|
|
The Churches The Apostles Left Behind
Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998)
1. The Sub-Apostolic Era in the New Testament
2. Pauline Heritage in the
Pastoral Epistles: Church Structure
3. Pauline Heritage in Col/Eph:
Christ's Body to Be Loved
4. The Pauline Heritage
in Luke/Acts: The Spirit
5. The Petrine Heritage
in 1 Peter: The People of God
6. The Heritage of the 4h
Gospel: Personally Attached to Jesus
7. Heritage of the Joh.
Epistles Guided by the Paraclete-Spirit
8. Heritage in Matthew:
Authority That Does Not Stifle Jesus
Conclusion
From the Preface
I intend this volume to be a companion
to two other books that I have written in recent years. The Community
of the Beloved Disciple was an attempt to study the history of one
group in New Testament (henceforth, NT) times-the Johannine community
with its peculiar internal and external life story. The volume I did
with John P. Meier, Antioch and Rome, was an attempt to study two
great Christian NT centers. Here I am investigating Christian communities
from the viewpoint of their diverse understanding of what was important
for survival and growth after the death of the apostles. All three
books represent different approaches to church existence in the NT
period. All three are meant to speak to the churches today by way
of corrective, challenge, and encouragement. To my mind such is the
task of exegesis: not only to determine what the NT situation was,
but also to ask what it means.
I distressed some of my coreligionists in my Birth of the Messiah
{10} when I stated (p. 9): "I see no reason why a Catholic's
understanding of what Matthew and Luke meant in their infancy narratives
should be different from a Protestant's." I was accused of denying
the Catholic teaching that church tradition interprets Scripture.
I was not denying it at all, but normally church tradition has not
interpreted what a biblical author meant; it has interpreted what
his work means to a living community. I am painfully aware that Catholic
and Protestants can be at one as to what Scripture meant but divided
as to what it means. In this book, however, since our different churches
often face the same problems, I am hoping that there will be some
meeting of minds as to what NT church strengths and weaknesses can
mean to Christians today.
Union Theological Seminary (NYC) August 15, 1983
{13}
1. The Sub-Apostolic Era in the New Testament
IN "a death in the desert" Robert Browning poetically describes
John, the last apostle, expiring in concealment:
When my ashes scatter, says John,
"there is left on earth
No one alive who knew (consider this!)
-Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands
That which was from the first, the Word of Life.
How will it be when none more saith, 'I saw'?"
Browning's fidelity to the tradition that John was the last of the
apostles may have been too simple, but his poignant question is perceptive.
How was it when the last apostolic witness disappeared from the scene,
and the church could no longer depend on the testimony of those who
said, "I saw"? In the past that question was answered by
turning to works written after the NT because it was assumed that
the NT and the apostolic era were coterminous. NT books were thought
to have been written by apostles, and the era after the NT was dubbed
"sub-apostolic." In Catholic tradition this view was {14}
summed up in an axiom about revelation closing with the death of the
last apostle, which assumed that the NT lay safely within the apostolic
lifetime. Today, however, most scholars would date the end of the
apostolic period earlier and thus within the NT era. Indeed, if one
does not accept Bishop John A.T. Robinson's maverick attempt to date
the whole NT before a.d. 70, it can be claimed intelligently that
most of the NT was written after the death of the last known apostle.
Perhaps that qualified statement needs to be explained. Although many
are called "apostles" in the NT, we have detailed knowledge
of only three. If we begin with the Twelve, most are no more than
names. If one excludes Judas Iscariot, the first four alone stand
out, namely, the two sets of brothers: Peter and Andrew, James and
John. Although in the gospels those four are portrayed as frequently
in the company of Jesus, in the NT story of the early church Andrew
disappears; James is martyred in the early 40s (Ac 12:2); and John
is mentioned only as a shadow companion of Peter in a few scenes (Ac
3:1; Ac 4:13; Ac 8:14; Ga 2:9). Later tradition enhanced the biography
of John by identifying him as the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel
tradition, but that is far from certain. In fact, then, Peter is the
only member of the Twelve of whose ecclesiastical career we are substantially
informed, thanks to the Pauline Letters to Gala-tia and Corinth, the
Book of Acts, and to epistles in the Petrine tradition. Outside the
Twelve we know a great deal about Paul the {15} Apostle, thanks to
13 letters attributed to his name in the NT and to biographical information
supplied by the Book of Acts. James, "the brother of the Lord,"
was probably an apostle, even though not one of the Twelve. His importance
as leader of the Jerusalem community is attested both in the Pauline
Letters and the Book of Acts; also a NT letter is attributed to him,
and the letter of Jude identifies its author through relationship
to James. According to reasonably reliable tradition, Peter and Paul
died in Rome in the 60s, and James died in Jerusalem in the 60s. Thus,
by the end of the second third of the century, i.e., by the year a.d.
67, the three apostles about whom we have detailed NT knowledge had
disappeared from the scene.
I suggest, therefore, that the term "Apostolic Age" should
be confined to that second one-third of the first century, and that
the last one-third of the century should be designated as the "Sub-Apostolic
Period." With the exception of the undisputed letters of Paul,
most of the NT would have been written in this last one-third of the
century - a period when the authors who are preserved in the NT wrote
without using their own names and occasionally under the mantle of
the apostolic forebears. (An exception would be the otherwise unknown
prophet named John who identifies himself as the author of the Apocalypse
or Revelation.) Later tradition tended to assign authors to the originally
anonymous gospels;8 but modern scholarship has called into doubt the
accuracy of those assignments which, in any case, may have been meant
to tell us more about the authority behind the individual work than
about the actual writer. {16} As for the Deutero-Pauline epistles
(the Pastorals, Ephesians and Colossians) and the Catholic epistles,
the designation of the authors as Paul, James, Peter, John, and Jude
probably represents a claim to apostolic adherence rather than an
objective designation of apostolic writing. Indeed, a namelessness
of the actual writers fits in with a sub-apostolic ambience where
fidelity to the memory of the great apostles is the dominant characteristic.
In the terminology that I favor, the "Post-Apostolic Period"
begins at the end of the century when we have Christian writings put
forth on their own authority, e.g., the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch
and the Letter from the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth known
to us as 1 Clement. This written work of a "third generation"
was moving away from claiming the direct mantle of the apostles.
Returning, then, to Browning's poem, I would move his scene of the
death of the last apostle back to the mid-60s - a date that makes
no less important the question of how was it "when none more
saith, 'I saw.' " Now, however, we can use most of the NT to
answer that question.
Various Scholarly Approaches to the Sub-Apostolic
Period
In the past and reaching up into the present there have been many
attempts to answer the question that Browning phrased poetically.
If in the following brief summary I indicate the inadequacies of some
of them, ultimately it will be seen that each has a grain of truth.
No one view is totally adequate, and the deficiencies in some of the
proposals I shall mention warn us against hoping that the answer can
be simple.
The classical answer, already given in 1 Clement (42 and 44), is {17}
that just as Jesus appointed apostles (understood to be the Twelve
along with Paul), so also the apostles appointed bishops or presbyters
to succeed them. Consequently, there was understood to have been an
orderly succession of authority in the sub-apostolic era producing
a unified church, marred only by heretics who were seen as rebels
against the stipulated system. That classical thesis began to be rejected
at the time of the Reformation and has been effectively challenged
by modern scholarship (both Roman Catholic and Protestant) which has
shown that the Clementine picture was too simple and not universal.
In the last century another answer was given by F. C. Baur whose thesis,
at least for a while, also became classical. In Baur's somewhat Hegelian
conception of church history, the thesis and antithesis were represented
by James (or even Peter) and Paul - a pro-Jewish conception of Christianity
in struggle with a pro-Gentile one. A period in the second century
saw the synthesis of what preceded, and the image of Peter was invoked
to symbolize a Christianity intermediary between that of Paul and
of James. Integral to the Baur hypothesis was a very late dating of
some documents used to substantiate the sequence, e.g., Acts. Much
of modern scholarship would challenge such dating and would consider
the various Christian attitudes detected by Baur to have been simultaneous
and quite early.
In the 20th century other answers to the question of sub-apostolic
Christianity have been offered. Walter Bauer argued that NT Christianity
and its immediate sequence constituted an era in which there was no
standard or orthodox Christianity. Rather from many early diverse
and contending Christian views there emerged in the second century
a victor which became orthodoxy; this orthodoxy moved from Rome eastwards.
Most scholars would acknowledge {18} some of the diversities Bauer
posited in the NT period; but recently there has been an increasing
chorus of objections that Bauer's hypothesis is too simplified and
leaves unanswered fundamental questions. For instance, was what emerged
from the diversities by "winning out" more faithful to what
Jesus of Nazareth taught and represented than were the Christian views
that lost the struggle?15 From reading Bauer and his proponents, one
can easily get the impression that all diversities were of equal value
and that what emerged as orthodoxy was simply a historical accident,
or the survival of the strongest rather than survival of the fittest.
Another modern answer was that of Kirsopp Lake who interpreted the
Sub-Apostolic Period in terms of great Christian city-centers. In
Jesus' lifetime his ministry had fluctuated between Galilee and Jerusalem.
In the Apostolic Period, if we confine our attention to the West,
centers like Jerusalem, Antioch, and Corinth flourished. In the late
Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic Periods, according to Lake, Ephesus and
Rome emerged as the great Christian centers with which many NT books
can be associated. Rome was deemed to represent Jewish Christianity,
more conservative from the very start, and a proponent of a high ecclesiology
and a low christology. Relat- {19} ed to Rome, in Lake's judgment,
were Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 1 Peter, the Epistle to the Hebrews,
1 Clement, and the Shepherd of Hermas. (In fact, however, there are
many elements of high christol-ogy in Hebrews; and in my judgment,
it can be associated with Rome only as a corrective sent to modify
Rome's Judaizing tendencies.) Related to Ephesus were Colossians,
Ephesians, and the Fourth Gospel - works with a low ecclesiology,
in the sense of placing little emphasis on church structure, but with
a high christology which associated Christ with creation. Recent scholarship
might find confining Lake's concentration on two Christian centers,
for certainly Antioch and Alexandria were also in the picture in the
sub-apostolic and/or post-apostolic eras. Nevertheless, his detection
of a Christianity that was more conservative and more closely associated
with Judaism (Rome) and of a Christianity that was more volatile (Ephesus)
remains a valid insight.
In this book I shall proceed in a manner different from the approaches
discussed above, even though there is some truth in each which may
complement my approach. I shall examine a number of different church
situations reflected in the sub-apostolic works of the NT (i.e., the
works written in the last one-third of the first century), concentrating
on the most important element that enabled each church to survive
after the apostolic hero or guide had departed the scene.
Different Churches Detectable in the New
Testament
Before the chapters devoted in detail to individual churches, it might
be well in this introductory chapter to survey the communities or
churches detectable in the sub-apostolic NT works. (The number would
be even larger if one made use of second-century material, including
gnostic writings, and retrojected the situations reflected in those
works back into the first century; but the scope of the lectures reproduced
in this book dictates that I confine myself to the NT.) In subsequent
chapters I shall not discuss in detail all the communities {20} that
I now list, but it may be helpful to the reader to have the general
survey.
Let us begin with the sub-apostolic descent of Paul. Despite the powerful
personal impact of the apostle on those whom he converted, an intelligent
case can be made that within 20 years after his death variant strains
of thought had developed within the communities influenced by Paul.
In a fascinating article C. K. Barrett has shown that at least three
different post-Pauline strains can be detected through an analysis
of NT works associated with Paul: one exemplified by the Pastoral
Epistles, one exemplified by Colossians and Ephesians, and one exemplified
by Luke/Acts. I plan to dedicate a chapter of this book to each of
these strains; but even now, it may be wise to illustrate diversity
among them.
Although the audiences or communities respectively addressed by these
works all knew of Paul, it is not certain where the audiences were
located geographically or whether they knew each other. The author
of Luke/Acts idealizes Paul, for he divides Christian history into
almost equal eras centered on Peter and Paul. The latter embodies
God's plan to move Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome and to "the
ends of the earth." Yet the author of Acts never mentions that
Paul wrote a letter and betrays no knowledge of the Pauline letters.
In the strain of Pauline heritage represented by Colossians and Ephesians
Paul is greatly honored as the apostle who can authoritatively address
the communities - indeed as one of the apostles (and proph- {21} ets)
upon whom the church is founded (Ep 2:20). It is also very clear that
the author of Ephesians knew many of the Pauline letters, even beyond
Colossians, and that he draws upon them in formulating his own thought.
Thus, while both the author of Luke/Acts and the author of Ephesians
have moved beyond Paul's thought, one has done so seemingly independently
of Paul's writings, and the other has done so in marked dependence
on them. Are we not to think this difference was manifest also in
the image of Paul possessed by the communities formed by these authors?
Let us consider another issue, namely, the relation to Judaism. In
Ephesians the relationship between Jew and Gentile seems to have been
solved pacifically. The wall of hostility has been broken down; those
who were once far off have come near; Jew and Gentile are reconciled
in one body to God through the cross (Ep 2:11-22). For the author
of Acts (Ac 28:25-29), however, the very last words of Paul terminating
the book indicate the Jews will never see, nor hear, nor understand;
they are permanently closed off from the gospel. Salvation, according
to the Paul of Acts, is for the Gentiles who will listen and understand.
In other words, in the different communities addressed by these works
- communities that both respect Paul - there may have been very different
views about the future relations of Jews and Gentiles. Both attitudes
are at a distance from that of the historical Paul in Romans who argues
that the Gentiles were converted to make the Jews jealous, that ultimately
the Jews themselves will be converted, and that the Gentiles are but
a wild olive branch grafted onto the tree of Israel (Rm 11:11-26).
When we turn to the Pastoral Epistles, namely to 1 and 2 Timothy and
Titus, we find still a different post-Pauline situation. The author
of these works remains troubled by Judaizers (among others) and their
demand for circumcision. In Chapter 2 below I shall discuss in detail
the strong insistence of the author of the Pastoral Epistles on church
structure and the appointment of church officials. This is an insistence
that is lacking in both Colossians/Ephesians and Luke/Acts, even though
both works know of church functionaries. We shall see below that the
author of the Pastorals, the author(s) of Colossians/Ephesians, and
the author of Luke/Acts have a very different dynamism in what they
emphasize as important in their respective conceptions of the church.
All this variation occurs within {22} the Pauline tradition in works
that are directly or indirectly related to the apostle! Presumably,
the churches addressed by such works, if they were in contact, would
have been in koinonia or communion with each other - at least there
is nothing explicit in the works to indicate otherwise - but their
ways of thinking are different because they have emphasized different
aspects of the great Pauline tradition.
If such variations exist within the one heritage, not surprisingly
there are variations among different heritages in the Sub-Apostolic
Period. In a recent book, The Community of the Beloved Disciple, I
have studied the Johannine community (or communities, since by the
time of 1 John there had been a secession). One might find some similarity
between the Fourth Gospel and Colossians/Ephesians in terms of a high
christology in which the pre-existent divinity of Jesus is underlined.
Such a christological criterion, however, would distinguish Luke/Acts
from the Fourth Gospel (and from Colossians/Ephesians) since there
is no explicitation of pre-existence in the Lucan writings. In terms
of relation to Judaism, the Fourth Gospel would differ markedly from
all three Pauline strains discussed above. In John the Christians
have been driven out of the synagogues (Jn 9:22; Jn 16:2); the Jews
are virtually another religion - or are worse, since they have the
devil as their father (Jn 8:44). The liturgical feasts inherited from
the OT are now feasts "of the Jews" (Jn 6:4; Jn 7:2) and,
therefore, do not pertain to Christians. Indeed, Jesus is scarcely
thought of as a Jew and can speak of the Jewish law as "their
law" (Jn 15:25). Even if tradition has placed the writing of
the Fourth Gospel in Ephesus, the same city addressed (in some manuscripts)
by the Epistle to the Ephesians, one can scarcely imagine that in
Johannine Christianity the wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile
has been broken down, as in the situation envisaged by Ephesians.
I mentioned above that Kirsopp Lake identified Ephesus as one of the
two great Christian centers of the Sub-Apostolic Period, a center
with a distinctive theology. More likely, Ephesus had different {23}
churches with different theologies. We must remember that the Christian
situation in a large city would have involved a number of house churches
where 20 or 30 people met together; and so there is no reason why
there could not have been in the one city house churches of different
traditions - for example, of the Pauline tradition, of the Johannine
tradition, of the Petrine or apostolic tradition, and even of the
ultraconservative Jewish-Christian tradition. Even though the house
churches of one tradition probably had koinonia with those of another
tradition, Christians may not have transferred easily. Furthermore,
in II and III John it is clear that, once an inner Johannine secession
had taken place, within the same tradition there was no longer koinonia
between the two sides, or admittance to the respective house churches
(II Jn 10; III Jn 9-10).
Related directly to the Ephesus area and related indirectly to the
Johannine Community of the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles would have
been the recipients addressed in the Book of Revelation. The bitter
remarks about the "synagogue of Satan" and "the Jews"
(Rv 2:9; Rv 3:9) suggest once again a group in which the wall of hostility
had not been broken down (unlike Ep 2:11-22). Revelation has affinities
to the Fourth Gospel in the theme of replacing Jerusalem and the earthly
Temple by a heavenly Jerusalem and the presence of God and Christ.
Nevertheless, the apocalyptic insistence on final es-chatology is
so unlike the stress on realized eschatology in the Fourth Gospel
that one has strong reason to doubt that the two works were addressed
to the same recipients at the same time. The Johannine relationship
to the recipients of Revelation may have been {24} at most that of
distant cousins. I am tempted by the thesis that those addressed in
Revelation were heirs of the Johannine tradition who (perhaps because
of early migration from Palestine or of early missionary activity
to Asia Minor) had not been catechized by the fourth evangelist, or
by his companions, and so were not affected by the major theological
synthesis of Johannine tradition known to us in the Fourth Gospel.
This early departure from the Johannine stream could explain some
affinities of thought between the seer of Revelation and the writer
of the Johannine Epistles, since the latter deliberately went back
to "the beginning" of the Johannine Gospel tradition (1
Jn 3:11) to refute those who were distorting the Fourth Gospel by
interpreting it independently of earlier presuppositions. Both Revelation
and I John stress the sanctifying cleansing power of Christ's blood
(Rv 1:5; Rv 5:9; Rv 7:14; 1 Jn 1:7 and 1 Jn 5:6-8). Both works stress
final es-chatology much more than does the Gospel. Nevertheless there
are differences. The epistolary author by implication knows of false
teachers (1 Jn 2:27) and false prophets (1 Jn 4:1) among those who
seceded from the Johannine Community, but among his own followers
he rejects human functionaries like teachers (and probably prophets)
in favor of the Gospel tradition of the Paraclete-Spirit who will
teach all things and will announce the things to come (Jn 14:26; Jn
16:13). For Revelation, however, there are prophets in the communities
(Rv 11:10; Rv 16:6);30 indeed the author himself (Rv 1:3; Rv 22:9,)
is a prophet. Revelation knows also of false prophets (Rv 16:13) and
of false teachers who seemingly have not yet been expelled from the
community (Rv 2:20). Neither the Fourth Gospel nor the Johannine epistles
speak of the apostles, while Revelation shows respect for "apostles
and prophets" (Rv 18:20) and special veneration for the Twelve
Apostles of the Lamb (Rv 21:14). Such a reference to twelve as the
number of the apostles implicitly challenges Paul's insistence that
he was an {25} apostle. Another difference from Paul would be reflected
in the anti-imperial attitude of Revelation: the Roman Empire and
emperor worship are the beastly puppets of Satan (Rv 13) and the numerical
value of Nero's name 666) is the number of the beast (Rv 13:18). Certainly
this differs from the pro-imperial attitude attested in Rm 13:1-7
(and in other works associated with Rome in the last 40 years of the
first century, such as 1 Pt 2:13-17; I Clem 60:4-61:1). These collective
observations are meant to show that while Revelation has affinities
with the Johannine heritage, and even the Pauline heritage, it cannot
be easily classified in either camp.
Similarly, the outlook expressed by the author of Hebrews has certain
Johannine and Pauline parallels but remains quite distinct. (Hebrews
is a corrective writing, but here I am concerned with the Christian
outlook that Hebrews supports rather than the one that it corrects.)
As for a Johannine relationship, Hebrews is close to the Fourth Gospel
in proclaiming Jesus as God, a Son through whom the world was created
(Heb 1:2-3,). Nevertheless, John does not attribute to Jesus' humanity
the limitations that one finds in Hebrews, e.g., being tempted (4:15),
learning obedience (5:8), and being made perfect (5:9). Certainly
the Johannine Jesus who refused to pray to be delivered from the hour
of death (Jn 12:27-28) could not be described as crying out with tears
to God who was able to save him from death (Heb 5:7). As for a Pauline
relationship, in the Eastern churches and later in the universal church
Hebrews was thought to constitute the fourteenth letter of Paul -
a view virtually no scholar holds today. The style of Hebrews is totally
different from Paul's, and there is nothing in the Apostle's writing
to match the prolonged radical critique of Israelite cult that is
at the heart of Hebrews. Indeed in Romans chaps. 9-11 and 15:16, Paul
shows himself far more preservative of Judaism and its cultic language
than does Hebrews which would replace the OT sacrifices, priesthood,
and Tabernacle. {26} The radical attitude of Hebrews toward Judaism
(similar to that of the Fourth Gospel) separates it from the mindset
of at least three other sub-apostolic works of the NT (1Peter, James,
and Matthew). Although 1 Peter is written in the name of the first
of the Twelve, it is thought by most scholars to have been written
by a Petrine disciple after Peter's death. Elsewhere I have argued
that it represents the outlook of the Roman church to which Hebrews
was addressed as a corrective. Below I shall devote a chapter to 1
Peter, and so here let me simply report that 1:13-2:10 applies to
Gentile converts the whole Exodus experience of Israel, so that they
have left their former servitude, and been redeemed by the blood of
a lamb, while going through a period of wandering toward a promised
inheritance. If for Hebrews the levitical priesthood has been replaced
by Christ, for 1 Peter the Christian people constitute a royal priesthood.
Preservation and reapplication, rather than replacement, mark the
theology of 1 Peter. The language of Judaism is used as if it belongs
to Christianity and there are no other claimants.
Even more Jewish is the outlook of the Epistle of James. If I Peter
is addressed to the chosen exiles of the diaspora (plausibly Gentile
Christians), James is addressed to the twelve tribes in the diaspora
(perhaps Jewish Christians). Jm 2:2 assumes that the Christian addressees
are assembling in a synagogue. There are no passages dealing with
christology, but there is an insistence on the morality of the prophets
of Israel: Religion is "to visit orphans and widows in their
affliction" (1:27); and no partiality must be shown to the rich
over the poor (2:1-7). It is possible, then, that James is addressed
to a Christian community in the last third of the century where belief
in Jesus meant a heightening of Jewish values but no real divorce
from Judaism. We know that in post-NT literature such as the Pseudo-Clementines
James became the hero par excellence of Jewish Christians who did
not differ from Jews over the Law but only over faith in Christ. An
incipient form of such a development may account for the appeal to
James as the authority behind this canonical epistle, for in it we
hear: "Whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has
become guilty of all of it" (2:10). Certainly the emphasis that
"one is justified by works and not by faith alone" {27}
(2:24) reflects values different from those of Paul in Rm 3:28: "One
is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law."
Close in many ways to James is the Gospel of Matthew, even though
it is clear that Matthew is written to a Jewish Christian community
that had Gentile Christian adherents in large numbers. This mixed
community is taught that not the smallest letter of the Law or a curlicue
of a letter of the Law is to pass away until all is accomplished (Mt
5:18). Even though in the attitude of Jesus, "You have heard
it said... but I say to you" (Mt 5), some very non-legalistic
attitudes are inculcated, the perspective is one not of abolishing
the Law but of fulfilling the divine purpose behind it. Paul and Matthew
might have reached similar practical conclusions about individual
obligations, but Paul would have done so on the principle that Christ
is the end of the Law (Rm 10:4), while Matthew would have seen Jesus
as the perfect and demanding lawgiver of the eschatological period.
Positive regard for the Jewish Heritage
A Roman Catholic who praises a non-Pauline stance in the NT is always
suspect, but some communities (like that of Matthew) probably did
not go through the Pauline crisis about the Law and preserved a more
moderate and positive attitude toward the Jewish heritage. If one
cannot put new wine into old wineskins without destroying them, Matthew
encourages an arrangement that allows the preservation of all the
wineskins, both new and old (9:17). The Matthean community's relation
to Judaism (see ftnote 183 below) may have been less ruptured than
that of the Johannine community, but more troubled than that of the
community addressed by James. In a later chapter I shall discuss Matthean
ecclesiology after the death of the apostles, an ecclesiology that
has had enormous influence in the history of Christianity. For later
Christianity Matthew's Gospel was first, not simply in the order of
the canon. {28} I have left to last the community addressed by Mark.
In a book devoted to "The Variety and Unity of the Apostolic
Witness to Christ," L. Goppelt concluded that redaction-historical
studies in recent years had not been certain enough to enable him
to reconstruct the theological profile of the oldest evangelist. I
would be even more certain that such studies do not allow us to reconstruct
the profile of the community addressed by Mark (even to the elementary
point of being sure whether Mark was reinforcing that community in
beliefs it already held or was inculcating beliefs that were absent).
For instance, Norman Perrin and a number of younger scholars whose
works he endorsed (T. Weeden, W. Kelber, etc.) have argued that an
important element in the Marcan community admired the apostles (like
Peter) as wonder-workers and as spokesmen of a trium-phalistic faith
based on the resurrection appearance of Jesus. To correct that admiration
Mark wrote a Gospel highly critical of the apostles (especially Peter)
as figures who never understood Jesus and never believed - a Gospel
where resurrection appearances have been suppressed in favor of a
parousia in Galilee. I happen to agree with E. Best and others that
this is a wrong reading of the evangelist's intentions. True, Mark
describes the Twelve as misunderstanding because Jesus had not yet
suffered, but this treatment implies no more then that their important
role after the crucifixion required a difficult initiation period
- all Christians believe through the prism of the cross, even the
greatest. This encouragement is addressed to Christians who are themselves
suffering. (If Mark was written to the Roman church, Mark may have
wished to reassure the readers that Peter's own recent suffering and
death under Nero was not a defeat but a step toward victory.) Mk 16:7
is a reference to a well-known resurrection appearance to Peter, so
that in my judgment the parousia in Galilee is a fiction of the interpreter's
imagination. Part of the methodological problem is that, while we
may be able to diagnose something of Matthew's and Luke's theology
by seeing how they {29} change a source known to us (Mark), we do
not have Mark's sources. Theories based on the changes Mark made in
hypothetically reconstructed sources are too uncertain to be of much
use. If one is content to deal with Mark as it now stands, one can
get some agreement about what Mark is saying, but not necessarily
about why he is saying it. Yet the "why" question is all
important for interpreting the outlook of the recipients.
Even leaving aside Mark, we have found a remarkable sub-apostolic
variety of thought: witnesses to three different forms of post-Pauline
thought (Pastorals, Colossians/Ephesians, Luke/Acts), evidence of
two different forms of post-Johannine thought (the epistolary author's
adherents and their secessionist adversaries), works with both Pauline
and Johannine similarities (Revelation, Hebrews), a post-Petrine witness
(1Peter), and some witnesses of a more conservative Christianity respectful
of the Law (Matthew, James). I have pointed out significant differences
among these witnesses, and their interrelationship is highly complicated.
For instance, Luke is related to Pauline thought, while Matthew is
quite distinct from Paul; yet the two Gospels share many common features
(infancy narratives, virginal conception, use of Q).
As we seek to employ these witnesses to reconstruct community situations
in the Sub-Apostolic Period, a serious methodological problem is to
ascertain whether the thought expressed is peculiar to the author
or is truly shared by a community. When one is dealing with epistles
or letters, the situation is often easier to determine. Nevertheless,
since all of the works have been preserved (and even accepted as canonical),
we are certain that at least some Christians found guidance in them.
Another methodological problem involves caution about the partial
extent to which the writing portrays community views. If the Pastorals
stress presbyteral structure and {30} Colossians/Ephesians stress
the body of Christ, that does not mean that the Christians who received
the Pastorals and the author who wrote them were ignorant of the theology
of the body of Christ, nor that those involved in Colossians/Ephesians
were ignorant of the presby-teral structure. One can be certain only
of the positive emphasis that Christians were hearing in a particular
work.
I hope to avoid some pitfalls by working with that positive emphasis
applied as an answer to a specific question. In the chapters that
follow I plan to discuss seven sub-apostolic NT witnesses (Pastorals,
Colossians/Ephesians, Luke/Acts, 1 Peter, John, the Johannine Epistles,
and Matthew). I wish to see how the different emphasis in each of
these seven witnesses would answer the question of survival after
the death of the great first generation of apostolic guides or heroes.
A sociological observation, already made by Max Weber, is that the
problem of continuance and succession is inevitably raised with the
disappearance of the original leaders of a movement. The crisis is
accentuated to the degree that those leaders have innovatively moved
their followers away from the previous criteria of authority. By the
time of the death of the apostles, the churches were already breaking
away or broken away from much of what previously constituted authority
in Judaism; but then (as ever since) they have had to survive without
the living tutorship of the great figures of the first generation.
The answers of their immediate successors were, I suggest, repeated
throughout the ages - not in the sense that one church repeated one
answer and another church repeated another answer, but in the sense
that each church has repeated many of the answers. A difference among
modern churches lies in the proportionate arrangement of answers. {31}
2. The Pauline Heritage in the
Pastorals: The Importance of Church Structure
I wish to begin my discussion of the churches the apostles left behind
with three epistles that in some ways constitute the most formal,
ex professo treatment of sub-apostolic continuance in the NT. Paul
spent much of his Christian life as a missionary, adding constantly
to the number of those who had come to believe in Jesus Christ. The
setting of the two letters written to Timothy and of the one letter
to Titus envisions Paul near death: "the time for my departure
has come; I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race"
(2Tm 4:6-7). Accordingly, his thoughts turn to the Christians he is
leaving behind. How are they to survive, especially since an enormous
danger is presented by false teachers who could mislead them (Tt 1:10;
1 Tm 4:1-2; 2 Tm 3:6; 2 Tm 4:3)? In other words, Paul's interests
are now no longer primarily missionary but pastoral; he is concerned
with tending the existing flock. Of course, such an interest is not
lacking in his early letters, but appropriately these three letters
have been dubbed "Pastoral" par excellence. {32} (Let me
add parenthetically that a similar shift is found in the image of
Peter in Jn 21. The Synoptic Gospels remember Peter as the fisherman
who was turned into a catcher of men (Lk 5:10). In the first part
of Jn 21 (1-11) Peter makes a miraculous catch of fish and drags ashore
a net bulging with 153 large fish. Then the imagery changes abruptly
as Jesus ignores the fish and instructs Peter to feed his lambs or
sheep (Jn 21:15-17). The imagery of fish is quite appropriate for
the missionary activity of bringing people into the Christian community,
but does not lend itself to the ongoing care of those who are brought
in. The hallowed NT image for that is shepherding a flock - the image
from which we get the term "pastoral." Just as Paul the
missionary, when pictured as dying, becomes primarily Paul the pastor
preserving those whom he has converted, so in Jn 21 there is a shift
of imagery from Peter the fisherman to Peter the shepherd. In the
Petrine "pastoral epistle," Peter gives sheep-tending advice
(1 Pt 5:1-3).)
The dying Paul's advice on how to survive, given to Timothy and Titus,
and through them to Christian communities, is clearly and concisely
an answer in terms of structure. Some of the Pauline communities are
deficient in that they do not have local authorities, but now that
deficiency must be remedied and presbyter-bishops are to be appointed
in every town (Tt 1:5,). The authoritative guidance of these men will
preserve the local church communities against disintegration.
Elsewhere I have gone into detail on the complicated question of the
designation and function of the church authorities in the Pastorals,
so let me here by way of background simply list my conclusions. Although
the word presbyteros (comparative of presbys, "old," meaning
"elder" in Greek) refers to age, the custom of seeking advice
from the senior men of a community meant that "elder" or
"presbyter" came to designate a functionary chosen ideally
for wisdom, often elder in age but not necessarily so. Jewish synagogues
had {33} groups of elders or presbyters who set synagogue policy.
Christian presbyters, however, had a pastoral supervising role that
went beyond the Jewish counterparts; and so we find them designated
by a second title, episkopos, "overseer, supervisor, bishop."
The oft-made claim that the presbyteros is a role borrowed from Judaism
while episkopos is a role borrowed from Gentile (pagan) secular and
religious administration is oversimplified and ignores the evidence
of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the century and a half before Christianity
the Essenes described in the Scrolls had, besides presbyters, functionaries
called "overseers" with teaching, admonitory, and administrative
roles almost identical to those of the bishops of the Pastorals. The
Essene religious overseers were figuratively described as "shepherds,"
even as were Christian bishops (Ac 20:28-29; 1Pt 5:1-3). Thus, I think
it plausible that from the synagogue Christians borrowed a pattern
of groups of presbyters for each church, while the pastoral-supervisor
(episkopos) role given to all or many of these presbyters came from
the organizational model of close-knit Jewish sectarian groups such
as the Dead Sea Essenes. There is nothing in the Pastorals to suggest
that presbyter-bishops dealt with the eucharist or baptism. Nor do
we know how presbyter-bishops were appointed, although by the time
Acts was written (the 80s or 90s) Barnabas and Paul could be pictured
as having appointed presbyters in every church (14:25). That the picture
has been oversimplified is indicated by Tt 1:5 where it is clear that
there are towns of the Pauline mission without presbyters. According
to Didache 15:1 (ca. {34} 100?) Christians were invited to appoint
for themselves bishops and deacons.
Such background information about presbyter-bishops may be useful,
but it should not distract us from those functions of the presbyter-bishops
that make them the Pastorals' answer to how Pauline communities will
survive after his death. First and foremost in the Pastorals the presbyter-bishops
are to be the official teachers of the community, holding to the sound
doctrine that they have received from Paul through Titus and Timothy
and rejecting any novel or different teaching. They can protect the
community from false doctrine because they can silence wrong teachers
(Tt 1:9-2:1; 1 Tm 4:1-11; 1 Tm 5:17). Second, since the church is
"the household of God" (1 Tm 3:15: a comparison heightened
because the church met in a house), the presbyter-bishops are to be
like fathers taking responsibility for a home, administering its goods
and providing example and discipline. Stability and close relationship
similar to that of a family home will hold the church together against
the disintegrating forces that surround or invade it.
The qualities demanded of the presbyter-bishop are institutional virtues
such as would be appreciated in a tight organization with a familial
tone. He must be blameless, upright, and holy; he must be self-controlled
and not arrogant or quick-tempered (Tt 1:7-9). He must be able to
manage his own home well and control his children (1 Tm 3:4). It is
implied that he must be able to manage the budget of his own home;
in particular, he must not be a lover of money (1 Tm 3:3,) - character
requirements all the more important if, as may well be suspected from
Dead Sea Scroll parallels, the presbyter-bishop had to administer
the common money of the Christian community. A blotch like drunkenness
cannot be tolerated on his moral record (Tt 1:7; 1 Tm 3:3). Indeed,
at times the requirements border on matters of religious respectability:
he cannot have been married more than once; he cannot be a recent
convert; his children must be Christian (Tt 1:6; 1 Tm 3:2,).
These latter requirements reflect the emergence of the church as a
society with set standards that it is imposing on its public figures.
Jesus during his ministry called prominent followers from various
walks of life without any consideration how society might look on {35} fishermen, tax collectors, and a zealot. But Jesus was not structuring
a society; he did not live in an organized church; the Twelve were
selected not as administrators but as eschatological judges of the
renewed Israel (Mt 19:28; Lk 22:30). Once the movement associated
with Christ became organized enough to be a society called "church,"
however, it began to decide that certain standards of religious respectability
were very important for the common good. Individuals, however talented,
who did not meet those standards would have to be sacrificed. The
presbyter, after all, had to serve as a model father of a family.
A man converted after his children had grown might be a natural leader;
but if he did not meet the qualification of having believing children,
he was not to be appointed presbyter-bishop. Sometimes recent converts
are insecure or not mature in their Christian judgment; other times
they are filled with an extraordinary zeal that might galvanize a
community. The Pastoral Epistles would allow no recent convert, talented
or not, to function in the presby-teral office - almost an ironic
requirement, granted the history of the man who is supposed to be
writing the letters. Indeed, Paul might not have been able to meet
several requirements the Pastorals would impose on the presbyter-bishops.
"Not quick-tempered" (Tt 1:7) would scarcely describe the
Paul who called the Galatians "fools" (Ga 3:1). "Dignified"
(1 Tm 3:2) would not fit the Paul who wished that his circumcising
adversaries would slip with the knife and castrate themselves (Ga
5:12) and who could utter such vituperation as "Their God is
their belly" (Philip 3:19). Rough vitality and a willingness
to fight bare-knuckled for the Gospel were part of what made Paul
a great missionary, but such characteristics might have made him a
poor residential community supervisor. The Pastorals are listing qualities
necessary for someone who would have to get along with a community
for a long time; fortunately for all, perhaps, Paul's missionary genius
kept him on the move.
Naturally, the writer of the Pastorals hopes that individuals with
charismatic gifts will be appointed presbyter-bishops, but he is willing
to sacrifice charismatic qualities for more pedestrian qualities
{36} that will facilitate harmony in the Christian community. Such
an early imposition of community standards should be remembered when
a question arises today about the right of the church to set societal
standards for its clergy. For instance, I have heard the right of
the church to demand a college-educated clergy challenged on the grounds
that Jesus did not demand education for membership in the Twelve.
The logic of that type of observation should be rejected because of
the dissimilarity of situation. As I indicated above, the Twelve were
not residential clergy; and Jesus never lived in a structured church.
Similarly to be queried is the idea that the requirements imposed
by the Pastorals are eternally valid. Rather, since sometimes the
requirements have to do with public respectability, they can and should
change in the course of time. The primitive church was prejudiced
against the remarriage of widowers (1 Tm 5:9,; 1 Co 7:8), allowing
it only reluctantly for ordinary people. Consequently, the Pastorals
would not tolerate remarried presbyter-bishops (1 Tm 3:2; Tt 1:6);
they should meet the ideal. Today few Protestant churches would refuse
ordination to remarried widowers. On the other hand, an echo of being
"the husband of only one wife" is found in many Protestant
churches that impose on their clergy the requirement of not being
remarried after divorce (even though they allow such remarriage for
laity). Roman Catholicism has imposed Paul's personal standard ("It
is well for them to remain single as I do":1 Co 7:8) on all its
presbyters. One can always query the wisdom of individual requirements
that different churches have made for their presbyterate, but the
right to make such requirements seems to have been supposed from the
beginning.
Institutionalization of the Christian movement was an aspect of what
scholars call "early Catholicizing." (Early Catholicism
is often a pejorative designation to cover the emergence of ecclesiastical
features found later in Roman Catholicism and deemed objectionable
by the Reformers and their spiritual descendants among contemporary
biblical scholars.) While judgment on that term and topic re- {37}
quire nuance, Gager is certainly correct in pointing out that "a
good deal of nonsense has been written about the decline of primitive
Christianity into early Catholicism." Rudolf Bultmann would agree
with Sohm that "legal regulation (when seen as constitutive)
contradicts the Church's nature." Rather, if the church is a
society, regulations, constitutive or otherwise, are an inevitable
sociological development that is of the nature of the church.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Having described briefly a principal motif in the Pastoral Epistles,
namely the stress on church structure, let me now point out both the
strengths and weaknesses of such an emphasis as an answer to church
continuance after the death of the apostles (or more precisely, after
the death of the apostle, Paul). I forewarn readers that a section
on strengths and weaknesses will also be part of subsequent chapters
dealing with other answers. All answers to a theological problem,
of necessity being partial and time-conditioned, involve paying a
price. One emphasis, no matter how necessary at a particular time,
will inevitably lead to a neglect of truth found in another answer
or emphasis. I plan to center on three points in my discussion of
the strengths and weaknesses of the Pastorals' structural answer:
(1) The idea of preserving an apostolic heritage against radical ideas
and teachers; (2) The safe institutional virtues required of pastors;
(3) The sharp distinction between those who teach and those who are
taught.
Stability and continuity
First, impressive stability and solid continuity are marks of an institutional
structure (presbyter-bishops and deacons) designed to preserve the
apostolic heritage. The Pastorals have found a way to highlight the
uniqueness of the apostle and at the same time to extend his influence
beyond his lifetime. Apostolicity is personified in {38} Paul - no
other apostle is mentioned and no other is needed54 - and this apostle
provides for the aftermath of his departure by passing on his heritage
to the presbyter-bishops under the supervision of Timothy and Titus.
Emphatically Paul is a teacher, "a teacher of the nations"
(1 Tm 2:7; see also 2 Tm 1:11); and the chief function of his heirs
is to teach "sound doctrine" (Tt 2:1), carrying on the guidance
given to his converts by the apostle. The bishop must "hold firmly
to the sure word as it was taught" (Tt 1:9). Timothy, who had
been an observer of how Paul taught (2 Tm 3:10), is admonished, "Continue
in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom
you learned it" (3:14).
The enemy against whom this advice is directed are teachers who are
introducing new ideas, a group described as insubordinate men, empty
talkers, and deceivers. Such people love discussion and controversies
(1 Tm 6:4-5; Tt 3:9); and they win an admiring following among hearers
with "itching ears" (2 Tm 4:3), a group that might be described
less pejoratively as having enquiring minds. The apostle of the Pastorals
would have such purveyors of new and different ideas stopped from
teaching (1 Tm 1:3): "They must be silenced, for they are upsetting
whole households by teaching for dishonest profit what they have no
right to teach" (Tt 1:11). The faithful are reminded to be submissive
to rulers and authorities, both secular and religious (Tt 3:1). In
the Pastorals, then, we have the ancestor of the theology of a deposit
of doctrine, and such ecclesiastical developments as the approval
of professors, imprimaturs, an index of forbidden books, and supervised
church presses - features not unique to Roman Catholicism by any means,
even if the same names are not used in other churches and the control
is not as obvious.
The historical circumstances in which the Pastoral Epistles were written
involved great danger for the form of Christianity that would ultimately
be designated "orthodoxy" (pp. 17-18 above). A following {39} among Christians was already being won by the propagandists of
gnosticism (1 Tm 6:20: what is falsely called knowledge (gnosis)).
The struggle-to-the-death that would culminate ca. 180 in the Adversus
haereses of Irenaeus had now begun. Already the "Paul" of
the Pastorals had divined that the best response to a plethora of
views claiming to be revealed and even traditional was a pedigreed
tradition, involving a link between the apostolic era and approved
church officials. Irenaeus would only be refining the argument when
he appealed to a chain of bishops of the great Christian centers in
his refutation of gnostic doctrines. I would contend that the underlying
maxim, "Hold firmly to the sure word as it was taught" (Tt
1:9), remains an essential weapon in times of major doctrinal crisis.
It enabled the Roman Catholic Church to survive the tumultuous days
of the Reformation; it enabled Luther's movement to survive an anarchical
Protestant left-wing (Schwdrmerei) spawned by his own protest against
Rome; today it should enable the mainline churches to survive biblicist
sectarians. True, a stringent control over teaching (and writing)
exercised by church authorities runs against a democratic sense of
freedom of thought and expression; but in the rare moments when theological
freedom threatens to become anarchy, "the church of the living
God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tm 3:15) has the
right not to let itself be destroyed from within.
The great danger with an exclusive stress on officially controlled
teaching, however, is that, having been introduced at moments of crisis,
it becomes a consistent way of life. The Pastoral Epistles, shaped
by doctrinal crisis, are often read without context as offering a
universal and unconditioned policy. Truly pastoral policy, rather,
requires a relaxation of such stringent controls when the crisis has {40} passed. For instance, having survived both the Reformation and
the Enlightenment through controlled teaching, the Roman Catholic
Church showed great wisdom in abolishing some of its negative doctrinal
controls as an aftermath of Vatican II.
What type of exaggeration may flow from the failure to see that an
exclusive stress on appointed teachers is a policy conditioned by
dangerous times? The fear of new ideas evident in the Pastorals may
become endemic in the structured church. There are times when having
"itching ears" in the sense of an inquisitive mind is necessary
in order to keep the spirit of Jesus from being suppressed. After
all, the Jesus who challenged the religious authorities of his time
with the dictum, "Let that person hear who has ears to hear"
(Mt 11:15; cf. Mk 8:18), could well be accused of having admired itching
ears. At certain times the greatest peril facing a well-ordered institutional
church is not the peril of new ideas but the peril of no ideas. The
community described in the Pastorals would be perfectly safe if no
one thought any other ideas than those handed down. Then, however,
it might fall under the condemnation of the gospel parable against
the servant who was perfectly happy to hand over what he had received,
but was considered by Jesus as wicked and slothful because he had
added nothing new to it (Mt 25:24-30).
The idea of entrusted truth (2 Tm 1:14), translated into a "deposit
of faith," is very useful as a corrective against liberal romantics
who think that Christian theology can be created anew in each generation.
It has severe limitations if it projects the image of a safe deposit
box sterilely protecting what was put into it in the first century.
Every generation must add to the deposit through its unique experience
of Christ in its time. The presbyter-bishops of the church must "hold
firmly to the sure word as it was taught" to them (Tt 1:9), and
woe to them if part of the deposit of faith is lost in their administration.
But also woe to them if they do not encourage constructive {41} insights
that augment and nuance the sound doctrine they are obliged to teach.
A weakness of the Pastorals is that the latter duty is never mentioned.
Institutional virtues in the officials
Second, a related strength and weakness in the Pastorals is a total
orientation toward pastoral qualities in the officials of the structure
that is to be erected. Through the safe, institutional virtues demanded
of the presbyter-bishops (tantamount to prudence, sobriety, and balance),
these writings are meant to insure a benevolent, holy, and efficient
administration. The "clergy" appointed by Timothy and Titus
should have been good, sound people, easy to get along with as resident
pastors; but their job profile is not likely to have brought to leadership
dynamic "movers" who would change the world. As I point
out above (p. 35), the historical Paul could not easily have met the
requirements for the local presbyter-bishop. But then the historical
Paul was a missionary and never a lifetime resident in a settled community.
He had risky new ideas about Christ as the end of the Law and an untamable
restlessness that made him highly successful in opening new frontiers
for Christ. Traversing those frontiers, whether geographic or intellectual,
required an un-conventionality frowned on by the Pastorals. Paradoxically,
the leaders of the Jerusalem circumcision party opposed to Paul (whom
he undiplomatically called "false brethren" in Ga 2:4) may
have exemplified well some of the condemnatory attitudes encouraged
by the Pastorals, for undoubtedly they regarded Paul as a dangerous
teacher of novelties who should be silenced. After all, in their estimation
he did not hold on to the sound doctrine taught by Jesus (in the tradition
of Mt 5:18), namely that not the smallest letter, not even the smallest
part of a letter, of the Law would pass away.
In other words the pastor and the missionary are different roles that
characteristically require different strengths. One may justly observe
that making new converts was not the problem faced by the "Paul"
of the Pastorals. The fact, however, that the Pastorals were {42}
shaped by the problem then at hand often has not been recognized,
and they have been thought to describe an ideal church order adequate
for all times. In fact they make no structural provision for ongoing
mission activity; and the thrust toward such highly prudential leaders,
holding on to the past, creates an orientation that is not going to
favor the innovations necessary for a dynamic mission. That recognition
becomes all the more important if the pastoral care even of those
who are already Christian requires a missionary innovative-ness, as
it often does in times of change. Alas, the judgment of both higher
church authorities and of the laity on pastors has too often been
exclusively along the lines promoted by the Pastorals. The pastors
who disturb because they see that new things have to be done, and
those who are impatient over the inertia they encounter have frequently
been rejected. So often churches work on what I call "the Caiaphas
principle" when they encounter a brilliantly disturbing leader:
It is better that one man be eliminated than that the whole institution
perish (Jn 11:50). There may be a certain societal inevitability to
that principle, but the source of it should at least make the designation
"weakness" none too strong for a tendency (which is incipient
in the Pastorals) to favor blandness.
Limits of selected presbyter-bishops
Third, there are strengths and weaknesses in the church's having carefully
selected presbyter-bishops who alone can hand on the doctrine safely,
with the result that other teachers arouse suspicion. The plus and
minus values are patent in 2 Tm 3:1-9, a passage that vituperates
other teachers who oppose the authority of the presbyters and mislead
people:
'But understand this: in the last days there will come times of stress.
For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, proud, arrogant,
abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman,
unforgiving, slanderers, profligate, brutal, haters of good, "treacherous,
rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 'holding
the form of religion but denying the power of it. Have nothing to
do with such people. Tor among them are those who make their way into
households and gain control over weak women burdened with sins and
swayed by various impulses, 'who will listen to anybody and never
arriveat a knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses,
so also these oppose the truth - these people of depraved mind and
counterfeit faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly
will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.' {43}
The vituperation is made up of customary, expected charges. The gnostic
teachers under attack may well have deserved some of the descriptive
adjectives; but not infrequently where only approved teachers flourish,
those who ask probing questions about the standard doctrine will be
presented as the opponents of God's truth. In other words, prompted
by struggle, the Pastorals present a dualistic view of the true and
the counterfeit, but ordinary church life is scarcely dualistic. Differing
from standard teaching may indeed be a mark of false teachers who
need to be opposed; it may also be a mark of constructive thinkers
whose ideas, startling at first, may lead the appointed teachers to
perceive more clearly what really has been entrusted to be guarded
with the help of the Holy Spirit (2 Tm 1:14). In the Roman Catholic
Church the Galileo case is a notorious example of where the official
teachers confused a new teaching with false teaching because involved
was a different view, challenging what had always been taught from
the Scriptures about the relation between the sun and the earth. One
could find thousands of less famous examples, many of them in Protestantism;
and they warn us that a condemnatory dualistic approach may be an
example of weakness rather than of strength.
In regard to the 2 Tm 3 passage, however, I am more interested in
the attitude of this passage towards those who are taught, for the
author ungracefully refers to "weak women" as an example
of the ignorant and impulsive who are easily misled. One may argue
that he is not speaking about all women and that in his time women
were seldom given the opportunity of education. Meeks, First Urban
Il-IA, points out that conservative Greco-Roman historians and satirists {44} frequently blamed the lush growth of esoteric cults and superstitions
on irresponsible women who felt emancipated by them. Plutarch (Moralia:
Coniugalia praecepta 145 CE) observes that uneducated women tend to
believe in superstitious stupidities, and unless they receive the
seeds of good doctrine, they conceive monstrosities. Certainly some
of the rules limiting women in the Pauline writings are designed to
show that Christians are not rebels against the social expectations
of the Hellenistic world, and are not a wild sect. Be that as it may,
Tm 3:6-7 can easily contribute to a generalization wherein women typify
the taught section of the community who will always get things wrong
unless they are instructed by the official teachers. Understandably,
many modern readers or hearers will be offended by what will appear
to them as sexist; and preachers, instead of decrying such a reaction
as simplistic or anchronistic, should take the trouble to interpret
the passage critically in both senses of that adverb. Elsewhere I
have stated my firm opinion that little is gained in public reading
by omitting offensive Bible passages, for bowdlerized versions permit
people too easily to say they "accept" the Bible. They never
hear passages that should cause an intelligent audience to demur and
to ask themselves constructive questions that will lead them to recognize
the human conditioning in the biblical account. Hearing the difficult
passages of the Bible and wrestling with them honestly (rather than
explaining them away) will strengthen the realization that every word
spoken about God on this earth, including the biblical word, which
is uniquely "of God," is a partial and limited witness to
the truth. To accept the Bible in that sense leads to a faith that
is not credulous.
As part of the "wrestling" with this passage in 2 Timothy,
I would like to go beyond the unpleasant fact that women personify
the dangerously weak and naive in order to concentrate on the problem
of a class of those who are taught. (I shall return to the Pastorals'
treatment of women in Chapter 7 below.) From the Pastorals one gets
the impression that officially appointed teachers and false teachers
are battling for the minds of those who are to be taught. Some-{45}
times such a picture has been equated with the classical theological
distinction between the ecclesia docens (teaching church) and the
ecclesia discens (learning church). This is a valid distinction as
long as one recognizes that membership in the two groups is mobile
- at one time or other every Christian is or should be part of the
teaching church and everyone should be part of the learning church.
However, from the Pastorals one might judge that, apart from the presbyters,
everyone else is in a fixed class of the taught who, if not instructed
by the official teachers, will be deceived by false teachers. Only
the foolish would deny the danger that uneducated members of a Christian
community will be deceived by false teachers. For instance, today
there are many Roman Catholics (and increasingly many Protestants
from the mainline churches) who have little acquaintance with the
Bible from youth and whose first real familiarity with it comes through
hearing fundamentalist media-preachers. How quickly they can be convinced
by simplistic interpretations! But granted this, very often a greater
peril faces the community where the dividing line between official
teachers and the taught is very sharp, namely, the peril that little
by way of creative ideas or intellectual contributions is expected
from the taught who constitute the majority of the community. Certainly
2 Tm 3:6-7 shows no expectation that sometimes women might on their
own detect a falsehood peddled to them or might even have something
to teach the presbyters. The failure of the author to make allowance
for ideas "from the bottom up," as if all perspicacity comes
from the top down in the structure, does not prepare the ordinary
readers of the Pastorals to play a contributive role in teaching.
Such a one-sided situation will become ever more disastrous in any
area of the world where the laity are highly educated and quite capable
of making a significant contribution toward the overall religious
growth of the community. Of course, even educated laity need to be
taught the great Christian tradition, and that is a signal task of
the official teachers of the church who have been (or should have
been) trained in that tradition. But once having been instructed,
some lay people are quite capable of being {46} teachers themselves,
not just transmitting what they received but making their own contribution.
The Pastoral Epistles were written at a time when the author felt
he had to tell Titus (3:1), "Remind the people to be submissive
to rulers and authorities"; perhaps he expected the good sense
that at another time it would be said, "Remind them to be constructive
and contributive." But the fact is that such a follow-up directive
never made it into the Scriptures that were to be so pastorally determinant.
That is a weakness.
A need to insist that there are weaknesses in the Pastorals' proposal
of firm administration by official teachers is a compliment to the
enormous strength of that proposal, which has tended to dominate church
history precisely because it worked so well. Communities that have
reacted by ignoring it have often been short-lived. As we shall see
in Chapter 7 below, the one NT community that specifically rejected
the idea of official teachers lost many of its members, and the remnant
ultimately had to accept a qualified form of pastoral authority. {47}
Colossians/Ephesians: The Church as Christ's Body to Be Loved
An apostolic church
An idealised church, but no mention of succession
Church - growing as a living body
The church as planned by God
Holiness characteristic of the church
Equating the Church with the Kingdom of God
Exalted idea of the Church
Strengths of this Imagery
A personalized church, to be loved
The church's holiness
Weaknesses of this ecclesiology
Concealment of guilt
Omits the scandal of the cross
Limits the possibility of reform
Mystical Body of Christ?
Only one church?
Salvation of outsiders?
Colossians/Ephesians constitutes another strain
of the sub-apostolic heritage, even more directly connected to Paul than were
the Pastoral Epistles. Colossians may have been composed within a decade of
Paul's lifetime, closer to him in time than any of the other Deutero-Pauline
letters. It has so many features of genuine Pauline thought (but not of Pauline
style) that even some critical scholars think that Paul composed it, at least
through a secretary. (By way of very broad approximation, about 90% of critical
scholarship judges that Paul did not write the Pastorals, 80% that he did not
write Ephesians, and 60% that he did not write Colossians.) It is not clear to
what extent the author of Colossians knew the earlier Pauline {48} writings
(beyond Philemon), but the author of Ephesians knew most of them. However,
beyond stressing that both Colossians and Ephesians belong to the Pauline
heritage, let me leave such details to NT Introductions (ftnote 19 above) and
concentrate on the basic question I am posing to all the sub-apostolic works:
Granted that the apostolic figure has passed (or is passing) from the scene,
how do these writings enable the communities addressed to survive?68
As in the Pastorals, so also in
Colossians/Ephesians, Paul gives authoritative apostolic guidance. As in 1 Tm
3:15, so also in Ep 2:19 we hear of the church as the "household of
God"; and the institutional aspect of this image is strengthened in the next
verse which speaks of being "built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone." In both
Colossians and Ephesians instructions for the ethical behavior of members of
the Christian household (Haustafeln) are supplied in a manner not far removed
from similar instructions in the Pastorals. An awareness of a charismatic
church structure is exhibited by Ep 4:11 which lists apostles, prophets,
evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Yet, unlike the author of the Pastorals,
the authors of Colossians and Ephesians put no stress on apostolic succession
or on the institutional aspects of the church. We hear nothing significant
about the functioning of the "pastors and teachers." The silence
cannot be explained on the grounds of a trouble-free situation. Col 2:8-23
describes vividly the onslaught of false teaching which consists of a
"human tradition... not according to Christ." In it Jewish elements
are mixed with aspects of a visionary mystery religion, and one gets the
impression of error no less serious than what is condemned in the Pastorals.
{49} False teaching problems are mentioned in more general language in
Ephesians, e.g. in Ep 4:14 which warns against being children "blown about
by every wind of doctrine and by human cunning and craftiness in deceitful
scheming."
Rather than responding to such doctrinal dangers
by emphasis on appointed teachers and transmitted doctrine, Colossians offers a
positive, idealistic view of the church, which is expanded in Ephesians. In the
undisputed letters of Paul we find him using "church" frequently but
most often in reference to local communities, e.g., "the church of God
which is in Corinth," "the churches of Galatia," "in every
church." But in Colossians/Ephesians the absolute, comprehensive term
"the church" has come to the fore. Then as now, "the
church" used absolutely is hard to define, for it is more than the
aggregate of individual churches or Christian communities. Indeed, as will
become clear, in Colossians/Ephesians "the church" seems to be more
than an earthly reality, for it affects the heavenly powers - a foreshadowing
of the expansion in later theology to a church triumphant (in heaven) alongside
a church militant (on earth), and, in Roman Catholicism, alongside a church
suffering (in purgatory).
Paul had resorted to an imaginative use of
Christ's "body" in his undisputed correspondence, especially in
overcoming the jealousy about charisms at Corinth. He spoke of the risen body
of Christ (and thus of a real body that had lived and died) of which each
Christian is a member, a human body that had feet, hands, eyes, etc. Paul used
this diversity of bodily parts to justify the difference in charisms enjoyed by
the Corinthian Christians: some prophets, some healers, some speakers in
tongues (1 Co 12:21-31). The author of Colossians, followed by the author of
Ephesians, adopts Paul's image of the body and develops it in a new way to fit
a massive emphasis on {50} the church. In his body of the flesh by his death
Christ reconciled those who were estranged (Col 1:21), and they have been
called into one body (3:15). That body is now identified as the church, and
Christ is its head (Col 1:18,; Ep 1:22-23; Ep 5:23). From Paul's reference to
the Christians as members of a real body that suffered, died, and rose, the
thrust of the body imagery has moved to a corporate understanding with Christ
as Lord over that body (Ep 4:4-5).
Despite the corporate understanding, the church
as the body of Christ does not become a corporation. Here is a major difference
from the Pastorals where the care in setting up authoritative administration
inevitably has underscored the institutional. For Colossians/Ephesians the
church is a growing entity, living with the life of Christ himself. The basic
error is to lose "connection to the head from whom the whole body,
nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a
growth that is from God" (Col 2:19). If there are different ministries,
they are "for building up the body of Christ, until we all reach... to the
measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Ep 4:12-13). "We
are to grow in every way into him who is the head, that is, into Christ from
whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint,... grows bodily
and builds itself up in love" (Ep 4:15-16).
In this approach to the church, the theme of love
is very strong. In the undisputed correspondence of Paul, he wished to present
the Corinthians to Christ as a pure virgin to a husband. This imagery has {51}
been expanded in Ephesians to a relationship between Christ and "the
church." Indeed, Ep 5:21-33 does not hesitate to pattern the love between
husband and wife on the intense love of Christ for the church. (If church order
in the Pastorals is patterned on the administration of a household, in
Ephesians the ideals of the household are patterned on the church.) Christ
nourishes and cherishes the church (5:29). "Christ loved the church and
gave himself up for her" (5:25). The latter statement may be contrasted to
statements in 2 Co 5:14 and in Rm 5 that Christ died for all, indeed for the
unrighteous and sinners. The goal of Christ's life and death has become the
church. Even more, the church may be said to be the ultimate goal of God's
master plan, since all things in heaven and on earth have been put under
Christ's feet and he has been made "head over all things for the church
which is his body" (Ep 1:22-23). The mystery or hidden plan of God
involves Christ's love for the church (Ep 5:32 and what precedes).
Holiness is a very important characteristic of
the church as the body of Christ. He died to sanctify the church and to cleanse
her that she might be presented as a "radiant bride without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ep
5:27). The two become one (5:31-32) so that the holiness of Christ may be seen
in the church, his body that is being built up in love (4:16). Indeed, the
church can be identified with the kingdom of God's-Son. There is much
insistence in introductory NT courses that he basileia tou theou (the kingdom
of God) is an active, not a static or localized concept, and would be
translated better as "rule, reign," not "kingdom." A
corollary often drawn is that the initiation of the rule of God by Jesus cannot
simply be equated with the founding of the church. In such observations, true
as they may be, one must not overlook the fact that in some of the later
sections of the NT basileia has been reified and localized, so that
"kingdom" is the only appropriate translation. One enters it, and
there are keys to it. Also the kingdom and the church have begun to be partially
identified.
Important in this regard is Matthew's explanation
of the parable about the weeds planted and allowed to grow among the wheat (Mt
13:36-43). The good seed are the sons of the kingdom; the weeds are the sons of
the evil one; when the harvest comes, "the Son of {52} Man will send his
angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all the causes of sin and all
evildoers.... Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of
their Father." Thus there is a kingdom of the Son of Man on earth with
good and bad - seemingly the church - but only after the judgment will the just
enter the kingdom of their Father. Colossians may be even more radical in
equating the church with a form of the kingdom: the Father "has rescued us
from the dominion of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His
beloved Son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins" (Col
1:13-14). Thus the darkness-free church of which Christians are members is the
kingdom of God's Son in which "they share the inheritance of the holy ones
in the light" (Col 1:12). This is possible because, as part of the
realized eschatology of Colossians/Ephesians, Christians are told, "You
were raised in Christ through faith" (Col 2:12). Another passage (Col
3:1-3) indicates that heavenly glory is still future; but Ep 2:6 sees even this
aspect too as partially realized: God "raised us up with him and seated us
with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."
When, as cited above, Colossians speaks of
Christians' sharing "the inheritance of the holy ones in the light,"
it is likely that these holy ones are not just saintly human beings of the past
but the angels; for Christ has reconciled all things on earth and in heaven
(Col 1:20; Ep 1:10), and the powers and principalities are subject to him who
is the head of the church. Thus, in a sense the angelic, superhu- {53} man
powers who acknowledge Christ may be considered part of the church as the body
of Christ. Like a Byzantine mosaic picturing the Pantocrator, the body and the
head reach from earth to heaven. If Col 2:9 can state that the fullness of
divinity dwells in Christ bodily, Ep 1:23 can simplify this by describing the
church as "his body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all"; and
this fullness may well include the angels. If Paul described himself as a
servant/minister (diakonos) of God (2 Co 6:4), and of a new covenant (2 Co
3:6), it is not surprising that the "Paul" of Col 1:24-25 can
describe himself as a servant/minister of the church. The doxology of Ep 3:21
indicates the extent to which these letters have given an almost divine
character to the church: "To Him be glory in the church and in Christ
Jesus to all generations for ever and ever."
Having described the exalted ecclesiology of
Colossians/Ephesians, I now turn to the way in which it relates to the survival
of the churches the apostle Paul left behind.
First, we have seen that the body of Christ
imagery personalizes the church and encourages our love for it in imitation of
the love that Christ has for his bride. The advice given by the Pastorals
should produce an efficient, caring administration; but ultimately people do
not love a structure or an institution in itself. Let me illustrate a personal
and an institutional image from current experience. In my own church, before
the Second Vatican Council one heard frequently the language of "mother
church." Admittedly that imagery smacked of over-supervision and of a
maternalism that reduced everyone to a child status, or at times to a childish
status.
In part, such weakness explains why the imagery
is no longer very popular; yet no real replacement has been found. Post-Vatican
II references to "the institutional church" often em- {54} body the
misunderstanding that there are two churches of which one is non-institutional.
(The church is by nature social and implicitly institutional. Those who
"opt out of the institutional church" may continue with private
religion, but they are no longer in union with the church as it exists on this
earth. If they join a small group or sect that presents itself as
non-institutional, it will soon become institutional provided it lasts long
enough and gains a sizable membership.) But even when references to "the
institutional church" do not involve such a misunderstanding, they
scarcely reflect warmth or passionate admiration. Institution or structure is
inevitably influenced by secular models and constitutes that aspect of the
church which is not easily seen as having anything to do with Christ or God.
For all its defects, "mother church" was both personal and familial;
and even when a mother overdoes her role, she can be loved by her children.
One implication of a personal church conceived as
the body loved by Christ is seen in a statement attributed to Paul: "What
is lacking in Christ's afflictions I complete in my flesh for the sake of his
body which is the church" (Col 1:24). This is an attitude derivative from
the principle that Christ "gave himself up for her" (Ep 5:25). If
Christ was willing to give himself for the church, so should his apostle be
willing to give himself for the church. And once the apostle has passed from
the scene, if there are still others who are willing to give themselves for the
church, the church will survive. People, since they do not love institutions as
such, rarely give themselves for institutions; rather institutions exist for
people. But if the church is loved in a personalized relationship, it becomes a
cause that attracts generosity from generation to generation.
A moment's reflection easily supplies examples of
this through the centuries. The cathedrals, which were the dominant edifices of
medieval cities, were built with great sacrifices by people who expressed their
love for God and Christ by what they did for such a church. Immigrants often
built great churches and cathedrals while they themselves were housed in poor
circumstances. The church building was to them a sign of continuity with the
tradition and faith they had known as children in their native countries. How
often men and women have left a good part of their life savings simply "to
the church"! In Roman Catholicism those who became {55} priests, or brothers,
or sisters were commonly said to have given their lives "to the
church." I suspect that this last mentioned instance of "to the
church" language may be foreign to many Protestants, but it is a logical
derivative from the ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians which tends to make
the church and Christ one.
Second, the holiness of the church that is part
of the Colossians/Ephesians picture is also an element that enables the church
to survive. Inevitably church members sin; already in Paul's lifetime marriage
disputes, incest, and profanation of the eucharist marred the church at
Corinth. In the communities addressed by the Pastorals, the carefully chosen
presbyter-bishops might correct and even prevent some of those stains on the
sanctity of the local church; but they themselves were open to sin. (Money and
power are two principal values in this world; and it would be a sociological
miracle if church institutions, inescapably patterned on surrounding
institutions, would not be tempted to take over such values.) It is no accident
that NT directives to presbyters warn explicitly or implicitly against greed
and arrogant domination (1 Pt 5:2-3; Ac 20:32-35).
Sinful scandals imperil the survival of the
church unless people have an appreciation of its holiness that is not destroyed
by individual sins. The author of Ephesians knew many of the undisputed Pauline
Epistles and consequently knew that scandals existed in churches founded and
supervised by the great apostle. Yet he could write of the church as a spotless
bride, holy and without blemish. His appreciation of the church was not naive
romanticism but mystical vision. Those who follow his example will be able to
acknowledge sins and still put them into perspective through love for the
church. Institutional scandals and stupidities, even at the highest
administrative levels, will not prevent people with this vision from completing
"what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that
is, the church" (Col 1:24). In the Apostles' Creed there is a clause
"I believe in the holy catholic church." As long as people have that
faith, the church will last, no matter how inefficient its administration.
Thus far I have been underlining the strong
points of the ecclesiastical imagery of Colossians/Ephesians. Now let us look
at the weak points. First and paradoxically, an emphasis on the holiness of the
church can be a weakness if it begins to mask faults that exist. {56} Sometimes
an ecclesiology of holiness has led Christians to hide sins or stupidities,
especially those of public church figures, on the grounds that scandal would be
caused if they were known. I am not speaking of hypocritical suppression by
those who are guilty but suppression by the innocent out of love. Just as a
husband or wife will not proclaim the spouse's faults to all the world because
of loyalty and love for the family, so the thought that the church is Christ's
body or spouse whom Christ loves has led to silence about what could mar the
image of that church.
Yet oppression, venality, and dishonesty harm the
inner vitality of the church; and they may need to be exposed and spoken
against. Silence may prolong the harm done to Christians who suffer under such
sins. Moreover, where suppression has occurred for a long period, Christians
are not being taught to deal maturely with the tension that surrounds a
spotless church filled with sinners. Consequently, when the dam of silence
ultimately breaks (and break it will), the disillusionment can be catastrophic.
If I may take the Roman Catholic Church as an
example, the period before Vatican II was characterized by a public silence
about faults, especially about those of the clergy and religious. I trust that
no one will accuse us of that fault recently. Now it seems as if the front page
of a newspaper is the only forum for dealing with inner-Catholic difficulties!
The dubious service that the National Enquirer renders to the nation, the
National Catholic Reporter renders to the church. The very sharpness of this
change demonstrates vividly the pent-up feelings flowing from such artificial
silence - it may even cause people to forget the gospel maxim that first one
should remonstrate in private and only reluctantly go public (Mt 18:15-17).
Even worse, now that a flood of scandalous secrets has been made known (and, to
be honest, exaggerated), many Catholic people are not able to cope with the
discovery that greed, pride, and even sex were at work in a church which
previously they had not seen criticized in "black and white" from
within. (Yes, there had been printed criticism from outsiders, but they could
be dismissed as enemies of the church.)
So often the reaction to the unpleasant
revelations is that, if this is the way the church really is, I want no part of
it. If money has been misused or badly invested, why should I give to the
church? If church positions on complicated issues, including papal encyclicals,
repre- {57} sent compromises between feuding factions rather than universal
consent among top church advisors, why am I to give adherence? If priests and
sisters are leaving their ministry and revealing the frustrations present in
the public service of the church, why should anyone undertake such service by
way of vocation?
Such objections, heard so frequently today (and
not only among Roman Catholics), are a contemporary expression of a problem
encountered in another form in the early church. Paul is eloquent in 1 Co 1:23:
"We preach Christ crucified, a scandal to the Jews and folly to the
Gentiles." The Christ of Paul would not have been a scandal if he were
shown as representing God without any human admixture. The Christ of Paul would
not have been a folly if he were shown as a purely human embodiment of God-like
virtues. But the mixture of the divine and the human in christology constituted
the scandal and the folly. Who could believe that the power of God was embodied
in one who was hanged as a criminal? Who could believe in a salvific figure
dying on a cross, an image as palatable as a hunk of meat hanging in a butcher
shop, covered with blood, dirt, and flies? When one describes the crucifixion
in such graphic terms, even contemporary Christians feel for a moment the
offense of Paul's preaching; but the cross or crucifix has been too long a
reverential symbol for it to constitute a scandal. So where is the scandal in
the Christian gospel today? Not in Christ crucified but in the church. (The
parallel is not perfect: there was no sin in Christ himself; there is sin in
those who constitute the church.) When faults are concealed, the church may not
be a scandal; but let the narrowness, the abuse of power, the stupidities,
venalities, and sins be known, and the cry of scandal and folly that greeted
Paul's gospel will greet the creedal proclamation, "I believe in the holy,
catholic church." A generation that on the political level demands the
simon-pure and that expects leaders on white chargers will be "turned off
by the claim that the vehicle for Christ's salvific message is a church with
such human tarnish. They will dismiss the church as just another political
organization, and run off after a "pure cause." Nevertheless, a
church where the holiness has to be perceived in faith but where the faults are
physically visible embodies the mystery of the divine in the human - the very
mystery that constituted the offensive Pauline gospel. An exclusive
concentration on holiness (which may result from reading {58} Ephesians without
the author's presuppositions based on his knowledge of the Pauline corpus) can
become a vehicle of gnosticism rather than of the gospel.
A second weakness in this ecclesiology concerns
the possibility of reform. It is difficult to think of reforming a spotless
bride. If the members of a body are being knit together in growth that comes
from God and are being upbuilt in love, is there place for defective and
cancerous growths, for sickness, and for corrective operations? Does the
inherent triumphalism of Colossians/Ephesians allow for failure? To express the
difficulty more concretely, is not this view of the church, especially in
Ephesians, logically more consistent with a "high Catholicism" such
as found in the Eastern Churches, Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism than with
the ecclesiology of the Protestant Reformation? K. Lake, Landmarks 93, remarks
bluntly, "Protestant scholarship is more sensitive to the un-Pauline
ecclesiology of Ephesians, which it repudiates, than to the un-Pauline Christology
of Colossians, to which it adheres."
If the Reformers were correct in their thesis
that the Roman Church had become hopelessly corrupt and if the style of that
Church to which they objected had existed for many centuries, how is that
reconcilable with the thesis in Ep 5 that Christ had sanctified and cleansed
the church and that the two had become one? If Ephesians and Colossians are
correct, can there be an essentially corrupt visible church? A frequent
Protestant answer to such an objection is that, after a gap, the Reformed
Churches were the true successors of an earlier, incorrupt church. This answer,
which may seem incredible to Roman Catholics, really proves the power of the
ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians. Every group, even if it posits massive
corruption, will suppose that in some period the church was substantially pure.
Perhaps the Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) is the most extreme
example of this, for it posits that the "great apostasy" took place
in the first century and that divine revelation to Joseph Smith recovered the
uncorrupt church.
This basic difficulty about the thrust of
Colossians/Ephesians may be brought home to Roman Catholics by reflections on
Vatican II, {59} a self-reform council where the Roman Church accomplished from
within, by its own decision, some of what the Reformers had attempted from
without, by protest. In the years before the council the dominant biblical
image of the church for Catholics had become the body of Christ. The encyclical
on the Mystical Body by Pope Pius XII (1943) had the effect of challenging a
purely canonical understanding of the church in terms of jurisdiction. The
Pope's presentation was largely informed by the basic imagery of
Colossians/Ephesians, even if the encyclical already, by its title with the
word "mystical," went beyond the Bible. If a poll on biblical church
imagery had been taken among bishops entering the council, the "body of
Christ" would surely have won first place in familiarity.
But that is not the biblical imagery that emerged
from the council. Dominating post-conciliar Roman Catholic ecclesiology is a
biblical image that would rarely have been mentioned in preconciliar sermons,
namely, the People of God. Why? An important but partial answer is found in the
different thrusts of the body of Christ and the people of God. The awesome
holiness of the body of Christ which is the spotless bride did not lend itself
to self-reform. Indeed, Catholic resistance to the reforms of Vatican II was
often based on the thesis that such changes implied previous church error or
fault. And so, perhaps without adverting to the dynamism of the shift, the
council facilitated reform by turning to the image of the people of God - a
people that is unique because it is of God and yet may still consist of
sinners; a pilgrim people on its way to the promised land, wandering at times
and needing to be brought back from detours. This image was needed alongside
the body of Christ in order to give expression to the tension in ecclesiology
between holiness and the constant need for reform.
As for the last two possible weaknesses in the
ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians, let me be brief because they really are
not pertinent to the survival of the church after the death of the apostles. A
third weakness is that the emphasis on the church in these epistles weakens the
role of local churches in ecclesiology. In Roman Catholicism this trend was so
dominant over the centuries that the theology {60} of the local church is
almost a new area. Rather than speaking of a local church, we tend to speak of
a parish or diocese, and to apply the term "church" without a
qualifier to the universal entity. Ask the ordinary Catholic believers where is
the center of their church, and most often the answer given will be
"Rome." Yet in a very real way the church finds its center when the
believing community celebrates a liturgy in which the word of God is being
preached and the eucharist is being received. Without losing the concept of the
church, those shaped by Colossians/Ephesians need to work with the holiness of
the local community. On the local level the knitting together of the members is
badly needed.
Fourth, an exclusive concentration on the church
as the ultimate goal of God's plan of salvation in Christ omits from explicit
consideration a large part of the world that is not yet renewed in Christ. In
this outlook, only as part of the body of Christ is there cosmic unity. The
hostile role of the principalities, powers, and rulers of this world is
acknowledged warningly (Ep 6:12); but there is no real consideration given to
the many in this world who are neither believing nor hostile. True, a failure
to deal with a "third world" that is neither light nor darkness is
common in the NT; it is simply more apparent in the ecclesiology of
Colossians/Ephesians.
Lest I end this section on a negative note, I
wish to reaffirm the tremendous power of the Colossians/Ephesians ecclesiology
with its elements of holiness and love. No church can survive without giving it
due emphasis. Inevitably, after their strong condemnation of the Roman Church,
the Reformers applied the body of Christ imagery to the reformed churches that
emerged from their protest. The sixteenth century churches were seen by their
adherents as the true heirs to the title of the spotless bride that Christ had
cleansed and sanctified. Within Roman Catholicism, if we have another decade of
the dominance of the people of God imagery, the body of Christ motif will need
to re-emerge. After all, Israel was (and, for many, still is) the people of
God. What is distinctive about the Christian church is the relationship to
Christ and the special holiness that has flowed from that relationship. {61}
4. The Pauline Heritage in Luke/Acts: The
Church and the Spirit
As indicated above (p. 20), Luke/Acts constitutes another form of
the Pauline heritage, even though the author shows no knowledge of
the Epistles. The Lucan Paul is a more moderate figure than the Paul
who wrote Galatians and the Corinthian correspondence. For some scholars
this is a falsification of Paul; yet Paul was not a monolothic character,
and there would have been a tendency to recall selectively the more
benevolent and pacific aspects of his career, especially after the
martyred apostle had become a pillar of the church (I Clement 5:2-5).
A work like Acts is not an apt parallel in form or in content to the
Pastorals or to Colossians/Ephesians, and so we must move cautiously
in evaluating its contribution to post-Pauline ecclesiolgy. Unlike
the authors of those other works, the author of Acts has not written
a work of Pauline theology; he has written a story in which Paul plays
a decisive role as a missionary witness, not as a doctrinal authority.
Scholars are far from agreement on the audience addressed in Acts,
an audience that may have been less specified than {62} the addressees
of the Epistles. Nevertheless, we can work with the likelihood that
Luke was working with largely Gentile churches affected at least indirectly
by the Pauline mission.
Luke's perspective
Even though we use the name "Luke," there are many reasons
for thinking that the author was not a companion of Paul and had not
known him personally. Perhaps not even the audience had been in direct
contact with the historical Paul. But for the author and presumably
for the audience, Paul was an extremely important figure in God's
plan to bring Christ to the Gentiles and to the ends of the earth.
Paul had become the guarantor of the legitimacy of these Gentile churches.
While the purpose of Luke/Acts may be complex, it certainly involves
the basic geographic line traced in Ac 1:8, which constitutes the
table of contents of the book: "You shall receive power when
the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Acts begins in Jerusalem, moves through Judea and Samaria, and ends
in Rome. Personified in Peter and Paul at almost equal length, witness
to Jesus is borne before Jews and Gentiles alike during the first
three decades of Christian life (early 30s to the early 60s). The
account was written decades later;86 and one may debate the accuracy
of the report and to what extent sources were available to the writer.
But those questions need not concern us as we ask how Luke/Acts would
help a Christian audience to survive the death of the apostles. {63}
Acts uses the term "church" for local churches, and certainly
one finds in this book none of the church mysticism that pervades
Colossians/Ephesians. Nevertheless, the author has been acclaimed
the theologian par excellence of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic
church, since every one of those features marks the Christian life
he describes. The author made a bold ecclesial step when he enlarged
the story of Jesus' ministry and death that Mk 1:1 called "the
Gospel of Jesus Christ," not only by rewriting and developing
the Jesus story, but also by adding a second book concerning early
Christianity. He was putting together on the same level the story
of the proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus and the story of the proclamation
of Jesus by Peter and Paul. This means that the good news or gospel88
concerns not only what God has done in Jesus but also what He has
done in the Spirit.
Sense of continuity
This step resulted in a major characteristic of Lucan ecclesiology,
a sense of continuity wherein the church is closely related to what
went before. First, it is clear that church beginnings are related
to Jesus himself. The Jesus who on Easter night ascended into heaven,
bringing the Third Gospel to an end (Lk 24:51), is restored to the
earthly scene at the beginning of Acts, so that clearly he introduces
all that follows. This risen Jesus offers a partial answer to the
relationship between the kingdom and the church which we saw discussed
both in Matthew and in Colossians (p. 51 above). When, asked whether
at this time he would restore the kingdom, the risen Jesus replies
that it is not given to the apostles to know the time, but that they
should bear witness over the whole earth. An essential question that
tortured early Christians has thus been answered in a way that ever
afterwards the larger churches will make their own against sectarians,
namely, in the Christian balance more attention is due to bearing
witness to what Jesus has done than to expecting his coming. This
answer by Jesus makes church existence {64} both explicable and essential
until the coming of the kingdom. It also makes intelligible why Luke
is writing a book describing that existence.
But the continuity does not depend only on Jesus. Although Luke's
book gained the title of "Acts of the Apostles," the title
is not really accurate, for Luke never stresses that Paul is an apostle.
Yet the title does underline the role played by identified leaders
in the story. People who were with Jesus during the public ministry
(the Twelve, the women, his mother and brothers) come over into early
Christian life to insure the continuity Jesus wanted. Paul was not
one of those, but he was commissioned by the risen Jesus; and later
Peter and James certified the correctness of Paul's radical missionary
decision to convert communities of Gentiles without demanding circumcision.
Thus, not only are the early stages of church life continuous with
Jesus, but also the later stages represented by Paul are continuous
with the early stages represented by Peter. If Peter does the same
kind of miracles that Jesus did, Paul then does the same kind of miracles
that Peter did. The sermons that Peter and Paul preach are remarkably
similar, as a sign of a continous message as well as a continuous
power. As for the later period after Paul will be gone, Paul has appointed
presbyters in each church (Ac 14:23). When he parts from the Eastern
mission-field for the last time, he urges the presbyters of Ephesus:
"Keep watch over all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made
you overseers (bishops) to care for the church of God which he obtained
with the blood of His own Son" (Ac 20:28). Thus a continuity
beyond Paul is envisioned.
Moreover, the continuity covers an ever greater span than from the
sub-apostolic presbyters back to Jesus (through Paul and Peter). Jesus
and the church stand in continuity with the whole tradition of {65}
Israel. In commenting on the Lucan infancy narratives (Birth of the
Messiah 242-43), I have contended that Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon,
and Anna are figures patterned on OT models who are brought forward
from the story of Israel to meet Jesus. The characters in Lk 1-2 who
accept Jesus are pious Jews, and everything is done according to the
Law (Lk 1:6; Lk 2:22-27,,), even as the earliest Christians in Acts
are faithful to the piety of Israel (Lk 2:46; Lk 3:1; Lk 5:42). The
Spirit of God that moved the prophets of Israel is conspicuously active
in a prophetic way at the beginning of the story of Jesus (Lk 1:15,,,,;
Lk 2:25-27) and at the beginning of the church (Ac 1:8,; Ac 2:4,).
The line of continuity running smoothly through Israel, Jesus, Peter,
and Paul is admirably summed up by Paul93 in Ac 24:14: "I admit
to you that according to the Way (i.e., the way taught by Jesus which
may have served as a name for the Christian movement)..., I worship
the God of our fathers. I believe everything that is laid down by
the Law or is written in the prophets."
Role of the Spirit
I have mentioned that for Luke the Spirit plays a connective role
between the prophecy of Israel and the prophetic activity surrounding
the birth of Jesus and the birth of the church. Indeed, the distinguishing
feature of Lucan ecclesiology is the overshadowing presence of the
Spirit. The 70 times that pneuma, "spirit," occurs in Acts
constitute almost one-fifth of the total NT usages of that word. Some
have suggested that the second Lucan book could have been named more
appropriately the Acts of the Spirit rather than the Acts of the Apostles.
The fact that Luke omits all further reference to Peter, the great
apostle, after the meeting at Jerusalem in Ac 15 {66} and never tells
about Peter's subsequent career or death has puzzled many. Even more
disconcerting is that Acts closes when Paul gets to Rome and there
is no reference to his subsequent career and death. (The inaccurate
deduction that the book must have been written while Paul was alive
stems from a failure to notice the parallelism with Peter.) Luke is
not interested in these men as such, but in them as vehicles of the
Spirit, bearing witness to Christ in Jerusalem, Ju-dea, Samaria, and
to the ends of the earth. The Spirit is the main actor.
In the two sets of post-Pauline works considered thus far, the Holy
Spirit is assigned relatively little ecclesiological role. As part
of a total 7 instances of pneuma in the Pastorals, mention is made
of regeneration by the Spirit in baptism (Tt 3:5) and of the entrusting
of the truth to be guarded with the help of the indwelling Spirit
(2 Tm 1:14) - both common, traditional Christian ideas. The reference
to the Spirit that really matters for the ecclesiology of the Pastorals
is found in 2 Tm 1:6-7 where "Paul" reminds Timothy "to
rekindle the gift of God that is in you through the laying on of my
hands, for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a Spirit
of power and love and self-discipline" (see also 1 Tm 4:14).
Since Timothy in turn lays hands on others (1 Tm 5:2), the gift of
the Spirit is attached to commissioning, so that the Spirit enables
the one commissioned to complete the assigned task. A Spirit thus
attached to office can be mentioned infrequently since assumably,
when the task is being done, the Spirit is at work.
Pneuma is used 14 times in Ephesians, but only twice in Colossians!
Most of the uses do not pertain directly to ecclesiology, although
once again there appears common Christian tradition about the reception
of the Spirit at baptism ("sealing" in Ep 1:13; Ep 4:30). {67} But the role of the Spirit in relation to the master concept
of the church as the body of Christ is not clear. There is no mention
of the Spirit in this connection in Colossians; and although Ep 4:4
writes of "one body and one Spirit," there is no explanation
of the interrelation. The two letters are startlingly silent about
the Spirit as the animating force of the body, for Christ the head
has that role. Christ and the Spirit are very close in NT thought;
and where Christ is stressed as ongoing and active, often there is
less emphasis on the activity of the Spirit. The church of Colossians/Ephesians
is not just on this earth; it reaches up into heaven which is the
realm of the risen Christ.
In Luke/Acts, by contrast, Jesus Christ ascends to heaven while those
who believe in him remain on earth. They are discouraged from looking
longingly at the heavens (Ac 1:11), for the gift of the Spirit is
precisely to take the place of Christ on earth. The consequent massive
importance attributed to the Spirit in church history is unique to
Acts in the NT. The author is not clear about whether he thinks of
the Spirit as a person, but one cannot doubt the power of the Spirit.
The crucial Pentecost scene is shaped by the imagery of the wind as
the Spirit of God102 moving over the face of the waters at {68} the
creation (Gn 1:2), and by the imagery of the God of the storm coming
down on Mount Sinai to make a covenant with Israel as His people (Ex
19:16ff.). In the last days a new creative act of God is taking place
that matches the first creation; Jerusalem has replaced Sinai as the
site of a renewed covenant that will touch all peoples. And so there
comes a sound resembling a mighty wind, while tongues of fire are
distributed, filling with the Holy Spirit those who are to proclaim
this renewed covenant (Ac 2:14-17).
Beginning of proclamation
Up to that moment after the resurrection, because they lacked either
understanding or courage, the apostles had not proclaimed publicly
what God had done in and through Jesus. The first step in making the
following of Jesus a missionary movement is attributed by Acts to
that Spirit with which the apostles were baptized and empowered to
speak (Ac 1:5,; Ac 2:33; Ac 4:8,). Reception of the Spirit marked
entry into the group of believers attracted by this preaching (Ac
2:38; Ac 8:15-17; Ac 9:17; 1Ac 5:8; Ac 19:5-6). The Spirit directed
missionaries to promising areas (Ac 8:29,). In particular, the Spirit
directed Peter to the house of Cornelius and guided in detail the
admission and baptism of the first Gentiles (Ac 10:38, 44-47; Ac 11:12,).
The Spirit gave the impetus for Barnabas and Paul to set out on a
mission that would convert whole communities of Gentiles (Ac 13:2,).
A most important decision was made in early Christian history when
Peter, Paul, and James agreed to admit Gentiles without requiring
circumcision. It was phrased in these terms: "It has seemed good
to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you" (Ac 15:28). The
Spirit prevented Paul from taking a detour that would have delayed
his planting Christianity in Europe (Ac 16:6-7). Paul's decision that
he must go to Rome is a resolve in the Spirit (Ac 19:21); and when
Paul bids farewell to Asia, the Holy Spirit has been provident by
making presbyters who are overseers (bishops) of the flock (Ac 20:28).
Thus every essential step in this story of how witness was borne to
Christ from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth is guided by the Spirit,
whose presence becomes obvious at great moments where the human agents
would otherwise be hesitant or choose wrongly. {69}
Strengths and Weaknesses
I have concentrated on two dominant factors in the ecclesiology of
Acts: on continuity from Israel through Jesus to Peter and to Paul,
and on the intervention of the Holy Spirit at crucial moments. Both
these factors would have been enormously helpful in enabling the church
or churches that read Luke/Acts to survive, once the apostles had
died. Indeed, as I noted, the deaths of Peter and of Paul did not
even merit a mention by Luke. The culmination of Acts' story of Peter's
career came when he confirmed Paul's circumcision-free ministry to
the Gentiles (Ac 15); Paul made a farewell speech to the presbyter-bishops
of Ephesus passing on the care of the flock to them since they would
see him no more (Ac 20:25-28). The chain of continuity shows a meticulous
plan of God leading toward the victory of Christianity over the whole
earth. Individuals play an assigned role; but when they pass away
after having played the role, to the eyes of faith they confirm that
the plan will take care of the future as well as it has taken care
of the past.
Pride for Gentile Christians
Luke has built into his sketch of a divinely prepared continuity some
elements that could give Gentile Christians a sense of pride. In a
world where many Greco-Romans despised religions from the East as
superstitious sects, it was important for Christians to know that
their religion had a distinguished pedigree. Luke goes out of his
way to mention Roman emperors and governors in relation to the birth
of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry (Lk 2:1-2; Lk 3:1-2). Luke
also stresses Roman officials in relation to Paul's travels, especially
the journey to Rome which takes place because of Paul's appeal to
the emperor (Ac 13:7; Ac 18:12; Ac 23:26; Ac 25:1-2,). Belief in Christ
is a religion that touches the political figures of the great world,
even if indirectly. It may have begun in Jerusalem, but God's plan
led it to Rome; and the empire is its destiny. To have had a significant
past helps to give confidence about the future; and Luke supplied
Christianity with a history that gave it that confidence. If the Paul
of Acts says that he is "a citizen of no mean city," the
Christians who read Acts came away with a pride that they were adherents
to no mean religion.
In reassuring the Lucan churches about survival, even more important
would have been Acts' portrayal of a Holy Spirit that inter- {70}
venes at crucial moments when even the leaders needed help. The idea
that on their own the Christian leaders would not have known what
steps to take were it not for the dramatic (and even intrusive) guidance
of the Spirit relativizes the importance of the apostolic generation.
Peter and Paul were great instruments of the Spirit, but other instruments
can and will be provided. The Spirit that brought faith to the Gentiles
and brought Paul to Rome continues and will help the church in moments
of need. For Christian self-understanding, how important through the
centuries has been the idea that the Holy Spirit will not let the
church down! When Christians encountered error and stupidity that
seemed to threaten survival, how often have they exclaimed, "Thank
God there is a Holy Spirit to pull us through, despite church leadership."
Again and again in church history, when something marvelously unexpected
has happened, Christian faith has discovered there the Spirit guiding
the church. Acts' magnificent insight that the Spirit was at work
in church history has been an enduring legacy in Christian self-analysis
ever since.
Triumphal picture
What then are the possible weaknesses of the Lucan contribution to
eccelesiology? A triumphal picture is painted in Acts. All setbacks
are temporary and quickly turn out for good104 in a Christian movement
that is constantly growing numerically (Ac 2:41; Ac 4:4; Ac 6:1,;
Ac 8:12; Ac 9:31; Ac 21:19-20) and geographically (Ac 1:8). On finishing
Acts, the reading audience might quite logically have concluded that
very soon afterwards the whole world would become Christian, as stated
confidently by Paul: "Let it be known to you that this salvation
of God has been sent to the Gentiles; and they will listen" (Ac
28:28). The plan of continuity presented in Luke/Acts is oriented
toward the bigger and better; it does not prepare for major defeats
or for losses that are not recouped. Such an ecclesiology, taken in
isolation, will leave Christians perplexed when their institutions
begin to close, when their churches are being abandoned for lack of
members, and when {71} their overall numbers in the world begin to
get smaller. For instance, in America, Roman Catholicism prided itself
on ever increasing numbers dutifully recorded each year in the national
Catholic Directory. In the late 1970s as the increase began to falter,
the question was frequently asked if the church was finished.
Indeed, throughout church history it is fascinating to see how often
Christian failures have been explained away because of the principle
that the church cannot fail. The loss to Islam of important Christian
regions in North Africa and the Near East was accounted for by a type
of divine balance sheet. While God was taking these areas away from
the church, He was giving her Northern Europe where the missionaries
were converting Germanic and Scandinavian tribes to Christianity.
If God deprived the Roman Catholic Church of half of Europe through
the Reformation, Catholics consoled themselves with the idea that
He had given her an even larger number of Catholics in Central and
South America. Protestants had their form of historical optimism:
the American Colonies constituted a new Promised Land where the corrupt
Christianity of Rome would not be tolerated and a pure, reformed Christianity
would flourish. The Protestant missionary movement that swept out
of America and England in the nineteenth century would ultimately
lead to the triumph of Bible Christianity.
Needing to be balanced
To us today, an element of historical manipulation is obvious in all
these explanations and dreams; but consciously or unconsciously they
were influenced by the program of world conversion sketched in Ac
1:8. The solution is not to reject Acts, despite the perennial temptation
to improve the canon. Rather the fullness of the canon needs to be
taken seriously if the triumphalism of Acts is not to become impossibly
romantic at a time of numerically shrinking Christianity. The OT is
also in the canon; and it narrates how God's people shrank from twelve
tribes to one, how religious institutions failed (monarchy, priesthood,
sacrificial cult), and how Israel learned more about God in the ashes
of the Temple destroyed by the Babylonians than in the elegant period
of that Temple under Solomon. Placing the long Deuteronomic history
of the monarchy alongside the brief history of the Christian movement
in Acts may warn Bible readers that God's message to His people is
not an unconditioned promise of increasing numbers to the ends of
the earth. {72} A similar danger of triumphalism surrounds the role
of the intervening Spirit in Acts. It is essential to Christians that
the Spirit does intervene in church history and crises, and that some
major decisions have been reached with the help of the Spirit, often
against the inclination of church leadership. But granting that, can
we be sure that the Holy Spirit will always come to the rescue? Does
not the picture in Acts lead easily to a deus ex machina concept of
the Spirit? Has God really given a blank check so that in every major
instance the Spirit will make sure that the church will muddle through?
In Rv 3:20 Jesus says, "Here I am. I stand at the door and knock;
I will enter and dine with anyone who hears my voice and opens the
door." Is it not true that there have been times in church history
when no one opened the door, and the opportunity to answer Christ
did not come again?
Where is the Spirit active?
Two examples will illustrate the strength and weakness of an ecclesiology
in which intervention by the Spirit plays a major role. The first
example involves the story of ecumenism in this century. It was a
Protestant movement traceable in its early days to several organizations
that fused to become the World Council of Churches. Various factors
affected its growth: two great wars, the disintegrating effects of
secularism, the needs of the missions, etc. Even the Orthodox churches
began to show interest, and finally adamant Roman Catholic opposition
was dramatically reversed at Vatican II. Consequently, in one decade,
the 1970s, more was accomplished toward friendly dialogue between
Christians of many churches than in the preceding 450 years since
the Augsburg Confession. Christians are scarcely romantic when they
detect here the work of the creator Spirit, giving the churches an
opportunity they never expected and could not have planned. But are
we then to assume that the Spirit will bring the work to a triumphal
conclusion? If in the next two decades the churches do not seize the
opportunity, if a union between two major churches does not take place
as a sign of what may be possible, and if consequently Christianity
enters the third millennium much more divided than it entered the
second millennium, is it not {73} possible, and even likely, that
the opportunity will never come again? Almost by definition the Spirit
surprises, but at times the surprise may be that the Spirit lets God's
people pay the price of its failures. Surely the OT story makes that
suspicion likely.
Ecclesiologies in tension
A second example of the complexity of the role assigned to the Spirit
can bring to a close our discussion of three different forms of ecclesiology
in the Pauline heritage, for it involves all three. Vatican II constituted
for Roman Catholics almost a parade example of different ecclesiologies
in tension. Before the Council Rome sent out to the participants preliminary
forms of the documents to be discussed. In particular, the Holy Office,
of which the Pope himself was prefect, greatly influenced the shaping
of the document that would deal with Scripture: The Two Sources of
Revelation. This preliminary document was extremely negative toward
modern theology and biblical research, documenting its warnings with
references to the modernist heresy at the beginning of the century.
In a sense one could regard this as an exercise of the ecclesiology
of the Pastorals: presbyter-bishops teaching officially against false
doctrine and "itching ears" - an ecclesiology wherein the
teaching office is certified by the Spirit at the laying on of hands.
A solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit opened the Council; for surely
the Spirit would be expected to intervene in such a Council where
decisions could have enormous impact on Catholics and, through them,
on Protestants as well. This might be regarded as an exercise of the
ecclesiology of Acts where the meeting or council in Jerusalem prefaced
its decision: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us"
(Ac 15:28). As I mentioned in Chapter 3 above, the chief biblical
image known to the Council Fathers and one that might be expected
to guide strongly their discussion of the church was the image of
the body of Christ, derived from the ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians.
What happened when all three ecclesiologies came into play at the
Council? The Council Fathers rejected resoundingly the preliminary
document submitted to them which reflected the official teaching of
the Holy Office. Church teachers stood on the floor of the Council
and challenged other church teachers about the very direction of the
Scriptures. Spirit-endowed officers envisioned by the Pastorals were
in disagreement with each other, and the on-rushing Spirit envisioned
in Acts led the majority to correct the trend of the {74} official
teaching dominant in Rome before the Council. In the discussion, the
Colossians/Ephesians imagery of the body of Christ gradually yielded
to the imagery of the people of God in order to facilitate the self-reform
of the spotless bride. In other words, the three post-Pauline ecclesiological
elements functioned in tension.
After the Council in which the surprising intervention of the Spirit
seemed to dominate, the reforms to be put into effect were entrusted
to church administrators; and so the ecclesiology of the Pastorals
came back into play in a major way. At times the reforms led to excesses,
for some within the church exaggerated the changes, so that the end
product of the Spirit's working at the Council was as surprising as
the working itself. I predicted in Chapter 3 that eventually the Roman
Catholic Church, tired of internal disorder and divisive self-criticism,
would have to rediscover as prominent the image of the body of Christ
in order to preserve the sense of a church holiness that comes from
Christ and goes beyond the status of the members. This means that
tension between the ecclesiological elements is shifting after the
Council as befits the needs of the church. Only in such flux, I would
contend, can the strengths and weaknesses in the ecclesiologies of
the Pauline heritage come into play and work for the betterment of
the church. {75}
5. The Petrine Heritage in 1 Peter: The
Church as the People of God
After discussing the pauline heritage, we turn to 1 Peter which has
close relationships to Pauline thought. Elsewhere I have explained
why I agree with those scholars who hold that this letter was written
from Rome by a Petrine disciple, probably about the 80s or 90s. (Thus
it may have been contemporary with some of the post-Pauline works
we have been considering.) The significant parallels between 1 Peter
and Paul's Epistle to the Romans may be explicable because there Paul
was trying to make his theology acceptable to the Christian community
at Rome. That church was strongly attached to its Jewish origins and
was closer to the missionary enterprise of James and Peter than to
the mission of Paul. {76} Since Romans is more temperate about the
benefits of Judaism than some of the earlier Pauline letters, it may
have won Paul acceptance in the church of the capital of the empire;
and his martyrdom there would have hallowed his memory. By the end
of the century, in a letter of the Roman church to Corinth (I Clement
5:2-5), Peter and Paul have become church pillars. That very ordering
or sequence of names, with Peter first, is consistent in the early
Rome-related documents of church history; it indicates that the Pauline
heritage is now filtered through the prism of Petrine Christianity.
The main thrust of the ecclesiology of 1 Peter is different from the
thrusts of the three post-Pauline ecclesiologies we have discussed
in earlier chapters because of its insistent description of the church
against the background of Israel - a difference consistent with the
picture of Roman Christianity I have drawn.
Written to Gentile converts
1 Peter (1:1) is addressed "To the chosen exiles of the diaspora
in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia." From the
contents of the letter the addressees are Gentile converts to Christianity,
with a hint that the conversion had taken place some years previously.
The exact area in Asia Minor in which they lived is not clear because
we do not know whether the names refer to regions or provinces, but
it is likely that most of the area was north of the limits of Paul's
mission. Three of the five names (Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia) are
found in the list in Ac 2:9, a list that may describe the spread of
Jerusalem Christianity; and so the area could have been evangelized
by missionaries loyal to James and Peter. (Paul resisted building
on another man's foundation. Did the Holy Spirit forbid Paul to preach
in Asia and Bithynia (Ac 16:6-7) because Jerusalem missionaries were
already there?) This would explain why the area is addressed in Peter's
name from Rome, for plausibly Peter was more closely associated with
the Gentile thrust of the Jerusalem mission. Rome, the site of Peter's
death, seemingly looked on itself as responsible for the ongoing care
of that mission. {77} What were the Gentiles of northern Asia Minor
told by this letter from Rome? The first chapter offers by way of
reminder a fundamental way of looking at Christian conversion and
at the status of Christian life. This presentation of Christian basics
is heavily influenced by the OT, for the exodus, desert wandering,
and promised land motifs from the Pentateuch have been taken over
and imaginatively reapplied to the conversion of Gentiles to Christ.
If that desert experience made the slave tribes from Egypt into a
people, nay God's people, so has Christian conversion made the Gentiles
who were once no people into God's people.
Made Christians by an exodus experience
Let me illustrate this from the text of 1 Peter. If the Hebrews who
left Egypt were told to gird up their loins for quick departure (Ex
12:11), the Gentile Christian recipients of 1 Peter are told to gird
up the loins of their mind (1 Pt 1:13). If in the desert the Israelites
murmured and wanted to go back to the fleshpots of Egypt (Ex 16:2-3),
the recipients of 1 Peter are warned about the longings of their former
ignorance (1 Pt 1:14). Moses was ordered to tell the people whom God
was making His own, "Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy"
(Lv 19:2); the same charge is quoted to the recipients of 1 Peter
(1 Pt 1:15-16). Christian life is described as a time of exile or
sojourning with the hope of an inheritance yet to be attained (1 Pt
1:17; 1 Pt 1:4), echoing Israel's desert wandering before it reached
its inheritance in the promised land. Redemption and even the paying
of a ransom were figures of speech used to describe God's liberation
of His people from Egypt (Ex 6:5-6; Dt 7:8; Is 52:3), and so it is
not surprising to find in 1 Pt 1:18: "You know that you were
ransomed from the empty ways handed down from your fathers."
The Israelites fashioned a calf and worshiped it as the god who brought
them out of the land of Egypt (Ex 32:1-4), a calf made with the silver
and gold the Hebrew women got from their Egyptian neighbors at the
time of the tenth plague (Ex 11:2). Yet, in fact, the Hebrews had
been spared from that plague by the blood of {78} the unblemished
passover lamb marking their houses (Ex 12:5-7). The echoes of this
appear in the continuation of 1 Pt 1:18-19: ".... ransomed not
with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious
blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish or spot." The imagery
drawn from the story of Israel continues into the second chapter of
1 Peter, especially imagery dealing with cult. Working with the metaphor
of Christ as a stone, the author challenges his audience: "You
yourselves, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house
to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through
Jesus Christ" (1 Pt 2:5). Later he makes clear that in part these
spiritual sacrifices consist of good conduct that will bear witness
to the pagans (1 Pt 2:12). In evaluating such language, one should
note that 1 Peter betrays knowledge of church structure similar to
that envisioned by the Pauline Pastorals, for in 1Pt 5:1 Peter is
a presbyter speaking to fellow presbyters about their supervision
of the flock. Yet there is no resort to presbyteral structure to encourage
the audience who are undergoing a fiery trial (1 Pt 4:12). Why is
Israelite imagery centered on the people of God so important as a
response to the need of Gentile Christians?
Strengths and Weaknesses
The answer to that question is facilitated by a reconstruction of
the situation in which the addressees found themselves. Much has been
written assuming that they were facing a full-scale Roman persecution
(under Nero, or Domitian, or Trajan). But recently J. H. Elliott and
others have been persuasive in their contention that the real issue
was alienation and ostraciscm. In the "backwoods" area of
northern Asia Minor those who had become Christians felt themselves
cut off from the surrounding society. In the eyes of their pagan neighbors
they were a curious and secretive sect. Later Roman evidence includes
charges of atheism, for Christians did not worship the {79} civic
gods, and charges of anti-social behavior, for they had closed meals
and meetings. Inevitably there was the danger that converts, feeling
this contempt, might go back to "the passions of their former
ignorance" (1 Pt 1:14).
A sense of belonging
1 Peter counteracted this alienation by the assurance that in Christianity
Gentile converts had found a new family, a new home, a new status
that made them a special people with an imperishable inheritance.
All the pride of the Israelites as the special people of God was now
being transferred to Gentiles who had "tasted the kindness of
the Lord" (1 Pt 2:3). Inculcating this proud sense of belonging
was a difficult task. Jews, after all, had a certain blood relationship,
since by definition a Jew is one born of a Jewish mother; but hitherto
these Gentiles of diverse stock who had converted to Christ had little
in common. "Once you were no people, but now you are the people
of God; once you had not received (God's) gracious mercy, but now
you have received that mercy" (1 Pt 2:10). In other words, in
their Christian status converts were being told that they had found
something better: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God's own people" (1 Pt 2:9).
The strength of the ecclesiology proclaimed by 1 Peter rests in the
sense that real benefits are gained from belonging. If people feel
that they get something worthwhile from being members of a church,
that church will survive. The people of God in the OT, Israel, went
on as God's people after Moses and Joshua disappeared from the scene;
the people of God in the NT, the church, will go on after Peter and
the other apostles have disappeared from the scene. The more poorly
defined the family or social context from which new members come into
a community, the more deeply they will be attracted by encountering
a loving care that gives them a new identity or dignity. Today we
see this verified in the attraction that religious sects or various
types of charismatic communities have for {80} those who are unhappy
with their family, their church, the civil order, or the world in
general. This attraction constitutes a special challenge to traditional
churches where Sunday attendance has been a matter of obligation or
societal expectation. Obligation and expectation are often no longer
strong enough in themselves to insure church attendance; and so unless
people have a sense of benefit gained from attendance, they will go
to a group that gives that sense.
Similarly imperiled are large parishes where communicants scarcely
know each other and have no sense of family closeness or sense of
the church as their home. Means must be found for breaking these parishes
down into smaller groups that give identity to the alienated. In former
times, in rural or agrarian sections of the country, the church or
chapel to which one belonged was the center of one's life. Within
my own tradition, to give a contemporary example, it is fascinating
to see the attractiveness of "homey" Newman centers on university
campuses, drawing Roman Catholic students who would not voluntarily
cross the threshhold of their parish churches. The centers often offer
lively participation in liturgies, peer friendship, and a wholesome
social life to a very alienated age-bracket. Such examples may help
us to understand how the author of 1 Peter thought that membership
in a Christian house church, when properly understood, could make
a community (people) out of converts ostracized by their families
and friends, and who consequently felt lost or alone in many aspects
of their lives.
A shared priestly dignity
The dignity of "royal priesthood, holy nation" mentioned
in 1 Peter highlights a particular problem today for Christian churches
that speak of an ordained priesthood. Precisely because much of Protestantism
ceased to designate Christian ministry as priesthood (on the grounds
of biblical silence), Roman Catholic theology buttressed the ordained
priesthood. It was emphasized that the one ordained to the priesthood
was metaphysically changed and indelibly marked by the sacrament;
even Vatican II insisted that the difference of the ordained from
the non-ordained was one of kind and not simply of degree. Consequently
little emphasis was placed in Catholi- {81} cism on the priesthood
of believers. I believe we Roman Catholics need to recover for our
people 1 Peter's sense of priestly dignity and spiritual sacrifices,
precisely as a way of underlining the status conferred on all Christians.
Similarly, holiness has been too emphatically associated with special
forms of Catholic life, e.g., religious vocation and the observance
of vows. The unique status of holiness given by baptism to all believers
needs to be stressed.
If the strengths of 1 Peter's ecclesiology lie in the sense of a belonging
to a close-knit unique group and the consequent acquisition of identity
and dignity, what are the weaknesses? The chief problem is the sense
of exclusive eliteness inherent in designating any group as belonging
more closely to God. If a consciousness of being the unique people
of God has enabled Israel and the Jews to survive over 3000 years
of world history, it also explains some of the dislike and hatred
directed toward Jews. Similarly, while the belief that they were bringing
pagans into the special people of God sparked Christian missionaries
from the first century down to the twentieth century, often the rest
of the populace in a country invaded by missionaries have felt umbrage
at being told explicitly or implicitly that they were not the people
of God and thus being relegated to a lesser theological status. If
the Christian converts of northern Asia Minor needed to have 1 Peter
reemphasize their special status as a support against ostracism and
contempt by their pagan compatriots, we can be sure that a strengthened
sense of status led inevitably to even more hatred of Christians by
pagans.
Election and exclusiveness
The Jewish and Christian self-justification of the "people of
God" concept is that the unique dignity is conferred by God's
graciousness and does not imply special worthiness on the part of
the recipients. This explanation based on God's sovereign freedom
of choice is helpful, but we must recognize that in an increasingly
pluralistic society the exclusiveness inherent in the concept is bound
to {82} be resented by outsiders and embarrassing to many insiders.
It is an aspect of the "outside of the church there is no salvation"
problem. Whatever that statement may have meant originally, most Christians
feel instinctively that it cannot be true that only Christians are
saved. Yet there remains an authentic Christian belief that God saves
through Jesus Christ - indeed, saves also those who do not believe
in Jesus Christ - and so a relationship, even if unconscious, to the
church of Christ is involved in salvation. We Christians have never
developed a satisfactory way of reconciling God's unique gift of grace
through Christ and God's merciful love for all.
Respective claims of Christians and Jews
Let me add two troublesome corollaries of the exclusiveness inherent
in the "people of God" concept. With sovereign assurance
1 Peter writes to the Gentile Christians, "You are God's own
people," without mentioning that another group had a prior claim
to that title, namely, the Jews. I pointed out above that the whole
imagery of the exodus, desert wandering, paschal lamb, and promised
land are taken over and used to interpret the pilgrimage involved
in coming to faith in Christ; but there is no indication that historically
these happenings and symbols pertained to a people existing long before
Jesus. Perhaps the author believed that through faith in Christ the
Gentiles were being joined to the existing people of God, Israel,
and thus were able to appropriate Israelite symbolism. (That would
be close to the theology of Ep 2:11-22 which shares much Israelite
symbolism with 1 Pt 1:13-2:10 - a sharing that suggests that we are
reading standard baptismal terminology. In Ephesians the Gentiles
who were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel have in {83} Christ
Jesus been brought near and the two made one.) But 1 Peter never mentions
Israel or the Jews or the joining of the two into one. It is as if
there is and has been no previous claimant to the title other than
the Christians! Following out this implication but going beyond it,
by the next century Christians would be explicitly denying that the
Jews were still the people of God, for they had been replaced by Christians.
Today some Christians would revoke that step by arguing that there
are two peoples of God or two groups within the one people of God:
His children of Israel and His children through Christ. But other
Christians adamantly refuse to allow the title "people of God"
to the Jews, and I rather doubt that there are many Jews who are willing
to share the precise title with Christians. Such is the exclusiveness
inherent in the concept.
Is holiness limited to Christian believers?
Still another corollary that I mention briefly is that in 1 Peter's
ecclesiology the status of holiness has been acquired by coming to
Christ or into the church. The outsiders (Gentiles who have not been
converted) will see Christians and glorify God at the judgment (1
Pt 2:12). There is no reference to the existence of holiness in outsiders
or to reaching out to the non-Christians with any appreciation of
the goodness they already have. In Vatican II, the document "On
the Church in the Modern World" called for a Christian appreciation
of the possibilities and structures of the surrounding world, even
if they are non-Christian. Strangely enough that call came at a time
when the "people of God" imagery was being adopted massively.
Perhaps the combination occurred because the positive side of the
imagery appealed pastorally (as it did to the author of 1 Peter) by
emphasizing the status of being a Christian, and the negative side
of the imagery was overlooked. Or perhaps the language of "people"
was thought to create a bond between Christians and others in this
world. Yet biblically the status of the people of God reduces all
others to being a non-people. {84}
6. The Heritage of the Beloved Disciple
in the Fourth Gospel: A Community of People Personally Attached to
Jesus
The concept of the body of Christ in the Colossians/Ephesians segment
of the post-Pauline heritage and the concept of the people of God
in the post-Petrine heritage, while quite distinct, have in common
a strong sense of ecclesial collectivity. We now come to another heritage,
the Johannine heritage or, more precisely, that of the Beloved Disciple,
as attested in the Gospel and Epistles of John. The ecclesiology of
this heritage is distinguished by its emphasis on the relation of
the individual Christian to Jesus Christ. I do not mean that John
anticipates the individualism of American frontier preaching, embodied
in the slogan "Jesus is my personal savior," which {85}
somehow passes as biblical! The OT and Jewish roots of John (and of
the NT in general) are too strong for that - in Christ God saved a
people. That the fourth evangelist thought collectively is shown by
the vine and branches symbolism of Jn 15 and by the shepherd and flock
symbolism of Jn 10. Nevertheless, within this collective presupposition,
there is an unparalleled concentration on the relation of the individual
believer to Jesus. Another aspect of Johannine ecclesiology is the
dwelling of the Paraclete-Spirit in the believer, and this aspect
carries over into the Epistles of John. Although this second aspect
is related to the first, I judge it more convenient to divide my treatment
of the two aspects into separate chapters.
Ecclesiology dominated by christology
Ecclesiology in the Fourth Gospel is dominated by the extraordinary
Johannine christology. Because we tend to blend together gospel pictures
of Jesus, it is hard for us to realize that among the four gospels
only John posits explicitly a pre-existent career of God's Son. Indeed,
to some extent John's picture of Jesus is unique among NT writings.
In the Pauline writings there are verses that have been interpreted
as referring to pre-existence, but most of them are unclear or debatable.
Even when one accepts the pre-existence interpretation, as I am willing
to do for some passages, the Pauline references are poetic and none
of them deals explicitly with a pre-existence before creation. (The
same cautions are true about the relatively clear pre-existence motif
in Heb 1:2-3.) Pre-existence before creation appears poetically in
Jn 1:1-3, but also in prose as a claim by Jesus himself in Jn 17:5
(see Jn 8:58). The Johannine Jesus had glory with his Father before
the world began. He came down from heaven to this earth, became flesh,
and revealed to people what he had seen and heard when he was with
the Father. In Community I discussed in detail what may have contributed
to the development of the profound Johannine insight into Jesus' wisdom
and power;122 and at the beginning of the next chapter I shall present,
very briefly, a reconstructed {86} history of the Johannine community.
Here, however, let me summarize the christology itself as a basis
for the ecclesiology that developed from it.
Judgment already at work
A common picture in the early church was that, after an earthly ministry
terminating in crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus went to the right
hand of his Father until finally he would come down to earth in glory
to exercise judgment. Without denying a final coming, John has radically
transformed the gospel picture by insisting that Jesus already came
down to earth from heaven in glory, so that his public ministry constituted
judgment: "This is the judgment: the light has come into the
world, but people preferred darkness to light" (Jn 3:19). Hitherto
no one had seen God (Jn 1:18); but since Jesus has come from God,
whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (Jn 14:9). Indeed, because
as Son he has life from the Father, he can give us God's own life
(Jn 6:57). The basic thought is so simple that it is breathtaking.
A child gets life from a parent, and the only life that our natural
parents can give us is the life of the flesh (Jn 3:6). But if God
begets us, we are God's children with His eternal life. That begetting
comes through water and Spirit to those who believe in Jesus (Jn 1:12-13;
Jn 3:3-6).
Essential living link with Jesus
Christians come into being through faith in Jesus, and they must continue
attached to him in order to stay alive. Near the end of the first
century, NT writers were picturing Jesus as the builder, founder,
or cornerstone of the church (Mt 16:18; Ep 2:20). That imagery contains
an important insight, but it suffers from some of the limitations
of constructional language. The builder of a standing edifice did
his work in the past; he is present only as a memory. A cornerstone
is necessary in the construction if the building is going to stand;
but it is inert, and no one thinks much about its presence once {87}
the building is dedicated. In other words, construction imagery can
lead to relating Jesus to the church as one who is past or as an inert
presence. John avoids all such imagery. Jesus is the vine, and Christians
are branches getting life from the vine. More than the founder of
the community, Jesus is the animating principle, still "alive
and well" in its midst. He is the shepherd who tends the sheep
that belong to him, knowing them and calling each by name. For eternal
life one must continue to follow the shepherd or adhere to the vine
(Jn 10:27-28; Jn 15:2-6). This is an ecclesiology peculiarly shaped
by chris-tology. Within the collective imagery of vine and flock,
the core of the ecclesiology is a personal, ongoing relation to the
life-giver come down from God.
Let me illustrate the uniqueness of this ecclesiology by another example.
The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels introduces and proclaims God's kingdom,
rule, or reign in the world. Much parabolic symbolism is applied to
this heavenly rule: the rule/kingdom of God/heaven is like the sower
or seed (Mt 13:3,,,), a treasure or pearl (Mt 13:44,), a fishnet (Mt
13:47), a vineyard (Mt 21:28,,,), a royal wedding banquet (Mt 22:2).
But in John, except for Jn 3:3,, "the kingdom/rule of God"
is absent. Rather the figurative or allegorical imagery is applied
to Jesus himself, e.g., he is the bridegroom (Jn 3:29). Most frequently
the metaphors are the predicate of his sovereign "I am":
I am the vine (Jn 15:1,); I am the sheepgate or the shepherd (Jn 10:7,,,);
I am the bread of life come down from heaven (Jn 6:35,,); I am the
light of the world (Jn 8:12; Jn 9:5). Why the shift from "the
rule/kingdom of God is like" to "I am" as the subject
of such imagery? One must guess, but the shift of meaning in basileia
from "rule," implying an activity, to "kingdom,"
implying a place, may have been part of the motive. Above (p. 51),
I pointed out that basileia not only was localized and reified, but
(as the kingdom of the Son) was identified implicitly with the church.
The absence of "kingdom" terminology in John prevents such
a development. If Jesus and the Father are one, the rule of God is
most perfectly made a reality in Jesus. Instead of entering the kingdom
of God as a place, one needs to inhere in Jesus to be part of the
community.
A similar history may be detected with regard to "sacra- {88}
ments." In Mt 28:19 the risen Jesus orders the eleven disciples:
"Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In two
of the four NT eucharistic accounts, Jesus gives the order in reference
to his body and blood, "Do this in memory of me" (1Co 11:25;
Lk 22:19). Such directives have led to the theological affirmation
that Jesus instituted the sacraments. Valid as that is, once more
we have the image of a founder - Jesus about to depart tells his disciples
to do things that he did not normally do, for nowhere in the Synoptic
tradition does he baptize and only at the last meal of his life does
he speak about bread and wine as his body and blood. Thus there is
a dichotomy: Jesus healed and preached, but the church baptizes and
celebrates the eucharist. (Often this results in complaints by clergy
in the more liturgical churches that their ministry is too involved
with sacraments and not enough with helping people in the way Jesus
did.)
Sacraments not institutionalised
John avoids the whole problem in two ways. First, the Fourth Gospel
has no institutional commands in regard to baptism and the eucharist.
Indeed, there is no eucharist at the Last Supper but only the washing
of the feet. Second, Johannine sacramental references {89} are made
in relation to what Jesus normally did in his lifetime. For instance,
the most direct eucharistic reference, with an allusion to eating
Jesus' flesh and drinking his blood (Jn 6:51-58), is in commentary
on the multiplication of the loaves, one of the rare events in the
Galilean ministry that all four gospels agree on. The other gospels
have no eucharistic aftermath of the multiplication; but for John,
just as Jesus fed people in his lifetime with multiplied physical
bread as a sign of the food that endures for eternal life (Jn 6:27),
so he feeds them (through bread and wine) with his flesh and blood
which are the food of eternal life. Other NT authors speak of the
eucharist as a memorial of Jesus in which is proclaimed the death
of the Lord until he comes; but John stresses the eucharist as food.
In the dialogue with Nicodemus (3:3-6) Jesus explains that eternal
life is given through begetting/birth with water and Spirit; in the
dialogue with the Jews after the multiplication Jesus explains that
this eternal life is fed through his flesh and blood. This is the
"real" or "true" life, birth, and food of which
physical life, birth, and food are at most signs. Let me give another
example. "Enlightenment" was early Christian language for
the process of conversion and entrance into the Christian community
(Heb 6:4; Heb 10:32; 2 Co 4:6). Jn 9 gives us a story of how Jesus,
the light of the world, gave physical sight to a man born blind, a
story which becomes virtually a parable of how {90} spiritual sight
was gained when the man came to faith in Jesus after being put on
trial by the Jewish authorities.
In chaps. 6 and 9, then, Johannine readers were told of a Jesus who
during his lifetime fed the hungry and gave sight to the blind by
marvelous deeds that were, in turn, signs of a heavenly reality. At
the same time, by the inclusion of ecclesiastical, sacramental language
in these chapters, the Johannine writer was teaching that Jesus contin
ues to give the enlightenment of faith and the food of eternal life
through the signs of baptism and the eucharist. Jesus is not simply
the one who instituted the sacraments of the church; he is the life-
giver who remains active in and through those sacraments. Thus, the
unique importance that John places on the relationship of the Chris
tian to Jesus is being underlined through sacramental imagery.
No institutional hierarchy
This relationship to Jesus outweighs in importance all distinctions
flowing from special service in the church. On this point one may
contrast the Johannine imagery of the vine with the Pauline imagery
of the body. In 1 Co 12 Paul used the body imagery as a theological
basis for rejecting jealousies about charisms. All the parts or members
of the body are indispensable; and so there is no reason for the foot
to be jealous of the hand, nor the ear jealous of the eye. "If
the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If
the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But,
as it is, God has arranged the members in the body, each one of them,
just as He wanted them to be. If altogether there were only one member,
where would the body be? As it is there are many members, yet one
body" (1 Co 12:17-20). Similarly, there is no reason for those
who have one charism (apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles,
healers, speakers in tongues) to desire another. It would not help
if all were apostles, if all were prophets, etc.; for the church needs
the diversity of members. The Johannine vine also is an image capable
of such an interpretation. Stalk, branches, stems, leaves, and fruit
could have been used to illustrate diverse charisms of service as
easily as were the members of the body. But John writes only about
the vine (Jesus) and the branches (Christians). The gospel shows no
interest in diverse charisms that distinguish Christians: it is interested
in a basic, life-receiving status enjoyed by all.
Quiet about charisms, too
Were there diverse charisms within the Johannine community? As for
prophets and teachers, only false prophets are mentioned {91} (1 Jn
4:1), and the need for teachers is denied (1 Jn 2:27). A lack of distinction
based on charisms or offices is especially noticeable in Johannine
ecclesiology in the question of apostles. In the rest of the NT the
importance of the apostle is clear. In the 30s till the mid-60s, i.e.,
the era in which the well-known apostles were alive and active, we
find Paul's constant insistence on his own apostolate (Ga 1:1; 1 Co
15:9-10; 2 Co 11:5). He lists apostolate first among the charisms
that God has established in the church (1 Co 12:28; see also Ep 2:20;
Ep 4:11). In the last one-third of the first century after the well-known
apostles were dead, they are remembered prominently in the Synoptic
Gospels, Acts, the post-Pauline and post-Petrine writings, and Revelation.
But the term "apostle" is completely absent from the Johannine
writings - both from the gospel and (even more startlingly) from the
three epistles. No named apostle is exalted as the great hero of this
community as was the case in the Pauline and Petrine heritages. Rather,
the figure par excellence is a disciple, "the Disciple whom Jesus
loved." I do not mean that the Johannine evangelist wished to
deny the existence of apostles in Christian history. He mentions the
Twelve (Jn 6:67-71; Jn 20:24), and he could scarcely not have known
that they were considered apostles. He knows of a sending forth (apostellein,
Jn 17:18) by Jesus, which is the basis of apostleship. But evidently
apostleship is not what constitutes prime dignity in Johannine ecclesiology.
The Fourth Gospel emphasizes discipleship, a status that all Christians
enjoy; and within that status what confers dignity is the love of
Jesus.
Primacy of John's Beloved Disciple
The difference between Johannine ecclesiology and that of other NT
writers on this point is illustrated by the continual contrast between
John's Beloved Disciple and Peter, the most prominent of the {92}
Twelve and (at least by the end of the century) the most prominent
apostle for the majority of Christians. In Matthew (Mt 16:16; Mt 17:24;
Mt 18:21) Peter among the Twelve is the spokesman in addressing Jesus;
but at the Last Supper in Jn 13:22-26 Simon Peter cannot speak directly
to Jesus, for he is at a distance from him. Rather Peter must speak
to Jesus through the intermediary of the Beloved Disciple who is closest
to Jesus, reclining on Jesus' breast. In the Synoptic tradition Peter
is the only one of the Twelve to follow the arrested Jesus into the
court or palace of the high priest. In Jn 18:15-16 Simon Peter cannot
follow Jesus into the courtyard until the Disciple arranges for admittance.
In the Synoptic tradition even Peter ultimately abandons Jesus, so
that no follower of Jesus stands close by as he dies on the cross.
In John one male follower never abandons Jesus, for at the foot of
the cross stands the Beloved Disciple, as well as the mother of Jesus.
Indeed, by making his mother the mother of the Beloved Disciple (Jn
19:26-27), Jesus is adopting this Disciple as his brother. Thus, the
scene at the cross supplies the Johannine answer to the traditional
question, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
Peter's prominent position in the church at large was heavily influenced
by the remembrance in various NT circles that he was the first among
the Twelve to see the risen Jesus (1 Co 15:5; Lk 24:34). In Jn 20:8,
however, when Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple run and look into
the empty tomb, the Disciple (alone) believes without seeing the risen
Jesus. Thus, while traditionally Peter may have been the first apostle
to see the risen Jesus, Johannine tradition knows of a Disciple who
was even more blessed for having believed without such seeing. And
even when these two men together do see the risen Jesus, Simon Peter
does not recognize the Lord until the Disciple tells Peter it is the
Lord (Jn 21:7). Love has brought the Disciple closer to Jesus than
was the most important apostle and made him more perceptive. And if
martyrdom at Rome made Peter a pillar of the church (1 Clem. 5:2-4),
Jesus took special care of the Disciple who was not a martyr (Jn 21:18-23);
and he became the ongoing {93} witness par excellence whose testimony
is true (21:24). While a real person, the Beloved Disciple functions
in the gospel as the embodiment of Johannine idealism: All Christians
are disciples and among them greatness is determined by a loving relationship
to Jesus, not by function or office.
Authority seen through the prism of Johannine values
Finally, even when office is recognized in the Johannine tradition
as a pastoral necessity, it is seen through the prism of Johannine
values. Chapter 21 (which was probably an epilogue added to the gospel)
faces up to the question of ongoing care for those who have been brought
into the Christian community by missionary activity (p. 32 above).
Earlier Jn 10:1-18 made it clear that Jesus alone is the model shepherd,
while all others are thieves and bandits. What is characteristic and
distinctive of his shepherding is not the authority or power he claims
over the sheep, but his intimate knowledge of them and love for them.
He knows each by name, and they respond when he calls; he is even
willing to lay down his life for them. In chap. 21 Peter is assigned
the role of tending the sheep138 - a role of authority which in the
last one-third of the first century was being exercised by presbyters
in other NT churches and which was being traced back to apostles like
Peter and Paul (1Pt 5:1-2: Ac 20:28; I Clem 42:4; 44:1-3). But before
Simon Peter is given that role in Jn 21:15-17, he is first asked insistently
(three times!), "Do you love me?" If authority is given,
it must be based on love of Jesus. Moreover, Jesus continues to speak
of "my lambs, my sheep." The sheep do not belong to Peter
or to any human church officer; they continue to belong to the one
who said, "I am the model shepherd; I know my sheep and mine
know me" (10:14). And if Peter is given a shepherd's task, he
must meet Johannine qualifications for shepherding, namely, that "the
model shepherd lays down his life for the sheep" (Jn 10:11).
Therefore, having three times told Simon Peter to feed/tend the sheep,
in the next breath (Jn 21:18-19) Jesus tells him about the way in
which he will be put to death. This death will be the proof that,
in Peter's role as shepherd, loving discipleship has been given {94}
priority: "By this will all identify you as my disciples: by
the love that you have for one another.... And no one can find greater
love than this: that people lay down their lives for those whom they
love" (Jn 13:35; Jn 15:13).
I have been focusing on how a close reading of the Fourth Gospel shows
that discipleship is important, not offices or charisms or other distinctions.
Let me call attention to one final instance of Johannine egalitarianism
that stands in sharp contrast to the tendencies of the Pastorals.
I discussed above, (p. 45) the possibility that in the ecclesiology
of those letters the distinction between the teachers and the taught
might become fixed rather than flexible, so that the abilities of
the larger number of Christians, who constitute "the taught,"
are not tapped. Those who are not official teachers would often not
be trusted to discern truth for themselves. In particular, Tm 3:1-9
singles out women among the taught as excessively gullible: "They
will listen to anybody and can never arrive at the truth." Even
if the "they" are not all, the categorizing is demeaning;
and the practical result is clearly articulated by the "Paul"
of 1 Tm 2:12: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority
over a man; rather she must be silent." There was, then, a tendency
toward discrimination against women in some NT churches, especially
in those churches where community functions were more carefully structured.
Johannine attitudes toward women
Johannine attitudes toward women as seen in the pages of the Fourth
Gospel139 are remarkably different - a difference all the more interesting
if the Johannine writings are contemporary with the Pastorals. In
Jn 4, Jn 9, and Jn 11, in full-scale narratives quite unlike any stories
in the Synoptic Gospels, John presents scenarios that allow differentiation
and development of characters through reaction to Jesus. Therein the
Samaritan woman, Martha, and Mary are characters absolutely equal
in importance to the blind man and Lazarus. In the portrayal of major
male and female believers there is no difference of intelligence,
vividness, or response. Martha serves as the spokeswoman of a confession
of faith (Jn 11:27: "You are the Christ, the Son of God")
that is placed on Peter's lips in Mt 16:16-17, {95} winning for him
from Jesus a blessing and an acknowledgment that divine revelation
has been at work. If at the Last Supper the Johan-nine Jesus prays
for those who will believe in him through the word of his (male) disciples
(Jn 17:20), a whole village comes to believe in Jesus through the
word of the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:39). In Jn 20:14 not Peter but Mary
Magdalene is the first to see the risen Jesus; and when she goes to
the disciples, she is the first to give the Easter proclamation, "I
have seen the Lord" - a privilege that won for her in the Middle
Ages the designation apostola apostolorum (the (woman) apostle unto
the apostles). If rank in discipleship is set by Jesus' love, as exemplified
in "the Disciple whom Jesus loved," it is said, "Jesus
loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus"(Jn 11:5). How could
the circles from which this Gospel came ever agree in practice with
the Pastorals in not allowing women to teach and in suggesting that
they never arrive at the truth!
Strengths and Weaknesses
I have traced remarkable consistency in Johannine ecclesiology, stemming
from its firm roots in a unique christology. Jesus as God's only Son
from before creation is the only source of divine life for human beings.
The images of the vine and the shepherd illustrate that it is all
important for each person not only to believe in Jesus but to remain
attached to him, for he continues as an active life-giver and life-nourisher
in the community. Instead of writing of the rule or kingdom of God,
John centers all imagery on Jesus as one in whom the reign of God
has been perfectly realized, so that inhering in him replaces entrance
into the kingdom. Sacraments are signs through which Jesus gives and
nourishes life. Church offices and even apos-tleship are of lesser
importance when compared to discipleship which is literally a question
of (eternal) life and death. Within that discipleship, there are no
second-class Christians; and the love of Jesus alone gives higher
status. (In the next chapter I shall show that the picture of the
Paraclete-Spirit coheres with this ecclesiology.) What are the strengths
and weaknesses of such a powerfully consistent picture?
Discipleship the essential component
The first and greatest strength comes from the fact that an individual
relationship to Jesus on the part of church members is a necessary {96} component of a sound ecclesiology. The ecclesiologies discussed
in the preceding chapters all suppose the collectivity of the church.
Members of a church should have the sense that they are receiving
careful pastoral supervision and trustworthy Christian doctrine (the
Pastorals). In moments of crisis, members of a church should have
a sense of continuity with a past history in which crises have been
survived through the intervention of the Spirit, and with a future
history which (even if unknown) lies within God's plan for the evangelization
of the world (Acts). Members should have a sense of their dignity
that accrues from belonging to the church and of their identity as
the people of God (1Peter). Members should have a sense that the church
is more than its human components because it is the body of Christ
sharing in his holiness (Colossians/Ephesians). But none of these
takes the place of a relationship to Jesus. It is true that the body
ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians gives a clear centrality to Christ,
but ironically the Christ who is the head of the body remains faceless.
This is because the ecclesiology of Colossians/Ephesians is in the
Pauline heritage; and in his letters Paul (who did not know Jesus
in the flesh) does not fill in Jesus' personality.
The kind of person Jesus was
If one had only the Pauline letters, one would be familiar with a
few sayings of Jesus and would know that on the night before Jesus
died he shared a eucharistic meal with his disciples, that Jesus was
crucified and buried, and that Jesus rose on the third day and appeared
to designated people. But the kind of person Jesus was and why people
followed him during his lifetime never emerges in those letters. Accordingly,
although we are told in Colossians/Ephesians that the members of the
body receive life from Christ as head and are knit together in love
with him, the imagery remains abstract and impersonal. Often it does
not satisfy the religious longing to encounter God in a personal way.
John's portrayal of Jesus meets that need in an extraordinarily effective
way. {97} In part, this is because John has used the gospel form as
the vehicle of his thought and so must bring the mystery of Jesus'
ministry into his ecclesiology. I speak of "the mystery"
of Jesus' ministry in order to do justice to an element about Jesus'
life that escapes discursive description (or, at least, escapes my
discursive abilities). Even very skeptical NT critics will admit that
in his life Jesus must have impressed people as extraordinary. But
the tone of the following of Jesus in the ministry involves more than
that - even more than religious awe and veneration. Jesus was remembered
as one who exhibited love in what he did and was loved deeply by those
who followed him. Detecting love between Jesus and his disciples is
not an aberration of nineteenth-century eisegesis; nor is it belied
by a tradition of harsh statements by Jesus which may well be authentic.
Love was not the whole picture, but it was part of the picture. If
we have a right to ask the question that has run through this book,
namely, how did the churches survive after the apostles died, we should
recognize that there is a prior ecclesiological question: How did
the following of Jesus which involved love for him survive after he
died?
The answer, I suggest, is that it survived only because love for Jesus
was looked on as an ongoing element, even among those who never knew
him during his ministry. One can argue what Paul meant precisely when
he said, "The love of Christ compels us" (2 Co 5:14); yet
it is clear that Paul not only believed in Christ but also loved him.
(The face of Jesus may not come through in the Pauline letters, but
Jesus had a face for Paul.) And so one can make a case that a loving
relationship to Jesus, which was a part of the following of Jesus
in his lifetime, remains an intrinsic necessity in the church.
Personal relationship with him
That may sound romantic and idealistic but it is surprisingly verifiable
in practice. In addition to providing doctrine and pastoral care,
liturgy and sacraments, and a supportive sense of belonging to a caring
community, a church must bring people into some personal contact with
Jesus so that they can experience in their own way what made people
follow him in the first place. (Sometimes the term "spirituality"
covers this necessary aspect of ecclesiology.) Churches that do this
will survive. That Christ willed or founded the church may be adequate
theology for some; but an abstraction, focused on the past, will not
be enough to keep others loyal to a church unless they encounter Jesus
there. They will join small groups where they find an {98} encounter
with Jesus, even if these are tangential to or separated from the
church. At the beginning of this chapter I made an oblique reference
to an exaggerated form of Christian individualism - a "Jesus
and me" pattern that makes the people of God almost irrelevant.
The very attraction that such exaggerated individualism has for people
points up the need for having a personal, loving relationship to Jesus
as a component in a larger Christian picture.
In Roman Catholic parishes that have taken the changes of Vatican
II seriously there is often much more participation of parishioners
in liturgy and in parish life in general. It is all the more startling,
then, for pastors of such active parishes to find they are losing
parishioners to religious groups that stress a personal relationship
to Jesus, basing themselves on the Scriptures (sometimes fundamental-istically
interpreted). Such pastors will argue correctly that there cannot
be a church unless there is a worshiping community; but they are finding
that worship in itself, without an accompanying personal spirituality,
does not hold some people. The church, even in liturgical celebration,
can seem abstracted from the Jesus described in the gospel pages.
(See the dichotomy I mentioned on p. 88 above.) If this happens in
the green wood, what about the dry? How much more will the large impersonal
parishes of any denomination lose parishioners, not only because the
parishioners have no active sense of belonging to community from which
to derive a sense of identity (p. 79 above), but also because they
do not encounter Jesus in the church. "Born-again Christians"
is sometimes used pejoratively by mainline church members to describe
people so impressed by an individual salvific relationship to Jesus
that it seems to constitute their whole ecclesiology. There is no
doubt that John is the gospel par excellence of such "Born-again"
enthusiasts. Nevertheless, I would argue that John has a corrective
role to play in the mainline churches when it is read critically rather
than harmonistically. It can remind them, as it did Christians in
the first century, that church membership is not a sufficient goal,
for the church must lead to Jesus. Church members receive life from
being attached to Jesus and must be in a loving relationship to him.
The main weakness of this thrust in Johannine ecclesiology is already
inherent in what I said above. Taken by itself, without the Jewish
context of collectivity inherited from Israel, John tends to fos- {99} ter Christian individualism to the point where a sense of the
church is lost. (It is no accident that the term "the church"
in the wide sense does not occur in the Johannine writings.) When
John is read to support the "Jesus is my personal savior"
mentality, a logical derivative of that for some may be that they
really need no community, no share in a people, no liturgy, no sacraments.
Pietistic groups for which certain passages in John make it the gospel
should reflect on the Pastorals, Colossians/Ephesians, and 1 Peter
as a corrective.
Basic Egalitarianism
A second strength in Johannine ecclesiology is its egalitarianism,
i.e., the sense of equality among the members of the community. We
saw that disciple is the most important category, and there is no
evidence that either charisms or offices give status. In other NT
churches, whether they rejoice in charisms (apostles, prophets, teachers,
etc., in 1 Co 12:28) or have developed regular offices (the presbyter-bishops
and deacons of the Pastorals), there is a tendency to give one charism
or one office precedence over another. That development is, in part,
consciously or unconsciously, by imitation of secular societies; and
inevitably, as in secular societies, precedence will be equated with
value. We find an echo of this in various gospel passages correcting
the attempts of members of the Twelve to have the first place in the
kingdom or to be the greatest (Mk 9:33-37; Mk 10:35-40; and par.).
That attempt is not recorded in the Fourth Gospel; ambition is not
a factor if all are disciples and precedence or status comes from
the love of Jesus. In fact the author of 3Jn 9 shows an abhorrence
for Diotrephes who seems to be trying to introduce something like
episcopal office into Johannine ecclesiology. Says the Johannine writer
with contempt, "He likes to be first among them"; and throughout
the ages many Christians have shared this dislike for the inevitable
ambition produced by a structured church. On the other side of the
coin, the Johannine corrective is perhaps more important today when
many feel they are second-class citizens in the church because they
do not have authority - a tacit acknowledgment of how important in
the church power has become. Both {100} those who are ambitious for
authority and those who are sad because they do not possess it have
not understood the lesson of the vine and the branches.
The problem of an ordained priesthood
There is a special problem in the churches that have an ordained priesthood
in their church structure. In discussing 1 Peter above (p. 81), I
pointed out that the presence of an ordained priesthood can have the
unfortunate side-effect of minimalizing an appreciation of the priesthood
of all believers. In relation to the equality of Christians as disciples,
it is especially difficult for the ordained priesthood to be kept
in the category of service (to God and to the community), for the
ordained will frequently be assumed to be more important and automatically
more holy. Because ordination is seen as a sacrament and priests deal
with sacred things, they are frequently regarded as better than ordinary
Christians. In my own church some would find surprising this almost
elementary affirmation: the day when a person is baptized is more
important than the day when a person is ordained priest and bishop.
The first sacrament, after all, touches on salvation; it constitutes
one a child of God, a dignity that goes beyond designation to the
special service of God. Recent Popes have laudably resigned one trapping
of royalty after the other related to installation in papal office,
e.g., the tiara crown, coronation, etc. I wonder what impression a
future Pope might make upon being elected if he decided not to accept
a special regnal name but to retain his baptismal name, explaining
that he wanted to be known to the church by the name by which he was
sealed as a Christian and made known to Jesus Christ. That gesture
might remove a wrong sense of papal claims shared by many outsiders,
for it would demonstrate the belief that salvifically an identity
as a Christian is more important than an identity gained from authority.
Such a suggestion detracts not at all from the legitimate authority
of the vicar of Peter recognized in my church; rather it contemporizes
what John was trying to say by comparing the Beloved Disciple with
Peter. {101} There are other facets of strength and weakness in Johannine
ecclesiology, but it would be better if they were left until we discuss
the role of the Paraclete-Spirit and follow out the story of Johannine
Christianity into the Epistles.
7. The Heritage of the Beloved Disciple
and the Epistles of John: A Community of Individuals Guided by the
Paraclete-Spirit
A very important aspect of Johannine ecclesiology remains to be treated,
namely the role of the Spirit under the title of Paraclete. In order,
however, to understand the import of the Paraclete in Johannine self-understanding
and the subsequent fate of the Johannine community as illustrated
by the Epistles of John, one needs at least a brief sketch of the
history underlying the Fourth Gospel.
Origins of the Johannine Christology
The disciples who follow Jesus in Jn 1:35-51 include names known in
the other gospels (Andrew, Peter, Philip); and the titles given to
Jesus there are found in the other gospels (Messiah, Son of God, King,
Son of Man). It would seem, then, that at least in its origins Johannine
Christianity was not too distant from the dominant style of Christianity
in the movement centered on Jesus. In chap. 4 of John, however, Samaritans
are being converted (but not by the original disciples of Jesus);
and Temple worship in Jerusalem is declared as losing its significance.
Here John has departed significantly from the description of the ministry
in the other gospels and is closer to the developments described in
Ac 6-8. There (without a break of {103} communion) Hellenist Jewish
Christians separate administratively from the Hebrew Christian majority
in Jerusalem who are faithful to the Temple observances; and (in the
person of Stephen) Hellenist preaching proclaims that God does not
dwell in the Temple. These Hellenist Christians, not Peter or the
Twelve, are the ones who convert Samaria. I contend that Johannine
Christianity consisted not only of the type of Hebrew Christians whose
heritage is preserved in many other NT works, but also of groups similar
to the Hellenists, more radical in their attitudes toward Judaism.
There were also Samaritan converts. As I explained in detail in Community,
this mixture may have hastened innovative developments in Johannine
christology and made Johannine Christians particularly troublesome
in the eyes of Jews who did not believe in Jesus. (The typical Johannine
terminology for the opponents of Jesus, namely, "the Jews,"
which would be inappropriate on the lips of Jesus during his lifetime,
is explicable as the influence of a Samaritan component in the Johannine
tradition.)
Why "the Jews" show hatred for Jesus
In any case, beginning in chap. 5 a dominant theme of the Johannine
account of Jesus' ministry is the hatred that "the Jews"
have for Jesus because he is making himself God. The divinity of Jesus
as one who had come down from God146 (an aspect of divinity not apparent
in the other gospels - see p. 85 above) is publicly spoken of {104}
and attacked. There are long debates between Jesus and "the Jews"
that grow increasingly hostile. What lies beneath the surface becomes
apparent in the story of the man born blind in Jn 9. The Jews in anger
say, "We are the disciples of Moses; we know that God has spoken
to Moses. As for that fellow (Jesus), we do not even know where he
comes from" (Jn 9:28-29). The man born blind, who is described
by them as one of the disciples of "that fellow," also speaks
as a "we": "We know that God pays no attention to sinners...
if this man (Jesus) were not from God, he could have done nothing"
(Jn 9:31,). The synagogue and the Johannine community are thus alienated
from each other as disciples of Moses and disciples of Jesus; and
through the medium of struggles in Jesus' own life, the struggles
between these two groups are being told. (In other words the Fourth
Gospel narrates on two levels: the level of Jesus' life and the level
of the community's life.) Just as the man born blind is put on trial
before the Pharisees or "the Jews," so have members of the
Johannine community been put on trial by synagogue leaders. Just as
the man born blind is ejected from the synagogue for confessing that
Jesus has come from God, so have the Johannine Christians been ejected
from the synagogue for their confession of Jesus (see also Jn 16:2).
And in the course of this synagogue action which was looked upon as
a persecution, Johannine Christians have been put to death, either
directly by the Jewish authorities or indirectly by being denounced
to Roman authorities (Jn 15:20; Jn 16:2-3). To this treatment the
oratorical reaction by the Johannine Jesus is bitter: those Jews who
are trying to kill him are the children of the devil who was a murderer
from the beginning (Jn 8:40,).
Effects of expulsion from the synagogue
To have suffered expulsion from the synagogue because of a belief
that Jesus had come from God inevitably sharpened and tightened the
adherence of Johannine Christians to their high christology. Jesus
is so much one with Father (Jn 10:30) that he is not only Lord but
also God (Jn 20:28). Over such issues the Johannine Christians were
willing to criticize sharply even other Christians. There is contempt
in the Fourth Gospel for Jews who believed in Jesus but who were unwilling
to confess it openly lest they be put out of the synagogue {105} (Jn
12:42). There is hostility towards Jewish disciples who have followed
Jesus openly but who object when it is said that he has come down
from heaven and can give his flesh to eat (Jn 6:60-66)148 or because
he is described as existing before Abraham (Jn 8:58). Such criticism
of others suggests that the Johannine Christians must have been extremely
controversial because of their christology, challenged both by Jews
who did not believe in Jesus and by Jews who did believe in him. The
courtroom atmosphere of the Fourth Gospel with its constant stress
on testimony/witness, accusation, and judgment (Jn 1:19-21; Jn 5:31-47;
Jn 7:50-51; Jn 8:14-18; etc.) and with its debates over the implications
of Scripture texts (Jn 6:31-33; Jn 7:40-43,; Jn 10:34-36) reflects
the controversies and how they were conducted.
The struggle with the synagogue and the resultant polemic atmosphere
are very important in understanding what is present in John but also
what is absent. The synagogue leaders apparently thought that the
Johannine confession of Jesus as God denied the basic faith of Israel:
"The Lord our God is one." In response the evangelist defended
the divinity of Jesus so massively that the Fourth Gospel scarcely
allows for human limitation. Jesus cannot ask a simple question without
a Johannine footnote explaining that he already knew the answer (Jn
6:5-6). Jesus cannot choose a follower who goes bad without Johannine
insistence that he foresaw this from the beginning (Jn 6:70-71). Jesus
cannot utter a prayer of petition without the assurance that he is
only educating the bystanders to the truth that the Father always
hears him (Jn 11:41-42). Jesus cannot ask that the hour of the passion
pass from him (as he does in the other gospels), for his coming to
the hour is intentional (Jn 12:27). The passion of Jesus cannot be
narrated in a way that would place him at the mercy of his captors,
for he has sovereign power to lay down his life and take it up again
(Jn 10:18; see Jn 18:6). The entire presentation protects Jesus from
whatever could be a challenge to divinity. If asked whether {106}
Jesus was human, the Johannine evangelist might well have answered,
"Of course; he walked among us." But the evangelist does
not stress that humanity since it was never queried by the synagogue
polemicists. Similarly, ethical or moral directives are almost totally
absent from John - there is nothing like the Sermon on the Mount of
Matthew - almost surely because such basics as the commandments were
not a matter of dispute between the Johannine community and the synagogue.
A fuller portrait of Jesus may have been presupposed by the evangelist;
but what he painted is somewhat monochromatic, since the struggle
with the synagogue limited the palette to black and white.
Prominence of the Paraclete-Spirit
The uniqueness of the Johannine concept of the Paraclete-Spirit, which
I shall now develop, is also fully intelligible only in the context
of Johannine polemical history given above. Although early Christians
could agree on the importance of the Spirit, they had very different
notions of what was meant by that term (see ftnote 94 above). Because
the Greek pneuma is neuter and the Spirit is referred to as "it"
in NT writings, we have difficulty in determining to what extent Paul
or Acts or 1 Peter considered the Spirit as personal. But once again
christology has had a powerful impact on John's views, for in the
Last Supper account of the Fourth Gospel150 the Spirit is to come
from God after Jesus has returned to the Father. The replacement motif
is so strong that almost everything said about the Spirit has already
been said about Jesus. The Spirit emerges clearly as a personal presence
- the ongoing presence of Jesus while he is absent from earth and
with the Father in heaven.
For this concept of the Spirit there appears (in the Fourth Gospel
alone) a designation that is not neuter, parakletos, enabling the
Spirit to be the antecedent of personal pronouns. In its root meaning
the Greek term means called (kletos) alongside (para); and like its
Latin equivalent advocatus ("called (vocatus) to (ad)"),
it has a {107} forensic or legal use. When people are in trouble,
they call in a lawyer or counsellor or advocate to stand beside them
in court. The legal context fits the Johannine history I have described
wherein the members of the community had to defend themselves for
their christological views. Their help and surety was the Paraclete-Spirit
dwelling within them who interpreted correctly the significance of
Jesus. Indeed, through them and their witness the Paraclete went over
to the attack and proved the world wrong, showing that true justice
was on Jesus' side (Jn 16:8-11). Another reason for which the Spirit
is "called alongside" is consolation at times of trouble,
whence the Consoler or Holy Comforter. In the context of the Last
Supper Jesus is going away. Although this makes the hearts of his
disciples sorrowful, it is better that he goes away; for then the
Paraclete comes (Jn 16:6-7), and they have the consolation of one
who more than makes up for Jesus' departure. Jesus lived on this earth
in one time in one area; the Paraclete dwells within every believer
for all times (14:15-17). Thus the Paraclete is a more intimate and
enduring presence. It should now be clear why in discussing Johannine
ecclesiology, we may see the Paraclete concept as another facet of
John's emphasis on the relationship of the individual to Jesus. Just
as Jesus represents on earth the Father who sent him, the Paraclete
represents on earth Jesus who sent him. Jesus said, "Whoever
has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9); it would be equally
possible for the Johannine Jesus to say, "Whoever has received
the Paraclete has received me" (see Jn 14:17).
The Paraclete is as a teacher
An especially emphasized aspect of the representative role of the
Paraclete is as a teacher. In Jn 14:15-17 Jesus says to his disciples,
"If you love me and keep my commandments, then at my request
the Father will give you another Paraclete... the Spirit of Truth."
He continues, "The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit that the Father
will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all
that I told you" (Jn 14:26). "When the Spirit of Truth comes,
he will guide {108} you along the way of all truth. For he will not
speak on his own, but will speak only what he hears and will declare
to you the things to come. He will glorify me because it is from me
that he will receive what he will declare to you" (Jn 16:13-14).
Jesus has received everything he had to say from the Father, but he
contemporized this revelation by proclaiming it to his disciples on
earth. The Paraclete will receive everything he has to say from Jesus;
but, dwelling in the heart of each Christian, he will contemporize
it in each period and in each place, thus enabling Christians to face
the things to come. The Johannine approach meets an acute problem.
If Christianity is to be apostolic, it must pass on what was received
from Jesus by the first generation; it must guard a tradition. If
Christianity is to face new situations meaningfully, it must have
an element of the contemporary and the original. The Paraclete preserves
the past without corruption because he receives everything from Jesus
and gives no new revelation. Yet he is a living teacher who does not
just repeat a tradition of the dead past. If the presbyter-bishops
of the Pastorals were supposed to teach by holding firm to what had
been taught to them (Tt 1:9), the Paraclete not only declares what
he has received from Jesus (Jn 16:14) but through that medium also
declares the things to come (Jn 16:13). If one seeks an example of
what is meant by the old and the new in the teaching role ascribed
to the Paraclete, one may look at the Fourth Gospel itself. That constitutes
the witness borne by the Paraclete through the Beloved Disciple and
through the evangelist. It is a gospel, like the other gospels, centered
on the public activity of Jesus leading up to his death and resurrection;
but it presents that story in a truly innovative way so that every
page is transformed by the unique Johannine perception of christology
(p. 85 above).
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Paraclete-Spirit concept contributes strength to Johannine ecclesiology.
Because Jesus came from or was sent by the Father and spoke only what
he heard when he was with Him, he was sovereign in all the hostile
debates with "the Jews." Because the Paraclete came from
the Father (Jn 15:26), was sent by Jesus (Jn 16:7), and speaks {109}
only what he heard from Jesus (Jn 16:13), the Johannine community
that bears witness through him (Jn 15:27) is unchallengeable in its
christology. Those Jews or other Christians who debate skeptically
with the christology of pre-existence proclaimed by the Johannine
witness-bearers are really disbelieving the "I am" of Jesus
himself. The death of the great figures of the first generation who
had seen the earthly or risen Jesus, whether apostles or not, cannot
weaken the confidence of Johannine Christians in the correctness of
their ongoing perceptions. (Indeed, not even the death of the Beloved
Disciple can do that.) The figures of that first generation bore significant
witness, but only because they possessed the Paraclete; and this same
Paraclete remains on in the hearts of the second and third generation
of Johannine Christians.
In the preceding chapter I stressed Johannine egalitarianism: there
are no second-class Christians in terms of status; all are disciples,
and that is what really matters. The idea that God would be worshiped
neither in Jerusalem nor on the Samaritan mountain but in Spirit and
truth (Jn 4:21-23) means that there are no second-class Christians
geographically. God is Spirit (Jn 4:24), and the Spirit of Truth dwells
in every Christian everywhere. The idea that the Paraclete is given
to each person who loves Jesus and keeps his commandments and thus
remains forever (Jn 14:15-16) means that there are no second-class
Christians chronologically. True, they were privileged who saw Jesus
and believed, but blessed are those who have not seen Jesus and have
believed (Jn 20:29). Jesus prays for those who believed during the
ministry (Jn 17:8-9), but Jesus also prays for later generations who
believe through their word (Jn 17:20). Thus, Johannine ecclesiology
is without any barriers of status, space, or time that could make
some more distant from Jesus than others.
Break-up visible in the Johannine Epistles
Nevertheless, this attractive picture of Johannine church attitudes
is marred by what happened. In this instance, we do not have to guess
what bad results might flow from the main stresses in John's ecclesiology,
for the Johannine Epistles show the tragic aftereffects. Let me first
analyze the situation reflected in these epistles, and {110} then
relate it to the history of the Johannine community I have described
earlier in this chapter.
Situation in the Epistles. Written no more than a decade after the
Fourth Gospel, the Johannine Epistles reflect a startling change in
the community situation. No longer is there concern with the Jews
or with other groups of Christian believers who are not adequate in
their faith. The whole focus is on a secession from within the community,
so serious that it is described in apocalyptic language: "You
heard that Antichrist is to come: well, now many Antichrists have
made their appearance, and this makes us certain that it really is
the last hour. It was from our ranks that they went out - not that
they really belonged to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would
have remained with us" (1 Jn 2:18-19). The epistolary author
is writing so urgently not because he hopes these false prophets (1
Jn 4:1) will read his work and be convinced, but because they are
conducting an ongoing missionary effort undermining the adherence
of his followers. He is hoping through his writing to stem their success,
for the whole world is listening to them (1 Jn 4:5). The issue comes
to a head in 2 John which is a warning addressed to an outlying community
not yet affected by the secession. "The deceivers who have gone
out into the world" (2 Jn 7) are going to come to that community,
and so the author beseeches the Christians there not even to allow
such people through the door of the house church (2 Jn 10).
It is not easy to decipher the thought of the secessionists, for we
must reconstruct it from the criticisms leveled by the epistolary
author and from his own professions of faith. He assumes that his
readers know the issues in dispute and is more concerned with refutation
than with clear exposition. My commentary on The Epistles of John
surveys the different scholarly views about the thought of the secessionists;
here, in brief, is what I think makes most sense.
The secessionists are progressive innovators (2Jn 9) in the eyes of
an author who considers himself conservative, holding on to what was
taught from the beginning (1 Jn 3:11a). He associates {111} himself
with a chain of Johannine witnesses reaching back to the Beloved Disciple
- a "we" who have seen and heard Jesus (1 Jn 1:1-4). Christologically,
the secessionists are accused of neglecting the "flesh"
or humanity of Jesus (1 Jn 4:2; 2 Jn 7). Presumably this means that
they did not place salvific importance on what was, after all, only
a phase of the pre-existent Word. As former community members, the
secessionists, in fidelity to Jn 1:14, would have admitted an incarnation.
But the very entrance of Jesus, the light, into the world was what
gave eternal life to those who believe (Jn 3:16-17); his subsequent
deeds, including his death, would not have been important. Ethically,
the secessionists would see the only sin to consist in refusing to
believe in Jesus. The believer is a child of God, is already judged
(Jn 3:18; Jn 5:24) and already has eternal life. Therefore, while
not encouraging libertinism, the secessionists would have proclaimed
that there is no salvific value in doing good deeds or obeying commandments,
and there is no sin provided one believes (1 Jn 1:8-10). Against such
christological and ethical views, the author would claim that from
the beginning it had been known that salvation came not only from
the incarnation of the Word but also from Jesus' death as an essential
component. Jesus came "not in water only but in water and blood"
(1 Jn 5:6). The supreme love of God was that he sent His Son into
the world, true, but as an atonement for our sins (1 Jn 4:9-10); and
that atonement was accomplished through the blood of Jesus which cleanses
us from sins (1 Jn 1:7). The way Jesus "walked" on earth
was very important, not only christologically but also ethically,
since we must walk as he walked (1 Jn 1:7), make ourselves pure as
he was pure (1 Jn 3:3), avoid sin as he was sinless (1 Jn 3:5-6),
act justly as he was just (1 Jn 3:7). Commandments are very important,
for "the person who keeps God's commandments abides in God"
(1 Jn 3:24). By no means does the epistolary author deny that through
faith and baptism we receive God's eternal life, but there is still
a future development. "Yes, beloved, we are God's children right
now; but what we shall be has not yet been revealed" (1 Jn 3:2).
That revelation comes through a final judgment before which we must
be careful not to be ashamed by what we have done (1 Jn 2:28-3:2).
Fallout from the Fourth Gospel
How the epistolary situation developed from the Fourth Gospel. Such
a bitter schism reflecting antithetical views of Christianity is clearly
a church tragedy. What we are interested in is how the {112} schism
developed from the Fourth Gospel, as illustrative of the weaknesses
inherent in the attractive christology and ecclesiology of that magnificent
writing. The thesis I have attempted to defend with rigor in my commentary
on The Epistles of John is that both the author and the secessionists
accepted the presentation of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (whether they
knew that presentation in written or oral form). Few scholars have
doubted that the epistolary author drew on previous Johannine tradition;
but I would argue that, even though the secessionists are described
as "progressives," every idea they had (as reconstructed
from the polemic of 1 and 2 John) can be plausibly explained as derivative
from the Johannine tradition. The whole dispute, then, is over the
interpretation of a commonly accepted tradition.
That fact casts light for me on four weaknesses inherent in the tradition
because it was shaped by polemic and because it claimed unchallengeable
guidance by the Paraclete. Noting these weaknesses is particularly
important for ecumenical discussions today between Protestants and
Roman Catholics, for the sixteenth-century division was also bitterly
polemic, involved excommunication and accusations of being Antichrists,
and sought to justify positions through appeal to the Spirit and to
the common scriptures. If we learn some of the problems of the first-century
division, we may learn some of the problems of that of the sixteenth
- and of the twentieth.
A theology shaped in polemic
First Weakness: the one-sidedness of a theology shaped in polemic,
ultimately leading to exaggeration and division. I pointed out above
that the evangelist emphasized in the Fourth Gospel what "the
Jews" and other Christians denied: the pre-existent divinity
of Jesus. Being put on trial and suffering for this faith lent a brilliant
clarity to the presentation. Readers ever since have come away convinced,
as the author intended, that they must believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God, and that believing they gain life in his name (Jn
20:31). That was splendid so long as this Gospel was read by Johannine
Christians who took it for granted that Jesus was human; that while
the incarnation brought light into the world, the light could not
be fully perceived until after the death and resurrection; and that
belief in Jesus necessarily entailed an ongoing commitment to live
in a manner worthy of that belief. The emphasis that belief or refusal
of belief constitutes the judgment made sense, so {113} long as it
was proclaimed in a context where Jesus' ultimate return as judge
was simply taken for granted - a return that would show up self-deception
in the status of those who claimed to be believers. But when a theology
such as that of the Fourth Gospel has been shaped in polemic and the
people who held on to it have been traumatically expelled by the opponents
(in this case by the Jews of the synagogue), the trauma tends to obscure
the presuppositions; and often what is passed on to the next generation
is only what was fought over. If a major document was written at the
general time of the trauma to state the case for those who suffered
(as the Fourth Gospel did brilliantly), that document will tend to
become the foundational document of the next generation, the Bible
to be rehearsed. Therefore, for the next Johannine generation the
one-sidedness of the Fourth Gospel could and did become a stumbling
stone for those who did not know the presuppositions.
The reason why the epistolary author must reach back to "the
beginning" to refute the secessionists is because there is perilously
little in the Fourth Gospel itself to refute them. They read about
a Jesus who during his public ministry offered eternal life to those
who believed that he was the light come into the world, sent by the
Father. How would readers without a traditional background know that
such eternal life became a possibility only after Jesus died for our
sins (as the epistolary author claims)? Yes, there is a statement
about "the Lamb of God who takes away the world's sin" (Jn
1:29). Unless the secessionists knew earlier tradition, however, would
they catch subtle references in the Fourth Gospel to Jesus dying as
a passover lamb, and would they not assume that the very coming into
the world took away the world's sin, since the statement appears {114}
at the beginning of the public ministry? The Johannine Christians
who were expelled from the synagogue took with them the moral sense
of Judaism that God must be served by living out His covenant commandments.
Yet would the Jewish horror of sin as a breaking of covenant commandments
have been felt by the next generation if they memorized the Fourth
Gospel which talks only about the sin of not believing?
Uneven quality of the Fourth Gospel
I need not belabor the point. The Fourth Gospel produced by polemic
is like a diamond that has been made brilliant by the strokes of the
cutter, but only the side thus polished catches the eye. Controversy
made this Gospel exciting and attractive but uneven. By contrast,
Luke/Acts is a less exciting work theologically but more balanced.
I suspect that Luther's theology would have been much less interesting
and forcefully attractive if he had not been opposed. The hostile
reaction of Rome in excommunicating him helped to bring the issues
into lucid clarity for him and for others, so that people had to decide
for or against. The language of krisis, "judgment, crisis,"
so endemic in the Fourth Gospel, catches the thrust of the issue.
Those who adhere to such a theology as John's have to face a crisis
and to make a judgment, and their proclamation of the theology will
cause others to make a judgment by taking a stand with or against
them.
In the sequence consisting of forming a challenging theological position,
encountering polemic, being expelled or excommunicated, and adamantly
intensifying the theological position, there will be a further step,
namely, dividing internally over the very point that originally led
to the polemic and the expulsion. Some within the expelled group will
press the crucial point farther than others. It is almost as if the
excommunication loosens all brakes on the inner dynamism of the movement.
If Johannine community members felt deeply enough about the pre-existent
divinity of Jesus to be expelled from the synagogue on the charge
of worshiping another God, and if that expulsion made them more adamant,
so that in the description of Jesus they avoided human features that
might supply the syna- {115} gogue with ammunition against them, inevitably
some member would go further in downplaying the humanity altogether,
causing horror among others who thought this was going too far. It
had taken tremendous courage to split from the synagogue; it would
take less courage for a further split to take place within the group
itself. I used above the imagery of a diamond being polished by the
chisel-and-hammer blows of opposition; the danger is that a final
blow splits the diamond itself because of an internal flaw.
For the author of the Johannine Epistles, the secessionists have gone
out from the community by moving too progressively. One can be sure
that, for the secessionists, the author and his adherents were at
fault, not seeing the dynamism of the community insights and attempting
to freeze them at a particular stage. The author contended that he
was holding on to the tradition as it was understood from the beginning;
the secessionists probably claimed they were exemplifying the thrust
that produced the tradition in the first place. I think once more
of a Luther divided from Rome on the question of merit and claiming
that his insights were justified by the Scriptures, despite all Rome's
appeal to authority and tradition to the contrary. Inevitably, there
came a more radical movement arguing that Luther had retained features
that were not in the Scriptures and was not faithful to the thrust
of his own insights about the supremacy of the Bible.
The unbridgeable chasm of the schism
Second Weakness: the unbridgeable chasm resulting from polemics and
expulsion, leading to a loss of heritage. It is tragic that within
a group expelled after polemic confrontation, schism often occurs
as some push to exaggeration. It is perhaps even more tragic that
the expulsion itself tends to open up such a wide gap from the parent
group that much of a heritage that was never in dispute is now lost.
Despite the differences caused by their insistence on the pre-existent
divinity of Jesus, the Johannine community of Christians had more
in common religiously with the synagogue Jews who expelled them than
with the pagan religious world in which they lived. They shared with
the synagogue Jews a belief in one God, the Scriptures, liturgical
feasts, the basic ethics of the Law, etc. Yet soon after the expulsion,
one reads in the Fourth Gospel, in reference to the Jews, the expression
"their Law" (Jn 15:25) as if the Law of the OT (actually,
in this instance, the Psalms) did not belong to Christians as well.
The great feasts of Passover and Tabernacles are in {116} John feasts
"of the Jews" and alien to Christians. There is a division
between the disciples of Moses and the disciples of Jesus (the "that
fellow" of Jn 9:28), as if the disciples of Jesus were not also
disciples of Moses. In other words, the great common heritage is disappearing
from view as the points of division sharpen.
The gap will tend to widen if there is an internal split among those
expelled, with some pushing to the point of exaggeration the community's
theological insight that caused the difficulty in the first place.
Such exaggeration confirms the leaders of the parent group that they
acted rightly in expelling, and that they diagnosed correctly the
implications of the group's theology. (The question is rarely raised
whether such exaggeration would have occurred if there had been no
expulsion.) One can guess that if the synagogue leaders heard of the
inner-Johannine secession, they would have regarded the secessionists
as the inevitable result of the wild thoughts about Jesus propounded
by the fourth evangelist. The appearance of the Schwdrmerei or the
more radical Protestants surely confirmed Rome in its judgment that
Luther's movement was destined to produce anarchy.
A final step occurs when the parent group and those expelled, who
once had so much in common, become two different religions. Ironically
they may then be embarrassed, defensive, or sensitive about any remaining
points in common. For instance, by mid-second century the great remaining
heritage that Jews and Christians had in common was the OT (after
Marcion's attempt to get rid of that failed); but they could not agree
on interpreting the OT and accused each other of distorting or falsifying
it! Similarly, a few decades into the Reformation period, Protestants
were very sensitive about features that were redolent of their Catholic
heritage, so that practices that never bothered Luther or even Zwingli
(frequency of eucharist, devotion to Mary) began to be suspect. On
the Catholic side, to give emphasis to Bible reading was looked on
as Protestant and suspect. {117} Indeed, reforms that surely would
have been introduced into Catholicism had there been no Reformation
(liturgy in the vernacular) were postponed indefinitely because they
were identified as Protestantizing.
Every theological insight comes at a price
I have insisted in this book that for every theological insight one
pays a price. The more brilliant the insight, the more likely that
other aspects of truth will be put into the shade, often to be overlooked
and forgotten. A balanced religious group, sufficiently confident
of its great insights, is not afraid peacefully to look back in order
to reclaim what was lost by the very fact that it urged those insights
so strongly. But where polemic had been the midwife in bringing to
birth a community's identifying insights, the possibility of reaching
back to regain some of the lost heritage is significantly diminished.
In such a situation self-identity has been fortified by propaganda
against the lost values as if they were worthless. In the Fourth Gospel
Jesus is presented as speaking on the principal feasts of the Jews,
replacing their significance with claims he makes about his own gifts.
How, then, can the members of the community shaped by this Gospel
ever ask themselves about liturgical values lost when they were expelled
from the synagogue? In a more recent example, the polemics were so
sharp in the Reformation era that 450 years passed before Protestants
and Catholics could enter meaningful dialogue as to how both had truncated
their heritage by polemics. And to this day extremists on the two
sides regard such dialogue as betraying the cause.
A less dramatic example of the problem of loss of heritage has been
brought home to Roman Catholics by Vatican II. There was little public
polemic in the Council, as changes were made in basic attitudes toward
liturgy, law, and lifestyle. But Roman Catholicism suffered from the
suddenness and dramatic quality of the changes, so that polemics followed
the Council; and a Catholicism marked by the dramatic shift of Vatican
II was passed on to the next generation. The new developments that
had affected the lives of the teachers {118} were the substance of
the message communicated to the children, but concomitantly this involved
a neglect of much Catholic tradition that was not affected by the
Council- the distinctive presuppositions of Catholic life. As a result
the generation that grew up in the 1970s, while being very aware of
some new outlooks of Vatican II, were often painfully ignorant of
much of their Catholic heritage. Those who taught the new were at
times deaf to cries about the loss of the old, equating all such cries
with a traditionalist rejection of the Council. There were and are
extremist Catholics opposed to Vatican II, either openly (like Archbishop
Lefebvre) or covertly (by constantly citing pre-conciliar documents
that point in a direction opposite to Vatican II). But others, and
I would include myself among them, while enthusiastic for what was
introduced into Catholicism by Vatican II, see no need for the concomitant
losses, e.g., of inner-Catholic loyalty, obedience, and commitment
to the church; of dignity in liturgy; of Gregorian chant; of a knowledge
of the Latin tradition reaching from Augustine through Thomas to the
Middle Ages. To try now to recoup some of those losses while still
advancing the gains of Vatican II would be an act of eminent good
sense. Let us hope that the bitterness of the exchanges between extremists
does not prevent that. Recouping was what the author of the Johannine
Epistles was trying to do in the aftermath of the brilliant Fourth
Gospel period in Johannine community history. Never once does he deny
the insights of the Fourth Gospel, but he seeks to frame those insights
in the context of the presuppositions that the evangelist had probably
taken for granted but never mentioned or stressed. By his efforts
the epistolary author proved to later church theologians that the
Fourth Gospel (which during the second century was the focal point
of gnostic commentators) was capable of serving orthodox Christianity
very well.
Confining love to "the brethren"
THIRD WEAKNESS: extreme hostility toward outsiders, confining love
to "the brethren." The Fourth Gospel describes the adversaries
of Jesus in extremely harsh terms, especially "the Jews."
The devil is their father, a murderer from the beginning; he is a
liar and correspondingly they refuse to believe the truth (Jn 8:43-46,).
They prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil (Jn 3:19-21;
Jn 12:35); indeed, God has blinded their eyes (Jn 12:40). When the
focus of Johannine dispute turned from external non-believers to internal {119} schism, as witnessed in the Epistles, it is noteworthy that
this same opprobrium is applied to the secessionists. They are like
Cain who belonged to the Evil One and killed his brother (1 Jn 3:12);
they are the children of the devil who is a sinner from the beginning
(Jn 3:8-10). They are liars (Jn 2:22) and have a Spirit of Deceit
opposed to the Spirit of Truth (Jn 4:1-6). The darkness has blinded
their eyes (Jn 2:11).
Such hostile language is well attested in the inner Jewish disputes
of the time. '161 Nevertheless, on the surface it is difficult to
reconcile apparent hatred with an observance of the commandment of
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: To love one another as I have loved you
(Jn 13:34; Jn 15:12,). That commandment is exceedingly important to
the epistolary author as well, for he places it on the same level
as faith in Jesus (1 Jn 3:23). Over and over he insists that it is
a commandment of God to love one's brother or one another (1 Jn 2:7-11;
1 Jn 4:21; 2 Jn 4-6). I said that on the surface hostility toward
others is difficult to reconcile with this commandment until we notice
that it concerns only loving one another or loving one's brother.
There is no demand to love one's neighbor as in the Synoptic tradition
(Mt 5:43; Lk 10:27), where the context makes clear that the neighbor
includes enemies and strangers (Mt 5:44; Lk 10:29-37). Thus one may
say that the Johannine tradition places no emphasis on love of outsiders;
John's ideal is a love of God's children who have come into existence
through faith in Jesus. If in the Epistles that love does not seem
to reach to the secessionists, it is because they have gone out and
are no longer community members or children of God. (One may well
suspect that the secessionists had the same attitude toward the epistolary
author and his adherents.)
In other words, the closeness to Jesus that is the great strength
of the ecclesiology of the Fourth Gospel tended to produce an in-group
for whom most others constituted an evil outside world. (I say "most
others" because an exception is made for the other sheep who {120} are not of this fold in Jn 10:16 - a sign that there were non-Johan-nine
Christians who were not considered evil.) In the Gospel "the
Jews" are the prime example of the world that refuses to believe
in Jesus (Jn 16:8-9); in the Epistles the secessionists belong to
the world (1 Jn 4:5). The famous verse, "God loved the world
so much that He gave His only Son" (Jn 3:16), should not be misunderstood.
That giving of the Son, that sending of the light into the world,
produces a division between those who come to the light because they
act in truth and those who prefer darkness to light because their
deeds are evil (Jn 3:19-21). Subsequently in the Gospel, the world
and darkness are generally equated as constituting the realm of Satan
who is the Prince of this world (Jn 12:31; Jn 14:30; Jn 16:11). That
is why Jesus does not pray for the world (Jn 17:9), and his followers,
though in the world, are not of it (17:14-18). This attitude carries
over to the Epistles where the author speaks of "a sin unto death"
- surely the secessionist refusal to believe, exhibited by leaving
the community - and observes, "I do not say that one should pray
about that" (1 Jn 5:16-17).
On the positive side, love for one's fellow Christian is essential
for the survival of the church. In Roman Catholicism after Vatican
II there has been great emphasis on the need to show love for all,
Christian and non-Christian. At the same time, however, the changes
put into effect through Vatican II have led to sharp dispute within
the church, so that Catholics who were relatively harmonious before
the council are now divided among themselves. There is violent vituperation
of moderates and liberals by ultra-conservatives, and contempt for
conservatives by liberals, an experience all too common in Protestant
churches as well. Small wonder that all our concern for outsiders
is not overly convincing as Christian witness since often those outsiders
do not see love for one another within our churches. The secular adage
that charity or love should begin at home has its wisdom. {121} On
the negative side, too narrow a Christian focus of love, whereby the
only real interest is for one's own, does little justice to a Jesus
who was truly concerned with outsiders, i.e., the sinners, the tax
collectors, and the prostitutes. (Is it accidental that such an outreach
is not described at all in the Fourth Gospel? Rather the Last Supper
begins with the words, "Having loved his own..., he loved them
to the very end" Jn 13:1.) In the preceding chapter, I mentioned
Christian sectarian groups for whom John is the gospel because they
can interpret it as favoring their theology of Jesus as "my personal
savior." It is not surprising to find that generally such groups
show little interest in ecumenism or in relations with the larger
and more traditional churches. The Fourth Gospel was written by a
spokesman for a group persecuted by outsiders, and it will always
be more congenial to those whose primary concern is for their own.
At the end of Chapter 3 above, I observed that the concentration on
the church in Colossians/Ephesians leaves the non-Christian world
out of consideration. At the end of Chapter 5, I observed that the
somewhat exclusive "people of God" concept in 1 Peter gives
no attention to holiness among the majority who are not of this people.
Yet problems of neglect toward and of silence about the outside world
are not nearly so serious as the problem raised by the Johan-nine
writings which, while they never say, "Hate the world,"
do say, "Have no love for the world" (1 Jn 2:15).
Uncontrollable divisions caused by appeal to the Paraclete
Fourth Weakness: uncontrollable divisions caused by appeal to the
Paraclete. Perhaps the most serious weakness in Johannine ecclesiology
and the one most apparent in the Epistles centers on the role of the
Paraclete. The thought that there is a living divine teacher in the
heart of each believer - a teacher who is the ongoing presence of
Jesus, preserving what he taught but interpreting it anew in each
generation - is surely one of the greatest contributions made to Christianity
by the Fourth Gospel. But the Jesus who sends the Paraclete never
tells his followers what is to happen when believers who possess the
Paraclete disagree with each other. The Johannine Epistles tell us
what frequently happens: they break their koinonia or {122} communion
with each other. If the Spirit is the highest and only authority and
if each side appeals to him as support for its position, it is nigh
impossible (particularly in a dualistic framework where all is either
light or darkness) to make concessions and to work out compromises.
In the divisive situation encountered in the Johannine Epistles the
author appeals to tradition as it was "from the beginning"
as a partial support for his interpretation. (The secessionists probably
appealed to the import of Fourth Gospel formulations.) But it is very
clear that he is counting on the fact that his readers have been anointed
with the Spirit and so can recognize the truth from him when they
hear it. If the author were a presbyter-bishop in the model of the
Pastorals, he could silence his adversaries by his own authority (Tt
1:11). One of his tasks as an appointed teacher would have been the
discernment of sound doctrine (Tt 2:1). But the author of the Epistles
of John is bound by the Johannine tradition that the Paraclete is
the one who guides people along the way of truth (Jn 16:13). Consequently,
even in the midst of this great schism, he must write, "The anointing
you received... abides in you; and so you have no need for anyone
to teach you" (1 Jn 2:27).
Noble as it is, his principle did not and will not work. The secessionists
who had been members of the Johannine community were anointed with
the Paraclete-Spirit, and that anointing which is supposed to be "true
and free from any lie" (1 Jn 2:27) did not save them from becoming
liars. (Of course, it is the author who judges them to be liars (1
Jn 2:22); certainly in their judgment he is the liar.) The author
is writing I John and 2 John because he feels that those still in
communion with him are endangered by secessionist propaganda. How
can there be any danger if they are guided by the Paraclete, the Spirit
of Truth? The author faces up to that issue by pointing out that there
is a Spirit of Deceit as well as a Spirit of Truth, and that one must
test the Spirits (1 Jn 4:1-6). The test he offers is that the people
who listen to him (and his fellow tradition-bearers) have the Spirit
of Truth, while those who disagree with him have the Spirit of Deceit.
One can well imagine that the opposite is being urged by the secessionists:
if you agree with us, you have the Spirit of Truth. And in point of
fact, the author seems to admit that the secessionists are {123} winning
numerically in this tug of war, for "the world listens to them"
(1 Jn 4:5).
In my judgment there is no way to control such a division in a Paraclete-guided
community of people. The Johannine community discovered that, for
it split up and went out of existence. In my Community, working from
second-century evidence, I suggested that the larger group of Johannine
Christians, who were of secessionist persuasion, drifted off into
gnosticism, carrying the Fourth Gospel with them. Another group came
to terms with the main body of Christians whom Ignatius calls "the
church catholic" (Smyrneans 8:2) - a church'that had teachers
such as the presbyter-bishops, and eventually the single bishops of
each region. Much to the epistolary author's annoyance, according
to 3Jn 9-10, Diotrephes seems already to be taking to himself such
a role. The epilogue to the Fourth Gospel, which may represent the
final stage of the Johannine writings preserved for us, acknowledges
the authority of a human shepherd (Jn 21:15-17), even if it hedges
that authority with Johannine safeguards (p. 93 above). Thus, one
branch of the Johannine community had to come to grips with the ecclesiology
of the Pastorals, stodgy and formal as it is, in order to become part
of a non-gnostic Christianity.
I presume that the reader of this chapter and of the preceding chapter
has detected my admiration for the Johannine insights about the relation
of Christians to Jesus. Johannine ecclesiology is the most attractive
and exciting in the NT. Alas, it is also one of the least stable.
One rejoices that at the end of the first century, when much about
the church was being formalized and institutionalized, there were
Christians who still marched to the sounds of a different drummer;
and one is sad that the road down which they went was inevitably a
dead end. But their witness lives on in the many-faceted great "church
catholic" that brought their Gospel into its canon. Even if that
Gospel cannot be the only guide for the church catholic, and even
if alongside the Beloved Disciple (and indeed over him) have been
placed the apostles, such as Peter and Paul, the community of the
Beloved Disciple continues to bear warning witness that the church
must never be allowed to replace the unique role of Jesus in the life
of Christians. {124}
8. The Heritage of Jewish/Gentile Christianity
in Matthew: Authority That Does Not Stifle Jesus
WE turn now to the ecclesiology of the gospel that the church has
placed first in the canon, Matthew. Leaving aside the historical reasons
for that ordering, we must acknowledge that Matthew has an unassailable
ecclesiological priority. It is the only gospel that uses the word
"church." Of all the gospels it was best suited to the manifold
needs of the later church, the most cited by the church fathers, the
most used in the liturgy, and the most serviceable for catechetical
purposes. In critical scholarship of the last two centuries Mark has
drawn attention as the oldest gospel; and today often in seminary
curricula, if there is going to be only one exegetical gospel course,
it will be centered on Mark. But for a millennium and three-quarters
Mark was virtually obliterated by Matthew, and Mark had no influence
on church life. Luke may be a more serious rival for Matthew in the
affection of Christians, but Luke is not really comparable when it
comes to basics. People who know by heart the Lucan {125} form of
the Lord's Prayer could probably hold meetings in a telephone booth;
the number of people who know Matthew's form of the Lord's Prayer
is coterminous with the number of Christians in the world. Those who
are even aware that Luke has four beatitudes are very few, while Matthew's
eight beatitudes have been committed to memory and heart by countless
believers. Only students are aware that Luke has a Sermon on the Plain,
while even for non-Christians Matthew's Sermon on the Mount is the
quintessential message of Jesus. The evangelist we call Matthew had
a genius for collection and organization that made his gospel the
best guide to practical Christian life.
Importance of Matthew for the church
Alas, Matthew has been neglected by a critical scholarship too little
interested in the service of the church. In the major languages we
are still deficient in up-to-date, full-scale critical commentaries
on Matthew. Nevertheless, there are signs of a resurgent scholarly
interest in Matthew, and superb monographs on the theology of Matthew
have appeared. I recommend two excellent short studies of the purpose
and thrust of the gospel: Kingsbury, Matthew, and Meier, Vision.
For the purposes of detecting life in the last third of the first
century (the Sub-Apostolic Period), Matthew is almost as revelatory
as John, perhaps because these two gospels are written in strongly
adversary situations. Luke wrote a separate Acts of the Apostles to
recount what happened to the followers of Jesus after the resurrection,
and therefore the Gospel of Luke in itself is not overly indicative
of church life. For Matthew, however, there is no time of the church
separated from the time of Jesus. Both Matthew and John have interwoven
their understanding of the post-resurrectional era into the account
of Jesus' public ministry (although this two-level technique (p. 104
above) is most consistent in John). In Matthew, for {126} instance,
those who are presented as hostile are a blend of the adversaries
of Jesus' own lifetime and of the adversaries encountered by Matthew's
community in post-70 Judaism when the Pharisee rabbinic establishment
at Jamnia had become a dominant authority,'171 and when the Sadducee
priests, important in the death of Jesus, were fading into history.
A firm memory that during his own lifetime Jesus dealt only with Israel
and not with Gentiles (Mt 10:5-6) is combined with a gradually gained
understanding that the apostolate to which the risen Jesus committed
his followers included all nations (Mt 28:19). The Twelve are the
spokesmen of a misunderstanding of Jesus, downplaying his suffering
- a presentation pertinent to Jesus' ministry that Matthew got from
Mark - but also spokesmen of a profound faith in Jesus as the Son
of God, derived from divine revelation after the resurrection (Mt
14:32-33, compared with Mk 6:51-52; Mt 16:15-23, compared with Mk
8:29-33).
Analyzing the blended pre-resurrectional and post-resurrectional picture
in Matthew, I would share the majority opinion that the author was
a reflective Jewish Christian and a former scribe. The meticulous
technique of glossing the infancy narratives and sections of the ministry
with OT quotations which are seen as fulfilled (cf. Mt 4:12-17 with
Mk 1:14-15) has been interpreted as work done in a school where various
versions of the Scriptures would be available. The esteem for a perceptive
scribe in Mt 13:52 is probably autobiographical: "Every scribe
who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a householder
who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old."
Matthew's harsh treatment of scribes and Pharisees opposed to Jesus
betrays a frustration that in {127} their blindness they cannot see,
as the evangelist has seen, that Jesus does not contradict the best
of their religious values but really preserves them. "Do not
think that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; not to
abolish them have I come, but to fulfill them" (5:17). The Pharisees
began as a liberalizing movement which, through appeal to oral tradition,
sought to make contemporary the real thrust of the written Law of
Moses. The problem in Matthew's eyes (and here he may well reflect
Jesus) was that this oral interpretation had now become as rigid as
the written tradition, and at times was counterproductive. The Jesus
who says over and over "You have heard it said, but I say to
you" (Mt 5:21,,,,,) is, then, preserving the purpose of the Law
by making certain that a past contemporization of God's will is not
treated as if it were exhaustive of that will.
The Law, in Matthew and Paul
The Matthean Jesus is more demanding of people in regard to the Law
than the legalists who have set fixed boundaries to what God wants.
"Whoever relaxes the least of these commandments and teaches
this to others shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven... And,
I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt
5:19-20). Jesus can be so demanding because he is not a rabbi among
other rabbis, but the one supreme teacher (Mt 23:8), and the perfect
embodiment of righteousness. He is a lawgiver greater than Moses,
for he is the lawgiver of the endtime and the supreme interpreter
of God's will. He is the Lord, the Son of God. Parenthetically, let
me pause for a few comments about {128} Matthew and Paul. If John
Meier (Antioch 39-44) is correct, Matthew was written in an Antioch
where Paul had lost out in his fight for a Law-free regimen for Gentile
Christians (Ga 2:11ff.). The thesis is that when Peter backed away
from Paul's position and yielded to pressure from the adherents of
James, Paul felt too isolated to remain at Antioch and went off to
Asia Minor and Greece where he could maintain his position more successfully.
The Gospel of Matthew would represent an intermediary position taken
at Antioch conciliating the more reasonable adherents of James and
of Paul - the Law binds but only as radically reinterpreted by Jesus.
In Chapter 1 above, I pointed out that Paul and Matthew (who may well
have had a similar Pharisee scribal training) might have solved a
practical problem about Christian behavior in the same freeing way,
even though Paul would have come to his answer on the principle that
"Christ is the end of the Law" (Rm 10:4), and Matthew would
have regarded the decision as compatible with the principle that "Not
the smallest letter, nor curlicue of a letter, of the Law will pass
away until all is accomplished" (Mt 5:18). It is worth noting
that these two attitudes have been possible among intelligent Christians
ever since: some can stress freedom from law, some can stress law
sanely interpreted, without either group approving libertines or legalists.
In Roman Catholicism, especially in the United States, canon lawyers,
formerly widely dismissed as legalists, have been in the forefront
of promoting the open attitudes of Vatican II, claiming that they
were doing so in fidelity to the law properly understood! Matthew
would have approved; Paul might have been puzzled even at the existence
of codified Christian canon law.
A final fascinating contrast: Matthew (Mt 23:9) who supports the continuing
value of the Law does not permit the rabbinical title, "Father,"
while Paul who denies the enduring force of the Law has no qualms
about designating himself as a unique "father" to the Christian
community of Corinth (1 Co 4:15). Such contrary NT views can challenge
respectively both clergy who put great value on titles (Protestants
might need to be reminded that {129} the Matthean Jesus would not
like "Doctor" either) and fundamentalists who think that
calling a clergyman "Father" is the mark of the beast.
The Matthean church situation
Returning now to analyzing the Matthean church situation from the
pages of the gospel, we detect an ethnically mixed community. The
frequent mention of the scribes and Pharisees, the likelihood that
the author had been a scribe, the concentration on how Jesus' ethical
teaching can be related to the Law - these and other factors suggest
that the Matthean tradition was shaped in Jewish Christianity. Indeed,
part of the reason for proposing Antioch as a likely candidate for
the locale is the early history of Christian conversions among Greek-speaking
Jews there (Meier, Antioch 22-23). The openness of Matthean Christianity
to Gentiles, however, is also clear in the gospel. The two commands
to the disciples, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles" (Mt 10:5)
and "Go make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:19), probably
represent the history of Matthew's community: it came into being through
a mission to Jews and then opened to Gentiles.
That pattern of Jews then (unexpectedly) Gentiles was not unusual,
according to Acts. On p. 103 above I detected some similarities between
John's community and the radical Hellenist Christians of Ac 6-8 who
broke away from Temple worship and began aggressively to convert Samaritans
and Gentiles. Matthew's community would have been closer to a form
of the Hebrew Christianity associated by Acts with the Twelve and
particularly with Peter - a Christianity loyal to the Temple and Judaism
but learning to its reluctant surprise that the Gentiles could receive
Christ and had to be accepted. As for loyalty to Jewish cult, Matthew's
community seems to observe the Sabbath (Mt 24:20), unlike the Johannine
community for whom the Sabbath is an alien feast of the Jews (Jn 5:1,).
Jerusalem is still "the holy city" for Matthew (Mt 27:53),
even though its sacred house (the Temple) is forsaken and desolate
(Mt 23:38). Again that attitude is different from that of the Hellenist
Stephen for whom God does not dwell in the Jerusalem "house"
(Ac 7:48-49), and differ- {130} ent from that of Jn 4:21 where the
time is at hand in which the Father is no longer worshiped in Jerusalem.
The amazement of the conservative Jewish Christians of Matthew's community
at the advent of Gentile converts may have echoed Jesus' reaction
to the Roman centurion at Capernaum, "Not even in Israel have
I found such faith. Many will come from the east and the west and
recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of
heaven" (Mt 8:10-11). The massive coming of the Gentiles must
have caused pain because temporally and psychologically it was related
to the fact that Jews were no longer coming in numbers to Jesus. And
so the passage goes on, "Meanwhile the sons of the kingdom (i.e.,
the Israelites who should have inherited) will be expelled into outer
darkness" (Mt 8:12). The parable of the vineyard rented to tenants
who do not return fruit was borrowed by Matthew from Mk 12:1-11, but
a "punch line" is added (Mt 21:43) that betrays the sad
realization to which the Jewish Christian author of the First Gospel
has come. To the chief priests, the elders of the people, and the
Pharisees it is said, "The kingdom of God will be taken away
from you and given to a nation producing fruit."
In God's mysterious providence detectable in the Scriptures, the kingdom
proclaimed by Jesus is more acceptable to the nations than to the
Jews. When Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee rather than Judea,
Matthew (Mt 4:12-17) sees the fulfillment of Is 9:1-2: "Galilee
of the Gentiles - the people who sat in darkness have seen a great
light." When Jesus' healing on the sabbath causes a Pharisee
plot to destroy him so that he has to withdraw from the synagogue
(Mt 12:9-21), fulfilled is Is 41:1-4, "I will put my Spirit upon
him, and he shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles... and in his name
will the Gentiles hope." The Jewish Christians of Matthew's community
must learn to live at one with the Gentile Christians without envy.
Indeed, this mixed community is referred to as "the church,"
for the significant name by which the Christian following will be
known is foreseen by the Matthean Jesus.
This is an OT designation: Dt 23:1 (Septuagint), when describing those
who must be kept out of the {131} community of Israel in order to
insure purity, calls that community "the church of the Lord."
By using "my church" (Mt 16:18) of a mixed group, Matthew
indicates his faith that according to Jesus' standards the Gentiles
do not mar the purity of the true Israel. Once again Jesus becomes
the ultimate interpreter of God's will.
The drama of Jew and Gentile believer is placed on the level of divine
revelation in the Matthean infancy narrative. That the child to be
born to Mary through the Spirit is Emmanuel, "God with us,"
is first revealed to Joseph, a just Jew; and he obediently accepts
it (1:18-25). He stands for the "just," Law-observant Jewish
Christians of Matthew's community who by accepting Jesus made the
survival and spread of the good news possible. A second revelation
is given to the Gentile magi who come spontaneously to find Jesus;
nevertheless, they cannot succeed unless the Jewish Scriptures are
interpreted for them (Mt 2:1-5). These represent the Gentile converts
who have come so willingly to adore Jesus, and learned their Christianity
through the interpretation of Scripture in Matthew's community. Alas,
however, there is a third group: the Jewish king, the chief priests,
and the scribes of the people. They have a revelation in and through
the Scriptures which they are capable of interpreting to refer to
the Messiah; but instead of coming and adoring as the Gentile magi
did, they seek Jesus' life (Mt 2:3-5,). In this latter group Matthew
sees the Pharisee rabbis of his time from whom, consequently, all
hope of the kingdom is taken away.
Matthew and the Pharisees
Inevitably the hostile judgments of Matthew and his followers about
the infidelity of the Pharisees brought a response. Matthew (Mt 28:15)
knows of anti-resurrection propaganda among Jews, and hints at a charge
that Jesus was illegitimate (Mt 1:18-19). An expected part of Christian
life is calumny and persecution (Mt 5:10-11; Mt 10:22), stemming both
from the synagogues and Jewish sources (Mt 10:17,) and from the Gentile
authorities (Mt 10:18; Mt 24:9). The sad result is that some Christians
are abandoning Jesus (Mt 13:21; Mt 24:10). Internal problems too afflict
the Matthean community. Its members seem to have been granted charisms
similar to some described in 1 Co 12:27-28). There are prophets, wise
men, and scribes (Mt 23:34), and the {132} prophets require special
care (Mt 10:41). Disciples have the power to cast out unclean spirits,
heal diseases, and raise the dead (Mt 10:8); more than that, there
is a miraculous faith that can move mountains (Mt 17:20). In times
of persecution, in Matthew's experience, the Spirit speaks through
Christians (Mt 10:19-20). Inevitably amid such charisms there are
abuses, for false prophets and evildoing miracle workers get mention
(Mt 7:22-23; Mt 24:5,).
Matthean skill in pastoral application
Another potential source of conflict lies in the fact emphasized by
Kingsbury (Matthew 97-98) that there were rich people mixed with the
poor in Matthew's community. While Luke writes of small sums of money
and copper coins, Matthew's form of the tradition inflates this to
large sums and adds gold and silver. There is no hesitancy to underline
the fact that Joseph of Arimathea who rendered a service to the dead
Jesus was a rich man (Mt 27:57). Such a mixture of people gives us
a chance to detect the pastoral skill exemplified on the Matthean
scene. The Lucan Jesus is harsh on the wealthy, for he specifically
curses the rich and those who have their fill, while he blesses those
who are poor and hungry (Lk 6:20-25). The wealthy barn builder who
seeks to reinvest his profit in capital improvement is a fool; he
should have given it to the poor (Lk 12:13-21). Poor Lazarus and the
rich man have their status reversed in the afterworld seemingly because
the possession of wealth here deserves punishment in Hades, while
being poor here deserves bliss with Abraham (Lk 16:19-25). Such harshness
is not Matthew's style at all. It is true that delight in riches can
choke off the fruitfulness of the word of God (Mt 13:22) and that
the rich will find it hard to enter the kingdom (Mt 19:23); but with
God all things are possible (Mt 19:26). There is a chance for the
rich, since, if they are not poor in fact, they can be poor in spirit,
and, if they are not physically hungry, they can hunger and thirst
after justice, and thus be included under Jesus' beatitude (Mt 5:3,)
- a beatitude for which in Matthew there is no corresponding curse
against wealth and plenty.
Similar pastoral nuance can be detected in facing the other mixtures
mentioned above, as illustrated by the parable of weeds growing among
the wheat (Mt 13:24-30, 36-43). If there are false prophets and misbehaving
charismatics, if there are weeds that are sons of the Evil One, should
not they be torn out of the church or the kingdom {133} of the Son
of Man?181 But the Matthean Jesus warns that such a purge might damage
the good members, and so the situation must be tolerated until there
comes a divine judgment. Sects can pride themselves on a purism that
drives out all who do not meet an ideal, but a church has to show
patience and mercy.
The story of the coin in the fish's mouth (Mt 17:24-27) is still another
example of Matthean nuance. The issue concerned is the payment of
the tax imposed on Jews for the support of the Temple or (if a shift
occurred in the reference of the story after the destruction of the
Temple) the payment of the poll tax imposed by the Romans on Jews
(Jiscus judaicus). After Peter answers that Jesus does pay the tax,
this church authority receives from Jesus himself a more precise instruction
to the effect that in fact his followers are free from such tax, but
in order not to give offense the tax will be paid. The issue is quite
understandable among the Jewish Christians of Matthew's church: are
they still Jews so that obligations on Jews bind them? Matthew clarifies
the principle but shows a pastoral sense about when the exercise of
a principle is not worth a major struggle. (In the language of the
later church some issues are adiaphora.) Matthew's attitude almost
echoes Peter's stance at Antioch implicit in Ga 2:1 Iff. Paul maintained
that the food laws did not oblige the Gentiles; evidently Peter agreed
but backed away from the exercise of that freedom when the issue gave
signs of leading to a struggle with James and Jerusalem. Paul castigates
Peter's behavior as a denial of "the truth of the Gospel"
(Ga 2:14). But I wonder whether Paul would have seen the issue so
strongly if yielding to pressure from the adherents of James would
not have involved his own loss of {134} face; he is much more subtle
about pastoral concessions in 1 Co 8 where his prestige is not on
the line. Consequently, I would ask if Peter's position at Antioch
was not wiser. In any case, the lesson from the Matthean tax issue
is important: an exercise of freedom is, at times, better avoided
because of offense - a lesson all the more important when a strong
stance that is being advertised as a defense of the Gospel may involve
personal prestige.
Matthew and the issue of church authority
A final example of Matthean nuance leads us into the whole issue of
church authority. Despite what he rejects as Pharisee legalism, we
have seen that Matthew refuses to dispense with the Law; rather he
argues that Jesus' non-legalism is true to the Law. Although he despises
Pharisee posturing and claims of precedence (Mt 23:5-7), Matthew does
not reject indiscriminately for his community the Pharisee principles
of authority. In Mt 23:1-2 the Matthean readers are told, "The
scribes and Pharisees sit on the chair of Moses, so practice and observe
whatever they tell you; but do not do what they do." Since other
passages in the gospel clearly reject what the Pharisees "tell"
(e.g., 15:6), some scholars think that Matthew has preserved here
a fossil of an earlier obedience when Jews and Jewish Christians still
attended the same synagogue. Others would see Mt 23:1-2 as Matthew's
gesture toward the more conservative in his Christian community who
have not been able to wean themselves away from dependence on the
Jewish authorities, but a gesture that retains a criticism of Pharisee
practice as not befitting Christians. In any case, the idea of a chair
of authoritative judgment is not alien to Matthew's Christianity,
for elsewhere we hear that the Twelve who followed Jesus are to sit
on twelve thrones judging the tribes of Israel (Mt 19:28). Even if
that is to take place only "in the new world," rabbinic
models of authority are not far from Matthew's mind and seem to be
tolerable so long as it is recognized that ultimately the authority
comes from Jesus. {135} Again, Peter and the disciples are given the
power to bind and loose, a power clearly phrased in rabbinic terms.
Some have proposed that consciously or unconsciously Matthew thinks
of Peter as the chief rabbi of the church, although that designation
never appears. The imagery of the keys to the kingdom that are given
to Peter (Mt 16:19) has its roots in Is 22:22 as an expression for
the power of the prime minister in the Davidic kingdom who controls
access to the king. Once more all these are instances of power given
by Jesus, but they lucidly demonstrate that Matthew's church has a
strong sense of organization and authority. That very fact explains
why Mt 23:8-11 takes pains to forbid the use of rabbinic titles (Rabbi,
Father, Master). With so many features of Jewish authority taken over
by the Matthean church from the synagogue and/or the Jamnia school
as part of the blending of the new with the old, the wise Christian
scribe who writes the gospel must take precautions lest the spirit
of the Pharisees enter the church.
Strengths and Weaknesses
One must deal with the issue of ecclesiological strengths and weaknesses
differently in treating Matthew. In the Pauline and Pe-trine writings
I pointed out the respective ecclesiological strengths by analyzing
the works themselves, and then from church experience I called attention
to weaknesses inherent in those strengths if they were taken in isolation.
In the Johannine writings I pointed out ecclesiological strengths
in the way that the Fourth Gospel presents the disciples and Jesus,
but from the Epistles of John showed that a schism had developed,
exploiting the weaknesses in the community shaped by the Fourth Gospel.
What I have written in the first part of this chapter illustrates
the two great strengths of Matthew's ecclesiology.
Respect for the Law and
for authority
First, there is inculcated a high respect for the Law and for authority.
The sentiments of Mt 9:8 might well describe faithful members of the
Matthean community: "They glorified God who had {136} given such
authority to men." Second, the evangelist shows a remarkable
nuance in dealing with pastoral issues, thereby making certain to
preserve the attitudes of Jesus in interpreting the Law and exercising
authority. If only the first strength were present in Matthew, this
section of my chapter would stress the inherent weakness of a firm
morality inculcated through an adherence to law and authority, namely,
the dangers of legalism, authoritarianism, and a type of clericalism.
But through the evident second strength Matthew already seeks to protect
the community against precisely those dangers by insisting that the
voice of Jesus must be heard in the church. Matthew's approach is
not just "You have heard it said" (which would be equivalent
to law) but also "I say to you" (which keeps alive a vibrant
demand, preventing past law from absolutizing God's will). Vehicles
through which authority is to be exercised are featured (Peter, the
disciples, the whole community); but the evangelist insists that they
all get their power from Jesus and must exercise it according to his
standards. Matthew is aware that, left on their own, the authoritative
figures would inevitably begin to act like the scribes and Pharisees;
and by the attacks of Jesus on the Jewish authorities Matthew corrects
incipient attitudes within the church. The uniqueness of the First
Gospel, then, is that, because of an ongoing unhappy confrontation
with a Judaism dominated by Pharisees, the author shows an awareness
of the weaknesses and dangers inherent in the church's adherence to
law and authority and has built in a corrective.
The centrality of Jesus
In treating Johannine Christianity I spoke of the importance accorded
therein to an ongoing presence of Jesus particularly in and through
the Paraclete, the living teacher. Matthew's equally strong sense
of the continued presence of Jesus (Mt 28:20: "I am with you
always to the end of the age") has a different tone. The teaching
of Jesus, exemplified in the five great sermons of the First Gospel,
is the {137} means in and through which Jesus remains present to a
community that is willing to live by his commandments. This is caught
up in the Matthean phrase "the gospel of the kingdom" that
introduces the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 4:23). For Paul "the gospel"
is the good news of what God has done through Jesus, "put to
death for our trespasses, raised for our justification" (Rm 4:25).
For Mark (Mk 1:1) "the gospel of Jesus Christ" is broader
and includes the story of what Jesus did during his ministry, which
makes the death and resurrection more intelligible.
But Mark is a gospel of deed with only a relatively small body of
teaching. By incorporating the Q sayings material, Matthew has changed
the proportion so that "the gospel of the kingdom" now consists
very heavily in the teaching by which Jesus made God's reign present
to people's lives. "Jesus went about all the cities and villages,
teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom"
(Mt 9:35). Therefore, a Christianity shaped by Matthew will not absolutize
the gospel even in the church without the component of the teaching
of Jesus. I have pointed out above (p. 51) that the tendency to identify
church and kingdom was growing at the end of the first century, especially
in terms of seeing the church as the kingdom of the Son (of Man).
Matthew abets that tendency in the explanation of the parable of the
weeds (Mt 13:36-43), but his understanding of "the gospel of
the kingdom" means that the church-kingdom must be a place where
Jesus' teaching is lived. If believing church members are "the
sons of the kingdom" (Mt 13:38), replacing the Jewish "sons
of the kingdom" who did not believe (Mt 8:12), they deserve that
title only because they live by "the gospel of the kingdom."
Jesus remains in charge
of the church
Early in this chapter I wrote that Matthew has interwoven his understanding
of the post-resurrectional era into the account of Jesus' public ministry,
writing, as it were, his Acts of the Apostles in and through the gospel.
He thus combines the ongoing church situation with a scenario where
the dominant figure is Jesus the ethical teacher, Jesus the righteous
interpreter of the Law. (We saw that John also reads the post-resurrectional
situation back into the ministry, but into a minstry where there is
virtually no ethical teaching!) In Matthew Jesus' commandments bind
the disciples (i.e., disciples {138} of Jesus' lifetime and disciples
at the time of Matthew's gospel) so seriously that only those teachers
who do the commandments will be considered great in the kingdom of
heaven (Mt 5:19). All this implies that the one evangelist to use
the word "church" and to speak of Jesus' building or founding
the church understood the possibility that the church might become
a self-sufficient entity, ruling (in the name of Christ, to be sure)
by its own authority, its own teaching, and its own commandments.
To counteract that danger, Matthew has insisted that the church should
rule not only in the name of Jesus but also in the spirit of Jesus,
and by his teaching and his commandments. To the extent to which the
church is an institution or a society with law and authority, it will
tend to be influenced by sociological principles and conformed to
the societies of the surrounding culture - in Matthew's situation,
conformed to the synagogue and the Pharisee rabbinical structures.
Matthew accepts institution, law, and authority but wants a unique
society where the voice of Jesus has not been stifled and remains
normative. Only then "will this gospel of the kingdom be proclaimed
throughout the whole world as a testimony to the nations" (Mt
24:14).
Mt 18, on Church Order
and Life.
Let me make a final contribution to this NT discussion of the churches
the apostles left behind by considering the remarkable chapter (Mt
18) that has been called Jesus' Sermon on Church Order and Life. This
may well be the most profound practical treatment of church in the
NT and exemplifies Matthew's nuance in anticipating the dangers that
the church faces from the very fact that it is structured and has
authority. The sermon is addressed by Jesus to "the disciples,"
and there is a dispute among scholars whether that means the Twelve
or all Christians. What cannot be disputed is {139} that much of the
chapter is directed to those who act with authority in the church
and have pastoral responsibility.
The chapter begins with a question posed by the disciples, "Who
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Some would argue that
Matthew thinks of "kingdom" purely eschatologically, and
so the question is equivalent to "Who is going to be highest
in heaven or at the end of time?" However, as we have seen, Matthew
tends to localize and reify "kingdom" and identifies the
church on earth as the kingdom of the Son of Man. Certainly the rest
of the chapter deals with church practice on earth, and so it is not
impossible that this question reflects partially on primacy in the
church. If so, Matthew shows an excellent instinct about what becomes
important in a religious society where there is authority. The very
imagery of kingdom raises the issues of prestige and power - issues
that Jesus regarded as a temptation of the devil seeking to reduce
the kingdom of God to the level of a kingdom of this world (Mt 4:5-10).
Envy about primacy will manifest itself whether church authority is
exercised through charisms or offices. In the situation of 1 Co 12-14
there is clearly a dispute over which charism is best to have. Although
Paul tries to quell it by speaking about the importance of love, he
always lists apostles first in the charisms; and we remember that
he is an apostle! In a structure with offices exemplified by the presence
of presbyter-bishops in the Pastorals, there was rapid development
of the office of the single bishop over the presbyters. That development
becomes a major point for Ignatius, ca. A.D. 110; and we remember
that Ignatius is the sole bishop of Antioch! In later times both the
schism between the East and the West and the inner-Western schism
of the Reformation featured prominently a dispute about the primacy
of the Bishop of Rome in the whole church. In other {140} words, sociology
will not allow an organized society, religious or otherwise, to avoid
the issue of who has the greatest authority. In the practical language
of business, the first question when one is trying to analyze and
deal with a large corporation is, "Who has the 'heft' here?"
"Greatness" in
the Kingdom
By the standards of other societies the greatest authority or power
makes one the greatest figure in the group. Matthew would argue that
such a norm cannot be allowed in the church where Jesus' standards
must override. The answer to the question of who is the greatest in
the kingdom (or in the church where the gospel of the kingdom is proclaimed)
is given through the example of a little child. This is not because,
as romantics would have us think, the little child is thought of as
lovable, or cuddly, or innocent, but because the child is helpless
and dependent, with no power. In the kingdom of heaven God has supreme
power or authority; closeness to God and therefore greatness in the
kingdom comes according to the degree in which people surrender themselves
to God, putting Him first in their lives. When God rules a person's
life, then that person is great in God's kingdom. The value system
of the kingdoms of this world is upside down in relation to the kingdom
of heaven, for in Jesus' eyes not power but a lack of it can make
a person great. The first issue for a church that is going to survive
in the world as Jesus' society is how to avoid accepting the upside-down
values of the surrounding societies. In his treatment of church life,
Matthew has the disciples bring that issue to the fore by their opening
question, so that from the beginning of the Sermon the otherness of
Jesus' teaching may be clear.
Scandal, Little Ones and
Lost Sheep
The section that follows (Mt 18:5-9) deals with scandal. All disciples,
even those in authority, have been invited to have the outlook of
children; but the warning against scandalizing "one of these
little ones" shows special sensitivity toward the most vulnerable
members of the community. The language of this passage is too much
a set tradition (see Mt 5:29-30) for us to know whether seri- {141}
ous scandals had actually occurred in the history of the Matthean
community, especially scandals given by those who were supposed to
be leading the church. When this has happened in history, those disillusioned
by the scandal have sometimes been lost to the church permanently;
and so Matthew, by foresight if not by hindsight, has good reason
to introduce severe warnings of Jesus about the issue.
More interesting for our purposes is the next section (Mt 18:10-14)
beginning with a warning not to despise the little ones. The attitudes
of church authorities, sometimes even the unconscious attitudes, may
be more scandalous than their behavior. What would Matthew have thought
about 2 Tm 3:6-7 with its low estimate of weak women who can never
arrive at a knowledge of the truth, especially if that estimate is
unconsciously extended so that most of the non-teachers are assumed
to be incapable of thinking for themselves (see pp. 42-46 above)?
The section continues with a parabolic lesson about searching for
the one stray sheep. Since at this period the shepherd was a frequent
symbol for the figure with pastoral responsibility, the issue involves
pastoral obligation toward a misled member of the community. Again
Matthew shows an appreciation of the likely direction of behavior
in an organized society. I spoke earlier of "the Caiaphas principle"
based on Jn 11:49-50: it is better to let one person perish than to
have the whole institution destroyed. That is how societies work in
this world! Organizations would be delighted with 99% preserved and
only 1 % lost: that would earn a super-efficiency citation. Any politician
who could hold on to 99% of his constituency would have the most favorable
poll ratings in history. A lost or strayed one-out-of-a-hundred would
be dismissed as better than "par for the course." But Matthew
insists that his community must have a different set of values, namely,
the values of a Jesus who came to save lost sinners and whose own
example as a shepherd must be the model for church shepherds. In fact,
however, no large Christian church and scarcely any parish does or
can run on the lines of Matthew's parable. The 99% of the members
who had not strayed would {142} revolt if they were neglected in favor
of the 1 % who did stray. They would accuse those in charge of not
being pastoral, ironic as that may seem. Their plausible argument
would be that leaving the ninety-nine in order to search for the one
might lead to further losses through neglect, and that therefore it
would be better to cut losses by letting the one go.
Yet Matthew cannot be dismissed as parabolic exaggeration. One encounters
here an eschatological demand similar to not resisting evil, turning
the other cheek when struck, letting someone who takes your coat have
the cloak as well (Mt 5:39-40), taking nothing along in the task of
proclaiming the gospel (Mt 10:9-10), selling all that one has to follow
Jesus (Mt 19:21), paying the one-hour worker as much as the fully
employed (Mt 20:1-15). No society can run long in this world on such
principles, and most individuals cannot put them into practice consistently.
Yet they exemplify God's attitudes; and when they are put into practice,
at that moment and in that place God's kingdom has been made a reality.
If they are ever put into practice universally, "this gospel
of the kingdom will have been preached throughout the whole world
as a witness to all nations; and then the end will come" (Mt
24:14). Therefore, Christians must keep trying to take these eschatological
demands seriously, even if in practice only at times are they able
to live up to them. The church that every so often, in its care of
the ninety-nine, does not stop to worry about the one is not a church
attuned to the values of Jesus.
Dealing with the straying or sinful one is also the theme of the following
section (Mt 18:15-18). While echoing existing disciplinary practice,
the section illustrates Matthew's preference that love and not authority
should be primary in dealing with a fellow Christian. Once more Matthew
shows his keen insight about how most societies work, whether secular
or religious. The tendency is not to go directly to the one who is
causing a problem but to go over the person's head to someone who
has the authority to correct. This avoids confrontation and is more
efficient. In the Roman Catholic church, when peo- {143} pie do not
like what another parishioner is doing, they report it to the pastor.
When they do not like what the pastor is doing, they report it to
the bishop. When they do not like what the bishop is doing, they report
it to Rome. All of this is said to be done for the person's own good
and for the purity of religion; but the way Jesus behaved does not
enter the picture. In verse 18 Matthew shows keen awareness that there
is authority in the church; but in itself such authority is neither
Christian nor un Christian. That quality comes not only from the way
authority is exercised but also from a reluctance to appeal to it.
Although the two verses Mt 18:19-20 were originally independent, by
placing them where he has, Matthew explains why the whole church community
is the court of final resort that can take the action of quarantining
or excommunicating the recalcitrant sinner. The community members
gather in prayer in Jesus' name because the issue is clearly religious
and not merely administrative; and in this gathering the ongoing presence
of Jesus is activated (Mt 28:20; Mt 18:20). The authority to bind
and loose is not to be exercised independently of the Jesus to whom
all authority in heaven and on earth has been given (28:18). Bureaucratic
procedures are inevitable sociological developments, but Matthew's
outlook does nothing to encourage them.
When the recalcitrant "brother" is quarantined or expelled
in v. 17, the decision is "Let him be to you as a Gentile and
a tax collector" - a judicial sentence reflecting Jewish roots
where Gentiles are outsiders to be consorted with as little as possible,
and tax collectors are public sinners outside the Law. Most commentators
assume that Matthew has taken over the sentence simply as traditional
language so that the former brother is to be shunned. However, must
not one ask what this would mean in a mixed Jewish/Gentile church
of the {144} 80s of the first century, where the written gospel of
the kingdom has a final instruction by Jesus to go out to the Gentiles
and teach them (Mt 28:19), and wherein Jesus has shown particular
interest in a tax collector named Matthew, inviting him to follow
(Mt 9:9; Mt 10:3)?196 In other words is the officially repudiated
Christian now to be shunned totally, or is he to be the subject of
outreach and concern in imitation of a Jesus who was so interested
in searching out tax collectors that he was accused of being their
friend (Mt 11:19)? The latter interpretation would mean that the community
is far from finished with brothers or sisters against whom it has
had to invoke authority.
Forgiveness in the church
The plausibility of the latter interpretation is enhanced by the next
section (Mt 18:21-22) concerning the ongoing forgiveness of the brother
who sins (the same expression used for the object of the corrective
procedure in Mt 18:15). Peter is again a figure of authority getting
instruction from Jesus on how he should act (p. 133 above). It has
been observed that by asking whether seven times would cover the obligation
of forgiveness Peter is being legalistic, resembling the lawyer of
Lk 10:25-29 who wanted a definition of the neighbor whom he was obliged
to love. To the contrary, I have been struck by the generosity of
the Petrine "legalism," for to forgive someone seven times
would go beyond normal charity. We who think of ourselves as observant
Christians are willing to forgive anyone once. If a person offends
us in the same way a second time, that begins to be annoying; but
we try to be understanding. Perhaps the person did not reflect or
really understand when the offense was pointed out and forgiven the
first time. But most of us work by baseball rules - three strikes
and you are out! Peter is quite noble in extending the rules to seven
strikes.
To his gracious proposal is given the incredible answer of Jesus:
seventy times seven or an infinite number of times!197 Does not the
answer imply that forgiveness must pursue relentlessly the repudiat- {145} ed brother of Mt 18:17 (and not simply wait for his repentance)?
Jesus' insistence on forgiveness is exemplified by a striking parable
about a servant who received a totally gracious forgiveness of an
immense debt, only to refuse forgiveness of a minor debt to a fellow
servant. Many times when I have heard Mt 18 of Matthew cited, attention
was concentrated on the binding and loosing power to excommunicate.
Both before and after in the chapter, Matthew has hedged that power
by indications that care for one's brother or sister is more important.
His goal is not to protect or emphasize the authority but to prevent
its misuse. Matthew, then, is quite different from the Pastorals which
are trying to support the exercise of church authority. Evidently
Matthew had lived long enough with that authority to know its dangers.
Experience teaches that organized societies are more likely to abuse
authority than to abdicate it. The order in chap. 18 proclaims that
the power to forgive indefinitely is a greater Christian possession
than the power to excommunicate. Lest it be accused of laxness, the
church is often very careful about forgiving. Yet, the number of people
who have turned away from the church because they found it too forgiving
is infinitesimal; the number who have turned away because they found
it unforgiving is legion. For this reason, Matthew's pastoral judgment
on those in the church who refuse forgiveness is the very harsh conclusion
of the parable. In their case the Matthean Jesus has defined the unforgivable
sin: it is to be unforgiving.
To survive in the world after the death of the apostles the church
has had to be a society existing among other societies. A church that
lives and acts according to the spirit of Mt 18 will be a society
that is distinct from others, one where what counts for wisdom in
other societies has not been able to stifle the voice of Jesus who
came to challenge much of the religious wisdom of his time. The great
anomaly of Christianity is that only through institution can the message
of a non-institutional Jesus be preserved. Matthew does much to insure
that in the preservation the message will be kept alive and not merely
memorialized. {146}
Conclusion
IN this book I have not dealt with different models of the church
given in the NT because no one of the biblical authors discussed intended
to offer an overall picture of what the church should be. Had an author
wanted to present a model, we may be sure that a more complete and
nuanced ecclesiology would have emerged in the respective writing.
My goal was more modest and better adapted to the literature studied.
I approached a number of NT books looking for an answer, explicit
or implicit, to a specific problem, namely: What were Christians in
the Sub-Apostolic Period (the last one-third of the first century)
being told that would enable their respective churches to survive
the passing of the authoritative apostolic generation? There was no
evidence in these works that a consistent or uniform ecclesiology
had emerged. Rather, writings addressed to different NT communities
had quite diverse emphases. Even though each emphasis could be effective
in the particular circumstances of the writing, each had glaring shortcomings
that would {147} constitute a danger were that emphasis isolated and
deemed to be sufficient for all times. Taken collectively, however,
these emphases constitute a remarkable lesson about early idealism
in regard to Christian community life.
Acknowledging diversity,
without exaggerating it
Living in churches in the twentieth century, what may we conclude
from such a study? There are Christians, of course, who still reject
the existence of NT diversities. Some do so from a rigid theory of
divine inspiration which discounts the human situation of the NT writings
and insists that their message must be uniform because only God's
voice can be heard. Others reject diversity in the NT because they
project on the first century an ideal situation wherein Jesus had
planned out the church, the apostles were of one mind in carrying
out his directives, and the only ones who differed were the troublemakers
condemned by the NT authors. Like most scholars, Roman Catholic and
Protestant, I think neither of these ultraconservative objections
to NT diversities is tenable from the evidence. I would go farther:
religiously, neither is a particularly good solution, and indeed both
have been harmful in developing a mature Christian stance capable
of recognizing nuance.
On the other hand, some Christian scholars harden the detectable diversity
of the NT into dialectic struggles and contradictory stances. No one
can show that any of the churches I have studied had broken koinonia
or communion with another. Nor is it likely that the NT churches of
this Sub-Apostolic Period had no sense of koinonia among Christians
and were self-contained conventicles going their own way. Paul is
eloquent on the importance of koinonia, and in the Pauline heritage
concern for Christian unity is visible in Luke/Acts and in Ephesians.
Peter is a bridge figure in the NT, and the concept of the people
of God in 1 Peter requires a collective understanding of Christianity.
For all its individualism, the Fourth Gospel knows of other sheep
not of that fold and of Jesus' wish that they be one. Matthew has
a concept of the church and expands the horizons of Christianity to
all nations. Most of the NT was written before the major breaks in
koinonia detectable in the second century, and so NT diversity cannot
be used to justify Christian division {148} today. We modern Christians
have broken koinonia with each other; for, explicitly or implicitly,
we have excommunicated each other and/or stated that other churches
are disloyal to the will of Christ in major issues. Such a divided
situation does not have NT approbation.
Diversity as a strengthening
challenge
If we can neither ignore NT ecclesiological differences nor use them
to justify the present status quo, how do those differences serve
us? Briefly I would say that they strengthen us and they challenge
us. First, they strengthen us. Most of us belong to a particular Christian
church, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Episcopalian,
etc., because we were born into families who were members of that
church. Yet as we matured, if we remained loyal to the church of our
birth, it was because we found therein features that brought us close
to Christ and the love of God. Those who left one church and went
to another did so, in part at least, to find what seemed to them a
better context for living out the Gospel. Thus church adherence has
become a matter of conviction. A study of the diverse emphases in
NT churches may illustrate for us the strengths that we admire in
our own church and increase our appreciation for how that church has
remained faithful to the biblical heritage. For instance, the Sprunt
Lectures were given shortly after Rome had declared that Hans Küng
could no longer be identified at his university as an accredited professor
of Roman Catholic theology. Many attending the lectures asked me privately
whether my church was about to undergo another period of heresy purges
and were all ecumenical advances to stop. I thought the answer to
both questions was no. But the queries enabled me to point out that
in its history the {149} Roman Church has continued the serious concern
for sound doctrine inculcated in the Pastoral Epistles, which has
a concomitant instruction to silence those who are upsetting the church
(Tt 1:10-11). Abuse of such a concern is always possible and has certainly
occurred in Roman Catholic history; but we would make a bad mistake
not to recognize that a strong insistence on sound doctrine is both
a NT idea and a strength in the Christian picture, often best understood
from within.
A use of the NT to strengthen people's appreciation of their own church,
however, is scarcely new on the Christian scene. In a divided Christianity
we have had a long history of using the Scriptures to prove ourselves
right, whether as churches or as individuals. The greater contribution
of modern NT studies, therefore, may consist in highlighting the ways
in which Scripture can challenge constructively. A recognition of
the range of NT ecclesiological diversity makes the claim of any church
to be absolutely faithful to the Scriptures much more complex. We
are faithful but in our own specific way; and both ecumenics and biblical
studies should make us aware that there are other ways of being faithful
to which we do not do justice. It is a strength for a church like
my own to preserve the emphasis on sound teaching authority in the
Pastorals; but then such a church may need to examine itself about
the role that John gives to the Paraclete-Spirit as a teacher dwelling
in each Christian. Conventicle churches that combine Johannine imagery
and Pauline charisms may need to examine themselves about the sense
of historical continuity that runs from Acts to "the church catholic"
of the second century and to ask how their highly individualist stance
does justice to that. The governance in every church needs to challenged
by the voice of Jesus in Mt 18.
Every Christian community
neglects part of the NT witness
In short, a frank study of NT ecclesiologies should convince every
Christian community that it is neglecting part of the NT witness.
I do not mean that all churches can or should give the same importance
to each NT witness, for our respective histories have oriented {150}
us (probably irrevocably) to different proportions in our evaluation
of the Scriptures. But if churches have accepted the canon of the
Bible, they cannot allow their preferences to silence any biblical
voice. In the polemics of church division we have virtually done that,
because we have often seriously neglected a scriptural witness that
lent support to a rival church. I contend that in a divided Christianity,
instead of reading the Bible to assure ourselves that we are right,
we would do better to read it to discover where we have not been listening.
As we Christians of different churches try to give hearing to the
previously muffled voices, our views of the church will grow larger;
and we will come closer to sharing common views. Then the Bible would
be doing for us what Jesus did in his time, namely, convincing those
who have ears to hear that all is not right, for God is asking of
them more than they thought. That could be the metanoia that would
prepare the church for the kingdom.
{151-152}
|
|