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The Church in the Johannine Writings
adapted from Raymond E. Brown,The Churches The Apostles Left Behind
The sub-apostolic age:
Brown's chapter on The
Sub-Apostolic Era treats
of the thorny question of "apostolic authorship" of the New
Testament. He quotes Robert Browning on John, the last apostle, expiring
in concealment:
When
my ashes scatter, 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 poignant question
is still 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, 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 community5 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 Colossians9) 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 objections14 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 Antioch18 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. Barrett20 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 geographically22 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 Ep-esus,
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 tradition25 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 Epistles26 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."35
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.
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. Best39 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 (1Peter42), 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.
… 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}
The church, 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 ec-clesiology 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 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 The Community of the
Beloved Disciple I discussed in detail what may have contributed
to the development of the profound Johannine insight into Jesus' wisdom
and power; 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.
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).
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 13:3,11,24,31), a treasure
or pearl (Mt 13:44,45), a fishnet (Mt 13:47), a vineyard (Mt 21:28,31,33,43),
a royal wedding banquet (Mt 22:2). But in John, except for Jn 3:3,5,
"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 15:1,5); I am the
sheepgate or the shepherd (Jn 10:7,9,11,14); I am the bread of life
come down from heaven (Jn 6:35,41,51); 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."126
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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?"
137
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.
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 sheep - 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,2
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 as seen in the pages of the Fourth Gospel
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?
The first and greatest
strength comes from the fact that an individual relationship to
Jesus on the part of church members is a nee- {96} essary 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
centrali-ty 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. 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.
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.
A second strength in
Johannine ecclesiology is its egalitarian-ism, 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.
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.
{102}
The church, in the
Epistles of John
A Community of Individuals Guided by the Paraclete-Spirit
Raymond E. Brown, The
Churches The Apostles Left Behind (Chapter 7.)
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.
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 Christians144 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.)
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 9:31,33). 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 8:40,44).
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) 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 7:40-43,52; 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.
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 alone151) 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 foren- {107} sic 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).
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."152
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.
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
author154 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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 8:43-46,55). 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
15:12,17). 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).
Fourth Weakness: uncontrollable
divisions caused by appeal to the Paraclete. Perhaps the most serious
weakness in Johannine ec-clesiology 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} |
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