor in, 208; and subjectivity versus objectivity, 51–52; surface features of Jesus and his companions, 53–57, 75, 207–10; Voegelin on, 53n14, 197 History of Political Ideas (Voegelin), 158n34, 159n36 Hogan, Linda, 171–72, 226 Holocaust, 177, 180, 216 Holy Spirit: and Christ, 125–26, 191; and dialogue, 229; and friendship, 103, 105–6; gifts of, 37, 39; Hopkins on, 170; and imagination, 197, 230; and inclusion into Jesus and his new community, 173–74; language symbolism of, 187–88; in Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 121, 122–23, 131, 219–20; and novelty, change, and creativity, 197, 230; as Paraclete, 83, 94, 105, 214; and participation, 97n, 186–87; particularizing of Jesus movement by, 191–92; Paul on, 123, 191–92, 220; and Pentecost, 11, 74, 75, 192; and prayer, 125; and suffering, 190; Thomas Aquinas on, 105–6; universalizing of Jesus movement by, 191; as witness, 113. See also Trinity Hooding activities, 180–82, 228 Hope: as Christian virtue, 12–13, 16; definition of, 13; and faith, 18; Heraclitus on, 14–17; and participation, 12–16, 200–201; and paschal mystery, 170; and reason, 18; Teresa of Avila on, 20–21

Index / 257 Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 165, 168–69, 170, 174 Hügel, Friedrich von, 115n, 190n84 Hughes, Glenn, 36n, 92n, 185n76 Hughes, H. Stuart, 140 Hume, David, 29, 30 Huntington, Samuel P., 160n Hypostasis (persona), 124, 127, 192 Hypostatic union, 133, 222–23 Identity: and autonomous self, 151; and depersonalization, 180–82; discovery of, through personal relationship with God and Christ, 150–51; and heart, 143–50, 176–78, 223; isolated self, 151; of Jesus, 134–35, 144–45, 149–51, 166, 177, 223; and self, 137–41, 142, 145–46, 151, 177, 179, 223; and soul, 135–37, 145, 147–49, 223; and subject, 140–43, 146–47, 178–79, 223, 227 Ideologies, 177–78 Ignatius Loyola, 37, 39, 42, 43 Ignatius of Antioch, 109, 116 Image and language, 23–24, 44 Imagination: and Holy Spirit, 197, 230; need for discipline in, 55–56, 59; and participation, 45; and Teresa of Avila, 22–23 Imperial Christology, 132–33, 221 Incarnation: Colossians on, 148, 149; Corinthians on, 105; and divine Heart, 188; Galatians on, 150; and historical and geographical dimensions of revelation, 221; inclusiveness of, 195, 218; and love, 188, 190; Luke’s Gospel on, 123; Matthew’s Gospel on, 123; and oneness of human and divine nature of Jesus, 122, 128; and participation in society and history, 202; as similarity in difference, 205; Teresa of Avila on, 23–24; and world, 168–71 Inclusiveness: and Holy Spirit, 97n; of incarnation, 195, 218; intercultural, in Acts, 75, 191, 211; of kingdom/reign of God, 60–63, 157, 173–74, 193–94, 225, 226, 230 Individuals in participation, 113–18, 202–3 Indwelling, 5, 6–7. See also Participation Innocents: victimization of, 180–83, 228, 233 In Search of Order (Voegelin), 45n, 48n9, 173n Institutions, 153–55, 180, 225 Inter-cultural stress, 160. See also Crosscultural challenge; Globalization

Interior Castle, The (Teresa of Avila), 19–26, 33, 201 Interpretation: as familiar/strange experience, 215; of John’s Gospel, 82–83; participatory perspective on, 42–43, 97, 207–8, 215 Irenaeus, 187 Irigaray, Luce, 41, 98, 99, 117, 136n3, 158, 179, 206, 225 Isaiah, Book of: on God as king, 59; on God’s mission within Jewish nation, 62; on looking and listening, 101, 217; on Mother image of God, 196; on problem solving, 40; on story form, 48, 49; on universality of the one God, 62 Islam, 90, 164, 167, 178, 186 Israel: and divine Beyond, 51; and Exodus events, 64, 211; historiography of, 51; kings of, 59, 63. See also Judaism; Moses; Prophets Israel and Revelation (Voegelin), 53n14, 64n27, 96n, 172n62 I-Thou relationship, 186, 188 James, William, 140–41 Janzen, W., 66n31 Jensen, Mary E., 167n50 Jeremiah, Book of, 70, 96n, 188 Jerusalem: in Acts, 73–74; Jesus’ cleansing of Temple in, 55, 76; Jesus’ travel to and entry into, 66, 67–68, 73, 75, 209 Jerusalem Council, 130 Jesus: agony in garden before death of, 17; aphorism (fragment) used by, 16; ascension of, 74, 75–76, 79, 126; baptism of, 54, 68, 70; birth of, 54, 55n16, 69, 71, 87, 209; charges against, before crucifixion, 77; chronology and geography regarding, 53–55, 209; cleansing of Temple by, 55, 76; and community crafting, 100–101, 154; companions of, 55; concluding comments on, 206–16; connection between divine Ground and, 3; courage of, 17; divinity of, 85, 91, 121–22, 123, 126–28, 219, 220, 222; as Emmanuel, 70–71; and Emmaus story, 9–12, 27, 80, 147, 199–200; exorcism of demons by, 61–62, 84, 212; family of, 154; on friendship, 101–2; genealogy of, 71; on God as Father, 63, 125; in history, 52–97, 209; humane and transcendental dimensions regarding, 55–97, 209; humanity of, 21, 23–24, 37, 38, 121, 123, 126–28, 146, 147, 219, 220, 222;

Index / 258 identity of, as person, 134–35, 144–45, 149–51, 166, 177, 223; as itinerant, 54, 66; Jewish dimension of, 215–16; as king, 58–59, 77, 132; at last supper, 77–78, 83–84, 86; as Lord, 85, 86n55, 123, 132, 220; on love, 107; on love of enemy, 61, 63, 210; and Martha and Mary, 24–25, 26; as mediator, 90–91, 156; as messiah and prophet, 38, 77, 84–85, 86n55; miracles by, 34, 61–62, 70, 72, 87n59; as new Adam, 175, 195; as new Moses, 69–70, 74; newness brought by, 38–39; in NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed, 120–24, 131, 219–20; parables of, 48–49, 74; Paul on humble, loving, and suffering Jesus, 38; personalism and intimacy of view of God by, 62–63, 65, 66, 210–11; and Pilate, 86; and preferential effort for poor and needy, 63; on prudence, 17, 160; public ministry of, 54, 55, 68, 69–71, 86; and reign/kingdom of God, 39, 57–66, 78, 90, 156–60, 210–11, 224; on relations between sacred and empire, 60; relationships of generally, 1–2, 73, 84; second coming of, 158; Sermon on the Mount by, 17, 61, 70, 71, 77; as Shepherd, 86, 95, 96, 214; as Son of God, 85, 91, 121–22, 123, 127–28, 186, 187, 195, 196; as Son of Man, 85, 154; temptations of, in desert, 70; Transfiguration of, 9; travel to and entry into Jerusalem, 67–68, 73, 75; universal relevance of, 39–40; virginal conception story on, 72, 123; and virtues of faith, hope, and love, 16; in wilderness, 68, 70; as wisdom teacher, 71; as woodworker, 100. See also Christology; Crucifixion of Jesus; Gospels; Incarnation; Participation; Resurrection of Jesus; Soteriology; and specific Gospels, such as Mark, Gospel of Jesus Christ principle. See Christological principle Jesus movement: Christological doctrines in, 98–99, 105, 118–30, 133, 217, 219–20, 222; chronology and geography of, 53–55, 209; and common participation, 118–30, 203; and community principle, 95–97, 114, 131, 173–74, 214; concluding comments on, 216–23; conspiracy of three types of participation, 128–33, 221; and Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, 120–24, 127–31; and divine Ground, 185–89;

and eschatology, 133; feminist criticism of, 193–97, 230; and friendship, 101–7, 113–14, 130–31, 144, 217–18; and geography, 133; and groups in participation, 99–113, 118, 203; growth of, 100, 102, 103n5, 111; and historyeternity tension, 160; humane and transcendental dimensions of, 55–97, 209; and individuals in participation, 113–18, 202–3; and Jesus’ skills at community crafting, 100–101, 154; in Judaism, 96, 100; and martyrdom, 78, 103n5, 106–14, 116, 130–31, 167, 186, 218; and mystics, 114–18, 131, 218–19; particularizing of, by Holy Spirit, 191–92; and prayer and liturgy, 119–20; process characteristics of, 152; and Roman Empire, 129; and saints, 114, 116; as social field, 152; sociopolitical context of, 129; universalizing of, by Holy Spirit, 191; as urban phenomenon, 102–3n5; women in, 193, 230. See also Christology; Church; Jesus; Participation Jesus research, 215–16 Job, 183, 228 John, Gospel of: baptismal references in, 83; Book of Glory in, 88; Book of Signs in, 87; on charges against Jesus before crucifixion, 77; chiastic form of, 88–89; on children of God, 91, 94, 213; on cleansing of Temple by Jesus, 55, 76; community in, 83–84; compared with synoptic Gospels, 82–86, 210, 211–12; on crucifixion, 86, 88; on divinity of Jesus, 86n55; on dwelling places in Father’s house, 165, 167; encounters with resurrected Jesus in, 80; eucharistic references in, 83; on friendship, 101–2, 144, 217; gnostics’ attraction to, 86; on God as Word, 93, 96, 119, 187, 213, 229; on Jesus as king, 58–59; Jesus’ encounter with Pilate in, 86; on last supper, 83–84, 86; letters of John as corrective to, 82–83, 86; literary form of, 82–97; Mary Magdalene in, 84; on miracles, 87n59; and myth, 90–94, 213–14, 216; narrative plot of, 86; Paraclete in, 83, 94, 105, 214; paradoxical tension in, 87–89; on participation, 5, 199; Peter on martyrdom in, 108–9; prologue of, 87–95, 187, 213–14, 216, 229; on reign/kingdom of God, 58–59, 83, 90; on resurrection, 86, 88; on shepherd and sheep, 214; special insights of, 57; spiral form of,

Index / 259 88; Teresa of Avila on, 23n15; titles for Jesus in, 86, 91, 95; and Trinity, 94–95; vine and branches symbol in, 83; on Word becoming flesh, 24, 33, 38, 88–95, 187 John, Letters of: as corrective to John’s Gospel, 82–83, 86; and dialectic of community and Jesus Christ, 96; on friendship, 144; on Jesus’ humanity and historicity, 86n57; on Trinity, 144 John of the Cross, 23, 24n18 John Paul II, Pope, 63n25, 110, 175n, 183n, 190n83 Johnson, Elizabeth A., 93n66, 196n92, 202n Johnson, Luke Timothy, 11n, 74, 107n Johnston, William, 164n43 John the Baptist, 44, 54, 68, 70, 86, 87, 209 John XXIII, Pope, 63n25 Jonge, Marinus de, 88 Joseph (father of Jesus), 54, 71 Josephus, 54 Judaism: on divine Ground, 90; God of, as all-controlling, unseen, perfect eye, 178; heart anthropology of, 177; and individuals in participation, 113; of Jesus, 215–16; Jesus movement in, 96, 100; on John’s Gospel, 90; and monotheism, 126; and mysticism, 164; and personalism, 176; and place and land issues, 221. See also Israel Jung, Carl, 140 Kairos, 65–66, 171, 211 Kant, Immanuel, 29 Kataphatic (affirmative) style of mysticism, 165–66 Kearney, Richard, 45n Kingdom/reign of God: as alternative community, 39, 57–60, 156–60; “date” for realization of, 65; inclusiveness of, 60–63, 157, 173–74, 193–94, 225, 226, 230; Jesus on, 57–66, 78, 90, 210–11, 224; in John’s Gospel, 58–59, 83, 90; kairotic view of, 65–66; in Luke’s Gospel, 57–58, 63; in Mark’s Gospel, 57–58, 60, 64–65, 95; in Matthew’s Gospel, 57–58, 64–65; in Old Testament, 59, 64; and personalism and intimacy of Jesus’ view of God, 62–63, 65, 66; and second coming, 158; in synoptic Gospels, 57–60; temporal and geographical dimensions of, 63–66. See also Community

King(s): God as, 59, 64; of Israel, 59, 63; Jesus Christ as, 58–59, 77, 132 Kings, Second Book of, 81n50 Knowledge and knowing, 4–5, 49 Koran, 167. See also Islam Lampe, G. W. H., 167n47 Language: as analogical, 232; Babel and diversity of, 75; creativity in, 196–97; and image, 23–24, 44; and participation, 44–45; Pentecost and diversity of, 75, 192; of Trinity, 187–88, 195–96, 230 Lasarte, Manuel, 198, 233–34 Last supper, 77–78, 83–84, 86 Late modernity, 29–36, 140–41, 145–46, 177 Latin America, 63n25 Latourelle, René, 72n41 Laws (Plato), 130 Lazarus, 87n59 Levinas, Emmanuel, 41, 117, 206 Leviticus, Book of, 161 Lewis, C. S., 124–25 Liberalism, 138–40, 145–46, 160, 162, 165, 226 Liberation theology, 63n25, 189n Lienhard, Joseph, 103, 103n7 Lightman, Alan, 169, 171n59 Liturgy and prayer, 119–20 Livingston, James C., 36n Locke, John, 29, 138, 162–63 Logos: all things coming into existence through the Word, 95n; God as Word, 93, 96, 119, 187, 195, 196, 213, 229; Heraclitus on, 15; and myth, 92; preexistence of the Word, 93n67; Word becoming flesh, 24, 33, 38, 88–95, 187 Logos-anthro¯ pos, 133 Logos-sarx, 133 Lonergan, Bernard J. F., 18n, 50 Love: and agape, 27, 102, 103, 105, 106–7; Augustine on, 13, 15; and beauty, 111–12; as Christian virtue, 12–13, 16; and community, 84; and cross-cultural challenge, 161; definition of, 13; and divine Ground, 111, 188; and divine Heart, 185, 188; of enemy, 61, 63, 103, 109, 210; and exodus experience, 13; and faith, 18; and freedom, 146; and friendship, 101–7; Heraclitus on, 14–17; humans’ love of God, 150; and incarnation, 188, 190; Jesus’ alternative community of, 39, 57–60, 156–60; Jesus on, 107; and martyrdom, 106–14; and participation,

Index / 260 12–16, 200–201; and paschal mystery, 79; Paul on, 12–13, 78, 108; and reason, 18; and suffering, 190; Teresa of Avila on, 20–21, 24; and Trinity, 94, 106, 124, 125n43, 188, 189, 190, 197, 214; and truth, 109–11 Lucretia, 109n18 Luke, Gospel of: Acts as sequel to, 73–74; on ascension of Jesus, 74, 75–76, 79; authentication of eyewitnesses and mighty signs in, 74–75; on charges against Jesus before crucifixion, 77; on Christians as servants, 102; compared with Mark’s Gospel, 73; compared with Matthew’s Gospel, 73, 74; on crucifixion, 73, 75, 76; cultural sophistication of, 73; Emmaus story in, 9–12, 27, 80, 147, 199–200; encounters with resurrected Jesus in, 9–12, 27, 80; on incarnation, 123; intercultural inclusiveness in, 75, 211; on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, 73, 75; on Jesus’ preferential effort for poor and needy, 63; literary form of, 73–76; on love, 61, 107, 161; on Mary washing feet of Jesus, 25n20; orderly account of, 57; on poor, 70; on public ministry of Jesus, 55; on reign/kingdom of God, 57–58, 63; on resurrection, 10–11, 73, 75–76, 79, 85, 211; on suffering prophets, 212; titles for Jesus in, 85, 86n55; Transfiguration in, 9; women in, 10, 11, 73 Lydia, 143 Maccabees, Second Book of, 85 Macedonians, 123 MacMullen, Ramsay, 133 Macpherson, C. B., 138–39 Macquarrie, John, 172n62 Macrina the Younger, 122–23 Mara, M. G., 105n11 Mara bar Sarapion, 54 Mark, Gospel of: on call to return to Galilee, 68, 78; on charges against Jesus before crucifixion, 77; on cleansing of Temple by Jesus, 76; compared with Luke’s Gospel, 73; on crucifixion of Jesus, 68, 69, 73, 75, 76, 78, 211; desert temptations of Jesus in, 70; eschatological tension in, 69, 154–55n28; on evil and sin, 176; gospel as term in, 46; haste of, 67–68; on heart as seat of reason and will, 143; on Jesus’ agony in garden, 17; Jesus as messiah and prophet in, 84–85; on Jesus as Son of Man, 85, 154; on Jesus as woodworker,

100; on Jesus’ dispute with Sadducees on resurrection, 81; Jesus’ relationship with disciples in, 84; on Jesus’ travel to and entry into Jerusalem, 67–68, 73, 75; last supper in, 77–78; length of, 67; literary style of, 67–69; on love of enemy, 61; narrative structure of, 68; prologue of, 68; on reign/kingdom of God, 57–58, 60, 64–65, 95; on resurrection, 68, 79, 85; on sabbath, 154; Transfiguration in, 9 Marsh, John, 65n29 Martha, 24–25, 26 Martínez, Enkarni, 180–81 Martinez, Gaspar, 58n18 Martyrdom, 78, 103n5, 106–14, 116, 130–31, 186, 218 Marx, Karl, 30, 35, 139–40 Mary Magdalene, 37, 74, 84, 177 Mary (Martha’s sister), 24–25, 26 Mary (mother of Jesus), 37, 54, 71, 72, 123, 177, 188n80 Matthew, Gospel of: on authority of Jesus, 84–85; on being innocent as doves and wise as serpents, 160; on charges against Jesus before crucifixion, 77; on church, 69; on commandment to love God, 144; on common participation, 118; on community, 211; compared with Luke’s Gospel, 73, 74; on crucifixion, 71, 75; on desert temptations of Jesus, 70; as didactic biography, 69; on disciple not being above master, 107; on divine Heart, 188; on evil and sin, 176; on exorcism of demons by Jesus, 84, 212; genealogy in, 71; on God as Father, 63; on incarnation, 123; on last being first, 193; on listening and understanding gospel, 101, 217; literary style of, 69–72; on love of enemy, 61; miraculous dimension of, 72; on parables used by Jesus, 48–49; on poor, 70; on prudence, 17, 160; on public ministry of Jesus, 55; on reign/kingdom of God, 57–58, 64–65; on resurrection, 71–72, 75, 79; Sermon on the Mount in, 61, 70, 71, 77; on slaughtering of innocents, 71; titles for Jesus in, 70–71, 85, 86n55; Transfiguration in, 9; universal call at end of, 39–40; on wise men, 71 McDonnell, Kilian, 191n McGinn, Bernard, 117n33 McKnight, Stephen A., 137n Meier, John P., 55n16, 59n20, 65n28, 71n, 100, 154, 157n32, 216

Index / 261 Merton, Thomas, 164n43, 226 Messiah, 38, 77, 84–85, 86n55 Metaphysics, 197, 231, 232–33 Metz, Johann Baptist, 58, 116 Middle Ages to Aquinas, The (Voegelin), 159n36 Miles, Margaret R., 197n94 Mill, John Stuart, 138, 139n7, 162–63 Miracles: as border phenomena, 216; at Cana wedding feast, 87n59; exorcism of demons, 61–62, 84, 212; healing by Jesus, 70, 87n59; of Jesus generally, 34, 72; multiplication of loaves in Galilee, 87n59; raising of Lazarus from the dead, 87n59; walking on Sea of Galilee, 87n59 Mirroring, 114–15, 117, 142 Modernity: on constant or universal, 153; description of, as period of history, 28–36; and self, 138–39, 145–46, 151, 177; and tolerance, 163 Modernity without Restraint (Voegelin), 104n8, 155n29 Molnar, Paul D., 185n77 Moltmann, Jürgen, 189n Monophysitism, 126, 231 Moses: birth of, 69; and burning bush, 7–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; charisms of, 177; God’s relationship with, 105; Jesus as new Moses, 69–70, 74; revelation experience of, 62; teaching by, 69; and “unique I,” 37 Mother image of God, 196 Murphy, F. X., 108n16, 109n20, 112n26 Mystical tolerance, 163–68, 191, 226 Mystics: and Christology, 116–17, 219; and divine Ground, 80–81, 115, 164–66; John of the Cross as, 23, 24n18; and mystical tolerance, 163–68, 191, 226; and participation, 114–18, 131, 218–19; prophets as, 115–16; soteriology and, 116–17, 219; Teresa of Avila as, 19–26, 33, 165, 193–95, 201, 230; and theophany, 219; Thérèse of Lisieux as, 193, 230; as unique individuals, 203; visions of, 80–81 Myth: cosmocentric myths, 91–92, 136–37; and John’s Gospel, 90–94, 213–14, 216; and logos, 92; and Matthew’s Gospel, 72; Plato’s use of, 72, 80, 91, 92, 170, 213, 232; theological uses of, 80, 92, 170, 216; Voegelin on, 92n Narcissism, 107, 114, 118, 228 Native Americans, 171–72, 177, 226 Natural law, 152

Nature, 171–72, 182, 188, 226, 228, 230. See also Consubstantiality Nazis, 177, 180 Newman, John Henry, 127–28 New Science of Politics, The (Voegelin), 104n8, 155nn29–30 New Testament: concluding comments on, 206–16; Gospel form in, 45–48; Gospels as abstracts, portraits, and photos, 49–52, 206–8; Gospels as originary genres and engendering experiences, 48–49, 208; Jesus of history, with his companions and their gospel movement, 52–97; letter genre of, 46, 214; literary forms in, 45–48, 66–81; and objectivity, 50; participation in, 5–6; radical newness of teachings of, 38–39; and relationships of Jesus generally, 1–2; three-stage process in writing of, 66–67. See also Gospels; Jesus; and specific books of New Testament Newton, Sir Isaac, 29 Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 120–24, 127–31, 219–20, 222 Nicholas of Cusa, 163, 167n48, 226 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), 104nn Nietzsche, Friedrich: on aphorism (fragment), 16; compared with Foucault, 141; on Heraclitus, 14n5; superman of, 30–31, 32 Nikiprowetzky, V., 62n23 Numbers, Book of, 64 Objectification, 141 Objectivity: of history, 51–52; and New Testament, 50; of science, 30 O’Collins, Gerald, 63n24, 93nn, 125, 167n48 Old Testament. See specific books and persons of Old Testament Order and History (Voegelin), 15n6, 36n, 45n, 51n, 53n, 72n41, 205 Origen, 105n11 Original sin, 175–76. See also Sin Originary genres, 48–49, 208 Ortega y Gasset, José, 28, 32n Other: God as, 9; postmodern view of, 153; and Trinity, 191–92, 229–30 Panoptical mentality, 178, 179, 227 Parables, 48–49, 74 Paraclete, 83, 94, 105, 214. See also Holy Spirit Participation: and burning bush, 6–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; and burning heart, 9–12, 80, 147, 199, 201; charac-

Index / 262 teristics of, 6–27, 198–206; common, 118–30, 203; and community, 39; concluding comments on, 198–206; conspiracy of three types of, 128–33, 221; conversation as form of, 10; and dialogue, 34, 187–88; and divine Ground, 184–85, 186–87, 200, 228–30; in Eucharist, 5, 199; failures in, 131–32, 199, 216; and faith, hope, and love, 12–16, 200–201; and familiaritystrangeness interplay, 6–12, 79–81, 200, 215, 216, 228; flow of, 198–206; forms of participating in Jesus, 36–40; and friendship, 101–7, 113–14, 130–31, 199, 217–18; and geography, society, and history, 27–36, 201–2; and Greek and Roman virtues, 17; and group charisms, 39; groups in, 99–113, 118, 203; and imagination, 45; and imperial Christology, 133–34, 221; individuals in, 113–18, 202–3; “indwelling” as equivalent term to, 5; and interpretation of Bible, 42–43, 97, 207–8, 215; and intimacy, 5; as knowing, feeling, and willing, 4–5; and language, 44–45; and marriage, 199; and martyrdom, 78, 103n5, 106–14, 116, 130–31, 218; and mystics, 114–18, 131, 218–19; and newness brought by Jesus, 38–39; in New Testament, 5–6; and partnership between Jesus and humans, 150–51; personal self (“unique I”) as participant, 36–38; Plato and Socrates on, 33, 205; suncompound words (“withness”) as equivalent to, 6; Teresa of Avila on, 19–26, 33, 201; terms for, 5–6; universalism of, 39–40, 203; and virtues, reason, imagination, language, affection, and willing, 16–27; Voegelin on, 41, 205. See also Community; Jesus movement Paschal lamb, 77 Paschal mystery, 75–83, 170, 211–12 Pathology and sin, 36 Paul: in Acts of the Apostles, 74, 112; charisms of, 37, 177; on Christ as first fruits, 221; and Corinthian community, 78; on creation’s groaning in labor pains, 183; creedal summary of, 121; date of letters of, 56, 57, 210; and dialectic of community and Jesus Christ, 96–97; on faith, hope, and love, 12–13, 78, 108; on fullness of time, 150, 230; on gifts of the Spirit, 37, 39; on Holy Spirit, 123, 191–92, 220; on humble, loving, and suffering Jesus, 38; on in-

carnational epoch, 150; letters of, and movement toward inclusivity, 66; literary form of letters by, 46, 214; on mediatory role of Jesus, 90–91; on saints, 116; on solidarity as family under Adam, 175; and Stephen’s martyrdom, 107–8; on suffering, 190n83; suncompound words (“withness”) used by, 6, 199; on Trinity, 96–97; on wisdom, 93n66. See also specific epistles Pelikan, Jaroslav, 139n7 Pentecost, 11, 74, 75, 192 Perpetua, 113n, 116 Personalism: of God, 62–63, 65, 66, 210–11; and Judaism, 176 Persuasion (Peitho¯), 155 Peter: in Acts of the Apostles, 74, 112; charisms of, 177; and martyrdom, 108–9; and resurrection of Jesus, 84 Peter, Letters of, 4, 5, 143, 199 Phaedo (Plato), 33n Philia, 103 Philippians, Letter to, 93n67 Philosopher: meaning of term, 144 Philosophes, 29 Photographs, 50, 206 Phronesis, 160 Pico della Mirandola, 137–38 Pilate, 86 Pionius, 109 Plato: and anamnesis, 173n; cave allegory by, 136; dialogue of, 33–34; on eros, 143; on faith, 232; on freedom, 138; on friendship, 104; on friendship with God, 148n; on institutions, 153; on minimum set of dogmas and liberty, 130; and myth, 72, 80, 91, 92, 170, 213, 232; on openness to the Ground, 148; on participation, 33, 205; on soul, 51, 136; on virtues, 17, 33, 138, 143, 232 Plato and Aristotle (Voegelin), 72n41, 91n, 130n53, 136n2 Pliny, 54, 102, 103n5 Pneumatology, 112–13, 122–23, 131. See also Holy Spirit Polycarp, 113n, 116 Poor: in Luke’s Gospel, 70; in Matthew’s Gospel, 70; preferential option for, 38, 63; in Sermon on the Mount, 70 Positivism, 51–52 Postman, Neil, 169n55, 180n71, 181 Postmodernity: description of, as period of history, 28, 29, 31, 32, 34, 36, 40; on fluid nature of borders of societies and cultures, 153; on other and different,

Index / 263 153; and society, 179; on space versus place, 66; and subject, 141–43, 146–47, 178–79, 227; and universalism, 203 Prayer and liturgy, 109, 119–20, 125, 220 Prophets: God’s relationship with, 105; Jesus as, 84–85; as mystics, 115–16; in Old Testament, 35–36, 81n50, 85, 115–16; resurrection and ascension of, 81n50, 85 Proverbs, 196 Psalms: Augustine’s commentary on, 13, 15n6; on Exodus events, 64; on God as king, 59; on Lord at Father’s right hand, 107n; on love, 13 Psalms of Solomon, 64n26, 70n Pure Land Buddhism, 164 Qumran, 70n, 102 Rabinow, Paul, 141n13, 178n69 Rahner, Karl, 50, 111n23, 114nn28,30, 120n, 130n52, 150, 191n Raspberry, William, 167n50 Rausch, Thomas P., 76n, 81n51, 85–86n55, 93n67, 176n66 Reason: and faith, 17–22, 25, 41, 148, 163, 204–5; and hope, 18; and love, 18; Teresa of Avila on, 19–22, 25, 26 Reformation, 162, 226 Reign of God. See Kingdom/reign of God Relationships: of Jesus generally, 1–2; and participation, 2–3. See also Community; Friendship; Participation Religion and the Rise of Modernity (Voegelin), 165n46 Religious wars, 162, 163, 226 Remembering, 173 Renaissance, 137, 138 Renaissance and Reformation (Voegelin), 158n34 Representation, 155–56, 179–80, 182, 225 Republic (Plato), 136, 232 Resurrection in Old Testament, 81 Resurrection of Jesus: and Beloved Disciple, 84; and Emmaus story, 9–12, 27, 80, 147, 199–200; encounters with resurrected Jesus, 9–12, 27, 79–80; and female disciples, 10, 11, 27, 38, 84; and future resurrection of all, 126, 147, 170; glory of, 170; in John’s Gospel, 86, 88; in Luke’s Gospel, 73, 75–76, 79, 85, 211; in Mark’s Gospel, 68, 79, 85; in Matthew’s Gospel, 71–72, 75, 79; and Peter, 84; strangeness of, 79–81 Revelation: and history-eternity tension,

158–59; and incarnation, 221; in Jewish and Christian history, 31–32 Revelation, Book of: Christ as martyr in, 108, 170; Lamb image in, 170; literary form of, 46, 48; warrior Christ on white horse in, 96 Richardson, Alan, 157n31 Ricoeur, Paul, 34, 43, 48n8, 111n22 Rogerson, J. W., 96n Romans, Letter to: on Christians as servants, 102; on creation’s groaning in labor pains, 183; doctrinal code in, 130; gospel as term in, 46; on Holy Spirit, 191–92; on participation, 6, 199; on saints, 116; on titles for Jesus, 86n55 Romantic period, 30, 34, 139, 146 Rome and Roman Empire, 54, 73, 74, 100, 129, 132–33, 209 Romero, Oscar, 116 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 162–63 Ryken, Leland, 47, 50n12 Sacraments, 44, 83. See also Baptism; Eucharist Sadducees, 77, 81 Saints, 114, 116, 188n80, 203, 218, 228. See also Martyrdom; Mystics Salvation. See Soteriology Samaria, 74 Samuel, First Book of, 62, 64 Sarah, 37 Saul, 62 Savior. See Jesus; Soteriology Sayers, Dorothy L., 197n94 Schismatics, 131 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 30 Schottroff, Luise, 47n5, 55n16 Schreiter, Robert J., 36n Schroeder, William R., 36n, 142–43 Science, 30, 169–71 Second coming, 158 Second naïveté, 34, 43, 82, 173, 182, 226 Self, 137–42, 145–46, 151, 177, 179, 223 Sermon on the Mount, 17, 61, 70, 71, 77 Sexism, 177, 183 Sheldrake, Philip, 66n30 Shepherd and sheep imagery, 86, 95, 96, 214 Simonetti, M., 131n Sin: church’s collusion in, 160; and community of being, 175; contemplation of, 174–75; as corruption, 122, 182; definition of, 175, 177, 227; and hardened heart, 176, 177–78, 227; and Jesus’ identity, 126, 166; original, 175–76;

Index / 264 passions habituated to, 177; and pathology, 36; as refusal of responsible action within society, 177; as refusal to be a person, 177; rights of doer of, 166; second naïveté and critique of, 36; and slaughter of Lamb, 170; social, 179; soteriological problem of, 156; suffering accompanying, 183; of torturers, 110, 111, 180–81, 183, 218, 228; and Trinity, 189–91, 229; victory over, 182 Siniscalco, P., 159n36 Sirach, Book of, 71 Smart, Barry, 141n13 Smith, Adam, 138 Smith, Anthony D., 154n27 Sobrino, Jon, 58n18 Society: and community, 156; corruption in, 159; and evil, 155; as hypostatized entity, 179; institutional dimension of, 153–55, 225; just society, 155–56; and participation, 27–28, 32–33, 201–2; and partnership between Jesus and humans, 150–51; and representative social tensions, 151–56; and self, 179; social fields of, 152–53, 156, 179, 224–25; Voegelin on, 152–53, 155, 179 Sociology, 34 Socrates, 33, 148 Soelle, Dorothee, 47n5, 55n16 Sorokin, Pitrim A., 112n25 Soteriology: balance between Christology and, 134; and Chalcedon declaration, 126–28, 190, 220; and cross-cultural challenge, 161; and evil and sin, 156, 227; and friendship, 106, 217–18; Gospel title of Jesus as Savior, 85, 113, 132; heart-informed soteriology, 174–83; and hypostatic union, 223; and imperial Christology, 132–33, 221; and Jesus’ understanding of his own death, 77–78; male gender of Savior, 195; and martyrdom, 112–13, 218; and metaphysics, 232–33; and mystics, 116–17, 219; and participation generally, 4; and partnership between Jesus and humans, 150–51; and paschal mystery, 75–83, 170; suffering and salvation, 35, 78–79; theology of salvation, 133; and Trinity, 125–26, 189–91; and types of participation, 129–32 Soul: Aristotle on, 51, 136; and Ground, 37, 136–37, 145, 148–49; Heraclitus on, 135–36; and identity, 135–37, 145, 147–49, 223; and openness to divine Beyond, 51; order of, as oriented to will of God, 51; Plato on, 51, 136;

Teresa of Avila on, as interior castle, 19, 22–23, 165 Spain, 154, 180–81 Spicq, Ceslas, 102n3, 176n67 Spinoza, Baruch, 130n53 Spirit. See Holy Spirit Spiritual Exercises (Ignatius of Loyola), 37 Stark, Rodney, 102, 102–3n5 Stead, Christopher, 128n50, 150n21 Stein, Edith, 116 Stephen, 74, 107–8, 109 Stoics, 17, 33, 54, 176n68 Story form, 48–49 Strangeness-familiarity interplay, 6–12, 79–81, 200, 215, 216, 228 Straw, Carole, 108–9 Studer, Basil, 123n, 127n48, 132 Subject, 140–43, 146–47, 178–79, 223, 227 Subjectivity: of feelings, 30; and history, 51–52 Suetonius, 54 Suffering: and Holy Spirit, 190; of the innocent, 233; John Paul II on, 183n, 190n83; and love, 190; Paul on, 190n83; of prophets, 85, 212; and savior, 35, 78–79; and sin and evil, 183, 190; and Trinity, 189, 229. See also Victimization Sun-compound words (“withness”), 6, 199 Superman image, 30–31, 32 Superstition, 32, 36 Sykes, Bryan, 162n38 Symbol: Bible as, 44; Voegelin on, 41 Symbolism: and concepts, 59–60; and Matthew’s Gospel, 72; of resurrection, 81; of Trinity, 187–88, 195–96 Symposium (Plato), 33n, 104n9, 148, 232 Synoptics. See Luke, Gospel of; Mark, Gospel of; Matthew, Gospel of Tacitus, 54, 112 Tallon, Andrew, 26n25 Tanner, Kathryn, 153n25 Taoism, 164, 186 Taylor, Charles, 30n28, 36n Technology, 169, 181–82 Temporal dimensions: and geography, 230; as kairotic, 65; of kingdom/reign of God, 63–66; Paul on fullness of time, 150, 230 Teresa of Avila, 19–26, 33, 165, 193, 194–95, 201, 230 Tertullian, 111, 124

Index / 265 Testament, meaning of, 44 Theology of salvation, 133 Theophany: and burning bush, 7–9, 11, 37, 91, 186, 199–200; and mystics, 219; primordial theophany text, 8–9. See also God Thérèse of Lisieux, 193, 230 Thessalonians, First Letter to, 13 Thomas, Gospel of, 76n Thomas Aquinas: and Aristotle’s potency-act dynamism, 232; contributions of, 113–14; on friendship, 104–6, 144, 217–18; on Holy Spirit, 105–6; and principles of identity and of sufficient reason, 231; on Trinity, 106 Timaeus (Plato), 91n Time. See Temporal dimensions Timothy, Letters to, 130 Titus, Letter to, 194 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 139n7 Tolerance, 16n, 162–68, 191, 226, 230 “Tome of Constantinople,” 124 Torrance, Thomas F., 124n42, 125n44 Torrell, Jean-Pierre, 106n14 Torturers, 110, 111, 180–81, 183, 218, 228 Trajan, Emperor, 103n5 Transcendental form of representation, 155–56, 179–80, 225 Transculturalization, 160. See also Cross-cultural challenge; Globalization Transfiguration, 9 Trinity: Augustine on, 94, 106, 124, 188, 197; Basil on, 197; Cappadocians on, 124; Christological and soteriological reasons for, 125–26, 189; as Communicator, Communication, and Communicating, 93–94, 214; and dialogue, 229; and divine Ground, 185–89, 196, 229–30; Downey on, 125n43, 188; evil, sin, salvation and, 189–91, 229; and friendship, 106; as good, true, and beauty, 233; Gregory Nazianzus on, 124; and hypostatic union, 222–23; John on, 94–95, 144; language of, 187–88, 195–96, 230; Lewis on, 124–25; and love, 94, 106, 124, 125n43, 188, 189, 190, 197, 214; male language for, 195–96, 230; in NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed, 120–24, 131, 219–20; no subordinationism among, 192; and Other, 191–92, 229–30; Paul on, 96–97; renewal of thought on, 196–97; and suffering, 189; term not found in Scripture, 197; theology and doctrine of, 189; Thomas

Aquinas on, 106; and women, 193–97. See also God; Holy Spirit; Jesus Truth: and beauty, 111–12; of being, 233; Foucault on, 141–42; and love, 109–11; and martyrdom, 109–11, 167; representation of, 155–56; and tolerance, 163 Universalism: and Classical tradition, 153; of God, 62–63; of Jesus’ alternative community, 157; of Jesus movement and Holy Spirit, 191; and modernity, 153; of participation, 39–40, 203; and postmodernity, 203; quest for universal beauty, 148 Universe, 169–71 Upanishads, 186 Vander Broek, Lyle, 46, 47, 68, 69, 73, 88 Vattimo, Gianni, 150n20 Ventilation, 158, 160, 179, 225–26 Vico, Giambattista, 30 Victimization: of animals, 183, 228; of body, 183; of the innocent, 180–83, 228, 233 Vine and branches symbol, 5, 83 Virtues: Aristotle on, 33, 138; faith, hope, and love as, 12–17, 200–201; Greek and Roman, 17; Heraclitus on, 14–17, 33; Paul on, 12–13; Plato on, 17, 33, 138, 143, 232; prudence as, 17, 160; and reason, imagination, language, affection, and willing, 16–27; Stoics on, 17, 33; Teresa of Avila on, 19–20, 24, 33; Voegelin on, 15 Voegelin, Eric: on absorption, 158, 225; on action within society and history, 69; on classical studies, 29n, 36n; on community of being, 99, 174, 205, 215; on consubstantiality, 172; on cosmocentric perspective, 64n26; on divine Ground, 153; on engendering experiences, 48n8; on freedom, 153; on Hebrew historiography, 51; on Heraclitus, 14, 15; on history and historiogenesis, 197, 230–31; on information versus formative knowledge, 49; on mystical tolerance, 163–64, 226; on order of history, 53n14; on participation, 41, 205; on Plato’s use of myth, 72n41, 91n; on representation, 155–56, 225; on society, 152–53, 155, 179; on story form, 48n9; on symbol, 41; on tolerance, 163–64, 165, 226. See also specific works Von Heyking, John, 155n29

Index / 266 Walsh, David, 139n7 Wars of religion, 162, 163, 226 Water, Mark, 113n Weber, Alison, 21n14, 25n21 Weber, Max, 35n, 140 Wesley, John, 139 Wilderness, Jesus in, 68, 70 Will, 25–27 Window image of Bible, 42, 43, 44–45 Wisdom of Solomon, 85, 196 Wisdom tradition, 71, 196 Wiser, James, 104, 114n29, 136n2, 137–39 Witherington, Ben, III, 71n, 73n43 Withness and with-experience, 6–7, 96, 199. See also Participation Witness: Bible as, 44; dimensions of witnessing, 108; Holy Spirit as, 113; and martyrdom, 107–12, 167, 186 Women: in Acts of the Apostles, 73; asso-

ciation of, with cave/womb, 136; and feminist theology, 193–97, 230; Hellenistic view of, 73; honoring dignity of, 132; Jesus’ encounter with Syrophoenician woman, 61–62; in Jesus movement, 193, 230; Jesus’ relationships with, 73; in Luke’s Gospel, 10, 11, 73; and resurrection of Jesus, 10, 11, 27, 38, 84; and silence, 194; Teresa of Avila on, 193, 194–95; Thérèse of Lisieux on, 193; and Trinity, 193–97 Word. See Logos World, 168–74, 226 World of the Polis, The (Voegelin), 15nn6–7, 136n1 Wright, N. T., 71n, 76n ˇ ˇ ek, Slavoj, 150n20 Ziz Zulaika, Joseba, 180–81, 233–34n8