Semeia 16: Perspectives on Mark's Gospel

an experimental journal for biblical criticism

Perspectives on Mark's Gospel

1979

SEMEIA 16

PERSPECTIVES ON MARK'S GOSPEL

Editor of this Issue: Norman R. Petersen

©

1980

by the Society of Biblical Literature

Distributed by SCHOLARS PRESS P. O. Box 5207 Missoula, MT 59806

Printed in the United States of America Printing Department University of Montana Missoula, MT 59812

CONTENTS ; Page INTRODUCTION ,

'. . . .

MARK AND ORAL TRADITION Werner H. KelberS1

where S]_ means non-S^ and S*2 means non-S2 and where the diagonal arrows indicate contradictory relations and the horizontal arrows indicate contrary relations. Lévi-Strauss does occasionally employ the terms "contradictory" and "contrary" in his arguments. In "The Structural Study of Myth" Lévi-Strauss states, concerning the four columns of the analysis of the Oedipus myth, "contradictory relationships are identical inasmuch as they are both self-contradictory in a similar way" (434). Because the relations among the four members of the formula parallel the relations among

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the four columns, one might assume that Lévi-Strauss defines the opposition of fx(a) and fy(b), and the opposition of f (b) and f _i(y), as relations of contradiction, a*™

Such an assumption is made and extended by Greimas in interpreting Lévi-Strauss1 formula. Greimas defines Lévi-Strauss1 formula as "the establishing of a correlation of coupled contradictory terms" (1977:26) and continues: "It is easy to see that such a model [LéviStrauss1 formula] is in every respect comparable to the constitutional model to which we have already referred [Greimas1 elementary structure of signification], and that it may be interpreted by application of the same relational categories" (1977:26). Greimas1 view of Lévi-Strauss" formula might be represented graphically as: fx(aU

*f,-l(Y>

f x (b);

?fy(b)

where the diagonal arrows indicate contradictory relations and the horizontal arrows indicate contrary relations. Such a Greimasian presentation of Lévi-Strauss1 formula is intriguing but problematic. That fx(a) and fy(b), and fx(b) and fa„i(y) are contradictories might be supported by Lévi-Strauss1 statement quoted above. Perhaps fx(b) and fy(b) could be said to be in contrary relation because of the opposition of f x and fy. But can the complex relation between fx(a) and f i(y) be categorized as simple contrariety? Nowhere in Lévi-Straussf explanation do I find a suggestion of relations of contrariety among the four members of the formula. In fact, the whole point of Lévi-Strauss1 formula is not a comparison of the possible relations among the four elements of the formula as if they were separable, but a comparison of two relationships between complex terms, two equivalent oppositions. The nature of the relations of the elements within the members of the formula may also be considered. That (a) and (b) are considered by Lévi-Strauss as contraries might be inferred from the following statement: .it seems that every myth (considered as the w^llection of all its variants) corresponds to a co formula of the following type: fx(a) : fy(b) - fx(b) : f &-1 (y) where, two terms being given as well as two functions of these terms, it is stated that a relation of equivalence still exists between two

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situations when terms and relations are inverted, under two conditions: 1. that one term be re­ placed by its contrary; 2. that an inversion be made between the function and the term value of two elements. (1955:442-443) The first condition stipulates that the term (a) in fx(a) be replaced by its contrary, (b), yielding f χ (b). The contrary relation of (a) and (b) is assumed by Daniel Patte (1975:236) who then extends the discussion in two ways: (1) by distinguishing a second relation of contrariety between χ and y and (2) by identifying a' 1 , the inverse of a, with I, non-a, the contradiction of a within the logical square (see §3.58 below). However, Patte de­ duces that (a) vs. (b) and χ vs. y are oppositions of con­ traries from the observation that "Fx(a) vs. F v (b) is an opposition of contraries" (1975:236). This observation, of course, opposes Greimas' interpretation of fx(a) and fy(b) as contradictories. Yet isolated statements from Lévi-Strauss1 explanations seem to lend support to both views! On the whole, Lévi-Strauss seems to prefer terms such as "opposite" or "inverted" over "contradictory" and "contrary." When he does employ the latter terms, he appears to apply them in a general sense rather than in the strict sense of Aristotle's square of opposition as utilized by Greimas and his followers. In "The Structural Study of Myth," for example, Lévi-Strauss1 use of the term "contradictory" contradicts its strict, traditional application. At one point Lévi-Strauss gives life vs. death as a "contradiction" (438); at another point he lists good and bad as "contradictory" (442). Each of these pairs is a classic example of contraries according to the logical square of opposition.

χ

life*

•death

χ

good*

•bad

non-death * * non-life non-bad < • non-good Nor does the term "contrary" in its technical sense fare much better. Although (a) and (b) are implied as contrary terms (443) and the notion of one true version of a myth is presented as contrary to the notion of myth as consisting of all its versions (435)—both examples consistent with the technical use of the term "contrary"—the conception of myth as non-translatable (like poetry) is given as the con­ trary of the conception of myth as translatable (unlike poetry) (430) though it appears to contradict it. Some of these instances of Lévi-Strauss' use of the terms "contrary" or "contradictory" are merely incidental; others are more formal. But nowhere do the terms receive the technical respect offered by Greimas.

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Lévi-Strauss is asking different questions and sharing different insights from Greimas and, though a dialogue is healthy, we ought not be too quick to accomodate one system of analysis to the other. /22/ "Inverse," however, is used in other mathematical contexts (the additive inverse, the inverse element in a group, the inverse function) as well as in logic (the inverse of an implication). It is not clear which, if any, of these various uses served as the root of Lévi-Strauss1 employment of the designation "inverse" in his formula. It would seem that the inverse function would provide the key, but Lévi-Strauss1 formula does not clearly follow the mathematical conventions for dealing with functions. Perhaps Maranda and Maranda best illustrate the proper attitude toward such calculation: "Lévi-Strauss1 formula borrows its symbolism from the alphabet of function theory but the connection with this mathematical field should not be carried further" (28). /23/ See note /21/ above on the use of the term "contradictory." In the analysis of the Oedipus myth, overrating blood relations and underrating blood relations are said to "express the same thing, but inverted" (LéviStrauss, 1955:433), and then they are said to be in a contradictory relationship (434) . /24/ Does Lévi-Strauss1 formula remain unchanged by 1 Patte s adaptation? I raised this question in a conversation with Dr. Patte who responded that he had raised this question in a conversation with Lévi-Strauss who would not explicitly respond! /25/ Polzin follows this path in his analysis of the Book of Job. For example: "Just as a is material affliction so its opposite, a-1, is spiritual gain..." (78). To assume that a-1 is equivalent to ä is to mix metaphors—and to open up the problems discussed in note /21/ above. In trying to express an analysis of mythic narrative in mathematical metaphors, it may be helpful to consider the connotations of both metaphors. But we must guard against losing one insight by reducing it to another. /26/ Maranda and Maranda, in adapting and expanding Lévi-Strauss' formula for describing the structure of myth for application to folkloristic materials, interpreted his insights concerning synchronic relationships diachronically. They applied his paradigmatic formula syntagmatically. The phrases in §3.57 above, following Maranda and Maranda, illustrate this shift: "setting up of the conflict," "turning point of the plot," "final solution." Polzin (80) makes the same observation concerning the Marandas• work and also utilizes their

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adaptation. While this approach does counterbalance LéviStrauss1 synchronic bias, it does not resolve the complex problem of the relationship between the diachronic and synchronic dimensions of mythic narratives. Nor does the subtle, but not articulated, influence of the sequence on the schema as suggested by Lévi-Strauss' schematic diagrams in "The Story of Asdiwal" (18-21) resolve this problem. /27/ Perrin develops the ideas of "myth as the interpretation of history" and "history itself functioning as myth" in relation to the New Testament as a whole (1974a: 26-34) .

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WORKS CONSULTED Fohrer, Georg 1972

"huios

(in the) Old Testament." Pp.

340-353 in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Vol. 8. Ed. G.

Friedrich. Geertz, Clifford 1957

Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

"Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols."

The Antioch

Review

17: 421-437. 1966

"Religion as a Cultural System." Pp. 1-46 in Anthropological the Study of Religion.

Approaches to Ed. M. Banton.

London: Tavistock. Greimas, A. J. 1976 1977 Kelber, Werner H. 1974

Maupassant. La sêmiotique de texte: exercices pratiques. Paris: Seuil,

"Elements of a Narrative Grammar." Diacritics (March): 23-40. The Kingdom in Mark: A New Place and a

New Time. Leach, Edmund R. 1961

Philadelphia: Fortress.

"Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden: An Examination of Some Recent Developments in the Analysis of Myth." Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II, 23/4: 386-396. Reprinted as pp. 47-60 in Claude LéviStrauss:

The Anthropologist

as Hero.

Ed. E. N. Hayes and T. Hayes. Cambridge, MA/London, England: MIT Press, 1970. Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1955 "The Structural Study of Myth." Journal

of American Folklore

68: 428-

444. Reprinted as pp. 50-66 in Myth: A Symposium. Ed. T. A. Sebeok. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1955. Also reprinted with slight modifications as pp. 206-231 in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural

Anthropology

York: Basic Books, 1963.

[Vol. 1].

New

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Lévi-Strauss, Claude "The Story of Asdiwal." Pp. 1-47 in 1967 The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism. Ed. E. Leach. Trans. N. Mann. London: Tavistock. Reprinted as chapter 9 of Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, Vol. 2. New York: Basic Books, 1976. 1973a

Anthropologie Pion.

Structurale

Deux·

1973b

From Honey to Ashes: Introduction to a Science of Mythology. Vol. 2. New York: Harper and Row.

Paris:

Maranda, Elli Köngäs and Pierre Maranda 1971 Structural Models in Folklore and Transformational Essays. The Hague/ Paris: Mouton. Marin, Louis 1971 Marxsen, Willi 1969 Mauser, Ulrich W. 1963

Patte, Daniel 1975

Sêmiotique de la Passion. Figures. Paris: Cerf. Mark the Evangelist. Nashville: Abingdon.

Topiques et

New York/

Christ in the Wilderness : The Wilderness Theme in the Second Gospel and its Basis in the Biblical Tradition. Naperville, IL: Allenson. "Structural Network in Narrative: The Good Samaritan." Soundings 63/2: 221242.

1976a

"Structural Analysis of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: Toward a Method." Pp. 71-149 in Semiology and Parables. Ed. D. Patte. Pittsburgh: Pickwick.

1976b

What Is Structural Exegesis? Philadelphia: Fortress.

Perrin, Norman 1974a

The New Testament : An Introduction. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

132 Perrin, Norman 1974b

Pesch, Rudolf 1968 Polzin, Robert M. 1977

Trocmê, Etienne 1975

Semeia

"The Son of Man in Ancient Judaism and Primitive Christianity: A Suggestion." Pp. 23-40 in Norman Perrin, A Modern Pilgrimage in New Testament Christology. Philadelphia: Fortress. Naherwartungen: Tradition und Redaktion in Mk 13. Düsseldorf: Patmos. Biblical Structuralism : Method and Subjectivity in the Study of Ancient Texts. Philadelphia: Fortress/ Missoula: Scholars. The Formation of the Gospel According to Mark. Philadelphia: Westminster.

TOWARD A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK

Catholic

Jean Calloud University (Lyon,

France)

Abstract Following a summary of the course of research on Mark

undertaken at the Center for

the Analysis

of

Religious

Discourse at Lyon, France, the essay provides samples of research in connection with episodes in Mark 2. The method consists of an application to the individual episodes (pericopes; micro-narratives) of some elementary categories of signification, and of a progressive extension of the network of semantic relations disclosed in that first step to the series of episodes considered. This method restores to the Gospel text a level of coherence and continuity useful to its decoding because as the elementary units of signification emerge, the pericopes take a place in the structured totality of the Gospel. The textual features make sense when viewed in terms of the correlations into which they can enter. [Editor's abstract] 0.1 The first experiments in structuralist analysis have been made upon texts in which narrative plotting was very clearly manifested. This is the case with folktales, which demand from the listener or the reader the perception, without ambiguity and delay, of its global meaning and of the interaction of its sequential parts. The more complex narratives of literary works often present the same property which we may designate "syntagmatic continuity." The fixity or the regular variation of the characters, the places, the times, the objects, and the more or less explicit correlation of situations and transformations produce an effect of chainlike continuity and of narrative coherence. The

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autonomy of the successive episodes and of the various textual features is reduced to aid their integration into the overall signifying organization. The length of the text in this case is not a major obstacle to the analysis. The narrative logic emerges in the linguistic manifestation and the construction of the algorithm of the operations is helped by the ease with which one can identify this organization. We could say that in this type of text the "narrative" dominates and the "discourse" is subordinate:* "Narrative" analysis has no difficulty describing the continuity. It can therefore be used to elucidate the organizing principle as a first analytical step preparing directly for the "discursive" analysis. In this case there is a minimal distance between reading and analysis. 0.2 By contrast, in other cases the autonomy of the sequences asserts itself more distinctly and the unifying principle is kept in the background of the linguistic manifestation. The reader then tends to treat each episode separately and more or less to forget the overall perspective of the text. This change of level in the perception of the signifying phenomenon has repercussions upon its analysis: the narrative model, applicable without too much difficulty to each micro-narrative, becomes more problematic for the description of the whole, whereas the discursive model, associated with the thematic dimension of the text, is often more effective. This inversion is frequently more

•Translators Note: Calloud, together with the Group of Entrevernes and Greimas, make a distinction between the narrative dimension of a text and its discursive dimension. The latter is the symbolic and semantic dimension of a text and is characterized by a paradigmatic organization. By contrast the narrative dimension of the text is characterized by a syntagmatic organization (cf.: Group of Entrevernes, Signs and Parables: Semiotics and Gospel Text, trans. Gary Phillips, Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1978). [Editor's Note: For further discussion of Calloud1s terminology and method, see J. Calloud, Structural Analysis of Narrative (trans. Daniel Patte, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976).]

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pragmatic than strictly methodological. At the very least it contributes a methodological tool, and the possibility of success, to the quest for the unifying organization and principle. For indeed, such a quest is often difficult, and its difficulty is usually proportionate to the length of the text. 0.3 The Gospels belong to this second category. The structural description of each of their elements is relatively easy, but the elaboration of a descriptive model of the whole remains more problematic. It is well known that the usual reading of these texts proceeds through a consideration of each pericope or each group of pericopes on its own and according to an order which does not always respect the sequence proposed by the Gospel text. One also knows how difficult it is to establish a plan which makes explicit in a satisfactory manner an organization of the sequential parts about which various readers could agree as the one account for the progression of the text. Uncertainty concerning textual segmentation always signals the interference of several principles of organization and the absence of a dominant narrative criterion. Thus, we may ask what sort of constraints do these texts obey? Which semantic laws regulate the distribution of their units and of their smaller features? What is the point of view that one must adopt in order to perceive its continuity, its unfolding, and its connectedness? 0.4 This kind of question led the Center for the Analysis of Religious discourse (CADIR) at Lyon, France, to undertake a sustained collective research project on the Gospel of Mark /l/. Various hypotheses have been proposed both from the narrative point of view and from the discursive point of view. We intend here to summarize the course of this research, to point out the paths opened in the course of these more or less fruitful explorations, and to present then at greater length a sample of the results obtained from a series of pericopes.

136 1.

Semeia The Problem: Values and Semantic Operations

1.1 The first task and the first risk of structural analysis consists in proposing for analysis not the description of the texts themselves but of a level other than that of the linguistic manifestation. This is not to say that the manifestation is secondary or unimportant. But it is only the translation into the lexematic order (i.e., in the order used in reading) of semantic operations performed upon the elementary units of signification. The words, or lexemes, and their combinations in sentences, paragraphs, and textual sequences represent only a "cover" (sometimes uncertain or fantastic, often approximate at least in certain of its details, but always debatable) for a signifying organization whose operation and performances must be defined with precision. This lexematic "cover," fitting the demands of perception and of communication, does not contain meaning as a fixed substance which would be enclosed in each word as in a container. Rather it provides a means of access to the text1s universe of signification by representing the semantic values /2/, their insertion, their combination and their transformation on the stage and with the resources of specific (natural) languages. Because there is a variable distance between the level of manifestation and the signifying organization, the substitution of the descriptive metalanguage for the natural language is more or less difficult. 1.2 When the organizing and unifying principle is not easily located at the lexematic level, or when it cannot be deduced rapidly, one understands that the description of the text demands a patient reconstruction of the level of values and of the semantic operations. This is the approach we ultimately attempted to apply to the Gospel of Mark. This procedure seems to provide a new point of view for the evaluation of the deep continuity and of the deep interactions characterizing the Gospel narrative. Furthermore, it permits the establishment and the

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justification of specific comparisons and correspondences which could not be demonstrated by an argument remaining upon a purely lexical plane. Our research has unfolded in two directions: One was seeking to establish the "narrative" characteristics of the Gospel narrative; the other was exploring its "discursive" component. For indeed, even if one does not wish any longer to establish a narrative algorithm of the whole Gospel of Mark, it is necessary to compare this kind of text with the canonic narrative model. As will be shown below, when carrying on this type of analysis it is often easier to unravel the maze of the operations performed upon the semantic values. 2.

The Gospel of Mark: A Discourse of "Sanction"

2.1 The Gospel narrative presents an interesting case of the interaction of "somatic doing" and of "cognitive doing" /3/. The identity and the value of the actors is not entirely nor evenly disclosed to all the characters. The relations of cognition and recognition are complicated by a number of factors: by a certain reserve and a longing for "secrecy" / 4 / on the part of Jesus, who is also fully aware of hostile thoughts, intentions, and motivations, despite the cunning, the duplicity, and the more or less conscious lies of his adversaries; by a sudden and suspicious lucidity on the part of the demons; and by both the ignorance and the lack of awareness of certain witnesses and of the crowd. Jesus is at the center of this cognitive space and his identity is the object of contrary operations on the part of the other characters. One can follow the lines of opposed transformations which from episode to episode lead to recognition of his identity by certain people and to the lack of recognition by others. This would be a valuable perspective for the establishment of a narrative model on the scale of the complete Gospel narrative. Yet this model would exclusively apply to the cognitive space. We have not followed it in our analysis /5/.

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2.2 Another aspect merits attention. The circulation of knowledge also takes place upon the axis of the enunciation under the form of a cognitive object circulating between the enunciator and the enunciatee. It turns out that, in the Gospel narrative, the content of this knowledge does not concern solely the relations, somatic or cognitive, among the actors of the utterance, but also the truth of the personnages, of the narrative programs, and of the organization of the values. The Gospel of Mark is not an exception even if it seems to be less "theological." At the same time that the actions and the situations are recalled in virtue of a knowledge belonging to the category of "appearing," the true signification is proposed in virtue of a knowledge belonging to the category of "being" /6/. Thus, even though the narrative is descriptive, its aim is interpretative or explicative. Rather than being postponed until the final phase, the truth about the subject and about the values is already manifested at the beginning of the text and is distributed by a kind of epistemic authority (i.e., by a kind of sender) coextensive to the narrative. By comparison with the syntagmatic model of narrativity which organizes in four phases the manifestation of a narrative trajectory, it appears that the Gospel narrative belongs to the level of the "sanction" /7/. It is not then merely a matter of telling but rather of recalling in order to make understood, or better of retelling the whole narrative in the light of the effected sanction. By contrast to the folktale which organizes syntagmatically the four subspaces of narrativity into four successive moments of a trajectory, the Gospels use them in a more paradigmatic manner. The relations between the subject of the "making-do" and the subject of "doing," the considerations about the competence, and the description of the performance are integrated into the perspective of the recognition and are constantly reintroduced in the form of either a narrative-discourse or a discourse-narrative. As

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can be expected, it is always difficult to reconstruct the narrative logic of such texts. This explains why the subject-hero is represented at one and the same time as subject of the performance (above all in the passionresurrection but also in what precedes it) and as subject to be recognized, arriving incognito among his people in order to perform the "difficult task" which will manifest his true identity. Perhaps one should not choose either one of these two actantial roles so as to register them together. Similarly one should not seek to localize here or there in the Gospel text such and such a "test" which in the folktale has a distinctly sequential character. After having worked for some time in this direction we have finally adopted an hypothesis primarily focused upon the superimposing of the four dimensions of narrativity rather than upon their succession. The description of the Gospel narrative requires that one take account at the same time of the narrative organization and the interpretative organization / 8 / . 2.3 As discourse of sanction, the Gospel text excludes all "suspense." Already in the first sentence, 1:1, the identity of the subject and the values are proclaimed: "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God...." Consequently a circular effect can be observed when in 16:15 we read: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation." What is proposed as a mission is accomplished as a performance in the narrative itself. The Gospel discourse is more a discourse about an already acquired knowledge than a discourse about a quest for knowledge. Nevertheless, one finds in it an actual narrative in which the "being" of the subject and of the values is represented by means of the "appearing" of the behaviors, confrontations, and the attributions of objects. The persuasive dimension / 9 / of the Gospel text does not dismiss its representative function. That is why we said above that it was an interesting case of the interaction of

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somatic doing with cognitive doing. Indeed, in each micronarrative true knowledge about the values is derived by reference to the accomplished performance. 2.4 If it is true that the reference to the previous narrative developments is made here according to a model which is more paradigmatic than syntagmatic, it becomes difficult to call upon the narrative model in order to account for the relative unity and progression of the text. That is why our present hypothesis tends to prefer a discursive model of the operations performed upon the elementary values. Yet one model does not and indeed must not exclude the other as will be seen in the following example of analysis. 3.

The Coherence of the Semantic Universe: Analytical Essay on a Series of Pericopes (Mark 2)

3.01 The narrative unity of the Gospel story is provided by the fact that it is set in the order of recognition and of veridiction. The elucidation of the thematic level, of the semantic values, and of the organizational process which takes place in the depth level accordingly becomes more important and more interesting. The correspondences, the correlations and the continuities that we may discover will offer us a principle of organization more adequate than a narrative model closer to the textual surface. Thus, it is in the form of a semic and semanticological invariance joined to a great representative variability of manifestation that the principle of unity and the condition of the overall readability of the Gospel of Mark will be established. 3.02 This analytical example is carried out upon a series of pericopes which have in common the context of a controversy between Jesus and his opponents. However, the first pericope includes a miracle story (the paralytic of Capernaum), while the following pericopes do not involve

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miraculous elements. We would like to show the specific correspondences which are much more emphasized in the signifying organization than one could expect at first. 3.1

Forgiveness, Healing, Meal, Call to the Sinners (Mark 2:1-12 and 13-16)

The two pericopes begin by presenting a gathering of the crowd around Jesus, "at the house" on the one hand and "by the sea" on the other. In the two cases Jesus teaches. This role is presented very often in the Gospel either in lengthy development as in chapter 4 (parables) or in simple allusions as here. It emphasizes the relation of Jesus to the crowd by means of word. The crowd is the recipient of this object-knowledge. Yet the crowd plays a complementary role in the Capernaum narrative: By the very fact that it is gathered together in such a way that "there was no longer room for them, not even about the door" it represents what occupies the space and hinders free movement. This "traffie-jam" will constitute the obstacle to the normal way to approach Jesus. It will necessitate the detour through the roof. In the following pericope the crowd is not designated as an obstacle. Yet there is a similar shift of focus in the direction of the publican seated at his tax desk. One notes at the beginning of chapter 4 the presence of a crowd so numerous "that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea." In 5:21-24 a comparable crowd obstructs and "crushes" Jesus. Its presence permits the anonymity of the cure obtained by a woman who by insistent questioning will be established as an individual interlocutor /IO/. A little further on in the text, 5:38-40, a new crowd-obstacle must be dispersed from the dead girl in order that the "nominative word" may produce its life-giving effect with an extraordinary economy of words and of cognitive content. One could prolong this summary of the thematic role of the crowd as an obstacle by mentioning 6:31-34: "For many were coming and going...," an agitated and disorderly crowd from which Jesus first sought

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to separate himself and which he will have to organize and to count in the desert before feeding them. The quite close relationship between crowd and house or crowd and sea would also merit some explanation. But it is sufficient to have registered this collective and problematic function of the speech before a recipient occupying the space in an excessive manner. By contrast with it the relation to the individual interlocutor acquires more prominence. The introduction of the first specific case is effected by means of a passive movement of the beneficiary: "a paralytic carried by four men." In the following episode, it is Jesus who moves: "as he passed on, he saw Levi...." The two encounters take place in circumstances which are a little exceptional. It is necessary to unroof the top of the house, and through this opening to lower the paralytic resting upon his pallet to Jesus. In the case of Levi, Jesus sees him, "sitting at the tax-office" "as he passed on." Was he teaching while passing on? It does not matter. What is important is that an individual interlocutor is substituted for a group of hearers. Jesus1 speech is still the subject-matter, but it will have a new effect and different consequences. 3.11

Jesus1 First Word

Let us consider the first word of Jesus in each of the two pericopes. "My son, your sins are forgiven." If one understands the laborious arrival of the paralytic as a request for healing (and this seems to be the correct understanding), one cannot but be surprised by Jesus1 response. At the very least it does not fit the request. Consequently it is unexpected and perceived by certain readers as deceptive. Instead of bestowing the object that is lacking, he substitutes for it an object not desired. The conjunction of these two effects sets the narrative on the course of an unexpected complementary performance. We will return to this point.

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The word addressed to Levi is directly comparable with the preceding from the point of view of its general form. It is an unexpected command not prepared for by a previous conversation. It is not a response either to a question or to a request. It does not expect a verbal response. The authority manifested in the declaration about forgiveness corresponds to the imperative character of the injunction addressed to the publican. Despite these first observations we should not forget that the command "follow me" is in stricter symmetry, from the point of view of its content, with "rise, take up your pallet and go home." But let us note already that the thematic role of Jesus as teacher or spokesman entails not solely to choose when to initiate the dialogue but also to choose what we may call the "target" of the speech. It is Jesus who chooses to speak and to aim his speech at such and such aspect of his interlocutor. 3.12

The Second Word of Jesus

In the two pericopes being considered Jesus speaks a second time: in order to prepare and to give the command to the paralytic, "Rise...and go home" (2:8-11), and to declare, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (2:17). It is easy to see now that the speeches correspond to each other with an inversion. 1st Word Healing "My son, your sins are forgiven" (word addressed to the paralytic). Controversy "Follow me" (word addressed to Levi).

2nd Word "Rise, take your pallet and go home" (word addressed to paralytic and to opponents). "I came not to call the righteous but sinners" (word addressed to the opponents).

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Two complementary correspondences reapportion differently the organization: the allusion to the sick who have need of a physician in 2:17 reintroduces the isotopy of the healing underlying the end of the first narrative. The designation of the paralytic by the title "My son..." presupposes a relation of proximity translated in the spatial code by the invitation to "follow." It remains to be said that the paralytic is at first forgiven as sinner and then is healed as sick, whereas Levi is at first invited to get up and follow Jesus, and then the mission to call sinners is proclaimed. This inversion entails others. More exactly, it signals a more elementary inversion which reverberates on other details. First, the paralytic is called upon to separate himself from Jesus in order to go home. Levi is called upon to follow Jesus; and it is Jesus who goes to his home where the assembly of publicans, of sinners, and of the crowd takes place. Jesus has therefore moved from one location to another: beginning by the sea, the second performance is completed in the home of Levi. Note also that the command addressed to the paralytic contains a mention of the pallet on which he was placed: "...take your pallet...," whereas "follow me" involves abandoning the tax office where Levi was found sitting. But the effect of the inversion in the signifying organization effects above all the way in which the opponents will be introduced and will perform their anti-performances. 3.13

Reactions of Jesus1 Opponents

In the first narrative we read that "some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 'Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?1" They have understood and judged to be excessive and "daring" the declaration of Jesus. They do not oppose him openly but they "question in their hearts," an intransitive expression of condemnation. In the second narrative we read that the scribes of the Pharisees, "when they saw that he was eating with sinners

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and tax collectors, said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?1" They have seen Jesus1 behavior and judged it to be inadequate and "misplaced." While his speech in the first narrative manifested a condemnable claim in their eyes because it situated him at too close a distance from God /ll/, his behavior in the second narrative suggests a forgetfulness of legal obligations which entails too great a distance from the locus of holiness. Here also their accusation is indirect: it is expressed clearly but addressed to the disciples rather than to Jesus. From the accusation of blasphemy concerning the wrong use of speech the opponents have passed to an indignation provoked by a dietary practice which they condemn. In the two cases the focus is on the mouth and on its twofold function, expressive and nutritive /12/: "Why does this man speak thus?"; "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" From the point of view of narrative description, it is necessary to specify that the opponents' intervention, which manifests an anti-program, is not able to neutralize directly Jesus' performance. Their interpretative doing is alone at stake here: they oppose him by means of an unfavorable interpretation which will have a pragmatic or somatic manifestation only much later and as a consequence of this ignorance or of this error. This is a constant feature of the opposition between Jesus and his opponents. Beyond this remark one can consider the matter of the competence which is the basis of this devaluating interpretative performance. The text provides two representations of it: "questioning in their hearts" and "when they saw that he was eating with sinners...." Heart and gaze are the two instruments of knowing (an ability-to-know or an abilityto-interpret), and both are negative. This negativity is brought to light by two contrasting qualifications of Jesus' behavior: "Perceiving in his spirit" (2:8) signals the instrument of true knowledge and permits the neutralization of

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the adverse accusations, while the reference to the eyes in "seeing their faith..." is very characteristic. Jesus sees what is not given directly to see. His eyes are in the service of purification and of healing. Even in the case when one gives a little versimilitude to this utterance by connecting it to the strategy utilized by the bearers of the sick man, it remains surprising. Faith is not an object of vision, at any rate, as long as the function of the eye is not reorientated and redefined. Moreover, the text has not beforehand mentioned the faith of these people. On the contrary, Jesus' opponents do not see except what is given to be seen in a most direct and most material manner: they see that he eats. The somatic character of what is here appropriated by sight contrasts with the cognitive character of that which Jesus1 gaze registers. Jesus sees the deep desire and he identifies in the unformulated petition the genuine request. In the unfolding of the performance of the call to salvation his opponents see nothing but an illegal meal. This twofold orientation of the eye, toward life in the one case, toward condemnation in the other, begins the separation of the positive narrative program from the anti-program. Note that the structuration of the functions of the eye is closely interrelated with the structuration of the functions of the mouth. In this way, thus, the system of elementary signifying oppositions is progressively constructed. 3.14

Jesus1 Response to His Opponents

By comparison with the circumstances of the meal in the house of Levi, the circumstances which Jesus must confront in Capernaum are both different and similar. The accusation is inverted: taking the place of God by pretending to speak as He does versus taking a place among sinners by eating with them. Yet it is still a matter of interrelating correctly a speech and behavior (a role as "speaking" person and a role as "acting" person). At Capernaum

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Jesus spoke first. The setting of the performance abruptly refers both the origin (i.e., the competence or the ability to speak) and the purpose (i.e., the effect, the object transmitted, the forgiveness) of the word to the realm of the implicit and secret. The implicit and secret character of the manifestation of the subject will be the basis upon which the scribes and pharisees1 hostile reaction will unfold: they deny the existence of the competence, denounce it as untrue, and designate him as a traitor. To this negative sanction Jesus is going to oppose the performance, the so-called "difficult task," which will manifest without equivocation his power in the order of speech by inscribing its effect in physical space. The word reaches the body in order to restore it to mobility, to communication, and to organized space. Therefore it is true. Thus, the somatic effect intervenes as the affirmation of a source and as the confirmation of a target. Jesus has the power to speak in order to perform the forgiving of sins. Because of his close relation to the word, he has the authority of the law. In the following episode, Jesus first acts by calling Levi and by participating in the gathering in the house. His word has shown its effectiveness: "he rose and followed him." But the scope of this effect remains uncertain. Is it simply in order to go to eat with him that Jesus has taken Levi away from his tax office? It is necessary therefore to affirm here that in so doing Jesus exercises the true ministry of the word: he calls and the impact of his calling is felt where the opposition "righteous" vs. "sinners" becomes meaningful. In the presence of the paralytic Jesus needed to show that by speaking he was acting. In the midst of sinners he needs to affirm that by acting he is speaking. In both cases the isotopy of the sickness and of the healing participates in the interrelation of the two planes. Let us go back over some details displayed by each of these two declarations.

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By submitting to the law of difficulty, Jesus shows that his role in the realm of the word is exercised under the sign of involvement and of risk. Instead of taking some precautions and of keeping open some "emergency exit" the word ventures into the body and, according to the context, risks the body in which this performance originates. We recognize here the figure of the "handicap" which runs through the entire narrative. In the physiological code, it produces sickness, paralysis (the sick person is a "handicapped" person). In the spatial code of movement, it produces the impossibility of entering the house by the door. In the ethical code, it produces sin. In the referential code, it produces suspicion and the demand to demonstrate one's qualities in unfavorable conditions /13/. All these handicaps are set in the realm of positive values, in virtue of a rejection of the "ease" which is exclusively associated with the emptiness and the illusion of an anti-word to which scribes and pharisees intend to reduce Jesus. 3.142

The Sick and the Healthy

When Jesus wants to affirm that the word, coming from God and aimed at the sinners, is engaged in the banal circumstances of a meal or even of a gathering of ambiguous character in the eyes of the scribes, he upholds a relation between the interior effect of the word and its somatic effect. He compares the sinners and the sick. In order that his speech about forgiveness be recognized as true, he cured the paralytic. So that his behavior with the publicans (which manifests directly his efficacy since they come and gather around him) be recognized as a word summoning sinners, he recalls that his behavior confirms the principle ruling the relation between the physician and the sick. In other words, after having assumed the handicap of the "law of sickness," he assumes also the "law of the physician."

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This is another way of risking the body in the adventure of the word, by voluntarily accepting a tactic of proximity which can present some danger but which responds to the need and is therefore adapted to the situation. 3.143

The Authority of the Son of Man

There is no doubt that this is a matter of competence: i.e., both of being able to do and of having to do. It is not necessary to insist on this again. Let us simply emphasize two points: the place of the performance, the earth, and the title designating Jesus1 competence. Son of Man. The earth is the only element of the cosmological code which is actually referred to. One of its habitual correlates appears in 2:13: "He (Jesus) went out again beside the sea...." Heaven is indirectly connoted by the mention of God in 2:7 and 2:12: "they...glorified God." This glorification, which is also a word addressed to the one who, without being found on the very scene of the healing, is also concerned by the event, confirms that the relation heaven-earth is pertinent. We can even say that this relation is manifested here as a conjunction. A trajectory of values is established on this cosmic axis (heaven-earth). Jesus is at the point of conjunction. This is why his opponents contest the conjunction heaven-earth by attempting to separate Jesus from God. His response contains a twofold negation of this disjunction: the forgiveness of sin (which belongs to the divine and heavenly order) is effective on earth. He who has the power to forgive uses it in this place. And he exercises it as Son, that is to say, because of his relation to the Father, and the son of man, that is in a radical solidarity with man. "Father" is correlated to God and to heaven. "Man" is correlated to humanity and to earth. The ambivalence of the title, often noted, finds here its complete signification. If Jesus exercises the forgiveness by the word in virtue of being Son,

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one is not surprised that in order to address the paralytic he uses a term of family vocabulary—"My son...(teknon), your sins are forgiven." He does it in order to enter into a system of relations where his status is redefined. The sick man when cured can return to his home; he circulates freely there; he lives there in virtue of his new identity /14/. The following text makes use of the same categories in a different way. The emphasis is put on the proximity between somebody representing the celestial pole and people representing the most extreme part of the earthly pole. As is well known, one can derive from the pair Heaven vs. Earth the more complex opposition: Heaven vs. (Land and Sea). The sea connotes the extreme opposite of heaven. It is there that Jesus is going to bring the word. This remoteness, represented at first in the cosmic code, can also be registered in the ethical code where it produces the figures of "publican" and "sinners." The "righteous" should then be halfway between heaven and sea, yet in an illusory way, since it is the place where the word does not apply. "I came from on high," Jesus declared in substance at Capernaum, "and one should not disjoin the earth from heaven." "I have come to the depths," he said in the house of Levi, "and one should not disjoin heaven and earth from the sea" /15/. 3.144

The House Opening upon Heaven

Let us come back to one detail which might seem purely anecdotal: "They removed the roof above him; and when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay." There are three houses in the texts which concern us here: that of the healing, that of the paralytic, that of the dinner with sinners. Only the first and the third are places of performance and of transformation. The door of the third is widely open. It is centered on the welcoming table, and the word there does its work of summons because Jesus is on the inside. It is a kind of

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bottom point ("down there") from which is accomplished an upward motion. The first house is crowded, its door no longer guarantees free passage between exterior and interior. It is necessary to make there an opening toward "on high," not in order that the occupants can move out of it, but in order that the movement can be established from "on high" to "down there." The paralytic who is lowered toward Jesus enters the place of the word along its proper axis: he arrives, to to speak, at the "tribunal of God" or to use a more biblical formula, at the "throne of God." This is indeed what amazes the scribes—that the throne of God be so low. They forget that the house without a roof communicates freely with "on high." It is a sort of high-point from which the encounter of God and of man can be accomplished, an encounter realized in the Son of Man. It is thanks to a passage into this house without a roof that the man can freely reintegrate his own house. He carries away from there the pallet on which he was laid as a remembrance of his immobile and paralyzed body /16/. 3.2

The Dinner with Levi, Fasting, the Garment, the Wine, the Wineskins

Before concluding this sample analysis, we would like to expand it rapidly so as to include the following pericope in order to illustrate further the procedure which we have adopted. Note 16 began to put us on the track of a new extension of the network of correlations. If the relation to the pallet can serve as a support for the manifestation of the transformations effected in the miracle narrative, one may wonder if a similar organization is not to be found in the following narrative. The observation that the inversion of values has been devised on the basis of a relation between "container" and "content" shows the solidity of this hypothesis. The pallet contains, supports, and holds the paralytic in so narrow and total a way that the mention of the first as container suffices to designate the second as content: "they let down the pallet on which the

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paralytic lay." Jesus' word, "Take up your pallet and go home," shows therefore a change of place as well as a change of relation to the place: home is substituted for the pallet. And the man enters there on his own. He is no longer either a mere "content" or one contained in his space. The pallet which he took with him when he "went out before them all" has lost its value of necessary "container" in order to become a kind of "token," portable and supportable, designating for all the witnesses the subject-receiver of the values. The "glorifying" test (properly termed here) can unfold. And, once more, it is the eye and its functions which are emphasized: "We never saw anything like this." The verb "to see" in the Greek text is the last lexeme of the micro-narrative. One can say therefore that the miracle, despite the fact that it is defined in terms of the paralysis and of the restitution of the body's overall ability to move, inaugurates a new manner of seeing, a radically new "spectacle": a man carrying his pallet at the very place where earlier one could see only a pallet carrying a paralyzed body. On the basis of these observations there would be many things to say concerning the various healing narratives in the Gospel of Mark /17/. We have to limit our remarks here to a study of the role in related pericopes of the elementary units of signification which we have identified so far. 3.21

The Physician Among the Sick

The call of Levi shows the relation of man with the place where he carries on his profession, which turns out to be also the mark of his social and religious identity. "Tax collector," "publican," "sinner": all the commentaries on the biblical texts are in agreement in emphasizing the close tie which connects these diverse qualifications. Yet they do not emphasize so much what is presupposed by these different evaluations, namely the strict, constraining, and definitive connection between a man and his professional role. The almost total identification with

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one's role, the fact of being enclosed in a role, and the impossibility of escaping from it, have as a twofold consequence the exclusion of any other possibility of identifying oneself with something else, and the exclusion of any possibility of cohabitation with any other men than one's "fellow men" in the most narrow sense of the term. These "sinners" are locked up in their sin and locked up with each other. One can see how the pair container/content functions here. When Jesus draws Levi out of his tax office, he performs the same separation and the same inversion as when he commanded the paralytic to take up his pallet. He does it outside, before entering into the house where the publicans and the sinners are gathered, a house which is also very crowded ("there were many..."). Beyond the fact that Jesus has been able to enter it with his disciples, it seems that this house was first open for him. Rather than a house without a roof it is then a house without a door. In this way Jesus could enter the house in spite of criticisms and oppositions just as the paralytic could be brought to him in spite of the hindrance of the crowd. The result is equivalent: he accomplishes there what has never yet been seen—the place of the performance, this house, is an intermediary locus between the office of the publican and the new place to which Jesus calls Levi: "Follow me" /18/. It is at that place that the bondage is broken and that the relation of content to container is inversed into a privilege, i.e., into a law of the greatest necessity. Indeed Jesus, by his simple presence in the group closed upon itself, breaks its boundary. And by his statement about the need for healing, he substitutes another qualification for the one that the scribes of the pharisees used as the unique and definitive label: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." If the very actors who were designated by the thematic role of sinners (and Jesus does not deny that they were sinners) can now be designated by means of another

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thematic role, it is because their identification is not inevitably attached to a role and a qualification. And if, in passing from one order to another, the competence of the subject-receiver is inverted, it is because there is a means for the transformation of the situations. A certain "free play" is established in what seemed an irreversible fate or a blind mechanism. The title of "sinners" can reappear: "I came not to call the righteous but sinners. " It is the very title that the scribes of the pharisees used to express their condemnation. But now it identifies those who are in the best position to hear the call of Jesus. Being a sinner is no longer an identity, the fact of belonging exclusively and definitively to a category which can be pinpointed. The "sinners" are opposed to the "righteous." Certainly they lack some things. They are "sick" who need healing. But the very thing they are lacking can open in them an access to the word which is ignored by those who have rightly adjusted everything in their space—a well-adjusted roof, a closed door. The proof that it is so does not need to be given. By contrast to the situation created by the granting of forgiveness to the paralytic, he has not said "...in order that you might know...," since Levi, the first publican, had already arisen at the call of Jesus and the others had followed. It is enough to reaffirm that the transforming trajectory was not presupposing a quest for food. It is not the desire to eat which motivated the subject in virtue of a reflexive wanting-to-do. Another law, a transitive law, presided over the performance. So, the episode which had begun under the sign of "glance" ("As he passed on he saw Levi...") ends under the sign of a redefinition of the functions of the mouth: not eating but "calling." To those who would be dubious of the applicability of these descriptive considerations to the Gospel text or who would question their verifiability, we propose now a last rapid analytical course through the following episode.

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"Why do Your Disciples not Fast?"

The question thus raised concerns without ambiguity the nutritive function of the mouth: eating vs. non-eating. Therefore, the semantic operations unfold normally in the same domain as formerly. What is less clear is the actual value of these two contradictory behaviors. For indeed, two elements of the discussion complicate the semantic interaction. The first such element is the clear value attributed to fasting by Jesus1 interlocutors: "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast but your disciples...." By that, therefore, one can recognize them. But when considering the matter more closely, one wonders what becomes, in this discourse, of the actual distinctive value of fasting. If everyone fasts at the same time and in the same manner, where is the difference and the specific "work" of the subject? Would it be necessary to fast to do as everyone else? And would it be necessary to eliminate the difference by a practice which, on principle, should establish it? One sees the ambiguity of the position assumed by a group which is itself composite, "John's disciples and the Pharisees." The dismissal in the actor-locutor of commonly-recognized differences reflects at the actantial level of the subject the ambiguity manifested in the performance. And one very quickly understands that Jesus is asked to account not merely for a facultative practice but also for a relation to the difference. The second element which complicates the semantic interaction is the nuanced response of Jesus: it is not a matter of fasting or of not fasting, but of eating or fasting at the proper time. The introduction of a temporal framework modifies the basis of the discussion. Jesus' disciples cannot fast now (no ability-to-do). They will certainly fast later (having-to-do). Two practices, and not a single one, distinguish them from all the others in terms of a certain rhythm related to the bridegroom's

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presence and absence. The question raised about the nutritive function of the mouth is therefore considerably displaced: one needs to strive to fast at the proper time and in a significative manner. A sound practice of fasting is commanded by one's relation to the bridegroom and by the alternation of his presence and absence, rather than by one's relation to material food. Curiously, at least if one is not too much accustomed to received ideas, fasting coincides with the absence; it reiterates the "removal" of the bridegroom /19/. The lack or the void created by the deprivation of his presence does not need to be filled. It must be symbolized by the privative dietary practice. There is no foreseeable consolation for the absence of the bridegroom. Fasting will be a way of maintaining the physical proximity of the bridegroom and the wedding time. The redefinition of fasting is therefore symmetrical to the redefinition of the meal in the preceding pericope. In both cases one needs to pull back somewhat to shift attention from the materiality of the given behavior (either the meal or fasting), and from its value as directly providing an identity in order to focus one's attention on the relation to a subject. The introduction of history, i.e., of a temporal succession, into the discussion corresponds therefore to the introduction of a semantic framework centered around a personal relation. It is because of the fact that one is invited to the wedding feast (as "sons of the wedding hall") that one can be identified as a disciple of Jesus and not because of one's behavior. Fasting and eating are behaviors which are chosen according to the signs (or marks) of the bridegroom's time and space. Here also the alimentary function is regulated and subjected to a law. But the distinctive character of the situation is that eating has as much meaning as fasting provided that the one or the other activity is related to the bridegroom. If the disciples of Jesus make themselves conspicuous, it is not by neglecting the fast; rather it is by relating it to the feast as a

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specific moment of the signifying alimentary process. Jesus does not lock them up in one or the other behavior. One can better see now how the semantic categories pointed out above remain pertinent in this pericope. Here also a space is involved: no longer properly speaking a house, but a wedding hall. The guests are the "sons" /20/. They inhabit it as their proper place. But everything there depends upon the bridegroom. Eating or fasting are two ways of occupying this space by virtue of one's relation to the bridegroom /21/. As the house without a roof and the house without a door, the wedding hall is a space of transformation. 3.23

The Old and the New

Although the relation between container and content was somewhat reduced in the discussion of fasting precisely because the relation to the bridegroom was predominant, it comes back to the fore at the end of Jesus' statement. The undeniable return of this pair contributes somewhat to the manifestation in this text of an in-depth continuity that the simple reading had more difficulty establishing. The two comparisons used by Jesus, that of the garment and that of the wineskins, are in agreement on three points. First, the problem is that of the conjunction of a received element with a receiver element (in the second comparison, received=content and receiver=container). Second, the element received, or content, is qualified as "new" and stronger; the element-receiver or container is qualified as "old" and more fragile. Third, the conjunction of new and old is deceptive; it is necessary to maintain a disjunction between the old and the new. We are in a position to make a somewhat repetitive reading of these statements because we know how the pair content/container functions in all the preceding pericopes. We know that content and container do not correspond directly to each other except, perhaps, in the category of the anti-values. What is manifested as content, in the initial situation, the

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paralyzed man for example, will be manifested as "master" and autonomous subject-bearer of a mark recalling this initial situation. This is also true of the sinner called to follow Jesus. The transformation is not therefore merely an inversion of the pair content/container, accord­ ing to which a content would become container and viceversa. It consists rather in the neutralization of the relation of content to container, opening the possibility of a new relation, the relation of represented to repre­ senting. That is what we have termed, following Vladimir Propp, the relation of subject to the "branding." [Ed. note: The reference here is to the "function" Propp desig­ nated as J, branding or marking, in his Morphology of the Folktale.} φ From the intermediate debate about fasting, we have learned that this relation between represented and representing had to be interrelated with the still more fundamental relation between the subject and another sub­ ject, here the disciple and the master, the guest and the bridegroom. This relation is always mediated by a repre­ sentative element or by a set of alternating representative elements. The principle underlying these developments is affirmed in the final statements: changing the content without changing the relation between content and container is an operation both useless and dangerous. It leads to a worse situation than the situation one wanted to remedy and to the destruction of the two elements improperly conjoined. Let us translate this into figures of the narrative. There is no point in changing a sick person for another or a sickness for another. There is no point in changing the paralytic on the pallet; this would endanger the one and the other. There is no point in moving the publican from one desk to another. The "old" and the "new" are not defined upon the same axis. Both must keep their role. First they must be distinguished, separated from each other, then interrelated. They do not belong to the same order. The

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"new" is not in any way a patch for the repairing of what is worn out or an object for the filling up of what is empty. Old and new must never be assembled in the same space. To each its own space. One, the "new," belongs to the order of the subject (i.e., of identity), while the other, the "old," belongs to the order of the "branding" of the subject, i.e., to the order of the representation. This being said, the particularity of each of the comparisons would deserve to be studied in greater detail at further length than we can do here. The garment recalls the body of the miracle narrative; the wine evokes the dinner and the wedding feast mentioned in the two controversies. We should not try to hide the worn-out character nor the fragility of the tear in the old garment. The old garment will remain the old garment. But it can play its role in a signifying system emphasizing the differences, as the pallet, the tax office, the sin, on the condition, however, that the subject of the call be first disjoined from it and be established in a new space. The same is true of the wineskins. As for the new wine, it is necessary to find for it a new place, another location, a "house" that it might inhabit in its newness and singularity. We interrupt this exercise of comparative structural analysis at the moment where the Gospel text returns to the problem of nourishment and introduces in 2:23 and 28 a new temporal framework: the sabbath. It will be used again in the narrative of the healing of the man with a withered hand. It is clear that when we continue this research, we will show at once the continuity of the manifested semantic universe and its progressive transformation. 4.

Conclusion

We have lingered over a quite limited part of the Gospel text in order to show the mechanism of the analysis that we have chosen to apply /22/. It consists essentially in trying out on a micro-narrative some elementary categories

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of signification, in verifying their descriptive value, then in progressively extending the network of semantic relations related to the same categories or to similar categories. This kind of procedure is not without analogy to an archeological technique according to which the archeologist proposes a general hypothesis on the basis of the meticulous study of a localized excavation. In so doing, we have shown the very complexity and time-consuming character of such an analysis. The reader will readily understand that everything has not been said: on the one hand because of the strict limits of this essay, and on the other because everything has not been seen or perceived. One of the characteristics of a valid structural analysis is that it can be prolonged by others than those first authors and that it does subject itself to the trajectory that the analyst would have eventually liked to impose on it. Let each reader carry further the analysis! It seems established, however, that the method used here has succeeded in restoring to the Gospel text a level of coherence and of continuity useful to its decoding. Step by step, as the elementary units of signification emerge, the pericopes take a place in the structured totality of the Gospel. The textual features make sense when viewed in terms of the correlations into which they can enter. The overall picture which appears in this way seems preferable to that which it is possible to obtain from a purely syntagmatic analysis. The results that we reached about a series of pericopes /23/ will be sufficiently validated only when the intermediate texts will also have been treated. The link between the partial studies will pose some difficult but important problems. We did not want to wait for the conclusion of this long-term project before submitting some of our first results to the critical review of other scholars.

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NOTES /!/ Some results of this research have been used particularly in chapter two of the collective work Signs and Parables by the Group of Entrevernes (Editions du Seuil, 1977; English trans, by Gary Phillips, Pickwick Press, 1978). There it is shown how the analysis can be made of a series of autonomous but interrelated micronarratives. Other chapters of this book propose an analogous methodological approach applied to some texts from the Gospel of Luke. /2/ These values are more "thematic" than "lexematic"; they can be decomposed into minimal units or "semes." The semiotic objects are constituted by such semes. The transfer of these objects is itself organized on the basis of the semes. When the semantic values are defined at this truly elementary level, they are arranged and connected according to a quasi-logical model which permits us to account for the way in which the text manipulates the contents. Thus, the semiotic square, a model of relations and operations, can also serve to present the values and to calculate their variations. /3/ Following A. J. Greimas, we speak of "somatic doing" to designate the interactions between personages in the "physical" order through the medium of objects defined as "things." We speak of "cognitive doing" to designate the interactions between personages in the order of knowledge; e.g., the knowledge that the actors have of each other and the knowledge of what is at stake in their adventure. The variations of this knowledge and the exchanges of information define a "cognitive" space which is juxtaposed to the somatic space by reproducing its outline with all the hazards characteristic of knowledge: deformation, error, illusion, ignorance but also exactitude and truth. /4/ As is well known, the "secrecy" with which Jesus desires to surround certain of his miracles constitutes a characteristic feature of the Gospel of Mark. This figure of the veridiction is most interesting for semiotic research. But the limits of this article will not permit us to treat the problem. /5/ The question of the identity of Jesus is alluded to several times in the course of Mark's narrative in several ways: proclamations by the voice at the baptism and the transfiguration, the recognition by the demons, the exchange at Caesarea, the declaration of the centurion. One can therefore observe some variations and some cognitive operations which follow relatively well the unfolding of the narrative. Pursuing this line of research could be fruitful. The importance of this question brings back to mind the

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function of the "glorifying test" in the folktale and the manifestation of the identity of the hero in the course of the "difficult task" which constitutes its principal object. But one should avoid overemphasizing this parallel. The question of the identity of Jesus as a problem posed to the personages of the narrative is only one of the elements of the Gospel text. At any rate we did not believe we should give preference here to this aspect by making it the essential means of the narrative progression. It is better to register this type of cognitive transformation as one of the signifying phenomena to be explained by a more fundamental organization than to consider it as a principle of explication. /6/ Greimas denotes the aspect characterized by "appearing" as the "phenomenal" plane and the aspect characterized by "being" the "noumenal" plane. /I/ Let us keep in mind the four-phase schematization of narrativity in its canonic form, corresponding therefore to a succession of operations. Manxpulatxon

Competence

Performance

Sanction

Knowledge (about values)

Knowing-how-to-do

Duty

Recognition

Wanting-to-do

Being-able-to-do

Veridiction (Knowledge)

Having-to-do Virtual Subject

Actualized Subject

Realized Subject

Recognized Subject

Causing-to-do

Being-of-the-domg

Causmg-to-be

Being-of-the-being

Prospective cognitive space

Retrospective cognitive space

/8/ We know that neither purely narrative texts nor purely interpretative texts exist. Every text takes advantage of the twofold organization, but one of them can be predominant, giving rise to more-or-less marked types of text. The originality of the Gospel text seems to us to consist less in the equilibrium of the two poles than in the constant distribution of the two aspects. Instead of producing a prospective knowledge at the beginning and then a retrospective knowledge at the end, it seems rather to establish the epistemic authority in the very duration of the narrative. That is why we have spoken of a "discourse of sanction." Do not forget in this regard the "manipulative" dimension of a text which aims at investing its reader with a mission. /9/ This "persuasive" dimension corresponds to the "making believe," itself related to the "interpretative doing" or "believing." One should not purely and simply identify this "believing" (which is defined semiotically) with faith as defined in a religious discourse.

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/10/ T h e twofold nature o f this m i r a c l e , w h i c h i n v o l v e s a "healing" followed b y a "saving" b y faith, recalls the twofold intervention, in a n inverse o r d e r , o n behalf of t h e paralytic of C a p e r n a u m : first forgiveness of sins, then h e a l i n g . Thus t h e m i r a c l e narratives a r e interrelated among themselves d e s p i t e their d i s t a n c e in t h e text at the level of their structure even if t h e c o r r e s p o n d e n c e s a r e attenuated by t h e p a r t i c u l a r i t i e s of e a c h text. /Il/ O n e c a n legitimately b e surprised b y t h e fact that t h e o p p o n e n t s o f Jesus d o n o t o b j e c t t o h i s responding beside t h e question, that is to say, by forgiving t h e sins of someone w h o w a s requesting a c u r e . They a r e n o t scandalized by t h e fact that J e s u s ' intervention m i g h t be i n sufficient b u t that it m i g h t b e e x c e s s i v e . /12/ O n e already p e r c e i v e s that t h e registering of this implicit actor, t h e m o u t h (which speaks and w h i c h e a t s ) , w i l l p r o v i d e a m e a n s o f e n t r a n c e into the signifying o r g a n i z a t i o n o f t h e following c o n t r o v e r s i e s , the o n e r e f e r ing to fasting, the other to t h e search for nourishment o n the sabbath. F u r t h e r o n , t h e n a r r a t i v e about t h e lengthy teaching and the feeding o f t h e five thousand is also r e lated to this twofold function of t h e m o u t h . /13/ These e l e m e n t a r y categories c a n b e used in order to construct a semiotic square o f t h e relations and of the o p e r a t i o n s in this n a r r a t i v e . /ease/ v^ Anti-word ^ ^ (without effect ^ s . s' on the body) /difficulty/

'

s^

^ /difficulty/ Word effective on the body

/ease/ = handicap

/14/ The coupling or conjunction of heaven and earth is found not only in the title "Son of Man" but also in: Authority on earth Word about the body Forgiveness and Healing The sinners and the sick /15/ The cosmic code often provides a means of entrance into the system of signifying oppositions. Thus it is necessary always to be attentive to the mention of earth, sea, heaven, stars, atmosphere ... and to the laws which organize their relations. A single example in the Gospel of Mark shall suffice: Chapter 4 (Parables) which unfolds alternatively "on the sea" and in "the remote places" marks a very subtle use of the potentialities of the cosmic code, e.g., the birds of the sky, the sun, the thorns, the good

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earth. It is centered, at least at first, on the problem of the relation of the favorable distance between the seed-word and the earth. /16/ The question of the pallet is more important than one might expect. In John 5:10 it will provide for the Jews the motivation for criticizing another paralytic who was healed. One needs to understand that the command to take up the pallet underscores the inversion of the relation between the man and his crippled body. The pallet bore the man. The man bears the pallet. In both cases it is a representation of the infirmity; but it has changed signs. Instead of being the space to which the man was bound, immobile and laid low, the pallet becomes the distinctive sign and the reminder of the sickness that has been overcome. Something similar takes place in the story of Levi who was also tied down to his tax desk. /17/ The narrative about healing on the sabbath poses in another way the same problem of what is at stake in the words of Jesus (Mark 3:1-6). The man has a paralyzed hand. Jesus evaluates differently the evil to be eliminated and the good to be done: "Is it lawful on the sabbath to save life or to kill?" The relation to the sabbath, already found in the controversy concerning the ears of corn, corresponds to a transposition in the temporal code of that which we have shown here from the spatial viewpoint. The relation to time must be controlled as well as the relation to space; cf. "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath," which recalls the inversion not formulated but implied in the miracle narrative: "The pallet is for man, not man for the pallet." In the one case, however, the word is pronounced in order to justify a behavior criticized by the opponents: It is a response to the anti-word (controversy) . In the other case, the word would be said in order to explain an effective behavior and a somatic performance of Jesus as initiated by the word (miracle story). The question of the sabbath would merit a further treatment in a less allusive and more complete way. /18/ "Follow me" is a clause of movement like "go home." It designates the place where one should go, i.e., the space proposed for a new or renewed subject. /19/ "...(The days will come when) the bridegroom is taken away from them": the absence will result from a kind of violence, of deprivation by an agent exterior to the group. /20/ The "sons of the wedding hall": the fact that this is a typical Semitic expression does not prevent us from registering the mention of the familial code, above all in a controversy which involves the question of marriage and in a context where the family roles appear.

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/21/ It will be useful to note in the following pericopes (the plucked ears of grain and the debate about the sabbath) how Jesus evokes another "house"; "...how he (David) entered the house of God, when Abaithar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence...and also gave it to those who were with him." Thus it is a house in which a meaningful performance (from the present point of view) has been likewise carried out. It would be interesting to study what happens in the Gospel narrative when this particular figure of the space of transformation disappears, what substitution occurs or what compensation is provided. /22/ The set of pericopes studied here involved quite varied micro-narratives: a miracle story and some controversies centered on different problems. This diversity constituted a difficulty for the analysis. It represented also an advantage in testing more seriously the proposed procedure. /23/ We have worked in a comparable way on Mark 4, 5, part of Mark 6 (cf. Signs and Parables), Mark 11, 13, and the Passion narratives.