0028–6885 | volume 56 | number 3 | July 2010
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES Published quarterly in association with studiorum novi testamenti societas
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES
While reviews are not published in this journal, the October issue carries a Books Received list of books received in the previous year. Review copies should be sent to the Editor. Subscriptions
EDITOR OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES J. M. G. Barclay (Durham, England) Editorial Board D. Allison (Pittsburgh Seminary, PA, USA) K. Backhaus (München, Germany) D. Balch (Pacific Lutheran Seminary, CA, USA) I. Dunderberg (Helsinki, Finland ) J. Fitzgerald (Miami, FL, USA) C. Gerber (Hamburg, Germany) M. Holmes (Bethel College, St. Paul, MN, USA) C. Karakolis (Athens, Greece) M. Konradt (Heidelberg, Germany) H. Löhr (Münster, Germany) L. M. McDonald (Arizona, USA) M. MacDonald (Antigonish Nova Scotia, Canada) H. Moxnes (Oslo, Norway) A. Reinhartz (Ottawa, Canada) D. Sim (Melbourne, Australia) G. Steyn (Pretoria, South Africa) F. Tolmie (Bloemfontein, South Africa) H. van de Sandt (Tilburg, The Netherlands)
EDITOR OF THE SNTS MONOGRAPH SERIES J. M. Court (Canterbury, England) THE OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY ex officio: President of the Society for 2009–2010: A. Lindemann, (Bielefeld, Germany) Past-President : A.B. Du Toit, (Pretoria, South Africa) President-Elect : A. Yarbro Collins, (Yale, CT, USA) Deputy President-Elect: A. Puig i Tàrrech (Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) Secretary : M. de Boer, (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Assistant Secretary : A. Clarke, (Aberdeen, Scotland) Treasurer : H. K. Bond, (Edinburgh, Scotland) For further information on the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, please look at the website at https://www.surfgroepen.nl/sites/snts
New Testament Studies is an international peer-reviewed periodical whose contributors include the leading New Testament scholars writing in the world today. The journal publishes original articles and short studies in English, French and German on a wide range of issues pertaining to the origins, history, context and theology of the New Testament and early Christianity. All contributions represent research at the cutting edge of the discipline, which has developed a wide range of methods. The journal welcomes submissions employing any such methods, such as exegetical, historical, literary-critical, sociological, hermeneutical and theological approaches to the New Testament, including studies that employ gender, ethnicity or ideology as categories of analysis, and studies in its history of interpretation and effects. Published under the auspices of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas
New Testament Studies (issn 0028–6885) is published four times a year in January, April, July and October. Four parts form a volume. The subscription price which includes delivery by air where appropriate plus electronic access to institutional subscribers, (but excluding vat) of volume 56 is £135 (us $249 in usa, Canada and Mexico) for institutions and £46 (us $76 in usa, Canada and Mexico) for individuals. Students may subscribe at £20 (us $36 in the usa, Canada and Mexico). Single parts are £35 net (us $62 in usa, Canada and Mexico) plus postage. The electronic only price available to institutional subscribers is £123 (us $223 in usa, Canada and Mexico). Members of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas receive New Testament Studies at special terms. eu subscribers (outside the uk) who are not registered for vat should add vat at their country’s rate. vat registered members should provide their vat registration number. Japanese prices for institutions (including asp delivery) are available from Kinokuniya Company Ltd, p.o. box 55, Chitose, Tokyo 156, Japan. Orders which must be accompanied by payment, may be sent to a bookseller, subscription agent or direct to the publisher : Cambridge University Press, The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge cb2 8ru, uk; or in the usa, Canada and Mexico: Cambridge University Press, Journals Fulfillment Department, 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, New York 10994–2133. Copies of the journal for subscribers in the usa, Canada and Mexico are sent by air to New York to arrive with minimum delay. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices, POSTMASTER: send address changes in USA, Canada and Mexico to New Testament Studies, Cambridge University Press, 100 Brook Hill Drive, West Nyack, New York 10994-2133, claims for missing issues should be made immediately on receipt of the subsequent issue. For all queries worldwide, email
[email protected] Copying This journal is registered with the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, ma 01923 (www.copyright.com). Organizations in the usa who are also registered with ccc may therefore copy material (beyond the limits permitted by sections 107 and 108 of us copyright law) subject to payment to ccc. This consent does not extend to multiple copying for promotional or commercial purposes. isi Tear Sheet Service, 3501 Market Street, Philadelphia, p.a. 19104, usa, is authorized to supply single copies of separate articles for private use only. Organizations authorized by the Copyright Licensing Agency may also copy material subject to the usual conditions. For all other use, permission should be sought from Cambridge or the American Branch of Cambridge University Press. http://www.cambridge.org/uk/information/rights Internet Access Information on New Testament Studies and all other Cambridge journals can be accessed via www.journals.cambridge.org
© Cambridge University Press 2010
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000044
Naıˆtre de mourir: la mort de Je´sus dans l’E´vangile de Matthieu (Mt 27.51-56) ¨ TH R ICH S E RG E WU Institut Protestant de The´ologie, Faculte´ de the´ologie protestante de Paris, 83 bd Arago, F-75014 Paris, France. email:
[email protected] What is the meaning of the apocalyptic events related in the Gospel of Matthew after the death of Jesus? The issue is treated in two stages, beginning with a short review of current interpretations (historical, causal, and semiologic). In a second step, the spatial and temporal disruptions that cross the story are explored. The hypothesis is made, with consideration of the figures’ sequence, that they are the figurative expression of a childbirth. Time and place of death are thus those of a birth, Jesus is literally ‘the firstborn from the dead’. It is finally suggested that the reader’s actualisation of this peculiar figures’ chain corresponds to the birth of a believing subject. Keywords: Matthew .–, death, birth, apocalyptic events, figure
Si penser la mort est un défi, serait-il plus simple de la raconter? On le sait, la mort de Jésus occupe une place centrale dans les évangiles. Or, chaque récit la rapporte à sa manière. Ce qui frappe chez Marc, c’est l’absence de tout embellissement. Jésus meurt sur un cri d’effroi. Luc reprend cette fin en l’atténuant. Jésus prie pour ses bourreaux, le scandale de la mort s’estompe dans ce geste édifiant. Jean, de son côté, en fait un acte maîtrisé. La mort est pacifiée, Jésus remet son esprit après avoir proclamé ‘Tout est achevé!’. Quant au récit de l’évangile de Matthieu, il suit de près sa source marcéenne. Mais là où le premier évangile s’en écarte, c’est dans le déploiement d’événements postmortem déconcertants. ‘[L’] élément le plus nouveau et inattendu de ces versets [i.e. v. -] est constitué par les v. – […] Il est remarquable que Mat. qui, souvent, tend à restreindre les éléments anecdotiques ou merveilleux de Mc., en a rajouté ici (v. –). Cette fin du récit de la mort de Jésus est d’autant plus surprenante
V. Jankélévitch, La mort (Paris: Flammarion, ) –, parle de son caractère ‘vertigineux’. Selon lui, la mort renvoie à un ‘ordre extraordinaire’.
SERGE WÜTHRICH
que tout le début de la narration tendait à nous la montrer dans sa naturelle et humaine réalité’. . Une suite d’événements déconcertants
Comme l’observe Daniel M. Gurtner, le déchirement du voile du Temple interrompt brusquement le récit de la mort de Jésus. Cet événement apocalyptique est le premier d’une longue série, suivie de deux réactions opposées, reportées successivement. La première est celle des soldats, chez qui ces événements provoquent une grande crainte (ils ‘eurent très peur’, v. ). Cet état pathémique violent est accompagné d’une phase que l’on peut qualifier de sanction pendant laquelle les soldats confessent: ‘Vraiment, celui-ci était Fils de Dieu!’ (v. ). La seconde réaction est celle de ‘beaucoup de femmes’. Contrairement aux soldats, elles portent sur la scène un regard distant (elles ‘regardaient de loin’, v. ), une attitude qui actualise une relation de nature aphorique avec la situation. Leur mutisme est un jugement porté sur les prodiges observés. Ces deux réactions ne se résument toutefois pas à leur seule différence thymique. À celle-ci s’en ajoutent d’autres. () Une opposition de genre: homme (soldats) vs femme; () une opposition spatiale: proche (soldats) vs loin (femmes); () le contraste se manifeste également par un renversement quantitatif dans l’entrée en scène des protagonistes: d’un côté un acteur singulier (/centurion/) précède un acteur collectif (/ceux qui gardaient/), alors que de l’autre côté c’est l’acteur collectif (/beaucoup de femmes/) qui se décline successivement en trois acteurs singuliers (/Marie la Magdaléenne/, /Marie mère de Jacques et de Joseph/, et /la mère des fils de Zébédée/). P. Bonnard, L’Évangile selon Saint Matthieu (CNT ; Genève: Labor et Fides, rev. ed. ) . D. Senior, ‘The Death of Jesus and the Resurrection of the Holy Ones (Mt :-)’, CBQ () , va jusqu’à dire que ‘Mt :b- is one of the most intriguing passage in the Gospel’. D. M. Gurtner, The Torn Veil: Matthew’s Exposition of the Death of Jesus (SNTS MS , Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) . A. G. Van Aarde, ‘Matthew :– and the Turning of the Tide in Israel’s History’, BTB () –. U. Luz, Matthew –: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, ) . W. D. Davies et D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Vol. , Matthew – (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ) , parlent de ‘a shower of astounding miracles’. Le pathémique relève du domaine passionnel. ‘Son emploi évite toute confusion avec une saisie psychologique de l’univers affectif dans le cadre du discours. L’étude de la dimension pathémique du discours, complémentaire des dimensions pragmatiques et cognitives, concerne non plus la transformation des états de choses (ressort de la narrativité), mais de la modulation des états du sujet, ses “états d’âme” ’. D. Bertrand, Précis de sémiotique littéraire (Paris: Nathan, ) . La thymie est une ‘ “[d]isposition affective de base” déterminant la relation qu’un corps sensible entretient avec son environnement’. Bertrand, Précis de sémiotique, .
Naître de mourir
Le récit articule donc deux perspectives discursives distinctes que manifestent des configurations figuratives particulières. Il est pertinent de parler d’un fonctionnement dialogique, imputable à deux points de vue énonciatifs différents, l’un assumé par les soldats et l’autre par les femmes. Plusieurs questions se posent alors: à partir de quelle compétence chaque acteur interprète-t-il les prodiges qu’il observe? Comment l’énonciataire (le lecteur) peut-il, lui aussi, accéder à la vérité qui s’y révèle? Mais avant tout, cet épisode s’appuie-t-il sur des sources? Relate-t-il des événements historiques? Concernant la question de l’historicité, une lecture même superficielle ne permet pas d’ignorer les problèmes soulevés par ce texte. Les tentatives de défendre la plausibilité historique des événements décrits n’ont été, à ce jour, guère convaincantes. Les difficultés sont telles que certains commentateurs avouent ouvertement leur impuissance. Ainsi au sujet du verset , Ulrich Luz reconnaît qu’il a ‘omis de l’interprétation les mots “après sa résurrection” […] J’admets que je ne peux pas les interpréter d’une façon satisfaisante. À la surface du texte, ils n’ont que peu de sens’. En dernier recours, il suggère l’hypothèse peu satisfaisante d’une glose post-matthéenne glissée de façon malencontreuse dans le texte. Raymond E. Brown résume bien la situation dans la conclusion de son analyse des événements postmortem: ‘faire de leur historicité littérale un souci majeur pass[e] à côté de leur véritable nature de symbole’.
. Une source apocalyptique
Faut-il alors, à l’instar de nombreux commentateurs, explorer la piste des images poétiques, symboliques, voire mythologiques? Dans cette perspective, les prodiges sont des signes à décoder: les exégètes se sont par exemple posé la Comment établir une chronologie plausible des événements? Les saints sont-ils les premiers à ressusciter, ou sortent-ils des tombeaux après Jésus? Que deviennent-ils par la suite? Pourquoi les autres évangiles ne parlent-ils pas de ces événements? La peur du centurion et des soldats (v. ) ne fait-elle pas anachroniquement référence à la vision de ces résurrections? etc. Encore récemment: R. Plummer, ‘Something Awry in the Temple? The Rending of the Temple Veil and Early Jewish Sources that Report Unusual Phenomena in the Temple around AD ’, JETS . () –. ‘[I have] omitted from the interpretation the words “after his rising” […] I admit that I cannot satisfactorily interpret them. On the surface of the text they make little sense’. Luz, Matthew –, . Luz, Matthew –, . R. E. Brown, La mort du Messie. Encyclopédie de la Passion du Christ, de Gethsémani au tombeau (Paris: Bayard, ) . Davies et Allison, Matthew, ; Ed. Schweizer, The Good News According to Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, ) –; R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) .
SERGE WÜTHRICH
question de savoir si le terme καταπέτασμα (voile) faisait référence au voile intérieur du Temple séparant le lieu saint du lieu très saint, ou s’il désignait le rideau extérieur qui délimitait le sanctuaire au sein du parvis. Au-delà du sens des mots, l’arrière-plan vétérotestamentaire de Mt .– ne fait guère de doute. Les sources de cette ‘imagerie apocalyptique’ ont été suggérées depuis longtemps. Les références les plus fréquentes renvoient aux textes de M , Hénoch .- ou encore Ez ., . S’appuyant sur une analyse du rythme et du style du texte de Mt .b-, W. Schenk a avancé l’idée qu’un hymne apocalyptique juif serait à l’origine de ce passage; hymne auquel l’auteur du premier évangile aurait donné une forme paratactique. Toutefois, l’argument stylistique (‘exprimer la série stupéfiante de signes déclenchés par la mort de Jésus’), ou l’hypothèse d’une source apocalyptique, ne suffit pas à en garantir l’unité. Comme le constate Van Aarde: ‘Matthieu a été soit ignorant soit peu soucieux de la juxtaposition maladroite des versets et du chapitre ’. Dès lors, comment dégager la cohérence de ces versets et partant celle de la péricope? À la suite de Gese et Reumann, Donald Senior a cherché un parallèle entre le déroulement matthéen de la Passion et la structure du Psaume . Il avance l’hypothèse que Mt .– fait écho à la conclusion du psaume (Ps .–) sans préciser pour autant quels liens unissent les différents prodiges rapportés. Se bornant à observer la cohérence de l’ajout matthéen, il note qu’il ‘correspond à l’intention de l’évangéliste’. Pour lui, l’interprétation de la mort de Jésus par Matthieu doit se comprendre comme une superposition de significations, qu’elles soient à visée confessionnelle, sotériologique, ou liées à l’histoire du salut.
Dans le premier cas, l’ouverture du voile ferait référence à un nouvel accès à Dieu pour les païens, dans le second la déchirure figurerait la destruction du Temple. Bonnard, Matthieu, ; Davies et Allison, Matthew, -. ‘The First Testament background and the apocalyptic imagery of this passage are well recognized’. Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, . W. Schenk, Der Passionsbericht nach Markus. Untersuchungen zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der Passionstraditionen (Gütersloh: Mohn, ). ‘express the breathtaking series of signs that are triggered by Jesus’ death’. Senior, ‘The Death of Jesus’, . D. C. Allison, The End of the Ages Has Come (Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –, reprend et discute les hypothèses de Senior sur d’éventuelles sources vétérotestamentaires. ‘Matthew was either unaware of or unconcerned about the awkward conjunction of verses and in chapter ’. Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, . Senior, ‘The death of Jesus’, . ‘[Matthew’s addition in :b–] fits into the intent of the evangelist’. Senior, ‘The Death of Jesus’, –. Senior, ‘The death of Jesus’, –.
Naître de mourir . Une confession problématique
Un autre point de vue consiste à envisager la ‘confession’ des soldats comme l’élément fédérateur ou organisateur du texte: elle est considérée comme la conséquence des événements qui la précèdent. Notons, en passant, à quel point cette confession fascine toujours les commentateurs. Sans craindre l’anachronisme certains affirment que ‘les Romains prononcent une confession chrétienne complète’. Pierre Bonnard, plus prudent, pense que la réaction du centenier (panique et crainte d’avoir offensé la divinité) est certainement plus païenne que chrétienne. S’arrêter à cette seule péricope risque cependant de fausser le jugement porté sur l’attitude des acteurs présents. La suite du récit apporte, en effet, de nouveaux éléments qui l’éclairent différemment. Un indice nous met sur la voie: contrairement aux autres évangiles, la confession matthéenne est prononcée par tous les soldats (‘Le centurion et ceux qui avec lui gardaient Jésus….’, v. ). Ce point doit nous alerter, car il est encore fait mention de soldats, plus loin dans le récit, lorsqu’ils gardent le tombeau de Jésus. Ces gardes sont-ils, comme la majorité des interprètes modernes le pensent, romains et donc ‘prêtés’ par Pilate, ou au contraire font-ils partie de la police (juive) du Temple? Le gouverneur semble le sous-entendre lorsqu’il dit: ‘Vous avez une garde; allez, prenez vos sûretés comme vous l’entendez’ (v. ). Bien que cette interprétation ait été fréquemment défendue, des arguments
Schnackenburg, Matthew, . ‘[This confession] indicates which ways God will go after Easter and where the future of faith in Jesus lies’. Luz, Matthew –, . Dans un contexte différent (celui du deuxième évangile), D. Marguerat et S. Vuilleumier, ‘Marc, l’évangile du Dieu crucifié’, Mort de Jésus. Dossier pour l’animation biblique (ed. Y. Boinnard; Genève: Labor et Fides, ) , écrivent à propos de la déclaration du centurion: ‘Pour la première fois dans l’évangile de Marc, publiquement, Jésus est reconnu dans sa véritable identité. L’exception vient d’où on ne l’attendait pas : là où les croyants préparés à la venue du Messie ont échoué, la parole de la foi surgit de la bouche d’un étranger, d’un païen, d’un sans Dieu. La narration peut s’achever : le Fils a été reconnu’. Senior, ‘The Death of Jesus’, , note avec pertinence l’aspect révélateur de la confession du centurion chez Marc alors que, dans le premier évangile, pareille annonce a été faite au préalable par les disciples (.; .). ‘[T]he Romans utter the full Christian confession’. Davies et Allison, Matthew, . Bonnard, Matthieu, . Il ajoute cependant: ‘il est possible que les premiers auditeurs de l’évangile aient compris l’exclamation du centurion comme une confession de foi chrétienne anticipée, ce qui serait bien dans la ligne de l’universalisme matthéen’. Les partisans de cette interprétation prennent appui sur une interprétation de la forme verbale ἔχετε comprise comme un présent de l’indicatif (‘vous avez, vous aussi une garde’) plutôt qu’un impératif (‘ayez ou prenez un(e) garde’), et sur le fait que le terme grec κουστωδία—utilisé en .- et ., toujours en relation avec les grands prêtres— diffère du substantif στϱατιώτης, qui lui désigne explicitement les soldats romains. Davies et Allison, Matthew, .
SERGE WÜTHRICH
permettent de trancher en faveur de la première hypothèse. Quand les grands prêtres et les anciens soudoient les soldats pour répandre de faux bruits au sujet de la disparition du corps de Jésus, l’expression suivante est utilisée: ‘ceux-ci, ayant pris les pièces d’argent, firent comme ils furent enseignés’ (οἱ δὲ λαβόντες τὰ ἀ ϱγύϱια ἐποίησαν ὡς ἐδιδάχθησαν, .). Or, le verbe ‘enseigner’ (διδάσκω) se retrouve quelques versets plus loin à propos, cette fois-ci, des disciples auxquels Jésus s’adresse: ‘enseignant à garder tout ce que je vous ai commandé’ (διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τη ϱεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν, .). Le premier évangile se clôt ainsi sur l’opposition de deux figures de disciples: d’un côté, les non-disciples (les soldats) qui sont enseignés par les grands prêtres à mentir, et de l’autre côté, les vrais disciples (de Jésus) qui sont enseignés à garder les commandements du Maître. La sanction finale de l’évangile doit rétrospectivement alerter le lecteur: il ne faut pas juger trop hâtivement l’attitude (positive?) des soldats qui confessent leur ‘foi’, et celle (négative?) des femmes qui se taisent. Plus qu’un avertissement, ce sont des modes de construction de la cohérence du récit biblique qui sont contestés par la finale matthéenne. Faire appel à une explication qui ne serait que sémiologique—comme celle se référant exclusivement à une imagerie apocalyptique—ou se borner à référer des événements à ce qui les a provoqués au gré d’une rationalité causale—en expliquant, par exemple, la confession de foi des soldats comme étant la conséquence de leur peur, induite par la vision des événements apocalyptiques déclenchés par la mort de Jésus (idem pour les femmes)—ne suffit pas. Comment alors exhumer une cohérence dans l’enchaînement singulier des figures proposées dans ce passage? Il peut être fécond de jeter un autre regard sur les événements postmortem en cherchant derrière les représentations de () Le terme στϱατιώτης (soldats) est explicitement utilisé en . lorsque les grands prêtres corrompent les gardes / soldats; () une autorisation n’était pas nécessaire pour mettre en place une garde privée (juive); () l’interrogatoire évoqué en . n’a lieu d’être que si des soldats romains sont impliqués dans la disparition du corps; () les Évangiles de Pierre et des Nazaréens (fragment ) attribuent au capitaine des gardes un patronyme romain, Petronius. Luz, Matthew –, . Ce n’est pas la seule caractéristique commune aux femmes et aux soldats. En . on lit que ‘[les soldats] s’étant assis (καθήμενοι) le [Jésus] gardaient là…’, et en .: ‘Marie la Magdaléenne et l’autre Marie, assises (καθήμεναι) en face du sépulcre….’ De même après la rencontre avec l’Ange et Jésus (.-), les deux groupes sont mis en mouvement: ‘Tandis qu’elles [les femmes] étaient en chemin, voici que quelques hommes de la garde vinrent à la ville’. L. Panier, ‘Récit—discours: De l’explication des causes à l’enchaînement des figures. Lecture de Actes —’, SémBib () –, nomme sémiologique un dispositif explicatif qui consiste à prendre les événements d’un récit comme des signifiants, dont le signifié donnerait la clé du sens. Dans ce cas, ‘la rationalité interprétative est bi-plane […] permettant de substituer le signifié au signifiant’.
Naître de mourir
corps, d’espace et de temps, des thématiques plus profondes qui fondent d’autres niveaux de signification. La lecture que nous proposons ici part de l’hypothèse que la structure figurative et thématique du récit fournit les conditions pour l’émergence d’une signification; les figures trouvent leur sens relativement aux chaînes figuratives qu’articule le discours.
. Une double rupture, temporelle et spatiale
Les sept phrases qui composent le début de la péricope sont liées par une anaphore. Cinq d’entre elles sont construites sur le même modèle avec un sujet et un verbe sans complément. Introduisant la série des sept énoncés, une locution adverbiale (καὶ ἰδού) fait référence au contexte immédiat; elle permet de localiser les événements par rapport à un temps pris comme repère cotextuel. Dans le cas présent, il s’agit de l’épisode mortifère qui précède et dont la proximité garantit la continuité avec les circonstances qui vont suivre. Cette section est composée de deux parties. D’une part les quatre syntagmes abc, a, et d’autre part les trois syntagmes b, ab. Cette division s’appuie sur la constatation que les trois phrases finales de l’alinéa marquent un débrayage temporel en se référant proleptiquement à ce qui se passe ‘après sa résurrection [celle de Jésus]’. Mais avant d’étudier la question de la temporalité, considérons d’abord deux événements qui affectent la représentation de l’espace. Premièrement, la déchirure du rideau. Elle figure la scission d’un espace initial (global) en deux sous-espaces complémentaires et contigus. Par son abrupte verticalité, la frontière tracée témoigne du caractère radical de la coupure. Elle traverse autant le ciel que la terre, deux extrémités figurées par le /Sanctuaire/ (en haut) lieu inchoatif de la fissure, et par les /tombeaux/ (en bas) aboutissement de la déchirure au plus profond de la terre. Deux extrémités qui caractérisent l’opposition catégorielle verticale céleste vs terrestre. On observe, en second lieu, un mouvement complémentaire du précédent avec le déplacement des corps des saints des tombeaux à la Ville sainte. Par ce mouvement horizontal, la limite entre le monde des morts et celui des vivants est rendue floue, les morts se mêlent aux vivants, de ‘nombreux saints … se manifestèrent à un grand nombre de gens’. L’enchaînement des oppositions est ici manifeste: les morts reviennent à la vie (ils passent du monde des morts à Il importe de faire la distinction entre, d’une part, les discours transitifs dont la visée référentielle renvoie aux éléments du monde naturel, auxquels les figures du récit correspondent (dans ce cas, le ‘sens’ des figures convoquées par le récit dépend du savoir commun et des réseaux qui en articulent les composantes), et, d’autre part, les discours intransitifs pour lesquels c’est la structure figurative et thématique qui fournit les conditions de l’émergence d’un tout de signification. L. Panier, ‘Polysémie des figures et statut figural des grandeurs figuratives. L’exemple de la Parabole des Mines (Évangile de Luc , -)’, La polysémie ou l’empire des sens (ed. S. Rémi et L. Panier; Limoges: PUL, ) –.
SERGE WÜTHRICH
celui des vivants); ils sortent des tombeaux (ils passent d’un lieu clos à un lieu ouvert); l’impureté qui entoure la mort et la séparation qu’elle implique d’avec les vivants sont levées. Les oppositions structurant l’univers social et culturel, organisées selon l’homologie vie : mort :: céleste : terrestre :: pur : impur, sont récusées, brouillant du même coup l’organisation du monde, ses contours et ses limites. Remarquons également que les deux parties sont liées par une itération lexicale (/tombeaux/), ainsi que par des variations isotopiques contraires. En effet, les trois phrases terminales de première partie se succèdent selon un mouvement de régression en terme de surface (‘terre’, puis ‘rochers’, puis ‘tombeaux’), alors que la seconde partie occupe non seulement un espace textuel plus grand, mais propose également des figures qui marquent un accroissement numérique et spatial (‘nombreux saints’, ‘grand nombre de gens’, ‘ville’). On passe d’une série initiale de figures qui témoignent d’un vide croissant, à une nouvelle série qui exprime le plein. L’opposition spatiale caduque (suite à la déchirure du rideau) céleste vs terrestre fait place à une catégorie aspectuelle plein vs vide. Une nouvelle homologie relie cette catégorie à celle qui oppose les tombeaux aux saints relevés, soit vie : mort :: plein : vide :: horizontal : vertical. Dans le cadre du parallélisme sémantique qui relie les deux parties, il est désormais possible d’inscrire deux autres figures: le /rideau/ et les /corps/. Le voile du Sanctuaire est l’expression de ce qui est caché (l’invisible). À l’inverse, la mention des corps au verset est de l’ordre de la nudité (le visible). La transition du premier au second paragraphe opère ainsi le passage de l’invisible au visible. Ce mouvement est un acte de dévoilement.
. La mort comme parturition
Venons-en maintenant au problème temporel. Les commentateurs ont été déroutés par le télescopage des événements exposés. Il est légitime de penser que l’organisation temporelle est isomorphe à celle de l’espace. Si tel est le cas, alors la fracture spatiale qu’entraîne la mort de Jésus (figurée par la déchirure du rideau) doit correspondre à une rupture temporelle (que manifestent déjà Un rapport d’homologation s’écrit usuellement a : b :: c : d, et signifie que a est à b, comme c est à d. ‘The supreme cultic signifiance of the inner curtain is that it alone conceals the holiest of all, that the high-priest alone may pass through it on the Day of Atonement’. C. Schneider, ‘καταπέτασμα’, TDNT () .. L’expression σώματα τῶν ἁγίων fait référence ici aux corps physiques des saints: ‘σῶμα has the traditional sense […] of “corpse.” It is used for the body of Jesus in Mk. : and par.’. Ed. Schweizer, ‘σῶμα’, TDNT () ., qui mentionne à l’appui de son affirmation le fait que Matthieu et Luc ont traduit le πτῶμα (cadavre) de Mc . par σῶμα. Davies et Allison, Matthew, .
Naître de mourir
les ténèbres au moment de la mort de Jésus), l’inversion de la catégorie spatiale (horizontal vs vertical) doit trouver son équivalent temporel sous la forme de l’inversion d’une autre catégorie aspectuelle. Pour le découvrir, développons le dispositif topographique de la division qui sert d’armature à toute cette péricope. En régime de rupture, on opposera l’alinéa composé par le verset , et celui formé par des versets et . Dans le premier, les acteurs (le centurion et ceux qui gardent Jésus) sont placés sous la dépendance dysphorique du contexte. Leur réaction pathémique exprime une relation au monde fortement modalisée, contrairement aux femmes présentes au second alinéa. L’apparition de nouveaux personnages (féminins) doit alerter le lecteur. Si les soldats sont présents dès la fin de la scène de jugement devant Pilate (.), en revanche la mention de femmes est plutôt inattendue. En examinant de plus près les deux alinéas, on constate que la vue est la seule isotopie qui assure leur continuité syntagmatique. En ce qui concerne les soldats, la verbalisation au participe passé (‘ayant vu la secousse’) exprime une activité achevée. Le verbe est muni d’un complément d’objet (‘la secousse’). Le champ d’action est ainsi bien défini: le ‘voir’ des soldats est non seulement passé, mais également accompli (car l’objet de la vision, même s’il est problématique, est connu). De leur côté, les femmes sont décrites dans une posture où elles ‘regardaient’. Ici, l’imparfait signale aspectuellement une action qui s’inscrit dans la durée. Par ailleurs, le verbe ‘regarder’ se différencie du verbe ‘voir’ en ce qu’il dénote une volonté d’agir. L’action des femmes se distingue par sa durativité et son volontarisme, mais également par l’absence de complément d’objet. Ces caractéristiques indiquent l’intensité de la quête visuelle, mais elles n’en révèlent pas l’objet. Par voie de conséquence, l’énonciataire est invité à le chercher par lui-même. Si l’incipit de la péricope a été pris au sérieux, il convient d’accorder la même attention au dernier verset, anaphoriquement construit (v. ): et et
Marie la Magdaléenne Marie mère la mère
de Jacques et de Joseph des fils de Zébédée
En français, le Petit Robert propose la définition suivante pour regarder: ‘s’appliquer à voir, considérer attentivement’, alors que voir suppose une attitude passive: ‘percevoir (qqch.) par les yeux’. Même nuance en grec, cf. A. Bailly, ‘θεω ϱέω’ et ‘ὁ ϱάω’, Dictionnaire Grec Français (Paris: Hachette, rev. ed. ) , –. Certains exégètes, comme C. S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) , pensent que l’attention des femmes était dirigée vers le lieu de l’ensevelissement de Jésus afin de pouvoir s’y rendre ultérieurement. D’autres suggèrent que leur attention est la condition nécessaire de leur qualité de témoin oculaire: premièrement par leur présence à la croix (.–), deuxièmement devant le tombeau vide (.–), et finalement face à Jésus ressuscité (.-). Tout cela apporte ‘both credibility and continuity to the story by serving as eyewitnesses to the kerygmatic triad: Jesus died, was buried, was raised’. Davies et Allison, Matthew, .
SERGE WÜTHRICH
On constate la disparition progressive des anthroponymes féminins au profit de la fonction maternelle des acteurs. Les catégories femme, puis mère, occupent progressivement la totalité de l’espace actantiel. Adossé à cette extrémité de l’unité discursive, il est possible de relire, ou plus exactement de re-lier, les divers éléments figuratifs. Du fait de la présence de mères (femmes) comme sujets du regard, il est légitime d’interpréter sur le registre de la maternité les syntagmes nominaux suivants: et et et et et et et
le rideau fut déchiré terre fut secouée les rochers furent fendus les tombeaux furent ouverts les corps furent réveillés les corps sortants [ils] se manifestèrent
ἐσχίσθη ἐσείσθη ἐσχίσθησαν ἀνεῴχθησαν ἠγέϱθησαν ἐξελθόντες ἐνεϕανίσθησαν
comme autant d’expressions figuratives d’un accouchement. La mort de Jésus se révèle être, paradoxalement, le lieu et le temps d’une naissance. C’est à une rupture du schéma temporel (qui va de la naissance à la mort) que nous invite le regard des femmes. La mort n’est plus l’étape ultime, une disparition ou un anéantissement, il est possible de ‘naître de mourir’. . Premier-né d’entre les morts
À l’évidence, cette lecture des événements postmortem oblige à reconsidérer la dimension temporelle de l’histoire du salut. Dans un article consacré à Mt .–, Van Aarde passe en revue différentes interprétations de la temporalité matthéenne. À la suite de Marxsen, Conzelmann, Strecker et d’autres, qui considèrent que le ‘temps de Jésus’ relie en amont le ‘temps du Premier Testament’ (ou temps des pères et des prophètes), et en aval le ‘temps de l’église’—et contrairement à Kingsbury qui n’articule que deux catégories: la prophétie (le temps d’Israël) et l’accomplissement (constitué du temps de JeanBaptiste, celui de Jésus, et du temps de l’église)—Van Aarde distingue trois séquences temporelles dans le premier évangile. La séquence pré-pascale, la séquence post-pascale, et ‘la vie’ qui commence après la parousie. Les deux premières constituent des lignes narratives entremêlées. Leur intégration est telle que l’une (la mission de Jésus) anticipe l’autre (la mission des disciples) dans une sorte de transparence narrative qui n’est pas sans rappeler l’idée de Luz d’un discours matthéen à deux niveaux. Ce résultat n’est pas totalement surprenant, dans la mesure où le début de l’évangile en offre une image inversée: la naissance de Jésus est l’occasion de la mort d’enfants à Bethléem (.; .). Pour U. Luz, ‘L’évangéliste Matthieu: un judéo-chrétien à la croisée des chemins. Réflexions sur le plan narratif du premier Évangile’, La mémoire et le temps (ed. D. Marguerat and J.
Naître de mourir
Au sujet de Mt , Van Aarde défend une double thèse. Premièrement, cette péricope marque le passage (‘shift’, ‘Wende der Zeit’) d’une ligne narrative à l’autre. À ce titre, elle constitue un véritable tournant (‘turning of the tide’) dans l’histoire d’Israël. Deuxièmement, elle est le lieu narratif où la destruction du Temple (la chute de Jérusalem) et la vision de la venue du Fils de l’homme sont anticipées dans la crucifixion et la résurrection de Jésus. Cette anticipation s’inscrit dans une eschatologie de type apocalyptique, comprise comme la projection d’un temps vécu dans un temps imaginaire que Dieu contrôle. Selon ce point de vue, ‘ce qui est “imaginé” est exprimé en langage symbolique. [De plus le] “temps imaginaire” est, par analogie avec l’expérience, exprimé en “temps procédural” ’. Plusieurs difficultés grèvent ces propositions. Comme le reconnaît Van Aarde, la mission des disciples ne commence en réalité qu’en Mt .-. On peut même s’étonner que la rencontre déterminante entre les femmes et Jésus (.–) ne soit pas prise en compte dans le passage de la ‘commission de Jésus’ à la ‘commission des disciples’. D’autre part, dans un article ultérieur qui reprend et résume ses thèses, Van Aarde parle de la seconde séquence historique comme se rapportant non plus à ‘l’église primitive’ mais spécifiquement à ‘la communauté matthéenne’. Si tel est le cas, il devient alors impossible d’identifier un ‘shift’ entre les deux lignes narratives à l’intérieur du récit évangélique, car elles courent tout au long de l’Évangile sans que l’une ait pour vocation de remplacer l’autre.
Zumstein; Genève: Labor et Fides, ) –, le premier niveau concerne la vie de Jésus, et le second est destiné à la communauté matthéenne. Notons que pour Van Aarde, ‘the turning of the tide’, , le second niveau ne concerne pas la communauté matthéenne mais les premiers disciples et l’église primitive. Van Aarde, ‘the turning of the tide’, . La traduction, en français, de l’expression ‘turning of the tide’ est délicate. Au regard de la résurrection et des événements postmortem qui suggèrent une rupture radicale, s’agit-il d’évoquer un ‘changement de marée’, autrement dit le retour (répété) à un passé connu, le fait de ‘renverser la vapeur’ ou d’‘inverser le cours des choses’? B. J. Malina, ‘Christ and Time: Swiss or Mediterranean?’, The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels (ed. B. J. Malina; Londres: Routledge, ) –. ‘What is “imagined” is expressed in symbolic language. “Imaginary time” is, by analogy with experience, expressed in “procedure time” ’. Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, . Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, . Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, : ‘the Jesus era is transposed to the early church era in such a way that two historical worlds are simultaneously taken up as a narrative entity’. A. Van Aarde, ‘Jesus’ Mission to all of Israel Emplotted in Matthew’s Story’, Neotestanestica () : ‘there is also a second level that makes this past narrative relevant to the present needs of Matthew’s community’.
SERGE WÜTHRICH
L’utilisation des concepts de ‘temps vécu’ et ‘temps imaginaire’ pose également des problèmes. Comment délimiter un champ approprié de ‘projection’ de l’un sur l’autre? Quel statut donner à la mort de Jésus (.–) incluse dans le passage choisi par Van Aarde pour utiliser ce modèle: fait-elle partie du temps historique ou du temps imaginaire? Par ailleurs, il donne comme exemple du ‘temps procédural’ la triple séquence de quatorze générations du premier chapitre de Matthieu, en situant le ‘turning of the tide’ entre la treizième et la quatorzième génération de l’ultime séquence. En conséquence de quoi, aussi bien le temps de la mission de Jésus (première ligne narrative, treizième génération) que le temps de la mission des disciples (seconde ligne narrative, quatorzième génération) sont concernés par cette projection. Mais est-il pertinent de considérer l’intégralité de ces deux lignes narratives comme appartenant à l’eschatologie apocalyptique? De fait, la faiblesse de cette approche réside dans le rapport nommé, mais non élucidé qu’entretiennent les deux temps (vécu et imaginaire). La rationalité propre à ce type d’interprétation est de nature symbolique, ou sémiologique pour reprendre les catégories de Louis Panier. Or dans ce cas, ‘l’événement s’épuise dans le “sens”qui le relaie’. Même en excluant la question de la mort de Jésus, les sept syntagmes identifiés en Mt .– peuvent-ils tous se ramener à des signes désignant la fin d’un ordre cultuel, un jugement divin, ou l’avènement d’un monde nouveau? L’interprétation proposée dans cet article suggère une compréhension de la temporalité matthéenne non en termes de ‘couches’, mais sur le mode de la fracture paradoxale. Une rupture qui permet à un aboutissement (une mort) de coïncider avec un commencement (une naissance). Si l’on peut dire que la mort de Jésus est ‘interprétée’ par sa résurrection, il convient avant tout de comprendre que cet événement confère à Jésus le fait d’être, littéralement, le ‘premier-né d’entre les morts’.
. Conclusion
Au terme de ce parcours interprétatif, il apparaît pertinent d’aller au-delà d’un dispositif d’explication qui ne serait qu’historique, causal ou sémiologique. Cette démarche justifie a posteriori l’hypothèse d’un statut figural des grandeurs figuratives, au sens où ces dernières, actualisées lors d’une première lecture, retrouvent un statut de variable leur permettant d’être le lieu d’un nouvel investissement sémantique. Dès lors, l’enchaînement des figures témoigne d’un acte
Van Aarde, ‘The Turning of the Tide’, . Panier, ‘Récit—discours’, . Van Aarde, ‘Jesus’ Mission to all of Israel’, –. L. Panier, ‘Le statut discursif des figures et l’énonciation’, SémBib () –.
Naître de mourir
énonciatif, car il ‘met en œuvre la structure même de l’instance d’énonciation’ à l’intersection de la quête du sens et de l’exploration des parcours figuratifs. Cette démarche ne consiste pas à débusquer une intentio auctoris (autrement inaccessible), mais à faire advenir une signification dans l’articulation même des figures du récit. Par ailleurs, la capacité à assumer la cohérence d’un discours et la détermination du sujet de l’énonciation sont autant d’éléments qui indiquent que les bouleversements spatiaux et temporels évoqués par les événements postmortem figurent, à n’en pas douter, la naissance d’un sujet croyant.
French abstract: Comment comprendre les événements apocalyptiques relatés dans l’évangile de Matthieu après la mort de Jésus? La question est traitée en deux étapes, à commencer par un bref rappel de quelques interprétations courantes (historique, causale, et sémiologique). Dans un deuxième temps, les ruptures spatiale et temporelle qui traversent le récit sont mises à jour. Avec l’examen de l’enchaînement des figures est avancée l’hypothèse qu’elles sont l’expression figurative d’un accouchement. Le lieu et le temps de la mort sont aussi ceux d’une naissance, Jésus est littéralement ‘le premier-né d’entre les morts’. Finalement, il est suggéré que l’actualisation, par le lecteur, de ce parcours figuratif particulier coïncide avec la naissance d’un sujet croyant.
Panier, ‘Polysémie des figures et statut figural des grandeurs figuratives’, .
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688509990282
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: Κατάλυμα in Luke 2.7* S T E P H E N C. CA R L S O N Duke University, 209 Gray Bldg., Durham, NC 27708, USA. email:
[email protected] The identity of the κατάλυμα in Luke . has been debated among Western scholars for over five hundred years. Proposals have ranged from an inn to a guest room. This article argues that the term κατάλυμα has a generic sense of ‘place to stay’ and that the final clause of Luke . should be rendered ‘because they had no space in their place to stay’. Moreover, three clues in the context—Joseph’s compliance with the census order, the betrothal of Mary, and the manger—suggest that the accommodations presupposed by Luke are a marital chamber too small for giving birth. Keywords: Lukan infancy account, Luke ., κατάλυμα, marital chamber, betrothal, census
. Introduction
The inn and the stable have long been familiar elements of Christmas pageants and nativity crèches, but the Lukan infancy account is hardly explicit about the accommodations for Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem. Nevertheless, traditional interpretations of the story can be tenacious even in the light of scholarship showing that they are unsupported by the text. In , the great and outspoken philologist at the University of Salamanca, Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas, known as ‘El Brocense’, discovered this the hard way when his students reported him to the Spanish Inquisition. He had criticized the depictions of the nativity in
* I would like to thank Mark Goodacre, Maria Doerfler, and Jason Staples for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Any remaining errors are my responsibility. El Brocense’s proceedings before the Spanish Inquisition were published by Antonio Tovar and Miguel de la Pinta Llorente, eds., Procesos Inquisitoriales contra Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas (Documentos para la historia del humanismo español ; Madrid: Instituto Antonio de Nebrija, ) and earlier by Martin Fernandez Navarrete, Miguel Salvá, and Pedro Sainz de Baranda, eds., Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (vol. ; Madrid: La Viuda de Calero, ).
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
church paintings, and one of his criticisms was that Jesus was not born in the stable nor were his parents rejected by an innkeeper as commonly thought, but that Mary gave birth in a private home belonging to friends or relatives. Summoned before the Inquisitors later in September, El Brocense defended his positions in writing, and, as a result, the files of the Spanish Inquisition contain one of the earliest historical-critical exegeses of the Lukan birth narrative. El Brocense’s defense of his position is still cogent five centuries later, and many of his arguments enjoy support from contemporary scholars. For example, he recognized that neither the Greek term κατάλυμα in Luke . nor even its Vulgate rendering diversorium necessarily means an ‘inn’ as evident from the use of the same term in Luke . referring to an upper room. Moreover, there would have been no need for an inn, El Brocense argued, because Joseph had to return to his own town according to the decree, so he must have had family—if not his own house—in Bethlehem where he could stay. El Brocense also denied that there would have been a throng of census According to the declaration of Juan Collado, El Brocense was originally circumspect about this matter: ‘Dijo: que en la dicha leçión el dicho maestro dijo que lo que se dice en la scriptura de que nuestro Señor estuvo en el pesebre, que no se avía de entender como comúnmente se piensa sino de otra manera: e que de la manera que se avía de entender no lo declaró’ (Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, –). El Brocense’s actual position as summarized above became clearer during the proceedings. El Brocense’s exegesis of Luke .– has been published in Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, –, and Fernandez Navarrete et al., Colección, –. Credit for bringing this to the attention of contemporary scholarship belongs to Dionisio Yubero, ‘Una opinión original del “Brocense” sobre Luc. ,’, CB () –. The least convincing of his arguments would have to be his appeal to the ‘house’ (οἰκίαν) of Matt .. Not only would this now be considered an improper harmonization to the Matthean account by modern standards, but it also falls short by his own standards since he argued in another context that the Magi did not arrive in Bethlehem for another a year or two: ‘Magos Christum Dominum adoraturos post annum unum vel duos potiùs venisse’ (Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, ). Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, : ‘Diversorium autem non hic accipitur pro eo quod vulgò dicimus meson, sed pro quavis habitatione privata ut lib. [.o Regum c. ], et [D. Lucæ c. ]: ubi est diversorium ubi pascha cum discipulis meis manducem? Græcè κατάλυμα’. (The Biblical citations are corrected from Fernandez Navarrete et al., Colección, , and appear to refer to Kings . and Luke . more precisely.) The instance of κατάλυμα in Luke . where it does not mean ‘inn’, is routinely noted by scholars. Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, : ‘Venit igitur Joseph aut in domum suam (erat enim civis Beleemita de domo David) aut certè in domum alicujus propinqui, si propria domus erat inquilinis locata’. Less persuasively, El Brocense goes on to cite Theophylact’s view that Bethlehem was also Mary’s hometown. That Joseph could count on the hospitality of his relatives has often been pointed out in the literature. See, for example, Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, d ed. ) : ‘If close family was not available, mention of Joseph’s lineage would
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
registrants descending upon Bethlehem because subjects did not need to register on a specific day. As for the placement of the baby in a manger, El Brocense pointed out that this was hardly unusual because farmhouses often kept animals in the same part of the house where the people slept. Unfortunately, these arguments did not sway the Inquisitors, and El Brocense was reprimanded. Five hundred years after El Brocense argued that the Lukan account did not refer to an ‘inn’, this idea that Joseph and Mary were turned away from the inn retains its hold upon scholars of Luke’s infancy narrative. Part of the reason for this tenacity is that the ‘inn’ continues to be a staple among leading
have resulted in immediate village recognition that he belonged and space in a home would have been made available’. Also Santi Grassi, Luca (Commenti biblici; Rome: Borla, ) : ‘Con tutta probabilità i genitori di Gesù erano ospiti nella casa natale di Giuseppe o presso parenti’; and M. Miguens, ‘“In una mangiatoia, perchè non c’era posto…”’, Bibbia e Oriente () –. Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, : ‘Nec tamen necesse erat eodem die omnes adesse: satis enim fuit intra præscriptum aliquem diem profiterentur’. In fact, those subjected to the census had an entire year to register. See S. R. Llewelyn, ‘§ “And everyone went to his own town to register”’, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri published in – (vol. ; Macquarie University: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, ) ; and Marcel Hombert and Claire Préaux, Recherches sur le Recensement dans l’Égypte Romain (Papyrologica Lugduno-Batava; Leiden: Brill, ) –, . Tovar and Llorente, Procesos Inquisitoriales, –: ‘Itaque dicit Evangelista: quia non erat eis locus in diversorio, id est, quia in illa domo nec erant cunæ, nec alius commodior locus ubi collocatur puer, in præsepio posuerunt eum. Solet enim fieri multis in regionibus (quod sæpè videmus et in nostris) ut in eadem parte domus et domini et boves et jumenta commorentur’. Nowadays scholars bolster the observation by pointing to Near Eastern homes: e.g., Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, ) –; and Gustaf Dalman, Sacred Sites and Ways: Studies in the Topography of the Gospels (trans. Paul P. Levertoff; New York: Macmillan, ; Germ. ed. ) –. Aubrey F. G. Bell, Francisco Sanchez El Brocense (Hispanic Notes and Monographs ; Oxford: Oxford University, ) –, makes the case that El Brocense was reprimanded instead of being imprisoned because he was under the protection of Pedro de Portocarrero, who later became Grand Inquisitor in . Five days after the latter’s death on September , , the Inquisition again moved against El Brocense, who died the following December under house arrest at the age of . The most thorough recent studies include Bailey, Jesus, extending the observations of Kenneth E. Bailey, ‘The Manger and the Inn: The Cultural Background of Luke .’, NETR () – ; and Pierre Benoit, ‘“Non erat eis locus in diversorio” (Lc ,)’, Mélanges bibliques en hommage au R. P. Béda Rigaux (ed. Albert Descamps and R. P. André de Halleux; Gembloux: Duculot, ) –. A case in point is L. Paul Trudinger, ‘“No Room in the Inn”: A Note on Luke .’, ExpT () –, who argues that the innkeeper was actually ‘compassionate’ and ‘sensitive’ for turning away the family from a place infested with ‘thieves and cut-throats’. Trudinger
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
translations of Luke. For example, the New Revised Standard Version renders the description of the accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Luke .– as follows: ⁶ Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖ ἐπλήσθησαν αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ τεκεῖν αὐτήν, ⁷ καὶ ἔτεκεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτῆς τὸν πρωτότοκον, καὶ ἐσπαργάνωσεν αὐτὸν καὶ ἀνέκλινεν αὐτὸν ἐν φάτνῃ, διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (NRSV)
This familiar translation rests on a series of questionable exegetical decisions. First, it renders καταλύματι as ‘inn’, even though many scholars recognize that this translation is unsatisfactory and favor something more general such as ‘guest room’. Second, its rendering of the definite article τῷ before καταλύματι as ‘the’ reinforces the overly specific translation of the noun—not only does the v. refer to an ‘inn’, but to ‘the inn’, as if the inn was well known or the only one in town. Finally, this translation construes the dative αὐτοῖς, not as a dative of possession with the verb ἦν in accordance with leading grammars of the NT, but with τόπος as a dative of advantage: no ‘place for them’ in the inn. The English thus portends that Joseph and Mary never had a room in the inn at all, leading readers to reflect upon the cruel inhospitality of the
did not extrapolate his thesis, however, to the story of the Good Samaritan, who arranged for the beaten traveler to be put up in an inn (Luke .–). So Frederick Danker, ‘κατάλυμα’, BDAG () : ‘The sense of inn is possible in Lk ., but in . Lk uses πανδοχεῖον, the more specific term for inn. κ[ατάλυμα] is therefore best understood here as lodging…or guest-room, as in .; Mark ., where the contexts also permit the sense dining-room’ (citations omitted). Also favoring ‘guest-room’ include Rinaldo Fabris, I Vangeli: Luca (Assisi: Cittadella, ) : ‘stanza degli ospiti’; Bailey, Jesus, –; Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, ) ; Ben Witherington III, ‘Birth of Jesus’, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, ) –; and Matthew Byrne, ‘No Room for the Inn’, Search . () –. So L. Legrand, ‘The Christmas Story in Lk .–’, ITS () – at : ‘the use of the article (the kataluma) implies that the text does not speak of any inn but of a well defined place’. F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and Robert W. Funk [hereinafter ‘BDF’], A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago, ) § (); A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, th ed. ) . E.g., Benoit, ‘Non erat’, .
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
innkeeper who rejected them in their time of need so that Jesus had to be born in a dirty stable. Other translations are hardly better at rendering the Greek and some are even worse. The NIV, for example, follows the AV in translating the final clause of v. as ‘because there was no room for them in the inn’. This rendition of τόπος with the English ‘room’, which can refer to a chamber as well as a space, strengthens the mistranslation of κατάλυμα as ‘inn’. The updated NIV, called Today’s New International Version (TNIV), rewrites the clause as ‘because there was no guest room available for them’, merging τόπος and κατάλυμα into a single noun phrase, ‘guest room’. By this device, the TNIV manages to avoid the familiar ‘inn’ when translating κατάλυμα, but, by preserving the interpretation of αὐτοῖς as a dative of advantage, it maintains the same theological reading of the Lukan infancy account undergirding that of the traditional ‘inn’—the entry of Jesus into the world was accompanied by human inhospitality and rejection. A common exegetical pitfall plaguing the interpretation of κατάλυμα in Luke . is that interpreters begin by being too specific as to its meaning. One example is Raymond Brown. His analysis of the meaning of κατάλυμα does not begin with ascertaining its sense but with surveying various of its proposed referents, which he lists as: ‘A private home’, ‘A room in an unidentified place’, and ‘The inn, or more specifically, the well-known traveler’s inn at or near Bethlehem’. The first two possibilities are presented with an English indefinite article while the third has the definite article, so it should not be surprising that Brown rejects the first two options due to the Greek article in the phrase ἐν τῷ καταλύματι: ‘The definite article before katalyma remains an obstacle to translating it “a room” ’. While the ‘inn’ option has Brown’s sympathies, he is troubled by Luke’s use of a more specific term for inn in the parable of the Good Samaritan Noted, e.g., by Bailey, Jesus, . Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, new upd. ed. ; st ed. ) . Brown, Birth, . Brown, Birth, , also arguing for the first option: ‘Yet Luke’s use of the definite article seems to preclude his referring to a totally unidentified home’. Specifically, Brown, Birth, , dispels modern misconceptions about such an inn and appeals to a khan near to Bethlehem mentioned years earlier in Jer .. Other recent scholars supporting the ‘inn’ interpretation include: Robert J. Miller, Born Divine: The Births of Jesus and Other Sons of God (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, ) , : ‘travelers’ shelter’; Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, d ed. ) .; Michael D. Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm (JSNTSS ; Sheffield: Sheffield University, ) : ‘a single public hostelry for travellers’; and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (I–IX) (AB ; New York: Doubleday, ) : ‘a public caravansary or khan, where groups of travelers would spend the night under one roof’.
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
at ., πανδοχεῖον. Ultimately, Brown gives up and decides that is impossible to ascertain what Luke meant, opting for a more ambiguous term ‘lodgings’. Had Brown begun with κατάλυμα’s sense instead of its possible referents, on the other hand, it would have been possible to settle on the scope of meaning for κατάλυμα and its appropriate English translation, and only then to determine what kind of accommodation κατάλυμα refers to in the particular context of Luke .–. . The Sense of Κατάλυμα
To ascertain the sense of κατάλυμα it is important to consider its derivation, the word’s usage in Hellenistic Greek texts, how it was used in the Septuagint (LXX) to render the Hebrew, its NT usage, and ancient translations of it into Syriac, Coptic, and Latin at Luke .. All of this evidence bears out the conclusion that κατάλυμα was a generic term with the sense of ‘place to stay’ or ‘accommodations’. Due to its broad sense, the term has referred to various kinds of accommodations, whose particular identification can only be determined by examining the specific context in which the term was used. The derivation of κατάλυμα suggests that the word has a broad, generic meaning. This noun is a verbal substantive formed by adding the −μα, −ματος suffix to the stem of the verb καταλῦσαι, ‘to untie’ or ‘to unloose’, which, when used for unpacking one’s belongings, means ‘to lodge’. This suffix denotes the result of the verb’s action, so one would expect κατάλυμα to mean ‘the result of unpacking’ or ‘the result of lodging’, yet by its earliest attestation in the third century BCE, it has already acquired the sense of ‘the place of lodging’. As a result, the usage of κατάλυμα, not just its derivation, is important for determining the scope of its meaning. The earliest attested uses in the Hellenistic era also substantiate a generic sense for κατάλυμα. The term appears twice in Polybius’s History. At .. Hasdrubal, Brown, Birth, . Brown, Birth, . Benoit, ‘Non erat’, , whom Brown cites, also suggests that it is perhaps wrong (due to our excessive historicizing and psychologizing of this text) for us to want to specify too much what Luke wanted to put there: ‘A côté de cela, le κατάλυμα a peu de poids, et on a peut-être tort de vouloir trop préciser ce qu’il a voulu y mettre’. For a discussion of the distinction between sense and reference, see, e.g., Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, ) ; and Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, rev. ed. ) –. See, e.g., Danker et al., ‘καταλύω’, BDAG () –. This sense development is hardly unique; in Biblical Aramaic, for example, the verb ׁשרא, ‘to loosen’, also means ‘to abide’, as . does the Syriac verb Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, ) – § ; BDF, – § ().
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
the Carthaginian general and Hannibal’s brother-in-law who had governed Spain for eight years, was murdered at night in his own quarters (ἐν τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ καταλύμασι). The sense of the word is hardly specific; it can perhaps refer to the rooms where the general slept in his palace. The other instance occurs at Hist. .. where Polybius states that the Roman ambassadors sent to Illyria were not properly furnished with room and board (μήτε κατάλυμα δοθῆναι σφίσι μήτε παροχήν) by their Dalmatian hosts. In the Letter of Aristeas , the term is used when the king orders that the finest quarters (καταλύματα…τὰ κάλλιστα) near the citadel be assigned to the seventy translators of the Hebrew scriptures. As another example, Diodorus Siculus used the term to describe the reward of public accommodations (δημόσιον…κατάλυμα) that the Romans gave to Timasitheus for rescuing their ambassadors from pirates (Bibliotheca historica ..). Furthermore, κατάλυμα also occurs several times among the Greek papyri recovered in Egypt. According to a detailed study of housing terms in the papyri by Geneviève Husson, κατάλυμα and its cognates καταλυμάτιον and κατάλυσις were employed for the quarters supplied for kings, generals, soldiers, artisans, and pilgrims. She concludes that all these usages have a common, underlying sense: ‘the dwelling where one stays or remains for some time’. The diversity of referents for κατάλυμα in the LXX corroborates a broad sense for the word. Indeed, κατάλυμα translates seven different Hebrew words. In Exod ., it renders מלוןin reference to a place where Moses and his family spent the night on his way into Egypt (cf. also Jer .). Κατάλυμα twice translates נוה, a ‘shepherd’s abode’, at Exod . and Jer . LXX (.) in a metaphor for God’s dwelling in the promised land. Its reference to a nomad’s dwelling is evident at Kgdms ., Chron ., and Sir ., where it is used in parallelism with σκηνή (‘tent’). In Jer . LXX (.), it is used in the simile that ‘he has left his lair like a lion’ ()עזב ככפיר סכו. In Ezek . it was added by the translator as a general term for Oholibah’s dwelling place during Israel’s sojourn in Egypt. Three times in the LXX (but corresponding only once to a particular Hebrew word) it refers to the accommodations of both room and board given to priests at a temple ( Kgdms .; . ;לׁשכתה Chron .). Finally, the author of Macc . bewails the fact that Jerusalem has become a place for Gentiles to stay (κατάλυμα τοῖς ἔθνεσιν). Geneviève Husson, Oikia: Le vocabulaire de la maison privée en Égypte d’après les papyrus grecs (Papyrologie ; Paris: Sorbonne, ) –. The usage in the Roman period is much less clear, however; it occasionally refers to some kind of agricultural building. Husson, Oikia, : ‘c’est le logis où l’on descend, où l’on séjourne pendant quelque temps’. Studies of the Septuagintal usage of κατάλυμα include: Salvador Muñoz Iglesias, Los Evangelios de la Infancia III: Nacimiento e infancia de Juan y de Jesús en Lucas – (vol. ; Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, ) ; Anna Passioni dell’Acqua, ‘Ricerche sulla versione dei LXX e i papiri’, Aegyptus () –, at –; Benoit, ‘Non erat’, –.
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
The NT usage of κατάλυμα apart from Luke . coheres with its having a broad meaning. At both Luke . and its parallel at Mark ., Jesus instructs his disciples to ask a man carrying a jar in Jerusalem about accommodations for eating the Passover: ποῦ ἐστιν τὸ κατάλυμα. Translations usually render this instance of κατάλυμα rather specifically as ‘guest room’, but the generality of κατάλυμα is evident from the further specification in both Luke and Mark that the place to stay is a ‘large, furnished upper room’ (ἀνάγαιον μέγα ἐστρωμένον). We know that κατάλυμα refers to a ‘guest room’ in this context, not because the sense of the word is so specific, rather because the context makes its reference specific. Moreover, when Luke wanted to be specific about an inn, as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the author used a precise term, πανδοχεῖον (Luke .). The earliest translations of Luke . into Syriac, Coptic, and Latin bear witness to a generic meaning for κατάλυμα. Among the Syriac translations, the Peshitta for , instance renders ἐν τῷ καταλύματι broadly with the clause ‘where they were dwelling’. As another example, the ultra-literal Harklensis trans, lation follows its Greek Vorlage in the use of a prepositional phrase: ‘in the house of dwelling’. As for the Old Syriac, the translator of the Sinaitic may have felt the generic κατάλυμα to be superfluous and omitted it, rendering the , ‘because they had no final clause of v. simply as Like the Syriac translations, the Coptic translations also render place’. κατάλυμα with a generic phrase, in this case, as ‘place of dwelling’: maNqoile (Sahidic) and maNouox (Bohairic). At first blush, the Vulgate and most of the Old Latin translations of ἐν τῷ καταλύματι as in diversorio may seem to support a stricter understanding for the phrase as ‘in the inn’, but in Classical times, the noun diversorium (or devorsorium) still had a wider sense of a ‘lodging-place’. As El Brocense had pointed out, Cicero wrote in a letter to Gallus: ‘Nor more willingly would I buy a place to stay (diversorium) at Tarricina, so I would not ever be bothersome to my host’ (Book ). In this context, the meaning of ‘inn’ for diversorium is difficult to sustain. Another Old Latin translation, found in Codex Palatinus (e), renders κατάλυμα with the word stabulum, which meant a ‘standing-place, abode,
The Matthean parallel at . is even less specific: πρὸς σὲ ποιῶ τὸ πάσχα (‘with you [or, at your house] I will do the Passover’). This is what caused Brown, Birth, , to back off from translating κατάλυμα as ‘inn’. Goulder, Luke, , on the other hand, merely sees πανδοχεῖον as synonymous. Surveyed by, for example, Benoit, ‘Non erat’, n. . The Curetonian manuscript, containing the other Old Syriac version, unfortunately no longer preserves Luke .. Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, ‘deversorius’, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, ) . Tovar and Llorente, Procesos, .
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
habitation, dwelling’ as well as a ‘stable’ or ‘cheap hostel’. Accordingly, ancient translators of the Greek text agree that κατάλυμα is a generic term. This wide-ranging survey of the evidence for the sense of κατάλυμα demonstrates that this term had a wide meaning of a ‘place to stay’, ‘lodging’, or ‘accommodations’. Because translations should preserve—to the extent feasible—a scope of meaning commensurate to that of the source text, a faithful translation of κατάλυμα in Luke . ought to be as general as its Greek original. Thus, translations specifying that Joseph and Mary’s place to stay in Bethlehem was an ‘inn’ or even a ‘guest room’ ought to be avoided because they are too specific. A translation faithful to the sense of κατάλυμα should be satisfied with merely stating that it was a ‘place to stay’ or ‘accommodations’.
. The Meaning of διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι in Luke .
Any reconsideration of the lodging of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem, moreover, cannot stop at ascertaining the meaning of κατάλυμα according to Luke. The exegesis of the other words in the immediate context—especially the definite article τῷ before the noun and the dative pronoun αὐτοῖς—have depended on the understanding that κατάλυμα meant ‘inn’. Because meaning is so often dependent on context, it is wrong to assume that their meanings would hold when one of the terms in the context, κατάλυμα, has been clarified. Thus, the reconsideration of Joseph and Mary’s accommodations in Bethlehem must also entail a revisiting of the exegesis of κατάλυμα’s context. Once κατάλυμα in Luke . is understood broadly as a ‘place to stay’, the role of the definite article before it becomes much clearer in the phrase ἐν τῷ καταλύματι. The article is anaphoric, pointing back to the accommodations of Joseph and Mary presupposed in v. : Ἐγένετο δὲ ἐν τῷ εἶναι αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖ ἐπλήσθησαν αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ τεκεῖν αὐτήν, ‘It happened that, while they were there, the days for her to give birth were fulfilled’. Joseph and Mary had to stay somewhere until her full term became due, and the κατάλυμα in v. points to the place where they were staying in Bethlehem. As a result, it is not necessary to consider the specialized usage of the definite article that their κατάλυμα was somehow unique (as if the only inn in town) or that the κατάλυμα must have been sufficiently well known. The problem facing Joseph and Mary in Lewis and Short, ‘stabulum’, –. Bailey, Jesus, , states that the literal meaning of κατάλυμα is a ‘place to stay’, and then argues that it refers to a guest room. He does not, however, offer a specific translation of .. So Elmer A. McNamara, ‘“Because There Was No Room for Them in the Inn”’, The Ecclesiastical Review () – at –: ‘That some such inn was meant by St. Luke, is attested to by his use of the definite article with the noun, i.e., there was no
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
the story was not that they were denied a particular or well-known place to stay when they first arrived, but that their place to stay was not such that it could accommodate the birth and neonatal care of the baby Jesus. The usage of the Greek article is somewhat different from the definite article in English, and translations should reflect that difference. Greek tends to tolerate the definite article more often than English when the anaphora is indirect and the noun was merely implied in the context, as is the case here. Joseph and Mary’s being in Bethlehem implies that they must have had some place to stay. English, on the other hand, has different strategies for dealing with indirect anaphora. For example, when the context indicates that the object referred to by the noun is possessed by or belongs to a person in the context, English often employs a possessive pronoun for Greek’s definite article. For instance, the statement of Luke . in the story of the great catch of fish, οἱ δὲ ἀλιεῖς…ἔπλυνον τὰ δίκτυα, is translated into English as ‘the fishermen…were washing their nets’ (NRSV). The definite article τά before δίκτυα ‘nets’ implicitly refers to the nets that fishermen use, that is, ‘their nets’. Similarly the article before κατάλυμα in Luke . refers back to the accommodations that Joseph and Mary had at the beginning of v. , so it is appropriate to render the Greek definite article with an English possessive pronoun ‘their’. Thus, the preposition phrase at the end of . ought to be rendered as ‘in their accommodations’ or ‘in their place to stay’. Some commentators have disputed the interpretation of Luke . as referring to the place where Joseph and Mary were already staying, arguing that the dative pronoun αὐτοῖς refers to the parents, not the newborn. Had Luke wanted to imply that there was no place for the baby Jesus, the argument goes, he would have used the singular αὐτῷ instead or he would at least have specified ‘no other place’. The flaw in this argument is not the premise that αὐτοῖς refers to the parents (which it reasonably does), but the assumption that αὐτοῖς is a dative of advantage construed with τόπος as ‘a place for them’. What makes this assumption dubious is that the use of a personal dative with the linking
room for them in the inn. He supposes the inn was well known, probably because it was public and very likely the only one since Bethlehem was a small town’. See generally, Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, ) –; Robertson, Grammar, ; Smyth, Greek Grammar, at § : ‘The article often takes the place of an unemphatic possessive pronoun when there is no doubt as to the possessor’. E.g., François Bovon, Luke : A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke .–. (trans. Christine M. Thomas; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, ) ; and Brown, Birth, . Bovon, Luke, : ‘It contradicts the text to say that the parents found no room only for the child and accordingly laid it in a manger; it says there was no room for them, not him’ (italics original). See also Henry J. Cadbury, ‘Lexical Notes on Luke-Acts: III. Luke’s Interest in Lodging’, JBL () – at .
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
verb εἶναι (here, as the imperfect ἦν) usually signifies a dative of possession, not a dative of advantage. Further supporting this conclusion is the word order with αὐτοῖς following the verb ἦν, not the noun τόπος. Leading Greek grammars of the NT even cite this very verse as an example of the dative of possession. Accordingly, οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος should not be translated as ‘there was not a place for them’ but rather as ‘they did not have a place’. Putting these exegetical conclusions together, the entire clause should be rendered as ‘because they did not have space in their accommodations’ or ‘because they did not have room in their place to stay’. This clause means that Jesus had to be born and laid in a manger because the place where Joseph and Mary were staying did not have space for him. Luke’s point is not so much any inhospitality extended to Joseph and Mary but rather that their place to stay was too small to accommodate even a newborn.
. The Referent for Κατάλυμα in Luke .
Understanding the sense of κατάλυμα in Luke . does not end the analysis. It may still be possible to deduce with some specificity what kind of accommodations the narrative presupposes for Joseph and Mary. Notwithstanding the generality of the term κατάλυμα, the context surrounding Luke . provides three clues as to its nature: Joseph’s compliance with the census order in vv. – , the betrothal of Mary in v. , and the manger in v. . The first clue is that Joseph’s residence in the Lukan account is located in Bethlehem. Chapter begins with a decree from Caesar Augustus for all the empire to get registered (v. ), and the text continues with a note that ‘everyone was going to get registered, each to his own town’ (ἕκαστος εἰς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πόλιν, v. ). Then, ‘Joseph too goes up (ἀνέβη δὲ καὶ Ἰωσὴφ, v. ) from Galilee out of a city Nazareth into Judea into David’s city, which is called Bethlehem, (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to get registered (ἀπογράψασθαι, v. )’. Joseph’s compliance with the edict to get registered in his own town by going up to Bethlehem establishes that his own town, according to Luke ., is Bethlehem. This conclusion accords with our understanding that Roman censuses registered people by their residence and by where they own their fields. BDF, Grammar, § (); Robertson, Grammar, . Cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar, –; Smyth, Greek Grammar, § . See also Heinz Schürmann, Das Lukasevangelium (HTKNT ; Freiburg: Herder, d ed. ; repr. ) . n. . On the use of τόπος to mean ‘room’ or ‘space’ in Luke, see ., ‘And the slave said, Lord, what you have ordered has happened, and there still is room (καὶ ἔτι τόπος ἐστίν)’. Much has been written about the practice of the Roman census; leading treatments include: Llewelyn, New Documents, –; P. Benoit, ‘Quirinius [Recensement de]’, Dictionnaire de la Bible Supplément (vol. ; Paris: Letouzey & Ané, ) –; Emil Schürer, The History of
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
It has been contended, however, that Bethlehem was not actually Joseph’s residence but merely his ancestral town. Under this position, Joseph’s actual home town would have been Nazareth, and the census would then have to require Joseph to go, not to his own town, but to his ancestral town. To be sure, the text does note that Joseph was a descendent of David (v. b), making Bethlehem also his ancestral town, but, as Raymond Brown acknowledges: ‘In Roman censuses there is no clear evidence of a practice of going to an ancestral city to be enrolled; the oft-cited examples from Egypt are not the same as what Luke describes’. Given the lack of evidence that an ancestral census had ever been practiced in the Roman Empire, the position that Luke must have intended an ancestral census is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary exegetical evidence. The comment that Bethlehem was Joseph’s ancestral town, without more, is insufficient to countermand the plain reading of vv. –. Nevertheless, Brown opposes the position that Bethlehem was Joseph’s town for the following reasons in his exegesis of v. b: Still another suggestion is that he was returning to his home in Bethlehem (‘his own city’ of vs. ) after having gone to Nazareth to claim Mary as his bride who lived there. These suggestions run against the reference to Nazareth as ‘their own city’ in . and against the indication in . that Joseph had no place to stay in Bethlehem…
Of these two additional reasons why Luke must have been referring to an extraordinary census by ancestry, the second one depends on a misunderstanding of κατάλυμα in v. as explained above. That verse does not say that Joseph had no place to stay in Bethlehem. To the contrary, it states that Joseph did have a place to stay (the κατάλυμα after all), though it was inadequate to accommodate the newborn Jesus.
the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ ( B.C.–A.D. ) (ed. Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, English rev. ed. ) .–; Horst Braunert, ‘Der römische Provinzialzensus und der Schätzungbericht des Lukas-Evangeliums’, Historia (): –; and Hombert and Préaux, Recherches, –. E.g., Brown, Birth, . Also, Green, Luke, ; and Darrell L. Bock, Luke .–. (BECNT A; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, ) –. Brown, Birth, . Brown, Birth, , also warns: ‘It is dangerous to assume that he described a process of registration that would have been patently opposed to everything that he and his readers knew’. It is sometimes argued that the Romans might have accommodated their census practice in Palestine to Jewish customs (e.g. Hermann Olshausen, Biblical Commentary on the New Testament [vol. ; trans. A. C. Kendrick; New York: Sheldon, ; orig. German ed. ] ). Even aside from the lack of any affirmative evidence for this particular accommodation, Schürer et al., History, , point out that it would have been unworkable. Brown, Birth, .
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
As for Luke ., Brown’s rendering of εἰς πόλιν ἑαυτῶν as ‘their own city’ may well be an example of exegetical inertia. ‘Their own city’ is the wording of the AV, and it had been perfectly fine for the inferior text it translated: εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἑαυτῶν with the article before πόλιν. Yet earlier and superior manuscripts lack the article, as does the Nestle-Aland critical text, and Brown’s argument does not take the absence of that article into full account. Without the article, the phrase εἰς πόλιν ἑαυτῶν is better rendered as ‘into a city of their own’. As A. T. Robertson had observed with respect to Luke . and ., the sense of the possessive when the governing noun is anarthrous is ‘not quite the same’ as when the governing noun takes the article. More particularly, the anarthrous constructions in Luke . (εἰς κῆπον ἑαυτοῦ, ‘a garden of his own’) and . (δέκα δούλους ἑαυτοῦ, ‘ten slaves of his own’) do not limit the men in the respective parables to having only one garden or to possessing just ten slaves. By the same token, Luke . does not restrict Nazareth as the only town of Joseph and Mary; indeed, the narrative had already identified two such towns: Nazareth as Mary’s town (Luke ., ) and Bethlehem as Joseph’s town (.–). This summary statement, therefore, does not establish that Nazareth was ‘their own’ town earlier in the narrative when Jesus was born—only that it was so by the time they went back. Thus, the clue that Luke considered Bethlehem to be Joseph’s own town for census purposes tells us that the κατάλυμα presupposed in the narrative is unlikely to have been a commercial inn. In accordance with contemporary norms of hospitality, Luke’s audience would have expected Joseph’s relatives in his own town to have provided a place to stay for him and Mary if he had no house of his own. Indeed, the temporary and tiny nature of his accommodations bolsters the supposition that Joseph’s place to stay was not a house of his very own. But this is not the only indication in the narrative that Bethlehem was Joseph’s home, there is another—often overlooked—hint: Mary was still betrothed to Joseph in Luke .. The second clue about the nature of Joseph and Mary’s accommodations in Bethlehem is the detail that Joseph went up to Bethlehem ‘with Mary, his The Greek text used for the AV was an edition of the Textus Receptus, which was based on late and inferior manuscripts in the Byzantine textual tradition. Robertson, Grammar, . Though Robertson did not also list Luke . in conjunction with . and ., the relevance of Robertson’s examples to . has been noticed by Jay E. Smith, ‘ Thessalonians .: Breaking the Impasse’, BBR () – at n. . Another example of exegetical inertia in Brown’s argument is his use of the term ‘returning’. That rendering is also fine for the Textus Receptus, which read ὑπέστρεψαν, ‘they returned’, instead of the blander ἐπέστρεψαν, ‘they went back’, in accordance with the best manuscripts and the Nestle-Aland critical text of the NT. Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary, (cited in n.); Green, Luke, : ‘Mary and Joseph, then, would have been the guests of family or friends’.
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
betrothed’ (., σὺν Μαριὰμ τῇ ἐμνηστευμένῃ αὐτῷ). According to Luke, Mary was still betrothed on the way to Bethlehem, but by the time she gave birth to Jesus in v. , she was cohabitating with Joseph. According to Jewish practices in antiquity, marriages were initiated by a betrothal ( )אירוסיןand finalized by a ‘home-taking’ ( )נישואיןin which the bride is taken to her husband’s house. Both events were celebrated by a public feast, the former at the bride’s house and the latter at the groom’s house. Accordingly, in the logic of the narrative, the point that Mary was still betrothed upon her arrival in Bethlehem (v. ) but later cohabited with him there (v. ) means that Bethlehem was the site of their wedding, when Joseph concluded the betrothal period by taking her into his home. To be sure, a Bethlehem location for the wedding of Joseph and Mary in the Lukan infancy account is hardly considered in the literature. Some critics locate the wedding back in Nazareth, contending that a betrothed woman would not travel with her groom. This contention, however, runs into two difficulties. First, it conflicts with Macc .–, which shows that grooms were indeed known to travel along with their betrothed as part of a larger wedding party. Second, it requires dubious interpretations of the term ἐμνηστευμένῃ, which ordinarily refers to a pre-marital state of betrothal. For example, some There is also much literature on ancient Jewish marriage customs. Some of the most useful modern treatments include: Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University, ); Tal Ilan, ‘Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea: The Evidence of the Babatha Archive and the Mishna (Ketubbot .)’, HTR () –; and Léonie J. Archer, Her Price is Beyond Rubies: The Jewish Woman in Graeco-Roman Palestine (JSOTSS ; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, ). Roman marriage practices were generally similar in this respect except that it was easier to break off the engagement. See generally, Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, ). The clearest recognition of this aspect of the Lukan infancy account I could find is G. H. Box, The Virgin Birth of Jesus: A Critical Examination of the Gospel-Narratives of the Nativity, and Other New Testament and Early Christian Evidence, and the Alleged Influence of Heathen Ideas (London: Pitman, ) : ‘If Joseph’s home was in Bethlehem, by taking Mary, his betrothed, with him when he left Nazareth for his home-town, he was performing the central and public act which proclaimed the marriage’. E.g., Bock, Luke, : ‘It does not suggest that Mary is not yet married to Joseph, since this trip in a betrothal situation would be unlikely’. Marshall, Luke, : ‘it is unlikely that she would have accompanied Joseph had she been merely betrothed to him’. Josef Schmid, Das Evangelium nach Lukas (RNT ; Regensburg: Pustet, ) : ‘Wäre Maria in diesem Zeitpunkt erst (gegen Mt , ) die Verlobte Josephs gewesen, so wäre es ein grober Verstoß gegen die Sitte gewesen, wenn er mit ihr zusammen nach Bethlehem gereist wäre und dort mit ihr zusammenwohnt hätte’. Plummer, Luke, : ‘Had she been only his betrothed (i. ; Mt. i. ), their travelling together would have been impossible’. None of these commentators adduce any evidence for their claims. Archer, Price, –; and Satlow, Jewish Marriage, –. This may be another case of exegetical inertia. Both the Textus Receptus and the Vulgate read the apparently contradictory ‘betrothed wife’ in Luke . (τῇ μεμνηστευμένῃ… γυναικί and
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
commentators propose that the detail of Mary’s being betrothed was merely to emphasize Mary’s virginity or at least hint that Joseph was not the real father. Raymond Brown supposes the term is more inconsequential, arguing that Luke ‘simply reused the term “betrothed” previously employed in ., without any detailed reflection on the steps in the matrimonial procedure’. Joseph Fitzmyer even warns us to ‘avoid overliteral readings of this description’. These proposals, however, operate as devices for disregarding the force of the term ‘betrothed’—an expedient that should be taken only if it is otherwise virtually impossible to make sense of the text with that meaning. But, as seen above for Luke .–, the text does make sense with ‘betrothal’, because Bethlehem as Joseph’s own town is an ideal location for him to get married. As a result, the clue that Joseph and Mary finalized their betrothal in Bethlehem means their accommodations would have to be appropriate for newlyweds. In fact, the narrative presupposes accommodations appropriate for a long-term stay, because Joseph and Mary then spend at least forty more days there for her purification after the birth (Luke .; cf. Lev .–). This clue thus makes it unlikely that Luke was thinking of the newlyweds’ accommodations as an inn designed for an overnight stay. The third clue is that Luke . states that Mary ‘gave birth to her firstborn son, swaddled him, and laid him down in a manger, because they did not have room in their place to stay’. Childbirth was the riskiest moment in the entire pregnancy during antiquity, potentially lethal for both the mother and child. Whenever possible, women about to give birth relied on the help of relatives, friends, and
desponsata…uxore, respectively), which had prompted many exegetes to weaken the force of ‘betrothed’. E.g, Bock, Luke, ; Schmid, Lukas, ; A. R. C. Leaney, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke (HNTC; New York: Harper & Brothers, ) ; Cuthbertus Lattey, ‘“Ad Virginem desponsatam viro” (Lc ,)’, VD () – at ; and M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Luc (Paris: Lecoffre, th ed. ) . Jane Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Harper & Row, ) . Brown, Birth, . Fitzmyer, Luke, . Times have changed. Now, many couples prefer to honeymoon in hotels. See generally, Tal Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –; S. Levin, ‘Obstetrics in the Bible’, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire () –; and Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (trans. John McHugh; New York: McGraw-Hill, ; French orig. ) –. For childbirth in Greco-Roman contexts, see also Valerie French, ‘Midwives and Maternity Care in the Roman World’, Rescuing Creusa: New Methodological Approaches to Women in Antiquity (ed. Marilyn Skinner; Helios NS /; Lubbock: Texas Tech University, ) –.
The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem
midwives in and around town. Yet Mary’s accommodations did not have room for giving birth, so the birth had to occur elsewhere, in a place that included a manger. This detail does not mean, as it would to Western Europeans, that Mary gave birth to Jesus in a stable or barn, because mangers were also found in the main rooms of first-century Judean village houses. Typically, the main room was divided into two sections at different elevations separated by about a meter. The animals were housed in the lower section, the people slept in the upper section, and mangers were located between them. These village houses, moreover, could have a small room, either on the roof or on the side, which accommodated family members and guests. For example, Jonathan Safrai summarizes his research on the Jewish home and family in antiquity as follows: From the literary sources and archaeological excavations one finds that most houses had at least two storeys, and sometimes even three. Generally a single owner built a house and its upper chambers; but because of inheritances and sales divided ownership developed… The upper floors were not always full storeys; sometimes they consisted of single rooms on a roof or an attic with its entrance from a ladder inside the house. These attics could be used for a member of the household or as a guest room… Whether or not original plans called for upper storeys, it was common to add rooms or small structures to the roofs of houses and to the courtyards, as it became necessary. The most frequent reason was the expansion of a family; a newly married son customarily brought his wife to live in the family house. The father would set aside a room within the house for the couple or build a marital house ( )בית חתנותon the roof. On such an occasion relatives, friends, and neighbours came to assist the father and celebrate the new arrangement.
Accordingly, the element of Luke’s narrative that the place where Joseph and Mary were staying had no room to accommodate a newborn or a manger (v. ) suggests to the reader that they had been staying in one of these small rooms built on top of, or onto the side of, a village family home, and that delivery itself took place in the larger, main room of the house. Since Bethlehem was Joseph’s own town as presupposed in the Lukan infancy account, readers of this account could well picture the small apartment they were staying in as attached to the village family home of his close relatives, perhaps even the house he grew up in. Even further, the detail that Joseph brought his betrothed Bailey, Jesus, ; and Levin, ‘Obstretics’, . This was still true well into twentieth-century Palestine; see Hilma Granqvist, Birth and Childhood among the Arabs: Studies in a Muhammadan Village in Palestine (Helsinki: Söderström, ) –. Even the Protevangelium of James ., which recounts a miraculous birth for Jesus, includes a midwife. Discussed by, for example, Bailey, Jesus, –; and Dalman, Sacred Sites, . Jonathan Safrai, ‘Home and Family’, The Jewish People in the First Century (ed. Samuel Safrai et al.; CRINT /; Assen: Van Gorcum, ) – (footnotes omitted).
STEPHEN C. CARLSON
to Bethlehem (v. ) indicates that their apartment was a marital chamber built for the newly married men of the family.
. Conclusion
Luke’s infancy narrative therefore presupposes the following events. Joseph took his betrothed Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem (.). Bethlehem was his home town (v. ) and, in accordance with the patrilocal marital customs of the day, it must also have been the place where they finalized their matrimonial arrangements by bringing her into his home. As a newly married man, he no longer would have to sleep in the main room of the village house with his other relatives, but he and his bride could stay in a marital chamber attached to the house until they could get a place of their own. They stayed there for some time until she came to full term (v. ), and she gave birth to Jesus in the main room of the house rather than in her marital apartment because it was too small, and she laid the newborn in one of those mangers (v. ) common to the main room of an ancient farmhouse. After staying at least another forty days in Bethlehem (v. ; cf. Lev .–), Joseph and Mary eventually moved to Nazareth to make their home together in her family’s town (v. ; cf. .–). To be sure, this scenario as presupposed in Luke’s infancy account diverges greatly from the conventional Christmas story. There is no inn, no innkeeper, and no stable. But it is grounded in a careful exegesis of the text. The term κατάλυμα has a broad sense of a ‘place to stay’ and the final clause of Luke . should be translated as ‘because they had no space in their place to stay’. Joseph and Mary’s particular accommodations in Bethlehem should be thought of as a cramped, marital chamber attached to his father’s or other relative’s village house. As unfamiliar and perhaps troubling this scenario may seem to us, we have come a long way from El Brocense’s day. Now, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Cf. A. Büchler, ‘The Induction of the Bride and the Bridegroom into the חופהin the First and Second Centuries in Palestine’, Livre d’hommage à la mémoire du Dr Samuel Poznan´ski (Warsaw, ) –, who argues that such a marital room built for the bridegroom corresponded to the ( חופהchuppah) in its first- and second-century guise.
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000019
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel J E S P E R TA N G N I E L S E N University of Copenhagen, Det Teologiske Fakultet, Købmagergade 44–46, 1150 København K, Denmark. email:
[email protected] This article takes part in the reopened discussion of the Johannine δόξα/ δοξάζϵιν by interpreting the concept in light of the narrative structures in the Fourth Gospel. On the basis of Aristotle’s definition of a whole and complete μῦθος and his distinction between πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις it is shown that the main structure in the Johannine narrative concerns humans’ recognition of Jesus’ identity as son of God. As a consequence of being firmly integrated in this narrative structure, the Johannine concept δόξα/δοξάζϵιν basically denotes divine identity and recognition. Opposing a contemporary trend in Johannine studies it is finally argued that δόξα/δοξάζϵιν in the Fourth Gospel should be understood within the normal narrative sequence. Keywords: Fourth Gospel, Aristotle, narratology, recognition, glory, glorification
. Introduction
There is good reason to celebrate that the Johannine concept of glory finally gets the attention it deserves. For decades the only monograph on the subject was Wilhelm Thüsing’s Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium from . But in two German theses appeared. The -page dissertation of Nicole Chibici-Revneanu is entirely devoted to a detailed exegetical exposition of all occurrences of δόξα and δοξάζϵιν in the Fourth Gospel in light of the Greek and Early Jewish background. Rainer Schwindt’s -page habilitation Gesichte der Herrlichkeit focuses on the concept of glory in relation to the ‘Son of Man’ in the OT and Early Jewish literature and includes a treatment of the Pauline use of glory-terminology Wilhelm Thüsing’s Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium (NTA ; Münster: Aschendorff, ). N. Chibici-Revneanu, Die Herrlichkeit des Verherrlichten. Das Verständnis der δόξα im Johannesevangelium (WUNT /; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ).
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
along with the Johannine one. That same year a keynote lecture at the SNTS conference supplemented these books. Jörg Frey presented his ingenious interpretation of the Johannine understanding of glory with special emphasis on its retrospective character. It is tempting to call a glorious year in Johannine scholarship. All three studies excel in meticulous analyses and innovative interpretations, from which the following has benefited greatly. But despite the considerable length of both books not all aspects of the Johannine use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν have been treated exhaustively. Unlike the intriguing interpretation of Jörg Frey, the recent monographs have not construed the Johannine glory-terminology in terms of the narrative plot of the Fourth Gospel. They do not account for the integration of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν into the Johannine narrative and thereby they underestimate the originality and creativity in the Johannine reception of the concept. Consequently, all authors maintain the conventional translation glory/glorification (Herrlichkeit/Verherrlichung). Jörg Frey does relate the Johannine concept of glory to the structures of the gospel. To him it is the quintessence of Johannine theology that the gospel involves a genuine narrative process but at the same time transcends this structure. According to Frey, the Johannine narrative culminates in Jesus’ glorification in the ‘hour’. At this point he is attributed a δόξα that he did not possess beforehand. From this perspective the δόξα is projected onto the story of Jesus: ‘Die δόξα, die in der Schrift verheißen und in der österlichen Wirklichkeit erkannt wurde, kommt in dieser Sichtweise gerade dem Gekreuzigten zu—und von hier aus auch dem Irdischen, Fleischgewordenen und zuletzt auch dem Präexistenten’. In this interpretation the Johannine Jesus is from the beginning of the gospel conceived of in terms of the end result of the Johannine narrative. He carries, as it were, his own history throughout the gospel. As corollary Frey claims that the Johannine concept of δόξα is a consequence of the retrospective point of view of the Fourth Gospel: ‘Das ganze Evangelium zeichnet den Weg des R. Schwindt, Gesichte der Herrlichkeit. Eine exegetisch-traditionsgeschichtliche Studie zur paulinischen und johanneischen Christologie (HBS ; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, ). J. Frey, ‘“…dass sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen” (Joh .). Zu Hintergrund, Sinn und Funktion der johanneischen Rede von der δόξα Jesu’, NTS () –. This is also to be said about the treatment in J. T. Nielsen, Die kognitive Dimension des Kreuzes. Zur Deutung des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium (WUNT /; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –. Significantly, Chibici-Revneanu uses a range of expressions to describe the Johannine δόξα/ δοξάζϵιν (e.g. Exodus- δόξα, Königs- δόξα, Tempel- δόξα, kultische δόξα, eschatologische δόξα, Gerichts- δόξα, lichthafte δόξα), but concludes that the translations ‘Herrlichkeit’ and ‘Verherrlichung’ best cover the Johannine use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, . Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, . Cf. Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, .
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
Irdischen im Licht seiner δόξα, d.h. in einer Perspektive, die den Zeugen erst im Rückblick, in der geistgewirkten Erinnerung und Schriftlektüre, erschlossen wurde’. In this way the concept is embedded in the same narrative structures that produce it. On the basis of a classical definition of a narrative plot the question arises if Frey’s interpretation complies with the demands of a whole and complete narrative, or if it dissolves the narrative structures of the Fourth Gospel. The objective of this study is to expose the structures that constitute the Fourth Gospel as a whole and complete narrative. The dominant feature of these structures is the recognition of God through Jesus. Salvation lies in this recognition. The δόξα/δοξάζϵιν-terminology is used for expressing these ideas, which causes an innovative Johannine interpretation of the concept. It denotes divine identity and recognition. The first task will be briefly to sketch out the semantic field of the δόξα/ δοξάζϵιν-terminology. The purpose is not to describe all possible meanings of the words but rather to locate the broad semantic potential that constitutes the general spectrum of possible applications. Secondly follows a presentation of classical narrative theory, which is the basis for a cursory analysis of the fundamental narrative course of the Fourth Gospel. The intention is to present the structures that constitute the overall meaning of the gospel narrative. Finally, the traditional semantic potential and the narrative structures will form the basis for an interpretation of the Johannine use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν. In conclusion it will be shown that the structures of a whole and complete narrative cannot include the narrative itself in its retrospective point of view.
. Traditional and Literary Background
An extensive analysis of the semantic domains of כבדand δόξα/δοξάζϵιν cannot be conducted within the frames of this study. Neither is it possible nor Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, . Frey used to refer to this technique as ‘hermeneutische Horizontverschmelzung’. Cf. J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie II. Das johanneische Zeitverständnis (WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –. Cf. Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, –. Cf. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –; Schwindt, Gesichte, –; C. C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (NTS ; Leiden/New York: Brill, ) –. Older scholarship mainly consists of articles in dictionaries and encyclopaedias but a few linguistic investigations should be mentioned. A. F. von Gall, Die Herrlichkeit Gottes. Eine biblisch-theologische Untersuchung ausgedehnt über das Alte Testament, die Targume, Apokryphen, Apokalypsen und das Neue Testament (Giessen: J. Ricker, ); W. Caspari, Die Bedeutungen der Wortsippe kbd im Heräischen (Leipzig: A. Deichert, ); J. Schneider, Doxa. Eine bedeutungsgeschichtliche Studie (Gütersloh: C. Bertelsmann, ); H. Kittel, Die Herrlichkeit Gottes. Studien zu Geschichte und Wesen eines Neutestamentlichen Begriffs (BZNW ; Giessen: A. Töpelmann, ).
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
necessary to locate the precise literary background for the Johannine concept of δόξα. At this point a simplified summary of its general semantic potential suffices. It is beyond doubt that כבדin the Hebrew Bible forms the background for the concept of glory. The original meaning of the root כבדis ‘weight’ or ‘heavy’, but besides a few fixed expressions such as ‘hard of hearing’ (Isa .; .; Zech .), ‘weak-sighted’ (Gen .) or the phrase ‘the hand of the Lord was heavy upon’ (e.g. Sam .) its original meaning is very seldom found in the biblical writings. Instead it belongs to one of two semantic domains. Either כבדfunctions within the ancient honour–shame system and designates a desirable status in the social hierarchy. Or it denotes a certain way of appearing that corresponds to a superior position. Following the former meaning the noun כבודcan be used about everything that evokes recognition and establishes high social status, for example, wealth (Gen .), belongings (Job .), or payment (Num .). Consequently, verbal expressions of כבדor the equivalent idiom ‘to give )נתן כבד( ’כבודstand for social recognition, for example, when God calls forth recognition of himself as God by his mighty deeds (Exod .). The latter denotation of the term primarily concerns the appearance of God. Where he appears, his כבודis present, for example, on Sinai (Exod .–), in the tabernacle (Exod .–), or in the temple ( Kings .–). In apocalyptic writings (e.g. Enoch) and in some scrolls from Qumran (e.g. QSS) God’s כבודis present in heaven. Among the recent publications it is agreed that the immediate influence comes from the LXXversion of Isaiah. Schwindt, Gesichte, ; Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –; Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, . Even though LXX Isaiah may be the direct inspiration for the Fourth Gospel’s use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν there is much more involved in the Johannine concept than can be derived from Isaiah or any other specific source. Cf. Nielsen, Die kognitive Dimension des Kreuzes, –. This approach differs from the newest contributions. R. Schwindt investigates the history of tradition concerning glory in the Hebrew Bible and its reception. His main interest is the possible development of an idea of a human or divine medium for the divine glory. Schwindt, Gesichte, –. N. Chibici-Revneanu defines the contemporary understanding of glory in a variety of different concepts and places the various Johannine uses of the term in relation to these specific semantic domains. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –. Cf. C. Dohmen and P. Stenmans, ‘’כבד, ThWAT .– (–); Schwindt, Gesichte, –. Cf. B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, d rev. ed. ), –. The conjugation niphal carries a reflexive or passive meaning. W. Gesenius and E. Kautzsch, Hebräische Grammatik (Hildesheim: Georg Olm, ) § ,. From a literary perspective this idea belongs to the priestly layer. C. Westermann, ‘Die Herrlichkeit Gottes in der Priesterschrift’, Forschung am Alten Testament. Gesammelte Studien II (Munich: Kaiser, ) –; U. Struppe, Die Herrlichkeit Jahwes in der Priesterschrift. Eine semantische Studie zu kebôd YHWH (ÖBS ; Klosterneuburg: Österreichisches Katholisches Bibelwerk, ); B. Janowski, Sühne als Heilsgeschehen. Traditions- und religionsgeschichtliche Studien zur priesterschriftlichen Sühnetheologie (WMANT ; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchner, d rev. ed. ), –.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
The meaning of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν in Hellenistic Jewish and Early Christian literature is a product of the Greek translation of the OT. Before the LXX δόξα had the meaning ‘expectation’, ‘opinion’, or ‘repute’. The verb δοξάζϵιν simply meant ‘think’ or ‘imagine’. In the LXX the words basically took over the semantic value of כבד. The reason for the translators’ choice has been a matter of discussion. Especially the rendering of כבוד יהוהwith δόξα κυρίου, which is not consistent with δόξα’s classical meaning, has attracted attention. It seems likely, though, that the classical meaning ‘opinion’ and hence ‘the opinion which others have of one’, that is, ‘repute’, caused δόξα to translate כבודwhen it denotes social status. Consistency made the translators render all instances of כבודin the same way. Most Hellenistic Jewish and Early Christian writers use δόξα/δοξάζϵιν according to the LXX. Only a few characteristic aspects from the later literature need to be mentioned. Sapiential writings make a distinction between false and true δόξα. True δόξα derives from a right relation to God and his wisdom (e.g. Sir .; .; .). False δόξα only concerns recognition from humans (e.g. Sir .; .). For that reason the two may exclude each other (Sir .; Est .). This corresponds to the apocalyptic understanding that God’s glory exclusively belongs to heaven whereas human glory dominates in the world (e.g. Bar ., ). The righteous, however, will receive the heavenly glory in the end time (e.g. Bar .; .–). Though Philo primarily uses δόξα/δοξάζϵιν according to its classical meaning, he in two places comments on the descent of God’s δόξα on Sinai (Spec. Leg. I ; Quaest. Ex. II , ). In his interpretation he insists on a distinction between God’s δόξα and his οὐσία. God chose to appear (δοκϵῖν) in δόξα. But his appearance (δόξα) is not a manifestation of his essence (οὐσία), which is not accessible to physical sight but only to noetic contemplation (Quaest. Ex. II –). Notwithstanding the differences, the main result of these glimpses into the background for the Johannine terminology is that the semantic field of כבדand accordingly δόξα/δοξάζϵιν can be divided into two parts. One is the social-hierarchical understanding of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν as a relational status and recognition. The other is the aesthetic idea of δόξα as divine appearance.
. Narrative Structures
As stated in the introduction, it is one thing to reconstruct the semantic potential of the terms δόξα/δοξάζϵιν but quite another to define their meaning in a concrete context. When the concept is incorporated into the LSJ, ; cf. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –. Cf. von Gall, Herrlichkeit, –; Caspari, Bedeutungen, –; Schneider, Doxa, –; Kittel, Herrlichkeit, ; Newman, Glory-Christology, . Cf. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –.
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
Fourth Gospel, its exact meaning will be a product of the structures that constitute the Johannine narrative. While the semantic potential of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν stems from the common use in Early Jewish and Christian writings, the inherent narrative structures of the Fourth Gospel actualize specific parts of this potential. One of the indispensable elements of a narrative is action. Something must happen in a story otherwise it is not a story at all. In his Poetics Aristotle presents this criterion as a demand for the construction of a good tragedy: it must have a whole and complete plot (μῦθος) which includes beginning, middle and end (ArPoet b). Or, to put it in another way, there must be a change (μϵταβάλλϵιν/μϵτάβασις) in the course of a whole and complete narrative (ArPoet a). The transformation composes the narrative structure from beginning through the middle to the end and relates the three phases to each other. A beginning is an initial situation that does not necessarily presuppose anything but leads with necessity or for the most part (ArPoet b) into a new situation, the middle. Logically, the middle follows from the beginning, and consequently presupposes this preceding situation. The middle, on the other hand, leads necessarily or usually into the end. But from the end nothing follows with necessity (ArPoet b–). Narratologically it is important that these three phases, and not the involved persons, constitute the narrative coherence (ArPoet a). A person cannot guarantee a narrative development. For that reason the narrative structure and not the protagonist makes up the plot. Aristotle makes another important distinction when he introduces the concepts πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις for describing the turning point in the plot (ArPoet a-). Good plots, Aristotle insists, do not develop gradually from beginning through the middle to the end but involve a turning point, πϵριπϵ́τϵια, that marks the passage between two opposites, for example, from happiness to unhappiness. But where πϵριπϵ́τϵια is a turning point in the pragmatic dimension of the story because it always describes a passage from one concrete situation to another, ἀναγνώρισις defines a corresponding cognitive turn from ignorance to knowledge. In the best plots the two turning points coincide as is the case in the model drama, Oedipus Rex. In the sixteenth chapter of his treatise Aristotle even presents a taxonomy of the different ways to provoke ἀναγνώρισις. One of the least appreciated ways is signs, either congenital (e.g. birthmarks) or achieved (e.g. scars), whereas an ἀναγνώρισις that ensues from the structure of the plot is considered to be among the best. On Aristotle’s Poetics see the commentaries, e.g., G. F. Else, Aristotle’s Poetics: The Argument (Leiden: Brill, ); D. W. Lucas, Aristotle Poetics: Introduction, Commentary, and Appendixes (Oxford: Clarendon, ); S. Halliwell, The Poetics of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, ); and the collection of essays A. O. Rorty, ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Poetics (Oxford: Princeton University, ). On the concept ἀναγνώρισις, see Else, Poetics –.–; Halliwell, Poetics –; T. Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford: Clarendon, ) –.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
From a narratological point of view the main achievement of the distinction between πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις is the introduction of an independent cognitive level in the plot. This cognitive level is to be seen in contradistinction to a pragmatic level, which is the concrete actions and events of the narrative. A whole and complete story may just take place on the pragmatic level and consist of a course of pragmatic actions. But some stories, which Aristotle finds better, also have a cognitive course that concerns the understanding of the pragmatic events and actions (ArPoet a). The cognitive level is dependent on the pragmatic one because it refers to it and may be influenced by it, as can be observed from the fact that concrete signs may provoke ἀναγνώρισις. In conclusion, Aristotle defines the most important element of a story as the plot (μῦθος) which is a narrative structure with beginning, middle, and end (ArPoet a). To be good the plot must include at least a pragmatic turning point, πϵριπϵ́τϵια, but at best also a cognitive one, ἀναγνώρισις. Aristotle’s Poetics has been extremely important to narratological theories. It has been expanded and refined by later theorists but it is still a sound theoretical basis for a presentation of the Johannine plot. When the Aristotelian concepts and definitions are applied to the Fourth Gospel, the narrative structure that is fundamental to the Johannine understanding of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν emerges.
. The Narrative Structures of the Fourth Gospel
There have been several attempts to apply Aristotelian narratological terminology to the Fourth Gospel. Especially the concept of ἀναγνώρισις has been subject to intense studies. It is characteristic that they focus on After an interpretation of the Aristotelian concepts πάθος and ἀναγνώρισις J. Vahlen concludes that ‘die Erkennung, ganz so wie das πάθος, als ein einzelnes Moment in dem Gange der Handlung betrachtet wird, das nicht bloß an dem Knotenpunkte der μετάβασις, sondern auch, wie z. B. in den Choëphoren, an andern Stellen und an mehrern zugleich eintreten kann…’ J. Vahlen, Beiträge zu Aristoteles’ Poetik (Berlin: Teubner, ) . So the terminologically imprecise but narratologically important semiotic interpretation of the Aristotelian concept ἀναγνώρισις by A.-J. Greimas and J. Courtès, ‘The Cognitive Dimension of Narrative Discourse’, New Literary History () –. The two levels do not correspond to the Aristotelian distinction between simple (ἁπλοῦς) and complex (πϵπλϵγμϵ́νος) plots as A.-J. Greimas and J. Courtès seem to think. Greimas and Courtés, ‘Dimension’, . Cf. A.-J. Greimas and J. Courtés, Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage (Paris: Hachette Supérieur, ), ‘Cognitif’. Extensively by K. B. Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John (Biblical Interpretation Series ; Leiden/Boston: Brill, ); but see also the works of R. A. Culpepper, ‘The Plot of John’s Story of Jesus’, Int () –; Culpepper, The Gospel and Letters of John (IBT; Nashville: Abingdon, ) –. On the use of Aristotle in Johannine studies, cf. J. T. Nielsen, ‘Resurrection, Recognition, Reassuring: The Function of
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
ἀναγνώρισις as a literary genre which arguably pervades the gospel. To a minor degree the exegetes place ἀναγνώρισις in relation to the overall structure of the gospel. The objective of this study is to define the Johannine plot according to Aristotle’s idea of a whole and complete narrative and expose how these narrative structures determine the meaning of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν. The narrative beginning is constructed as the ultimate beginning in the Fourth Gospel. In the beginning the divine logos is situated in a divine sphere where it enjoys the closest possible relation to God (.–). The transition to the middle phase happens in the incarnation (.). Through remarks in the rest of the gospel it becomes obvious that God in the beginning initiates a mission by sending his son to carry out a certain task. Jesus repeatedly describes himself as the one that is sent and has a duty to fulfil, which can be expressed with several different terms (ϵ῎ ργον [.; .; ., ; ., , , etc.], ρ῾ήματα [.; .; .], λόγος [.; .], διδαχή [., ], ϵ̓ντολή [.; .; .], θϵ́λημα [.; .; .]). Consequently, he refers to God in expressions like ϵ̓κϵῖνος ἀπϵ́στϵιλϵν με (., ; ., ; ., ; . etc.) or ὁ πϵ́μψας
Jesus’ Resurrection in the Fourth Gospel’, The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John (ed. C. R. Koester and R. Bieringer; WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –. Most often the gospel structure has been defined according to other criteria. Traditionally, the character of Jesus’ activity lays the ground for dividing the narrative into two halves with a turning point between chs. and , e.g., ‘Die Offenbarung der δόξα vor der Welt’ and ‘Die Offenbarung der δόξα vor der Gemeinde’, R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (KEK ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ); ‘The Book of Signs’ and ‘The Book of Passion’, C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth (Cambridge: Cambridge University, ); ‘The Book of Signs’ and ‘The Book of Glory’, R. Brown, The Gospel according to John (AB ; New York: Doubleday, ). Other scholars use other criteria and suggest other structures, cf. the survey of different proposals in G. Mlakuzhyil, The Christocentric Literary Structure of the Fourth Gospel (AnBib ; Rome: Editrice pontificio istitutio biblico, ) –. All these approaches differ from the present one by finding the structuring criteria on the surface of the gospel text (e.g. geographical, chronological, numerical, or liturgical). The Aristotelian structure organizes the story into a whole and complete narrative and is not necessarily reflected in, say, the geographical or chronological structure of the gospel. Contrariwise, neither the change in Jesus’ activity nor any of the other proposed criteria constitute the coherence of the Johannine narrative. On the prominent sending theme in the Fourth Gospel, see, e.g., P. Borgen, ‘God’s Agent in the Fourth Gospel’, Religions in Antiquity (ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill ) –; J. A. Bühner, Der Gesandte und sein Weg im . Evangelium (WUNT /; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ); E. Haenchen, ‘“Der Vater der mich gesandt hat”’, NTS (–) –; J. P. Miranda, Die Sendung Jesu im vierten Evangelium. Religions- und theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Sendungsformeln (SBS ; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, ); R. Schnackenburg, ‘“Der Vater, der mich gesandt hat.” Zur johanneischen Christologie’, Anfänge der Christologie. FS F. Hahn (ed. C. Breytenbach and H. Paulsen; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ) –.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
μϵ (.; ., , , ; ., , etc.). These statements imply that the commissioning takes place in the initial narrative phase and is background for the incarnation that necessarily leads into the middle phase of the plot. If the main part of the initial phase is the commissioning of Jesus, the content of the middle phase is the execution of the ordered task. The overall purpose of Jesus’ earthly life is the salvation of humankind. Jesus is sent to give eternal life to the believers (., ; ., ; . cf. ., ). Even if this is the reason for his incarnation and the content of his mission, it cannot be separated from another task that can be conceived of as a necessary precondition of the main task. Jesus must provoke faith because only believers receive eternal life. He cannot fulfil God’s command and provide salvation for humankind if he is not met with faith by the humans he addresses. As a matter of fact, these two parts of Jesus’ mission are so intimately connected that faith is identified with eternal life: ‘And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (.). When the precondition of faith in Jesus as God’s son and envoy is established, eternal life is already present (cf. .; .; .; .). Accordingly, the main task is not dominant in the plot. The leading theme is that Jesus tries to win faith. Through his deeds (.; ., ; ., ) and words (., ; .; ., ) he intends to reveal his close relation to God and his own divine character in order to be recognized as God’s son and emissary. Recognition of Jesus’ divine authority therefore implies recognition of God as the authority behind Jesus. When Jesus is recognized as God’s agent who represents God in his words and deeds, God is recognized as being revealed in the words and deeds of Jesus (., ). When this happens, Jesus fulfils his role as saviour. Recognition of the divine community between Jesus and his father involves participation in this community (.; ., ; cf. .; ., ) and consequently eternal life. On the basis of the interpretation of Aristotle’s narratological theory it is possible to place the dominant part of Jesus’ mission on the cognitive level of the narrative. His objective to win recognition equals provoking ἀναγνώρισις. However, it is also included in his mission that he must give his life in order to take it back Cf. the so called ‘Präponderenz des göttlichen Heilswillen’. J. Blank, Krisis. Untersuchungen zur johanneischen Christologie und Eschatologie (Freiburg i.B.: Lambertus, ) . J. Blank coined this concept in opposition to R. Bultmann’s idea that Jesus’ coming and going is the krisis of the world in the Fourth Gospel. R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ) –; Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], th ed. ) –. In M. W. G. Stibbe’s application of A.-J. Greimas’s actantial model on the Fourth Gospel this is not entirely clear because he does not distinguish between the pragmatic and cognitive level. M. W. G. Stibbe, ‘“Return to Sender”: A Structuralist Approach to John’s Gospel’, The Interpretation of John (ed. J. Ashton; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ) –; cf. Stibbe, John’s Gospel (London/New York: Routledge ) –.
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
(.). For that reason Jesus pronounces the completion of his task from the cross (.). The crucifixion is embedded in the narrative and it takes on a decisive role because it functions as the πϵριπϵ́τϵια in the course of Jesus’ life. After his death he is resurrected, returns to the father, and is taken back into the divine community from which he was sent (.; ., , ; ., , etc.). When he transits from earth into the heavenly realm he is transformed into the divine state of being that he had in the initial narrative phase. In this way his death is the transition to the end phase of the plot. In contrast to stories like Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, the πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις do not coincide in the Fourth Gospel. In fact, they belong to separate structures of the plot. The πϵριπϵ́τϵια takes place in the passion when Jesus, because of his completion of his mission on the cross, is transformed from his human appearance into his original divine status. The ἀναγνώρισις concerns humans’ relation to Jesus and his father. They turn from ignorance of Jesus’ identity to faith when they recognize him as son of God. As a corollary they leave a status of ignorance of God and enter an insightful status by realizing that Jesus reveals him. But the separation of πϵριπϵ́τϵια and ἀναγνώρισις also complicates the Johannine plot structure. Jesus does not provoke a full recognition during his lifetime in the narrative middle. He gathers the humans that are given him from God (.) but even they are not able to follow him through his passion. As a matter of fact, Jesus himself rejects their faith with a reference to their future desertion (.–). After the crucifixion the disciples and adherents of Jesus are not portrayed as committed believers. Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in Gethsemane but she does not recognize him and mistakes him for an ordinary man, namely the gardener. When she recognizes his voice, she still addresses him as a human with the common title ‘Rabbi’ (.; cf. .). Even the ideal figure of the Beloved Disciple does not believe until he sees the empty tomb
Cf. R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, ) ; P. Bühler, ‘Ist Johannes ein Kreuzestheologe? Exegetisch-systematischer Bemerkungen zu einer noch offenen Debatte’, Johannes-Studien. Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zum Johannes-Evangelium. FS J. Zumstein (ed. M. Rose; Neuchâtel: Secrétariat de l’Université, ) – (esp. –). It is often claimed that Mary Magdalene has an extraordinarily intimate relation to Jesus because she meets him in a very delicate situation after his resurrection but before his ascension, e.g., M. R. D’Angelo, ‘A Critical Note: John . and the Apocalypse of Moses ’, JThS () –. But this interpretation overlooks that she in fact misunderstands him and is rejected by him. Cf. M. Theobald, ‘Der johanneische Osterglaube und die Grenzen seiner narrativen Vermittlung (Joh )’, Von Jesus zum Christus. Christologische Studien, FS P. Hoffmann (ed. R. Hoppe and U. Busse; BZNW ; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, ) – (esp. –).
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
(.). Jesus does not find true faith and recognition before his resurrection. In the middle part of the plot he fails to obtain full ἀναγνώρισις. When the πϵριπϵ́τϵια has brought Jesus back into his original state, there is no doubt that he is divine. This is the end phase of the narrative into which his resurrection and ascension led (cf. .; .; .–). In this phase humans immediately recognize that Jesus is divine. But the resurrection witnesses need proof that the divine being before them is identical with the incarnated and crucified Jesus. To this end Jesus’ stigmata serve as signs that call forth ἀναγνώρισις. This point is spelled out in two episodes in the end phase of the plot. First, Jesus suddenly appears to the disciples though the doors are closed (.). He shows his stigmata to identify himself (.a). This evokes the disciples’ joy and recognition of the Lord (.b). They recognize that the incarnated earthly Jesus was in fact God’s son. The scene is repeated for Thomas, as it were. Thomas very explicitly states the purpose of the stigmata. If they are not present on the resurrected divine being, Thomas cannot believe (.). When the resurrected Jesus appears a week later and identifies himself by means of the stigmata (.), Thomas responds by confessing to Jesus’ identity. ‘My Lord and my God’ (.). In the end phase of the plot full ἀναγνώρισις is present and Jesus’ mission is completed. According to Aristotle signs are one of the worst ways to provoke recognition. It is much better if the recognition ensues from the plot. In the Fourth Gospel the On the function of the Beloved Disciple as an ideal for the Johannine Community, see M. Theobald, ‘Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte. Beobachtungen zum narrativen Konzept der johanneischen Redaktion’, Geschichte—Tradition—Reflexion, FS M. Hengel, Bd. III. Frühes Christentum (ed. H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger, and P. Schäfer; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) – (esp. –). This understanding of the Beloved Disciple stands even without M. Theobald’s literary theory. Cf., e.g., Haenchen, ‘Der Vater, der mich gesandt hat’, –; Theobald, ‘Der johanneische Osterglaube’, ; C. Dietzfelbinger, Abschied des Kommenden. Eine Auslegung der johanneischen Abschiedsreden (WUNT ; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) ; C. Welck, Erzählte Zeichen. Die Wundergeschichten des Johannesevangeliums literarisch untersucht. Mit einem Ausblick auf Joh (WUNT /; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ), –, . The genre-oriented approach to ἀναγνώρισις in the Fourth Gospel seems not to capture this aspect; see, e.g., Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger. It may be another instance of Johannine ‘genre bending’, cf. H. W. Attridge, ‘Genre Bending in the Fourth Gospel’, JBL () –. That Thomas’s confession is the culminating ἀναγνώρισις in the narrative is also recognized by Culpepper, ‘The Plot of John’s Story of Jesus’, ; Culpepper, Gospel, ; Stibbe, Gospel, , cf. J. G. van der Watt, ‘The Cross/Resurrection-Events in the Gospel of John with Special Emphasis on the Confession of Thomas (.)’, Neot. () –; C. R. Koester, ‘The Death of Jesus and the Human Condition: Exploring the Theology of John’s Gospel’, Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. John R. Donahue; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, ) –; cf. Koester, ‘Why Was the Messiah Crucified? A Study of God, Jesus, Satan, and Human Agency in Johannine Theology’, The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (ed. G. van Belle; BEThL ; Leuven: Leuven University, ) – (esp. –).
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
sign that provokes recognition is a natural consequence of the narrative course of beginning, middle, and end. Only because Jesus’ death completes the middle phase and lets the resurrection introduce the end phase, can his stigmata provoke recognition. In this way ἀναγνώρισις arises both from the signs and from the plot itself. To sum up on the Johannine narrative structure: In the beginning Jesus is the eternal logos with his father in the heavenly divine community. He is sent to give humans eternal life by including them into this unity. The transition from beginning to middle happens in the incarnation. In order to complete his mission Jesus tries to provoke recognition of himself as God’s son and envoy in the narrative middle phase. He fulfils his task when he is crucified because the crucifixion concludes the middle in a way that leads necessarily into the end phase. The narrative end takes its beginning when Jesus re-enters into his position with his divine father. When he subsequently appears to the disciples his identity as son of God is undoubted. His stigmata, however, function as signs that he is identical with the crucified Jesus. Thereby they provoke the disciples’ recognition of Jesus’ identity which immediately incorporates them into the divine community and results in eternal life. This accomplishes the salvific purpose of Jesus’ mission.
. The Narrative Structure of Glory and Glorification
On the basis of the fundamental narrative structure it is possible to detect how John incorporates the traditional meaning of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν into his narrative, thereby constructing a specific Johannine understanding of the terms. One of the salient features of the Fourth Gospel is that it applies the terminology δόξα/ δοξάζϵιν to almost all important elements of the narrative. It is used both about Jesus’ divinity and about the recognition of him; it denotes the return to the heavenly situation as well as the carrying out of God’s command. The alleged exclusive character of Johannine language and style is not least a result of the extended use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν. To approach the exegetical problems concerning the notion δόξα/δοξάζϵιν in the Fourth Gospel it is expedient to systematize the terminology according to the persons and figures involved. The noun δόξα occurs times in the gospel. First of all it is related to Jesus in several ways. He has a δόξα that the believers perceive (.; .). From the foundation of the world he had a δόξα with the father (., , ), which Isaiah saw in the temple (.). Secondly, God has a δόξα to which Lazarus’ illness stands in a peculiar relation (ὑπϵ́ρ) (., ). Thirdly, there are a number of instances of giving and receiving δόξα. Jesus neither receives nor asks for δόξα from humans (.; .; ., ). Contrariwise, some humans do not Cf. N. R. Petersen, The Gospel of John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, ).
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
seek δόξα from God but from each other (.; .). Nevertheless, the Jews demand that the man born blind give δόξα to God (.). The use of the verb is easier to systematize but actually more complicated. It occurs times and can be organized into three groups. First, Jesus is subject and God object of the act of δοξάζϵιν (., ; .; ., ). Secondly, God is subject and Jesus object of the act (.; .; ., , ; .; ., ). Finally, God and/or Jesus are object and a third party (the disciples, the Paraclete, Lazarus’ illness or something else) is subject (.; .; .; .; .; .). What complicates the Johannine use of the terms is the fact that the noun expresses different ideas and the verb denotes different acts in an intricate relation between the three participating parties (God, Jesus, and humans). The exegetical task is to clarify when the noun expresses which ideas, and how the acts are related. .. Glory in the Narrative Structure The noun δόξα takes up different roles in all three narrative phases. Most significantly, the understanding of Jesus’ δόξα and notably its accessibility varies in the course of the narrative. From the three verses concerning perception of Jesus’ δόξα (.; .; .) it is manifest that he has a δόξα that is not directly visible. Before the incarnation his δόξα was revealed to the prophet Isaiah in the temple in Jerusalem (.). The evangelist interprets the theophany of the book of Isaiah (Isa ) as a revelation of the pre-existent divine logos by understanding God’s glory (LXX Isa .) as the glory of Jesus. After the incarnation only the It is almost a custom in Johannine studies to separate a ‘profane’ use of the word from a ‘sacred’. The former being an ordinary term for inter human ‘honour’ and the latter having a specific theological meaning coined by John, which should be translated ‘glory’. Many exegetes exclude the ‘profane’ use of the term from their interpretation. E.g. Thüsing, Erhöhung und Verherrlichung, –, –; Dietzfelbinger, Abschied des Kommenden, . However, in the following it will be argued that the two different understandings of δόξα in fact belong to a common idea. N. Chibici-Revneanu also includes all instances of δόξα in her treatise. She asks after every exegetical paragraph whether the instance of δόξα terminology is ‘profan-anthropologische oder theologische δόξα (bzw. δοξάζϵιν)?’ and argues that the two are more related than is often claimed. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit. J. Frey takes the Johannine reference to Isaiah’s vision to include both the temple vision (Isa ) and the prophetic vision of the δόξα of the Suffering Servant (LXX Isa .). For that reason the comment that Isaiah saw his δόξα does not refer to a pre-existent divine glory but to the glory of the crucified. Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, . But the fact that the reference to the δόξαvision functions as the rationale for Isaiah’s ability to predict the stubbornness of the Jews (.) makes it more likely that his prophetic calling in the temple is in view. It is a characteristic Johannine feature to let quotations, metaphors, and traditions that in the Hebrew Bible concern God refer to Jesus. Cf. R. Zimmermann, ‘Jesus im Bild Gottes. Anspielungen auf das Alte Testament im Johannesevangelium am Beispiel der Hirten Bildfelder in Joh ’, Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums. Das vierte Evangelium in
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
privileged group of believers is able to see his glory. In the fundamental verse of incarnation (.) this particular group is marked out as ‘we’. The mark of identity is that they, unlike everybody else, perceived (θϵάσθαι) his δόξα. This cognitive difference qualifies the social dichotomy in the preceding verses. One group did not receive him; another one believed in his name. The latter were privileged by becoming God’s children. They are a divine breed, not born from human blood and flesh or the will of man but born from God (.–). What distinguishes this group from other humans is their insight into the δόξα of Jesus despite his σάρξ. This ‘we’ already know what the persons in the Johannine story are about to realize. In the following half verse the δόξα is further defined. It is a δόξα which the unique son (μονογϵνής) has from his father (.). According to the ancient household sons participate in the collective honour of the father and the only born son is the sole inheritor of his father’s house and social position. The relation between the father, the only born son and δόξα in this verse suggests that this structure lies behind the expression. The only born son
religions- und traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive (ed. J. Frey and U. Schnelle [Hrsg. unter Mitarbeit von J. Schlegel]; WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –. On the use of the OT in the Fourth Gospel, see A. Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift im Johannesevangelium. Eine Untersuchung zur johanneischen Hermeneutik anhand der Schriftzitate (WUNT /; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ); M. J. J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form (Kampen: Kok, ). In this particular instance John’s interpretation of Isa . is in line with a targumic tradition that interprets God’s שולas his presence, his shekinah. In fact, in the Isaiah-Targum Isaiah sees the glory of God’s shekinah. C. A. Evans, To See and Not Perceive: Isaiah .– in Early Jewish and Christian Interpretation (JSOTSup ; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, ). It is not convincing, as C. A. Evans proposes, that John should be directly dependent on the Targum. In Johannine studies it is a matter of dispute whether the ‘we’ in v. (and ) refers to the believing community or eyewitnesses. Seen from a narrative perspective, the ‘we’ (., ) includes the implied author and implied reader and constitutes an especially insightful level of communication which places the readers in a superior cognitive position compared to the narrative persons. Cf. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, . Cf. J. H. Neyrey, The Gospel of John (NCBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) . This interpretation seems more in line with the terminology than decidedly theological interpretations, e.g., that δόξαν ὡς μονογϵνοῦς παρὰ πατρός should mean ‘Die vom Sohn offenbarte Herrlichkeit ist von ‘einzigartiger’ Heilsqualität, weil der Sohn seinen Ausgang ganz in Gott hat’. Schwindt, Gesichte, . On the antique household, see, e.g., C. Osiek and D. L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, ). Social-historical commentaries of the Fourth Gospel include B. J. Malina and R. L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, ); Neyrey, The Gospel of John. Social-historical theories are applied to the Johannine concept of glory by Neyrey, The Gospel of John, –; idem, ‘Despising the Shame of the Cross: Honor and Shame in the Johannine Passion Narrative’, Semeia () –; idem, ‘The Trials (Forensic) and Tribulations (Honor Challenges)
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
has the same status as his father, which is moreover defined as being ‘filled with grace and truth’ (.). Generally, this description is understood as pointing to the OT depiction of God as being ‘filled with mercy and truth’ (e.g. Exod .). If this is so, it is another argument for concluding that δόξα is the status and appearance that God’s son shares with his father. δόξα is his divine identity. That the pre-incarnational δόξα is not only a matter of superior status in an honour–shame system but also denotes the equivalent appearance is evident from the references to exceptional revelations of the pre-existent logos. According to the Fourth Gospel the logos is generally inaccessible before the incarnation but at a few theophanic events it appears in δόξα. This is most explicitly stated in the already mentioned revelation to Isaiah (.), but probably also alluded to in the references to Abraham’s vision (.–) and the Sinai revelation (.–). In these texts δόξα denotes the way of appearing that corresponds to the divine identity. What separates the Johannine references from the biblical tradition of God’s כבוד/δόξα is only that it is transferred to the pre-existing logos. After the incarnation the divine logos is accessible in Jesus (.). To perceive his δόξα means to recognize his divine identity despite his human appearance. This insight separates the believing community from the rest of the human world (.–). In the narrative middle Jesus’ δόξα stands for his divine identity that may be recognized even though he appears in σάρξ. In this way the incarnation verse (.) sets up a fundamental structure for the entire Johannine narrative. In his earthly life Jesus’ appearance does not correspond to his identity: he has divine status (δόξα) but he appears as human (σάρξ). Only the believers perceive (θϵάσθαι) his true identity (δόξα) whereas the disbelieving humans only recognize his appearance (σάρξ). Because of the contradiction between identity and appearance the divine identity is not directly recognizable but demands a special insight which separates humans into two groups. The ones that have been given to Jesus by the father realize his divine identity (e.g. .–). The ones called ‘Jews’ take Jesus to be insane and dangerous claiming to be the son of God but actually being an ordinary man (e.g. .–; .–). The other way around it is just as important to Johannine theology that the divine δόξα is accessible in Jesus’ σάρξ. As will be argued in relation to the resurrection appearances, it is Jesus’ entire earthly existence that is his revelation of God. For that reason
of Jesus: John in Social Science Perspective’, BTB () –; M. S. Collins, ‘The Question of Doxa: A Socioliterary Reading of the Wedding of Cana’, BTB () –. Cf. the history of research in A. T. Hanson, ‘John I. – and Exodus XXXIV’, NTS () –. On the allusions to Sinai in John , see N. A. Dahl, ‘The Johannine Church and History’, Current Issues in the New Testament Interpretation, FS O.A. Piper (ed. W. Klassen and G. F. Snyder; London: SCM, ) –. On the concept σάρξ and its function in the Fourth Gospel, see Schwindt, Gesichte, –.
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
the contradiction between δόξα and σάρξ does not imply a naïve docetism, as E. Käsemann famously claimed. In the middle of the Johannine narrative the complicated relation between Jesus’ appearance and identity forms the basis for his activity. Jesus must convince humans of his divinity otherwise he cannot give them eternal life. He must disclose his hidden identity, that is, he must reveal his δόξα. This is exactly what he does in his signs according to .. Signs are tokens of his intimate relation to God and hence revelations of his divine identity. But the signs are not direct proofs of his identity. This is apparent from the fact that they are not received as signs by all spectators. Some people experience an extraordinary act, for example, the multiplication of bread, but do not perceive it as a sign of the divine status of the miracle maker (.). The disciples, on the other hand, see the signs as signifying Jesus’ divinity (.). The divine character of δόξα in these contexts is evident from the fact that Jesus’ δόξα is interchangeable with God’s δόξα. Jesus admonishes Martha before the resurrection of Lazarus. ‘If you believe, you will see God’s δόξα’ (.). God’s δόξα is perceivable in the resurrection of Lazarus because this sign reveals Jesus’ divinity, just as his δόξα is perceivable in the wine miracle in Cana (.). Because Jesus’ δόξα is the δόξα which the only born has from his father (.), it is identical with God’s δόξα. Consequently, the revelation of Jesus’ δόξα in the signs is a revelation of his divinity. According to . it takes a certain believing attitude to see the signs as a revelation of divine δόξα. In ., on the other hand, it may seem as if the revelation evokes faith. The schism between the two verses, however, need not be unbridgeable. They probably express the Johannine feature that Jesus, his words and his E. Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], d rev. ed. ) –. Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger, –. According to J. Neyrey, Jesus, by manifesting his glory (.), made ‘an honor claim, which the disciples acknowledge’. Neyrey, The Gospel of John, . But this statement shows that the Johannine understanding of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν cannot be adequately described in social-historical terms alone. It overlooks that Jesus’ δόξα is not just a hierarchical position within the common honour–shame system. He manifests his divine identity in the sign, which the disciples recognize when they believe in him. Both recent monographs on the Johannine δόξα try to resolve the tension. According to N. Chibici-Revneanu faith is not a precondition for the revelation of Jesus’ δόξα in the signs, but only to the believers is this δόξα identical with God’s δόξα. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, . To R. Schwindt the statement in . expands the idea in . to a hermeneutic circle. The revelation of δόξα in the signs is an integral part of the unity between a believing understanding and the vision of δόξα. Schwindt, Gesichte, . Among the other proposals to dissolve the tension between . and . is W. Bittner who claims that John relates signs, δόξα, and faith, but is not interested in the way they are related. W. J. Bittner, Jesu Zeichen im Johannesevangelium. Die Messias-Erkenntnis im Johannesevangelium vor ihrem jüdischen Hintergrund (WUNT /; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) . C. Welck insists that Jesus’ δόξα is only visible to the believers after the passion. For that
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
works, reveal not only his own identity but also the identity of the people who encounter him. Without explanation some people are sympathetic towards him, and some people are not. To the first group the signs are revelations that cause faith, to the second group they are not signs at all. The point is not whether signs evoke or demand faith, but rather that to some people they are revelations of Jesus’ δόξα and to some they are not. Jesus’ miracles expose who humans are. The shepherd discourse expresses this idea symbolically when the sheep of the shepherd know his voice (.–, ). The difference between the two kinds of sheep is established by the voice of the shepherd; before he called his sheep there was no distinction between the two groups. His voice constitutes the two groups because their reaction to his calling is the only way to tell who his sheep are. Both the signs and the shepherd discourse show that Jesus’ actions reveal who people are. If Jesus as the only born son had divine status with God his father before the creation of the world, and he reveals his divinity to humans during his earthly life, it is almost logical that the people who perceive his status are included into it. Just as God and Jesus, as father and son, share the same δόξα, so Jesus gives the believing humans his δόξα (.) which includes them into the divine community (.–). Just like Jesus is in (ϵ̓ν) his father, and the God is in (ϵ̓ν) his son, so the believers will be in (ϵ̓ν) the father and the son (., ; .–). In being included into the relation between father and son the believers become parts of the divine household as Jesus’ brothers (.) and children of God (.). Consequently, they take over Jesus’ obligations through their relation to him. Jesus loves the father and keeps his command (.–; .; .; .); so the disciples will love Jesus and keep his command (., , ; .–; .). Jesus is sent to the world by the father; so he sends his disciples to the world (.; .). From the unity between the son and the father the world should believe that Jesus is sent by God; so from the unity of the community the world should realize that Jesus is sent and loved by the father (.). Just as Jesus is not from the world, his disciples are not from the world (., ). It could even be said that the disciples in their earthly existence do not have
reason . concerns the belief of the reader. Welck, Erzählte Zeichen, . All proposals seem to neglect the radicalism in the Johannine conception of revelation. Cf. G. Hallbäck, ‘The Gospel of John as Literature: Literary Readings of the Fourth Gospel’, New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives (ed. J. Nissen and S. Pedersen; JSNTSup ; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, ) – (esp. ). On this so called ‘reciprocal immanence’, see K. Scholtissek, In ihm sein und bleiben. Die Sprache der Immanenz in den johanneischen Schriften (HBS ; Freiburg: Herder, ). Cf. J. G. van der Watt, The Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel according to John (Leiden: Brill, ); M. L. Coloe, Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, ).
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
the appearance that corresponds to their status as children of God, just like Jesus loses his divine appearance in the incarnation. Probably, the final part of Jesus’ last prayer (.–) predicts an eschatological situation in which the believers in line with apocalyptic ideas will be unambiguously included in the divine δόξα and contemplate (θϵωρϵῖν) Jesus’ δόξα. The result of Jesus’ revelation of his δόξα on earth is that the believers in spite of their human appearance are incorporated into his δόξα and experience the same contradiction between appearance and identity as him. This corresponds to the fact that the Johannine Jews do not seek δόξα from God but want it from each other (.; .). It is not possible to hold a high status position in both the Jewish honour system and in relation to God. As both verses put it, it is impossible to believe when the δόξα from humans and not the δόξα from God is the centre of attention. In accordance with some sapiential ideas (cf. Sir .; Est .), the Fourth Gospel separates status within a human hierarchy from the divine status that the believers are given. The two kinds exclude each other. To achieve status from God means to accept being disqualified in the ordinary social hierarchy as Jesus predicts will happen to the disciples (.). Consequently, Jesus does not seek δόξα for himself (.; .; ., ). If he did so, he would be promoting himself trying to achieve a higher position in the social hierarchy, which would be an accepted behaviour within the ordinary social system (.). But this is not what he does. He seeks recognition for his father, not for himself (.). Being sent from the father he is not supposed to speak on his own behalf or improve his own position but to achieve recognition for the authority behind his mission. The one who should recognize him is the one that has sent him, namely, God himself. Jesus is not interested in status within the human hierarchy and if he would give himself status it would not be of any value (., ). For Jesus personally it is only the recognition from God that matters, and his entire existence has the purpose of letting God be recognized. He seeks δόξα for him both in his speeches and in his deeds which can be seen from the fact that Lazarus’ illness serves God’s δόξα (ὑπϵ̀ρ τῆς δόξης τοῦ θϵοῦ) (.). Lazarus’ illness serves this end because it allows Jesus to reveal N. Chibici-Revneanu insists that this eschatological vision is different from the visions of Jesus’ δόξα during his earthly life (.; .). She argues that the conditions for the vision have changed so that the vision itself is different; and that Jesus’ δόξα now can be seen in its complete unity with the father. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, . The distinction between appearance and status is a simple way to account for the difference between earthly and eschatological visions. Cf. J.-A. Bühner’s presentation of the Jewish representational system. Bühner, Der Gesandte und sein Weg, –. The envoy represents the sender in such a way that the recipients are dealing with the sender himself through the messenger. It would be a complete misunderstanding if the recipients recognize the envoy in his own right. On the contrary, only the one that has sent him can evaluate his worth as a messenger.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
God’s glory in the sign (.) and thereby cause recognition of God (cf. .). When faith arises in connection with the sign, God’s identity is recognized and hence Lazarus’ illness has proven not to be to death but to serve God’s status as God (.). This point is also expressed with Johannine irony in the remarks of the Jews that the healed man born blind should give δόξα to God (.). On the level of the Johannine Jews this means to accept that Jesus has not cured him, but on the level of the Johannine readers the man does give δόξα to God when he insists that Jesus has performed the miracle. To sum up on the use of the noun δόξα, two basic semantic fields of the word dominate the Johannine terminology as they do in contemporary literature. δόξα denotes a divine appearance which Jesus has before and after the incarnation, that is, in the narrative beginning and end. During his earthly life, that is, the narrative middle, he appears in σάρξ. But δόξα also designates status, both a divine status and a social hierarchical status. Jesus and God have divine δόξα and the believing humans receive it from Jesus. The Jews, on the other hand, seek social status from each other. To give or receive δόξα means to enhance or recognize a hierarchical position. This happens in the social negotiations between humans when they recognize each other. But it happens in another way when the disciples achieve a position in the divine relationship between father and son and thereby take part in their status. These two ways of achieving recognition exclude each other. Jesus does not want any recognition for himself because he acts as God’s representative in order to win recognition of him. The believers renounce human recognition in order to obtain recognition from God. .. Glorification in the Narrative Structure The verb δοξάζϵιν takes up the meaning of the expression ‘to give δόξα’ but interprets it in a sophisticated way. Every positively portrayed person or group of persons in the Fourth Gospel is in some way involved in glorification. Jesus and God are related in mutual glorification, and humans are related to the divine community when they or the Paraclete glorify God and Jesus. The question is what the content of these relations is, and how the glorification relates the participants to each other in the community of God, Jesus, the Paraclete, and the believers. Nowhere are the different forms of glorification so intimately related as in .–. For that reason this pericope will conclude the exegesis. God’s glorification of Jesus divides time into two: before and after the glorification when Jesus re-enters into the divine δόξα (.; .). This is confirmed Cf. P. D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, ) ; Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –. Among many others N. Chibici-Revneanu rejects a separation of death and glorification. ‘Eine zeitliche Ausdifferenzierung zwischen Tod und (darauf folgender) “Verherrlichung” hat jedoch m. E. keinen Anhalt am Text’. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, . She does not take into account that the results of the glorification, viz. the disciples’ understanding of
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
by Jesus’ petition that God should glorify him with the δόξα he had with him before the creation of the world (.). Furthermore the glorification of Jesus is placed in the Johannine ‘hour’ that denotes the time around the crucifixion (.; cf. .; .). From these verses it is clear that God’s glorification of Jesus is the vindication of him after the crucifixion which consists of a re-establishment of the position he had before his incarnation. In the glorification Jesus re-gains the divine appearance in which he later on appears to the disciples. This glorification is radically different from a contribution of δόξα that Jesus himself may provide because it is God’s response to his fulfilled work (.). According to the narrative structure the glorification of Jesus introduces the end phase of the gospel where the resurrected Jesus immediately calls forth the recognition he sought in his earthly life. But the transition to the narrative
scripture (.) and the advent of the Spirit-Paraclete (.), in other places are results of the resurrection (.) and the transition to the father (.; .). In the text the cross is not connected to these events. The Johannine ὥρα is not just the crucifixion but the series of events in the passion narrative. Frey, Eschatologie II, –. J. Frey thinks: ‘Irritierend ist nur der Verweis auf die δόξα, die Jesus bei Gott (παρὰ σοί) vor Grundlegung der Welt schon hatte (Joh .). Sollte die Verherrlichung Jesu in “seiner Stunde” nichts “Neues” bringen, nur die Wiedereinsetzung in eine vormalige δόξα? Und was für eine δόξα sollte dies sein?’ Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, . According to the distinction between appearance and identity the answer is that it is an appearance that corresponds to his identity. The ‘new’ in this glorification is its role in the narrative structure: ‘In Rahmen des Gesamtentwurfes wird damit die Passion zur letztgültigen Bestätigung der Zugehörigkeit Jesu zum Vater, und in solcher Zugehörigkeit besteht seine Doxa von Anfang an’. Dietzfelbinger, Abschied des Kommenden, . N. Chibici-Revneanu distinguishes ‘zwischen δόξα παρὰ πατρός einerseits und δόξα παρὰ πατρί andererseits’. The glorification of Jesus ‘markiert den Übergang von der δόξα παρὰ πατρός zur δόξα παρὰ πατρί’. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, –. Through this distinction she stresses the unity of the concept of glory throughout the gospel. This legitimate project would, however, gain clarity from the distinction between δόξα as appearance and δόξα as identity. This understanding corresponds to the interpretation of the ‘noli me tangere’-scene that the resurrected Jesus is in a liminal state until he is transformed to a divine pneumatic status. D’Angelo, ‘A Critical Note’; H. W. Attridge, ‘“Don’t Be Touching Me”: Recent Feminist Scholarship on Mary Magdalene’, in A Feminist Companion to John, vol. (ed. A.-J. Levine and M. Blinckenstaff; Cleveland: Pilgrim, ) –; G. Buch-Hansen, ‘It is the Spirit that Gives Life’: A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in John’s Gospel (BZNW ; Berlin etc.: De Gruyter ) –. But exactly because Jesus is in an intermediate status Mary first does not recognize him and mistakes him for an ordinary human (.), then she thinks he is the earthly person that she used to know as a teacher (.), and finally Jesus tells her to keep a distance (.). Compared to the full recognition by the male disciples, who are invited to see and touch Jesus’ body (., ), it is hard to follow the conclusion that the scene is meant to illustrate an especially intimate relation between Jesus and Mary. Against D’Angelo, ‘A Critical Note’, –.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
middle is described as a glorification as well, as can be seen from the idea of God glorifying his name (.). When Jesus requests God to glorify his name, it means that God should bring forth the recognition of his own authority behind Jesus which is at the same time a recognition of God himself as revealed in Jesus (cf. .; .). God’s answer to Jesus’ prayer, however, refers to a glorification that has taken place (ϵ̓δόξασα) and a glorification that will take place (δοξάσω). Correspondingly, Jesus has made God’s name known (ϵ̓γνώρισα) and will make it known (γνωρίσω) (.). Both statements signify that Jesus first has revealed God in his earthly life and thereby glorified God’s name. Secondly, he will continue to do so when he completes his task on the cross and appears as resurrected to the disciples. God has glorified his name by sending Jesus to find recognition among humans who believe in his name (.; .; .; cf. .–). He will glorify himself by completing this quest through the final vindication of the son. For that reason it is only logical that Jesus demands his father to glorify his son so that he can glorify the father (.). The glorification of the son will, as stated above, lead into immediate recognition and thereby God will be glorified. There is a mutual dependence between the glorification of father and son. God is glorified in the earthly activity of Jesus, but he also must glorify him in order to be glorified himself. When Jesus glorifies God, the same structure is involved. On the one hand he glorifies God by fulfilling the work that he has been given to do (.). On the other hand he needs to be glorified to glorify his father (.). The double character of the glorification of God corresponds to the narrative structure. Jesus glorifies God when he fulfils his work on earth by revealing him to humans, thereby seeking recognition of him. But this recognition is not complete until Jesus himself is glorified and can appear unambiguously to his disciples. The overall content of Jesus’ glorification of God is to provide humans’ recognition of him as revealed in Jesus’ deeds and words. Whenever this happens, God is glorified through him (.). Not many commentators notice this parallel because they fail to see the relation between glorification and revelation (e.g., Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, ). The relation between the different verb forms (aorist, future) causes problems for exegetes. Some refer the aorist to the revelation in the signs and the future to the passion. E.g. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St John (London: SPCK, d rev. ed. ) . Others deny the difference and interpret the verbs as a reference to the continuing glorification. E.g. R. Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium. II. Teil (HThKNT ; Freiburg etc.: Herder, ) . Again others let the aorist be ‘punctiliar’ and refer to the ‘hour’ whereas the future points to the fate of the disciples after Easter. E.g. M. Pamment, ‘The Meaning of doxa in the Fourth Gospel’, ZNW () – (esp. ); cf. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, ; Thüsing, Erhöhung und Verherrlichung, –. On the basis of the fundamental narrative structure of the gospel it seems possible to relate the verbs to two different acts. N. Chibici-Revneanu calls this ‘Erwachsen eines menschlichen δοξάζϵιν aus dem innergöttlichen δοξάζϵιν’. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, .
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
The glorification by a third party follows the presented structure. It consists of recognizing Jesus as God’s son and authorized revealer and God as Jesus’ father. It happens when humans become Jesus’ disciples, and act accordingly (.; .; .), when Lazarus’ illness provokes recognition of Jesus’ divine authority (.), and when the Paraclete carries on Jesus’ revelation (.). In all cases God and/or Jesus (which one makes no difference in these contexts) are recognized. On the basis of these interpretations .– proves to be in accordance with the Johannine understanding of glorification. At the point in time when Judas has left to start the chain of events that leads to Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus is alone with his disciples and proclaims that he is glorified. It means that he has found recognition among his disciples. In this God is glorified because his authority has been recognized through Jesus. When this has happened, Jesus has concluded his task on earth and for that reason God will glorify him by letting him re-enter into his divine appearance.
. Concluding Interpretation of the Narrative Structure
It is apparent that the Johannine use of δόξα/δοξάζϵιν follows the narrative structure of the gospel and at the same time interprets the traditional content of the terms in an innovative manner. The semantic field of the Johannine concept of δόξα basically denotes divine identity both in a manifest (appearance) and a latent (status) form. Consequently ‘to give δόξα’ and δοξάζϵιν mean to recognize somebody’s identity, or to provide a superior status or the corresponding appearance. The Fourth Gospel uses both meanings in a sophisticated way to express different elements of the narrative structure. Jesus has divine identity as the son of God and he has the corresponding appearance in the beginning and end of the narrative, that is, before and after his incarnation. He is glorified by God when he regains this appearance after . is atypical for the Fourth Gospel because a specific act—and not recognition as such— glorifies God. Still, Peter’s martyr death is an expression of his adherence to the recognition of Jesus and God. The relation of the different glorifications has produced a great deal of exegetical difficulties. At the same time the verses are central to several important interpretations. To W. Thüsing it is the prime witness to his two-stage-theory. The earthly glorification is only a prefiguration (‘Bild’) of the real glorification which will take place after Jesus’ resurrection. Thüsing, Erhöhung und Verherrlichung, , . The temporal confrontation of past and future has also been a prime example of the so-called Johannine fusion of horizons (‘Horizontverschmelzung’). According to this idea the verbs refer to the same events but aorist forms are seen in retrospective whereas the future forms in prospective. Frey, Eschatologie II, –; Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, –; cf. Chibici-Revneanu, Herrlichkeit, . Neither of these interpretations takes the narrative structures into account.
The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel
his death and resurrection. In the middle part δοξάζϵιν describes the purpose of Jesus’ earthly life. He is to establish recognition of God when he seeks recognition of his identity as son of God which includes recognition of God’s identity as his father. He does so by revealing his divine identity in words and deeds. Recognition of this is glorification of him and his father, and it continues whenever humans believe in him. However, full recognition is not possible until Jesus appears in accordance with his divine being. For that reason his glorification by God is the necessary precondition for achieving the recognition he was sent for, namely, the glorification of God. This recognition brings humans into the relation between father and son; they receive the status that is common to the divine community with a promise of a future direct vision of the divine δόξα. The incorporation of the Johannine δόξα-concept in the plot of the gospel has consequences for the understanding of the Johannine version of the story of Jesus. It is an established understanding that the Fourth Gospel depicts Jesus in retrospect (‘nachösterlich’) in so far as the story is told with a cognitive competence that was not available before Jesus’ glorification and the advent of the SpiritParaclete (.; .; .; .; .). In his highly inspirational work Jörg Frey endorses this view of the Johannine technique. But he takes it a step further by letting the cognitive competence of the narrator include the Johannine narrative itself. ‘Daraus folgt aber, dass die sich in Jesu Zeichen offenbarende Herrlichkeit jene δόξα ist, die Jesus in “seiner Stunde” zuteil wurde und die selbst seine Jünger erst später erkannten, die aber nun—in der rückblickenden Darstellung des Evangeliums—auch die Episoden auf seinem Erdenweg umglänzt’. What according to Frey happens in the end is already present in the beginning and middle of the Johannine narrative. Frey’s interpretation, however, does not comply with classical demands for a whole and complete narrative. If the result of a narrative plot is already present in all phases of the narrative, the narrative beginning, middle, and end collapse. According to Aristotle’s Poetics this dissolves the plot. Frey is right about the hermeneutic process behind the Fourth Gospel but the Johannine narrative itself is not included in the retrospective reflection. Cf., e.g., C. Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes. Die Abschiedsreden als hermeneutischer Schlüssel zum vierten Evangelium (WUNT /; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ). ‘Diese Darstellungsweise lässt sich als seine Form der nach johanneischer Überzeugung durch den Geist inspirierten “Erinnerung” begreifen, in der den Zeugen im nachösterlichen Rückblick die wahre Bedeutung des Wirkens und Geschickes Jesu sowie der Schriftaussagen über ihn erschlossen wurde’. Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, ; cf. Frey, Eschatologie II, –. Frey, ‘Herlichkeit’, . ‘Ganz gleich, wie hoch die Kenntnis und Benutzung der Synoptiker im Joh veranschlagt wird—dieses Werk zeigt gegenüber den Synoptikern ein fortschrittenes Stadium der
JESPER TANG NIELSEN
Indeed, the Fourth Gospel does represent an advanced state of Christological development but its consideration of Jesus’ story (on the basis of one or more of the synoptics) results in an innovative interpretation presented in a new but whole and complete plot. The narrative course is constituted by God’s wish to be recognized through Jesus. To express this structure the evangelist uses δόξα/δοξάζϵιν in a way that is rooted in the concept’s Hellenistic Jewish semantic potential but at the same time formed by the Johannine plot. In the narrative structures of the Fourth Gospel δόξα/δοξάζϵιν principally means divine identity and recognition of this identity.
christologischen Entwicklung und eine dort nicht gegebene, ausdrückliche Reflexion über die hier vorliegende Neuinterpretation der Geschichte Jesu’. Frey, ‘Herrlichkeit’, .
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000056
Israel and the Mercy of God: A Re-reading of Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9–11* S U SAN G R OVE EAS TMA N Duke Divinity School, Box 90967, Durham, NC 27708. email:
[email protected] Noting the conjunction of ‘mercy’ and ‘Israel’ in Galatians . and Romans – , this article argues that in both letters ‘Israel’ denotes the Jews. In Galatians ., with an on-going mission to the Jews in view, Paul invokes peace on those who live according to the new creation, and mercy on unbelieving Israel. In Romans –, he draws on both Scripture and his own experience of mercy to revisit the question of Israel’s destiny, discerning therein a providential pattern of a divine call that is interrupted by obduracy under the law, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Keywords: mercy, Israel, election, Galatians, Romans
. Introduction
In both Galatians and Romans, Paul brings together two weighty terms, ‘mercy’ and ‘Israel’. In Galatians, each term appears only once, linked in the blessing of Gal .. In Romans –, the terms also are closely intertwined. Apart from Gal ., the great majority of references to Israel occur in Romans –, where the term refers to the Jewish people, Paul’s flesh and blood kinsfolk (., , ; ., ; ., , , ). Paul uses the terms remnant or elect (Rom * An earlier version of this argument appears as ‘Israel and Divine Mercy in Galatians and Romans’, Between Gospel and Election: Explorations in the Interpretation of Romans – (ed. F. Wilk and J. R. Wagner; WUNT; Tübingen: J. C. B. Möhr, []). This essay is substantially revised and expanded, with new arguments in each section, an additional section on Paul’s self-representation in relationship to Israel, and new views on key issues. Interpretation of Rom .b is the most contested of these verses; for further discussion, see below. In Cor . Paul directs the attention of his Gentile converts to the cultic practices of Ἰσϱαὴλ κατὰ σάϱκα, in order to instruct them regarding the Lord’s supper. Some commentators suggest that the qualifier, κατὰ σάϱκα, implies the existence of an opposite Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ. See F. F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) . Such an opposition between κατὰ σάϱκα and τοῦ θεοῦ, however, never occurs in Paul’s letters. In Galatians itself, where one might expect to find it, flesh occurs in
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
., ; ., ) to denote both Gentile and Jewish Christians, whose common denominator is faith in Christ. He uses the term Israelite, however, to denote both Christian and non-Christian Jews, whose common denominator is Jewish ancestry (Rom .; .; Cor .; Phil .). Apart from Romans – and Gal ., mercy appears very rarely elsewhere in Paul’s letters. Once Paul attributes Epaphroditus’s recovery from illness to God’s mercy (Phil .), and twice he describes his own ministry in terms of God’s mercy ( Cor .; Cor .). But as he writes Romans, it is in his pondering of Israel’s destiny within God’s plan that mercy comes to the fore as a major theme, primarily in connection with citations from the LXX. Thus, in both Gal . and Romans –, ‘Israel’—however ‘Israel’ is defined—is linked with divine mercy. This simple observation provides the starting point for my argument: The link between divine mercy and the identity of Israel is as crucial to the interpretation of Paul’s blessing and prayer near the end of Galatians as it is to the interpretation of Romans –. In what follows, I shall argue that in both letters Israel refers neither to Jewish Christians nor to the church as a whole, but rather to the Jewish people, whom Paul calls ‘my people’ (ἐν τῷ γένει μου) in Gal ., and ‘my kinsfolk according to flesh’ (συγγενῶν μου κατὰ σάϱκα) in Rom .. Further, I shall argue that Paul’s ultimate vision of divine mercy for Israel reflects his own experience of the God who graced him with a ministry (διακονία) flowing from that same mercy ( Cor .), and called him in the midst of his ‘life in Judaism’ (Gal .). The argument that I shall propose here is certainly a minority view; the majority of scholars interpret ‘Israel’ as denoting different entities in Gal . and Romans –. In Romans, ‘Israel’ is widely understood to refer to empirical
antithetical relationship to the promise and the Spirit (.; .–); Paul never coins the expression Ἰσϱαὴλ κατὰ πνεῦμα (G. Schrenk, ‘Was bedeutet “Israel Gottes”?’, Judaica [] –, esp. ). H. D. Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, ), argues for a distinction between a ‘true’ and ‘false Israel’ (). The discussion by W. Schrage is more persuasive. He argues that Ἰσϱαὴλ κατὰ σάϱκα in Cor . denotes not Israel as a whole, but those in Israel who served idols ( Cor .–); nonetheless, there is no correlative notion of the church as Ἰσϱαὴλ κατὰ πνεῦμα (Der Erste Brief an die Korinther [EKK ; Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener, –] –). N. A. Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’, Judaica () –, esp. , arguing against Schrenk’s contention that Paul refers here to Christ-believing Jews as Israel (“Israel Gottes”). Cilliers Breytenbach, ‘“Charis” and “eleos” in Paul’s Letter to the Romans’, The Letter to the Romans (ed. U. Schnelle; BETL ; Louvain; Walpole, MA: Peeters, ) –. Rightly noted by Dieter Sänger, Die Verkündigen des Gekreuzigten und Israel. Studien zum Verhältnis von Kirche und Israel bei Paulus und im frühen Christentum (WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr, ) n. .
Israel and the Mercy of God
Israel. But in Gal ., Israel, qualified importantly as ‘the Israel of God’, usually is identified as the church as a whole, or as some portion thereof. The primary and consistent basis for the latter interpretation is that it appears to confirm the force and message of the entire letter, and hence that to read Gal . differently would be inconceivable. The argument is straightforward and compelling. Throughout Galatians, Paul has affirmed to his Gentile converts that through Christ they have become ‘sons of God’ (.; .–), Abraham’s heirs (.), children of promise, like Isaac (.), and children of ‘Jerusalem above’ (., ). The attributes of Israel now accrue to both Gentile and Jewish Christians on the basis of Christ alone, with no distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised. It For example, see E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –; J. D. G. Dunn, Romans (WBC b; vols.; Waco: Word, ) .–; F. Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –; contra N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ) . In the last half-century, the terms of debate over the identity of ‘the Israel of God’ in Galatians have reflected an interchange between Nils Dahl and Gottlob Schrenk in . Schrenk proposed that Israel signified Jewish Christians loyal to Paul’s gospel, whereas Dahl, followed by the majority of scholars since then, argued that in Gal . Paul applies the name, Israel of God, to the church as a whole. See G. Schrenk, ‘“Israel Gottes”’, and N. A. Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’. For agreement with Schrenk, see P. Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) –; E. deWitt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ) –: this is ‘pious Israel, the remnant according to the election of grace (Rom .), including even those who had not seen the truth as Paul saw it, and so could not be included in ὅσοι…στοιχ’ (). For agreement with Dahl, see U. Luz, Das Geschichtsverständnis des Paulus (München: C. Kaiser, ) , ; Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, –; J. M. G. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ) n. ; Betz, Galatians, ; K. W. Clark, ‘The Israel of God’, Studies in New Testament and Early Christian Literature: Essays in Honor of Allen P. Wikgren (ed. David Aune; Leiden: Brill, ) –; J. L. Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB A; New York: Doubleday, ) –; G. Beale, ‘Peace and Mercy Upon the Israel of God: The Old Testament Background of Galatians .b’, Biblica () –; Andreas Köstenberger, ‘The Identity of the ἸΣΡΑΗΛ ΤΟϒ ΘΕΟϒ (Israel of God) in Galatians .’, Faith and Mission . () –; R. N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC ; Waco: Word, ) –; W. Kraus, Das Volk Gottes: Zur Grundlegung der Ekklesiologie bei Paulus (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) –. For the view that the Israel of God designates empirical Jews, see F. Mussner, Der Galaterbrief (Freiburg: Herder, ) ; Bruce, Commentary on Galatians, –; M. Bachmann, Antijudaiismus im Galaterbrief? Exegetische Studien zu einen polemischen Schreiben und zur Theologie des Apostels Paulus (Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitäsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhöck & Ruprecht, ); English translation, Anti-Judaism in Galatians? Exegetical Studies on a Polemical Letter and on Paul’s Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ). For in-depth arguments, see Martyn, Galatians, –; Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’, –. Dahl also references the attribution of Jewish privileges to Paul’s Gentile converts throughout the
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
seems but a short step, and a powerful one, also to ascribe to Christians the name of Israel in the summarizing postscript of the letter. Thus Ulrich Luz speaks of ‘Das Fehlen Israels im Galaterbrief’ (‘the absence of Israel in the letter to the Galatians’). Furthermore, such an identification often accompanies the conviction that Galatians is concerned only with inner-church issues, not with non-Christian Jews. J. Louis Martyn, among others, rightly emphasizes that Galatians concerns matters internal to the church, and Paul’s opponents in Galatia are not Jews per se, but rather other Jewish-Christian missionaries who are requiring circumcision of Paul’s Gentile converts. Therefore, Judaism is not Paul’s concern as he pens this passionate letter, and he in no way discusses, let alone denigrates, the practices and beliefs of non-Christian Jews. In Martyn’s words, ‘No Jews are addressed in the Galatians letter, and no Jews are being spoken about in the letter… For the letter’s consumptive focus on the evangelization of Gentiles means that there is no Jewish horizon in Galatians. For that we must go to Romans –’. These are weighty arguments, and I oppose them with some trepidation. When I first began working on Gal ., I followed the scholarly consensus in viewing the Israel of God as Paul’s circumlocution for the church. It was only as I pondered Paul’s puzzling syntax in ., and in particular his uncharacteristic reference to mercy at this juncture in the letter, that my thinking began to change. The literature is oddly reticent about the function of mercy as a divine
letters (e.g. Cor .; Rom .–; Gal .; Cor ) to demonstrate that Paul sees his converts as already partakers of Israel (–). But in none of these texts does Paul actually use the term ‘Israel’. On this, see in particular Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’, –, and Sanders, Paul, the Law and the Jewish People, . Luz, Geschichtsverständnis, –. Luz argues that prior to the coming of Christ, both Gentile and Jew are represented by the symbol of the minor heir, in Gal .–, but that after Christ’s advent, any destiny (Schicksal) for Israel is excluded (). He also reads Jews, not circumcising missionaries to Gentiles, as the target of Gal ., because grace, not law, gives access to God; in his view, Gal . explicitly states the rejection of the Jews (–). Hence ‘the Israel of God’ must refer to the church (), leading Luz to speak of ‘the absence of Israel in Galatians’. Although I see a circumcising Jewish-Christian mission to Gentiles as the target of Paul’s argument in Galatians, rather than Jews per se, I agree that Galatians excludes the law as a way of salvation. Insofar as there is no salvation for either Jew or Gentile apart from the grace of God in Christ, Luz is correct that Paul’s train of thought leads (at least indirectly) to the exclusion of Jews. (On this, see Martyn, Galatians, .) But does this mean that the question of their destiny is thereby excluded as well ()? Does it not rather raise that question? See further discussion below. Martyn, Galatians, –. Martyn does acknowledge that Judaism ‘lies just beyond the letter’s horizon’ ( n. ).
Israel and the Mercy of God
attribute in this benediction, apart from speculation about its antecedents. Yet if we attend closely to the quality of mercy as God’s acts of deliverance in spite of human faithlessness, we are justified in asking whether the identity of the Israel of God must be limited to those, present or future, who already believe in Christ, or whom Paul somehow knows will be converted in the future. Thus the following discussion begins with Paul’s use of ‘mercy’ in Galatians and Romans, thence turning to the identity of ‘Israel’ in each letter. A third section will examine parallels between Paul’s description of his own call in terms of mercy, and his vision of God’s dealings with Israel. My conclusion will consider the theological importance of the consistent and continuing identity of ‘Israel’ as the Jewish people.
. ‘Mercy’ in Galatians
.. Paul’s Puzzling Syntax Perhaps the occurrence of ‘mercy’ in Gal . receives short shrift in scholarly investigation because it is outweighed by the grammatical difficulties of the verse, as well as an operating assumption that it is part of a paired benediction of ‘peace and mercy’. Let me begin with a discussion of syntax, and then move to the question of whether mercy belongs with peace as a single benediction. Galatians . reads:
καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, εἰϱήνη ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς καὶ ἔλεος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ. A word-for-word translation of this contested and difficult verse would read: And for as many as will walk in line with this rule, peace be upon them and (even) mercy and (even) upon the Israel of God.
Or as Luther translated: Und wie viele nach dieser Regel einhergehen, über die sei Friede und Barmherzigkeit und über das Israel Gottes.
The awkwardness of translation highlights difficult questions of interpretation. There are three possibilities: () Paul is pronouncing a single blessing of peace For discussion of the Greek, see particularly Schrenk, ‘“Israel Gottes”’, –; Schrenk, ‘Der Segenswunsch nach der Kampfepistel’, Judaica () –, esp. ; Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’, ; Burton, Galatians, –; Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church, –. The NRSV maintains the ambiguity of the Greek: ‘As for those who will follow this rule—peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God’.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
and mercy on a single group of people, named both as those who walk in line with this rule and as the Israel of God. () He is pronouncing a unified benediction of peace and mercy on two separate groups: on the one hand, those who remain faithful to Paul’s gospel, and on the other hand, the Israel of God. () He is pronouncing a blessing of peace on the first group, and a prayer for mercy on the second. The primary translation issue concerns the punctuation dividing the two clauses in the sentence, which in turn affects the relationship between the attributes of peace and mercy, the translation of the third καί, and consequently, the identity of the Israel of God. The majority of interpreters opt for a comma after ἔλεος, thus reading it as paired with εἰϱήνη in a single blessing. In this case, the second καί links mercy with peace, and the third καί introduces a subordinate clause. The relationship between the clauses then hangs on the translation of the third καί. It could simply mean ‘and’ or ‘also’, indicating that ‘the Israel of God’ is a separate entity that also receives a blessing of peace and mercy. The NJB translates the verse thus: ‘Peace and mercy to all who follow this as their rule, and to the Israel of God’. Or the second clause could be understood as qualifying αὐτοὺς as the Israel of God, translating the καί as epexegetical or explicative, simply omitted or translated as ‘that is to say’. This is the predominant view among interpreters, reflected in the RSV as ‘Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God’. The variation in translations indicates, however, that such an identification of Israel with the church is not clear in the text as it stands. It requires reading ‘peace and mercy’ as a single blessing, and αὐτούς as the single recipient of that paired blessing, related both to its logical antecedent, ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, and to a postcedent, τὸν Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ, from which it is separated by καὶ ἔλεος καὶ ἐπί. As Peter Richardson observes, ‘There are no parallels for such a structure’. This structure depends on punctuating the sentence so that the division between clauses occurs after ἔλεος and before καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ. It is entirely possible, however, to place the comma after αὐτούς and before the second καί. Punctuated thus, καὶ ἔλεος καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ It is rarely noted that there are actually three occurrences of the conjunction καί in v. : at the beginning of the sentence, and both preceding and following ἔλεος. Schrenk in particular argues for this interpretation, translating the third καί as ‘also’ (‘Der Segenswunsch’, –). Richardson, Israel, . See also the discussion in Mussner, who argues, ‘die Partikel καί trennt ja deutlich die αὐτοί vom “Israel Gottes”’ (Der Galaterbrief, ). Dahl suggests Acts . as an example in which καὶ ἐπὶ functions epexegetically to link two clauses, but there it is by no means clear that, as Dahl claims, ‘die Ekklesia gehört natürlich mit zu denjenigen, die es hörten’ (‘Der Name Israel’, ). Nor is the sentence structure parallel; in Acts . both clauses function as direct objects of a single predicate. Such is not the case in Gal ., where there is no main predicate, and a second attributed blessing precedes the second ἐπί.
Israel and the Mercy of God
θεοῦ stands as an independent clause, with a distinct blessing and a distinct recipient. In parallel with the first clause, the second also begins with καί, thereby creating two separate benedictions: And for as many as will walk in line with this rule, peace be upon them. And mercy be even upon the Israel of God.
Here the καί linking ἔλεος and the Israel of God is ascensive, adding emphasis to the final clause. Such a reading accords well with the word order in the verse by separating the difficult ‘double epi, double kai, and double attributes in reverse order’ into two independent clauses. Thus it also takes account of another problem, that of finding a precedent for a blessing that combines ‘peace’ and ‘mercy’, with peace preceding mercy. Furthermore, as we shall see, it fits the pattern of Paul’s epistolary benedictions, and it attends to the peculiar character and proper objects of divine mercy. .. ‘Peace and Mercy’? The translation of ‘peace and mercy’ as a compound blessing has instigated considerable scholarly effort in a search for possible antecedents, but parallels are difficult to find. Whereas there are many blessings of peace upon Israel, and mercy upon Israel, they rarely occur in a combined blessing. Indeed, Gregory Beale states, ‘the combination of “mercy and peace” was not a typical part of formulaic benedictions in early Judaism nor a part of typical conclusions in early Hellenistic epistolary literature’. There are exceptions to this claim: the Aaronic blessing of Num .– (LXX), which invokes first mercy and then peace, in parallel phrases, and the occurrence of mercy and peace in proximity, in Ps .– and Isa .. Nonetheless, even in these instances the word order is the reverse of that in Gal ., in which peace precedes mercy. Many proposals attribute the reversed order to the influence of the This translation highlights the parallel function of the two occurrences of καί as introducing independent clauses. Paul frequently uses such a construction; see Rom .; .; .; .; Cor .; .; Cor ., ; .; Phil ., ; Thess .. Richardson, Israel, , following Burton, Galatians, . Richardson, Israel, . For the blessing of peace upon Israel, see, e.g., Pss . (LXX .); . (LXX .). The invocation of mercy is exceedingly frequent. See, e.g., Hos ., , ; Amos .; Isa .; Ezek .; Pss Sol. .; .; .; .. For discussion, see Bachmann, Antijudaismus, –. Beale, ‘Peace and Mercy’, (emphasis original). Despite this observation, however, Beale himself does not question the pairing of peace and mercy. Remarkably, with the exception of Breytenbach (‘“Charis”’, –), few commentators reference Num .–. Beale, ‘Peace and Mercy’, argues that Isa . is echoed in Gal .: the scriptural echoes are intriguing, but the sources lack an exact structural parallel to the benediction of Gal ..
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
Nineteenth Benediction of the Shemoneh Esreh, which invokes ‘peace…and mercy on us and on all Israel thy people’. It may be the case that Paul’s prayer for mercy on Israel is influenced by the Nineteenth Benediction, but dependence on such a source is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove. Indeed, the search for antecedents abundantly demonstrates both the frequency of prayers for mercy on Israel, and the lack of exact parallels for a combined benediction of ‘peace and mercy’. Furthermore, no proposed parallels prove that in Gal ., Israel acquires a new denotation as the church. Hence it is no surprise that Richardson comments, ‘no parallel can be found for the structure of the sentence with its double noun and double preposition’. The difficulty in locating precedents for a blessing of ‘peace and mercy’, whether in the Pauline corpus or outside of it, should make us pause before assuming that Paul pronounces such a blessing in Gal .. Rather, careful attention to the pattern of Paul’s benedictions in his other letters will shed light on the unique syntax and vocabulary of Gal .. One common proposal is that Paul is drawing on his usual salutation of ‘grace and peace’, but reversing the order and substituting ‘mercy’ for ‘grace’. Yet nowhere else is mercy included in either an opening blessing or a closing benediction; nowhere else does Israel refer to anyone but Jews; and nowhere else does the phrase, the Israel of God, occur. Rather, as in Gal ., typically we find the double blessing of ‘grace and peace’ in his opening salutations ( Thess .; Cor .; Cor .; Phlm ; Rom .; Phil .). In his closing benedictions, however, grace and peace appear separately and in reverse order: first Paul pronounces a conditional blessing of peace near the end of the letter, frequently applying it specifically to the situation addressed in each congregation (Rom .; .; Cor .b; Thess .; Phil .b). Paul’s blessing of grace, on the other hand, varies very little, and always So Breytenbach, ‘“Charis” ’, ; Bruce, Commentary on Galatians, –; for further discussion of this possibility, including conflicting views on the dating of the Nineteenth Benediction, see also Betz, Galatians, –; Richardson, Israel, –; Beale, ‘Peace and Mercy’, –. Perhaps the strongest attempt to draw such a conclusion is Beale’s argument that traces thematic links between new creation themes in Isa – and Gal ., in order to claim that such links demonstrate Paul’s identification of the church as a whole with Israel as a new creation, rather than referring only to a Jewish-Christian subset of the church (‘Peace and Mercy’, – ). He does not, however, entertain the possibility that Israel refers to non-Christian Jews, nor does he account for Paul’s usage of the terms Israel and Israelite elsewhere in his letters. Richardson, Israel, . See, e.g., Burton, Galatians, –; Richardson, Israel, –; R. Longenecker, Galatians, – . Breytenbach argues that the Jewish blessing of ‘mercy’ is a predecessor for Paul’s language of grace (‘“Charis” ’, –). Israel of God is unique not only among NT writings, but among all extant Jewish literature. Rightly noted by Bachmann (Antijudaismus, –). Significantly, often the peace is contingent upon certain behaviours on the part of Paul’s auditors. For example, in Phil . he
Israel and the Mercy of God
occurs as a distinct, unconditional, and final benediction: ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom .; Cor .; Cor .; Thess .; Phil .; Phlm ). Indeed, he concludes Galatians itself with just such a blessing in .. These observations raise interesting points of congruence between Galatians and Paul’s other letters. Grace and peace appear together in his opening salutation (.), but separately and in reverse order in his closing comments. Paul adapts his conditional benediction of peace to the specific concerns of the letter—peace on all who will walk in line with the rule of the new creation, in which there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision. The final, completely characteristic invocation of grace stands apart from the conditional blessing of peace. Hence it is unnecessary and misleading to assume that peace and mercy belong together in a single benediction, as a variant of Paul’s formulaic blessing of grace and peace. But if they are separate blessings, then it follows that they fall on two separate groups. In that case, what distinguishes Gal . from Paul’s characteristic benedictions is neither his word order nor the presence of mercy as a substitute for grace, but rather, the addition of a prayer for mercy, and the denotation of the recipient of that mercy as the Israel of God. .. ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ Further reflection on the character of mercy will drive home the point. If mercy is paired with peace as part of a single blessing, it must partake of the limiting, conditional character conveyed by the phrasing of the first clause of the sentence: καὶ ὅσοι τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ στοιχήσουσιν, εἰϱήνη ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς. Ὅσοι is both inclusive and exclusive: peace is not for everyone, but for all those who
promises peace to those who practice what they have heard and seen in Paul, and in Cor .b a series of imperatives urging unity prefaces his promise that the God of peace will be present with the Corinthians: ‘Mend your ways, heed my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you’, (RSV translation). Whether the concluding benediction of grace in Rom belongs in v. or following either v. or v. , as in some manuscripts, is immaterial for the argument. In any case, the textual variants reflect an understanding that the benediction of grace is Paul’s final word in his letters. When we turn to the disputed Pauline letters, we find ‘grace and peace’ in the salutations of Eph . and Col ., and the combination of ‘grace, mercy and peace’ in Tim .; Tim .. As for closing benedictions, Eph .– and Thess .– maintain the pattern of an invocation of peace followed by the benediction of grace; Col ., Titus ., Tim . and Tim . all say simply, ‘grace be with you’. For an overview of Paul’s benedictions, see L. Ann Jervis, The Purpose of Romans: A Comparative Letter Structure Investigation (JSNTSup ; Sheffield: JSOT, ) –. See Betz, Galatians, –, who argues further, ‘This conditional blessing implies a threat against those who, after having read the letter, do not intend to conform to Paul’s rule and, consequently, fall under the curse (.–)’. See also Martyn, Galatians, .
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
will walk in line with the canon of the new creation set forth in Gal .. That much is clear. But we may rightly question whether the imposition of such conditions is congruent with the peculiar character of mercy, which is God’s gracious activity on behalf of disobedient humanity. It is this characteristic of mercy that is ignored in the bulk of scholarly commentary on Gal .. The assumptions that peace and mercy constitute a single blessing, and that mercy therefore is limited to those who fulfill the conditions requisite for peace, must both hold true if the Israel of God is to be equated with the new community of those who are in Christ. If they do not, then the widespread view that Paul calls the church by the name of Israel must be reappraised. . ‘Mercy’ in Romans –
As noted above, the language of mercy is rare in Paul’s letters, apart from Romans –, where it occurs with great frequency. The word appears repeatedly at three key points: .–, .–, and .. .. Romans .– In Rom . Paul quotes and expounds upon God’s words to Moses in Exod . (LXX), where the Lord promises: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion (Ἐλεήσω ὃν ἂν ἐλεῶ, καὶ οἰκτιϱήσω ὃν ἂν οἰκτίϱω).
In Exodus, this divine disclosure comes at a crucial point. Following the incident of the golden calf, Moses pleads with the Lord not to withdraw the divine presence from Israel. Then he asks to see God’s glory, and the Lord responds with this promise of a theophany, which indeed occurs on Mt. Sinai in the following chapter. This is the textual anchor for a theme that reverberates throughout Israel’s Scripture: the revelation of God in Exod . as ‘the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious (ὁ θεὸς οἰκτίϱμων καὶ ἐλεήμων), slow to anger and abounding in mercy and truth (μακϱόθυμος καὶ πολυέλεος καὶ ἀληθινός)’, gives hope to errant Israel. Cranfield describes this theophany as Martyn is explicit in stating this conviction, basing it on interpreting Gal . as ‘a cosmic announcement’ that describes ‘the real world’. ‘Paul can pronounce his blessing only on those who will continue to follow in the train of that grand fact’ (Galatians, , emphasis original). Both Gal . and Rom . name disobedience as a problematic aspect of humanity’s situation, albeit in different contexts. In both letters, such disobedience is not, however, simply a matter of human disobedience, seen as wrong choices and wrong actions; humanity, rather, has been turned over to the power of sin (Gal .), and shut up into disobedience (Rom .). Human beings need mercy because they are unable to get free of that destructive power. Among very many examples, see Isa ., ; Tob ..
Israel and the Mercy of God
an ‘explicatory paraphrase’ of the revelation of the divine name in Exod .. Here mercy is the essential and defining characteristic of God in God’s self-revelation to Israel. A people that belongs to this God is a people that lives by God’s mercy. Very clearly, mercy is God’s powerful deliverance for those who do not deserve it and indeed are unable to help themselves. Within the flow of Paul’s argument in Romans, the placement of this quotation from Exodus is also crucial. It is his answer to the question in ., ‘Is there injustice (ἀδικία) with God?’ This question in turn arises from the preceding verses – , where Paul progressively traces the history of God’s word of promise (., ) through the stories of Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Esau (.–). At each juncture in that history, God elects ‘Israel’, the bearer of the promise, and excludes ‘non-Israel’. God’s choice appears unjust precisely because it occurs without reference to human actions, whether bad or good. Nonetheless, its very arbitrariness serves the divine purpose: ‘in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not on the basis of works but on the basis of call’ (v. ). ‘God’s purpose of election’, anchored and clarified in Exod ., will thread through the rest of Romans – as the crucial point in Paul’s argument. That is, because divine election is only on the basis of God’s call, it is grounded purely in God’s free and sovereign exercise of mercy. Hence in Rom .–, Paul immediately expands on this idea of mercy in relationship to the purpose statement of v. , as we hear first Moses, and then Pharoah, addressed by the divine voice. The two quotations and Paul’s commentaries on them function as parallel, mutually enriching expositions of the central theme in v. : ἄϱα οὖν οὐ τοῦ θέλοντος οὐδὲ τοῦ τϱέχοντος, ἀλλὰ τοῦ ἐλεῶντος θεοῦ. Cranfield interprets the unnamed subject of this sentence as mercy itself. ‘It—that is, God’s mercy—is not a matter of human willing or activity, but of God’s being merciful’. But the subject could as well be God’s purpose of election, which is revealed to Moses as divine mercy (v. ), and C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC ; vols; London: T&T Clark, ; repr., ) .. In my view it is confusing to speak here of a division within Israel; the distinction is between the line of promise and those descendants of Abraham who become the progenitors of the Gentiles. See particularly B. R. Gaventa, ‘On the Calling-into-Being of Israel: Romans .–’, Between Gospel and Election (ed. Wilk and Wagner) – (–); J. R. Wagner, ‘“Not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles”: Mercy to the Nations in Romans –’, Between Gospel and Election (ed. Wilk and Wagner) – (–). In my own article in the same volume, I argue for a temporary division within Israel in Rom :–, but further reflection has persuaded me differently (‘Israel and Divine Mercy’, ). Contra Cranfield, Romans, .; R. Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –; Watson, Paul, –. See further discussion below. Although God speaks directly to Moses, and through scripture to Pharaoh, both quotations are indicative of the divine will. J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul ‘In Concert’ in the Letter to the Romans (Leiden: Brill, ) – n. . Cranfield, Romans, .–.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
demonstrated through Pharaoh as divine power (ἐνδείξωμαι ἐν σοὶ τὴν δύναμίν μου) that results in the proclamation of God’s name in all the earth (v. ). Verbal cues within the verse remind us that Paul preaches the obedience of faith among the Gentiles for the sake of God’s name (.), and that the death of Jesus was for the demonstration (ἔνδειξιν) of God’s righteousness (.–). We remember that just as the Gospel is the power of God for salvation (.), so here also God’s power is not ‘unqualified power’, to use Cranfield’s terms, but rather ‘saving power’; it is ‘power directed toward the deliverance of God’s people’. It is, in other words, the powerful expression of God’s freedom to be merciful, regardless of human actions. The ensuing contrast between ‘vessels of wrath’ and ‘vessels of mercy’ (.– ) makes the same point about God’s sovereign election. It is not clear who the ‘vessels of wrath’ are. Frequently interpreted as a reference to unbelieving Israel, in contrast with the vessels of mercy called from both Jews and Greeks (.), the metaphor in this context more likely applies to the Gentile Pharaoh (.), whom God used as an ‘instrument’ of wrath in order to deliver Israel from bondage in Egypt. But the identity of the vessels of wrath is not Paul’s emphasis, which falls instead on God’s patient endurance, and God’s purpose of making known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy. God ‘hardens the heart of whomever he wills’, whether Gentile or Jew, but for the purpose of demonstrating his glory. The eloquent exposition of Cranfield bears repeating: The relations between God’s patient enduring of vessels of wrath, the showing of his wrath, and the manifestation of the wealth of His glory upon vessels of mercy, will be illuminated by .–.. We shall see there that the ultimate purpose of that patience of God toward rebellious
Cranfield, Romans, .. See Meyer, ‘Romans’, The Word in this World (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, ) . Wagner reads Paul’s difficult syntax as a qal-vahomer argument, and paraphrases . as ˙ follows: ‘If…God endured with great patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction… how much more will he bear patiently with Israel, the people whom he has chosen as his own inheritance [cf. .] until their time of hardening is over?’ (Heralds of the Good News, –). As Richard Hays has noted, the image of vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy comes from the metaphor of the potter and the clay in .–, which he in turn traces to Jer .–: ‘Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel’. In Hays’s words, ‘the prophetic subtexts keep the concern with which the chapter began—the fate of Israel—sharply in focus’ (Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul [New Haven: Yale University, ] ). Meyer (‘Romans’, ) traces the metaphor to Isa .–, noting especially the promise that God will ‘raise up’ the pagan Cyrus to accomplish the divine will (Isa .). Contra Dunn, Romans, .; Jewett, Romans, ; Watson, Paul, .
Israel and the Mercy of God Israel which is depicted in . includes the salvation of rebellious Israel itself (chapter ).
As Paul’s argument progresses, we do indeed discover that both Israel’s temporary hardening and eventual full inclusion display mercy as God’s sovereign elective activity in the world. .. Romans .– Paul drives home this theme in .–. ‘So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace’. In other words, because the remnant is ‘chosen by grace’ without any recourse to its own actions, its very existence demonstrates God’s freedom to ‘have mercy on whom I will have mercy’. Precisely for this reason, the remnant functions as ‘a forward-looking token of grace for the future’. Furthermore, following the distinction between ‘the elect’ and ‘the rest’ in ., Paul immediately makes clear that this present division is provisional. In the present, unbelieving Israel’s hardening, trespass, and rejection (ἀποβολή) serve God’s purposes for the reconciliation of the cosmos; in the future, its full inclusion (πλήϱωμα) and acceptance (πϱόσλημψις) will mean nothing less than life from the dead (.–). Thus at the culmination of his argument in .–, Paul returns to the theme of mercy precisely for those who are disobedient. Just as you [Gentiles] once were disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they [Israel] have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all (συνέκλεισεν γὰϱ ὁ θεὸς τοὺς πάντας εἰς ἀπείθειαν ἵνα τοὺς πάντας ἐλεήσῃ).
Here both Jew and Gentile take turns passing through the experience of disobedience, in order that both may be the recipients of mercy. As Klaus Haacker puts it, ‘this change of roles is not to be final since—strangely enough—it had been arranged by God Himself. For what reason? In order to show mercy to all’. Hence it is not surprising to find Paul summing up his argument in Romans – and using it as the basis of his appeal for mutual service in ., with the phrase, ‘by the compassionate mercies of God (διὰ τῶν οἰκτιϱμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ)’, echoing his citation of Exod . in Rom .. Cranfield, Romans, .. Also cited in Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, n. . W. Campbell, Paul and the Creation of Christian Identity (LNTS [JSNTSup] ; London: T&T Clark, ) . Klaus Haacker, The Theology of Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) . Breytenbach, ‘“Charis” ’.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
.. Romans . Finally, at the climax of his letter as a whole, Paul again speaks of ‘mercy’, but this time in reference to the Gentiles (.–): For I say that Christ became a servant of the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God, in order to confirm the promises of the fathers, and of the Gentiles on behalf of mercy, in order to glorify God (λέγω γὰϱ Χϱιστὸν διάκονον γεγενῆσθαι πεϱιτομῆς ὑπὲϱ ἀληθείας θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ βεβαιῶσαι τὰς ἐπαγγελίας τῶν πατέϱων, τὰ δὲ ἔθνη ὑπὲϱ ἐλέους δοξάσαι τὸν θεόν).
Here Gentiles, like Israel, are the recipients of divine mercy. As Wagner perceptively comments, ‘the apostle carefully constructs for the Gentiles a negative identity as outsiders with respect to God’s elect people Israel. He does this both to establish their identity anew on the ground of God’s mercy alone and to form in them a mindset—a way of thinking, feeling, and acting—appropriate to their new, God-determined identity’. The catena of scriptural citations that follows carries forward the underlying theme of mercy extended to both Jews and Gentiles. Psalm (LXX) praises God for his mercy to his anointed, to David and his seed forever (v. ); Ps (LXX) calls on the Gentiles to rejoice with God’s people, because ‘his mercy has conquered us, and the truthfulness of the Lord endures forever (ὅτι ἐκϱαταιώθη τὸ ἔλεος αὐτοῦ ἐφ᾿ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἡ ἁλήθεια τοῦ κυϱίου μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα)’. Thus we can see a progressive widening of the arena of God’s mercy over the course of Paul’s argument in Romans –, yet always consonant with the fundamental theophany of Exod . in Rom .. The point throughout is God’s mercy as God’s sovereign action (even including shutting up all in disobedience) on behalf of those who would otherwise be excluded. As Breytenbach puts it: ‘To show “mercy” and “compassion” to whoever he chooses is God’s reaction on the disobedience of both gentiles and Jews (Rom .–)’.
. The Identity of ‘Israel’ in Romans
As noted above, the majority of scholars think that throughout Paul’s letters, apart from Gal ., the term ‘Israel’ denotes the empirical Jewish people, Paul’s kinsfolk ‘according to the flesh’ (Rom .). The purpose of this In my view, Wagner’s translation of this difficult verse rightly fills in the gaps in Paul’s syntax: ‘For I say that the Christ has become a servant of the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers, and [a servant of] the Gentiles on behalf of mercy [of God], to glorify God’ (Heralds of the Good News, ). Wagner, ‘Mercy to the Nations in Romans –’, . See Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, –, for further discussion of these echoes. Breytenbach, ‘“Charis” ’, .
Israel and the Mercy of God
brief overview of Romans – is to ascertain whether this is the case. The actual term, Israel, occurs nine times in Romans – (., , ; ., ; ., , , ). It is the interpretation of the first and last of these verses that occasions the most controversy, but they in turn must be interpreted in their contexts. In Rom .–, Paul abruptly turns from his celebration of the blessings that belong to all those who are in Christ, to his anguished concern for his kinsfolk according to the flesh. The ensuing argument in many ways restates and amplifies an earlier argument in the letter. In .–, Paul makes two apparently conflicting statements in response to the question, ‘What advantage has the Jew?’ (.). Paul’s own dialectical answer makes clear that in this context, ‘Jew’ refers to the Jewish people. On the one hand (.), the advantages of the Jew are many, because the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God (τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ). That is, the Jews are the bearers of the promises of God. On the other hand, the Jews are no better off than Gentiles because all humanity is under the power of sin (.). Being entrusted with the words of God does not exempt Jews from sharing in the universal human condition. All must rely on the one God of all, who rectifies both the circumcision and the uncircumcision on the basis of christologically determined ‘faith’ (.). Romans .– restates in amplified form both Paul’s positive and negative answers to the question of .. Many are the advantages of the Jews: the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and the fact that the Christ who is the fulfillment of the promises comes from the Jewish people. Yet despite this Paul is anguished, because they have not embraced that very Christ. How can this be? Paul’s theological wrestling with this crisis immediately carries forward the argument in terms of God’s word, echoing .: The Jews were entrusted with τὰ λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ, yet do not believe in Christ; nonetheless, it is not as though the word of God (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ) has failed (.a). This focus on the word of God frames Paul’s theologizing in terms of the character of God, who is, as Paul Meyer puts it, ‘the real subject of Romans
Certainly the question of their ‘advantage’ (πεϱισσόν) arises because in the preceding verses, .–, Paul has defined the ‘Jew’ in terms of an inward circumcision of the heart, ‘spiritual not literal’ (ἐν πνεύματι οὐ γϱάμματι), over against a visible, fleshly circumcision. His language seems to open the way for a redefinition of ‘Jew’ leading directly to the question: What is the advantage of the Jew (.)? And yet the very formulation of the question implies a dialectical use of terminology; ‘the Jew’ in . must refer to physically circumcised Jews for the question, and its conclusion in ., to make sense. For the sake of brevity and focus, I leave aside here the complex issues concerning the interpretation of πίστις in .. I note simply that Paul qualifies this terminology by the immediately preceding restatement of the epistle’s theme: the manifestation of the righteousness of God through the faithful and redemptive death of Christ Jesus (.). Meyer, ‘Romans’, ; Wright, Climax, n. .
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
–’. In .– we will learn that the word of God that has not failed is the word of promise (ἐπαγγελίας γὰϱ ὁ λόγος) given to Sarah and Abraham, guaranteeing their progeny through Isaac. But first comes Paul’s restatement of the basic principle of Israel’s election: ‘For it is not the case that all who are from Israel are (indeed) Israel’ (.b). Here Paul neither redefines ‘Israel’ nor creates a temporary distinction within Israel, an ‘Israel within Israel’. Rather, by tracing the line of Israel through Isaac, the miracle baby, he simply restates what is thematic throughout the patriarchal literature, in which ‘[h]istorical Israel itself is determined by “promise” rather than by “flesh”’. Israel has always existed as the result of God’s gracious election, not fleshly descent. This is the point of Paul’s reference to the birth narratives of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. Israel’s identity is grounded in the God who calls into existence the things that do not exist (Rom .), not in human willing or working (.). Paul’s terminology for this distinction between divine initiative and human achievement is that of ‘promise’ and ‘flesh’. His language should be read in conjunction with his distinction in . between ‘fleshly’ and ‘spiritual’ circumcision, Meyer, ‘Romans’, . See also Wright, Climax, : ‘[T]he question throughout has to do with the character and purposes of God, and particularly his faithfulness to his promises’. Contra Cranfield, Romans, ., who argues for a temporary ‘Israel within Israel’, and Wright, Climax, , who argues that in Rom .–: ‘There is already a “double Israel”: in b there is an “Israel” that is so merely according to the flesh, and there is an “Israel” that is a “true Israel”, the Israel of promise’. For Wright, this distinction is not temporary, but rather differentiates between ethnic Israel and Israel as ‘the Messiah and his people’ (). Meyer, ‘Romans’, . Wagner comments: ‘In arguing that in the present time “not all from Israel are Israel”, then, Paul is simply extending the logic of a narrative pattern established in the stories of Israel’s national origins, a pattern which continued to shape the prophetic understanding of the nature of God’s election of Israel’ (Heralds of the Good News, ). See also Jewett, Romans, –. Jewett rightly observes the principle of selective election displayed here, but wrongly, in my view, argues that such a principle ‘restricts the sphere within which the word of God must be held to be effective, thus advancing the distinction between the true Israel and “all Israel” in v. ’ (). Paul’s vocabulary and logic here are reminiscent of his language in Gal .–. In Galatians he deploys this imagery in relationship to Gentile converts. In Rom .– he uses it to locate Israel’s true source of identity in God’s promise, not in the ‘flesh’. In both letters, Paul relies on the theologically significant birth narratives of Isaac and Ishmael in Genesis, to display God’s way of dealing with all humanity, both Jew and Gentile. See in particular the discussion by F. Watson in Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, ) –. Watson rightly notes: ‘In the light of the Genesis narrative, it is clear that the terms “promise” and “flesh” articulate the contrast and the conflict between divine and human initiative… Paul is proposing simply that the Genesis narrative be read with full theological seriousness’ (–). For the contribution of Isa ./Gal . to this theological reading of the Genesis narrative, see also M. C. De Boer, ‘Paul’s Quotation of Isaiah . in Galatians .’, NTS () –; S. Eastman, Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –.
Israel and the Mercy of God
which do not denote two different human endeavors, but a human endeavor contrasted with that which only God can do. At stake here is not identity politics, but rather God’s consistent way of dealing with all humanity, here focused precisely on Israel as the bearer of the promise. Paul’s argument, as we have seen, is grounded in God’s character as merciful, which is displayed in God’s abiding purpose of election (.). That purpose of election is enacted, penultimately, in making divisions between the elect and the non-elect: Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and Moses and Pharaoh. It is important to note that in each case, these pairs are composed of Jews and Gentiles, culminating in the quintessential Jew, Moses, and the quintessential Gentile, Pharaoh. And in each case, the election of the representative Jew, that is, ‘Israel’, occurs without regard to Israel’s conduct. Thus at this point in Paul’s argument, ‘Israel’ consistently refers to the Jewish people, called into existence solely by God apart from any ‘fleshly’ criteria. Nothing in the text indicates a non-Jewish identity for Israel, which here is not internally divided but rather distinguished from Gentiles. Furthermore, as we have seen in the discussion of mercy, it is precisely disobedient Israel who receives God’s mercy at Sinai, while God hardens Pharaoh’s heart (.–). God’s behaviour towards Abraham’s wayward ‘children of promise’ is entirely consistent with the God whom Abraham trusted, the God who rectifies the ungodly (.). As we trace the identity of Israel through the rest of Romans, the term remains tied to empirical Jews. Paul’s argument is difficult to follow, however, for two reasons: () Israel trades places with the Gentiles in God’s scheme of salvation. () The distinction between Israel and the Gentiles as elect and non-elect shifts to a distinction between ‘the remnant’ and Israel. Thus in ., Israel refers to the whole of the Jewish nation as distinguished from the remnant—that is, Christ-believing Jews and Gentiles (.). Note that this division is still not precisely within ‘Israel’, but is rather between Israel and a separate entity called ‘the remnant’. So whereas in Isa . the remnant is part of Israel, in Paul’s Meyer comments astutely that in Rom ., ‘promise’ and ‘flesh’ ‘are functioning here exactly as “spirit” and “letter” did in Rom .’ (Romans, ). A similar logic is at work in Rom ., when Paul asks rhetorically, ‘Have we found Abraham to be our forefather according to the flesh?’ and answers implicitly, ‘No indeed!’ To say, ‘Not all who are from Israel are Israel’ is like saying, ‘Abraham is not our forefather according to the flesh, but through the promise’. For this translation, see R. B. Hays, ‘“Have We Found Abraham to be Our Forefather According to the Flesh?” A Reconsideration of Rom .’, NovT () –. Both Ishmael and Esau are progenitors of the Gentiles. See Wagner, ‘Mercy to the Nations in Romans –’, –. See especially the careful exegesis of Watson, Paul, –. Watson rightly observes that each of Paul’s scriptural pairs—Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Moses and Pharoah—functions to exclude ‘any correlation between conduct and election’ (). Watson, Paul, .
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
appropriation of this text the ‘remnant’ becomes identified with ‘even us whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles’ (.; cf., ., ; ., ). What distinguishes this remnant from Israel, as well as from Gentiles, is faith in Christ. Now this remnant is elected by grace (., ; ., ), in distinction from Israel (‘the rest’), which now stands in Pharaoh’s place as the object of divine ‘hardening’ (.). This is the Israel who pursues a law of righteousness as if it were based on works (.–), having a zeal for God that is not according to knowledge (οὐ κατ’ ἐπίγνωσιν—.). In .–, this is the people who have heard the evangelistic word of faith (τὸ ῥῆμα τῆς πίστεως ὃ κηϱύσσομεν) that Paul preaches (.), but have not responded with faith. Their ignorance and disobedience (., ) is, in one sense, an outworking of their unenlightened zeal and ignorance of the righteousness of God (.–), which leads Paul to heartfelt prayer on Israel’s behalf (.). On the other hand, behind their ‘failure to believe’ is the ‘hardening’ activity of God (.–). God’s sovereign freedom to harden hearts as well as to have mercy is now directed at empirical Israel itself. This denotation of empirical Israel as ‘hardened’ (.), as God’s enemies (.), and as ‘disobedient’ (.–), brackets Paul’s startling conviction that ‘all Israel will be saved’ (.), and signals that throughout this section, nonChrist-believing Jews, taken as a whole, are in view. That this same people is at the very same time ‘beloved’ is no contradiction in terms; after all, God’s love is shown precisely through Christ’s death ‘while we were yet sinners’ (Rom .). In Rom ., the citation of Isa .-a in combination with Isa . expresses a similar conviction that God’s deliverer—Christ—will come on the scene in the very midst of Israel’s sinful condition, and take away ungodliness from Jacob. Dahl, ‘Der Name Israel’, . The Jewish-Christian members of the remnant, of whom Paul is the primary representative (.), function dialectically as a sign that God has not rejected his people. On the one hand they are still distinguished from ‘Israel’, which failed to obtain the goal of the law (.; .). On the other hand, Paul himself, and presumably the ‘some’ who are saved through his ministry to the Gentiles (.), are also still Israelites. Thus Paul can say, ‘a hardening has come upon a part of Israel’ (.). Meyer, ‘Romans’, –; contra Watson, Paul, –, who argues that Rom .–. defends Paul’s mission to the Gentiles. Thus it is not precisely correct to say, with Wright, ‘It is not God who has failed, but Israel’ (Climax, ). This formulation presents a false dichotomy: God has not ‘failed’, but God is also behind Israel’s apparent ‘failure’. ‘.a is thus taken up, answered from Scripture, and made concrete by the reference to Israel. Naturally Paul is not speaking of an ideal Israel…but of the Jewish people, which is later called πᾶς Ἰσϱαήλ’ (Käsemann, Romans, ). The deliverer’s messianic identity is evident from Thess . and Rom .. For Paul’s citation of Isa .-a, conflated with Isa ., see the discussion in Wagner, Heralds, –. That Paul has the context of Isa in mind is supported by his citation of Isa .– in Rom .–. That context intensifies the dire culpability of Israel, and the futility of reliance on human intervention (.); only God’s dramatic deliverance will rescue Israel from its
Israel and the Mercy of God
In all Israel, therefore, Paul has in mind all his kinsfolk κατὰ σάϱκα to whom belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises, and from whom are the patriarchs and Christ κατὰ σάϱκα (.–). This brief sketch of the identity of Israel in Romans – shows that Paul consistently uses the term to refer to his Jewish relatives in the present tense. All arguments that seek to equate the Israel of God in Gal . with the church must come to terms with this pattern of Pauline usage. As E. P. Sanders delineates very carefully, Thus, although Paul thought of the members of the church as heirs of the promises to Israel, he did not (with one exception) give them the name. The title ‘Israel of God’ would be truly appropriate only when all the physical descendents of Jacob had been accounted for, at the end, when the polar distinction ‘my people’ and ‘not my people’ would cover everyone.
The exception, of course, is Gal ..
. ‘The Israel of God’ in Galatians
We turn now to the identity of Israel in Galatians, beginning with the obvious question: Why does Paul introduce Israel at this point in the letter? Most interpreters point to the puzzling qualifier, ‘of God’, as identifying ‘Israel’ with some aspect of the church. Nonetheless, why use the term, ‘Israel’? One influential answer is that ‘the Israel of God’ functions polemically in the Galatian context as the culmination of Paul’s systematic re-signification of terminology employed by the circumcising mission. Martyn, for example, argues that the Teachers used Israel to refer to themselves and their followers, but that Paul appends of God in order to redefine Israel as ‘those who will follow the standard of God’s new creation’. He bases his interpretation on the premise that τοῦ
predicament. It is intriguing to note that Isa . promises that God will put God’s words (ῥήματα) in the mouth of disobedient Israel, which may echo as a counterpoint to Rom .. If this is Paul’s intention, however, why does he not quote Isa .b, rather than conflating .-a with Isa .? For further discussion, see Wagner, Heralds, –. Contra Wright, Climax, . In part, Wright bases his interpretation of ‘all Israel’ as the church on a reading of Gal . as referring to the church. His argument that in Romans, Paul consistently transfers the blessings of Israel to ‘the Messiah and his people’, has to read .– as ironic (Climax, ). Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, , emphasis added. Even Burton, as we have seen, reads τοῦ θεοῦ as delineating a believing remnant within Israel (Galatians, ); see also Richardson, Israel, –; Schrenk, ‘Segenswunsch’, –. Martyn, Galatians, , emphasis original. For the proposal that the entire phrase originates with the circumcision mission, see Longenecker, Galatians, –; Betz, Galatians, .
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
θεοῦ here functions as a genitive of source or origin for a particular group of people, thus re-defining the identity of Israel in terms of those called into existence by the God of Jesus Christ, rather than in terms of law observance: ‘The God of Israel is first of all the God of Christ (., ), and it follows, for the author of Galatians, that the Israel of God is the people whom God is calling into existence in Christ (., )’. This is an appealing argument. Nonetheless, if this is what Paul wanted to say, one might expect him to write Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ Χϱιστοῦ, or perhaps Ἰσϱαὴλ κατ’ ἐπαγγελίαν. Then his meaning would be explicitly Christocentric. As it is, if Paul is using terminology from the Teachers to address his converts in his concluding postscript, he runs the risk of misunderstanding, potentially allowing the circumcision mission to have the last word. Why take such a risk? Does Paul, as his final word on the new identity of the Galatian Christians, borrow language from his opponents, even re-signified by the puzzling qualifier, ‘of God’? Or does the ringing cry—‘new creation!’—stand as the climax of the Galatians’ new identity in Christ? If so, then the subsequent invocation of mercy on Israel could express Paul’s heartfelt concern for his own people. Furthermore, Israel, no less than the church, has always been a people called into existence by God to be God’s own possession. Hence the genitive carries both authorial and possessive force, reminding us that throughout Scripture empirical Israel is identified as ‘God’s people’ and as the inheritance of the Lord. There are very many examples of this linguistic pattern in the LXX. And because Israel belongs to the God who is ‘the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow Martyn, Galatians, . Martyn’s argument is somewhat weakened by the observation that when Paul uses the genitive construction elsewhere in Galatians to denote the origin of a group of people, his tendency is to preface it with the preposition ἐκ (.–, ; .–). For example, those whose identity is derived from faith are οἱ ἐκ πίστεως, in contrast with those whose identity derives from the works of the law, ἐξ ἔϱγων νόμου (.). These contrasting sources of identity correspond with those whose origin is in the promise (ἐξ ἐπαγγελίας, .) and the free woman (ἐκ τῆς ἐλευθέϱας), over against those whose origin is in the slave woman (ἐκ τῆς παιδίσκης, .). Such a shift of focus is indeed abrupt, but not foreign to Paul’s letters. In the transition from Rom to Rom he exhibits a similar train of thought. In .– he confidently proclaims the destiny of those who now are Christ’s brothers and sisters (ἀδελφοῖς), and in .–, he celebrates the indissoluble bond between them and ‘the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’. The change in tone at .– is startling, as Paul thinks with anguish of the apparent exclusion of his other ‘brothers and sisters’ (τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου). A limited list of references includes Exod .; ., ; .; Lev .; Deut .; .; Macc .; Sir .; ., ; .; .; Isa .; .; .. Paul does not generally speak of Israel as God’s inheritance, although if Wagner is correct in arguing for κληϱονομίαν rather than λαόν in Rom ., that verse proves to be an exception (Heralds of the Good News, –). In light of Paul’s echo of Isa . in Gal ., of particular interest is Isa ., which speaks of God’s mercy on his people: ἠλέησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς ταπεινοὺς τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ παϱεκάλεσεν.
Israel and the Mercy of God
to anger and abounding in mercy and truth’ (Exod .), Paul’s benediction of mercy cannot help but name that relationship. To recognize this linguistic pattern in Gal . is not to deny that God is, above all, the God known in and through Jesus Christ, nor to claim that only empirical Israel is God’s possession. It is simply to say that empirical Israel also owes its existence to God and belongs to God. At issue is the extent of God’s sovereign rule: Do only some people belong to God, or does God lay claim to all humanity? Specifically, in Gal . does God’s possession include only those presently in Christ, or does it also include nonChrist-believing Jews? As noted above, the first option seems to operate with an a priori assumption that Paul cannot possibly pronounce a blessing or a prayer for mercy on anyone outside the church. Yet insofar as mercy is the fundamental attribute of the God who is sovereign over all creation, surely its extent cannot be limited to one portion of humanity. The plausibility of such a prayer for mercy is strengthened by the observation that, earlier in Galatians, Paul distinguishes between Jew and Gentile outside the Christian community. He describes a division of missionary activity into two arenas: his own mission to the uncircumcision, and that of Peter and the other Jerusalem church leaders to the circumcision (.–). Hence it is not precisely correct to say that in Galatians Paul has no mission to the Jews in view; he simply names Peter and the Jerusalem ‘pillars’ as its leaders. Indeed, according to Paul’s own preaching, such a mission is necessary precisely because Jews, as well as Gentiles, need rectification through Christ. This is not his focus, but it is assumed as an underlying conviction, as demonstrated in .–: ‘We ourselves, Jews by nature and not Gentile sinners, yet who know that a person is not rectified on the basis of works of the law but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be rectified by the faith of Christ and not by works of the law, for by works of the law will no flesh be rectified’. As Meyer notes, throughout Romans (.; .–; ., ; .–) Paul also maintains a distinction between Jew and Gentile (‘Romans’, ). His purpose in doing so may be polemical; he thereby signifies the approval of the Jerusalem church leaders for his own circumcision-free Gentile mission, and he implicitly criticizes them for abrogating their part of the agreement by meddling in his churches. We hear that Peter shows up in Antioch ‘living like a Gentile’ (., ), and apparently he baptized some Gentile converts in Corinth ( Cor .; .; .). As for Paul’s own mission, even in Galatians his references to his experiences of being persecuted for not preaching circumcision (.; .) and to his scars (.) hint that he preaches in synagogues as well as outside them. Paul has scars ‘from Gentile stones and from Jewish whips ( Cor. .–)’ (Martyn, Galatians, ). For the argument that Paul himself preached first in Jewish synagogues, see the careful analysis of Watson, Paul, –, who comments, ‘Indeed, it is questionable whether Gentiles were ever the exclusive objects of his preaching’ (, emphasis original). I do not, however, share Watson’s view that in Romans Paul anticipates the conversion of all Israel through his own missionary work (). See Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, .
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
It is important to recognize the implications of this conviction for Paul in relationship to his kinsfolk. Paul’s attack on the circumcising missionaries states boldly that observance of the Mosaic Law does not lead to the righteousness that is life (.; .). This theological axiom is evident throughout the letter, and perhaps most poignantly expressed in the typology of .–., where Paul contrasts the destinies of those born according to the flesh—that is, through circumcision—and those born according to the Spirit—that is, through the promise. Yes, the typology of .–. is not directed against Jews per se, but against those Jewish-Christian missionaries who seek to circumcise his Gentile converts. But because its logic explicitly excludes all who are not in Christ from the future promised to those born according to the Spirit, it also implicitly excludes non-Christian Jews from that destiny. The pathos of this exclusion should not be lost on us. Surely Paul’s personal history and ties with his Jewish kinsfolk, now painfully strained at best, play a role in his thinking. Is it possible, as he writes to his Gentile converts that ‘present Jerusalem is in slavery with her children’, that the city of his ancestors and its plight do not even cross his mind? Or that, as he emphasizes his converts’ inclusion in the blessing of Abraham, the exclusion of his own kin does not cause him pain? Or that, when he warns of the disinheritance of those Gentile Christians being born ‘according to the flesh’ through the circumcising mission, he does not also wonder about the apparent disinheritance of his own people? What of those Jews outside the church, Paul’s kinsfolk who have rejected his message, yet whom he consistently names elsewhere as Israel? Is it possible that Paul is concerned here with the destiny of this Israel?
See S. Eastman, ‘“Cast out the slave woman and her son”: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Galatians .’, JSNT () –. I read Gal . as a warning addressed to those who want to be under the law, who are the addressees of the allegory as a whole (.), not as a command to expel either Jews or Gentile converts who are being circumcised. For the view that here Paul announces the rejection of the Jews, see Luz, Geschichtsverständnis, . For the view that Paul commands his followers to expel the circumcising missionaries to Gentiles and their followers, see Martyn, Galatians, . As Barclay observes, ‘Paul is attacking Jewish-Christians for their Jewish presuppositions, and for wanting to make Gentile believers live like Jews’; this amounts to ‘an implicit attack on lawobservant Judaism for its cultural imperialism’ (Obeying the Truth, n. ). In Martyn’s analysis (Galatians, ), the exclusion of Jews is a subset of the exclusion of all religion as a merely human construct. This view differs from that of Bachmann, who argues for ‘das heilsgeschichtliche praei des Judentums’ in the wider context of Galatians (Antijudaismus, –). In Bachmann’s salvation-historical reading of Galatians, Judaism takes priority in the history of redemption, such that the salvation of the Jews is a prerequisite for the salvation of Gentiles. R. Hays, ‘The Letter to the Galatians’, NIB .–, here –. Implicit in these questions is the larger question of how Paul does theology. I am suggesting that pathos and personal experience are built into Paul’s mode of thinking. See further discussion below, Section .
Israel and the Mercy of God
We do not need to hear Paul putting forth a theory of the Jews, or in any way answering the question, ‘What about the Jews?’ We may, however, hear him asking the question, in the form of a prayer that God have mercy on his own people, God’s ‘Israel’. The commentator who best gets the pathos of this verse is Franz Mussner: Paulus läßt sich zwar im Gal über die Heilszukunft Israels nicht aus, wohl aber im Römerbrief; doch ruft der Apostel bereits in Gal . das ‚Erbarmen’ Gottes auf sein geliebtes ‚Israel Gottes’ herab, was sicher in den Augen des Apostels mehr als eine fromme Geste ist, wie Röm – bestätigt… Weil Paulus im Gal den Weg des Gesetzes, den das Judentum noch geht, als überholt erklärt, empfiehlt er Israel dem ‚Erbarmen’ Gottes, der auch Israel ‚sola gratia’ zu retten vermag. So deutet der Apostel in Gal . schon an, was er dann in Röm – explizieren wird. Paulus hat sein Volk nie vergessen.
‘Paul has not forgotten his people’. This is the key point. Paul, who has not forgotten his people, cannot imagine that God has rejected his people (Rom .–). Thus at the end of this letter in which he has declared the obsolescence of the way of the law that his fellow Jews still follow, Paul prays for God’s mercy on Israel, that Israel also will be saved only by grace. Even here, there is a Jewish horizon to Paul’s thought. If the interpretation proposed here is correct, it strengthens rather than undercuts the Christocentric identity that Paul so passionately proclaims to his Galatian congregations. The final word on that identity is the canon of the new creation, in which the old world distinctions between circumcised and uncircumcised have been nailed to the cross. Having modulated his opponents’ preaching of descent from Abraham into his own formulation of descent from God through Christ alone, Paul maintains his focus on that identity at the end of the letter. He does not introduce, even in modified form, a term from the circumcision mission to the Gentiles, thereby taking over the name of Israel for those who are in Christ. Such an identification of Israel with the church would claim a ‘It is true that Paul does not speak about the future salvation of Israel in Galatians, but rather in the Letter to the Romans. Yet already in Gal ., the apostle calls down the mercy of God on his beloved “Israel of God”. In the eyes of the apostle this is more than a pious gesture, as Rom – confirms… Because in Galatians Paul describes the way of the law—which the Jews still follow—as obsolete, he commits Israel to the “mercy” of God, which has the power to save Israel as well “by grace alone”. Thus the apostle already suggests in Gal . what he will explicate in Rom –. Paul has not forgotten his people’ (Mussner, Der Galaterbrief, , my translation). Mussner explicitly refutes the view of Richardson that Gal . refers to a ‘part’ of Israel, ‘an Israel (of God) within (all) Israel’ (Israel, ), by linking this verse with Rom .: ‘Das Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ von Gal . ist vielmehr identisch mit dem πᾶς Ἰσϱαήλ von Röm .’ ( n. ). See also Mussner, Tractate on the Jews: The Significance of Judaism for the Christian Faith (trans. L. Swidler; Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –. Gal .–. See Martyn, Galatians, –.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
theoretical continuity with God’s people, but at the cost of making Israel merely a cipher, without reference to Paul’s own people who historically claimed that name. To do so would remove any motivation for an ongoing mission directed specifically to the Jews, a mission that Paul names and endorses. But there is such a mission named and assumed in Galatians. And so, as he draws his polemical letter to a close, Paul pronounces peace on all those who remain faithful to his vision of the gospel, which makes a new creation in which the distinction between circumcision and uncircumcision no longer matters. But then, precisely because the undoing of that distinction thoroughly shuts the door on Jewish privilege and identity markers, thereby calling Israel’s destiny into question, he also prays for God’s saving mercy on unbelieving Israel: ‘And peace be upon as many as walk in line with this rule, and mercy even upon the Israel of God’.
. Mercy and Israel in Paul’s Self-Representation
In Cor ., Paul refers to himself as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. In Cor . he again attributes his own ministry to divine mercy: Διὰ τοῦτο, ἔχοντες τὴν διακονίαν ταύτην, καθὼς ἠλεήθημεν, οὐκ ἐγκακοῦμεν. Paul’s use of ‘mercy’ here is particularly striking, as it follows immediately upon an extended comparison between his own ministry and that of Moses, which in
Thus it is not correct to say with Daniel Boyarin that Galatians’ ‘theory of the Jews is nevertheless one that is inimical to Jewish difference’, because ‘The Jews as concrete signifier of the fulfilled spiritual signified, the body of Christ, the Church, had simply outlived their usefulness. They stood in the world now only as the sign of something else. They had been allegorized out of real historical existence’ (A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity [Berkeley: University of California Press, ] ). The Jews certainly do have a continued historical existence for Paul, and not as a sign of something else. Nonetheless, as Boyarin rightly insists, Paul’s Christocentric vision does potentially call into question the eschatological persistence of Jewish and Gentile difference. Richardson comments: ‘As long as a part of “Israel” is expected to come to repentance, it is unlikely that the name would be appropriated exclusively as a self-designation of the nascent group’ (Israel, ). Richardson rightly notes the importance of Paul’s expectation of the salvation of Israel; we differ in regards to the extent of that salvation, whether for ‘a part’ of Israel, or ‘all Israel’. For an opposing statement, compare B. Longenecker, ‘Defining the Faithful Character of the Covenant Community: Galatians .– and Beyond’, Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James D. G. Dunn; WUNT ; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) –. ‘Paul hopes to establish the character of Jesus’ faithful life as the identifying mark of all those who, despite their various ethnic origins and identities, make up what he dares to call, ὁ Ἰσϱαὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ (.)—those whose lives of Christ-like service fulfill the intentions of the law’ (). The problem with this interpretation is a failure to take into account the character and proper object of divine mercy.
Israel and the Mercy of God
turn explicates the theophany of Exod .– ( Cor .–). Paul, like Israel in Rom .–, owes his own calling in grace to an undeserved act of divine mercy, grounded in the character of God as revealed in God’s theophany to Moses. In this section, I suggest that the dynamic effect of this mercy is displayed in the retrospective narratives of Galatians and , where we may discern a pattern similar to that depicted in Romans –: an initial electing call and/or promise, followed by a period of misguided zeal for the law, which in turn is interrupted by the advent of Christ. According to that pattern, Paul himself was called by grace from his mother’s womb (Gal .), but then entered a period of zeal for his ancestral traditions, during which he violently opposed God’s own church (Gal .–). Nonetheless, the God who initially called him did not abandon him; rather, God invaded his life through the apocalypse of Jesus Christ (Gal .). His ‘life in Judaism’ was a temporary situation that interrupted but did not derail his calling by God. Similarly, Abraham received the gospel promise that ultimately was fulfilled in Abraham’s singular seed, Christ (Gal ., –). The intrusion of the Mosaic Law appeared to supplant that promise, but instead it served a temporary purpose of constraining humanity until the coming of faith (Gal .–). Both Paul’s ‘former way of life in Judaism’ (.), and the temporary constraint of the law in the history of the promise (.), illustrate the reality of which Paul speaks in Gal .. ‘But the scripture confined (συνέκλεισεν) all things under the power of sin, in order that the promise based on the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe’. Romans .– states the beginning and end of this pattern in brief: in the beginning, to the Jews belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, and the patriarchs, and ultimately, from them is the Christ. Later Paul will reiterate both the initial gifts and call of God, which are irrevocable (.), and the promise of the deliverer who will come from Zion (.). In the interim, however, the majority of Israel is ‘hardened’ by God (.), seeking ‘righteousness based on law’ (.), having a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (.), disobedient and contrary (.),
A comparison of Paul’s treatment of the Sinai theophany in Cor and Rom would be fascinating, but beyond the scope of this paper. For discussion of Cor .–. as a dissimile, in which Paul’s self-distinction from Moses creates undercurrents of likeness, see particularly R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University, ) –: ‘[B]y distancing his ministry from Moses, Paul paradoxically appropriates attributes similar to those that he most insistently rejects’ (). We note Paul’s implicit comparison of himself to Moses in Rom ., when, like Moses pleading for his people after the golden calf incident (Exod .), he is willing to be cut off from salvation for the sake of his people. For further discussion of this pattern of call, interruption, and fulfillment in Paul’s narrative in Galatians, see J. Barclay, ‘Paul’s Story: Theology as Testimony’, Narrative Dynamics in Paul: A Critical Assessment (ed. Bruce W. Longenecker; Louisville: Westminster John Knox) –; S. Eastman, Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue, –.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
and thus shut up, along with all humanity, into disobedience (.). The parallel between Galatians . and Rom . is often noted. What is less noted is that the narrative logic of Galatians and anticipates the logic of Romans –: the gifts and call of God are irrevocable (.), but Israel passes through a period of disobedience, ignorance, and unbelief, until the advent of the Deliverer, in order that God’s elective purposes may be seen as dependent solely upon divine mercy (Rom .). These narrative patterns suggest further that Paul sees his own experience as adumbrating the future salvation of Israel. Otfried Hofius has proposed that in Rom ., Paul envisions the salvation of ‘all Israel’ in terms analogous to his own salvation, by the direct revelation of God’s messiah apart from human preaching: ‘All Israel’ is thus saved in a different way than the Gentile Christians and the ‘remnant’, which already believes in Christ, namely, not through the evangelistic preaching of the church. Instead, ‘all Israel’ is saved directly by the Kyrios himself. But that means that it is not saved without Christ, not without the gospel, and not without faith in Christ. If, therefore, Israel gets the gospel through a direct encounter with Christ himself, confesses Christ as the Kyrios, and comes to faith in him unto salvation, then Israel comes to faith in the same way as Paul himself ! For Paul was seeking the δικαιοσύνη ἐκ νόμου through strict observance of the Torah and for that reason had responded with a vehement ‘no’ to the gospel when he met the resurrected and exalted Kyrios and was overcome by him. So it will be with Israel too.
Galatians .– fills out the parallels between Paul’s call and the ultimate salvation of Israel. Just as God ‘apocalypsed’ his son to Paul, in the midst of the apostle’s misguided zeal for the law, so Christ, the deliverer from Zion, will come on the scene in the midst of Israel’s misguided zeal, and ‘take away ungodliness’ from unbelieving and disobedient Israel. If there is indeed such a link between Paul’s picture of Israel’s future salvation, and God’s electing activity in his own life, then Paul’s own identity as an Israelite (Rom .) is not only a sign of the salvation of all Israel, but an adumbration of how that salvation will come to pass. No less than Gal .–, Rom . Tim . represents a later development of this theme in relationship to Paul’s own ministry. Hofius, ‘“All Israel” ’, . ‘Thus Rom . throws new light on the subject of Israel’s salvation above and beyond that provided by the notion of the “remnant” in this verse: “Has God rejected his people? By no means! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin”. Paul recognizes and understands himself to be a prototype of the Israel which is closed to the gospel and not abandoned by the electing God’ (Hofius, ‘“All Israel”’, ). Furthermore, Paul’s vision of God’s elective purpose as temporarily divisive for the sake of ultimate unity is not theoretical for him. It is his way of making sense of his own experience, in which his calling in Christ has separated him from his fellow Jews.
Israel and the Mercy of God
reflects Paul’s own experience. It is important to be precise about what Paul shares particularly with Israel, and what both Paul and Israel share with all humanity. On the one hand, in the final analysis, for both Jews and Gentiles, salvation comes through the bestowal of divine mercy on the ungodly, those imprisoned in disobedience (Rom .). In this sense there is no Sonderweg for Israel; rather, Israel shares in the ‘ungodliness’ of all Adamic humanity (.; .), ‘handed over’ to the destructive powers of sin (., , ), and Israel shares in the merciful redemption of all humanity only through Christ. On the other hand, the medium through which this redemption takes hold of both Paul and the majority of Israel differs from the humanly mediated preaching of the Gentile mission. Paul received his gospel by a direct apocalypse of Christ (Gal .–); and he prays for and anticipates a future direct revelation of Christ to all Israel (Rom .). In such a scenario, what happens to the mission to the circumcision that Paul mentioned in Galatians? No such mission is named in Romans; Paul speaks only of his own Gentile mission as indirectly a mission to his fellow Jews, through which he will make his fellow Jews ‘jealous’ and thereby save ‘some’ (.). Just as Paul himself is a gracious token of the salvation of all Israel, so this partial remnant is also a ‘down-payment’ on the full redemption that God will
In Romans –, ‘the apostle is not speculating but arguing in a reminiscence of his own experience and that of all Christians’ (E. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ] ). See also Alan Segal, ‘Paul’s Experience and Romans –’, Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Suppl () – (): ‘Paul was not writing an eternal, systematic theology. He was trying to understand the meaning of events in the way that any pious Jew of his day would have done: by consulting scripture and comparing it with his experience’. This view is most in line with Hofius, ‘“All Israel” ’, and ‘Das Evangelium und Israel: Erwägungen zu Römer –’, Paulusstudien (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], ) –. Hofius argues that at the parousia, Christ will give the word of faith directly to Israel, resulting in Israel’s confession of faith in Christ as the Kyrios (“All Israel”, ). F. Mussner also posits a direct, christological salvation of Israel at the Parousia, without a prior, requisite, mass conversion to faith, but he does not hesitate to call this a Sonderweg (Tractate, –). Neither Hofius nor Mussner is positing a ‘two covenant’ theory; each grounds the salvation of Israel in Christ alone, on the basis of grace that operates independently of human initiative, and each anticipates Israel’s eschatological acclamation of Christ. While Paul leaves open the timing and mode of the advent of the ‘deliverer from Zion’, the future tense of Rom . implies that Paul expects this direct revelation to the Jews to happen at the parousia. See the discussion in Jewett, Romans, ; Cranfield, Romans, .; Käsemann, Romans, . See further, Hofius, ‘Das Evangelium’, . Contra Käsemann (Romans, –), I do not think that the salvation of ‘some’ Jews, made jealous by Paul’s Gentile mission, is ‘the apocalyptic dream of a man who tried to do in a decade what two thousand years have not managed to do’ ()—that is, as accomplishing the salvation of all Israel through his own mission.
SUSAN GROVE EASTMAN
effect apart from any human mediation. In my view, then, in Romans Paul no longer hopes for Israel’s conversion through an on-going mission evangelizing Jews per se. Such a mission has already happened, in the global missionary activity through which the word of Christ (διὰ ῥήματος Χϱιστοῦ) has gone out to all people, both Gentile and Jew, to which the Jews have responded with ‘disobedience’ (.). Paul’s response to this disastrous state of affairs is not finally to blame his fellow Jews for their unbelief and redefine them out of the people of God, but rather to reaffirm God’s sovereignty over unbelief as well as belief (.–), and God’s ultimate purpose of redemption precisely at the null point of Israel’s history. Where does Paul find the resources for this hope in the face of disaster? Most obviously, he finds testimony in Israel’s scriptures, the very scriptures that were ‘written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope’ (Rom . RSV). But he also, as I have suggested here, works out his theology in conversation with his own experience, in which God interrupted his life ‘in Judaism’ with the apocalypse of Christ.
. Conclusion
I have argued that in both Galatians and Romans, ‘Israel’ denotes the Jewish people, Paul’s kinsfolk according to the flesh. In Gal ., Paul pronounces a benediction of peace on all who will walk in line with the rule of the new creation, in which there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, and a prayer for mercy on unbelieving Israel. When he pens the letter and the prayer, he does so in the knowledge that there is an on-going mission to the circumcision led by Peter and the other leaders of the Jerusalem church. It is quite likely, therefore, that his prayer includes hope for the success of that mission. When Paul writes Romans, the mission to the Jews has not met with the success for which he hoped. In Romans –, he again prays for his beloved kinsfolk (.), and works through the meaning of God’s mercy for Israel, as well as for the Gentiles. In so doing, he draws on Israel’s scripture, and he also draws on his own experience, which he earlier narrated in Galatians in parallel with the history of God’s promise to Abraham. That history demonstrates a pattern encompassed by God’s overarching purposes, beginning with a divine call, interrupted by See Meyer, ‘Romans’, : ‘The part is surety for the whole: the remnant, for the indivisible whole of Israel; the Jew Paul for his “flesh”; Israel, for God’s whole creation’. Hofius, ‘“All Israel”’, ; Mussner, Tractate, ; Segal, ‘Paul’s Experience’, . Contra Wright, Climax, –, and Watson, Paul, –. Among many scholarly discussions, see particularly Watson, Hermeneutics, , and Paul, : ‘As he reflects on his selected scriptural material from Genesis and Exodus, Hosea and Isaiah, Paul discovers a pattern of reversal within the unfolding divine electing action’.
Israel and the Mercy of God
human obduracy under the law, and ultimately fulfilled in Christ. In the midst of this providential pattern, Israel continues to exist in the present tense, distinct from the church, as the object of God’s providence, judgment, and mercy. As such, in Gal . Israel is a sign of God’s commitment to history, to flesh and blood people, beyond as well as within the confines of the church. Therefore, ‘the Jew remains until the end of times a witness to the concreteness of salvation history as well as to the impenetrability of the divine salvific leading’. And just as in Paul’s own life, that divine salvific leading will display God’s rectification of the ungodly, without prerequisites, in the very midst of human unbelief. Therefore in Romans –, the salvation of disobedient Israel becomes, along with the salvation of disobedient Gentiles, a sign of God’s mercy: ‘The God who acts soteriologically is always the Creator out of nothing. He always accomplishes the resurrection of the dead. He always works with what is by human judgment unserviceable material ( Cor .–; Cor .f.), namely, the ungodly’.
Mussner, Tractate, . Hofius, ‘“All Israel” ’, ; Meyer, ‘Romans’, –; Mussner, Tractate, . It is not the case that ‘all [Israel] needs to do is relinquish her frantic grip on the Torah’ (Wright, Climax, ). Such relinquishment is precisely what Israel is not able to do, nor did Paul himself fulfill such a precondition prior to God’s apocalypse of Christ in his own life. Käsemann, Romans, .
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000020
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar? Nils Dahl’s Criteria 50 Years Later* M AT T H EW V. N OVE N S O N Princeton Theological Seminary, 64 Mercer St, Princeton, NJ 08542, USA. email:
[email protected] It is half a century since Nils A. Dahl wrote his important essay ‘Die Messianität Jesu bei Paulus’, in which he determines that χριστός in Paul is effectively a proper name, not a title, on the basis of four negative philological observations: it is never a general term; it is never a predicate of the verb ‘to be’; it never takes a genitive modifier; and it characteristically lacks the definite article. The purpose of this article is to reconsider what each of these observations entails about the messiahship of Jesus. My thesis is that, while all four observations are significant for understanding Paul’s thought, they do not constitute proper criteria for assessing the role of the messiahship of Jesus therein. Keywords: criteria, grammar, Jesus, messiahship, Nils A. Dahl
It is now half a century— years, more precisely—since Nils Dahl wrote his famous essay ‘Die Messianität Jesu bei Paulus’, arguably the single most important thing written to date on the question of messiah christology in Paul. In that essay, Dahl raises the central question, ‘Is the name [χριστός] still employed by Paul as a title, or is it only a proper name?’ He concludes cautiously in favor of the latter on the basis of four negative ‘philological observations’ about χριστός in Pauline usage, namely, that it is never a general term, that it is never a
* I am very grateful to Beverly Gaventa, Martha Himmelfarb, and Ross Wagner, who generously read and commented on earlier drafts of this article. The argument is much improved for their feedback, and whatever deficiencies remain are my own responsibility. N. A. Dahl, ‘Die Messianität Jesu bei Paulus’, Studia Paulina in honorem Johannis de Zwaan septuagenarii (Haarlem: Bohn, ) –; Eng. trans. ‘The Messiahship of Jesus in Paul’, The Crucified Messiah (Minneapolis: Augsburg, ) –; repr. in Dahl, Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine (ed. D. H. Juel; Minneapolis: Fortress, ) – , here –. My citations follow the English translation and the pagination of the most recent volume. Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, .
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
predicate of the verb ‘to be’, that it never takes a genitive modifier, and that it characteristically lacks the definite article. Since Dahl’s essay, many subsequent interpreters have taken his observations as axiomatic in the discussion; and most have concluded that, insofar as χριστός in Paul is effectively not a title but a proper name, there is little or no messiahship of Jesus to speak of. The purpose of this article is to reconsider each of Dahl’s four observations to decide what exactly each one entails about the messiahship of Jesus. My thesis is that, while all four observations are significant for understanding Paul’s thought, they do not constitute proper criteria for assessing the role of the messiahship of Jesus therein. That question is independent of these idiosyncrasies of Pauline grammar.
. Appellative
Dahl’s first philological observation is that for Paul ‘Christos is never a general term but always a designation for the one Christ, Jesus’. By ‘general term’, Dahl means what is traditionally called an appellative, that is, a noun that refers to a class, not to an individual only. Dahl cites by way of contrast Acts ., where Paul reasons from the scriptures with the Thessalonian Jews that τὸν χριστὸν ἔδει παθεῖν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν, ‘it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to be raised from the dead’, and in addition that οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ὃν ἐγὼ καταγγέλλω ὑμῖν, ‘this Jesus whom I announce Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, –. See, e.g., M. Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, Between Jesus and Paul: Studies in the Earliest History of Christianity (London: SCM, ) –, here : ‘Dahl’s four basic philological observations speak for themselves’; also L. Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, ) –; N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark, ) –; J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –; S. A. Cummins, ‘Divine Life and Corporate Christology: God, Messiah Jesus, and the Covenant Community in Paul’, The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments (ed. C. A. Evans and S. F. Porter; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) ; M. Zetterholm, ‘Paul and the Missing Messiah’, The Messiah in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. M. Zetterholm; Minneapolis: Fortress, ) –, n. . Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, . Likewise Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, : ‘In Paul Χριστός is… always simply the designation for one particular person, i.e. Jesus’. For a classic definition, see A. I. Silvestre de Sacy, Principles of General Grammar (New York: Leavitt, ) –: ‘Nouns may be divided into several classes. Some designate beings by the idea of their individual nature, that is to say, in such a manner that this designation is applicable only to a single thing, to a single individual [citing as examples “Paris,” “Rome,” “Alexander,” and “Vespasian”]… These nouns are called proper nouns. Other nouns designate beings by the idea of a nature common to all the individuals of a species [citing as examples “man”, “horse”, and “cat”]… These nouns, applicable to all the individuals of a species, are called appellative nouns’.
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
to you is the Christ’. Here χριστός is a genuine appellative, a noun referring not to an individual but to a class. Paul argues from scripture that the Christ, whoever he may be, would have to suffer and be raised; then, in addition, that Jesus of Nazareth is a member (the only member, in this case) of the class ‘Christ’. For Dahl, use of χριστός as an appellative is taken to be evidence of a messianic sense. If, on the other hand, χριστός refers only to Jesus, not to a class of which he may or may not be a member, then the word is taken to be nonconnotative. It is actually not the case, however, that all titular forms are appellatives. In other words, a noun can refer to a single individual only and nevertheless carry the force of a title. Up to and through his lifetime, ‘Augustus’ applied to no one but Octavian, but it is no less connotative a word for this having been the case. Likewise, ‘Bar Kokhba’ (‘son of the star’) only ever applied to Simeon ben Kosiba, but its honorific force is undisputed. So in the case of χριστός in Paul, its not being an appellative does not entail that it has somehow lost its conventional sense. Moreover, there are exigencies of Paul’s own context that are pertinent to his use of χριστός, quite apart from whether the word has a messianic sense for him. The Gospels reflect a milieu in which there is knowledge of a category ‘messiah’ that Jesus may or may not fit. In the Acts of the Apostles, likewise, it is an open question in the synagogue scenes whether or not Jesus the individual fits the category ‘messiah’. Not so Paul’s letters. Both the apostle and his churches are already convinced of the messiahship of Jesus; there are other things at issue in the letters. If any of them previously thought of ‘Christ’ as a class that may or may not have particular members, they do so no longer. That the messiahship of Jesus is agreed upon, however, does not mean that it is unimportant. On the contrary, as James Dunn has rightly pointed out, ‘What is characteristic and central to someone’s theology need not be distinctive; what is fundamental can All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Dahl also cites Acts ., part of Paul’s defense of himself before Festus and Agrippa, where he claims to have preached nothing other than what Moses and the prophets had said, namely: εἰ παθητὸς ὁ χριστός, εἰ πρῶτος ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν φῶς μέλλει καταγγέλλειν τῷ τε λαῷ καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, ‘the Christ would suffer, be the first of the resurrection of the dead, and proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles’. But whether χριστός is actually an appellative here is not entirely clear. This is not simply a factor of the majority-Gentile makeup of the Pauline churches. Even entirely Jewish-Christian churches could conceivably work on the basis of the same shared assumption. In other words, this fact ought not be taken, by itself, as evidence of hellenization. Interpreters, however, too often find Paul ‘downplaying’ or ‘undermining’ things that in fact he is simply not concerned to write about in a given context. For examples of this tendency in the literature, see A. Chester, ‘Messiahs, Mediators and Pauline Christology’, Messiah and Exaltation (WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –; Zetterholm, ‘Paul and the Missing Messiah’.
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
also be shared, and as shared, little referred to; what is axiomatic is often taken for granted’. This is not to say that Paul never knew or used χριστός as a proper appellative. It is possible, as Alan Segal has suggested, that before his revelation Paul had highly developed ideas about the messiah. If so, then he will have used χριστός as an appellative, before and apart from his association of the term with Jesus. Whether Paul did in fact have a developed messianism before his revelation cannot, in my view, be answered with any confidence from the sources available to us. In any case, as we have seen, even if Paul only ever used the word of Jesus, never as an appellative, this would not by any means be evidence that the word was empty of connotation for him.
. Predicate of the Verb ‘To Be’
Dahl’s second philological observation is that ‘Christos is never used as a predicate; Paul never says “Jesus is the Christ”, or the like’. Had Paul said such a thing, it would have been evidence of messiah christology, but he did not, so such evidence is proportionately lacking. George MacRae, following Dahl, concludes, ‘The important point is that he [Paul] does not discuss the issue [messiahship] in his writings, making no effort to prove or demonstrate the messianic identity of Jesus’. It is important to note the line of reasoning followed here: Paul does not say, ‘Jesus is the messiah’; therefore Paul is uninterested in the messiahship of Jesus. J. D. G. Dunn, ‘How Controversial Was Paul’s Christology?’, The Christ and the Spirit: Collected Essays of James D. G. Dunn ( vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) .–, here . A. F. Segal, ‘Paul’s Jewish Presuppositions’, The Cambridge Companion to St. Paul (ed. J. D. G. Dunn; Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) –, here : ‘Did Paul become messianic because he became a Christian or was messianism a part of his Judaism before his conversion? It seems to me quite improbable that the Pharisees before the Amoraim were devoid of messianism and that Paul found it only when he became a Christian. Paul, then, is again the earliest Pharisaic evidence of the existence of messianic beliefs among the Pharisees, even if that belief was perhaps greatly augmented and quickened by his later Christian faith’. Which is not to say that nothing can be known about his pre-Christian views. But when Paul describes that period, he emphasizes his zeal for the Torah (e.g., Gal .–: ‘zealous for my ancestral traditions’; Phil .–: ‘blameless with respect to the righteousness of the Torah’); he never mentions anything about his views of the messiah. Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, . Likewise Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, : ‘Nowhere is Χριστός a predicate. In contrast to the account of his preaching in Acts, in the letters Paul no longer has to affirm “Jesus is the Messiah”’. See more recently Zetterholm, ‘Paul and the Missing Messiah’, : ‘Jesus is never explicitly called “the Messiah,” that is, Paul never uses “Christ” as a predication of Jesus in formulations, such as “Jesus is the Christ”’. G. MacRae, S.J., ‘Messiah and Gospel’, Judaisms and Their Messiahs at the Turn of the Christian Era (ed. J. Neusner et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) –, here .
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
There are several points to be made on this matter. First of all, it is actually not the case that χριστός is never a predicate in Paul. It is of course frequently a predicate in the traditional grammatical sense when it occurs in the accusative case as a direct object. But Dahl means ‘predicate’ in the sense used in formal logic and linguistic semantics, that is, as a property that can be true of something; or, in grammatical terms, as a predicate of the verb ‘to be’. It is this particular usage of χριστός that is found to be absent from Paul. Even this usage is not entirely absent, however. In the difficult account of the wilderness wandering in Corinthians , Paul says that the ancestors all drank from the same spiritual rock, and that ἡ πέτρα δὲ ἦν ὁ Χριστός, ‘the rock was Christ’ ( Cor .). Similarly, in his interpretation of the promise to Abraham in Galatians , Paul quotes the phrase καὶ τῷ σπέρματί σου, ‘and to your seed’, drawing attention to the singular form σπέρματι, ‘seed’, which, he explains, ἐστιν Χριστός, ‘is Christ’ (Gal .). In fact, then, contrary to the received wisdom, Paul actually does predicate messiahship. He does so, however, not of Jesus, but rather of these ciphers from the ancient stories of the patriarchs and the exodus. By no means does it follow that Paul does not think Jesus is the messiah, just that Paul has other aims than the ones his interpreters set for him. The exception presented by Cor . and Gal . to the often-cited rule that χριστός in Paul is never a predicate shows that what interpreters have in mind are clauses of the precise form: subject Ἰησοῦς, verb εἰμι, predicate χριστός. That is, there is an assumption widely held among interpreters that the sentence ‘Jesus is the Christ’ is precisely the form of sentence that would count as evidence of a messiah christology. E.g., at Rom .; Cor .; .; .; Cor .; .; Gal .; Phil ., ; ., . On predicate logic, see J. Allwood et al., Logic in Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) –. Dahl grants Cor . as one of a few ‘places…where the careful reader would detect messianic connotations’ (‘Messiahship of Jesus’, ). On this verse, see further E. E. Ellis, ‘Χριστός in Corinthians ., ’, From Jesus to John: Essays on Jesus and the New Testament Christology in Honour of Marinus de Jonge (ed. M. C. de Boer; JSNTSup ; Sheffield: JSOT, ) –. On which see R. B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University, ) : ‘This exegesis is less perverse than it might appear, depending as it surely does on the linkage of the catchword seed to God’s promise to David in Sam. :–… This [latter] passage treats the singular noun seed not as a collective term, but as a reference to a specific royal successor to David; thus, it bears evidence potential for messianic interpretation’. Hays may be right that Paul’s scriptural hermeneutic is more often ecclesiocentric than christocentric (see Hays, Echoes of Scripture, et passim), but as Hays himself has subsequently shown, in not a few passages Paul gives expressly christocentric interpretations of certain scriptural oracles (see Hays, ‘Christ Prays the Psalms: Israel’s Psalter as Matrix of Early Christology’, The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ] –; also D. H. Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, ]).
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
Sentences of that form are indeed a commonplace in early Christian literature of a variety of genres. Central to the story line of the Synoptic Gospels is a controversy over Jesus’ identity, in response to which Peter’s confession, σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός, ‘You are the Christ’, is commended by the evangelists (Mark .; Matt .; Luke .). John’s Gospel differs drastically from the others in some respects, but it shares with them the axiom that Jesus is the Christ. The purpose of the Gospel, according to the epilogue at the end of ch. , is ἵνα πιστεύητε ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God’ (John .). Related to this theme in the Gospel is the controversy in the First Epistle of John over the claim Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός, ‘Jesus is the Christ’: the person who believes it is a child of God ( John .), but the person who denies it is a liar and an antichrist ( John .). The same statement appears repeatedly in the Acts of the Apostles as the content of the missionary message. So, for example, in Acts the newly baptized Saul confounds the Damascene Jews by showing them that οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστός, ‘This man [Jesus] is the Christ’ (Acts .). More examples could be cited, but the point is clear enough: predication of messiahship of Jesus is one well-attested form of early Christian reflection on messiahship.
The evidence is capably surveyed by MacRae, ‘Messiah and Gospel’. Cf. the refrain τίς ἐστιν οὖτος, ‘Who is this?’ (Mark .; Matt .; Luke .; .; .); also Jesus’ prophecy about the latter-day deceivers who will say εἰμι ὁ χριστός, ‘I am the Christ’ (Matt .; cf. Mark .; Matt .: ἰδοὺ ὧδε ὁ χριστός); and the trial narratives, in which Peter’s confession reappears word-for-word as a question on the lips of the high priest: σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός, ‘Are you the Christ?’ (Mark .; Matt .; on which see N. A. Dahl, ‘The Crucified Messiah’, Jesus the Christ, –). Cf. the Samaritan woman’s question: οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστός; ‘Is this man the Christ?’ (John .). Likewise, some among the crowds say, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστός, ‘This man is the Christ’ (John .). The criterion for expulsion from the synagogue is the confession: ἐάν τις αὐτὸν ὁμολογήσῃ χριστόν, ἀποσυνάγωγος γένηται, ‘If anyone should confess him as Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue’ (John .). It is an important Johannine corollary, too, that John the Baptizer is not the Christ (John .; .; cf. .). Cf. the parallel phrases Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘Jesus is the son of God’ ( John .; .); Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθότα, ‘Jesus Christ having come in flesh’ ( John .); Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί, ‘Jesus Christ coming in flesh’ ( John ). This theme in John is perhaps more related to the messiahship of Jesus than it is to putative protoGnosticism in the Johannine community (so rightly W. Horbury, Messianism among Jews and Christians [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, ] , pace R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple [New York: Paulist, ]). Albeit always in contexts of discussion with Jews. Again in Acts , Saul, now called Paul, declares to the ‘synagogue of the Jews’ at Thessalonica, οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ὃν ἐγὼ καταγγέλλω ὑμῖν, ‘This Jesus whom I announce to you is the Christ’ (Acts .). Later still, Paul in Corinth, and Apollos in Ephesus, reason with the Jews from the scriptures εἶναι τὸν χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, ‘that Jesus is the Christ’ (Acts ., ).
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
In the Pauline letters, however, the nearest analogy is the predication κύριος Ἰησοῦς, ‘Jesus is lord’. In fact, as a number of interpreters have pointed out, if there was a characteristic confession in the Pauline churches, it was probably this and not χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, ‘Jesus is the Christ’. Paul uses the former phrase several times in expressly confessional contexts. For example, he writes, ἐὰν ὁμολογήσῃς ἐν τῷ στόματί σου κύριον Ἰησοῦν…σωθήσῃ, ‘If you confess with your mouth Jesus as lord … you will be saved’ (Rom .). This and other similar references suggest that the confession κύριος Ἰησοῦς was indeed a hallmark of the Pauline churches, even if there is no evidence that Paul was advocating this confession, κύριος Ἰησοῦς, over against the other, χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς. What reason is there, though, for thinking that statements of the form ‘Jesus is the Christ’ are the only, or even the best, evidence of a concern for messiahship on the part of an ancient author? In other words, why should that particular syntactical construction, rather than any other, be regarded as the criterion par excellence for messiah christology? As far as I have been able to tell, this assumption goes almost entirely unexamined in the secondary literature. It may be that it derives from a deep-seated and unconscious inheritance from the centurieslong adversus Iudaeos tradition, in which the dominant question was: Is Jesus the messiah or not? Pauline interpreters, and historians of early Judaism and See Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, : ‘κύριος Ἰησοῦς and not Ἰησοῦς ὁ χριστός was Paul’s basic confession’. A point emphasized by H. Conzelmann (‘Was glaubte die frühe Christenheit?’ SThU [] – at ) and W. Kramer (Christ, Lord, Son of God [London: SCM, ] –), who draws the form-critical conclusion that the acclamation κύριος Ἰησοῦς was the characteristic ‘homologia’ of the Pauline churches, made possible by their origin on Gentile rather than Jewish ‘soil’. Also Cor .: οὐδεὶς ἐν πνεύματι θεοῦ λαλῶν λέγει· Ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦς, καὶ οὐδεὶς δύναται εἰπεῖν· Κύριος Ἰησοῦς, εἰ μὴ ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, ‘No one speaking in the spirit of God says, “Jesus be anathema,” and no one can say “Jesus is lord” except in the holy spirit’; and Phil ., where God exalts the risen Jesus so that πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσηται ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς εἰς δόξαν θεοῦ πατρός, ‘every tongue might confess that Jesus Christ is lord, to the glory of God the father’. As Zetterholm, ‘Paul and the Missing Messiah’, , suggests: ‘To present Jesus as the Messiah of Israel … would have contributed to the continuation of the ethnic confusion that Paul is trying to correct’. The exception is the work of some early twentieth-century Jewish historians who criticize their Christian counterparts for their interest in only those Jewish messiah texts and traditions that closely mirror well-known Christian ones (see, e.g., J. Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel [New York: Macmillan, ] , in response to J. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah [London: Longmans & Green, ]). For an early and paradigmatic example, see Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho. In the modern period, cf. the famous comment of G. Scholem, ‘Toward an Understanding of the Messianic Idea in Judaism’, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, and Other Essays on Jewish
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
Christianity generally, have an intuition that that really is the issue, that any early Christian author who talked about messiahship would have had to talk about it in just this way. This is only an intuition, however, not a warranted belief. In fact, both Jewish and Christian texts that comment on messiah figures do so in a vast variety of ways, only one of which is predication of messiahship of particular persons. Statements of the form ‘[name] is the Christ’ account for just a small part of ancient literature about messiah figures. That Paul never writes, ‘Jesus is the Christ’, does not mean that he is not interested in messiahship. It only means that his interests are different from those represented in the texts that do make such statements.
. Genitive Modifiers
Dahl’s third philological observation is that ‘a genitive is never added; Paul does not say “the Christ of God”’. The second clause of this statement is really to the point. Dahl is not looking for just any genitive modifier; he is looking for the biblical expression χριστὸς κυρίου, ‘the Lord’s Christ’, or χριστὸς θεοῦ, ‘the Christ of God’. Indeed, if one looks in Paul for this particular form, the results are admittedly meager. This observation should not be overinterpreted, however. For one thing, there is actually considerable diversity in the use of χριστός in the Greek Jewish scriptures themselves. The idiom χριστὸς κυρίου, or χριστός with an equivalent genitive personal pronoun, is frequent in – Samuel (OG – Kingdoms) and the Psalter, and also occurs at a few places in the prophets and Chronicles. But χριστός is also common and always adjectival in Leviticus; and it occurs twice in the absolute in Daniel. In other words, it is
Spirituality (New York: Schocken, ) : ‘Any discussion of the problems relating to Messianism is a delicate matter, for it is here that the essential conflict between Judaism and Christianity has developed and continues to exist’. Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, . Cf. Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, , citing Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’: ‘In contrast to preChristian Old Testament and Jewish tradition it is never governed by a genitive (θεοῦ, κυρίου, etc.) or a possessive pronoun’. See χριστὸς κυρίου ( Sam .; . [bis], ; ., , , ; Sam ., ; . LXX; .; Lam .; Chron . LXX), χριστὸς θεοῦ ( Sam .), χριστὸς αὐτοῦ ( Sam .; ., ; Amos : LXX; Ps .; . [. LXX]; . [. LXX]; . [. LXX]), χριστὸς μου ( Sam .; Ps . [. LXX]; Isa .), χριστὸς σου (Pss . [. LXX]; ., [., LXX]; . [. LXX]; Chron .; Hab .). See ὁ ἱερεὺς ὁ χριστὸς, ‘anointed priest’ (Lev ., ; .; cf. Macc .); τὸ ἔλαιον τὸ χριστὸν, ‘anointing oil’ (Lev ., ). See χριστός, ‘anointed one’ (Dan ., ).
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
not the case that the biblical ‘Christ’ is always ‘the Christ of God’, grammatically speaking. In light of this diversity of biblical usage, it is not surprising that many early Jewish texts that are widely and rightly taken to refer to messiah figures do not use the formula משיח יהוהor χριστὸς κυρίου. There is, then, no reason for thinking that Paul’s failure to use this formula renders his use of χριστός nonmessianic. The formulaic ‘Christ of God’, while it is not a fixed feature of Jewish messiah texts generally, does happen to be characteristic of Luke–Acts, and this may explain why interpreters expect to find it in Paul’s letters and judge Paul to be non-messianic for not using it. It is well established that Luke’s use of χριστός is closely modeled on the ‘Lord’s anointed’ of – Samuel and the Psalter. For example, in a uniquely Lukan scene in the infancy narrative, Simeon the prophet is told that he will not see death before he sees τὸν χριστὸν κυρίου, ‘the Lord’s Christ’ (Luke .). In the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter and John are released from their arrest, the believers pray the words of Ps .–: the rulers gather together κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ, ‘against the Lord and against his Christ’ (Acts .). There is no question that this usage is evidence of a messiah christology, but it is only one of the possible kinds of such evidence. In fact, ‘Christ of God’ language turns out to be something of a Lukan idiosyncrasy, albeit one with an estimable biblical pedigree; it is not a fixed feature of ancient Jewish messiah language generally. That Paul for the most part does not use it only means that his usage is nonLukan in this respect, not that it is non-messianic. Second, the absence of genitive qualifiers for χριστός in Paul should not be overstated. The fact that he does not use the phrase χριστὸς κυρίου is to be expected, since for Paul the title κύριος applies, for the most part, not to God
The משיח יהוהis nowhere to be found at Qumran, to cite one significant example. Per scholarly convention, I use ‘Luke’ to refer to the author of Luke–Acts, without thereby making any claim about the identity of that author. See M. L. Strauss, The Davidic Messiah in Luke–Acts: The Promise and Its Fulfillment in Lukan Christology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, ). Similarly, in Luke Peter confesses Jesus to be τὸν χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘the Christ of God’ (Luke .); cf. the parallels at Mark . and Matt ., which lack the ‘Christ of God’ formula. Also, in Luke the rulers mock Jesus on the cross saying, ‘Let him save himself, if he is ὁ χριστὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ὁ ἐκλεκτός, the Christ of God, the chosen one’ (Luke .); cf. the parallels at Mark . and Matt ., which again lack the ‘Christ of God’ formula. The text of the citation in Acts .– is identical to the text of Ps .– LXX (A. Rahlfs, Psalmi cum Odis [Septuaginta ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ]): ἵνα τί ἐφρύαξαν ἔθνη/ καὶ λαοὶ ἐμελέτησαν κενά/ παρέστησαν οἱ βασιλεῖς τῆς γῆς/ καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ/ κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ. Cf. also Peter’s first speech in Jerusalem, which uses χριστός with the genitive personal pronoun for God: τὸν χριστὸν αὐτοῦ, ‘his Christ’ (Acts .).
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
but to Jesus. As for χριστὸς θεοῦ, while its general absence from Pauline usage is noteworthy, there is an interesting exception at Cor .—χριστὸς δὲ θεοῦ, ‘Christ is God’s’—albeit a predicate, not attributive, relation. Here, against certain Corinthian believers whom he censures for boasting in human beings (.), Paul counters, ‘All things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s’ (.–). In this passage we find not only the elusive χριστὸς θεοῦ in Paul, but also the parallel phrase ὑμεῖς χριστοῦ, evidence that the notion of ‘the people of the messiah’ is not entirely absent from Paul. Also relevant here is the appositional phrase at Cor .: Χριστὸν θεοῦ δύναμιν καὶ θεοῦ σοφίαν, ‘Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God’, where again Christ is ‘of God’, but this time with intervening abstract nouns of apposition. It is true that, these exceptions aside, Paul does not relate Christ and God with this particular genitive formula, but it is necessary to note the other syntactical ways in which he does relate them. Especially, Paul uses the converse genitive construction ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ‘the God and father of our lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom .; Cor .; cf. Eph .; Pet .), where God and Christ are in genitive-construct relation, but the other way round from the pattern of – Samuel and the Psalter. It is not χριστὸς θεοῦ but θεὸς See W. Foerster, ‘κύριος’, TDNT .–; D. B. Capes, Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology (WUNT /; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ). In more than a few cases, the referent of the title in context is stubbornly ambiguous, which may be intentional on Paul’s part. A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York: Seabury, ); and N. T. Wright, ‘The Messiah and the People of God: A Study in Pauline Theology with Particular Reference to the Argument of the Epistle to the Romans’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, ), especially, make a great deal of this latter notion; but clear, substantial evidence for it is slim. Understandably, discussion of this passage has tended to focus on the appositives δύναμιν and σοφίαν rather than on the genitive θεοῦ, especially as they pertain to questions of ‘wisdom christology’. Among the secondary literature, see the early treatment of W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (London: SPCK, ) –, under the heading ‘the old and the new Torah: Christ the wisdom of God’. Genitive constructions aside, also relevant are those places in which God and Christ appear as a pair, especially in the grace wish χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ θεοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν καὶ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ‘grace and peace to you from God our father and the lord Jesus Christ’ (Rom .; Cor .; Cor .; Gal .; Phil .; Phlm ; cf. Eph .; Thess .). A similar pairing of Christ and God is evident at Cor ., where Paul confesses εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατὴρ…καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, ‘one God the father…and one lord Jesus Christ’; likewise Gal ., where Paul’s apostleship comes through Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ θεοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν, ‘Jesus Christ and God the father who raised him from the dead’; and also Thess ., the address to τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ Θεσσαλονικέων ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ καὶ κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ, ‘the church of the Thessalonians that is in God the father and the lord Jesus Christ’. In all these cases, Christ is Christ in near relation to God, even if he is not ‘the Christ of God’. Also relevant is ‘son of God’ language in Paul, which is too complicated an issue to be adequately treated here (but see Wright, Climax, –; idem, Paul: In Fresh Perspective [Minneapolis: Fortress, ] ).
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
χριστοῦ, not ‘the Christ of God’ but ‘the God of Christ’. So also, in the difficult passage about the covering of Corinthian female heads, Paul writes, κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός, ‘God is the head of Christ’ ( Cor .), the grammatical con-
verse of ‘Christ the power of God and wisdom of God’ in Cor .. Otherwise, Paul actually uses θεός with a genitive modifier very rarely. When he does so, it is customarily in a benediction formula (e.g., ‘the God of peace be with you’) where the genitive is an abstract noun for a virtue that characterizes God. In sum, the fact that χριστός in Paul does not take the formulaic genitive modifiers κυρίου and θεοῦ counts neither for nor against its bearing its conventional sense. Use of the idiom χριστὸς κυρίου, of which Luke–Acts is a standout example, is evidence of a particular sort of messianism, namely one that borrows heavily from the royal ideology of Samuel–Kings and the edited Greek Psalter. But as twentieth-century research into Jewish messiah texts has made abundantly clear, there is more than one way to use biblical messiah language. To rule against Paul’s χριστός having a definite sense because it is not followed by κυρίου or θεοῦ is to confuse Pauline usage with its Lukan counterpart. . The Definite Article
Dahl’s fourth philological observation is that ‘the form Ie ̄sous ho Christos is not to be found in the earliest text of the epistles’. That is, the anarthrous name ‘Jesus’ followed by articular title ‘the Christ’ is not a Pauline expression. When Paul uses the two words together, both are always anarthrous, suggesting for Dahl that both are meant as names. Along the same lines, James Dunn comments, ‘Of some occurrences of “Christ” only (%) speak of “the Christ” ’. Dunn It is worth noting that, unlike some of his early twenty-first-century interpreters, ‘nowhere does Paul (in Romans or in any other letter) identify God as the “God of Israel”’ (B. R. Gaventa, ‘On the Calling-Into-Being of Israel: Romans :–’, Between Gospel and Election: Explorations in the Interpretation of Romans – [ed. Florian Wilk and J. Ross Wagner with the assistance of Frank Schleritt; WUNT; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming ()] – ). This is not to say that the phrase is not apt, just that it is not Paul’s way of naming God (but cf. Ἰσραὴλ τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘the Israel of God’, at Gal .). On κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός in Cor ., see D. B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University, ) , who rightly notes that, a mountain of secondary literature notwithstanding, the force of the argument rests not on the precise sense of κεφαλή but rather on the analogies Christ:man :: man:woman :: God:Christ. So especially ὁ θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης, ‘the God of peace’ (Rom .; .; Phil .; Thess .); also ὁ θεὸς τῆς ὑπομονῆς καὶ τῆς παρακλήσεως, ‘the God of endurance and of encouragement’ (Rom .); ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος, ‘the God of hope’ (Rom .); and ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἀγάπης καὶ εἰρήνης, ‘the God of love and peace’ ( Cor .). See Neusner et al., Judaisms and Their Messiahs; J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, ). Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, ; citing the Textus Receptus of Cor . as the sole later instance of the form, on which see below.
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
concludes that ‘the title…has been elided into a proper name, usually with hardly an echo of the titular significance’. The absence of the definite article implies the absence of titular significance for the word. On the other hand, those interpreters who argue in favor of a titular sense of χριστός in Paul often appeal to the instances where the apostle does use the definite article. Some such interpreters grant that the anarthrous forms have no titular force but insist that the relatively fewer articular forms do have such force. So Hans Conzelmann: ‘Jesus trägt weiter den Messiastitel. “Christus” hat da titularen Sinn, wo der bestimmte Artikel steht’. Other interpreters extrapolate from the articular forms to argue that the anarthrous forms, too, retain their titular force. The appeal to the definite article in this matter is actually a commonplace in research into ancient texts about messiah figures generally. As for ancient Greek, it is true that, as a rule, it does not employ the definite article with personal names. Smyth summarizes, ‘Names of persons and places are individual and therefore omit the article unless previously mentioned or specially marked as well known’. While Greek names are generally anarthrous, though, not all anarthrous nouns are names. In particular, it is well known that some appellatives, especially titles, are characteristically anarthrous, too. Smyth comments, Dunn, ‘How Controversial?’ –. My count differs slightly from Dunn’s: Of the instances of χριστός in the undisputed Pauline letters, I count (or %) that lack the definite article, and (or %) that have it. Conzelmann, ‘Was glaubte die frühe Christenheit?’ . So Wright, Climax, esp. . But more recently he has cautioned, ‘The use of the definite article, in relation to Christos, though important, doesn’t get us very far, because Greek uses the article in subtly different ways to English. We must beware of easy but false assumptions at this point’ (Wright, Paul: In Fresh Perspective, ). For example, J. H. Charlesworth comments, ‘We are usually uncertain that a noun is a title, since the original languages of the documents—notably Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Greek—did not clarify when a term should be capitalized in English and in our conceptions, and no morphological or grammatical clue helps us to separate non-titular from titular usages. Some of the pseudepigrapha are preserved solely or primarily in Syriac, which has no clear means to denote the definite article’ (‘The Concept of the Messiah in the Pseudepigrapha’, ANRW ..:–, here ). In modern English usage, capitalization and the definite article are widely recognized signals that a noun is being used as a title. Capitalization, though, was not for the most part a feature of any of the ancient languages in question, and the definite article in this period is notoriously difficult to handle across languages. Greek has a completely inflected article, Hebrew an uninflected one. Aramaic lacks the definite article but has an emphatic or determined state that exercises the same function. Latin and Syriac lack the article altogether, but exigencies of translation sometimes resulted in the appropriation of other features of those languages to compensate (on the Greek definite article in Syriac translation, see T. Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, ] §). Smyth §. If it be objected that χριστός is exceptional because cultic, it is also the case that ‘names of deities omit the article, except when emphatic … or when definite cults are referred to’ (Smyth §).
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
‘Several appellatives, treated like proper names, may omit the article’. The same pattern holds in early Christian Greek, as well. Paul’s own practice corresponds to this general flexibility in the language. He customarily uses anarthrous forms of personal names (as, for example, in all the greetings in Romans ), but not always so; and he frequently uses the title χριστός without the article in a manner analogous to a personal name. In all this he is well within standard convention for the use of the definite article. Dahl emphasizes that the exact form Ἰησοῦς ὁ χριστός, ‘Jesus the Christ’ (that is, anarthrous Ἰησοῦς with articular χριστός), does not occur anywhere in the earliest text of the Pauline letters. Not much should be made of this fact, however. In fact, that form does not occur anywhere at all in the Greek NT, according to the text of NA. Presumably, Dahl has in mind several similar forms that do occur, like Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν, ‘Jesus our lord’ ( Cor .; Pet .), and Ἰησοῦν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘Jesus the son of God’ (Heb .). Of these similar forms, though, only one is Pauline, and that only in a single instance (Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν in Cor .). Paul does not characteristically write Ἰησοῦς ὁ κύριος, and yet the signification of κύριος in Paul is not in question. And rightly so, because interpreters recognize that use of the form ‘[anarthrous name] [articular appellative]’ is not otherwise a proper criterion for knowing whether the second term signifies something or not.
Smyth §; citing as examples ‘βασιλεύς king of Persia’ and ‘πρυτάνεις the Prytans’. BDF §: ‘In the case of personal names, the final development of the language has been that in [modern Greek] they take the article as such. In classical, on the contrary, as also in the NT, they do not as such take the article’. In the case of χριστός, BDF read the articular instances as titles and the anarthrous instances as names: ‘Χριστός is properly an appellative = the Messiah, which comes to expression in the Gospels and Acts in the frequent appearance of the article; the Epistles usually (but not always) omit the article’ (§), following B. Weiss, ‘Der Gebrauch des Artikels bei den Eigennamen’, TSK () –. Excluding instances falling in LXX citations and borderline cases like Satan, Caesar, Israel, and Pharaoh, there are twenty or so instances in which Paul uses articular forms of personal names (namely Adam, Moses, Hosea, Jesus, Cephas, and Stephanas). See Rom ., ; .; ., ; Cor .; .; .; .; Cor ., ; Gal .; ., , ; .; Thess .. Noting, however, the exception at Cor . (θεμέλιον γὰρ ἄλλον οὐδεὶς δύναται θεῖναι παρὰ τὸν κείμενον, ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς [ὁ] Χριστός, ‘For no one can lay any other foundation than the one that has been laid, which is Jesus [the] Christ’), where NA, with all the early papyrus and majuscule witnesses, reads Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, but the majority text has an intervening article (Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, ). This is significant, if only as evidence that a tradent of the text of Corinthians thought that Paul wrote, or ought to have written, an intervening article. But cf. Ἰησοῦς ὁ λεγόμενος χριστός (Matt .; ., ). Other similar forms include Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζαρηνός, ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ (Mark .; Luke .); Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος, ‘Jesus the Nazarene’ (Matt .; Luke .; John ., ; Acts .; .; .; .); Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ‘Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews’ (John .); Ἰησοῦς ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ‘Jesus the king of the Jews’ (Matt .).
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
In many instances, furthermore, the presence or absence of the definite article with χριστός in Paul is simply pro forma and contributes nothing to the question whether the word signifies, as both Dahl and Werner Kramer have shown. Especially, the use of the genitive forms χριστοῦ and τοῦ χριστοῦ depends on whether the governing noun has the article or not; the genitive will match its governing noun in this respect. Nominative, dative, and accusative forms of χριστός usually lack the article in Pauline usage. Some of the articular instances are simply anaphoric, referring to a preceding instance of the same word. When the presence or absence of the article is determined by formal factors like these, it cannot reasonably be taken as evidence for any particular theory as to whether or what the word signifies. In short, the presence or absence of the article is not determinative of the class of noun being used. Both names and appellatives may take the article or not. Especially, there is a significant group of appellatives that follow the same rules for articles that names do. Grundmann rightly comments, ‘Since proper names are used with the article, χριστός with the article can have the same sense as χριστός without it …. Use of the article does not help us to decide when χριστός is a title and when it is a name’. The apparent parallel with the English definite article is only apparent and does not hold up under scrutiny.
Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, ; Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God, –. Per the so-called Canon of Apollonius (see Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, ; Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God, ). For an excellent example, see both forms in Cor .: οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν μέλη Χριστοῦ ἐστιν; ἄρας οὖν τὰ μέλη τοῦ Χριστοῦ ποιήσω πόρνης μέλη; ‘Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Will I therefore take the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute?’ There is a single exception to this rule at Phil .: διὰ τὸ ἔργον Χριστοῦ μέχρι θανάτου ἤγγισεν, ‘He [Epaphroditus] was near death for the sake of the work of Christ’; the majority text has the articular τοῦ Χριστοῦ, which is almost certainly a correction. In the nominative, anarthrous χριστός times, but articular ὁ χριστός times (Rom .; ., ; Cor .; .; .; .). In the dative, anarthrous χριστῷ times, but articular τῷ χριστῷ times (Rom .; Cor .; Cor .; .). In the accusative, anarthrous χριστόν times, but articular τὸν χριστόν times ( Cor .; .; Cor .; Phil ., ; .). The seven instances of nominative χριστός with the definite article but unaccompanied by Ἰησοῦς (namely, Rom .; ., ; Cor .; .; .; .) have tended to be at the center of the discussion of messiahship in Paul. If interpreters grant any titular uses of χριστός at all, they are usually among these seven texts. As Kramer, Christ, Lord, Son of God, , concedes: ‘As time went on Christ came to be regarded increasingly as a proper name, yet in spite of this the article was still used with it here and there. This was possible because the pattern had already been formed, but equally because it was quite possible to use the article with the proper name’. W. Grundmann, ‘χριστός’, TDNT .; also Hengel, ‘“Christos” in Paul’, : ‘There is no demonstrable connection in principle between the use of the article and a rudimentary significance as a title’.
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
The many anarthrous instances of χριστός in Paul are not evidence that for him the word is merely a name, and neither are the articular instances evidence that it is a title. . Conclusion
Dahl himself is cautious in the conclusions he draws from these four philological observations: ‘If one understands “Christ” only to be a surname of Jesus, all the statements of the epistles make good sense. This does not exclude the possibility that the name “Christ” bears a fullness of meaning. However, the messiahship of Jesus is not stressed’. Dahl’s bibliographical successors have tended to be rather less subtle. For example, George MacRae, citing Dahl’s study, writes, ‘For him [Paul] the Christian message does not hinge, at least primarily, on the claim that Jesus was or is the Messiah’. More radically still, Lloyd Gaston cites Dahl as having ‘convincingly demonstrated that Christos is for Paul a proper name and is not to be translated “Messiah”’, from which Gaston concludes, ‘Jesus is then for Paul not the Messiah. He is neither the climax of the history of Israel nor the fulfillment of the covenant’. If for Dahl these four observations could be called soft criteria for assessing the messiahship of Jesus, for many subsequent interpreters they have become hard criteria. This development is not a salutary one, however. As we have seen, none of these observations excludes the possibility of the messiahship of Jesus in Paul’s thought, as some have taken them to do. They are not adequate criteria for assessing that question. The facts that χριστός is not an appellative, that it is not a predicate of a copulative sentence of which Ἰησοῦς is the subject, that it is not modified by the genitive κυρίου or θεοῦ, and that it is often anarthrous are no evidence that it does not connote messiahship. Interestingly, some of the proposed philological criteria for identifying messiahship in Paul turn out to be just characteristically Lukan phrases, not criteria derived from any other larger set of messiah texts. This raises the crucial question of the relation between semantics and syntax. Dahl makes the point that in no instance of χριστός in Paul is it necessary to take Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, . MacRae, ‘Messiah and Gospel’, , adding that Dahl is not radical enough in his conclusions (, n. ). Gaston, Paul and the Torah, . The majority of Pauline interpreters have demurred from Gaston’s conclusion, although most actually grant his major premise, that χριστός in Paul is not the title ‘messiah’ but simply a name ‘Christ’. Here I am reminded of R. Morgan’s imaginary conversation between Paul and Rudolf Bultmann, in which Paul complains that Bultmann has insisted that he sound just like John (see R. Morgan, ‘Introduction: The Nature of New Testament Theology’, The Nature of New Testament Theology [ed. R. Morgan; London: SCM, ] ). Paulinists have likewise insisted that Paul sound like Luke in order to be counted as a messianic thinker.
Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar?
the word as meaning ‘messiah’. This is true enough. That it is not necessary, however, does not mean that it is not possible or probable. Dahl’s point raises the further question why Paul bothered using that word at all. Or, to paraphrase John Collins, if his uses of the Greek word for ‘messiah’ are not evidence that Paul means ‘messiah’, then what would we accept as evidence? Semantics (the meanings of words) are never independent of syntax (the arrangement of words in sentences), but at the same time, syntax does not render semantics empty. In all but the most exceptional cases, syntax molds and specifies semantics, it does not undo them. In the end we are left with the question why Paul used this particular word so predominantly. That question can only finally be answered by means of attentive reading. This is the case because linguistic communication actually takes place not at the level of letters and words but at the level of sentences and paragraphs. James Barr’s reminder about theological language applies equally well to language generally: ‘The linguistic bearer of the theological statement is usually the sentence and the still larger literary complex and not the word or the morphological and syntactical mechanisms’. The question of meaning, then, ‘has to be settled at the sentence level, that is, by the things the writers say, and not by the words they say them with’. This procedural rule, however, is too little followed in the secondary literature on χριστός in Paul. More than a few studies proceed by raising the question, citing Dahl on a few philological points, and concluding that χριστός in Paul is a proper name with no signification. Such an approach is clearly unsatisfactory. Which particular strategies of contextual interpretation stand to shed the most light on the problem is a question for another article, but an example will serve to illustrate the point. Because the word in question is a Septuagintal coinage, and because Paul’s letters are so dense with citations of and allusions to the Septuagint, some of the most directly relevant contextual clues are likely to be particular scriptural passages that Paul cites in close proximity to given instances of the word χριστός. I have argued elsewhere, for example, that the quotation of Isa . LXX in Rom . functions precisely to clarify the sense of χριστός in Rom .. Or again, as Richard Hays has shown, Paul’s strategy of citing certain psalms of David as words spoken by Christ serves to summon up particular And, after all, it is probability, not necessity, that is the proper purview of the historian. J. J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York: Doubleday, ) . So rightly Dahl, ‘Messiahship of Jesus’, : ‘Only contextual exegesis can decide to what degree the notion of the messiahship is found in a particular passage’. J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University, ) . Barr, Semantics, . M. V. Novenson, ‘The Jewish Messiahs, the Pauline Christ, and the Gentile Question’, JBL () –.
MATTHEW V. NOVENSON
conventional resonances of the word. Nor is this an idiosyncrasy of Pauline style. Rather, as recent research has made clear, this is how ancient Jewish texts that mention ‘messiahs’ typically clarify what they mean by that multivalent scriptural word. This, I suggest, is the kind of reading one would have to do to get at what Paul means when he refers to Jesus as χριστός. In any case, it is clear that the messiahship of Jesus in Paul cannot be read directly off the grammar of Paul’s sentences. Fifty years after Dahl’s essay, it remains a problem for exegesis.
Hays, ‘Christ Prays the Psalms’. On this point see P. Schäfer, ‘Diversity and Interaction: Messiahs in Early Judaism’, Toward the Millennium: Messianic Expectations from the Bible to Waco (ed. Peter Schäfer and Mark Cohen; Leiden: Brill, ) –; L. T. Stuckenbruck, ‘Messianic Ideas in the Apocalyptic and Related Literature of Early Judaism’, The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments (ed. Evans and Porter) –.
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000032
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions in Ancient Gospel Manuscripts JA M E S R. E DWAR D S Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington 99251, USA. email:
[email protected] The study commences with the five major ways of dividing the gospels in Christian history, after which the focus falls on the hermeneutical significance of the Old Greek Divisions. The most defining characteristic of the Divisions is their tendency to demarcate chapters on the basis of the miracles and parables of Jesus. In lieu of miracles or parables, major units of Jesus’ teaching also determine Old Greek Divisions. The Synoptic passion narratives, and particularly Matthew’s, display the greatest precision and organization among the Divisions. Titles of divisions aided in locating specific passages, identified corresponding material in the gospels by the same title, and when read or memorized in sequence offered an overview of the gospel narratives. Keywords: Old Greek Divisions, chapters in gospel manuscripts, miracles, parables, passion narratives
. Survey of Gospel Divisions
In the history of Christianity, five systems of division have been applied to the NT gospels. The three oldest systems derive from the patristic era. One, perhaps the oldest, was introduced by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early fourth century. The purpose of Eusebius’s system, which evidently developed from the pioneering work of Ammonius Saccas (–), was to identify passages among the four gospels that were either parallel or similar in content. Eusebius divided each gospel into numbered units ( in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke, and in John), and by an ingenious system of tables or ‘canons’ compared the numbered units in one gospel with similar units in the other gospels. All possible combinations are accounted for in the Eusebian Canons except comparisons of Mark and John, and Mark, Luke, and John. The Eusebian Canons evince an early awareness of the challenges presented by a four-fold gospel tradition and a degree of precision in the comparative analysis of that tradition that is still useful today.
JAMES R. EDWARDS
A second system of gospel divisions, also from the fourth century, is present in codex Vaticanus (B), which divides Matthew into sections, Mark into , Luke into , and John into . These divisions are of unknown origin and, apart from their reproduction in codex Zacynthius (Ξ, sixth century) and in (thirteenth century), they remained limited to Vaticanus. The pericope divisions of Vaticanus were signified by upright Arabic numerals in the inner margins of the Greek text of Nestle-Aland, but they are omitted in subsequent editions. A third system of gospel divisions appears in codex Alexandrinus (A). Alexandrinus is usually dated to the fifth century, which may make its system of divisions slightly later than those of Vaticanus. Unlike the divisions of Vaticanus, the divisions of Alexandrinus, known as the Old Greek Divisions, became the prototype of chapter divisions in the most widely used ancient manuscripts. The divisions, known as κϵϕάλαια (‘chapters’), numbered in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke, and in John. The numbered chapters were augmented by a list of τίτλοι (‘titles’) written in the margins. The divisions of Alexandrinus are signified by italic Arabic numerals of normal size in the inner margins of all recent editions of the Nestle-Aland Greek text. The fourth and fifth systems of division of the biblical text derive from the Medieval and early Modern periods, respectively. The fourth division concerns the chapter divisions that, with minor modifications, are still used in printed Bibles today. Modern chapter divisions were first introduced into the Latin Bible at the beginning of the thirteenth century, perhaps as early as , by Stephen Langton, then lecturer at the University of Paris and later archbishop of Canterbury. Subdivision of chapters into verses followed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Numbered verses for the Hebrew Bible were first established for a concordance to the Masoretic text by Rabbi Isaac Nathan in about ; and
Chapter enumerations in the Pauline Epistles of Vaticanus indicate that it incorporated the divisions of an earlier exemplar that placed Hebrews between Galatians and Ephesians. Vaticanus enumerates Romans, Corinthians, Corinthians, Galatians consecutively as chapters –; Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, – Thessalonians as chapters –; and Hebrews (until . at which point it breaks off) as chapters – (I owe this observation to the anonymous reviewer of this article). The divisions in Vaticanus are not reproduced in codex Sinaiticus, whose text-type and hand are similar to those of Vaticanus. See James Bentley, Secrets of Mount Sinai: The Story of the World’s Oldest Bible—Codex Sinaiticus (Garden City: Doubleday, ) . A later editor of Sinaiticus began a system of chapters in Acts – that was not continued (Bruce M. Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (New York/London: Oxford University, ) . On the order of the books of the Old Testament in Vaticanus compared with their respective orders in Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, see Greg Coswell, ‘The Order of the Books in the Greek Old Testament’, JETS () –. For a table of contents of codex Alexandrinus, see Theodor Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons (Erlangen und Leipzig: A. Deichert, ) /, –.
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
NT verse divisions were first established by Robert Etienne (Stephanus), for his Greek and Latin edition of the NT published in Geneva in . . Purposes and Significance of Old Greek Divisions
This article focuses on the third system above, the chapter divisions of codex Alexandrinus. Attention to the Old Greek Divisions is warranted because the pervasiveness of these divisions in manuscripts in the fifth and following centuries provides the closest thing to a normative editorial perspective on the gospels in the patristic period and late antiquity. As noted above, the Old Greek Divisions are signified in the most widely used scholarly edition of the Greek NT, Nestle-Aland. Nevertheless, they are rarely cited or discussed by exegetes and text critics. Unlike the Eusebian Canons, which are generally understood, the origins and purposes of the Old Greek Divisions remain obscure. The present state of knowledge of the text of the NT is unable to shed further light on the origins of the Old Greek Divisions. Analysis of the Divisions themselves, These five systems have been synthesized from Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible: An Introduction to Greek Palaeography (New York/Oxford: Oxford University, ) –; Metzger, Text of the New Testament, –; H. K. McArthur, ‘The Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, Studia Evangelica, iii, Part (ed. F. L. Cross; Texte und Untersuchungen ; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, ) –; and J. Harold Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism (Peabody: Hendrickson, rev. ed. ) –. The following monographs omit reference to chapter divisions. Frederic G. Kenyon, The Text of the Greek Bible: A Student’s Handbook (London: Gerald Duckworth, ); J. Harold Greenlee, Scribes, Scrolls, and Scripture: A Student’s Guide to New Testament Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ); Greenlee, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism; Philip Comfort, Encountering the Manuscripts (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, ). David C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University, ) , contains a brief paragraph on Old Greek Divisions; and Kurt and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament. An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Leiden: Brill, ) , do not expand beyond what is offered in the introduction of Nestle-Aland (–). Eusebius’s explanatory letter to Carpianus and the canonical tables are set forth in NestleAland, – (an English translation of the letter can be found in H. H. Oliver, NovT [] –). Further description and discussion of the Eusebian Canons can be found in Metzger, Text of the New Testament, –; Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, ; and especially Hermann Freiherr von Soden, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt, Band I (Berlin: Alexander Duncker, ) –. The chapter divisions of Vaticanus are equally obscure, of course, but their obscurity is of less consequence for scholarly investigation since the Vaticanus divisions were rarely reproduced in the subsequent manuscript tradition. It is virtually certain that the Old Greek Divisions did not originate with the evangelists. Among the numerous papyrus fragments, no extant gospel text contains numbered divisions before the fourth century. Legal documents in the Hellenistic world were often divided into chapter units, but there is no evidence that such divisions were applied to Christian literature
JAMES R. EDWARDS
however, can shed significant light on the hermeneutical principles by which they were structured. The most dominant structural principle evident in the Old Greek Divisions is a distinctive Christological emphasis, as signified by the crucial role that Jesus’ miracles and parables played in demarcating Divisions, by the precision evident in the Synoptic passion narratives, and by the intentional linkage of the passion and resurrection narratives in the Divisions of all four gospels. . The Relation of Old Greek Divisions to Early Christian Lectionary Units
Before turning specifically to the hermeneutical principles by which the Old Greek Divisions were structured, it is necessary to consider a prior question, namely, whether Old Greek Divisions were formed for lectionary purposes. Torah (and usually Prophets) were customarily read in Jewish synagogue services (Luke .-; Acts ., ; .), a custom that was continued in Christian churches from the apostolic era onward (Col .; Thess .). In mid-second century, Justin Martyr attests that on Sundays ‘the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits’, followed by verbal instruction by the president. In the early third century, Hippolytus reports that readers of Scripture are appointed by the bishop, and that for a period of three years catechumens must be exposed to the reading of Scripture. The Apostolic Constitutions of the fourth century prescribe ‘reading of the Law and Prophets and of our letters, acts and gospels’. Public reading of Scripture was a standard component of worship from the inception of Christianity. Old Greek Divisions can scarcely have been designed for such lections, however. This conclusion is supported by three observations. First, there is no evidence of standard gospel lections before the fourth century at the earliest. Justin’s reference to reading ‘as long as time permits’ implies that lections were not
before the fourth century. Like early Christian documents in general, the autographs and earliest copies of the gospels would have been composed as single blocks of continuous text. The differences between the division of the gospels in Vaticanus and Alexandrinus are difficult, if not impossible, to explain if both codices were copied from prototypes that contained chapter divisions. The editorial differences between the two manuscripts are readily explainable, however, if they derived from subsequent textual editions (on the foregoing, see McArthur, ‘Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, –). The Old Greek Divisions must have derived from a respected source, authority, or locale, however, for they are a standard feature, with little or no variation, in manuscripts of the gospels from the fifth century onwards (see von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, –). See Michael Graves, ‘The Public Reading of Scripture in Early Judaism’, JETS () –. Apol. . Apos. Trad. , . Apos. Const. ...
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
regimented in his day, but determined by the discretion of individual congregations and by time constraints in worship services. Even in the third century the liturgical church calendar still existed in rudimentary form. The earliest extant lectionary evidence is the old Armenian lectionary list of the fifth century, which coincides almost exactly with the catechetical readings of Cyril of Jerusalem in the previous century. Neither of these lists, however, corresponds closely with chapter divisions of Alexandrinus or Vaticanus. There is no evidence that the capitulation of either Alexandrinus or Vaticanus corresponded to known lectionary readings in the patristic period. Second, in order to satisfy the lectionary hypothesis, Old Greek Divisions would presumably need to be of lengths appropriate for public worship. The lengths of the Divisions differ greatly, however. Three of the Old Greek Divisions consist of a single verse, and another of only two verses, whereas in the Gospel of John four divisions include -plus verses, the longest of which extends to verses. Such discrepancies stretch the lectionary hypothesis beyond plausibility. Third, the beginnings of each gospel are unnumbered in the Old Greek Divisions. Without numerical identification these divisions could not have been listed in lectionary tables. It is difficult to imagine the early church excluding Matthew , Mark .-; Luke , and John from public worship. The above
Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church, vol. . The Biblical Period (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –. E. Yarnold, ‘Liturgy and Bible’, Encyclopedia of the Early Church (ed. Angelo Di Bernardino; vols., New York: Oxford University, ) .. See McArthur’s discussion of this point in ‘Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, –. Mark # = .; Luke # = .; John # = .. Matt # = .–. John # = .–.. The introductions of the four gospels in the Old Greek Divisions remain a conundrum. The observation of McArthur, ‘Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, , that ‘the custom of dividing materials into numbered sections (κϵϕάλαια) began in pre-Christian legal documents’ and that ‘[a]s this mode of division acquired popularity in the second and third centuries it was transferred to other forms of literature including the Gospels’ speaks to the issue, though (as McArthur admits) it does not resolve it. With regard to the NT as a whole, the Old Greek Divisions introduce books in three different ways: () with no introductions, () with brief introductions, and () with extended introductions. With regard to #, seven books have no introductions. The Acts of the Apostles, Hebrews, James, Peter, Peter, John, and Revelation begin the first chapter of the Old Greek Divisions with the first verse. With regard to #, the introductory unnumbered sections of the Pauline letters, – John, and Jude all agree exactly or closely with the introductory salutations of modern editions of the Bible. The only minor exception to this rule is Romans, which stretches the introduction to the first verses. This is longer than the introduction of Romans in modern editions, but it is not implausible. With regard to #, the Old Greek Divisions endowed all four gospels with extended introductions. The Divisions begin the first chapters of Matthew, Luke, and John with the second chapters in modern editions, and the first chapter of Mark at .. Of
JAMES R. EDWARDS
evidence renders the lectionary hypothesis highly implausible. Old Greek Divisions of appropriate length and theme may have served occasionally or even regularly as lections in worship, but that cannot have been the purpose of their establishment. .. Jesus as the Organizational Hermeneutic of the Old Greek Divisions The most distinctive feature of the Old Greek Divisions is the tendency to begin chapters with a teaching or action of Jesus. Often, it is not ‘plot’ that begins Old Greek Divisions, but the point at which Jesus emerges as the acting or speaking subject. Of the gospel Divisions, fully one half () begin with either an action or word of Jesus. The most common action with which chapters begin are miracles. There are a total of miracles in the four gospels: in Matthew, in Mark, in Luke, and seven in John. Sixty of the miracles commence new chapters in the Old Greek
the above three conventions, only the second corresponds to modern practice. The first and third conventions continue to baffle modern literary instincts. chapters in Matthew begin with a word or deed of Jesus, in Mark, in Luke, and five in John. Many of the miracles are shared in common by two or more evangelists. The miracles are here listed not by their parallels, but by occurrence in each gospel in order to indicate where new chapters commence. Matthew: cleansing leper, .-; healing centurion’s son, .-; healing Peter’s mother-inlaw, .-; healing demoniac, .–.; healing paralytic, .-; healing Jairus’s daughter, .-; healing hemorrhaging woman, .-; healing two blind men, .-; exorcism, .-; exorcism, .-; healing man with withered hand, .-; feeding five thousand, .-; walking on water and rescuing Peter from drowning, .-; healing daughter of Syrophoenician woman, .-; feeding four thousand, .-; healing epileptic boy, .-; healing blind man at Jericho, .-; withering fig tree, .-; opening of tombs in Jerusalem, .-. Mark: exorcism, .-; healing Peter’s mother-in-law, .-; cleansing leper, .-; healing paralytic, .-; healing man with withered hand, .-; many exorcisms, .-; healing demoniac, .-; healing Jairus’s daughter, .-; healing hemorrhaging woman, .-; feeding five thousand, .-; walking on water, .-; healing daughter of Syrophoenician woman, .-; healing deaf man, .-; feeding four thousand, .-; healing blind man, .-; healing epileptic boy, .-; healing blind man at Jericho, .-; withering fig tree, .-. Luke: exorcism, .-; healing Peter’s mother-in-law, .-; miraculous catch of fish, .-; cleansing leper, .-; healing paralytic, .-; healing man with withered hand, .-; healing centurion’s son, .-; raising boy at Nain from dead, .-; healing demoniac, .-; healing Jairus’s daughter, .-; healing hemorrhaging woman, .-; feeding five thousand, .-; healing epileptic boy, .-; exorcism, .; healing woman ill for years, .-; healing man with dropsy, .-; healing lepers, .-; healing blind man at Jericho, .-; healing severed ear of servant, ..
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
Divisions, although in some instances miscellaneous material is appended to a miracle in the same chapter. There is a % chance, in other words, that a miracle will commence an Old Greek Division. Only three miracles do not commence new Divisions: the report of Jesus’ exorcisms in Mark .-, the healing of the severed ear of the high priest’s servant at the arrest of Jesus in Luke ., and the opening of the tombs at the crucifixion in Matt .-. Each of these exceptions can be explained. Regarding the first, modern exegetes normally view Mark .- as a narrative summary of Jesus’ miraculous activity, and ancient editors evidently also regarded it likewise, rather than an account of a miracle. Regarding the second, the healing of the severed ear at the arrest of Jesus is set within the passion narratives, which are the most highly structured of the Old Greek Divisions. The editors evidently made an exception of not forming a chapter of a single verse in this case in order to avoid further disruption of the synchronization of Luke’s passion narrative with Matthew’s. Finally, the opening of the tombs at the crucifixion in Matt .- is the most instructive of the three exceptions. It is technically not a miracle of Jesus, since Jesus had already died on the cross. It therefore seems evident that Old Greek Divisions commenced not with miracles in general, but with miracles of Jesus. With these three exceptions, every miracle of Jesus commences a new chapter in the Old Greek Divisions. This rule is adhered to so rigidly that coherent narratives are sometimes disrupted. The healing of the hemorrhaging woman, for example, is a separate chapter in all three Synoptics, even though it wrenches the woman from the flanking stories of Jairus’s daughter. The significance of Jesus’ miracles for the formation of Old Greek Divisions is demonstrated with special clarity in the Fourth Gospel. The Gospel of John contains seven miracle accounts, all of which occur in the first half of the gospel. The absence of miracles in the latter half of the gospel (and the complete absence of parables in the Fourth Gospel) deprived the Old Greek Divisions of their chief chapter demarcators. As a result, the remainder of John – is divided in only three chapters averaging one hundred verses each. The most common speech form with which the Old Greek Divisions begin chapters are Jesus’ parables. Like miracles, every major parable begins a new chapter in the Old Greek Divisions. In Matthew this occurs with parables; in Mark with two; in Luke with ; and with none in John. The Divisions make a
John: changing water to wine, .-; healing official’s son, .-; healing paralytic at pool of Bethesda, .-; feeding five thousand, .-; walking on water, .-; healing blind man, .-; raising Lazarus from dead, .-. See section .. Some parables are shared in common by two or more evangelists. Parables are here listed not by their parallels, but by occurrence in each gospel in order to indicate where new chapters commence.
JAMES R. EDWARDS
distinction between major and minor parables, however. Major parables without exception begin new chapters, whereas brief parables, picturesque sayings, or illustrations of Jesus do not. It is difficult, especially in brief sayings, to differentiate precisely among parables, picturesque sayings, illustrations, and so forth. The Old Greek Divisions regard a parable as a self-contained story long enough to entail plot development. Shorter exceptions to this rule were either not considered parables, or not significant enough to begin new chapters. When a shorter parable is set within a series of parables (e.g., Mark .-; Matt .), or when two shorter parables are joined consecutively (e.g., Tower Builder, Luke .-, and Warring King, Luke .-; Lost Sheep, Luke .-, and Lost Coin, Luke .-), only the first parable will begin the new chapter division. Old Greek Divisions may also append miscellaneous material to chapters begun with parables. Thus, Matthew # begins with the parable of the Lost Sheep (Matt .-), to which are appended three independent sayings of Jesus dealing with a brother who sins (.-), the virtue of agreement among followers of Christ (.-), and forgiveness (.-). Parables, and especially shorter parables, thus often commence a didactic miscellany of Jesus’ teaching. With regard to the Gospel of John, only two stories—the Good Shepherd (.-) and True Vine (.-)—can potentially qualify as parables. Neither commences a new chapter in the Old Greek Divisions, which indicates that they were not considered parables. That Old Greek Divisions begin with a teaching or action of Jesus may not seem entirely surprising, since Jesus is the sole protagonist in the gospels. Consider, however, how the following evidence further accentuates the role of Jesus in the Old Greek Divisions. There are instances in addition to the mentioned above where the Old Greek Divisions begin not with the contextual
Matthew: the Sower, .-; Lost Sheep, .-; Unmerciful Servant, .-; Laborers in the Vineyard, .-; Two Sons, .-; Wicked Tenants, .-; Wedding Banquet, .-; Thief in the Night, .-; Wise and Foolish Maidens, .-; Talents and Pounds, .-; Sheep and Goats, .-. Mark: the Sower, .-; Wicked Tenants, .-. Luke: the Sower, .-; Good Samaritan, .-; Rich Fool, .-; Wedding Banquet, .-; Tower Builder and Warring King, .-; Lost Sheep, .-; Prodigal Son, .-; Unjust Steward, .-; Rich Man and Lazarus, .-; Unjust Judge, .-; Pharisee and Tax Collector, .-; Wicked Tenants, .-; Talents and Pounds, .-. Whereas a number of shorter sayings are generally regarded as parables (e.g., Seed Growing Secretly, Mark .-; or Mustard Seed, Mark .-//Matt .-//Luke .-), several others (e.g., Unshrunk Cloth, Mark .; Strong Man, Mark .; Faithful and Unfaithful Steward, Matt .-//Luke .-; Humble Servant, Luke .-) are uncertain. Von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, , rightly notes, ‘Die Hauptsorge des Einteilers ist, dass die Anfänge der parallelen κϵϕ[άλαια] in den verschiedenen Evv sich decken’.
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
framework with which pericopes in either Nestle-Aland or the NRSV begin, but where the narrative perspective focuses specifically on Jesus. Modern editions of the gospels typically form pericopes according to plot, i.e., setting of context (A), followed by role of Jesus (B). The Old Greek Divisions, however, frequently relegate setting of context (A) to the conclusion of a previous chapter, and begin a new chapter with the role of Jesus (B). A striking example occurs in the call of Simon Peter in Luke .-, which forms a single pericope in virtually all modern Bibles. In the Old Greek Divisions the setting of the scene in the first three verses—a total of words—belongs to the preceding chapter. A new chapter begins only with Jesus’ challenge to Peter in . to launch out into the deep and lower the fishing nets. Other examples illustrate the same principle. In the miracle of the paralytic who was brought to Jesus by four friends, in all three Synoptics the Old Greek Divisions begin a new chapter not with the gathering of the crowd in a house in Capernaum to hear Jesus teach (so NA, NRSV), but at the point where Jesus personally encounters the paralytic (Matt .; Mark .; Luke .). In the eschatological discourse, the Old Greek Divisions begin a new chapter not with the description of the temple buildings (so NA, NRSV), but with Jesus’ pronouncements regarding the future from the Mount of Olives (Matt .; Mark .). The Parable of the Sower begins in the Old Greek Divisions not with the gathering of the crowds beside the lake (Matt .-; Mark .; see Luke .-), but with the parable itself (Matt .ff; Mark .ff; Luke .ff). Finally, in the woes of Luke .-, the Old Greek Divisions begin a new chapter not with the contextual setting at v. (so NA, NRSV), but with Jesus’ denunciation of the scribes in v. . In instances the Old Greek Divisions accentuate the significance of Jesus by beginning new chapters with his words or deeds rather than with narrative context or ‘plot’. In each instance, narrative coherence is disrupted in order to commence a new chapter with Jesus as the speaking or acting subject. In out of instances, therefore, the Old Greek Divisions commence new chapters according to the word or action of Jesus, even when these chapter breaks do not correspond to the most natural development of the narrative. To be sure, many chapters begin at natural transitions—according to modern literary perspectives. Two-thirds of the chapters, however, betray a Tendenz to emphasize the unique role of Jesus. They are concatenated either at a miracle or parable (or teaching) of Jesus. More remarkably, in instances the emphasis disrupts the narrative flow of a pericope. In these instances, especially, the Old Greek Divisions do not follow natural fault lines determined by plot, but create divisions
Five instances occur in Matthew (.; .; .; .; .), in Mark (., ; .; .; .; ., , ; .; .; .; .; ., ), eight in Luke (., ; .; .; .; .; .; .), and four in John (.; .; .; .).
JAMES R. EDWARDS
on the basis of Jesus’ miracles or parables. A Christological hermeneutic is thus evident in the formation of the Old Greek Divisions. .. Didactic Units in the Old Greek Divisions Major units of dominical teaching also comprise single chapters in the Old Greek Divisions, especially in the First and Fourth Gospels. This would indicate that the designation of teaching units was one among several objectives of the Divisions. In Matthew, the following units comprise single chapters: the Sermon on the Mount, –; teachings related to the mission of the Twelve, .–.; teachings related to John the Baptist, .–.; parables, .-; denunciations of scribes and Pharisees, .–.; and the eschatological discourse, .-. Only two didactic units in Mark (both of which parallel Matthew) comprise chapters in the Old Greek Divisions: the parables, .-// Matt .-; and the eschatological discourse, .–.//Matt .-. The material in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount that is dispersed in several Lucan chapters does not comprise individual chapters in the Old Greek Divisions of Luke. The only didactic unit in Luke to comprise a single chapter is the eschatological discourse in .-, which parallels Matt .- and Mark .–.. As noted earlier, the Old Greek Divisions of John are the most extraordinary of the four gospels. Slightly shorter in length than the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of John is divided, in contrast to Matthew’s chapters, into only chapters. John’s long discourses comprise the largest chapters in the Old Greek Divisions. The four largest chapters are .–. ( verses), .–. ( verses), .–. ( verses), and .–. ( verses). Each of these chapters is an aggregate of narratives interwoven with didactic material on a variety of topics. We have seen that Jesus’ miracles and parables demarcated predictable and convenient chapter divisions of the Synoptic Gospels. The wholesale absence of parables in John and the absence of miracles in its latter half resulted, by contrast, in several massive and unwieldy chapter divisions of the Fourth Gospel. .. Synoptic Passion Narratives in the Old Greek Divisions The Old Greek Divisions of Matthew’s passion narrative display an unusually high degree of precision and emerge as the prototype for the passion narratives of Mark and Luke. In two instances, all three Synoptics form separate This corresponds with the hermeneutic that prevailed in patristic exegesis as a whole, which ‘was first and foremost Christological’, so Arthur A. Just Jr, Luke (ACCS ; Downers Grove: InterVarsity, ) xx. On Christological emphases in the spiritual exegesis of the Fathers, see Robert Wilken, Remembering the Christian Past (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –. Matthew’s six major teaching chapters in the Old Greek Divisions versus Luke’s one teaching chapter would seem to argue against an awareness of a common sayings source behind the First and Third Gospels. The two gospels that according to the ‘Q’ hypothesis are the most similar are the two that the Old Greek Divisions capitulate most differently.
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
chapters of the same material under the same title. The first is the preparation for the Passover, entitled πϵρι (της ϵτοιμασιας) του πασχα, which forms chapter # in Matt .-, chapter # in Mark .-, and chapter # in Luke .-. The second, entitled πϵρι της αιτησϵως του κυριακου and devoted to Joseph of Arimathea, the burial of Jesus, and the resurrection, is the final chapter (#) in Matthew .–., the final chapter (#) in Mark .–., and the penultimate chapter (#) in Luke .–.. In the remaining passion material, the harmonization of Mark with Matthew is clearly evident. Matthew chapters # (.-) and # (.-), comprising the Last Supper, Jesus’ prediction of the apostles’ apostasy, his prayer in Gethsemane, arrest, trial before the Sanhedrin, and mockery, are combined in a single Markan chapter (#; .-). Matthew chapters # (.–.) and # (.-), comprising Peter’s denial, Jesus’ trial before Pilate, flagellation, crucifixion, and women at the tomb, are likewise combined in a single Markan chapter (#; .–.). A perfect symmetry results. Matthew #
=
Mark #
Matthew # Matthew #
>
Mark #
Matthew # Matthew #
>
Mark #
Matthew #
=
Mark #
The harmonization of Luke with Matthew is less obvious, due to the additional material in Luke’s passion narrative. In so far as possible, however, the Old Greek Divisions order Luke’s final chapters in accordance with the primacy of Matthew. The introductory and concluding episodes of the passion accounts, as noted above, form identical book ends in all three Synoptics. The intervening chapters divide Matthew at natural fault lines in the narrative, and Luke is divided where necessary in order to harmonize with Matthew. At some points Luke’s divisions violate narrative flow. The most egregious violation involves breaking the interrogation of Jesus by Antipas in half (. begins Luke #). Matthew # and Luke # share the Last Supper; Matthew # and Luke # share Judas’s betrayal and the trial before the Sanhedrin; Matthew # and Luke # share Peter’s denial and trial before Pilate; and Matthew # and Luke #, #, and # share the continuation of the trial before Pilate, crucifixion, tearing of the temple curtain, and observers at Jesus’ death. Luke # (the dispute about greatness, .-) is the only Lucan Division unrelated to Matthew, because its Synoptic parallels in Matt .- and Mark .- appear before the passion narratives. The capitulation of the passion narratives of the Fourth Gospel diverges greatly from that of the Synoptics. The five Matthean Divisions that comprise events from
JAMES R. EDWARDS
the Passover through Jesus’ death on the cross (#-#; .–.) are contained in a single Johannine chapter (#; .–.). Apparently realizing the inability of juxtaposing the Fourth Gospel with Matthew in the same way that Mark and Luke can be juxtaposed with Matthew, the Old Greek Divisions opted for a colossal chapter of verses, entitled περι του παρακλητου. Although the terms ‘passion’ or ‘passion narrative’ do not appear in the titles of the Old Greek Divisions, the passion narratives in the Synoptics were nevertheless carefully capitulated. Their precision may even suggest that they were the first chapters in the gospels to be formed. The harmonization of Mark’s passion narrative to Matthew’s appears particularly intentional and successful. The primacy of Matthew’s narrative is especially evident in the passion accounts, although it is not limited to them, for there are instances elsewhere where a chapter title that is shared by all three Synoptics is relevant only to Matthew. The last chapters of the Old Greek Divisions also link the resurrection indivisibly with the cross. In all four gospels, the capitulation of the resurrection narratives begins not with Easter morning, but in the passion narratives. The final chapters of Matthew # (.–.), Mark # (.–.), Luke # (.– .), and John # (.–.) all anchor the resurrection account to the story of the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea. This unanimous division indicates that the Old Greek Divisions did not regard the resurrection as an epilogue or addendum to the gospel, but as a hermeneutical whole with the passion. .. Synoptic Purposes of the Old Greek Divisions One purpose of the Old Greek Divisions was to identify material common to two or more gospels. The assignment of the same title for corresponding material in two, three, or all four gospels signifies an interest in the Old Greek Divisions in rendering elementary assistance in comprehending the thematic overlaps in the gospels. The ‘synoptic purpose’ of the Old Greek Divisions is further signified by the fact that nearly three-quarters of the Divisions begin at the same point as do the Eusebian Canons, whose defining purpose was to identify material correspondences among the four gospels. This correspondence leaves little doubt that identifying ‘synoptic’ material was one objective of the E.g., Mark # (.-) and Luke # (.-) are assigned the title πϵρι του σϵληνιαζομϵνου, which can only derive from Matthew # (.-). Von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, : ‘In [der Ostergeschichte] werden die den einzelnen Evv eigentümlichen Osterscenen nicht ausgelöst; sie bilden einander ergänzend ein zusammenhängendes Ganzes’. The de-emphasis of the synoptic purposes of the Old Greek Divisions in McArthur, ‘Earliest Divisions of the Gospels’, –, is countered and corrected in von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, –. In instances Old Greek Divisions commence at the same points as do Eusebian Canons.
The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions
Old Greek Divisions. Nevertheless, the Old Greek Divisions do not simply assume and repeat the Eusebian Canons. There are Divisions compared to Canons, which means that three out of five Divisions exceed the lengths of their respective Canons. Moreover, the Canons do not begin with miracles, parables, and with Jesus as the speaking and acting subject as characteristically as do the Divisions (see section .). Despite significant correspondence between the two systems of capitulation, the Christological hermeneutic is not as evident in the Eusebian Canons as it is in Old Greek Divisions. .. Titles in the Old Greek Divisions Of greater importance than the synoptic purpose of the Old Greek Divisions are their various titles, which consist chiefly of proper nouns. Although the Gospels of Matthew and John contain the greatest number of didactic units in the gospels, the designations of these units in the Old Greek Divisions regularly bear the names of persons, objects, or events rather than thematic or conceptual titles. Rare exceptions to this occur in Matthew , πϵρι της συντϵιλιας, ‘On the Consummation’; or perhaps in Matt ., πϵρι διδασκαλιας του σωτηρος, ‘The Teaching of the Savior’. Otherwise, gospel divisions that bear abstract subtitles in modern translations are regularly identified by concrete descriptors in the Old Greek Divisions. The Sermon on the Mount is entitled πϵρι των μακαρισμων; the Feeding of the Five Thousand, ‘The Five Loaves and Two Fishes’; the parable on compassion in Matt .–., ‘The Man Who Owed a Thousand Talents’; the parable on the final judgment in Matt .–., ‘On the Coming of the Messiah’. The titles of the six chapters in the Gospel of John that contain Jesus’ rarified theological teachings in the second half of the gospel are: # (.-), ‘On What Judas Said’; # (.), ‘On the Donkey’; # (.–.), ‘The Greeks Who Approached’; # (.–.), ‘The Basin’; # (.–.), ‘On the Paraclete’; # (.– .), ‘The Request for the Body of the Lord’. From a literary perspective, the Old Greek Division titles emphasize the narrative nature of the gospel over its didactic properties, even when these titles result in superficial relationships between title and content. Indeed, as noted in section ., the Old Greek Divisions emphasize the Christological narrative nature of the gospels. Even when sayings and teachings are the subject of a given chapter, the chapter titles, not unlike the captions in a modern scrapbook or photo album, invariably bear proper nouns. The many gnostic gospels of the second and following centuries located the essence of Jesus in the purveyance It is beyond the scope of this study to investigate the possible relationship of the Old Greek Divisions and the Eusebian Canons. For a not implausible argument that the Divisions antedate the Eusebian Canons, see von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, –. Von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, –, likewise notes the focus on proper nouns rather than on conceptual ‘Stoff’ in the chapter titles.
JAMES R. EDWARDS
of wisdom. The titular nature of the Old Greek Divisions conveys a very different understanding of the nature and effects of a canonical gospel. Unlike the primary association of Jesus with mysteries, esoterica, cosmologies, and paradoxes in Gnosticism, the sequential recitation of the Old Greek Division titles portrays the essential significance of Jesus in terms of a narrative of events.
. Conclusion
The most significant hermeneutical principle to emerge from the foregoing analysis is that the Old Greek Divisions reflect primarily Christological rather than liturgical interests. The Gospel of Luke summarizes the life of Jesus as one ‘mighty in work and word’ (.). The works and words of Jesus were determinative in the Old Greek Divisions, for the gospels were principally capitulated on the basis of his miracles and parables. So important was this principle that in three-score instances new gospel chapters begin not with the setting of the plot, but with Jesus as the speaking and acting subject. These criteria are more evident and determinative for the formation of Old Greek Divisions than were putative lectionary interests. Collections of Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptics, such as Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, also played a role in the formation of Old Greek Divisions. Nevertheless, the massive chapters of the Fourth Gospel that resulted because of the absence of miracles and parables indicate that didactic criteria played a secondary role to narrative criteria in the formation of Old Greek Divisions. The unusual precision and symmetry in the Synoptic passion narratives, and the careful linkage of the resurrection accounts in all four gospels to the passion narratives, reveal the special significance of the cross and resurrection in the Old Greek Divisions. Concrete descriptor titles of the various Divisions further reflect narrative determinations rather than didactic themes and concepts. A composite analysis of the Old Greek Divisions of the gospels attests to an ecclesiastical hermeneutic that was not only Christological, but Incarnational.
Von Soden, Schriften des Neuen Testaments, , recognizes the insignificance of teaching units in the Old Greek Divisions. ‘Die Redeabschnitte interessieren ihn wenig; bei ihnen müht er sich nicht um eine Einteilung…’ δυνατὸς ϵ᾽ν ϵ῎ργῳ καὶ λόγῳ. Similarly, Acts . speaks of everything Jesus began ποιϵῖν τϵ καὶ διδάσκϵιν. On the role of the works and words of Jesus in the earliest oral traditions of the gospels, particularly as attested by Luke .- and Papias (Eusebius Hist. eccl. ..-), see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –.
New Test. Stud. , pp. –. © Cambridge University Press, doi:10.1017/S0028688510000068
Short Study
Papias as Rhetorician: Ekphrasis in the Bishop’s Account of Judas’ Death C H R I S TO P H E R B . Z E I C H MAN N Emmanuel College, 73 Queen’s Park Crescent, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7, Canada. email:
[email protected] Keywords: Papias of Hierapolis, Greek rhetoric, Judas Iscariot
Since the Gospel of Judas reentered the public eye, Papias’ account of the disciple’s demise has seen a resurgence of interest. Its absurdly gruesome content provides a self-evident explanation for the attendant curiosity: [Frag. .] But Judas wandered around the world as a prominent example of impiety. [] His flesh was so bloated that he couldn’t go through where a chariot could easily do so—not even the massiveness of his head! [] For they say that his eyelids were so swollen that he couldn’t see any light at all [] and that his eyes couldn’t be seen even with a doctor’s lens, because they were buried too deep from the surface. [] And his penis looked larger and more disgusting than all such members, [] but pus and worms flowed from each part of his body through him into his genitals [lit. ‘to his shame’], causing such alone to be brought through it with pain. [] And they say after many tortures and torments that he died on his own land. [] This land has been deserted due to its stench and is now uninhabited—[] why, even to this day no one can go past that place unless they remember to plug their nose!
Despite this renewed attention, scholars have avoided situating their analyses of this pericope within the major debates about Papias’ work. The question of whether Papias employed the methods of Greek rhetoric sits as the most relevant issue for this discussion. Though many scholars champion rhetorical readings of Papias, detractors contend that they overstate his ostensibly technical vocabulary Author’s translation. The text of Papias and its versification are from A. W. Zwiep, Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on the Context and Concern of Acts .– (WUNT /; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –. I assume that only Frag. ., – are verbatim original to Papias. I extend my gratitude to Dennis R. MacDonald for offering comments and insight on earlier versions of this study.
CHRISTOPHER B. ZEICHMANN
(e.g., τάξις, συντάσσω, χρεία, διάλεκτος, ἑρμηνευτής in Frag. ). They generally construe these as Papias’ colloquial or historical characterizations of Gospel narratives. Whether and how Papias testifies to source-critical concerns for Synoptic studies—such as the Sayings Gospel Q, a proto-Matthew, and the oral transmission of Jesus’ life—depends on their interpretation. Opposition primarily disputes the meaning of individual words in the context Papias provides them, so that his rhetorical forms and flourishes remain relatively unscathed from criticism. Papias’ death of Judas has never figured into this discussion, but it nonetheless points in favor of a rhetorical backdrop. The five longest narratives of skolekosis (death by worm-consumption) from antiquity use the same rhetorical device of ekphrasis, a systematic form of elaborate description. On the surface, ekphrasis supplements the visualization of its subject, which Aelius Theon (I C.E.) says may vary from a person’s gait, to events such as a plague, to places like a meadow. When writing an ekphrasis, the most important considerations are ‘clarity and a vivid impression of all-butseeing what is described; next, one…should make the style reflect the subject, so that if what it describes is colorful, the word choice should be colorful, but if it is rough or frightening or something like that, features of the style should not strike a discordant note with the nature of the subject’. Ekphrases were not usually narratives, but often contrasted before and after images of their subjects. The curriculum of the progymnasmata involved a progressive increase in difficulty and built upon previous exercises. Ekphrasis required some skill, being the antepenultimate assignment in three of the four surviving progymnasmata. Aphthonius’ lessons (IV C.E.) on the topic confirm that Papias’ death of Judas is an ekphrasis. Though writing after Papias, his handbook offers the most Some recent advocates for Papias’ rhetoric include R. Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, ) –; R. Cameron, Sayings Traditions in the Apocryphon of James (HTS ; Philadelphia: Fortress, ) –; J. Kürzinger, Papias von Hierapolis und die Evangelien des Neuen Testaments (Eichstätter Materialien ; Regensburg: Pustet, ) –; W. R. Schoedel, ‘Papias’, ANRW ..–. See the criticisms and alternate proposals in M. Black, ‘The Use of Rhetorical Terminology in Papias on Mark and Matthew’, JSNT () –; M. Hengel, ‘Probleme des Markusevangeliums’, Das Evangelium und die Evangelien: Vorträge vom Tübinger Symposium (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; WUNT ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, ) –; U. H. J. Körtner, Papias von Hierapolis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des frühen Christentums (FRLANT ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, ); R. Pesch, ‘Zuschreibung der Evangelien an apostolische Verfasser’, ZKT () –. I.e., Papias on Judas (Frag. ); Josephus on Herod the Great (Ant. ..); Eusebius on Galerius (H.E. ..–); Memnon on Satyrus (FGrHist ..–); Lucian on Alexander the false prophet (Alex. ). Aelius Theon, Prog. ; translation from G. A. Kennedy, ed., Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Writings from the Greco-Roman World ; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, ) . Hermogenes Prog. (of ); Aphthonius Prog. (of ); Nicolaus Prog. (of ).
Papias as Rhetorician
comprehensive delineation of the perfect ekphrasis. He declares that when ‘making an ecphrasis of persons one should go from first things to last, that is, from head to feet; and in describing things, say what preceded them, what is in them, and what is wont to result…’ Papias does precisely this: his description of Judas’ body begins at the head and works its way down, while simultaneously writing with linear chronology. Papias’ central concern in this passage was the description of Judas immediately before his death, but he also narrated events before his disease struck and after his death. Papias further followed the conventions of ekphrasis by using uninterrupted sentences: Frag. . contains words and Frag. . has . The bishop also followed the custom of using sounds to imitate the things described. Rather hilariously, he employed no less than twelve sibilants when insinuating Judas’ enuresis. Papias’ wordplay (e.g., ὕβρις as both Judas’ genitals and resultant shame in Frag. .) and nuanced use of the Greek particles ἀλλ᾿ οὐδέ (Frag. .; cf. ἀλλὰ μηδέ in Frag. .) also suggest a degree of literacy typical of individuals rhetorically educated. This background finds support in Ruth Webb’s observation that writers often used ekphrasis to depict extreme death scenes during the Second Sophistic.
Aphthonius Prog. ; translation from Kennedy, Progymnasmata, . Papias Frag. .: φέρεσθαι δὲ δι᾿ αὐτοῦ τοὺς ἐξ ἅπαντος τοῦ σώματος συρρέοντας ἱχώρας καὶ σκώληκας εἰς ὕβριν δι᾿ αὐτῶν μόνον τῶν ἀναγκαίων. Text lightly revised from Zwiep, Judas and the Choice of Matthias, . See J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (Oxford: Clarendon, d ed. ) –. R. Webb, ‘Rhetoric and the Novel: Sex, Lies and Sophistic’, A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (ed. I. Worthington; Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World; Malden, MA: Blackwell, ) –; cf. the comments on ekphrasis and the comically obscene in J. Elsner, Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text (Princeton: Princeton University, ) –.
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES
instructions for contributors Submissions Materials submitted for publication should be sent to the Editor, Professor John M.G. Barclay, at
[email protected] (Mail address: Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, Abbey House, Palace Green, Durham DH1 3RS, UK). Contributors are requested to send one electronic copy in Microsoft Word or Word Perfect and simultaneously a second copy in pdf format. If pdf-submission is not possible, they are required to send two copies of the typescript to the above mail address, retaining a third copy for checking proofs.
On acceptance of a submission, contributors will be asked to send a final form of the article electronically in both word format (Microsoft Word or Word Perfect) and pdf format; they will also be asked to supply a copy of any font used in the article. They will be expected to check and correct first proofs of their article after it has been typeset.
The author should certify that the article is not being submitted simultaneously to some other journal and explain to the editor the extent of any overlap with books or articles the author has published or is likely to publish in the near future. Articles that appear elsewhere in the same or a different language should not be submitted to this journal. In order to ensure an anonymous reviewing process, contributors are expected to ensure that material submitted bears no indication of their identity either at the head of the article or in references to their own work in the text or footnotes. Upon acceptance of a paper, the author will be asked to assign copyright (on certain conditions) to Cambridge University Press. Contributors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce any material in which they do not hold copyright and for ensuring that the appropriate acknowledgements are included in their manuscript.
Offprints Authors of articles and short studies will receive a pdf file of their contribution and a complimentary issue upon publication.
Manuscript preparation New Testament Studies accepts contributions in English, French and German. All articles submitted for publication in this journal are expected to conform to the requirements of the full instructions for contributors which can be found at http://assets.cambridge.org/NTS/NTS_ifc.pdf Submissions should not normally be longer than 8,500 words, including footnotes (i.e. about 20 pages of the current NTS format). All materials should be double-spaced, including footnotes and citations. Special materials (e.g. lists, tables, charts, diagrams) should be typed on sheets separate from the main text, and the location of such material in the main text should be indicated clearly (e.g. ‘insert chart 1 here’). Contributors are asked to supply an abstract of their article, not exceeding 100 words in length, and a list of up to six keywords (for on-line searching). Short studies may be supplied without an abstract.
Proofs Typographical or factual errors only may be changed at proof stage. The publisher reserves the right to charge authors for correction of non-typographical errors.
This journal issue has been printed on FSC-certified paper and cover board. FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. Please see www.fsc.org for information.
© Cambridge University Press 2010 cambridge university press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, United Kingdom 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013–2473, usa 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014, Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa Printed in the United Kingdom by the University Press, Cambridge.
volume 56 | number 3 | July 2010
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES Articles Serge Wüthrich (Paris, France) Naître de mourir: la mort de Jésus dans l’Évangile de Matthieu (Mt 27.51-56) [313–325] Stephen C. Carlson (Durham, North Carolina, USA) The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: in Luke 2.7 [326–342] Jesper Tang Nielsen (Copenhagen, Denmark) The Narrative Structures of Glory and Glorification in the Fourth Gospel [343–366] Susan Grove Eastman (Durham, North Carolina, USA) Israel and the Mercy of God: A Re-reading of Galatians 6.16 and Romans 9–11 [367–395]
Cambridge Journals Online For further information about this journal please go to the journal website at:
journals.cambridge.org/nts
Matthew V. Novenson (Princeton, New Jersey, USA) Can the Messiahship of Jesus Be Read off Paul’s Grammar? Nils Dahl’s Criteria 50 Years Later [396–412] James R. Edwards (Spokane, Washington, USA) The Hermeneutical Significance of Chapter Divisions in Ancient Gospel Manuscripts [413–426]
Short Study Christopher B. Zeichmann (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) Papias as Rhetorician: Ekphrasis in the Bishop’s Account of Judas’ Death [427–429]
