Die Herrlichkeit Des Gekreuzigten: Studien Zu Den Johanneischen Schriften I (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament) (German Edition) 9783161507823, 9783161565403, 9781481309097, 3161507827

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JÖRG FREY t r ans lat e d b y

WAYNE COPPINS CHRISTOPH HEILIG

GLORY CRUCIFIED ONE

The

of the

C H R I S T O L O G Y and T H E O L O G Y in the G O S P E L of J O H N

The Glory of the Crucified One

Wayne Coppins and Simon Gathercole Series Editors ALSO AVAILABLE From Jesus to the New Testament

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Jens Schröter (2013)

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Christoph Markschies (2015)

The Gospel according to Luke Volume I: Luke 1–9:50

Michael Wolter (2016) The Gospel according to Luke Volume II: Luke 9:51–24

Michael Wolter (2017)

The Glory of the Crucified One

Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John

Jörg Frey

Translated by Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS

Mohr Siebeck

© 2018 by Baylor University Press Waco, Texas 76798 All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of Baylor University Press. Cover design by Natalya Balnova. The German version of chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11 of this book are taken from Jörg Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den Johanneischen Schriften I, ed. J. Schlegel, WUNT 307 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), published with the ISBN 978-3-16-150782-3. This English edition is published in Germany by Mohr Siebeck with the ISBN 978-3-16-156540-3. Distributors For all other countries Baylor University Press One Bear Place #97363 Waco, Texas 76798 USA

For Europe and the UK Mohr Siebeck Wilhelmstr. 18, Postfach 20 40 D-72010 Tübingen Germany

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Contents

Editors’ Introduction

vii

My Journey with John An Introduction to the Present Collection

xi

Part 1 Interpreting the Gospel of John 1

Approaches to the Interpretation of John

3

Part 2 The Character of John’s Gospel 2

‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John and the ‘Parting of the Ways’

39

3

The Fusion of Temporal Horizons in the Gospel of John

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4

Johannine Dualism Reflections on Its Background and Function

101

Part 3 Death, Resurrection, and Glory 5

The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John

171

6

Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John

199

7

The Glory of the Crucified One

237

v

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Contents

Part 4 Christology and Theology 8

The Incarnation of the Logos and the Dwelling of God in Jesus Christ

261

9

Jesus as the Image of God in the Gospel of John

285

God in the Gospel of John

313

10

Part 5 John and New Testament Theology 11

Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology

347

Bibliography

377

Original Publication Information

425

Index of Ancient Sources

429

Index of Authors

449

Editors’ Introduction

The Baylor–Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early Christianity series aims to facilitate increased dialogue between German and Anglophone scholarship by making recent German research available in English translation. In this way, we hope to play a role in the advancement of our common field of study. The target audience for the series is primarily scholars and graduate students, though some volumes may also be accessible to advanced undergraduates. In selecting books for the series, we will especially seek out works by leading German scholars that represent outstanding contributions in their own right and also serve as windows into the wider world of German-language scholarship. As holder of a chair in New Testament (with specialisms in Ancient Judaism and Hermeneutics) at the University of Zürich, Jörg Frey is one of the most prominent scholars of early Christianity in the world today. In addition to being the editor of the Mohr Siebeck series Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (WUNT), he is especially well known for his research in Johannine literature, the Catholic epistles, early Judaism, and New Testament theology. His major Johannine publications include his three-volume work on Johannine eschatology (1997b; 1998; 2000b); his first volume of collected essays, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten (2013a); and his forthcoming three-volume commentary on the Gospel of John for the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (EKKNT) series. The present volume, The Glory of the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John (trans. W. Coppins and C. Heilig; BMSEC 6; Baylor University Press, 2018), consists of seven essays from Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten and four essays from his most recent Johannine publications. Outside of Johannine studies, his recent publications include a commentary on Jude and 2 Peter (The Letter of Jude and the Second Letter of Peter [trans. K. Ess; Baylor vii

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University Press, 2018]; originally published as Der Brief des Judas und der Zweite Brief des Petrus [Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015]), a published edition of his 2018 Shaffer Lectures on Christology and historicity in the Fourth Gospel (Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel: Tradition and Narration [Baylor University Press, 2018]), a second volume of collected essays (Von Jesus zur neutestamentliche Theologie [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016]), and numerous edited volumes (e.g., Glaube. Das Verständnis des Glaubens in frühen Christentum und in seiner jüdischen und hellenistisch-römischen Umwelt [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017]). In addition to the information about his research provided at Jörg Frey’s university webpage, a list of his English-language publications can be found at Wayne Coppins’ blog, German for Neutestamentler. The volume itself begins with a substantial introduction by Jörg Frey, which both traces his journey with John and presents a contextualization and summary of each of the chapters. As indicated there, the eleven essays that follow have been jointly selected by the editors and Jörg Frey. In making our selection, we have prioritized key issues in Johannine studies, topics in which Frey has especially advanced the discussion, and areas of research that have generated particular interest in recent scholarship on early Christianity. Moreover, we have attempted to structure the volume in such a way that the individual chapters build upon each other, enabling readers to see how the particular dynamics of Frey’s approach inform his treatment of key topics and questions in Johannine studies. The body of the volume is framed by two far-reaching contributions in part 1 and part 5. Chapter 1 situates Frey’s own reading of the Gospel in relation to five classic approaches to its interpretation, while chapter 11 concisely draws together central lines of Frey’s interpretation and advances the bold thesis that Johannine thought forms the climax of New Testament theology. Building on chapter 1, the three chapters of part 2 shed particular light on Frey’s understanding of the character of John’s Gospel with reference to ‘the Jews’ in John and the ‘parting of the ways,’ the fusion of temporal horizons in John, and the dualistic motifs and revelatory dynamic of the Gospel. As a concrete way of expressing the special weight that Jörg Frey attaches to the event(s) of the “hour” of Jesus, we have intentionally placed the three chapters of part 3 at the very center of the volume, i.e., the chapters on Jesus’ death, resurrection, and glorification. Chapter 7 bears the same title as the volume itself both because we think that it reflects the dynamics of Frey’s Johannine interpretation with particular clarity and because it forms a bridge to the three chapters on Christology and theology in part 4. In other words, it effectively conveys Frey’s conviction that the believing reflection on the glorification of the crucified one formed the basis—at least noetically—of the evangelist’s developed Christology

Editors’ Introduction

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and theology. The decision to devote three chapters to Christology and theology was motivated not only by the importance of these topics in the history of interpretation but also by the lively interest in this area of research in current New Testament scholarship. While the volume covers much ground, it is important to stress that our aim has been to provide a rich sample rather than a comprehensive picture of Frey’s Johannine interpretation. With regard to the translators’ divided allegiance to the source and target languages, Wayne Coppins and Christoph Heilig have generally attempted to adhere closely to the German wording, while allowing for some adjustments for the sake of clarity and readability in English. In some cases, of course, our communication with Frey has led to more extensive reformulations and occasionally to minor additions or subtractions vis-à-vis the German version. With respect to Frey’s quotations of primary and secondary literature, we have sometimes provided our own translations and sometimes quoted from existing translations. When possible, we have provided references to both the German version (GV) and the English translation (ET) of a given work in the footnotes. Unless there is potential ambiguity, we have provided only the chapter and verse numbers for parenthetical references to the Gospel of John, i.e., (13.32) rather than (John 13.32). From among the many challenges of translation, a few translation decisions may be noted here. The German term Anfechtung has usually been translated with “trial(s),” whereas we have normally used “tribulation” for the term Bedrängnis. We have generally translated the term uranfänglich with “primordial,” even when this term is used to refer to a time before creation. With a view to readability, the word sachlich has sometimes been left untranslated, sometimes rendered with “material” or “materially,” and sometimes translated with more precise options such as “in terms of substance.” Despite reservations, we have translated the technical terms Literarkritik and literarkritisch with “source criticism” and “source-critical.” For reasons of precision, the terms Urchristentum and urchristlich have been translated with “primitive Christianity” and “primitive Christian.” The technical term zeitgeschichtlich has usually been rendered with “contemporary-historical.” We have rendered the difficult term Spitzenaussage(n) with the English phrase “pointed statement(s).” Finally, as with all of the BMSEC volumes, we have preserved the German typographical distinction between single quotation marks, indicating emphasis or non-literal usage, and double quotation marks, indicating quoted text. I (Wayne Coppins) would especially like to thank my cotranslator, Christoph Heilig, for his excellent work throughout the translation process. In addition to catching numerous major blunders, he has significantly improved the accuracy and readability of the translation at countless points.

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As with previous translations, I am also grateful to Simon Gathercole for his careful reading of the entire manuscript and for his many concrete suggestions for improvement. Likewise, Christoph and I are thankful to Jörg Frey for answering our many questions and giving us such extensive feedback on the translation as a whole. Finally, I am thankful to my wife, Ingie Hovland, and my daughters, Sophia and Simone, for creating space in our life for my translation work. Both editors wish to express their thanks to Henning Ziebritzki at Mohr Siebeck and Carey Newman at Baylor University Press for their exceptional support and guidance in the continued development of this series. Likewise, we are thankful to the many people at Baylor University Press who have given us concrete assistance and guidance along the way, especially Diane Smith, Jenny Hunt, and Cade Jarrell. Finally, a word of thanks to our copyeditor Dan Khan and proofreader Carrie Watterson, both of whom were indispensable in fine-tuning and polishing this book. Wayne Coppins and Simon Gathercole Athens, Georgia, and Cambridge, England February 2018

My Journey with John

An Introduction to the Present Collection

The Gospel of John is one of the most fascinating and powerful texts of world literature and, according to a broad consensus of interpreters over the centuries, the most precious Gospel of the New Testament. Its impact—not only on Christian doctrine and theology, but also on Western philosophy, on poetry and literature, on fine arts, and on church music—is immense, and the spiritual depth of its metaphorical world has attracted sophisticated interpreters as well as simple readers from very different traditions of Christian spirituality. As Robert Kysar aptly phrased it, the Gospel of John “is a book in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim.”1 Personally, I have experienced this fascination as a scholar, theologian, preacher, and also simple reader of this Gospel, and since the time of my studies in Tübingen, thirty years ago, I have considered the task of interpreting John as a joyful burden or a burdenful joy, which steadily provides new insights and even more questions for a lifetime. 1. My Background, Scholarly Interests, and Previous Works on John Reading relevant and meaningful texts is never completely independent from the reader’s own context, and only if this is conceded can we honestly try to let the texts speak their own word and to understand them historically and theologically within their proper context. Therefore, I will briefly introduce readers to my own background and to the movements of scholarly inquiry that lie behind or accompany the studies in Johannine

1

Kysar 1975, 6. xi

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literature and theology that have been translated for the present volume,2 before I briefly sketch their scholarly framework and aims. Having grown up within the pietistic ecclesiastical context of a Swabian village (in southern Germany), I started studying Protestant theology in Tübingen, which in the 1980s was the most vibrant place for studying theology and in particular biblical theology, with well-known scholars such as Martin Hengel, Peter Stuhlmacher, Hartmut Gese, Eberhard Jüngel, and Jürgen Moltmann. Though primarily aiming at ministry in the Protestant Lutheran church and not at a scholarly career, I had always been convinced that serving in the church demands the most thorough intellectual training possible. In the confidence that the truth of Christ can face and stand any critical observations and questions, if it is not merely an ideology, I was never attracted by the anxious attempts of some pious circles to delimit historical or theological inquiry to issues of practical value or to avoid certain critical questions, since, in such attempts, the perception of phenomena is unnecessarily and inappropriately narrowed. It was in particular Martin Hengel3 (later to be my academic mentor) who impressed me as a first-semester student with his unique combination of theological intentions and historical reasoning and, in particular, with his immense knowledge of sources from Enoch and Qumran through Josephus and Irenaeus down to Greco-Roman thought and rabbinic literature. From the wealth of sources and texts outside the New Testament, I could breathe the fresh air and discover new perceptions of the well-known biblical texts. Hengel steadily challenged his students with the idea that those who only know the New Testament do not know anything about the New Testament, so scholarly perception has to include a wide range of sources and phenomena in order to get an appropriate framework for interpreting the biblical texts within their world. It could not escape our attention that this was polemically directed against leading traditions of scholarship, including the Bultmann school with its lack of interest in ancient Judaism as well as in history, but also more recent tendencies in international scholarship focusing on ‘new’ fashionable methods while neglecting historical questions and insights.4 2 The following paragraphs incorporate some aspects from my autobiographical introduction to the second volume of my collected essays, i.e., Frey 2016a (Von Jesus zur neutestamentlichen Theologie), 3–26: “Eine persönliche Zwischenbilanz: Mein Weg vom Lesen des Neuen Testament zur Neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft.” 3 Cf. also my biographical essay “Martin Hengel as Theological Teacher” (Frey 2012d). 4 Cf. in particular Hengel’s presidential address from the Chicago Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS) meeting in 1993 (ET): “Tasks of New Testament Scholarship” (Hengel 1996a). Cf. also Hengel 2012: “A Young Discipline in Crisis.”

My Journey with John

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As a second-term student, I became fascinated by his course on the problems of the “Johannine Question”5 and wrote my first extensive seminar paper, “The Literary and Theological Unity of the Johannine Farewell Discourses,” critically investigating the redaction-critical approaches on John, which had been developed since the 1970s. I was soon offered a position as a student assistant, and, being involved in Hengel’s wide-ranging research activities and privileged to attend his famous research seminars, every second Friday from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., I was soon ‘infected’ by the virus of research and scholarship. After my final exams in 1988, Hengel called and commissioned me to solve the problems of Johannine eschatology, which he considered the key problem of Johannine interpretation, at least in the shadow of Bultmann and his influential school. There I stood, with a doctoral project I had not chosen myself and with no guess about the ways of solving the problems that so many scholars had already written about. I could not imagine where that project would finally lead me. The study grew larger than originally planned and was later split into a doctoral dissertation and a habilitation thesis. It took me almost nine years to come to terms with the problems of Johannine eschatology and finally to publish a three-volume work in which the matter is discussed from a threefold perspective: the history of modern research (vol. 1), the linguistic perspective of the usage of Greek tenses and the underlying concepts of time (vol. 2), and, of course, a thorough interpretation of all the related texts in the Epistles and the Gospel of John (vol. 3).6 Soon after the completion of that trilogy, I was invited by Ulrich Luz, the editor of the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar, to take over the task of writing the commentary on John in that renowned series, under consideration of its wide reception history, because the author previously commissioned, the Zurich New Testament scholar Hans Weder, had been appointed to become president (Rektor) of the University of Zurich and was, therefore, unable to complete his commentary project.7 From that point in time, I was aware that my lifelong scholarly destiny was to explore and interpret the Fourth Gospel or Johannine literature as a whole. Of course, I could never have done this work appropriately by only working on John. As a student of Martin Hengel, I was always challenged to work within a wide range of themes and scholarly interests and with 5 Cf. later Hengel 1989a: The Johannine Question; see also the enlarged German edition, i.e., Hengel 1993: Die johanneische Frage. 6 Frey 1997b; 1998; 2000b. 7 Cf., however, as a sample, Weder’s hermeneutical interpretation of the Johannine Prologue, i.e., Weder 2008: Anfang im Unvordenklichen. Eine theologische Auslegung des Johannesprologs. On Hans Weder’s scholarship, see also Frey 2018a: “Hans Weder als Neutestamentler und Hermeneutiker.”

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numerous other texts and sources, from Second Temple Judaism (and in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls), but also from early Christian Apocrypha8 and second-century authors. Moreover, the duties of professorship in the theological faculties of the universities in Jena, Munich, and Zurich demanded that I cover the full range of the New Testament writings in teaching and research, from the quest for the historical Jesus via aspects of Pauline mission and theology9 and the Catholic Epistles10 to the overarching issues of New Testament literature and theology.11 Teaching students in preparation for ministry demands that one combine the highest standards of philological and historical inquiry with the quest for the theological meaning of the texts and dimensions of their practical applications. All those duties have deepened my studies on John and the Johannine literature, and I do hope that also the chapters assembled in the present volume can demonstrate how my approach has been able to benefit from the various other scholarly interests and themes. I can illustrate this in three dimensions: (a) The History of Research: From the beginning of my doctoral work, I have given attention to the history of modern New Testament research. In authors such as Johann Gottfried Herder, Ferdinand Christian Baur, Julius Wellhausen, and Rudolf Bultmann, certain problems of modernity can be studied in particular clarity, as those early scholars often formulate their leading considerations and criteria more openly than later scholars. The question of why Johannine eschatology appeared more acceptable to modern Christianity than certain Synoptic or Pauline views can best be studied in the authors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for they are open in their clear verdicts and intentions, whereas the same general verdicts in the work of modern scholars are often expressed with greater caution and veiled behind subtle methodological considerations. Thus, a close acquaintance with earlier scholarship can help us enormously in understanding and contextualizing current scholarship. Therefore, many of my articles draw on earlier Johannine scholarship and discuss contemporary contributions against the background of the findings of ‘classic’ interpreters. 8 Cf., e.g., my work on the Jewish Christian Gospel tradition in Frey 2012b: “Die Fragmente judenchristlicher Evangelien.” See also the overview in Frey 2015c: “Texts about Jesus: Non-canonical Gospels and Related Literature.” 9 Cf. the essays in Frey 2016a: Von Jesus zur neutestamentliche Theologie. For Paul’s Jewish context, see Frey 2007e (“Paul’s Jewish Identity”); 2012c (“The Jewishness of Paul”); and 2015d (“Paul the Apostle: A Life between Mission and Captivity”). 10 Cf. my commentary on Jude and 2 Peter, i.e., Frey 2015e (ET = 2018b). 11 Cf. my second volume of collected essays, i.e., Frey 2016a: Von Jesus zur neutestamentliche Theologie.

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(b) The Quest for Context and Background: One of the fields of my most intensive research apart from John has been early Jewish texts, in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls and their impact on biblical scholarship.12 Since the release of the majority of Qumran fragments and texts in the 1990s, most of the earlier views that had been developed soon after the first discoveries have had to be revisited and modified. Whereas the discovery of the scrolls had forced scholarship in the 1950s and 1960s to rediscover the Jewish background of many early Christian ideas, terms, phrases, and texts (including the Johannine Gospel and Epistles), the insights from the numerous ‘new’ fragments and texts have also called for more caution and differentiation with regard to overall hypotheses. Apart from the specific ‘sectarian’ texts, a large number of probably ‘nonsectarian’ texts, coming from a wide range of Second Temple Jewish literary production, now seem even more important for New Testament scholarship. Particularly from the investigation of the new wisdom texts from the Qumran library, I arrived at a more nuanced evaluation of the issues of the dualisms in Qumran and in the Johannine language, their origins, and their functions.13 Contrary to some earlier suggestions, I could not confirm any direct influence from the Qumran community or its texts on the Johannine community or the Fourth Gospel. Therefore, the Jewish elements in John have to be explained from a larger variety of scriptural, Palestinian, or diaspora Jewish sources and not from a direct relationship between Qumran and the Johannine community or author.14 This example demonstrates the relevance of thoroughly investigating the historical and history-of-religion backgrounds of the early Christian texts. This is one of the exegetical tasks that Martin Hengel had always emphasized: it is not enough just to explain what a text says. We have to understand the New Testament texts from their appropriate Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts, i.e., from the world that shaped them. The question of sources and backgrounds may often be unanswerable, but it is never irrelevant for the interpretation, and, where historical questions are pushed aside, we should always be suspicious of anachronistic readings or even ideological usage of texts. Therefore, it was one of my foremost 12 Cf. the overview in Frey 2006c: “The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on New Testament Interpretation: Proposals, Problems and Further Perspectives.” See also Frey 2012e: “Qumran Research and Biblical Scholarship in Germany.” 13 Cf. Frey 1997a: “Different Patterns of Dualism in the Qumran Library” and 2009e: “Recent Perspectives on Johannine Dualism and Its Background.” These investigations form the background for the study of the function of dualistic language in John in chapter 4 in the present volume: “Johannine Dualism: Reflections on Its Background and Function” (GV = Frey 2013a, 409–82). 14 Cf. Frey 2012a: “The Diaspora-Jewish Background of the Fourth Gospel.”

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concerns to clarify the relationship of the Fourth Gospel to its scriptural backgrounds, to the Scrolls and Palestinian Jewish traditions, and to the Synoptic Gospels and other early Christian traditions, and to explore the identity and composition of the communities addressed as well as the use and function of the Ioudaioi in John. In spite of its general claims of truth “for all Christians,”15 the Fourth Gospel was composed and edited within a particular context with specific challenges of the communities in view, and it is far from being irrelevant to illuminate those contexts as far as possible. (c) The Quest for Theological Claims: On the other hand, it is insufficient to merely explain the historical background or the composition history of a text without perceiving its far-reaching theological claims. The Fourth Gospel claims to phrase the ultimate truth about God and Christ, about humans and their life and destiny, and an appropriate reading has to notice those claims and to interpret them within the framework suggested by the text itself, the framework of the Scriptures and of Christology. This does not mean to downplay the historical problems and even dangers of such a text, for example, in its polemics against “the Jews” or in its reaction to the secession of previous community members (cf. 1 John 2.18-22). A thorough theological interpretation does not mean uncritical assent to its claims but rather opens up space for critical questions and the perception of problems that show up in the dialogue with other biblical texts or in its later reception. Such a sober consideration of the value and the dangers of the Gospel within the context of the biblical canon and also in view of the later utilization of the text is indispensable for any responsible usage of John in contemporary spirituality and church. My own exegetical interests have shifted somewhat over the years. From my qualifying theses, which were still more strongly influenced by the views and interests of my supervisor, Martin Hengel, I moved on to distinctive perspectives of my own. While my doctoral dissertation, which focused on the history and traditions of Johannine scholarship,16 was strongly dominated by the critical debate with the Bultmann school and its view of eschatology17 and with the source-critical and redaction-critical approaches that had become fashionable in the 1970s and 1980s, the second step, my habilitation thesis, was more focused on philological and narrative methods and on the concept of time and the narrative perspective

15

This programmatic title of the volume edited by Richard Bauckham is certainly also justified with regard to John. See Bauckham 1998. 16 Volume 1 of Die johanneische Eschatologie (Frey 1997b). 17 A more recent summary of my critical discussion with Bultmann can be found in Frey 2014d: “Johannine Christology and Eschatology.”

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in John.18 Struggling with the different approaches of Johannine interpretation, in particular the debate between the strictly opposed patterns of interpretation advocated by Bultmann and Käsemann, I found myself inclined to the pneumatological approach as established first by Günther Bornkamm and then by Ferdinand Hahn and some of his students.19 This approach starts from the narratological observation of the Gospel’s standpoint in the post-Easter community and interprets the Johannine image of Jesus as a retrospective memory from the post-Easter situation, which was—according to the claims of the Gospel—crafted by the reminding activity of the Spirit-Paraclete (14.25-26; 16.13-15) who had brought the community of disciples to a new understanding of Jesus’ words, deeds, and fate, to the deeper insight into the true meaning of his death and into his true identity and dignity (cf. 2.22 and 12.16). After a further clarification of the history-of-religion issues,20 in particular with regard to the Dead Sea Scrolls,21 and the question of the narrative sources of the Fourth Gospel, i.e., its relationship with the Synoptics,22 my focus moved toward more theological issues: the Johannine understanding of the death of Jesus and the function of the cross,23 the relationship between “flesh” and “glory” and the idea of Jesus’ glorification in his “hour,”24 the notion of God’s “love” as revealed in the death of Jesus,25 the contribution of the Johannine tradition to the Christian view of God,26 18

Thus in particular in volume 2 of Die johanneische Eschatologie (Frey 1998). A brief summary of the findings can be found in chapter 3 of the present volume: “The Fusion of Temporal Horizons in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2013d). 19 Cf. in particular Onuki 1984 (Gemeinde und Welt im Johannesevangelium. Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der theologischen und pragmatischen Funktion des johanneischen ‘Dualismus’) and Hoegen-Rohls 1996 (Der nachösterliche Johannes). See also the further references in chapter 3 of the present volume as well as chapter 7 on the concept of doxa in John. 20 Cf. Frey/Schnelle 2004 (Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums) and from this edited volume my essay “Auf der Suche nach dem Kontext des vierten Evangeliums” (reprinted in Frey 2013a, 45–88), which could not be included in the present volume. 21 Cf. the articles mentioned in note 13 above. 22 See Frey 2013a, 239–93: “Das vierte Evangelium auf dem Hintergrund der älteren Evangelientradition. Zum Problem: Johannes und die Synoptiker,” which could not be included in the present volume. 23 See the extensive discussion in Frey 2013a, 485–54: “Die theologia crucifixi des Johannesevangeliums,” which could not be included in the present volume. See also chapter 5 in the present volume: “The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2013a, 555–84). 24 See chapter 7 in the present volume: “The Glory of the Crucified One” (GV = Frey 2013a, 639–62). 25 See Frey 2016a, 621–46: “ ‘God Is Love’: On the Textual Tradition and Semantics of a Core Expression of the Christian Notion of God.” 26 See chapter 10 in the present volume: “God in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2012f).

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the understanding of Christ as the image of God and Johannine Christology,27 the concept of incarnation and the adoption of the concept of God’s “dwelling” in Jesus (1.14b),28 the much debated issue of ‘docetism’ or ‘anti-docetism,’29 bodiliness and resurrection,30 the double hermeneutics of the Johannine semeia-narratives,31 and the character of Johannine pneumatology and the Johannine view of the personality of the Holy Spirit.32 A brief but somewhat comprehensive summary was presented in my Munich valedictory lecture from February 2010 on Johannine theology as the climax of New Testament theological thought.33 Having now investigated the major theological issues, I cannot consider the exegetical exploration completed. Initial answers create even more subsequent questions, and I am about to explore more thoroughly the multidimensionality of the Fourth Gospel. Some of my recent studies on the various dimensions in the dramatic account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate,34 on the understanding of the Logos in the Johannine Prologue in the context of a plurality of history-of-religion concepts,35 and on the “prototypical sign” at Cana (2.1-11) as a multidimensional text drawing on different scriptural and symbolic ‘screens’36 have taught me again that the Fourth Gospel is not a text with a clear and definite ‘meaning’ but a world of metaphors that open up various paths of reading or a plurality of dimensions, and the art of reading and interpreting is in many cases not to decide on right or wrong but to observe and grasp the interplay between 27

See chapter 9 in the present volume: “Jesus as the Image of God in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2016g). 28 See chapter 8 in the present volume: “The Incarnation of the Logos and Dwelling of God in Jesus Christ” (GV = Frey 2014c). Cf. also Frey 2013c: “God’s Dwelling on Earth: ‘Shekhina-Theology’ in Revelation 21 and in the Gospel of John.” 29 See Frey 2016b: “Die johanneische Theologie zwischen ‘Doketismus’ und ‘Antidoketismus.’Auseinandersetzungen und Trennungsprozesse im Hintergrund der johanneischen Schriften und ihrer Rezeption.” 30 See chapter 6 in the present volume: “Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2013a, 699–738). 31 See Frey 2015b: “From the Sēmeia Narratives to the Gospel as a Significant Narrative: On Genre-Bending in the Johannine Miracle Stories.” 32 See Frey 2014e: “How Did the Spirit Become a Person?” 33 See chapter 11 in the present volume: “Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology” (GV = Frey 2013a, 803–33). 34 See Frey 2014b: “Jesus und Pilatus. Der wahre König und der Repräsentant des Kaisers im Johannesevangelium.” 35 See Frey 2016e: “Between Torah and Stoa: How Could Readers Have Understood the Johannine Logos.” 36 See Frey 2017b: “Das prototypische Zeichen (Joh 2:1-11). Eine KommentarStudie.” For the language of ‘screens,’ see Olsson 1974: Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel.

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the various levels and aspects of the text or also between the text and its possible contexts. But these observations again strengthen the fascination about the wealth and depth of the Johannine text. 2. The Present Volume Eighteen studies on John (and the Johannine Epistles) were put together in the collection Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten, which was basically compiled in 2009/2010 and finally appeared with Mohr Siebeck in 2013.37 Most of the essays were in German, with only three in English. In that massive collection of almost nine hundred pages, the first part was focused on fundamental issues of Johannine interpretation,38 John’s history-ofreligion background,39 the utilization of the Scriptures and rabbinic parallels,40 the possible impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls,41 and John’s relationship with the Synoptics.42 Two smaller sections include explorations of the character and composition of the community of addressees43 and on the image and function of the Ioudaioi in the Gospel,44 on John’s metaphoricism as an argument for the unity of John 6,45 and on the function of the dualistic language of John.46 The second half of the volume, then, contains nine studies on major theological themes in John: the understanding of Jesus’ death47 and the Johannine ‘theology of the crucified one,’48 the quest 37 Frey 2013a: Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den johanneischen Schriften I. 38 See chapter 1 in the present volume: “Approaches to the Interpretation of John” (GV = 2013a, 3–41). 39 See Frey 2013a, 45–88: “Auf der Suche nach dem Kontext des vierten Evangeliums.” 40 See Frey 2013a, 89–145: “ ‘Wie Mose die Schlange in der Wüste erhöht hat . . .’ Zur frühjüdischen Deutung der ‘ehernen Schlange’ und ihrer christologischen Rezeption in Johannes 3,14f.” 41 See Frey 2013a, 147–237: “Licht aus den Höhlen? Der ‘johanneische Dualismus’ und die Texte von Qumran.” 42 See Frey 2013a, 239–93: “Das vierte Evangelium auf dem Hintergrund der älteren Evangelientradition. Zum Problem: Johannes und die Synoptiker.” 43 See Frey 2013a, 297–338: “Heiden—Griechen—Gotteskinder. Zu Gestalt und Funktion der Rede von den Heiden im vierten Evangelium.” 44 See chapter 2 in the present volume: “ ‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John and the ‘Parting of the Ways’ ” (GV = Frey 2013a, 339–77). 45 See Frey 2013a, 381–408: “Das Bild als Wirkungspotenzial. Ein rezeptionsästhetischer Versuch zur Funktion der Brot-Metapher in Johannes 6.” 46 See chapter 4 in the present volume: “Johannine Dualism: Reflections on Its Background and Function” (GV = Frey 2013a, 409–82). 47 See chapter 5 in the present volume: “The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2013a, 555–84). 48 See Frey 2013a, 485–554: “Die theologia crucifixi des Johannesevangeliums.”

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for ‘salvation history’ and the reference to history in John,49 the Johannine concept of glory (doxa) and the relationship between ‘flesh’ and glory,’50 the concept of eschatology,51 the bodiliness of resurrection,52 the theme of love,53 Johannine ethics,54 and, finally, Johannine theology as the climactic expression of New Testament theology in its teaching about God, Christ, and the Spirit.55 The idea to produce an English translation of that volume, suggested by Wayne Coppins as translator and coeditor of the Baylor–Mohr Siebeck series, gave me the opportunity to reconfigure the collection, particularly because the translated volume could include only a smaller selection of essays. Thus, the present volume is not an exact rendering of its German counterpart, although the English title (The Glory of the Crucified One) is an exact rendering of the German title. This is not meant to cause confusion, but the title is a programmatic expression of what I consider the main message of the Gospel of John: this post-Easter memory or ‘anamnesis’ of the Jesus story aims at communicating that Jesus, who was crucified, has actually been glorified and is present in the realm of God, and in spite of his apparent absence from this world he is present in the community of believers through the Spirit as the divine giver of true and eternal life, as the true king who reigns over all those who listen to his voice. There is no euphemistic concealment of the cruel reality of Jesus’ death on the cross, but the narrative of his trial and his crucifixion is deliberately designed to lead the readers to the perception of the truth behind the scenes, the truth of faith that is visualized in John’s narration and explained in his interpretive remarks, so that—in the end—the readers should contemplate the ‘pierced’ or crucified one (cf. 19.37) as the source of their life and their communion with God. I like to compare the Johannine image of Christ to a Byzantine icon: it shows the image of Jesus quite directly facing the observer (as the Gospel does in Jesus’ I-am sayings), but the image is 49

See Frey 2013a, 585–637: “Heil und Geschichte im Johannesevangelium. Zum Problem der ‘Heilsgeschichte’ und zum fundamentalen Geschichtsbezug im vierten Evangelium.” 50 See chapter 7 in the present volume: “The Glory of the Crucified One” (GV = Frey 2013a, 639–62). 51 See Frey 2013a, 663–98: “Eschatology in the Johannine Circle.” 52 See chapter 6 in the present volume: “Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John” (GV = Frey 2013a, 699–738). 53 See Frey 2013a, 739–66: “Love Relations in the Fourth Gospel: Establishing a Semantic Network.” 54 See Frey 2013a, 767–802: “ ‘Ethical’ Traditions, Family Ethos, and Love in the Johannine Tradition.” 55 See chapter 11 in the present volume: “Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology” (GV = Frey 2013a, 803–33).

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painted on a golden background and surrounded by the aura of his divine glory, thus visualizing what is not visible to the sheer physical perception. Thus, the Johannine text visualizes the hidden glory of the crucified one, and its subtle narrative technique and didactic strategy can be observed throughout the Gospel. This is, in my view, the textually observable reason for its ongoing fascination and spiritual impact. For the present English translation, the articles originally written in English56 could be left out. A further selection was necessary due to space restrictions, and, in dialogue with the editors of the Baylor–Mohr Siebeck series, we decided to omit some quite lengthy articles, especially from the first section on historical issues, in order to focus more strongly on a selection of theological themes. We further included four more recent articles, which were not yet part of the German collection but nicely supplement the thematic framework of the volume. Thus, the BMSEC collection is now quite different from the WUNT collection, freshly configured, with a stronger focus on theological issues. For the purpose of introduction, I will briefly sketch the original context and intention of the eleven chapters that follow. (a) Chapter 1, “Approaches to the Interpretation of John,” is a translation of the introductory essay of the German collection, originating from discussion within the circle of authors of the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar series, where I had to present and defend my own conception of the commentary and the major exegetical decisions. For that purpose, five paradigmatic approaches or reading strategies are described and critically discussed. The range of existing commentaries is surveyed, before I briefly describe a synthetic approach that starts with literary and narratological observations, continues with further historical contextualization and the quest for underlying traditions and sources, but finally aims at a theological interpretation that expresses and discusses the claims of the text and its theological subject matter, while also including reflections on its later reception and impact. The main decisions with regard to ‘introductory matters’ can be mentioned only quite briefly:57 I suggest that we read the Johannine text in its entirety (with only chapter 21 considered as an addition by the editors), but without isolating other additions by a post-Johannine redaction. A continuous narrative source (as, e.g., a signs source or a ‘Signs Gospel’), apart from the Synoptics, cannot be identified, nor can I see sufficient evidence for reckoning with a pre-Johannine Logos hymn or an independent 56 57

5–11.

See the essays mentioned in notes 51, 52, and 54 above. On these issues, cf. most thoroughly Hengel 1989a; 1993. See also Frey 2000b,

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pre-Johannine passion account. Apart from the Scriptures and the Synoptic tradition, the Gospel draws on community traditions, and its composition probably presupposes an extended period of proclamation and interpretation within a circle of related communities in Asia Minor after 70 CE. Some community traditions probably originated earlier in Jewish Palestine, but the ways of transmission can no longer be reconstructed. As I have explained elsewhere, I do not consider the author an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry or passion,58 and the attribution to the apostle John is more easily explained from a reading of the Gospel (especially the passages on the Beloved Disciple and John 1.35-40 against the background of Mark 1.16). With regard to the issue of authorship (which might also be unanswerable), I cautiously follow Martin Hengel’s suggestion that the teacher behind the Johannine tradition or even the author of the Gospel (and also the three epistles) might rather be the ‘elder’ or presbyteros John mentioned in Papias (according to Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.39.4)59 who was later blended with the image of the apostle John. Generally, however, the Gospel’s claim for truth is primarily theological rather than strictly historical (cf. 19.35; 21.24-25), with focus on the true identity of Jesus (20.30-31). (b) Chapter 2, “ ‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John and the ‘Parting of the Ways,’ ” takes up one of the most serious theological problems in the interpretation of John, the anti-Jewish polemics in the Fourth Gospel, and discusses various forms of its explanation and its possible historical background. The chapter was originally written as a contribution to the Festschrift for Johannes Beutler, a Jesuit scholar who has always been attentive to Jewish–Christian relations and the Jewish background of John.60 After a preliminary discussion of hermeneutical and ethical aspects of the debate about the Ioudaioi in the Gospel, the Johannine usage of this term is classified and interpreted within the context of the dramatic structure of the Gospel with the result that the negative view of the Ioudaioi dominates not the whole of the Gospel but merely chapters 2–12, i.e., the narrative of Jesus’ public ministry. For the historical explanation of the polemical passages, three scholarly patterns (by J. Louis Martyn, Raymond E. Brown, and Klaus Wengst) are discussed. The influential suggestion, first established 58 On the problems of Johannine authorship and the development of the legends about John, see Frey 2015a, esp. 90–118: “Das Corpus Johanneum und die Apokalypse des Johannes. Die Johanneslegende, die Probleme der johanneischen Verfasserschaft und die Frage der Pseudonymität der Apokalypse.” 59 This is particularly suggested by the mention of a presbyteros as author in 2 John 1 and 3 John 1. Cf. the extensive discussion in Hengel 1989a, 16–30. 60 Cf. most recently Beutler 2017: A Commentary on the Gospel of John (GV = 2013).

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by Martyn,61 that the aposynagogos passages point to a definitive ‘expulsion’ of Jewish Jesus believers from the synagogue by the rabbis of Yavneh and their rephrasing of the Birkat ha-Minim, the ‘curse on the heretics’ in the daily Jewish prayer Shmone Esre, has been thoroughly criticized in recent scholarship and cannot be maintained anymore. Therefore, the search for explanations of the Johannine anti-Jewish polemics and for a historical understanding of the so-called parting of the ways between Jesus followers and synagogal Jews has to look for alternatives. For that reason, the chapter considers the factors that could have contributed to the separation between Jewish Jesus followers and the diaspora synagogue and points particularly to the new taxation of all Jews by the Roman authorities after 70 CE, called the fiscus Iudaicus, which might have triggered the decision about who was actually a Jew and who did not belong to the synagogal community. Whereas an exact history of the Johannine communities cannot be reconstructed anymore, it should be kept in mind that the ‘parting of the ways’ did not merely happen for theological or christological reasons but was also influenced by sociopolitical factors. In the area of the Johannine communities, the split might have already happened some time before the composition of the Gospel, and the communities were mixed from originally Jewish and also Gentile Jesus believers. However, the debate with the synagogue was still vivid in the memory of at least parts of the Johannine communities, so that it influences the theological debates and the narrative depiction of the discussions between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries. Thus, the Johannine anti-Jewish polemics can be partly ‘explained’ from the history of the late first century, but it still remains a challenge for interpreters who have to be aware of the dangers of a text in which a dispute that was originally rooted in a particular historical constellation is now metaphorically widened, generalized, and transmitted to a historical situation that widely differs from that of its origins. (c) Chapter 3, “The Fusion of Temporal Horizons in the Gospel of John,” is actually a brief summary of the findings of my second volume on Die johanneische Eschatologie, published not in the German collection but only later in a yearbook under the title “The Presence of the Past and Future of Christ.”62 This rather complicated title is based on the observation that, in John, the three dimensions of past, present, and future are tightly tied together, but with a focus neither on the past nor on the future, 61

Martyn 1968; 1979; 2003 (History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel). Frey 2013d: “Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit und Zukunft Christi. Zur ‘Verschmelzung’ der Zeithorizonte im Johannesevangelium.” Cf. also volume 2 of Die johanneische Eschtatologie (Frey 1998). 62

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but on the present, in which the past of Jesus’ ministry and the eschatological future are made present. Unlike approaches that presuppose that the Gospel of John represents a ‘mystical,’ an ‘existential,’ or a ‘linear’ concept of time, the analysis starts from linguistic observations regarding the use of Greek tenses, the temporal references within the narrative, or contrasting temporal perspectives in a number of Johannine sayings, such as John 8.58 (“before Abraham was, I am”) or John 13.31-32, where the glorification is at the same time imminent and already completed. In some of the discourses, Jesus apparently looks back at events that are, in the flow of the narrative, still to come, such as his glorification (13.31), his victory (16.33), his ascent (3.13), or his departure from the world (17.11). From here, the chapter highlights a particular feature of John’s narrative handling of time: the intrusion of the post-Easter perspective into the narration of the pre-Easter ministry of Jesus. The two temporal horizons, the postEaster horizon of the evangelist and his contemporaries and the pre-Easter horizon of the narrated story and its figures, are fused in the Johannine text. The pre-Easter history of Jesus’ ministry is programmatically narrated from the post-Easter perspective and under the presupposition of the Easter events and the post-Easter understanding of the community of disciples. These observations are interpreted (with reference to Hans-Georg Gadamer’s phenomenology of understanding history) as a hermeneutical technique that aims at securing the relevance of the past history for understanding the challenges of the present: the history of Jesus is designed to be read not only as a past history, more or less accurately telling what actually happened at some time in the past, or only as a merely symbolic narrative aiming at the present yet uninterested in the events narrated. Instead, it is to be read always on two levels that are closely linked, and, through such a reading, the readers can arrive at a new understanding of their situation in the light of the freshly narrated story of the earthly Jesus. (d) Chapter 4, “Johannine Dualism: Reflections on Its Background and Function,” was originally presented at a symposium in honor of Jürgen Becker, one of the champions of the redaction-critical approach in the 1970s for whom ‘dualism’ was the main criterion for separating various layers within the Johannine tradition and for distinguishing different periods in the alleged development of the Johannine communities. Starting with a critical presentation of Becker’s reconstruction of the composition of John, the chapter first evaluates the rise and function of the category of dualism in Johannine research. After that, it presents the various elements of dualistic language in John and inquires into their respective history-of-religion background in the Scriptures, Jewish apocalypticism, and other traditions, with the result that there is not a single particular background for the various elements, and so ‘Johannine dualism’ cannot

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be explained from a single history-of-religion context (such as Qumran or Gnosticism). Rather than explaining these linguistic elements from certain sources or ideological contexts, they have to be interpreted with regard to their function in the narrative and in relation to the revelatory dynamics of the Gospel. Thus, the usage and development of the motif of light and darkness and of the opposition between the community and “the world” is thoroughly investigated. According to the views of the Japanese scholar Takashi Onuki,63 who adopts the ideas of Gadamer mentioned before, John’s ‘dualism’ helps to distance the addressees from the problems and trials of their own daily experience and to transfer the narrated story to a more general level, so that it can be read as a pattern for understanding the experiences of later communities. The rejection of the word can now be understood in light of the rejection of the incarnate Word (cf. 15.18) but also as a source of new hope and confidence since, according to the quintessence of the Johannine narrative (1.5), “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not (managed to) overcome it.” And as at the end of the Gospel (20.22-23), the disciples are commissioned and entrusted to do the work of Jesus, so the readers at the end of the reading process are commissioned to preach the gospel in spite of all the hatred and to maintain the hope that even the world will finally understand (cf. 17.21-26). (e) Chapter 5, “The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John,” was originally presented at a conference in Leuven (Belgium) under the title “Noble Death—Effective Death—Vicarious Death—Salvific Death,” discussing the various paradigms of describing the Johannine interpretation of the death of Jesus. It is obviously one of the foremost aims of the Gospel of John to interpret the death of Jesus, and in particular the scene in which Jesus dies (19.28-30) is the vanishing point of the Gospel narrative. The chapter discusses whether the Johannine narrative fits the ancient categories of a “noble death” and why this category is insufficient. Then the category of “effective death,” also known from Greek tragedies, is discussed, but also this category cannot do justice to the particular aspects of narrative place-taking in several Johannine scenes and to the description of Jesus’ death as vicarious death “for the people” and for the salvation from death (11.50-52 and 6.51). Finally, the category of an atoning or expiatory death is discussed as it is also implied in the Gospel, although the particular terminology of atonement is used only in 1 John and not in the Gospel. It can be observed that John accumulates various patterns of interpreting Jesus’ death in order to present this particular event to the readers as the 63

Onuki 1984: Gemeinde und Welt im Johannesevangelium. Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der theologischen und pragmatischen Funktion des johanneischen ‘Dualismus.’

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fulfilment of the Scriptures, the event of eschatological salvation, and the foundation of post-Easter faith. (f) Chapter 6, “Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John,” focuses on the aspect of resurrection in John and on the much-debated issue of spiritualizing or even ‘docetic’ traits in the Gospel narrative. The chapter critically examines the tendency of interpreters from the second century until the present to stress the ‘spiritual’ elements in John. It exhibits the numerous traces of bodiliness in the Johannine narrative, which is definitely not a mythical narrative but rather the narrative of a story located in space and time, with particular focus on the time or even the “hour” of Jesus’ death. Although Jesus’ suffering is less emphasized than in the Synoptics, his true humanity and physical death are beyond question. This is also confirmed by the bodily dimension in other Johannine episodes and the various references to sensory perception.64 The bodily dimension of the concept of resurrection is proleptically demonstrated in the Lazarus episode (11.1-44); it is then confirmed in the Easter narrative in John 20 where not only the disciples and Thomas become witnesses to Jesus’ bodily appearance (20.19-29) but also Mary Magdalene, who identifies Jesus from his address to her in the familiar ‘dialect’ “Maryam” (20.16). In particular, the Beloved Disciple as the paradigmatic believer understands and believes when he sees the physical ‘sign’ of the wellarranged linens in the tomb (20.6-7). While Lazarus still had to be freed from his bandages, Jesus apparently stripped them off by himself, and this demonstrates that the resurrection of Jesus widely differs from the temporary revivification of Lazarus. While Lazarus is a paradigm for the believers whom Jesus loves and saves, Jesus acts in the unique authority given to him from the Father to “lay down his life and to take it up again” (10.18). The Thomas episode (20.25-29) provides the ultimate proof that even in the post-Easter period, the bodily aspect of Jesus’ physical life and death on the cross is permanently relevant, as Jesus’ identity and divine dignity is ultimately perceived from the bodily signs, the wounds or scars65 pointing back to his physical existence and death. The theological consequence is that the cross never becomes obsolete due to the Easter events and that the bodily dimension is fundamental with regard to Jesus as well as with respect to the eschatological hope for resurrection and eternal life. (g) Chapter 7, “The Glory of the Crucified One,” on the Johannine concept of “glory” goes back to an invited main paper delivered at the 64 Cf., on this aspect, most recently Hirsch-Luipold 2017: Gott wahrnehmen. Die Sinne im Johannesevangelium. 65 Cf. now the interesting interpretation of the marks as scars in Moss 2017: “The Marks of the Nails: Scars, Wounds and the Resurrection of Jesus in John.”

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General Meeting of the Society for New Testament Studies (SNTS) in Sibiu (Romania) in 2007. The relationship between “flesh” and “glory” is one of the crucial themes in Johannine interpretation, with some interpreters emphasizing the aspect of his human “flesh” (1.14a) and the merely paradoxical nature of Jesus’ glory (Bultmann), whereas others see the Johannine accent on the “glory” (1.14b) of Jesus, which ultimately reflects the primordial glory of the preexistent one. A consequence of the latter view (advocated by Baur and Käsemann), however, is that Jesus’ death is seen only as a way station en route to his glory with no particular salvific value in itself, and the question is how such a view can stand in view of the narrative focus on Jesus’ death. A way out of this impasse can be found in the view that the Johannine description of Jesus’ glory is primarily inspired from the new insights attained in the post-Easter period, as the Gospel itself points to the post-Easter memory as the source of the true understanding of the disciples (cf. 2.22; 12.16). Such an interpretation is confirmed by the fact that the idea of Jesus’ glorification is particularly connected with his “hour” (12.23, 28; 13.31-32; 17.1) and thus predominantly ascribed to the events of his death and resurrection. Generally, the idea of Jesus’ glory as perceived in his ministry (cf. 2.11) and thus the striking difference between the Johannine and the Synoptic image of Jesus can be explained from the reinterpretation of the Jesus story from the postEaster perspective in which the post-Easter glory was inscribed into the narrative of the pre-Easter ministry. In general, John’s narrative aims at leading its readers to the perception of the glory of Jesus, the incarnate and crucified one. (h) Chapter 8, “The Incarnation of the Logos and the Dwelling of God in Jesus Christ,” is the translation of an essay that was not present in the German collection. The study of “the incarnation of the Logos and the dwelling of God in Christ,”66 which was originally rooted in a Tübingen conference on the biblical shekinah tradition, aims at interpreting the idea of incarnation, which is extremely important for later Christian doctrine but poses numerous exegetical problems. Most striking is the lack of appropriate parallels: there is no real analogy to a divine being that actually becomes incarnate or human, either in the Jewish tradition or in the Greco-Roman world. The idea of incarnation goes far beyond anything said about Jewish Wisdom or the Logos in Philo, and, according to other parallels from the history of religion, divine beings appear on earth for a limited time, and they come only seemingly in human shape. Thus, the 66

Frey 2014c: “Joh 1,14, die Fleischwerdung des Logos und die Einwohnung Gottes in Jesus Christus. Zur Bedeutung der ‘Schechina-Theologie’ für die johanneische Christologie.”

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phrase “the word became flesh” (1.14a) provides a riddle or a stumbling stone for any understanding, from Jewish as well as from Greco-Roman backgrounds. But while the idea of incarnation in John 1.14a remains strange and abstract, the phrase “and dwelled among us”—which is often ignored—takes up a rich biblical tradition about the dwelling of God (or his glory) in the tabernacle or in the Jerusalem temple, which was later adopted in the wisdom tradition (cf. Sir 24) and in eschatological expectations (such as in Rev 21.1-5). When the Johannine Prologue adopts the idea of God’s dwelling (shekinah) within his temple or his people, it not only transfers eschatological imagery to the earthly appearance and ministry of Jesus but also provides an image for understanding the divine presence in Jesus, long before the terminological clarifications of the later doctrine of the two natures. The consideration of the ‘shekinah’ tradition thus helps to overcome the enigma of the abstract motif of incarnation and to better understand the unity between the Father and the Son. (i) Chapter 9, “Jesus as the Image of God in the Gospel of John,” is the translation of a more recent article focusing on Johannine Christology,67 or more precisely on Jesus as the ‘image’ of the invisible God according to John 1.18 and 14.7, 9. In a survey of the different christological predications or ‘titles’ in John, it is shown that the Gospel is to be read from the key signature of the ‘high’ christological titles, “the Son,” or “God,” while the ‘lower’ christological titles, such as Messiah, the prophet, etc. do not fully express the true dignity of Jesus. Christology in John, however, is not only expressed by particular designations; it is also expressed in particular aspects of the narrative, and it is no coincidence that the statement that Jesus has “exposited the invisible God” (1.18) is placed just before the beginning of John’s narrative. But what is actually the ‘image’ of God? What is to be contemplated in order to “see the Father” (14.7)? The chapter argues that these passages refer not to Jesus’ earthly appearance or to his miraculous deeds but rather to the whole of Jesus’ ministry and in particular to his death, as well as to the close communion between Jesus and the Father and the unity of the Son and the Father (10.30), which is only visible in the perspective of post-Easter faith. Jesus ultimately reveals the Father in his whole mission and history, in his way to the cross, and what is visualized in the cross of Jesus is ultimately God’s saving love (John 3.16; 1 John 4.9-10). Thus, contemplating Jesus as the glorified crucified one means contemplating God’s ultimate intention toward humanity, i.e., God’s love, or God, the Father, as Love (1 John 4.8). Such a revelation cannot be communicated directly, but only through the medium of the 67

Frey 2016g: “ ‘Wer mich sieht, der sieht den Vater’: Jesus als Bild Gottes im Johannesevangelium.”

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Johannine narration, i.e., through the book, as a ‘lectoral’ revelation. Thus, reading this Gospel is the process in which the Father is revealed in his true character and in his ultimate intention. (j) Chapter 10, “God in the Gospel of John,” moves on to the topic of “God in the Fourth Gospel,” a topic that has often been somewhat neglected due to the dominant role of Christology in John. In fact, John is the major source for the later development of Christology (the divinity of Christ and the doctrine of incarnation) and Trinitarian thought, but this also affects the teaching about God the Father, and the Johannine contribution to the Christian teaching about God cannot be overestimated. The chapter was originally presented as a guest lecture in Strasbourg (France) and published in a small collection of essays on John.68 The chapter starts from the question about the characteristics of a specifically Christian image of God, i.e., a teaching that draws not generally on a traditional or philosophical notion of God but is shaped from the revelation of God in Christ and the Christ event. This does not intend to create an opposition between the ‘Christian God’ and the ‘God of the Old Testament’ but instead gives attention to how far the sending and ministry of Christ, and in particular his cross and his resurrection, affect our perception of God. The survey begins with the perception that the Johannine talk of God is strongly related to the Scriptures. God is the one and living God, the God of Israel who spoke to his people and acted in its history. The majority of passages mentioning God, however, link God with Jesus, who is “the Son,” so that God is strongly characterized as “the Father,” primarily the Father of the Son, whereas it is only after Easter that John also speaks of God as the Father of the disciples (20.17), so that it is clear that the kinship of the believers is different from and only mediated through the sonship of Christ. Other designations of God—such as king, Lord (kyrios), and creator—are of minor weight in John. The most important Johannine contribution to a doctrine of God is, however, the three nominal predications “spirit” (John 4.24), “light” (1 John 1.5), and “love” (1 John 4.8, 16). Whereas the talk of God as “spirit” (pneuma) characterizes God as a transmundane entity, free from the limitations of space and time, the predication as “light” includes ethical notions by opposing God to all kinds of darkness. Whereas these two predications are also quite conceivable within Greco-Roman conceptions, the designation of God as “love” differs. It takes up a specific line of biblical thought, the election of Israel (Deut 7.7; Jer 31.3) or even of God’s “love” toward his whole creation (Wis 11.245), but it is formulated as a particular consequence of the Christ event, as 68

bei?”

Frey 2012f: “Was trägt die johanneische Theologie zum christlichen Bild von Gott

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Jesus’ death “for us” (cf. Rom 5.8) or as an atonement for the sins of the world (1 John 4.9-10) is interpreted as the ultimate proof of God’s love for the world and for humans, indeed of “love” as God’s ultimate essence and intention. This is linked with the idea that Christ in his mission, ministry, and free assumption of the human fate of death is the ultimate revelation of God (John 1.18) or his true image (14.7, 9). In the Johannine view, the presentation of Christ as a divine being who is different from and related to the biblical God is not a threat to biblical monotheism. In stressing the unity of the Father and the Son (10.30) and their mutual permeation (14.10), the Gospel displays a “binitarian monotheism”69 that might have been challenging for many contemporary Jews but is still strictly opposed to any pagan polytheism or to later gnostic ideas of a plurality within the divine pleroma. In the last part of the chapter, the theological consequences of the Johannine talk of God are summarized: First of all, according to John, God has definitely revealed himself in the Christ event, and there is no room for further speculations about a ‘hidden God’ behind or different from this ultimate revelation. Second, in Christ, God himself has entered human history and even adopted the human fate of death. This marks the utmost contrast between the biblical God and the ‘god of the philosophers’70 and calls for straight rejection of all the philosophical doctrines of God’s immutability or impassibility. Instead, the eschatological revelation and salvation is linked with an event within human history.71 Therefore, third, the cross is of everlasting relevance, as it is the revelation of God’s ultimate love, and, even as the risen one, Christ is recognized as “God” due to the marks of the crucifixion (20.28). Fourth, the essence of this revelation is in fact the primordial and pure love of God that is not limited by other traditional characteristics of God (such as his holiness, wrath, etc.) and overcomes all human rejection by Christ’s voluntary death for the ones he loves. This is in fact the end of any dualistic thought about God. Fifth, the Johannine notion of God is truly universalistic; it transcends all limitations of time and space and aims at the worship of God “in spirit and truth.” Finally, the Johannine manner of relating God and Christ, but also Christ and the Spirit-Paraclete and even God and the Spirit, marks a decisive step toward the Trinitarian thought pattern later established by the utilization of Greek philosophical terms. Of course, the later clarifications are still far away in 69

For this term, cf. Larry Hurtado’s seminal work Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Hurtado 2003). 70 This distinction has been strongly stressed by the early modern philosopher Blaise Pascal. 71 On this, see more extensively Frey 2013a, 585–637: “Heil und Geschichte im Johannesevangelium.”

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John, but there is at least a ‘proto-Trinitarian’ element in the God-talk or ‘theology’ of John. (k) The last chapter, “Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology,” originally presented as a valedictory lecture at the University of Munich, aims at a synthesis of the theology of the Fourth Gospel. Johannine theology is boldly called the ‘climax’ of New Testament theology. This means that the theological reflection as documented within the New Testament texts comes in various aspects to its most advanced or developed stage in the Fourth Gospel or the Johannine Epistles. On the other hand, Johannine motifs are of central relevance for the later development of Christian doctrine in the later centuries. This is demonstrated with regard to the Johannine teaching about God (as spirit, light, and, in particular, love), with regard to the christological teaching including the notion of Jesus as “God” (1.18; 20.28) and “one with the Father” (10.30), and also with regard to the teaching about the Spirit who is presented as a personal figure, a teacher, and an advocate for the community in the world. Hermeneutically, the Fourth Gospel is more advanced than any other Gospel writing. It shows an awareness about its post-Easter standpoint and its distance from the time of Jesus’ ministry. The post-Easter situation is, however, described as a gain, not a loss, as the Spirit could be sent only after the departure of Jesus (16.7), and so the Gospel of John is very explicit about the fact that the true understanding of the identity and dignity of Jesus could not be grasped by any of the disciples of the earthly Jesus but only arrived at in post-Easter time due to the work of the Spirit. Thus, the Gospel of John is well aware of the fact that it does not present Jesus as he could be perceived with the physical eyes but rather presents a narrative image shaped from the retrospective and perceivable only with the eyes of faith. This is the reason why the Gospel of John has appeared to many interpreters as the most ‘modern’ Gospel: it helps the reader to cope with the apparent absence of Jesus and tackles problems of the community in the period between Easter and the parousia. In that respect, the hermeneutical default setting of the Gospel is valid not only for the time of his first addressees but also for the church in the following centuries, until today. This is a further reason for the high esteem the Gospel has attracted from numerous interpreters through the centuries and for the fascination it sparks until the present day.

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PART 1 Interpreting the Gospel of John

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1

Approaches to the Interpretation of John

The Gospel of John is in vogue—and so is its interpretation.1 Not least the many approaches—which are practiced alongside one another in a ‘postmodern manner’—keep the publication machine running.2 And the Johannine work itself appears to invite such a diversity of approaches—through its frequently perceived riddling character, its distinctive narrativedramatic form, and its developed, intensively interconnected world of imagery. Searches in online databases such as BILDI (Innsbruck), BIBIL (Lausanne), or the Index Theologicus (Tübingen) bring to light an abundance of scholarly literature on the Gospel of John that can no longer be processed even by a specialist.3 However, due to the variety of specific aspects and individual reading approaches that are rather optional and subjectively colored,4 the fundamental historical and theological questions 1

In its core, this chapter goes back to a presentation that I gave to the circle of authors of the EKK series in March 2008 in Frankfurt am Main. It was fundamentally reshaped and expanded for the published version. For key exegetical decisions, I also refer to my review article Frey 2008c. Extensive history-of-scholarship and exegetical justifications can be found in my three-volume monograph on Johannine eschatology (Frey 1997b; 1998; 2000b). I am thankful to Juliane Baumann, Nadine Ueberschaer, and Anni Hentschel for their critical review of the original version of this chapter. 2 A panopticum of such approaches is found in Segovia 1996b; 1998—which have their origin in the Johannine literature section of the Society of Biblical Literature between 1991 and 1996. See further Lozada/Thatcher 2006. A cross-section of recent literary approaches can be found in Thatcher/Moore 2008. 3 A search at BILDI under the key word “Johannesevangelium” on June 26, 2012, resulted in 1,563 hits for publications in 2000–2011. The same search on February 5, 2018 resulted in 2.418 hits for publications in 2000–2018. 4 In the concluding statements in his survey to more recent readings of John, Fernando Segovia can point out only “the diversity of real readers in reading and interpretation” and “the diversity of reading constructs and strategies invoked by these real readers, and the diversity of readings and interpretations advanced by such real readers” (Segovia 1998, 322). 3

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often recede.5 Even in the most extensive commentaries, these issues are occasionally addressed only in passing. Nevertheless, these fundamental questions inevitably arise, as long as we aim to preserve the scholarly ideal of philological and historical appropriateness to the text. They arise especially with the task of writing a commentary that considers itself—all commitment to one’s own interpretation notwithstanding—to be obligated to provide information that is both balanced and comprehensive. In the interest of specifying my position ‘on the journey’ to my own commentary on the Gospel of John, I want first to delineate five classic models of reading before I can finally set forth my own approach in a thesis-like manner. 1. Five Classic Models of Interpretation If one ignores for a moment the numerous programmatically optional reading approaches,6 then we are left with a limited number of “classic” approaches to the Gospel of John, which are encountered in recent scholarship in more or less strong combination and modification. Aspects of the fundamental problems in the interpretation of John can be systematized in an ideal-typical juxtaposition. 1.1 The Theological Approach: The Christological and Soteriological Truth A first significant approach has held a firm place in the interpretation of John since the time of the early church. I am referring to the theological model of reading, which extracts from this work—whose author was, as is well known, designated as ὁ θεόλογος7—theological, especially christological 5

All the same, a plea for a renewed concentration on “history and theology” is also found in the English-speaking world in Smith 2005, 53. 6 Under this phrase, I subsume the diverse reading approaches—popular in the North American sphere and almost predominant in the context of SBL—that are dedicated to a specific ideological, ethnic, or sociocultural perspective (e.g., feminist, queer, African American, etc.). The proponents are concerned primarily with self-clarification before the text (and often also against the texts); the scholarly value for the understanding of the texts (both historically and in terms of substance) is, however, often small. 7 See the attestations in G. W. H. Lampe 1961, 628; see Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Joannis Fragment 1 (Preuschen 1903, 483.14 and 484.7 [from later catenae]) as well as Acts John 5 (Lipsius/Bonnett 1959, 155.33 [individual manuscripts]). The epithet also occurs in later additions to the inscriptio of Revelation and is found later—especially in the Eastern church—as a fixed honorary title of the evangelist (and simultaneous author of Revelation) John.

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and soteriological, truths. However, while John became the most important argumentative basis for Christology,8 the theological intention of the Gospel was not played off against its claim to report actual history. The theological interpretation and the use of John as a witness for theological and spiritual truth basically determined the great interpretations of the ‘spiritual Gospel’9 from Origen via Augustine and John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and John Calvin through to the threshold of interpretation in the modern age. The historical questions were, insofar as they were perceived, largely resolved in a harmonizing manner.10 An opposition between the theological and the historical dimension only arose in the wake of historical criticism, when the authorship of the Fourth Gospel by an eyewitness came to be questioned and John came to be understood as a mythical presentation to a greater extent in comparison with the Synoptics (so David Friedrich Strauss), as a mere expression of the idea of the Logos (Ferdinand Christian Baur),11 or as philosophical poetry or theological allegory (so, e.g., Adolf Jülicher among others),12 so that the details of the narrated story became irrelevant and its historical ‘source value’ came to be questioned.

The epoch-making commentary of Rudolf Bultmann became a classic of theological interpretation in the modern period.13 While it presupposes all the source-critical and history-of-religion insights of the older critical scholarship and a very independent view of the emergence of the Johannine text, the source-critical and historical questions are regarded as ultimately insignificant for the interpretation. They are ‘hidden’ in footnotes and never presented in summary. Bultmann programmatically forgoes an introduction in his work,14 and the interest is also not in history in his interpretation. He is interested neither in the time and history of the earthly Jesus nor in the historical situation of the evangelist and his community. Rather, the concern is solely with working out the existential structures in which the person can encounter revelation and with the new self-understanding in faith. Thus, what is ultimately of interest to him is 8

For an overview, see Grillmeier 1990; Schnackenburg 1986, 175–84; for the influence of John 1.14 in particular, see Uhrig 2004; for the reception in the ancient church, see further Keefer 2006. 9 Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposeis 6 (Stählin 1909, 197), according to Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6.14.7. 10 On this, see Frey 2003, 62–67 (= 2013a, 241–46). 11 Frey 2017d (GV = 2014a). 12 See the documentation in Frey 2009a, 459–60 (= 2013a, 585–86). 13 Bultmann 1986; 1971. 14 His theory is presented in summary form in Bultmann 1959 and in Smith 1965.

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only what is significant existentially—this means, in newer hermeneutical clothing, what older interpreters had regarded as that which is ‘universally valid’ in John. On this basis, Bultmann’s interpretation is largely carried out in the tone of agreement, as a reproduction of the material content of the work of the evangelist. After all, Bultmann thinks that John represents the most thoroughgoing expression of what is ‘eschatological’ and thus what is specifically Christian within the New Testament. Cum grano salis he can recognize in this work a preformation of his own hermeneutical program of the existentialist interpretation of myth (and simultaneously the biblical legitimation of this program).15 With his theological interpretation, Bultmann took up fundamental concerns of the ‘dialectical theology’ that he had cofounded (the impressive Johannine interpretation of his theological ‘antipode’ Karl Barth16 also represents this type of interpretation). This approach rightly recognizes the theological intention of the Gospel, without classifying its statements simply as ‘time conditioned’ or explaining and thereby relativizing them as ‘historical’ or ‘cultural.’ The Gospel of John’s claim to mediate theological truth is impressively taken up and advocated in this reading. Therein resides its validity, for the Fourth Gospel undoubtedly calls for such a theologically sensitive reading. However, the danger may be that the possibility of adopting a position of critical distance is easily lost when the interpreter identifies him- or herself too closely with the author or with the work and its message. In that case, John becomes the standard of what is actually Christian, and it becomes more difficult to relativize the problematic aspects of Johannine theology, such as the polemical statements about the ‘Jews.’ The main problem of the Bultmannian approach lies, however, in the fact that its establishment of the object of its interpretation is also based on a series of historical (!) assumptions. In Bultmann’s work this object is precisely not the Gospel of John that has been handed down to us but the reconstructed work of the evangelist, without the alleged transpositions and additions by the subsequent redaction. Moreover, the profile of the evangelist is specified in opposition to the sources that he—according to Bultmann’s theory—had incorporated into his work by critically reworking them. In this way the theological interpretation becomes highly dependent on the interpreter’s source-critical and history-of-religion assumptions. 15

Here, however, a very concrete hypothesis is presupposed regarding how the evangelist himself handled the sources before him and the gnostic myth that was, according to Bultmann, presupposed in them. On this and on the subject matter, see Frey 1997b, 107–18. 16 K. Barth 1976.

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This is especially the case given the fact that the postulated sources cannot be verified linguistically, which means that the distribution of the text to sources, evangelist, and redaction takes place largely on the basis of the presupposed theological profiles of these entities, i.e., in a circular argumentative move. With the critical questioning of his historical assumptions, Bultmann’s portrait of the evangelist in opposition to his sources inevitably also became obsolete. Thus, in the work of his student Ernst Käsemann, the exemplary theologian with his ‘purified understanding of revelation’ could again become a docetizing or even gnosticizing author, whose theological statements could only be taken up very critically.17 Accordingly, the historical and source-critical questions came up again on the exegetical agenda and have remained there until the present. Thus, the banishment of historical questions to the ‘forecourt’ of an all-dominating theological interpretation had ultimately failed. It is also not advisable today for the presentation of an academically justified interpretation of the Gospel of John.18 Nevertheless, as a theological reading of the Gospel of John, Bultmann’s interpretation remains an exemplary model until this day, even though most of its historical and source-critical assumptions now appear untenable. 1.2 The Historicizing Approach: The History of the Earthly Jesus as Central Subject of Interest A second approach stands in a complementary relation to the first. It has largely disappeared from the scholarly discussion in the German-language sphere, but it still occurs in ‘naive’ readings, and it repeatedly finds defenders in conservative-evangelical circles, especially in North America. The historicizing interpretation seeks to view—almost without exception—the episodes recounted in John and the Johannine discourses as information about the time and history of Jesus. Thus, it reads the Johannine work solely with reference to the time and history of Jesus. It does so for understandable reasons. The Johannine narrative does seek to tell the story of Jesus, and, from the perspective internal to the text (at least from the beginning of the Passion narrative), it appears to be authenticated by an eyewitness, the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (13.23), “who wrote these things” 17

On this, see Frey 1997b, 160–70. Among recent ‘large’ commentaries, Hartwig Thyen especially has taken such a path, when he presents his strongly synchronic interpretation without any real introduction and also programmatically regards the text’s history of emergence as irrelevant with respect to the meaning (Thyen 2005). Thyen too, of course, cannot avoid the necessity of making judgments here and there on the historical context of the text he is commenting on. For critical discussion, see Frey 2008c, 753. 18

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(21.24). There are also no explicit indications that the recipients are not meant to regard the narrated story as a ‘factual’ story, i.e., as the history of the earthly Jesus that occurred. Without the comparison with other parallel sources (i.e., the Synoptics in the first instance) and without the modern historical-critical perspective, this interpretive approach would scarcely have been so fundamentally called into question.19 However, the aporias of this approach already emerged in the discussion of the early church, prompted there by the contradictions between John and the Synoptics. Origen already observed20 that a precise comparison of the Gospels led either to the general disputation of their reliability, to the adherence to only one of them, or to seeking—so his own tendency—the truth no longer in the letters alone.21 Problems could not be overlooked at certain points, such as the chronology of the activity of Jesus or the position of the temple cleansing.22 They were at least discussed by some interpreters and then—most influentially in Augustine’s writing De consensu evangelistarum—pushed to the side in a harmonizing manner.23 The historicizing approach seems natural as long as one upholds the traditionally accepted authorship by John the son of Zebedee and regards the historical reliability of the Johannine account as following from that.24 When harmonization appears impossible, John is then often even preferred to the Synoptics. In this horizon, attempts to assign an early date to the Gospel of John or its tradition25 or to water down its relationship to the Synoptics26 gain a new appeal, for in this way a higher historical source value can more easily be made plausible.27 19 Schleiermacher could still base his lectures on the ‘Life of Jesus’ on the Johannine presentation, and the criticism of David Friedrich Strauss opposed this dogmatically motivated privileging of the Gospel of John over against the Synoptics. See Strauss 1837; on this, see Kümmel 1972, 120 with note 160 (GV = Kümmel 1970, 147 with note 155). 20 Origen, Commentarii in evangelium Joannis 10.2. 21 On this, see Merkel 1978, 24ff., and, in greater detail, Merkel 1971. 22 Apollinaris of Laodicea wanted to assume only a single temple cleansing (namely, the Johannine one); other interpreters, such as Theodore of Mopsuestia, assumed there were multiple events. On this, see Merkel 1971, 169, 185. 23 For Augustine and Origen, cf. now Watson 2013, 13–61 and 510–52. 24 On these questions, see recently the detailed discussion in Bauckham 2017, though he connects a factual historiographical quality of the Gospel with the claim of eyewitness testimony in too strong a manner. See further Bauckham 2007b; 2007a. 25 Thus, first, classically Robinson 1985. Berger 1997 advocated this view in Germany. See also Hofrichter 2002. 26 Thus again with great energy Anderson 2006, 40–41, with the terminology of the “interfluentiality” between John and the Synoptics. 27 According to Anderson 2006, 127ff., Jesus is presented at the end in “bioptic perspective,” i.e., John becomes an additional witness for the history of Jesus alongside Mark or the Synoptic tradition. Programmatically, the Gospel of John is meant to be rehabilitated

Approaches to the Interpretation of John

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However, to make plausible the Johannine sequence of events and especially the Johannine discourses, advocates of this type of interpretation often smuggle in psychologizing elements that are foreign to the text. Classic examples are the commentaries of Theodor Zahn and Benjamin F. Westcott. Similar tendencies can be recognized among more recent commentaries, especially in evangelical works, such as those of Leon Morris, Don Carson, and Andreas Köstenberger and in Craig Blomberg’s programmatic monograph.28 Zahn identified the Johannine temple cleansing with the Synoptic one but favored the Johannine placement of the event over the placement in Matthew,29 so that the Gospel of John appears as the historically more accurate. In the handling of the aporia of John 14.31, he makes recourse to the auxiliary explanation that, in John 15–17, Jesus spoke the words “no longer while reclining at the table but while standing or perhaps while walking.”30 Wescott even speculates that Jesus may have spoken the words about the vine as he passed the temple gate with the golden vine together with the disciples.31 Such assumptions are intended to make the present sequence of textual units plausible as a sequence of events, but they are not backed by the text itself. That it could have been so is not adequate as a basis for an appropriate interpretation of the text of John. That the narrative appears plausible in its setting in time and space—and one will not be able to contest this for the Gospel of John, at least not on a fundamental level, despite a few jumps (e.g., between chapter 5 and 6)—does not yet make it a historically reliable presentation of the events at the time of Jesus. To be sure, such harmonizing and historicizing strategies of interpretation occur surprisingly often even in more recent works. In his plea for the ‘priority’ of the Gospel of John, John A. T. Robinson also favors the Johannine placement of the temple cleansing,32 and Morris, Carson, Köstenberger, and Blomberg even want to regard two temple cleansings as possible or more plausible,33 so that here as a witness to the history of Jesus in this perspective. Anderson belongs to the initiators of the SBL group “John, Jesus and History”; see Anderson/Just/Thatcher 2007; 2009; 2015. 28 Morris 1995; Carson 1991; Köstenberger 2004; Blomberg 2001. 29 Zahn 1983, 178–79. For Zahn, Matthew was still the oldest of the Synoptic Gospels, and precisely there he saw an approach that was more thematically oriented than in John. 30 Zahn 1983, 576. 31 Westcott 1908, II: 187, 197. For the vine on the temple gates, see Josephus, Bellum judaicum 5.210; Antiquitates judaicae 15.395; m. Middot 3.8; Tacitus, Historiae 5.5. 32 Robinson 1985, 127–31. For other advocates of the Johannine placement, see Ådna 2000, 309–14. 33 Morris 1995, 167; Carson 1991, 177; Köstenberger 2004, 111; Blomberg 2001, 89– 90. Borchert 1996, 160; and Keener 2003, I: 518 are critical of this view. In relation to John 15–17, Morris 1995 states that Jesus could indeed have continued to speak in the room of the Last Supper after 14.31. Above all it is said that the narrative is to be read “as it stands.”

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too John could have reported in a historically accurate manner. Here we encounter a classic harmonization strategy that reaches all the way back to Augustine (De consensu evangelistarum 2.67). With regard to the literary problem of John 15– 17, one can still find the explanation that Jesus continued to speak in the room of the Last Supper34 or that he spoke while walking as a peripatetic Rabbi.35 A typical relic of a historicizing reading is also found in Ben Witherington’s commentary— though already connected with signs of ‘backpedaling’—when he speculates that the material of John 13–17 had been delivered on two sequential evenings of the Passover festival and then was shaped by the evangelist in a linguistic transformation.36 This last concession makes clear that the historicizing approach must founder as soon as one perceives the freedom and independence of the Fourth Gospel in the selection and shaping of his material in an unbiased manner.

In the case of many recent advocates of the historicizing approach, the apologetic concern to prove the Johannine narrative to be historically possible to the greatest extent is obvious—even at the cost of forced explanations. A significant observation with regard to the character of the discussion is that in Blomberg, for example, the accent is shifted to the question of where the burden of proof lies. As long as the impossibility is not demonstrated, it is said that one must in dubio pro reo assume historicity.37 However, the question arises of how such a ‘proof’ could be made watertight on account of the fragmentary sources. With the quasi-juridical narrowing of the debate, the foundation for a hermeneutically appropriate interpretation of the texts is abandoned, and the ethos of intellectual honesty is forsaken, which then becomes clear in speculations that are foreign to the text and historically incredible, such as the possibility of a second temple cleansing. To be sure, the possibility that valid historical information is to be found behind individual Johannine narrative features is by no means excluded.38 However, because the historical details in John are only ever found in the medium of a creative theological configuration, this can be tested only for each case individually with due regard to the literary form of the work and—of course—with regard to all the available sources. Therefore, one must meet with great reservation the energetically advanced concern of 34

Morris 1995, 586–87. Blomberg 2001, 205. It is noteworthy that other equally evangelical commentators forgo such speculations and favor an explanation on the literary level; thus, e.g., BeasleyMurray 1987, 269. 36 Witherington 1995, 231. 37 Blomberg 2001, 63; this logic also extensively shapes his discussions of the historical details. 38 See the instructive essay of Hengel 1999. 35

Approaches to the Interpretation of John

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the SBL group “John, Jesus and History” to more strongly rehabilitate the Gospel of John as a historical source for the activity of Jesus.39 Here too a conservative-apologetic agenda that is revisionist40 vis-à-vis the majority of critical scholarship stands in the background. However, the historical problems of the Johannine presentation of the history of Jesus cannot be glossed over, and these problems by no means became visible only in the light of rationalistic criticism. A consistent reading of the Johannine text in the horizon of the time and history of Jesus encounters insurmountable limitations, and it appears that with some—not all—evangelical commentators, deference to the public that is interested in the historicity of the biblical texts, to sponsors, or to the statements of faith of a specific teaching institution overly impairs the view of the freedom of the Johannine manner of presentation and thus hinders an appropriate and honest reflection on its problems. One must, however, hold fast to the particula veri of the historicizing interpretation: according to its own claim, the Gospel of John is not a timeless and placeless ‘mythological’ presentation but rather the narrated witness of the history of Jesus of Nazareth, which is concrete and anchored in space and time—irrespective of the clear traces of post-Easter and addressee-oriented shaping. 1.3 The Contemporary-Historical Approach: The Historical Position of the Gospel as Reading Key The contemporary-historical approach both complements and forms a counterpart to the historical interpretation insofar as here the presentation of the Johannine text is evaluated in a more or less thoroughgoing manner as an expression of the situation of the composition of the Gospel or of its community of addressees. The interest is now directed no longer to the time and history of Jesus but to the time and situation of the Johannine author or his community, which is reflected—so the thesis—in the Johannine text. This reading—which is not unproblematic because it is (only) a mirror reading—takes up the accurate observation that not only is it the Johannine discourses that are shaped to a great extent by the language of the evangelist and his circle but the Johannine narratives also display characteristics that can scarcely be explained from the time and situation of the earthly Jesus and that point instead to the environment of the Johannine addressees. This applies, first, to the presentation of “the Jews” and the 39

Anderson/Just/Thatcher 2007. This latter aspect becomes clear in Anderson 2006, 1–9; see also the German summary in Anderson 2009. 40

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stereotypical designation of them, which is scarcely differentiated any longer, and to the conspicuous term ἀποσυνάγωγος (9.22; 14.22; 16.2), which is attested here for the first time in Greek, as well as the almost complete identification of “Jews” and “Pharisees.” These features require a historical explanation—especially for an exegesis that has become conscious of the traditional anti-Jewish clichés and seeks to prevent the unreflected handing on of these clichés.41 The two conceptions of J. Louis Martyn and Klaus Wengst proceed from this starting point.42 Martyn’s conception has had a very great influence in American scholarship.43 In his small book, which in the end went through four editions, Wengst intensively stimulated German research, even though he did not repeat or further develop his historical theses in detail in his later commentary on John.44 The basic thesis of both conceptions is that the Johannine presentation of the Jews can be explained from the conflictual relationship of the Johannine community to the contemporary synagogue and that—initially related to this conflict and potentially also to further controversies in the history of the Johannine addressees—the historical situation of the Johannine Gospel is the “key to its interpretation.”45 Thus, in contrast to the historicizing reading model, this approach takes up a basic insight that has determined historical-critical scholarship since its beginnings with Hugo Grotius, Johann Jakob Wettstein or Johann Salomo Semler—that New Testament writings have to be understood in relation to their time and circumstances. The question is only how far the Johannine text allows such a reconstruction of its historical situation from itself, i.e., without external sources. The various attempts proceed differently. However, in each case the starting point was the lexeme ἀποσυνάγωγος, which was related to the expulsion of the Johannine community from the synagogue and connected in different ways with the rabbinic tradition about the reformulation of the so-called Benediction against the 41 The hermeneutical question of the extent to which a historical explanation can resolve the problems of the anti-Jewish effective history (or even the anti-Jewish substance) of the Fourth Gospel cannot be discussed here. For the topic in general, see chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a; 2013a, 339–77). 42 Martyn 1968; 1979; 2003; Wengst 1981; 1992. For critical interaction with these two works, see section 3 of chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a, 39ff.; 2013a, 353ff.). 43 On this, see Smith 2003. For Raymond Brown’s concept, see Smith 2003, 12–14. 44 Wengst 2000/2001. For my review, see Frey 2002d. Here Wengst is only interested in the Jewish context of the Gospel of John in general, whereas the details of his historical reconstruction no longer appear to lie so close to his heart. 45 So the subtitle of the third (1990) and fourth editions (1992) of Wengst 1981; 1992.

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Heretics, the Birkat ha-Minim, in the Eighteen Benedictions. This was traditionally traced back to the so-called Synod of Jamnia or, more correctly, the schoolhouse of Yavneh after 70 CE, where the early rabbinic scholars are to have made a series of path-breaking decisions. When one inferred from these traditions that there was an expulsion of Jewish Christians from the synagogue and connected this expulsion with the term ἀποσυνάγωγος, which is attested for the first time in John, this ‘event’ could be used to specify the situation of the Johannine community at the time of the emergence of the Gospel of John. While a stronger interest in the history of the Johannine community and its relation to the synagogue is recognizable in the work of Martyn (and then, in different way, also in the work of Raymond E. Brown),46 Klaus Wengst concentrated his investigation on the localization of the community and thus on the question of the possible location of the composition of the Gospel.

The presuppositions of this thesis with respect to the history of the text and the significance of the Birkat ha-Minim47 as well as Wengst’s assumptions regarding the legal circumstances during the rule of Agrippa II48 have attracted various forms of criticism, which need not be repeated here. What is instructive and hermeneutically beneficial, however, is the approach that Martyn chose with reference to the narrative of John 9. According to this approach, the evangelist dramatically expanded the ‘onceness’ of the event of the activity of Jesus, so that the text simultaneously testifies to the powerful presence of the risen one during the time of the community. According to Martyn’s pointed thesis, the Gospel is even to be read as a “twolevel drama” on two parallel levels. Accordingly, the miracle story in John 9, which he uses as a paradigm, recounts not only how the earthly Jesus healed a blind man but simultaneously and in the mirror of this narrative how in the Johannine community a blind man is healed by a Christian preacher and because of his confession to Jesus is interrogated and expelled by “the Jews,” who appear in this narrative in the dress of synagogue ‘officials’ in the environment of the addressees.

The assumed ‘doubling’ of the events is probably too bold, especially since there is no clear evidence for charismatic miracle workers in the Johannine community. And for many other Johannine narratives, such a doubling 46

Cf. also Martyn 1977 (= 2003, 145–68). The history-of-the-community model in Brown 1979; 1982 then reckons with multiple successive conflicts. For discussion, see chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a; 2013a, 353ff.). 47 Cf. Stemberger 1977; Schäfer 1978; Kimelman 1981; Katz 1984; Hengel 1993, 288–89; Horbury 1998. See, more recently, Heemstra 2010. 48 On this, see Hengel 1993, 288–306; Frey 1994a, 231–37 (= 2013a, 301–8).

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would be entirely absurd. What is valuable, however, is the hermeneutical insight that results from the two-level model. The Gospel of John is consciously configured—not only in chapter 9—in such a way that the horizon of the time and history of Jesus is interwoven with the horizon of the author and his addressees. In this way the narrated story of Jesus becomes transparent for the experiences of the addressees; conversely, these experiences are interpreted in the light of the earthly story of the eternal Logos.49 At the same time, this hermeneutical insight introduces a fundamental qualification in relation to every pure implementation of the contemporaryhistorical reading approach. If in the Johannine text the narrative of events from the spatial, temporal, and material horizon of the earthly Jesus is connected with problems, theological insights, and linguistic forms from the Johannine author and his addressees or overlaid by them, then the Johannine text can be understood neither solely as a ‘historical’ account of the activity of Jesus nor exclusively as a mirror of events within the horizon of the community of addressees or its history. Rather, the two horizons are fused with each other in a complex and usually no longer cleanly separable manner. Thus, neither the historicizing nor the contemporary-historical approach is hermeneutically sufficient, although they both highlight the Johannine text’s connection to history in their own ways. Moreover, there is the problem of whether the controversy with the Jews really determines the entire Gospel and presents the hermeneutical framework for its composition or whether other conflicts also stand in the background. This question was especially raised by Raymond Brown, who saw two successive conflicts in the history of the Johannine community— the conflict with ‘the Jews’ and the conflict with inner-Christian, docetizing opponents. This discussion simultaneously affects the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Johannine letters, insofar as an innercommunity conflict can be reconstructed in particular from the letters. Thus, for the interpretation there is the alternative of either regarding one of the two conflicts (the conflict with ‘the Jews’ or the conflict with innerChristian opponents) as the defining framework for the composition of the Gospel and the Johannine letters50 or assuming (in different variations) a succession of two or more conflicts. 49 For this phenomenon of the ‘hermeneutical fusion of horizons,’ its demonstration with reference to the linguistic form of the Johannine text, and its hermeneutical significance, see Frey 1998, 247–68, and chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). 50 In the German-speaking sphere, Thyen 1988a, 191; and Wilckens 2003, 89–125, have advocated a consistent interpretation of the Gospel of John and the Johannine letters in conflict with Jewish opponents (and an interpretation of the ‘secessionists’ in 1 John 2.18ff. as former Jewish Christians who are returning to the synagogue).

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Such detailed inferences presuppose, however, that the Johannine texts and the data given in them as a whole can be viewed as a “mirror” of their respective situations of composition. If one does not reject this presupposition for text-theoretical reasons, the question arises, first, of whether individual texts within the Gospel, for example, the Farewell Discourses, should not be assigned greater significance than, for example, the narrative of Jesus’ conflict with the ‘Jews’ within the framework of his public activity.51 Secondly, one must ask whether, with respect to the possibility of evaluating them, one would not also need to differentiate in terms of genre between the letters as a means of direct communication and the Gospel with its indirect communication that takes place in the mode of narration. Finally, for every evaluation pertaining to the history of the Johannine circles, one faces the fundamental problem of the order of composition of the texts (and with this also of the literary ‘unity’ of the Gospel). In principle, however, the validity of the contemporary-historical reading consists in the observation that a multitude of Johannine elements of presentation—not only the image of the Jews but also that of the disciples as well as the style of the discourses of Jesus and the specific Christology and soteriology—reflect circumstances and insights that much more likely correspond to the time of composition and of the first readers than to the time of Jesus. 1.4 The Source-Critical and Redaction-Critical Approach: The Search for ‘Original’ Sources and the Question of the Theological Development of the Johannine Community The fourth model is the source- or redaction-critical approach, which has influenced—in different variations—Johannine scholarship in large parts of the twentieth century. Source-critical approaches were only intensively used in Johannine exegesis since the beginning of the twentieth century. After some methodologically inadequate earlier attempts,52 the two Göttingen scholars Julius Wellhausen and 51

Cf. Frey 1998, 270–71. These attempts were solely determined by the interest of purifying the Gospel of John from the most serious historical offenses and leveling out the alternative between the Synoptic and Johannine images of Jesus, which David Friedrich Strauss and Ferdinand Christian Baur had inaugurated. With the aid of this Gospel, one sought to obtain an image of Jesus that was less offensive and more philosophically tolerable than the image mediated through the Synoptics. However, these older separations of strata were reflected on in manner that was still completely inadequate methodologically. On this, see Frey 1997b, 51–53. 52

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Eduard Schwartz were the first to apply the methods of source criticism—which had already been successfully tested in other textual corpora—to the Gospel of John. For Wellhausen the starting point was the classic ‘aporia’ of John 14.31 and with it the problem of the second Farewell Discourse of John 15–17.53 Wellhausen established in this way the source-critical model of a ‘Grundschrift,’ which was said to have contained primarily narratives and to have been expanded later through various hands, with the ‘typical Johannine’ discourses (and, e.g., John 17) being assigned to the ‘post-Johannine’ supplementation. The Grundschrift is only the smaller part of the Gospel, and, according to Wellhausen, it is also “by no means preserved intact and complete” and so one can “isolate with certainty neither it nor the various layers of the reworking.”54 These uncertainties and the often perceived formal-stylistic homogeneity of the Gospel resulted in the fact that Wellhausen’s model convinced only a few in his day. The second model, which in a certain respect is juxtaposed to the first model in a complementary manner, is the multiple-source hypothesis, with which Rudolf Bultmann in his commentary brought together a series of older source-critical and history-of-religion hypotheses.55 In this model the interpretive interest is no longer with the ‘original’ stratum but rather with the work of the evangelist— that is, with the synthesis reached (almost) at the end of the process, though not in the redactional form of the Gospel that has been handed down to us. In connection with Bultmann’s overall theological interpretation this model remained influential, even though important individual points of his overall hypothesis (the transpositions of the text, the revelation-discourses source) were scarcely adopted by others and other building blocks (the assumption of a pre-Christian Gnosticism, the semeia source, and the assumption of an independent passion narrative) were also gradually called into question. The image of the evangelist as an ingenious theologian who combines and corrects his sources is the presupposition of the theological interpretation. The collapse of the source-critical model then led to a shift of interpretation, through which it became clear how much sourcecritical reconstruction and material interpretation were carried out in a close and scarcely dissoluble circle. The lack of objective criteria for separating sources and strata—which cannot be verified, at least not by language and style—as well as the variety of contradictory reconstructions suggest a certain skepticism toward source-critical approaches.

53

Wellhausen 1907. On this, see Frey 1997b, 53–55. Wellhausen 1908, 7. Cf. idem, 101, where Wellhausen speaks of “proliferating continuations” and “disruptive insertions” and states that parts of the Grundschrift were subsequently reworked, preserved only in fragmentary form, completely omitted, or replaced through later variants, all of which can be “poorly controlled.” 55 See in detail and with criticism, Frey 1997b, 119–50. 54

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Source criticism, which had initially been interested in sources or redactional supplements and been ‘author-centered,’ was revived in a new form beginning around 1970, when various authors, in continuation and sometimes combination of the older models, strived for a reconstruction of the history of the theology of the Johannine community.56 With this interest in the history of the community, the advocates of the so-called new source criticism (Georg Richter, the early Hartwig Thyen, and Jürgen Becker) went far beyond the lines of questioning of the older scholarship. The historical interest was now in the history-of-theology development in the Johannine community, which was said to be reflected in the texts that were produced for negotiating identities within the Johannine community. The criteria for reconstruction or the ‘litmus’ by which the development of the community was to be detected differed in the individual models. Here the sphere of dualism or relation to the world (Jürgen Becker) and Christology—i.e., more specifically, the question of docetism/anti-docetism (Georg Richter, Hartwig Thyen)—were considered decisive, sometimes in connection with history-of-religion questions about the nearness to Judaism or Jewish Christianity or to emerging Gnosticism. The presupposition for this line of questioning was the assumption that the Johannine circles were separated in a ‘sectarian’ manner from other early Christian groups, at least in significant phases of their development, and that they developed their identity in rapid change and often in sharp conflicts. Similar doubt soon fell upon this ‘newer source criticism,’ which was presented with a high claim, as it had upon the older models. The classifications and allocations of the texts often appeared arbitrary and were carried out differently according to the criteria chosen in each case. Moreover, the basic model of constant community conflict and the presupposed ‘sectarian’ seclusion of the Johannine circle had to raise doubts. On the other hand, it can scarcely be denied that the Johannine circles underwent some development, and it must certainly be assumed that it was not only the situation and thought of the time of the work’s composition that found expression in the Johannine text but also positions and discussions from the preceding history of the Johannine communities (and perhaps of others, before or alongside the Johannine circles). However, the crucial question is whether they can still be clearly identified, isolated, and classified, and whether this history can still be perceived via the “window” of the Gospel of John and the Johannine letters. Even the model of the history of the community that has perhaps been most influential, the reconstruction 56

See in detail and with criticism, Frey 1997b, 266–97. For the model of Jürgen Becker, see the beginning of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 3–7; 2013a, 409–13).

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of Raymond Brown, has been substantially retracted since then in the new edition of the introduction of his commentary, which was conceived by the author himself and completed by his student Francis Moloney.57 The disillusionment that has ensued vis-à-vis Johannine source criticism—primarily for text-theoretical reasons, under the influence of synchronically oriented linguistics and literary criticism, and on account of the stylistic homogeneity of the Fourth Gospel58—and that has determined many works since then has not prevented individual commentators from recently making use of older or newer source-critical models. This applies, for example, to the commentary of Michael Theobald,59 who works cautiously with a three-layer model (sources, evangelist, Johannine redaction), though the source-critical question plays only a very limited role in the interpretation. The source-critical accent plays a much more extensive role in Urban von Wahlde’s commentary on the Gospel and letters of John, which—in continuation of Robert T. Fortna’s hypothesis of a ‘Signs Gospel’60 (i.e., a ‘semeia source’ that has grown into a ‘Grundschrift’)—daringly divides the Gospel into three layers and comments on these.61 The pinnacle of the idiosyncratic is marked by the commentary of Folker Siegert, who boldly attempted to reconstruct a “first draft of John” and then, a few years later, presented and commented on a modified reconstruction of “the Gospel of John in its original shape.”62 Entirely in the style of the scholarship of Wellhausen and others a hundred years ago, Siegert cheerfully rearranges, deletes, and censures according to linguistic and thematic aspects and also according to taste.63 Here the interest lies wholly with the question of sources, and the author has consistently advanced from here already to a new reconstruction of the historical Jesus, which has, as could be expected, met with virtually zero acceptance in critical scholarship.64 The unquestionably great erudition is matched here by the degree of arbitrariness. Whatever does not correspond to the reconstructed image of the first Johannine author, whose connection to Judaism is regarded as stronger than subsequent hands, such as riddles, dualism, or antiJewish features, is removed or considered to be a later and less valuable addition.65 57

Brown/Moloney 2003, 62–89. See my review in Frey 2008c, 750–51. See in detail Frey 1997b, 429–45. 59 Theobald 2009. 60 Fortna 1970; 1988. 61 Von Wahlde 2010. 62 Siegert 2008. 63 One need only observe the numerous pejorative observations in Siegert 2008, 149– 60, to show how deeply the author turns up his nose at the Gospel of John that has been handed down. 64 Siegert 2010; cf. Siegert/Bergler 2010. 65 See Siegert 2008, 149–60. 58

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Such works are well suited to discredit the method of source criticism as a whole. At the same time, here too a particula veri should be upheld. For the Gospel of John can scarcely be regarded as a text ‘made from a single mold,’ as a completely homogeneous literary unity. It probably grew over a rather extended period of time, and strongly synchronic interpretations are justified text-theoretically rather than in a way that is actually historical. At least for chapter 21, the question of a secondary expansion or edition of an existing text arises, and the question of what else was possibly added in this context can be approached only with cautious deliberations, since we have no parallel texts for comparison. The same applies to the by no means irrelevant question of the presupposed sources and traditions. For it seems clear that the evangelist presupposes sources and traditions. As long as one regarded the Johannine line of development as completely independent and unrelated to other early Christian traditions (especially the Synoptics), one had to reckon with sources that consisted of larger narrative pieces (semeia source and passion narrative or Grundschrift). If one assumes knowledge of the Synoptic tradition, such continuous sources can scarcely be reconstructed any longer, but even then the taking up of individual special traditions from the Johannine community or other circles must be assumed. Now the source situation for a resolution of the associated problems is anything but great, so that one can scarcely expect source criticism to provide the key for the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. In this regard, the ‘conversions’ of individual scholars from an originally source-critical or community-historical position to a more textoriented, synchronic perspective are illuminating with a view to the history of research. In addition to Raymond Brown in his later phase, the research biography of Hartwig Thyen, who found his way from Bultmann’s Marburg seminar via attempts with the ‘new literary criticism’ to a thoroughgoing synchronic intertextual reading of the Gospel of John,66 is especially interesting, as are the multiple ‘conversions’ of the longstanding chair of the Johannine Literature Seminar of the Society of Biblical Literature, Fernando F. Segovia, from a source-critical and communityhistorical approach to a synchronic ‘literary criticism’67 and to an intercultural reading.68 For this reason, I will now cast a short (and somewhat summary) glance upon this fifth reading approach, which is practiced in diverse variants. 66

Thyen 2005, v and 733; 2007, 1–6. A less spectacular but analogous turn can also be seen in the work of Ulrich Busse; see Busse 2002. 67 Segovia 1991, vii–ix. Segovia’s dissertation was still in the line of the ‘new source criticism’; see Segovia 1982. 68 Segovia 1996a; 2007.

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1.5 The Literary-Critical or Narratological Approach: The Quest for the Text as a Whole and for the Communicative Process In the past thirty years a paradigm has gained increasing influence—the literary-critical interpretation, which has been influenced by the different theories of text linguistics, literary criticism, narrative theory, and rhetoric.69 It is represented in the German-language sphere especially by the commentary and other works of Hartwig Thyen70 and yet also—somewhat differently—by Ludger Schenke71 and Ulrich Busse,72 as well as by Jean Zumstein,73 who takes up French narratology and hermeneutics. In the North American sphere, a synchronic, narratological interpretation—with different framing concepts—appears to have set the tone since the groundbreaking work of Robert Alan Culpepper in 1983,74 and many recent commentaries are greatly influenced by it.75 Despite differing theories and terminology,76 what is fundamental is the viewing of the Gospel as a narrative and the analysis of narrative categories such as narrators, narrative perspective, narrative time and emplotment, characterization, and implicit commentary, through which numerous insights into the ‘functioning’ of the Johannine text and its inner dramaturgy arise. Sometimes an understanding of the text as an ‘autosemantic’ whole that bears its meaning in itself stands behind this, so that its prehistory can no longer be decisive for drawing out its meaning. Many authors concede that the text had such a prehistory or history of growth, but this no longer stands at the center of their interest. Instead, they start from the synchronic viewing of the text, which is perceived in its entirety (programmatically from John 1.1 to 21.25; sometimes only to 20.31). The understanding of the text as an offer of interaction with (first and subsequent) readers within the framework of a more or less complex model of textual communication is often connected with the narratological 69

For an overview, see Thatcher/Moore 2008. Thyen 2005; 2007, 351–69. 71 L. Schenke 1992; 1998. 72 Busse 2002. 73 See the French-language commentary, i.e., Zumstein 2007; 2016a; as well as the German translation, i.e., Zumstein 2016b. See also Zumstein 2004. 74 Culpepper 1983. 75 See, e.g., Moloney 1993; 1996; 1998a; 1998b; see also O’Day 1995. The paradigm change is also evident in the new edition of the introduction to the commentary of Raymond E. Brown, which Brown—who was probably the most significant North American Johannine scholar—revised in the last years of his life; see Brown/Moloney 2003; see also Moloney 2005a. 76 Finnern 2010, 1–22, provides an instructive survey of narratological methods in exegesis. 70

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approach. Finally, additional insights from rhetoric, theories of metaphor, literary-critical theories of reception, and theories of intertextuality can be taken up in this context. Observations from ‘classic’ historical exegesis can also be integrated into such a framework, though the text’s concrete reference to extratextual realities, to history, or to concrete groups and circles grows hazy for theoretical reasons or requires additional— within the framework of the purely synchronic approaches, sometimes inconsistent—assumptions. In the German-language sphere the most prominent example of such an approach is the commentary by Hartwig Thyen, especially since it can be regarded as the end of a long methodological journey of Johannine interpretation and reveals the fruits and limits of this approach.77 For Thyen—after his turn to this model of interpretation—the whole Johannine work from 1.1 to 21.25 (with the exception of the text-critically secondary passages John 5.3b-4 and John 7.53–8.11) is a unified literary work, which can only be interpreted on the basis of the text that has been handed down, especially since according to the manuscript evidence—as Thyen stresses—the Gospel only existed publicly in this form.78 Preexisting sources or strata can no longer be separated out of this work with adequate certainty. And even if they existed—something Thyen does not wish to rule out—the overall form of these pretexts, which would be determinative for the way it constitutes meaning, would no longer be discernable. As a literary work the Gospel is a result of a ποίησις and not of an anonymous process of growth “as if texts simply produced yearly rings like trees.”79 Accordingly, it is not to be understood on the basis of a hypothetical history of emergence but solely on the basis of the varied pointers and allusions that the author gives to his readers and with which he sets a creative process in motion among the first readers and all subsequent ones. The text provides offers of meaning that its readers creatively take up. It builds up a symbolic universe that invites its readers to ‘indwell it,’ to relate it to their own reality, and thereby to place their reality in a new light. This all functions with subtle literary techniques such as the play with the misunderstandings of the figures within the text and the explanations of the narrator to the readers, who are meant to understand the whole better (e.g., 2.21: “but he spoke of the temple of his body” etc.). After all, through the Prologue the readers are already informed about 77

See my review in Frey 2008c. For the approach, see already Frey 1997b, 298–315. Thyen 2005, 1. This insight can be called into question neither by the singular designation of John 20.30-31 as ‘clausula’ of the Gospel in Tertullian (so Lattke 1987; on this, see Hengel 1993, 218) nor by a recently discovered Coptic papyrus leaf, which breaks off with John 20.31 and is not written further to the end of the page but also has no subscription, so that it is uncertain whether the text contained the whole Gospel or only an excerpt (on this finding, see G. Schenke 2006). 79 Thyen 2007, 134–54 (136). 78

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Jesus’ true origin and his dignity. They see through the misunderstandings of the inner-textual figures and the subtle-ironic play of the Gospel with them and are thus led ever deeper into the truth. For this reason, the Gospel can only be understood when one perceives this play of the text with its readers, the pragmatics of the text. Therein lies the appellative function of this work: in the reading of the Gospel the readers are to be enticed to “come out of the darkness into the light.”80 Thyen thus comments on the work that has been handed down as a unified, highly poetic, literary, and authorial text. John 21 serves as the key to interpretation because, in Thyen’s view, all the narrative lines of the Gospel of John run together not in John 20 but in John 21. Thyen almost completely forgoes the question of sources and preliminary stages of the text, let alone of pieces of oral tradition, Moreover, he regards the talk of a Johannine community as a scholarly myth.81 Thus, the ‘external world’ of the concrete readers is bracketed out almost as completely as the work’s history of emergence. Instead, its meaning is disclosed only in the intertexual space, which is formed by the Gospel and its (Old Testament and Synoptic) pretexts. To be sure, this meaning is not a sensus historicus (which Thyen regards as an illusion anyway) but rather a meaning that must, after the ‘death of the author,’ be discovered without the author and without recourse to a concrete situation of composition. Thus, this type of interpretation draws near again to the approach of the theological reading mentioned first— without the interest being aimed at the extraction of precise theological teachings or statements.

Apart from a few idiosyncratic opinions, which I pass over here, Thyen’s commentary is the most pronounced example of a synchronic textlinguistic approach. It is interested neither in the history of Jesus, nor in the history of the composition of the work, nor in inferences concerning the history of its circles of tradents. Rather, in light of the aporias of all these attempts at making historical inferences, it remains upon the exclusively graspable level of the literary text, with the historical dimension being bracketed out. In doing so, Thyen is able to make an abundance of textual observations that other exegetes have missed there due to specific source-critical presuppositions. On the other hand, there is also a certain fuzziness in the consideration of the intertextual play of the Johannine text with the Synoptic pretexts, which can be tolerated only if it is ultimately unimportant whether the Johannine author in the original process of communication with his community could have actually presupposed that 80

Thyen 2007, 366. Thyen 2005, 4: “As a literary work our Gospel is not a letter addressed to a supposed Johannine community, from which their trials and tribulations could be inferred, but a book for readers, for people of all generations who are able to read.” 81

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these texts were known and taken up the dialogue with them. Moreover, Thyen’s conception also ultimately—nolens volens—presupposes historical theses and assumptions. After all, the assumption that the Johannine text from John 1.1 to the end of chapter 21 is an original unity must also be made plausible textually and historically. Even though Thyen—as Bultmann before him—declares the historical ‘introductory questions’ to be irrelevant for the task of interpretation, he is nevertheless dependent on concrete historical presuppositions, whose plausibility must be scrutinized. Moreover, in certain places it also becomes evident in his commentary that he locates the text in time and space, such as when he assumes an origin not in Asia Minor but “in the Syrian-Palestinian sphere” and thinks that this is grounded by “linguistic and topological particularities.”82 In today’s research context, one would no longer be able to ground such a localization by appealing to the mention of Sychar, Cana, and Bethany or to the knowledge of places in Jerusalem or to the language of the ‘Johannine dualism,’ which had often been located in Syria in earlier scholarship. At any rate, the inference does not fit in the text-theoretical paradigm advocated by Thyen; it is presumably a relic from his earlier research phases.

This inconsistency shows that the complex questions about the unity, author, situation of composition, historical context, and literary relationship between the Gospel and the letters cannot be entirely pushed aside. It is unsatisfactory to claim that the historical explanation of the text and the understanding of its textual world are unimportant for the reading, as long as our engagement with biblical texts takes place within the framework of a historical paradigm, which is still determinative, at least for the European context. Whether these questions can be answered with sufficient plausibility may be left open—and the skepticism toward all reconstructions of sources and strata is very legitimate—but in a large scholarly commentary one probably cannot, in my opinion, forgo an attempt to illuminate the origin, at least for some parts of the text, even though the possibility of answering these questions remains very limited. This does not in any way affect the validity of the synchronic and narratological reading approach. It perceives the textual whole without dividing it in advance into different layers or levels. It considers the temporal sequence of the reading and the inner-textual dynamic and dramatic 82 So Thyen 2005, 1, with reference to an anything but up-to-date remark of Walter Schmithals in his introduction to the English translation of Bultmann’s commentary (Schmithals 1971, 12). Here we are evidently dealing with a relic from a clearly outdated research context.

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art. It traces the subtle play of the text with its readers and thus exposes structures that have a particular effect on the imagination of the readers— which then, however, require a plausible historical contextualization. 1.6 Synthesis The five reading models that have been discussed reflect, in my view, the system of coordinates in which scholarly Johannine exegesis moves at present: between theological (1) and historical (2, 3, 4) angles of vision, between looking at Jesus (2) and looking at the time and situation of the evangelist or his addressees (3), between a holistic perspective (5; possibly 1) and the perception and identification of historical preliminary stages and sources or redactional strata (4), and between the reading of the text (3) or parts of the text (4) as mirror(s) of the respective situation (“mirror reading”) and the perception of narrative structures and the semantic independence of the Gospel as a literary work (5). 2. On the Way to My Own Commentary Against the background of the five models of reading presented above, in what follows I want to sketch out how I intend to proceed in my own commentary on the Gospel of John and to present the insights that I regard as hermeneutically significant for this task. For individual historical decisions and their justification, I can refer to my other publications.83 2.1 The Task of a ‘Large’ Scholarly Commentary In the age of internet search engines, bibliographical databases, and electronically accessible corpora of texts, the question of what a scholarly commentary can and ought to accomplish looks different than in earlier phases of scholarship. It is closely connected with the question of the addressee of a commentary. For whom is such a work intended, and who is meant to use it? If neither the impersonal ‘eternity’ of libraries nor a specific target group such as “teachers and preachers” comes into consideration, then the group of addressees at the highest scholarly level is to be kept as broad as possible. Such a scholarly commentary ought to be of use to scholars, students, and pastors, as well as to interested educated people for whom the relevant information regarding the text and the interpretations of the 83

See especially Frey 1997b; 1998; 2000b; 2008c; 2013a; and the essays in this volume. An interpretation anticipating the style of the commentary has been presented in Frey 2017b.

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text are to be presented as clearly as possible. At the same time, the aim cannot be to record in an encyclopedic manner every more or less reasonable thesis that has been advanced in relation to a text. Ideals of comprehensiveness have lost meaning in the information age. Rather, what makes sense from a scholarly perspective (and is alone practicable) is the responsible selection of information, the informed sifting and separation of what is illuminating from what is wrongheaded. Here, all necessary scholarly decisions notwithstanding, the concern can precisely not be with narrowing the focus to ideological issues,84 or with narrowing the frame of reference of the sources or the history-of-religion horizons that are taken into account. While ‘niche commentaries’ such as a patristic commentary,85 a papyrological commentary,86 or a history-of-law commentary87 on the New Testament make sense because they make accessible material related to the interpretation or effective history from a specific subset of sources, they cannot provide a historical-philological interpretation of the text based on a consideration of the relations in their full breadth and interrelation, which is an essential characteristic of a ‘major’ scholarly commentary. In my opinion, such a commentary has the task of providing 84

Cf., by contrast, the objectives of the series Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, which emphatically (and, according to its own claim, for the first time) aims to take up “the themes discussed in Christian-Jewish dialogue, the feminist-theological discourse, and social-historical lines of questioning” (so the cover text), but in doing so sometimes accepts clear ideological truncations and one-sided emphases, as can be seen in Klaus Wengst’s commentary on John (Wengst 2001/2002). On this, see my review (Frey 2002d). Other examples of a specific commentary format directed to an addressee group are series such as a feminist commentary (e.g., Newsom/Ringe/Lapsley 2012, for which O’Day 2012 has written the commentary on John) or a Pentecostal Commentary on Scripture (published by Deo Publishing; other volumes were published by T&T Clark, e.g., Thomas 2004). 85 A patristic commentary on the New Testament (focused on the patristic effective history and reception history) is being published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht under the title Novum Testamentum Patristicum; the volumes on John will be written by Michael Theobald (John 1–12), Ilaria Ramelli (John 13–17), and Hans-Ulrich Weidemann (John 18–21). The material claim of these volumes goes far beyond the (English) textual collection of the Ancient Christian Commentary series (e.g., Elowsky 2007a; 2007b). Another compilation that is restricted purely to the effective history (but not really a commentary on the text) is the series Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Unfortunately, the volume on the Gospel of John (Edwards 2004) is rather superficial and quite random with respect to the material that is processed and thus very unsatisfactory, especially insofar as in the given concept the traces of impact are not related to the understanding of the text. 86 Mauro Pesce is scheduled to write the volume on John for the series Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament, which was initiated by Peter Arzt-Grabner. 87 Thus far, no volumes have appeared in the planned project Rechtsgeschichtlicher Kommentar zum Neuen Testament. The Johannine texts are discussed according to Folker Siegert’s problematic classification of the texts (see section 1.4).

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all the information that is necessary for the readers to form an independent judgment about the text and its meaning. It has to communicate to them what they would not think of on their own.88 At the same time, it is clear, of course, that the commentator also has to take a position, and it can by no means be the ideal of a scholarly stance to avoid historical and material decisions. In this respect, the commentary that I present will necessarily show traces of my own subjectivity, my theological judgements, and my scholarly emphases. It will be (amid all ecumenical openness) the commentary of a Protestant theologian, who (amid every effort to take account of the international discourses) is shaped by the theology of the Reformation, the European Enlightenment, and German-language scholarship and who understands his work in conscious relatedness to the church and in ecumenical breadth. To claim a greater ‘objectivity’ would be, in my opinion, illusory. On the other hand, it also should not be the case that one unquestioningly asserts—in the sense of a pecca fortiter—the perspective of one’s own denomination, ethnic group, or worldview.89 Precisely in view of the positionality of interpretation, the task of the scholarly commentary requires one to formulate one’s own views in an intersubjectively communicable way and to tie them back critically (and above all selfcritically) to the interpretation of the given text. In this way these views can then be introduced again into the scholarly discourse and be questioned with regard to their appropriateness. 2.2 The Tableau of Existing Commentaries When one sifts through the commentaries on John that have been published during the last few decades within the German- and English-language spheres and—in selection—beyond, one can see a great diversity with regard to methodological approaches, form and breadth of presentation, positional orientation, and scholarly level. The different breadth and depth of the presentations is conspicuous, so that one must distinguish between ‘large’ scholarly commentaries, ‘mid-length’ (mostly one-volume) works, and (usually popular) shorter commentaries. To the classic ‘major’ commentaries—in the German-language sphere especially the works of Zahn, Bauer (despite its brevity), Bultmann, and Schnackenburg,90 and in the English-language sphere Bernard, Barrett, and 88

On this, see Siegert 2008, 171. For the reading approaches that I have designated as “optional,” see note 6. 90 Zahn 1983; Bauer 1933; Bultmann 1986; 1971; Schnackenburg 1986; 1972; 1982; 1984. 89

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especially Brown91—were added, starting around 1980, a series of works that are very diverse in approach and orientation. In the German-language sphere, we should note the posthumously edited interpretation of Ernst Haenchen; the German translation of Barrett’s commentary; the expanded third edition of Jürgen Becker’s commentary, which was very innovative in its source-critical approach; the commentary of Klaus Wengst, which is especially interested in Jewish–Christian dialogue; the idiosyncratic work of Folker Siegert; and, finally, the large commentaries of Hartwig Thyen and Michael Theobald, and the German translation of Jean Zumstein’s French commentary, which has now replaced Bultmann’s commentary in the Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament series (KEK).92 From the English-language sphere, I mention (without a claim to comprehensiveness) the commentary of Thomas L. Brodie, which is likewise rather idiosyncratic in its source-critical assumptions; the evangelical commentaries of George Beasley-Murray, Herman Ridderbos, Don Carson, Andreas Köstenberger, and Ramsey Michaels; the longer narratologically oriented commentaries of Francis Moloney and his shorter one-volume version; the two-volume commentary of Craig Keener with its mass of history-of-religion parallels; the concise theological commentaries of Andrew Lincoln and Marianne Meye Thompson; the very detailed commentary of John McHugh, which reached only to chapter 4; and the source-critical commentary of Urban von Wahlde.93 In the Frenchspeaking sphere, after the old, still-conservative-Catholic commentary of Lagrange and the ‘modernistic’ commentary of Loisy, one must first mention the large narratologically oriented commentary of Xavier LéonDufour and then the three-volume commentary of Yves Simoens, the conservative Catholic commentary of Robert Mercier, and the theologically focused commentary of Jean Zumstein.94 From other language spheres, I mention only the important commentaries of René Kieffer (Swedish, in two volumes) and Helge Kjaer Nielsen (Danish).95 Among the ‘mid-length’ scholarly commentaries, one can mention in the German-language sphere the commentary of Udo Schnelle, which is succinct and yet equipped with the complete scholarly apparatus; the 91

Bernard 1928; Barrett 1955; 1978; Brown 1966/1970. Haenchen 1980 (ET = 1984); Barrett 1990; Becker 1991a; 1991b; Wengst 2000/2001; Siegert 2004; 2008; Thyen 2005; Theobald 2009; Zumstein 2016b. 93 Brodie 1993; Beasley-Murray 1999; Ridderbos 1997; Carson 1991; Köstenberger 2004; Michaels 2010; Moloney 1993; 1996; 1998a; 1998b; Keener 2003; Lincoln 2005; Thompson 2015; McHugh 2009; von Wahlde 2010. 94 Lagrange 1925; Loisy 1921 [1903]; Léon-Dufour 1988–1996; Simoens 1996; Mercier 2010; Zumstein 2007; 2016a; cf. 2016b. 95 Kieffer 1987; 1988; Nielsen 2007. 92

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commentary of Christian Dietzfelbinger, which is broadly accessible and yet substantial; and the commentary of Ulrich Wilckens, which is theologically thorough and broadly accessible.96 Beyond these works there is the extensive, conservative-Catholic commentary of Benedikt Schwank, the narratological-dramaturgically oriented commentary of Ludger Schenke, and the more practically oriented commentary of the Dutchman Sief van Tilborg.97 This genre is chosen especially often in the English-language sphere. One may mention here (without a claim to comprehensiveness) the commentaries of Robert Kysar, Charles Talbert, Ben Witherington, R. Alan Culpepper, Mark Stibbe, and D. Moody Smith; the staunchly evangelical commentaries of Gerald L. Borchert and Colin K. Kruse; and the social-scientific commentaries of Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh and of Jerome Neyrey.98 As short commentaries I mention just from the German-language sphere the ‘small commentary’ of Felix Porsch, the often provocative and very conservative commentary of Klaus Berger in his commentary on the whole New Testament, and the commentary of my student Enno Edzard Popkes in the Kommentar zur Zürcher Bibel.99 There is really no lack of commentaries on the Gospel of John. Much is ‘repeated’ and ‘duplicated’ without the authors always being aware of it. The publication machinery churns out too much ‘fast food’ also in exegetical scholarship. The question is therefore what one’s own commentary can offer and how it must be oriented methodologically and materially. In my opinion, four narrowings must be avoided. 2.3 Four ‘Gatekeepers’ That Block an Appropriate Access The published commentaries differ significantly with respect to their historical and text-genetic assumptions and their interpretive profile. In some works, basic methodological decisions virtually have the function of a ‘gatekeeper,’ which can hinder or even block an appropriate access. 2.3.1 Taking the Question of Authorship as Point of Departure

For a number of interpreters, such as conservative Catholics (thus Mercier) and (especially) evangelical Protestants (Morris, Carson, Köstenberger), 96

Schnelle 2016; Dietzfelbinger 2001; Wilckens 1998. Schwank 1998; L. Schenke 1998; van Tilborg 2005. 98 Kysar 1986; Talbert 1992; Witherington 1995; Culpepper 1998; Stibbe 1993; Smith 1999; Borchert 1996; 2002; Kruse 2003; Malina/Rohrbaugh 1998; Neyrey 2007. 99 Porsch 1998; Berger 2011, 319–414; Popkes 2010. With his early dating of the Gospel of John to about 68/69 CE (321) and ultimately of almost all the New Testament texts, Berger tends to very idiosyncratic judgments and decrees these quasi ‘ex cathedra.’ 97

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the question of authorship (i.e., the attribution to John the apostle and son of Zebedee) still appears to occupy a key position.100 It is usually conceded that this is a hypothesis,101 but from there it is then rather quickly postulated that it is more plausible than the criticism of this view, so that the dogmatic-apologetic interest does, after all, clearly gain the upper hand. To be sure, one can observe that the Johannine tradition regarding authorship was criticized in the nineteenth century initially for dogmatic and philosophical reasons,102 but this observation does not yet counterbalance the weight of the historical and philological arguments that can be marshaled against a composition of the work by the Galilean fisherman John. Rather, the conservative claim of apostolic authorship itself clearly stands under the banner of a dogmatic a priori. It is astonishing that in North America, commentators who are averse to fundamentalist tendencies elsewhere, such as Craig Keener, sometimes remain oddly shaky with regard to this question and, in the end, leave the door ajar for the apostle.103 In German-language scholarship, after Rudolf Schnackenburg,104 the argument for authorship by the apostle John is usually not even discussed anymore. To be sure, the problem of Johannine authorship as a historical problem remains riddling and ultimately probably unsolvable.105 However, in my opinion, this question should not obtain fundamental significance for a commentary. When this happens and when the claim of apostolic eyewitness testimony is then used to ‘establish’ the historical reliability of the Johannine report or its superiority over the Synoptics, the course is set too much in the direction of a historicizing reading, and the freedom of the Johannine author in his handling of the traditions, his theological 100

Significantly, this is the first point of the introduction in Mercier 2010, 1–15: “Qui a écrit le IVe évangile?” In Morris 1971, 8–30 (somewhat more cautiously in Morris 1995, 4–25), the traditional understanding of authorship is argumentatively justified first (and in great detail); see also Robinson 1985, 122. By contrast, Schwank 1998 argues very cautiously. 101 Thus, e.g., Köstenberger 2004, 7 n. 16. 102 Thus the argument of Köstenberger 2004, 7 n. 16, who refers to his own thorough report on the early critics of Johannine authorship (prior to 1820), i.e., Köstenberger 2001. However, the influential works of Ferdinand Christian Baur, which were ultimately decisive, are not given further consideration there. 103 Cf. Keener 2003, I: 139: “that the Gospel includes at least eyewitness tradition from John the apostle.” Cf. Keener 2003, I: 82: “I believe that traditional conservative scholars have made a better case for Johannine authorship of the Gospel . . . than other scholars have made against it.” Keener does not even want to definitively exclude the common authorship of Gospel and Revelation, though he regards this as less likely (I: 139). For the problem of Johannine authorship and the question of the pseudonymity of Revelation, see now also Frey 2015a. 104 Schnackenburg 1986, 60–88. 105 On this, see Hengel 1993 as the last fundamental study.

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independence, and his specific message to readers of his time are insufficiently taken into account. 2.3.2 Taking Source Criticism as the Point of Departure

A second ‘gatekeeper’ of interpretation, which appears in some commentaries, is a specific source-critical hypothesis, which then determines which textual complexes are ultimately interpreted in which frameworks. In Bultmann this was the work of the evangelist, as reconstructed by Bultmann, before the alleged dislocations of numerous passages and without the additions of the alleged ‘ecclesiastical redaction.’ Thus, it was not the traditioned text that was interpreted but rather a hypothetically reconstructed text, which was interpreted against the background of the hypothetically assumed sources. By contrast, the additions of the redaction were scarcely of theological interest and were generally regarded as less valuable and as a misunderstanding of the views of the evangelist. From today’s perspective, one can say without further ado that the Gospel of the evangelist interpreted in the work of Bultmann in its textual ordering never existed in this form—it is nothing but a critical construct of fantasy or ‘science fiction.’ In Becker too it is basically the individual strata that are interpreted: the Logos hymn, the semeia source, the synthesis through the evangelist, and the additions of the supplementers from the ecclesiastical redaction. By contrast, the text in its entirety never really comes into view. A similar judgment applies to the most recent source-critical commentaries. Siegert interprets the Gospel of John “in its original form.”106 His judgments about the supposed additions are predominantly critical to disparaging in character. Moreover, the text is rearranged according to the outline of the alleged first draft, so that here too (as with Bultmann before him) it is difficult to locate where a given passage in John is to be found in Siegert’s commentary. Von Wahlde proceeds in the most consistent manner. For his three-strata model, he makes the bold claim that he has developed criteria for assigning the text to his three layers in a more precise manner than all his predecessors107 and then interprets every one of the three assumed ‘editions’ of the Gospel with regard to their linguistic form and theological statements. To be sure, in this way the overall form of the

106

So in the title of his commentary. Siegert 2008, 172: “The latest additions, by contrast, which make up John II . . . are only viewed in passing here.” 107 Von Wahlde 2010, I: 2: “with a clarity that has not been previously achieved.” Von Wahlde states that earlier source-critical approaches “have not achieved widespread acceptance” (I: 2). It is doubtful that his own attempt is more capable of securing a consensus.

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text is considered, though primarily under the aspect that it contains many inconsistencies, which for their part compel one to source-critical analysis. When one examines the very detailed list of criteria relating to language and content that von Wahlde presents for the stages assumed by him, substantial skepticism arises. Can linguistic variations be securely assigned to strata, and can one assume that an editor (who also does not simply ‘invent’ his or her text) always has only one word or one phrasing for a given subject matter? Such allocations awake (as already for the predecessors since Wellhausen) great doubts about whether the texts in the assumed form ever existed. Such a detailed reconstruction is certainly not able to secure a consensus. In such a case, the author moves largely in his self-created circle in which much seems to make sense. This, however, does not increase the historical probability of the constructions. The degree of the hypothetical increases with every additional earlier stage, and the validity of the models relating to the development of the history of the community and the history of theology built upon this are no longer controllable. The self-enclosed overall picture, which is not open to external inspection, becomes a fiction. It becomes a beautiful ‘glass bead game’—a phenomenon about which Old Testament scholarship, as is well known, can also tell us a thing or two. As was already the case for the older conceptions,108 the most recent attempts of source criticism of Siegert and von Wahlde appear to founder on the Gospel of John. In my judgment, this approach is inappropriate for a commentary, especially when the view of the overall text is already restricted or ‘filtered’ by means of the reconstruction of sources or the assignment of material to various strata. 2.3.3 Taking History-of-Religion or Religious-Political Preliminary Decisions as the Point of Departure

Since the beginnings of a history-of-religion ‘placement’ of the Gospel of John—and these beginnings go back in nuce even to Christian antiquity, where the so-called Alogoi wanted to assign the work to the ‘gnostic’ Cerinthus—the Fourth Gospel (or its tradition) has been placed in a variety of history-of-religion contexts.109 Persian and Alexandrian thought, Christian and pre-Christian Gnosticism, orthodox and heterodox Judaism, and Baptist and early Christian traditions have all been drawn upon to explain Johannine language and theology. Recently, a return to 108 See my critical analysis of the source-critical attempts of Wellhausen and Schwartz, Bultmann, Becker and Richter, Schmithals, and others in Frey 1997b, 51–71, 119–50, 273– 97, 381–88, 429–45. 109 On this topic, see Frey 2013a, 45–88.

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the perception of the Jewish backgrounds of the Gospel as a whole or at least of its tradition has occurred, not least through the Qumran findings. To be sure, in the most recent scholarship a movement back to the incorporation of a wider circle of sources from the Greco-Roman world is also recognizable, for example, in the commentaries of Udo Schnelle and Craig Keener.110 In any case, the variety of parallels that scholars record but do not always really evaluate makes one raise the question of what is actually explained through ‘parallels.’ In the end, the concern in that regard can be less with genealogical derivations than with a contextualization that shows which profile the text that is to be interpreted has within the framework of other texts in its world and time. However, a restriction of the spectrum of sources in an overly onesided manner is also problematic. Thus, in the commentary of Klaus Wengst, one finds, in conscious one-sidedness, a restriction to Jewish sources and here especially to the Jewish-rabbinic material, which is intended to make visible the Jewish horizon of the Jewish text. Apart from the fact that with texts from Midrash and Talmud a partially anachronistic framework is selected111 and the Judaism of the diaspora tends to be bracketed out, such a limitation of the source material—selected for a certain religious-political interest—produces problematic distortions. When, for example, regarding the Logos concept in the Johannine Prologue, it is no longer recognizable to the readers of the commentary what meaning the term λόγος and related concepts had in the Greek world—from the preSocratics to the Stoa—and in Hellenistic Judaism,112 since only passages on the creative word of God from the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic texts are provided,113 then a commentary’s obligation to provide information and to do so truthfully is missed or sacrificed to an ideological narrowing. Such a restriction of the comparative material—to Gnosticism, philosophy, rabbinica, or ‘only’ the Old Testament Scriptures—presents a problematic narrowing of interpretation that must be avoided.

110

Schnelle 2016; Keener 2003. See also the sources collected in Schnelle/Labahn/ Lang 2001 and the considerations in Frey 2016e. 111 The commentary is ultimately subject to the same methodological problems as the much criticized presentation of the rabbinic material by Paul Billerbeck, though the author represents, of course, a diametically opposed interest vis-à-vis the anti-Jewish clichés in Billerbeck’s work. 112 See now Frey 2016e. 113 Wengst 2000/2001, I: 44.

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2.3.4 Taking a Narrowing Text-Theory as the Point of Departure

The fourth ‘gatekeeper’ is located in the methodological principles of certain text-theories, i.e., in the programmatic (though it cannot be carried out with complete consistency) restriction to a purely synchronic textual analysis, such as in the commentary of Hartwig Thyen. Such a restriction, which is due to the strictness of a certain understanding of textuality, must inevitably lead to a narrowing of perspective, which brackets out the world of the texts and their history. This restriction takes place, of course, for methodologically understandable reasons. Synchronic and diachronic methods are still only inadequately connected with each other in New Testament exegesis,114 and it belongs to the limits of synchronicnarratological methods that the question of the emergence of a text cannot be integrated seamlessly into its ensemble.115 But given that the texts of the Gospels claim to narrate the history of Jesus and to present (at least partially) sayings and accounts from his time or from the traditions available to the evangelists, the interpretation cannot fundamentally deny this line of questioning—irrespective of the level of optimism or pessimism with which one may expect valid answers here. Thyen brackets out these questions in his commentary, but they cannot ultimately be bracketed out if the assumption of the unity of the text or the knowledge of or use of the Synoptic Gospels is not to remain a mere postulate.116 The reflections of Francis Moloney appear more balanced. He likewise wants to focus more on the world in front of the text than on the world behind the text, but he does not ignore historical questions.117 In this methodological openness also toward historical contextualization and perspectivalism, the fruitfulness of narratological approaches can be most clearly developed. 3. Literary—Historical—Theological: Reflections on My Own Approach In fact, to me, the perception of the literary, narrative, and dramatic elements of the Johannine text, of the progressive ‘development’ of motifs 114

This is also evident in the new edition of the method book originally conceptualized by Wilhelm Egger. See Egger/Wick 2011, in which synchronic and diachronic methods are still only juxtaposed. More plausible connections are now presented by Finnern/ Rüggemeier 2017. 115 Cf. recently Finnern 2010, who has, to be sure, on the whole worked out a stronger opening of narratological concepts for the historical line of questioning. 116 On this and what follows, see Frey 2008c. See now the much more subtle grounding of the reception of Synoptic material (on the basis of an equally strict synchronic texttheory) in Garský 2012. 117 Moloney 1998b, 15.

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and themes, of the subtle fabric of implicit commentaries and aids that facilitate the readers’ understanding, and of the didactic dynamic of the text seems to belong to the most important fruits of recent Johannine scholarship. The Gospel is precisely not a work that is enigmatic and cut off but one that seeks to mediate its understanding of the history of Jesus with various means. These means are only recognizable, however, when one views the text in its entirety as a ‘functional’ whole. To be sure, in some narrative analyses the theoretical expenditure is excessive and interpretively unfruitful, but the observations concerning intratextual (and intertextual) connections do help to perceive the text in a completely different way than was possible in an old, exclusively historical or sourcecritical paradigm. Synchronic-narrative approaches tie the interpretation to the linguistic form of the text that has been handed down, to what is de facto present, and they encourage cautious skepticism toward all hypotheses about sources and processes of redaction, which are often advanced in an overly self-assured manner. Moreover, more recent attempts simultaneously take seriously the web of linguistic images,118 which is found with a much greater density in John than in the Synoptics. Finally, the observations concerning the play of the text with its readers let one grasp something of the fascination that this Gospel has exerted upon different readers up to the present. The perception of the ‘pragmatics,’ in which a text aims to influence or potentially influences its readers, simultaneously brings one close to the theological interpretation and the task of mediation. These observations are fundamental for the task of writing a commentary on the Johannine text. However, also in the horizon of synchronic approaches we cannot avoid the historical questions and aporias. A decisionistic bracketing out of such questions leads only to a restricted and ultimately one-sided perception of the textual and historical reality. Irrespective of how far the historical questions can be answered via the given source basis, we must consider them when possible since we cannot, conversely, assume that the Fourth Gospel ‘fell from heaven’ at some time or—which amounts to the same thing—that it was written by an author, who is of no further interest to us (and is only implicit in the text), without reference to his real world and in one go. Thus, as much as I regard a synchronic-text related approach to be the most promising interpretively and most appropriate methodologically, I can forgo neither the historical question of the possible author and his first readers nor the question of the most appropriate historical and tradition-historical or history-of-religion contexts. For the literary-historical contextualization, one must carefully and critically 118

See, e.g., van der Watt 2000; R. Zimmermann 2004; 2006.

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incorporate the broad stock of early Jewish and Greco-Roman sources as well as the witness of the Christian (and Christian-gnostic) writings of the second century. Moreover, one must also consider the classical questions of possibly recognizable sources or traditions and—connected with this—of the historical source value of the Johannine narrative or individual aspects of it, even though these very questions can often be answered only in part, very hypothetically, or perhaps not at all. In my opinion, the question of the original meaning of the text is also legitimate and necessary (also theologically), even though in the framework of recent narratological theories the ‘enlightened’ reader-centered approach has become dominant, which vehemently calls into question the reconstructability of such an original meaning and assumes that the meaning of a text is constituted in each case only in the act of reading. The question might therefore be formulated in modified form as the question of the meaning recognizable for the first recipients. Nevertheless, as such it is, in my opinion, still indispensable, not least in the interest of a theological interpretation of the text. After all, the Gospel of John aims, finally, to be interpreted in its theological claim. An interpretation of it as a mere literary work of art falls just as short as a purely historical ‘explanation’ of its emergence and circumstances. Interpretations fail to do justice to the material claim of the Johnannine text if they explain the text only in its genesis and trace back its emergence to linguistic-historical phenomena and developments or to ecclesiastical challenges, understanding it as an answer to a seemingly deficient Christology, inadequate eschatology, accusations from the synagogue, or the challenge of ‘docetizing’ circles. Rather, one must assume that the Gospel of John also presents an independent and creative theological achievement, an innovative reflection on the way of Jesus of Nazareth, and that in developing this presentation it aims to stimulate its readers to think through anew matters pertaining to their understanding of the Jesus story and to its relevance for their own life. The Gospel of John is a book, which—from the Prologue with the opening “In the Beginning” (1.1) to its hyperbolic conclusion in John 21.25—claims to make fundamental and valid statements and about faith and (eternal) life. Its opening formulation, which takes up and simultaneously surpasses the beginning of Genesis (Gen 1.1 LXX), already shows that this text firmly places itself in a line with the biblical Scriptures and makes a claim to authority, as is made, among the writings of the New Testament, in a comparable way only by the ‘Johannine’ book of Revelation.119 It brings—probably also due to its historical placement—a series of New Testament discourses to 119

So in the concluding text-securing formula of Rev 22.18-19; cf. Deut 4.2; 13.1.

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a climax and leads others at least significantly further.120 At the same time, one should not conceal the fact that this text, despite its greatness, leaves open unresolved problems at other points, for example, in the question of anti-Judaism121 or the conception of predestination.122 Finally, in the early church reception of the Gospel, numerous Johannine statements became fixed points that could guide later reflection— above all with regard to Christology.123 With respect to the understanding of God and his historical activity, the Gospel of John has also made a decisive contribution that goes beyond the older biblical statements.124 Only an interpretation that perceives and takes seriously this theological claim actually does justice to the text. The concept of the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar (EKK), for which I am writing the volumes on John, rightly calls for a theological interpretation that perceives the material claim of the New Testament texts and simultaneously reflects on their varied effective history when possible. However, for a work such as the Gospel of John, the latter can never be completely captured and worked through. Such a ‘bookkeeping’ procedure would scarcely serve the interpretation itself. Rather, the concern can only be to display the potential of the texts to create meaning and stimulate receptions and effects, the possibilities of understanding and misunderstanding, and interpretative alternatives with reference to a selection of traces of the reception of the text in theological interpretations and ecclesial piety as well as in further spheres of culture (philosophy, literature, music, visual arts) in order to further in this way the understanding of the Johannine texts themselves.

120

See chapter 11 in this volume (GV = Frey 2010a; 2013a, 801–33). On this topic, see chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a; 2013a, 339–77). 122 On this topic, see section 3.2 of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 450– 67, especially 461–65 with note 253). 123 On this, see chapters 8 through 11 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c; 2016g; 2012f; 2010a = 2013a, 801–33). 124 See chapter 10 in this volume (GV = Frey 2012f). 121

PART 2 The Character of John’s Gospel

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2

‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John and the ‘Parting of the Ways’

The Fourth Gospel’s statements about ‘the Jews’1 have become a focal point of discussion in New Testament exegesis.2 In view of the horrors of history and the sensitivity to the possible sources of Christian anti-Judaism reawakened on account of the Shoah, ethical questions in particular stand in the background. Is this anti-Judaism not only a phenomenon of the effective history of the Gospel of John but already contained in the work itself, at least potentially? Is this Gospel, which possesses such a central significance for the formation of Christology, itself incurably anti-Jewish? Is the polemic against ‘the Jews,’ which climaxes in the designation of the Jewish opponents of Jesus as “children of the devil” (8.44), not simply a marginal textual element that is detachable as a ‘shell’ from the actual ‘core’ but rather the implication and consequence of Johannine Christology?3 Can or may one still dare to place John in the hands of today’s readers ‘in uncensored form’ or at least without commentary if one does 1 This essay is a significantly expanded and revised version of the essay that appeared in the Festschrift of Johannes Beutler with the title “Das Bild der ‘Juden’ im Johannesevangelium und die Geschichte der johanneischen Gemeinde” (Frey 2004a). I am still grateful to Michaela Stock and Juliane Baumann for their critical review of the German version and for helping with the corrections. 2 See the discussion in the collection of essays in Bieringer/Pollefeyt/VandecasteeleVanneuville 2001a, especially the fundamental introductory essay (Bieringer/Pollefeyt/ Vandecasteele-Vanneuville 2001b). For a survey of recent scholarship see von Wahlde 2000; Nicklas 2001; Hakola 2005; Kierspel 2006; and Culpepper/Anderson 2017, especially the essay by R. Bieringer in this volume (Bieringer 2017). For the period until 1982 see von Wahlde 1982; for older scholarship, see Schram 1974; Leistner 1974. 3 Cf. the sharp criticism from a Jewish perspective in Brumlik 1990, which retains its provocative power despite the problematic history-of-religion decisions. According to Brumlik, the Gospel of John shows “that what is ‘actually’ Christian is not only non-Jewish but even anti-Jewish” (20). Cf. also the reflections in von der Osten-Sacken 1976.

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not want to risk the possibility that a sinister effective history will be continued through the use of the text? 1. Hermeneutical Aspects of the Discussion in the Ethical Context While the exegetical discussion of the Fourth Gospel was stimulated through the connection with such ‘ethical’ arguments, it was simultaneously made difficult by a tangle of varied interests, which can only be separated out with difficulty. We can roughly distinguish four types of arguments with which exegetes attempt to ‘deal with’ the anti-Jewish statements of the Gospel of John. (a) An initial approach makes use of the classic methods of source criticism. Anti-Jewish statements are ascribed to a secondary—and, hence, less relevant—stratum and are differentiated historically and materially from the theologically valuable statements of the ‘actual’ Gospel. Urban C. von Wahlde’s approach moves within the framework of a relatively conventional source-critical theory. He seeks to support his view that the expression οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι designates only the official authorities and not the whole Jewish people through the thesis that John 6.41 and 6.52—where such an interpretation is not possible—come from a later redaction, i.e., the evangelist should not be blamed for it.4 More extensive redactional additions are postulated by the Münster textual critic Eberhard Güting,5 who—though without following an actually strict methodology—sought to classify John 6 as a whole, John 8.30-31, John 5.17-18, John 9.18, 23, and some other texts as redactional additions. Inspired by Güting among others, Folker Siegert, in a preliminary study and an extensive commentary,6 has presented a source-critical reconstruction of a supposed first draft of the Gospel of John, in which the ‘actual’ evangelist, the Jewish Christian ‘Presbyter John,’ is meant to be absolved of responsibility for the “Johannine deformities,”7 also with regard to the Jews. Instead, it is said that these ugly anti-Jewish deformities, together with other textual elements such as the Johannine dualism and pessimism, are to be ascribed to 4 Von Wahlde 2000, 41. According to von Wahlde 2000, 51, the problematic passages of John 8.31 and 10.19 also go back to redactional activity. As a whole von Wahlde advocates a source-critical theory in the school of R. T. Fortna, i.e., he reckons with a Signs Gospel or a pre-Johannine continuous writing that was then supplemented redactionally. This means that von Wahlde’s source criticism has not been developed solely in relation to the topic of the Jews but is drawn upon in order to support a semantic differentiation here. 5 Güting 2000. 6 Siegert 2004; 2008, where significant changes are made vis-à-vis his ‘first draft.’ 7 Siegert 2004, 111.

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unoriginal supplementers and editors from the later period of the school,8 who have disqualified themselves through their ignorance of Judaism and lack of logical-theological stringency. Less extensively developed but guided by the same interest in separating out a statement that is awkward for a Jewish understanding is an essay by James H. Charlesworth.9 He wants to regard the christological central thesis of John 14.6b (“no one comes to the Father except through me”) as redactional10 because of its christological exclusivism, i.e., for material reasons, and at the same time as a “relic of the past,”11 and thus as theologically overcome, though without supporting this thesis further through a detailed source criticism of the Johannine text.12 These contributions are not convincing source-critically and are guided too much by the respectively predominant theological interests. The various attempts to obtain a materially (or even linguistically) ‘purified’ textual form of the Gospel of John by means of source-critical differentiation have never been successful, and the hope of being able to distinguish in this way between ‘valuable’ and ‘discardable’ statements is deceptive. What would be gained for the interpretation if one could ascribe the polemic against ‘the Jews’ as a religious collective or the christological exclusivism not to the evangelist but to a subsequent redaction? The text that is ‘canonical’ and that has become influential in history contains these elements, and the opinion that one could set them aside as irrelevant—especially if they stand in tension with Johannine or Pauline statements—is an indicator of too much hermeneutical naivety. Unfortunately, it will not be so ‘easy’ for exegesis and theology to get rid of the offensive anti-Jewish statements of the Gospel of John. (b) A second approach, which has many variations, aims to semantically limit the statements about the Ἰουδαῖοι and in this way to remove their generalizing, polemical-anti-Jewish accent.13 Here one can distinguish among multiple variants.

8

Siegert 2004, 126; 2008, 82, reckons with a reordering and supplementation of the manuscript that was left through multiple unoriginal hands, perhaps around 130 CE. 9 Charlesworth 2001. 10 Charlesworth 2001, 272–73. 11 Charlesworth 2001, 276. 12 Charlesworth reckons with a first edition of the Gospel of John, which he seeks to date on the basis of its coordination to the tradition of the Qumran-Essenes between 68 and 70 CE, and with a later second edition. For his Qumran thesis, see Charlesworth 2002; for criticism see Frey 2004b; 2013a, 147–237. 13 See the report in Kierspel 2006, 13–36, and the tables for the translation into English and German on pp. 218–19.

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Inspired by historical considerations, especially from Jesus research, there is, first, the attempt to limit the reference of Ἰουδαῖοι to the religious authorities in Jerusalem, in order to avoid in this way the reference to Judaism as a religious or ethnic entity or even to the whole Jewish ‘people.’14 The ethically respectable goal of this differentiation is “to make the ‘transfer of hostility’ impossible.”15 However, such an interpretation is not possible for every passage, and the historical differentiation scarcely touches the narrative function and with this the textual effect of the image of the Ἰουδαῖοι.16 The offense remains that the Gospel of John as a whole speaks in a more undifferentiated manner than, say, Mark about the Jewish groups at the time of Jesus. Thus, while it is necessary to differentiate among the crowds, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Jerusalem authorities in historical questions surrounding Jesus’ activity and the backgrounds of his death,17 such a differentiation cannot be carried out with regard to the Gospel of John as a whole.18 The Ἰουδαῖοι remain potent as a literary entity, irrespective of which party they may have referred to historically.19 This fundamental problem also arises in relation to other attempts at semantic differentiation. For quite some time already it has been suggested—from a Lutheran perspective—that the term Ἰουδαῖοι be related to a part of Judaism that was especially strict or rigorous with respect to the law.20 However, in comparison to the Pauline writings, the discussion surrounding the observance of the law recedes conspicuously in John, and the central questions of the Pauline mission cannot be made into the interpretive key for the Gospel of John. Also the more recent attempt to view the Ἰουδαῖοι as a group that is especially interested in Levitical purity21 can scarcely be verified by the texts, for the controversy in John

14 Thus in von Wahlde 2000. Additional representatives of this view are listed in Kierspel 2006, 13–20. 15 Bieringer/Pollefeyt/Vandecasteele-Vanneuville 2001b, 17. 16 Thus the objection in Bieringer/Pollefeyt/Vandecasteele-Vanneuville 2001b, 19: “Even if ‘the Jews’ has a very limited referent, its literary role in the narrative can be immense.” 17 So, e.g., with a view to Matt 27.25 and its fatal effective history. 18 In the context of the passion story, John also differentiates more precisely between the high priests and the crowds, but such a differentiation is precisely not present in John 5–12. 19 Nicklas 2001 has recently worked this out clearly. 20 So already Lütgert 1914. 21 Thus Motyer 1997, who seeks to view the Gospel of John as a whole as a missionary writing to Jews and understands the term to mean “the scrupulous adherents of the religion of Judaea.”

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turns not upon questions of purity but in the first instance upon Christology and the christological interpretation of Scripture. Another attempt at ‘defusing’ the Jewish–Christian controversy is found in the interpretation of the term in relation to Jewish Christians. Matthias Rissi has made this the key for his interpretation, especially on the basis of John 8.30-31.22 In this view, the Johannine polemic is aimed not at all at the contemporary synagogue but at Christians who appeal “alongside the word of Jesus to a second source of salvation, . . . their being children of Abraham, their descent from the people of the Jews,”23 and, on top of that, according to John 1.18 and other passages, possibly to mystical experiences.24 However, the fact that Rissi must then classify the ἀποσυνάγωγος-statements as an “interpolation of the final redaction”25 makes his proposal appear unconvincing. The approach accurately perceives that the sharp controversy over who are children of Abraham with its pointed statements is aimed at Ἰουδαῖοι who “believed in him” (8.31), but in the continuation of the controversy (cf. 8.31) their initial belief probably did not prove to be ‘abiding,’ as is shown by the opposition to Jesus and, finally, the polemic against him as a “possessed Samaritan” (8.48). The attempt to bring the controversy into an intra-community, intra-Christian sphere by ‘defusing’ it as a controversy between Johannine and Jewish Christians (but not with the actual synagogue or non-Christian Jews) is ultimately unsuccessful.26 In recent times, however, there have been an increasing number of attempts to restrict the reference of Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John geographically or ethnically to “Judeans,”27 so that the polemical statements no longer have to be related to a religiously defined group, let alone one that stands in continuity with present-day Judaism. This aspect of a ‘political correctness’ appears to be the main motive behind the current trend to render Ἰουδαῖοι with “Judeans” also in other ancient texts,28 so that even 22

Rissi 1996. Rissi 1996, 2113. 24 Rissi 1996, 2108–9. 25 Rissi 1996, 2133. 26 H. J. de Jonge 2001 favors an even more radical solution, following his student Ruyter 1998. Behind the cipher ‘the Jews,’ Ruyter wants to see not Jews by birth but simply non-Johannine Christians, who rejected the Johannine Christology and whom the evangelist—who is said to have had only a very faded conception of Judaism—therefore assumes to be perhaps under Jewish influence. For de Jonge 2001, 124, ‘the Jews’ are “an idée fixe,” behind which a conception of real conversation partners no longer stands. In this way the problem of ‘anti-Judaism’ is solved as a misunderstanding. An interpretive coup! 27 See also the presentation of views and discussion in Kierspel 2006, 20–24. 28 So, e.g., in the commentary on Josephus’ Antiquitates, edited by Steve Mason, which was published with the title Judean Antiquities in the series Flavius Josephus: Translation 23

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the English version of the Bauer lexicon now suggests ‘Judean’ (instead of ‘Jew’) as the standard translation of Ἰουδαῖος.29 This problem cannot be discussed further here. It is, of course, possible to render the term with ‘Judean’ in many places where the term actually designates people in or from Judea, but the use of the term for Idumeans and Galileans as well as for members of a Diaspora synagogue and for proselytes is difficult to justify, at least philologically. Conversely, non-Jewish persons from Judea are never called Ἰουδαῖοι, and the connection of Ἰουδαῖος to a religious identity is already given since the books of the Maccabees.30 Untouched by these modern reflections, Karl Bornhäuser, within the framework of his reading of the Gospel of John as a mission writing for Israel, had already made such a geographical restriction of the reference of the term to Judeans in 1928,31 and in recent years this interpretation— strengthened by the aforementioned motives—has been frequently renewed.32 However, this interpretation remains problematic also for some of the Johannine texts. The designation of the Galilean crowd in John 6.41, 52, as ‘Judeans’ is hardly possible, and it would be very odd for the Samaritan woman in John 4.9 to designate Jesus as ‘Judean’ and not as ‘Jew,’ especially since this dialogue is concerned with religious identity. The statement about salvation, which comes ‘from the Ἰουδαῖοι’ (4.22), also clearly refers to a religious tradition and not to a merely geographical-ethnic framework. Thus, the attempt of a politically correct ‘disentangling’ of ‘Judeans’ as an object of the Johannine polemic from the religious fellowship of the ‘Jews’ is not viable for the interpretation of the Gospel of John.

and Commentary. For the problem see the critical discussion by Schwartz 2007. Cf. now also the contributions of Adele Reinhartz, Steve Mason, Daniel Schwartz, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Joan Taylor, Malcolm Lowe, Jonathan Klawans, Ruth Sheridan, and James Crossley in Law/Halton 2014, as well as Thompson 2015, 200–204. 29 Danker 2000, 478. It is conspicuous that the entry is introduced there with a specific justification: “Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Ἰουδαῖος with ‘Jew,’ for many readers or auditors of Bible translations do not practice the historical judgment necessary to distinguish between circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary ethnic-religious social realities, with the result that anti-Judaism in the modern sense of the term is needlessly fostered through biblical texts.” Idem: “Since the term ‘Judaism’ suggests a monolithic entity that fails to take account of the many varieties of thought and social expression associated with such adherence, the calque or loanword ‘Judean’ is used in this and other entries where Ἰουδαῖος is treated.” 30 See, e.g., 2 Macc 9.17, where Antiochus IV reasons that in the end he would himself probably become a Ἰουδαῖος. Cf. Schwartz 2007, 13. 31 Bornhäuser 1928. 32 Cf. Lowe 1976; see further Ashton 1985; von Wahlde 2000; Güting 2000.

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(c) Alongside the attempts at semantic disentangling, proposals for a historical explanation of the anti-Jewish statements have a special significance, especially since paying precise attention to the situation and context of individual statements has long been a central concern of historical-critical exegesis. An important result of these attempts is that the anti-Jewish statements of the Gospel, even if they occur narratively in the mouth of Jesus, must be differentiated from the historical situation of the time of Jesus and be assigned to a later epoch and possibly to specific conflicts of the (Johannine) community with ‘the Jews,’ either with the Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism newly constituted after 70 CE or, according to another reconstruction, with local synagogue groups.33 The details and implications of the historical reconstructions of J. Louis Martyn, Raymond E. Brown, and Klaus Wengst will be discussed in detail later and can be ignored for the time being. However, the hermeneutical problem that presents itself here must be noted. Also the historical ‘explanation’ of the polemic as arising from a specific situation of controversy, exclusion, persecution, or legal uncertainty can neither ‘excuse’ nor render harmless the problematic statements of the Johannine work. With the historical placement of the Johannine conflicts is connected the question of whether and how far the emergence of the work can still be placed in a completely Jewish context, i.e., whether it is still a matter of an intra-Jewish controversy or whether the polemic already takes place ‘from outside.’ In this horizon we find attempts to date the Gospel of John early34 and to locate it in the Palestinian sphere.35 An interest in regarding the Gospel of John as still being an intra-Jewish controversy and not a polemic from a Gentile Christian position usually stands behind these attempts.36 Thus, here too, ‘ethical’ categories stand in the background, though it is, of course, by no means settled that a polemic that was still intra-Jewish would be ‘more legitimate’ or ‘less dangerous’ than a polemic that came from ‘outside.’ Besides, the processes of the detachment of the Christian 33

On this, cf. especially the work of Martyn 1968; 1979; 2003; and in the Germanlanguage sphere, Wengst 1992 [1981]. For this model see section 3 below. 34 Thus, e.g., the extremely early dating (between 45 and 65) in M. Barth 1990. Berger 1997 and 2011 also proposed an early dating for the Gospel of John with reference to its Jewish characteristics. 35 Thus the historical thesis in Wengst 1992, who locates the Gospel in the area of the kingdom of Agrippa II and in the context of a powerful Jewish majority and seeks to evaluate the controversy in this way as a controversy between the Jewish Christian community and the ‘mother synagogue’ that is still completely intra-Jewish. On this, see section 3 below. Cf. also the localization in Riesner 1987. 36 Cf. also the pointers in the commentary of Wengst 2000/2001, 19ff., which wants to make such an intra-Jewish reading possible through the restitution of Jewish (above all Talmudic) contexts. For the problems, see my review in Frey 2002d.

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community from the context of the synagogue (the so-called parting of the ways) are very complex and extend over a long period of time, so that the question of what is ‘still’ Jewish and ‘already’ Christian often cannot be clearly decided.37 In this respect the historical placement of the Johannine controversies can provide only a limited help with regard to the hermeneutical issue of the evaluation of the anti-Jewish statements. (d) A fourth approach, which presupposes the historical or socialhistorical attempts at explanation while going beyond them, makes a psychological interpretation of the anti-Jewish statements of the Gospel of John. For example, Wilhelm Pratscher38 attempts to interpret the polemic of a Jewish Christianity marginalized by the synagogue as “a reactionformation,” i.e., a “replacement of previous affection with rejection,” and as a “projection.”39 Concretely, the Johannine group is said to project “the inability to demonstrate the reasonableness of their own faith in such a way that it is accepted” upon “the dialogue partner, who is thereby fixed, in turn, in his behavior alone and exclusively regarded as an opponent.”40 Through the incrimination of the opponent, there ensues “a confirmation of their own faith,” but behind this lies “a clouded perception of reality.”41 I cannot go into the methodological problems of such a depth-psychological interpretive approach here. What is clear is that here far-reaching conclusions about group-related and inner-psychological processes are postulated on the basis of texts, which—regardless of how plausible individual explanations may sound—is a procedure that remains uncertain and hypothetical. Here, I cannot and need not provide further discussion of other psychopathological ‘explanations’ of the texts.42 Behind all these approaches lies the perception of the offense of the anti-Jewish polemic in the Gospel of John and usually the effort to exclude a continuing anti-Jewish influence of the text by means of an appropriate explanation,43 but without endangering its theological authority as a whole. The ultimate aim of these efforts is to let the work not continue to be a ‘rock of offense’ in Christian–Jewish dialogue.44 Sometimes, ‘strat37 See the edited volume Dunn 1992; see also Dunn 1991. For recent discussion that problematizes the category ‘parting of the ways,’ see Reed/Becker 2003, 1–33; Frey 2017c. 38 Pratscher 2000. 39 Pratscher 2000, 144–45. 40 Pratscher 2000, 146. 41 Pratscher 2000, 146. 42 E.g., the formulation of Brumlik 1990, 108, which speaks of a “paranoid image of an enemy,” goes in this direction. 43 So Charlesworth 2001, 248: “I think we would all agree that we must endeavor to make it certain that it is no longer easy to use the Gospel of John to increase anti-Semitism.” 44 However, this concern often results in many accents of the text coming to expression only in a softened and broken form. So, e.g., in Kriener 2001, 152–53, which seeks to

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egies of exoneration’ are recognizable,45 which would not be a priori illegitimate, if they led to an understanding that was textually and historically appropriate. But the difficulty that no exegete can escape the hermeneutical circle of historical knowledge and applicative interest becomes evident with particular clarity in the question of the meaning and consequences of the Johannine texts about ‘the Jews.’ The ethical questions arise inevitably, not only in Christian–Jewish dialogue. However, philological-historical exegesis should succeed in appropriately drawing out the textual findings and distinguishing what is historically probable from what is less probable before the ethical or religious engagement of the exegete takes on a life of its own. Here the complexity of the processes must be perceived, and oversimplified alternatives must be avoided. At the same time, it is clear that the historical placement and explanation of the texts cannot ward off the dangers of an inappropriate reception and influence. The task of taking an evaluative position in relation to the statements of the texts is certainly posed following upon the historical explanation—but the hope is that this can take place in a manner that is more appropriate and more considered. With this intention the textual findings of the Johannine statements about the Jews will be examined and evaluated with the greatest possible degree of differentiation (section 2). Next, the aforementioned models of the historical explanation of the conflict in the horizon of the history of the Johannine community will be discussed and critically considered (section 3). Then the factors that led to the assumed separation of the Johannine ‘Christians’ from the contemporary synagogue will be investigated in greater detail (sections 4 and 5) before a hermeneutical conclusion (section 6) can be drawn. 2. The Statements about ‘the Jews’ and Their Dramaturgical Function The exegetical findings can be discussed only briefly here. In doing so, in accordance with the present state of research, priority must be given to synchronic analysis.46 Since none of the postulated sources or preliminary interpret Johannine Christology in a markedly “subordinationist” manner. A clear undervaluation of Johannine Christology takes place in the commentary of Wengst 2000/2001. On this, see my review in Frey 2002d. 45 So the flagging up of problems in Vetter 1996. 46 For the state of the discussion regarding Johannine exegesis, see the research report of Scholtissek 1998b; 1999; 2000b; 2001; 2002; 2004b; cf. also Frey 2008c; Schnelle 2010; 2013a. For critical engagement with the diverse source-critical and redaction-critical hypotheses on the Gospel of John, see Frey 1997b.

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stages of the Gospel enjoy general acceptance any longer47 and since one must assume that the Fourth Evangelist has linguistically reworked his traditions throughout, only the level of the present work can serve as a point of departure for the question of the Johannine image of ‘the Jews.’ The three Johannine letters provide an indispensable ‘commentary’ on the Gospel. Their emergence is certainly not to be pushed far from the Gospel, and they should therefore be drawn upon for the specification of the situation.48 The findings are conspicuous insofar as the talk of ‘the Jews’ or the lexeme Ἰουδαῖος does not occur at all in the three letters, whereas in the Gospel of John it appears very often (sixty-nine or seventy times) in comparison with the Synoptics.49 The distribution, however, is uneven. The term is lacking in the Prologue and in John 21 as well as in the Farewell Discourses—apart from a single occurrence that points back to what came earlier (13.33) and the statement in John 16.2-3, which is implicitly related to Jewish opponents. Something analogous is true for other lexemes that designate Jewish groups or institutions: Φαρισαῖος, which is not used more frequently in John than in the Synoptics,50 is also lacking in the aforementioned passages (and likewise in the Johannine letters), and Sadducees and ‘Herodians’ are no longer spoken of at all in John. The title ἀρχιερεύς or its plural form occurs only in chapters 7 and 11–12 and in the passion narrative.51 ὑπηρέτης,52 which is conspicuously concentrated in John, likewise appears only in John 7 and in the passion narrative. Λευίτης (1.19), ἱερεύς (1.19), Ἰεροσολυμίτης (7.25), and συνέδριον (11.47) each occur only once. Similarly, συναγωγή occurs only twice (6.59; 18.20), though it is conspicuous that we also find three occurrences of the compositum ἀποσυνάγωγος (9.22; 12.42; 16.2), which appears for the first time here in the whole of Greek literature. Alongside this there 47 Cf. Schnelle 2013c, 564–73. The only possibility for diachronically asking about the traditions of the ‘Johannine community’ appears to be the tradition-analysis of the Johannine sayings material (on this, see in detail Theobald 2002; cf. also Frey 2000b, 30– 44) as well as individual Johannine narratives (on this, see Labahn 1999). 48 On this, cf., among others, Hengel 1993, 155–58 and elsewhere; Schnelle 2013c, 517–22; Frey 2000b, 53ff. Contrast Beutler 2000, 18–20. 49 Numbers according to Bachmann/Slaby 1987, s.v. Of the seventy-one occurrences listed there, John 3.5 drops out for text-critical reasons. John 3.22 (“the Jewish land”) also falls out of consideration for reasons of content. In comparison there are five occurrences in Matthew, six in Mark, and five in Luke. 50 Thirty occurrences in Matthew, twelve in Mark, twenty-seven in Luke, and twenty in John. 51 Twenty-five occurrences in Mark, twenty-two in Mark, fifteen in Luke, and twentyone in John. 52 Two occurrences in Matthew, two in Mark, two in Luke, and nine in John.

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are four—quite positive—occurrences of Ἰσραήλ (1.31, 49; 3.10; 12.13) and one occurrence of (the talk of Nathanael as a true) Ἰσραηλίτης (1.47). All these terms must be incorporated in the analysis if one wants to avoid one-sidedness. However, attention is usually directed to the frequent and generalizing οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, in which the differentiation of Palestinian Judaism at the time of Jesus into ‘parties’ and groups—which is still more clearly recognizable in the Synoptics—appears to be largely nullified.53 However, the term is not only unevenly distributed, but it is also used with very different nuances.54 It encompasses a spectrum from the designation of Jesus as Ἰουδαῖος (4.9a) via the nonpolemical assignment of Jesus’ conversation partners or sympathizers to the Ἰουδαῖοι (cf. 3.1; 8.31; 11.45; 12.11; 19.38a) and the cultural assignment of customs or festivals to the Ἰουδαῖοι (2.6, 13; 4.9b; 5.1; 6.4; 7.2; 11.55; 19.40, 42), which clearly betrays an outsider perspective, through to the identification of the opponents of Jesus as Ἰουδαῖοι in the controversy dialogues (starting in 5.10), with οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι sometimes referring to representatives and authorities and sometimes simply to members of the group that is given this name (11.19, 31; 12.9) or to the crowd (18.20, 35, 38b; 19.20).55 The occurrences cannot be reduced to a common semantic denominator or convincingly distributed to different strata of literary growth. Both the positive and the negative ways of speaking of the Jews is to be attributed to the shaping hand of the Fourth Evangelist (or to the Johannine proclamation represented by him).56 It differs from the presentation of the Synoptics and—even more—from the historical reality of the time of the earthly Jesus. The sharpest contrast to the fiercest polemic against the ‘Jews’ as ‘children of the devil’ (8.44) is provided by John 4.22 (ἡ σωτηρία ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἐστίν),57 but one can hardly say that this sentence ‘undermines’ or ‘deconstructs’58 the anti-Jewish accent of John 8.44 and other 53

This does not apply to the same extent to the passion narrative. Here John distinguishes more precisely than, say, in the discourses in John 5–10 between the Ἰουδαῖοι or the crowd and the driving force with respect to the condemnation of Jesus, namely the high priests and their servants. His notion of the events in Jerusalem is “more exact in individual points . . . than the Synoptic tradition” (Hengel 1993, 296); see also Hengel 1999, 292–334. 54 Cf. Schnelle 2016, 215. 55 Cf. also John 7.20, where ὁ ὄχλος and οἱ Ἰουδαίοι are used for the Jesus’ opponents. 56 So also Beutler 1998a, 62–63. 57 This statement too has been evaluated as a ‘gloss’ without sufficient reason by numerous exegetes; so, e.g., Wellhausen 1908; Bauer 1933; Bultmann 1971, 189–90 (GV = Bultmann 1986, 139); Haenchen 1984, I: 222 (GV = 1980, 243–44); Becker 1991a, 207–8; or—with a clearly recognizable antisemitic tendency—in Hirsch 1936. Cf., by contrast, the accurate argumentation in Hahn 1995; see also Haacker 1976; Thyen 1980. 58 So Culpepper 2001, 74.

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statements—the effective history, at least, does not suggest this. And although the Johannine Jesus in 4.22 clearly takes the side of the claim of the ‘Jewish’ tradition vis-à-vis the Samaritans, within the framework of the work as a whole the statement simultaneously supports the criticism of the Jews, who did not accept him as ‘Messiah’ (cf. 4.24), although he came from their midst (1.11).59 While the observation that only a little more than a third of the attestations of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι are polemical in the strict sense leads to the judgment that one cannot speak of a general ‘anti-Judaism’ of the fourth Gospel,60 the polemical opposition is nevertheless predominant in the overall picture and in the effective history. What is decisive for the interpretation of the findings is the observation that the talk of the Ἰουδαῖοι is closely connected with the dramaturgical design of the narrated story of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. While the talk of ‘the Jews’ is lacking in the Prologue and the term consistently has a neutral or even a positive connotation in John 1.19–4.54,61 starting in 5.10 the position of the Ἰουδαῖοι appears to be in opposition to Jesus. Beginning in 5.10 there is talk of the persecution of Jesus, and starting in 5.18 of attempts to kill him (cf. 7.1, 19; 8.22-24, 59; 10.31, 33; 11.8). The conflict intensifies in John 5–10 and reaches a high point in the wake of the raising of Lazarus in the Sanhedrin’s decision that he should die (11.45-54). After this there is no longer talk of ‘the Jews’ in the negative sense up to the end of the public activity of Jesus.62 The occurrences in 12.9, 11, again more likely have a positive connotation. After Jesus, for his part, has spoken the judgment over his contemporaries in John 12.37/43, the explicit talk of ‘the Jews’ interestingly plays almost no role at all in the Farewell Discourses. The Jews are mentioned in 13.33, but only in a reminiscence of an earlier discussion. Only 16.2-3 is relevant in this connection, for here the term ἀποσυνάγωγος occurs again, though interestingly the term Ἰουδαῖοι is not used in this context. There is no talk of ‘the Jews’ until John 18–20, now with a much greater differentiation between the people

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So Bieringer/Pollefeyt/Vandecasteele-Vanneuville 2001b, 30, 36. Cf. Schnelle 2016, 215. Cf. also Grässer 1973, (50–69) 52, who evaluates thirtythree of the seventy-one texts as polemical. By contrast, Wengst 1992, 55, points out that the broader context also suggests a negative understanding in other texts. 61 The majority of the positive attestations for Ἰσραήλ (1.31.49; 3.10) and Ἰσραηλίτης (1.47) also occur here. 62 John 13.33 should also probably be classified as neutral. 60

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and its leaders.63 This demonstrates “that the use of Ἰουδαῖος/Ἰουδαῖοι in the Gospel of John must be understood as a dramaturgical element.”64 This conclusion can be supplemented by observations on the use of the term κόσμος, which occurs with predominantly negative connotations in John 13–17 (in contrast to what we find in chapters 1–12) and appears to take the place of the ‘Jews’ as an oppositional entity in the Farewell Discourses (and in 1 John).65 There is a far-reaching narrative and conceptual parallelism between κόσμος and Ἰουδαῖοι.66 This gives rise to the question of the relation of the Ἰουδαῖοι to the ‘world’ and at the same time to the question of the relation to reality and to the world of the Johannine talk of ‘the Jews.’ Does the evangelist identify ‘the Jews’ with ‘the world’? Do ‘the Jews’ represent his ‘world’?67 3. ‘Mirror-Reading’ and the Problem of the ἀποσυνάγωγος-Statements However, the pursuit of the historical reconstruction on the basis of the Fourth Gospel raises enormous methodological problems. First, it is unclear which elements of the presentation are due to the theological shaping of the author and which are to be attributed to historical realities.68 The second question is connected with this: Where does the Fourth Gospel point back to the narrated time and history of Jesus, and in which textual elements are phenomena of the time of the author and his community ‘mirrored’? For although the Johannine story of Jesus ‘is staged’ in Palestine 63 This is pre-given through the material of the passion narrative. However, John consistently presents—in contrast to Mark—only a hearing and no longer a trial before Jewish authorities, since this was already decided in 11.45-54. Jesus too only refers to earlier statements (18.20). 64 Thus, fittingly, Schnelle 2016, 216; cf. also Frey 1994a, 235–36 (= 2013a, 306–7); Culpepper 1983, 125–32. 65 So Kierspel 2006, 159. 66 On this, see in detail Kierspel 2006, 76–110. 67 Cf. the classic specification of their relation in Bultmann 1971, 86 (GV = 1986, 59), according to which the Jews are “representatives of unbelief” or “of the unbelieving ‘world’ ” (cf. similarly Vielhauer 1975, 432; Grässer 1973, 50–69). 68 Important conceptions of the interpretation of John, such as Bultmann’s commentary, exclusively pursued a theological interest and effectively excluded questions about history. By contrast, other interpreters, such as Dodd 1963, have pointed to (individual) historical traditions behind the Fourth Gospel. Cf. also Hengel 1999; Brown/Moloney 2003, 90–110. At the same time, it is also clear for these authors that the Gospel of John only provides very punctiliar historical memories. For recent attempts to argue for a greater amount of historical traditions in John, see, e.g., Blomberg 2001; Bauckham 2007b; 2017; cf. also Anderson 2006; 2009; Anderson/Just/Thatcher 2007; 2009; 2015. For criticism of such attempts, see section 1.2 of chapter 1 of this volume. Cf. also Frey 2017a.

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and deals with the time and activity of the earthly Jesus, it is nevertheless evident that in the theological terminology of the discourses of Jesus and in the image of the disciples and opponents of Jesus, it is ‘reshaped’ by conditions of a later epoch.69 This is especially suggested for the image of the ‘Jews,’ the shaping of which is largely to be attributed to the hand of the evangelist. Thus, one needs to reckon with a ‘multilevel’ reference: “The statements . . . on the historical level and on the contemporary-historical level penetrate each other, so that the time of Jesus is transparent for the time of the fourth evangelist.”70 The question is how this ‘sandwich’ can be historically taken apart. 3.1 Three Models (a) While the attempts to differentiate the Johannine picture of the ‘Jews’ through source-critical separations were not able to lead to convincing results,71 the reading model developed by J. Louis Martyn has gained a broad influence, especially in North American research.72 According to this model the evangelist drastically expanded the ‘onceness’ of the events of the activity of Jesus so that the text simultaneously testified to the powerful presence of Jesus in the time of the community.73 The Gospel must therefore be read simultaneously on two levels, indeed, as Martyn pointedly formulated, as a “two-level drama.”74 According to Martyn, John 9 narrates not only how Jesus heals a blind man but also and simultaneously how a blind man in the community is healed by a Christian preacher and interrogated and ‘excommunicated’ by ‘the Jews’ on the basis of his Christian confession. In this view, ‘the Jews’ who conduct the investigation in John 9.18ff. represent a Jewish ‘authority’ in the environment of the Johannine author. The conspicuous term ἀποσυνάγωγος (9.22) reflects a process that would be unthinkable at the time of Jesus and that, according to Martin, should most likely be understood in the wake of the new formulation of the curse of the heretics in the Eighteen Benedictions, the 69 For this phenomenon of the ‘fusing of horizons,’ see in detail Frey 1998, 247–68. See also chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). 70 Thus, with justification, Beutler 1998a, 64. 71 See the conceptions mentioned in notes 4–6, most extensively in von Wahlde 2000; 2010; and Siegert 2008. In the classic source-critical models on the Gospel of John, the picture of the Jews is precisely not a prominent point of difference between evangelist and redaction. Thus, there are, e.g., no ‘Jews’ passages (with the exception of 16.2-3, where the term is absent) in the texts judged to be redactional by Schnackenburg 1982. On this topic, cf. Beutler 1998a, 62–63. 72 On this, see Smith 1990. For the rise and fall of the thesis, see also Kysar 2005. 73 Martyn 1968; 1979; 2003. 74 Martyn 2003, 66, 124: “two-level drama”; 46: “two-level stage.”

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so-called Birkat ha-Minim, in the academy at Yavneh/Jamnia.75 One can designate this model of reading as “mirror reading.”76 The Johannine narrative is read as a direct reflection of contemporary conditions, with regard to the institutions and convictions of the ‘Jews’ and with regard to the situation of the (Johannine) community, whose members—according to this reading—were excluded from the synagogue on account of their confession and which continued to be in controversy with the synagogue. Martyn developed a sketch of the development of the relations between the Johannine community and the local synagogue and reconstructed four stages.77 Through the activity of Jewish Christian missionaries, a community that still belonged to the sphere of the synagogue (I) is said to have been formed. When the new wording of the ‘Benediction against the Heretics’ became known, presumably through emissaries from Yavneh,78 this is then said to have resulted in the exclusion of the followers of Jesus and in a Jewish Christian group that was separated from the synagogue (II). This is said to have reduced the stream of converts but without stopping it entirely (cf. John 12.11, 19). However, adherents to Jesus—even leaders of the synagogue—could no longer confess their faith openly (cf. 3.2; 7.52; 12.42), since confessors were threatened with expulsion (III). Martyn derives a fourth stage from John 16.2-3: apparently the measures had not sufficed, so that adherents to Jesus were finally threated with the penalty of death (IV). Even though this model is too bold in individual features,79 Martyn nevertheless demonstrated in an impressive way the multilevel character of the Johannine presentation of the activity of Jesus, which, as a conscious hermeneutical act, must be understood as a fusion of the horizons of the

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In his fundamental investigation, Martyn discusses earlier conflicts between synagogue and community (e.g., in Acts 18–19), but he states that the formal separation first took place through measures in the wake of the Jewish ‘Benediction against the Heretics’ (Martyn 2003, 48ff.). 76 On this, cf. the critical analysis in Barclay 1987; Berger 1980, 373–400. Cf. now also Frey 2016d. 77 Martyn 2003, 69–72; cf. Martyn 1977 (= 2003, 145–67). 78 Martyn even ventures the bold hypothesis that Gamaliel’s decision to reformulate the ‘Benediction against the Heretics’ and use it as a means for detecting Christians and other heretics may even have been influenced by reports of the local authorities to the Jamnia Academy; cf. Martyn 2003, 70. 79 It cannot be made plausible that—as Martyn thinks—John 9 speaks simultaneously of a healing by Jesus and a healing by a Christian charismatic. In contrast to the Synoptics, there is no talk of “the working of miracles” by disciples in the Johannine writings. The sayings about ‘greater works’ (5.20; 14.12) must be understood differently; on this, see Frey 2000b, 157–58, 352–53.

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time of Jesus and the time (and history) of the community.80 With regard to the historical details, Martyn’s model has been criticized, not least by Raymond E. Brown, who probably created the most influential overall picture of the history of the community within North American scholarship.81 According to Brown, it remains unclear in Martyn’s work how a Christology that made their exclusion from the synagogue necessary could arise in the group of Jewish Christians.82 Moreover, in Brown’s view, Martyn appears not to take into account the fact that the Fourth Gospel explains, for example, Jewish customs and festivals and thus—if the explanations are to make sense—is more likely aimed at a community that is already a ‘mix’ of Jewish and Gentile Christians. Accordingly, a fair amount of time must have already passed since the expulsion.83 (b) In German research, Klaus Wengst has developed an analogous model for the interpretation of the ἀποσυνάγωγος statements. For him as well, the expulsion from the synagogue represents a strictly “contemporary problem of the community.”84 He too traces this exclusion back to the reformulation of the Birkat ha-Minim, even though he wants to see in the Fourth Gospel not the consequences but rather the preliminary stages of this separation.85 Thus, it is important for him that the Fourth Gospel (without chapter 21) be understood in an entirely intra-Jewish context.86 To be sure, he too sees that the Gospel explains Jewish customs and Aramaic words for Greek-speaking readers and even concedes at another point that the Johannine community already had a Gentile Christian portion 80

On this, see the fundamental study of Hahn 1972 (= 2006); see also Onuki 1984; Hoegen-Rohls 1996; Frey 1998, 247–68; and chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). On the ‘double level character’ as the presentation form of all Johannine miracle stories, see Welck 1994; Frey 2015b. The fusion of horizons is consistently present in the Johannine discourses of Jesus in the fact that the earthly Jesus speaks in the concepts and often from the perspective of the post-Easter community. 81 Brown 1979, esp. 171–74. See also Brown 1966/1970, I: xxxv–xxxix; 1982; 1997, 373–76; Brown/Moloney 2003. 82 The view that not only the dualistic linguistic form but also the high Christology of the Gospel arose for the first time as a reaction to the exclusion from the synagogue is not credible. The cause for the postulated exclusion must have resided, for its part, in certain christological notions (see Brown 1979, 173). 83 Brown 1979, 66; idem, 174: “By the end of the century the main churches were mixed.” 84 Wengst 1992, 75. 85 On the basis of statements such as John 12.42 about secret sympathizers of Jesus among the Jews, Wengst 1992, 100, 181, argues that the Gospel (without chapter 21) was composed before the reformulation of the Birkat ha-Minim, with the rationale that the existence of such secret sympathizers would no longer have been possible later. 86 This hermeneutical interest is more strongly evident in his commentary (Wengst 2000/2001).

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and lived in a Greek-speaking environment.87 Nevertheless, because of the “fact . . . that the expulsion from the synagogue was a besetting problem for the Johannine community,” he wants to maintain that Jews in the Johannine environment were “a dominant factor,” indeed that they even appeared “in authoritative power.”88 Thus, the real interest of Wengst’s investigation resides in the localization of the Johannine community and of the composition of the Gospel. In his view, such a position of power of synagogal-Jewish circles is most conceivable in the northern part of East Jordan (Gaulanitis and Batanea), in the kingdom of the Herodian king Agrippa II, where Wengst ultimately locates the Gospel. The problems of this localization have been shown by Martin Hengel and Udo Schnelle and in my own work,89 so that these arguments need not be repeated here. There is little that would support a composition of the Gospel in Batanea or in the region of Gaulanitis.90 (c) What is decisive is the question of to what extent the configuration of the environment of the Johannine communities can be read off the Gospel91 and whether this is correctly determined in Wengst as indicating the dominance of Jewish groups. Would one not need to draw different conclusions in light of the explanation of Jewish customs (2.6; 4.9-10; etc.) and the distancing talk about Jewish festivals (2.13; 5.1; 6.4; 7.2; 11.55) and the law (7.51; 8.17; 10.34; 12.34; 15.25; 18.31; 19.7)—as this objection was already formulated by Raymond Brown vis-à-vis Martyn?92 The talk of the “Greeks” in John 12.20ff. (cf. 7.35); the “other sheep,” which are “not of this fold” (10.16); and the “dispersed children of God” (11.5152) confirms the impression that the Gospel of John assumes addressees who are (at least in part) no longer familiar with Jewish habits and customs and for whom the “law” is no longer their basis of daily life but rather a

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Wengst 2000/2001, I: 155. Questions remain open here. Were the Johannine Gentile Christians gathered in a separate community outside the synagogue (so that there would have had to have been two ‘Johannine’ communities)? Or were they regarded by the synagogue as ‘God-fearers’? How would this be reconcilable with the unqualified belonging to the Christian community? 88 Wengst 2000/2001, I: 155. 89 Cf. Hengel 1993, 288–306; Schnelle 2013c, 555–57; Frey 1994a, 231–37 (= 2013a, 301–8); 1998, 295. 90 In my view, Riesner’s thesis (Riesner 1987) that the twice-mentioned “Bethany beyond the Jordan” in John points to Batanea as the origin of the Gospel or of the Johannine tradition is historically and philologically unfounded. 91 Thyen 1988b, 215, regards this as a problematic “metabasis of the level of the text into history.” Cf. also Barton 1998, 189–93. 92 So already Brown 1979, 66.

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foreign entity.93 Furthermore, the way of the Gospel to the “Greeks” is already reflected on explicitly at individual points (7.35; 12.20ff.).94 Such a ‘universal’ framework is to be presupposed not only for the subsequently added chapter 21, where ‘the Jews’ likewise play no role, but also already for the Johannine Farewell Discourses, in which they are just as little thematized.95 Raymond Brown’s attempt to infer a chronological sequence of two different controversies with Jewish and then Gentile unbelief from the narrative sequence of the controversy of Jesus with ‘the Jews’ (5–12) and the controversy of the community of disciples with ‘the world’ (13–17)96 also cannot provide an adequate explanation. The fact that the controversy with ‘the Jews’ is thematized only in John 5–12 shows that one must understand these statements within the ‘arc of suspense’ of the Johannine vita Jesu as a dramaturgical stylistic device.97 Thus, if one—despite serious text-theoretical reservations98—engages in the process of drawing inferences from the text about the environment and historical circumstances of the community of addressees, there is no getting around the conclusion that the Gospel of John only obtained its literary configuration after the separation from the synagogue had taken place and that it presupposes a mixed group of addressees comprised of Jewish and Gentile Christians, in which the observance of the Torah (with the ‘identity markers’ such as circumcision, food laws, and ritual purity), including even the Jewish festival calendar itself, no longer played a role. How much time had passed since the formal separation and the extent to which there were still connections and controversies between the local synagogue and the Johannine communities is difficult to say. But the thesis that the formal act of separation must have been very close to the composition of the Gospel is indeed based on a hermeneutically problematic 93 This corresponds, after all, to the fact that Torah observance no longer plays a role in the Gospel (and letters). The distance from the situation of the Pauline communities (at least in Galatians and Romans) is evident here. 94 On this, cf. Frey 1994a (= 2013a, 297–338). On John 12.20ff. and John 11.51-52, see Beutler 1998b, 175–99 and 275–84. 95 Authors who seek to ascribe John 16.2-3 to a deutero-Johannine redactional layer or ‘relecture’ face the difficulty that the other ἀποσυνάγωγος texts (9.22; 12.42) cannot be ascribed as easily to this supposedly later stratum. Brown’s attempt (Brown 1966/1970, I: xxxiv, 380) to evaluate John 9.22 as a gloss shows the difficulty. However, in that case all the texts that distance themselves from ‘the Jews’ and Jewish institutions would have to be excluded as secondary (so, e.g., Rissi 1996). This view fails to convince. 96 Brown 1979, 63. 97 So the fundamental study of Culpepper 1983, 125–32. 98 Thyen 1988b, 215, line 32, regards this as a problematic “metabasis of the level of the text into history.” Cf. also Barton 1998, 189–93.

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inference from the literary work to its historical context, i.e., on a ‘mirrorreading,’ whose results are methodologically problematic and therefore have little validity.99 Moreover, the textual basis for this inference is too small. It is predominantly based only on the narrative presentation of the conflict between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries in John 5–10, while the other parts of the Gospel, especially the Prologue and the Farewell Discourses, as well as the findings of the Johannine letters, remain unconsidered. 3.2 Attempts toward a Solution If one ought not to leave aside the Johannine letters for the reconstruction of the historical context of the Johannine writings, the situation becomes even more complex. Following the community-historical model of Raymond E. Brown, many interpreters have assumed a sequence of two conflicts of the Johannine community, i.e., first with the synagogue (at the time of the evangelist) and then later with intra-Christian ‘secessionists’ (cf. 1 John 2.18ff.; 4.2-3). The latter have been characterized on the basis of the Johannine letters (and, in some cases, on the basis of a postulated redaction of the Gospel) as ‘docetists,’100 ‘ultra-Johannists,’101 or enthusiasts.102 The intraChristian conflict over Christology, eschatology, and ethics, as it can be recognized in the Johannine letters, is then also discerned already within the Gospel behind the redactional strata of the Gospel and distinguished from the earlier conflict with the synagogue. Thus, the sequence in the Gospel—from the controversy dialogues of John 5–12 to the Farewell Discourses of John 13–17—is interpreted as a reflection of the history of the Johannine community. However, whether such an inference is possible is subject to serious doubt in view of the dramaturgical configuration of the Johannine text. Recently, there has been an increase of voices that seek to integrate the conflict discussed in the letters into the controversy with the Jews that is perceived behind the Gospel and seek to assume a common background for the composition of the Gospel and the letters. In that case the 99

On the problem see Barclay 1987; on 1 John, see also Kügler 1989. Even when one does not fundamentally contest the methodological validity of such an inferential process (against H. Schmid 2002, 18–21), the circular character is problematic. For criteria, see Barclay 1987, 79–86. 100 Thus, e.g., Richter 1977, 407ff. (and elsewhere); as well as Ehrman 1988; and, more recently, Uebele 2001. 101 Vielhauer 1975, 472; Klauck 1991b, 147–51. 102 Thus Beutler 2000, 22–24; Painter 1986.

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‘secessionists’ of 1 John consequently appear no longer as docetists or ultra-Johannists but rather as Jewish Christians who are attracted again by the strengthened synagogue and are inclined to surrender the confession to Jesus as the ‘Messiah’ (cf. 1 John 4.2).103 The arguments cannot be discussed in detail here,104 but we must emphasize that this reconstruction does not adequately grasp the ethical and eschatological accents of the author of the letter. It would be astonishing for the author in such a situation not to polemicize more strongly against Jewish viewpoints or against Jewishsynagogal contemporaries.105 But there is not a hint of such a controversy in 1 John. Thus, it remains unlikely that such an opposition is in view in 1 John. If one continues to pursue the task of specifying the opponents to the extent that this is possible and does not regard their image only as a literary construction without any basis in reality,106 then one can best construct an overall picture from the observations concerning the Gospel and letters if one brings together the substantially Gentile Christian address of the Johannine vita Jesu with the conflict situation that is explicitly thematized in the letters. In this perspective, the Gospel could also already contain reflections of those processes that are explicitly addressed in the letters. What is most conspicuous is the correspondence between the ‘schisms’ thematized in 1 John 2.18ff. and in John 6.60-71, both with regard to the points of controversy and with regard to the predestinarian interpretation of the events, which makes it plausible that the theological interpretation of the school controversy in 1 John has also influenced the narrative presentation of the separation in the circle of disciples (in light of the ‘hard’ saying of Jesus about the Eucharist). The talk of the ‘thieves’ and ‘robbers’ (10.8, 10), the departure of Judas (13.30), and the prayer for the unity of the believers (17.21) can also be understood in the light of the school controversy.107 Therefore, the most pressing conflict of the Johannine community at the time of the composition of the letters and the promulgation of the Gospel is probably no longer the controversy with the synagogue but the challenge posed by the intracommunity schism, the withdrawal of some community members (who were presumably well off), as well as the 103

Thus E. Stegemann 1985; Augenstein 1993, 172f.; Rusam 1993, 154ff.; Erlemann 1999; Wilckens 2000. 104 See the extensive discussion in Street 2011, though he discusses only 1 John and not John and thus comes to a one-sided understanding (and ultimately inclines to the thesis of Thyen et al.). 105 See the accurate criticism in Beutler 2000, 21. 106 So now H. Schmid 2002. On this, see my review in Frey 2005a, 293–95. 107 Cf. Frey 2000b, 53–60; Hengel 1993, 162–63; Schnelle 2016, 188.

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troubledness through the unbelief and hate that the community experiences from the ‘world’ (15.18ff.). And the fact that there is talk of ‘the world’ here and not of ‘the Jews’ suggests that the opposition to the community should precisely not (or should no longer) be envisaged as coming only—and certainly not primarily—from the contemporary synagogue but rather from other fronts, and that it is phrased on a more general or abstract level. The controversy with the synagogue and the expulsion of Jewish Christian community members from it probably already lies in the somewhat distant past and thus—as part of the history of the community (or subgroups of it)—has entered into the narrative presentation of the way of the earthly Jesus.108 3.3 The Problem of the Birkat ha-Minim How this separation has come to pass is by no means as easy to grasp historically as it might have appeared according to the works of Martyn and Wengst. To be sure, the ἀποσυνάγωγος statements in John 9.22; 12.42; and 16.2-3 are conspicuous, for a new term is attested for the first time in Greek texts here—but the reference of this term is by no means clear. Against the thesis of Martyn and others,109 it is not at all clear that these statements can be related to an expulsion of the Jewish Christians from the newly revitalized synagogue prompted by the new version of the Birkat ha-Minim. Here various problems have been pointed out, especially from the side of Jewish studies,110 which have thus far been taken up only inadequately in the exegetical literature.111 First, the “so-called”112 synod of Yavneh/Jamnia can hardly be securely grasped historically.113 Rather, this “construction” consolidates “various 108

For the conflicts and processes of separation behind the Johannine writings, see now also Frey 2016b. 109 Their advantage was that they expressed in a nutshell matters that were presumably much more complex historically in an easily graspable manner. Therefore, it was widely taken up in Johannine exegesis. In addition to the aforementioned models, see Manns 1991, 470–509; Grelot 1995, 92ff. Alongside or, rather, somewhat prior to Martyn, Schrage 1964 (ET = 1971) had already interpreted the Johannine statements as “a consequence of the Birkat ha-Minim” (1964, 850; cf. 1971, 852) with reference to Kuhn 1950a, 20; and Strack/Billerbeck 1928, 331, where the relevant rabbinic pointers to the exclusion of the (Jewish-)Christians from the synagogue are provided. 110 Cf. Stemberger 1977; Schäfer 1978 [1975]; Kimelman 1981; Katz 1984; Horbury 1998. See now also Teppler 2007. 111 See, however, Hengel 1993, 288–91; Schnelle 2013c, 560–61. 112 See the title of the works of Stemberger 1977 and Schäfer 1978 [1975]. 113 So Stemberger 1990, 375. By contrast, the way in which New Testament scholarship tends to speak about Jamnia/Yavneh is based much too much on the paradigm of

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decisions” of the rabbinic teaching of the time between 70 and 135 “into a single event.”114 Second, the primary purpose of the insertion or expansion115 of the petition concerning heretics in the Eighteen Benedictions was certainly not “to keep Jewish Christians away from the synagogue” but “plainly and simply to petition God for liberation from the political oppressors and for the destruction of the heretics.”116 It could at most have been “a side effect” if these heretics then remained away from the worship services.117 One also should not overestimate the impact of such a prayer formulation. Since supposed heretics would not necessarily have regarded themselves as affected by this curse, the mere introduction of the petition against heretics would have hardly led to a strict separation of certain groups anyway.118 Third, Jewish Christians were “not the only ones and probably also not primarily”119 affected by the formulations. After 70 CE, mainly the groups that had previously led Judaism into catastrophe would have had to be regarded as mînîm. Only later forms of the text speak more precisely of nôṣerîm, which is clearly a designation for Jewish Christians.120 By contrast, one can hardly establish securely which textual form the petition had in the second century. While the Palestinian Gentile Christian Justin does complain about a synagogal cursing of Christians more than a half century later,121 it is scarcely possible to establish the textual basis on which this took place. Fourth, the question of how quickly and in which radius the decisions of the scholars in Yavneh were able to establish themselves is entirely open.122 With regard to the diaspora, and especially for the Judaism in Asia Minor, this is completely improbable in this early period. a ‘church synod’ or ‘council’ from which envoys could then bring the authoritative decisions to the communities (see, e.g., Martyn 2003, 70). See against this J. Maier 1990, 288: “The much-mentioned ‘synod of Jamnia/Yavneh’ never took place in this form, which is sketched according to the model of Christian councils.” 114 Stemberger 1977, 375. 115 On this, cf. Kuhn 1950a, 18–21, who provides the Hebrew text on p. 18. Cf. Schäfer 1978 [1975], 48–52. Cf. also Teppler 2007. For the process, cf. b. Berakhot 28b. 116 Cf. Schäfer 1978 [1975], 52, against the inaccurate—but influential—view presented in the standard work of Elbogen 1931, 37–38. 117 Schäfer 1978 [1975], 52. 118 So Horbury 1998, 100–101. Cf. also Katz 1984, 74. 119 So, accurately, Wengst 1992, 95. Cf. also Schäfer 1978 [1975], 51–52; Stemberger 1977, 17. The text t. Hullin 2.22, 24, to which Wengst 1992, 99, refers (with reference to Kimelman 1981, 232), is also not a secure witness for the end of the first century. 120 Schäfer 1978 [1975], 51; J. Maier 1982, 137ff. 121 Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone 16.93, 95, 108, 123, 133; on this, see Horbury 1998, 67. 122 Stemberger 1977, 388, states that “in the early rabbinic period the influence of the rabbis on the ordinary Jewish population was probably small; the rabbis scarcely had an

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Wengst is aware of these problems and therefore sees himself compelled to reject Ephesus or another major Hellenistic city as the Gospel’s place of origin.123 It would, however, probably be more appropriate historically to abandon the thesis that the ἀποσυνάγωγος statements refer directly to the expansion and use of the Birkat ha-Minim. It should be clear that John 9.22; 14.22; and 16.2-3 speak of a definitive break, an expulsion (and not, say, the temporary ‘synagogue ban’).124 However, this expulsion could be based on a locally limited measure. It need not necessarily have taken place in the present or most recent past of the evangelist. The fact that the polemic against ‘the Jews’ does not occur throughout the Gospel of John and is apparently used as a dramaturgical means of presentation as well as the complete absence of the ‘Jews’ in the letters militates against a direct reference. If one considers the fact that the process of the separation of the Christian communities from the synagogue was a fairly long process that probably took place independently at different places and that had already begun in the time of Paul125 and that lasted, in part, until far into the second century (and beyond), then no fixed date can be determined for the process of separation that is to be hypothesized behind the Johannine writings.126 For the Jewish Christians affected by it, this process must have meant a difficult crisis that negatively impacted their identity as well as their concrete life practice. By contrast, Gentile Christians who had never belonged to the synagogue were not affected by the consequences Jewish Christians had to face. 4. Jewish Christianity of the Diaspora in Asia Minor and the Christian Communities in the Political Context of the Late First Century The Gospel of John and the three letters (as well as Revelation) emerged in Asia Minor, in the area of Ephesus,127 but many traditions—including influence especially upon the synagogue and synagogue sermons, and increasingly endeavored to assert their influence here only from the third century, though for a long time without overly great success.” 123 Wengst 1992, 159. Since, however, he then wishes to place the Johannine letters in Asia Minor, he must resort to the implausible thesis that an entire community group migrated there with its writings. 124 So still Schlatter 1931, 229; Bultmann 1971, 335 n. 5 (GV = 1986, 254 n. 10). On this, see the pointer in Schrage 1964, 845–46 (ET = 1971, 848–49); Martyn 1979, 156–57 (this material is not in Martyn 2003). 125 On this, see Hengel 1993, 289–90. 126 See now Frey 2017c. 127 For arguments supporting this view, see Hengel 1993, 21ff.; Schnelle 2013c, 516– 17, 556–57 (ET = 1998, 438, 475–77).

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especially the teaching and witnessing figure who particularly shaped the Johannine school and the Johannine communities,128 the evangelist— originated from Palestine. The school itself, however, “cannot be traced back beyond the threshold of 60/70 CE and cannot be replanted from Asia Minor to Syria or Palestine.”129 Thus, the evidence relating to the relationship between Jews and Christians in Asia Minor should be more strongly taken into account.130 The Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor131 was relatively old,132 numerically impressive,133 and very self-confident. Jews had long enjoyed various privileges there. In that regard it is necessary to distinguish between privileges in the context of the respective cities and imperial privileges. In the cities they usually lived as an independent ethnic group (ἔθνος, πολίτευμα)134 with their own rights,135 and sometimes they also enjoyed civil citizenship.136 The religious tolerance that had been widely granted under the Ptolemies and Seleucids had been fortified since the beginning of Roman 128 On this, see the definition in Schnelle 2016, 3: “All Johannine Christians belong to the community, whereas only those who were active participants in the Johannine development of theology belong to the school.” 129 Hengel 1993, 306. A migration of an entire community group, perhaps with their written witnesses, from Syria or East Jordan to Palestine, as Wengst 1992, 157–58, 260 (taken as a representative for many others) presupposes, is much more improbable historically. 130 In studies on the Gospel of John (in contrast to Revelation, e.g.), little attention has been given to this up to now. See, however, Hengel 1993, 291–93; Hirschberg 1999, 114–15. 131 On this, see in detail Applebaum 1974a; 1974b. Schürer/Vermes/Miller 1986, 17– 36 (for Ephesus, see pp. 22–23); see in detail Trebilco 1991; Hirschberg 1999, 35–127; Barclay 1998, 259–81; 2004. For the epigraphic witnesses (which are, however, mostly later), see now the compendium of Ameling 2004. 132 According to Joel 4.6, the beginnings could already lie in the Persian period. According to Clearchus, Aristotle is supposed to have met an educated Jew in Asia Minor (see Josephus, Contra Apionem 1.176–82). Josephus, Antiquitates judaicae 12.145–53, mentions from the time of Antiochus the Great (223–187 BCE) the settlement of two thousand Jewish families from Mesopotamia, and others followed as traders, craftspeople, slaves, or freedpersons. On this, see Trebilco 1991, 5–6. 133 According to Philo (Legatio ad Gaium 245), Jews lived in every city of Asia and Syria; see further Josephus, Antiquitates judaicae 16.186–267 and 16.160–78. Schürer/ Vermes/Millar 1986, 19ff. 134 Other terms that occur are οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, κατοικία, λαός σύνοδος, and later συναγωγή (see Schürer/Vermes/Millar 1986, 87–91; Claussen 2002, 146–50). 135 The rights of the Jews in Ephesus were established by a resolution of the city (passed under Roman influence), which is handed down in Josephus, Antiquitates judaicae 14.262–64. 136 According to Josephus, Antiquitates judaicae 12.119, Seleucus I Nicator (died in 280 BCE) granted the right of citizenship to the cities in Asia Minor and Syria that were established by him. It is, however, questionable whether this is historically accurate.

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rule by a series of senatorial and imperial edicts, which Josephus adduces.137 According to these, the Jews were allowed to live according to the ‘law of their fathers’ and the Jewish customs and were granted a certain selfgovernance as well as the right to assemble, to keep the Sabbath, and to be free from Roman military service, and in particular the right to transfer holy monies (i.e., the temple tax) to Jerusalem.138 To be sure, this ‘flow of capital’ was regarded as undesirable, but it was guaranteed by the Romans, and the yearly gift to the Jerusalem temple also simultaneously served as a justification for the fact that Jews outside of Jerusalem did not have to participate in any other sacrificial celebrations.139 In general, Jews in the cities of Asia Minor appear to have lived in largely well-established conditions. This appears to have enabled them at the same time to assimilate or to be prepared to make compromises in relation to their environment without having to abandon their own identity. Food laws and purity laws restricted the meal fellowship and thus societal connections with non-Jews. Mixed marriages were usually not accepted, and, if marriage into the group did take place, it usually presupposed conversion to Judaism.140 However, Jews still participated in the public life of the cities141 and held civic offices,142 and, conversely, the synagogues sometimes had a certain significance for the civic society, which probably strengthened the influx of “Godfearers” and proselytes.143 137 See the texts with commentary in Pucci Ben Zeev 1998, especially the compilation on pages 374–77. 138 For the general acceptance of the Jewish religion by the Romans (which did not, of course, mean absolute legal safety), see Trebilco 1991, 8–11; Hirschberg 1999, 42–43. On the legal situation, see further Applebaum 1974a; see also Pucci Ben Zeev 1998; and the classic work of Smallwood 1981. 139 An exemption from ruler worship is not found in these edicts, because in the early imperial period there was no obligation to participation in the imperial cult that proceeded from Rome. Thus, there was also no possibility for a formal ‘exemption.’ In general, within the tolerance of Jewish customs, abstinence from the imperial cult was also accepted. 140 Cf. Barclay 1998, 410–12. 141 E.g., according to the theatre inscription in CIJ II, 748, Jews in Miletus appear to have had specific places there. According to b. Avodah Zarah 18b, R. Meier had to prohibit visiting the theater. The participation of the young in the education in the gymnasium is also attested; see Hirschberg 1999, 47–48. 142 See, e.g., on Sardes, Josephus, Antiquitates judaicae 14.259–61; see further Trebilco 1991, 38–54. To be sure, the inscriptions of the synagogue at Sardes are relatively late (fourth century CE), and inferences to the earlier period remain uncertain. 143 This is documented, e.g., by the famous synagogue inscription of Aphrodisias (though it also only comes from the third century). On this, see Reynolds/Tannenbaum 1987; and, more recently, Judge 2002. See also Hirschberg 1999, 45. For the influx of ‘sympathizers,’ see Wander 1998; Goodman 1994; Feldman 1993 (for Aphrodisias see especially 342–82).

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Despite the continuing bond with Palestine, which was cultivated by the payment of the temple tax and by pilgrimages, the influence of Palestinian piety and its movements—including Pharisaism144 and later the rabbinic movement—was rather small.145 The fact that a Smyrnaean grave inscription of the second or third century calls a woman a leader of a synagogue (ἀρχισυνάγωγος) makes the difference from Palestinian conditions especially clear.146 The self-confident diaspora Jews of Asia Minor also remained largely undisturbed by the consequences of the Jewish War. To be sure, the entire Jewish diaspora had attentively followed the events, and the fall of the symbol of Jewish identity was perceived with great dismay. Migrants from Palestine and later from Cyprus and Cyrenaica further strengthened the communities,147 and in some places Jews were probably under a certain pressure to show loyalty. Nevertheless, most of the legal privileges of the diaspora in Asia Minor remained intact. Only the change of the previous temple tax of the didrachmon into the fiscus Iudaicus, a punitive tax that had to be payed by all Jews in the empire to the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome,148 and the exaction of this tax meant a new development for them and for all the Jews in the empire.149 This also had consequences for the relationship to the Christians, who became recognizable to the Roman institutions as an independent group only gradually.150 The question of who was regarded as a Jew was now no longer merely a question of Jewish tradition and individual categorization but was now a question of fiscal administration and legal practice. While the temple tax only had to be paid by men between twenty and fifty years old, the 144

In its goals and interests this was concentrated entirely on Palestine. There is no documentation for a specific ‘diaspora Pharisaism.’ On this, see Hengel 1991b, 225–32. 145 Hirschberg 1999, 53, points out, e.g., that R. Meir did not find a Megillah scroll when he visited Asia Minor (b. Megillah 18b). This shows that the Pharisaic-Rabbinic movement gained influence in Asia Minor at best with considerable delay. 146 On this inscription (CIJ 741), see Trebilco 1991, 104–5; see also Hirschberg 1999, 74–76. 147 An inscription from Smyrna from around 125 CE mentions οἱ ποτὲ Ἰουδαῖοι (CIJ 742.29), which probably refers to immigrants from Judea, who had then abandoned the ancestral religion and bought citizenship. 148 Josephus, Bellum judaicum 7.218; Cassius Dio 65.7.2. 149 On this, see Hirschberg 1999, 55–58. See also the fundamental study of Smallwood 1981. 150 The Christians were not regarded as an independent group with equal quickness everywhere. In the Neronic persecution this was already the case (in Rome), but it was not yet the case at the time of Claudius, for the edict of Claudius still evaluates the conflict that was probably initiated by Jewish Christians as an intra-Jewish affair. Also long after Nero, Christians could often still be classified as ‘Jewish.’ On this, see P. Lampe 1989, 169 (ET = 2010, 201).

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fiscus applied to men and women who were three years or older (usually until they were sixty-two), and Jewish freedpersons and proselytes were also obligated to pay the tax.151 A special collecting authority was established, which was responsible for making decisions about who had to pay it. Finally, the collection of the fiscus made it necessary for all Jews, men, women, and children, to be publicly identified as such through ‘registers of persons’—which made Jews all the more conscious of their special position in Roman society. Especially under the reign of Domitian, the tax was exacted with particular rigor. According to the note of Suetonius,152 persons who adopted a ‘Jewish way of life’ (improfessi Iudaicam vitam) and others, who denied their Jewish origin, were forced to pay.153 It might be the case that proselytes and Godfearers should be reckoned to the first group. The second group could include apostates as well as Jewish Christians.154 This new way of proceeding could involve considerable legal uncertainty for ‘Godfearers’ and also for Jewish and Gentile Christians.155 The fact that, within the horizon of the intensified imperial cult, the turn to the ‘Jewish way of life’—a cipher that probably means the turn to Christianity in Dio Cassius—fell under the accusation of ἀσέβεια and thus of crime against the majesty further exacerbated the problems, potentially in the whole empire.156 These measures must have led in every respect to new and difficult demarcations that did not correspond to the previous Jewish selfunderstanding and practice of the synagogue communities. Insofar as the Roman financial administration was based also on denunciations, the uncertainty of all those involved was increased even further—a state of affairs that was only ended by Nerva.157 This situation promoted at the 151

For Jewish slaves the tax had to be paid by their masters (Smallwood 1981, 373). Suetonius, Domitianus 12.2: praeter ceteros Iudaicus fiscus acerbissime actus est; ad quem deferebantur, qui velut improfessi Iudaicam viverent vitam vel dissimulata origine imposita genti tributa non pependissent. 153 According to this passage in Suetonius, even a nineteen-year-old is to be ‘investigated’ with regard to his circumcision (which is meant to attest the strictness of the collection of taxes in the understanding of Suetonius). Cf. also Smallwood 1981, 376–84; and Stegemann/Stegemann 1995, 281–82 (ET = 1999, 329–31). 154 For the problems associated with specifying the relation from the perspective of the Romans, see Hirschberg 1999, 62–64 with note 171. There was certainly great leeway in individual provinces, but one must assume that this was ultimately used for the benefit of the fiscus. 155 See the discussion of P. Lampe 1989, 168–71 (ET = 2010, 200–205). 156 See the report about Titus Flavius Clemens and Domitilla in Dio Cassius 67.14.2. The pardon of the accused and the removal of injustices under Nerva is noted in Dio Cassius 68.1.1. On this, cf. also Stegemann/Stegemann 1995, 282–83 (ET = 1999, 329–31). 157 For the legal uncertainty in fiscal trials under Domitian, see Hirschberg 1999, 65– 66. The injustices were removed under Nerva (Dio Cassius 68.1.2). Cf. Smallwood 1981, 152

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same time the dissociation between Jews and Christians and should, in my opinion, be regarded as a very substantial ‘catalyst’ for the drifting apart of synagogue and emerging ‘church’ at the end of the first century. As non-Jews, Gentile Christians could attempt to avoid the tax, but they were then no longer protected from the suspicion of ἀσέβεια, and denunciations—whatever the reason might have been—could bring them into danger. This legal uncertainty and the danger that Christians could be required to sacrifice before the image of the emperor within the framework of a cognitio are reflected in the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan,158 and it appears that this reflects a practice that had already been in place for some time and not only in Bithynia.159 If Gentile Christians had wanted to pay the fiscus in order to get protection, this would scarcely have been acceptable to the Jewish communities, not only for religious but also for political reasons, for the established synagogues, which were legally protected to some extent, hardly wanted to be associated with the superstitio of the Christians.160 However, if the local synagogue communities publically distanced themselves from the Christians, their nonbelonging to the Jewish fellowship was put on record, which brought them into danger of being accused of a crime against the majesty161 and could ultimately let ‘the Jews’ appear as a (co-)cause of their endangerment. Jewish Christians were presumably in an even more difficult situation. As long as they lived within the sphere of the synagogue, they enjoyed its protection and the privileges granted to the Jewish communities in the empire, but, when a controversy arose within the synagogues, the municipal or Roman magistrate could intervene in the interest of peace and order.162 When the tensions led to a separation or expulsion from the local synagogue community, they not only lost their societal network163 but were also exposed, like the Gentile Christians, to the prevailing legal uncertainty. Here it probably encouraged the public 384–85. See also the coins with the inscription FISCI IUDAICI CALUMNIA SUBLATA, cf. Mattingly 1963, 15 (nr. 88) and 17 (nr. 98). 158 Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 10.96–97. Cf. also later Martyrdom of Polycarp 8.2. 159 On this, see Hirschberg 1999, 100–112. 160 On this, see Hirschberg 1999, 106–12. 161 On this, see Hirschberg 1999, 90–96, 99–100. 162 Such a case presumably already underlies the expulsion of the Jews from Rome through the Claudius edict. 163 Here we must mention above all the infrastructure over which foodstuffs and other products could be obtained in conformity to the Jewish regulations. A reflection of this may occur in 3 John 7, where it says regarding itinerant preachers that they accept nothing (i.e., no support, lodging, or provisions) from the Gentiles (ἐθνικοί), which makes them all the more dependent on support by the community. Here we see a Jewish custom in a pagan environment.

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sentiment toward the Christians that Jewish communities, due to concern for their own status and privileges, also “distanced themselves from Jewish Christians and in doing so perhaps even made use of the means of denunciation.”164 The sketched situation is reflected most clearly in Revelation 2.9 and 3.9, where Jewish communities (in Smyrna and Philadelphia) are polemically titled συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ.165 The ‘satanization’ of the Jews166 that is present here provides the closest parallel to John 8.44, especially since the question of the observance of the law (aside from the problem of things sacrificed to idols) is not discussed and does not appear to play a role any longer in Revelation and in the Fourth Gospel. Apparently there is also no longer discussion with the (according to Rev 2.9 and 3.9 “so-called”) Jews. Rather, the separation has already definitively taken place. On the other hand, the synagogue appears as an entity that could bring Christians into the risk of conflict with the Roman power (cf. Rev 2.10; 3.10), with the main opponent being the Roman power also there. This is a scenario that has plausibility at least for John 16.2, where the ἀποσυνάγωγος statement is followed by an allusion to martyrdoms, without it being said that Jews were directly involved in these events.167 Rather, the situation thematized in the Farewell Discourses—which is certainly transparent for the situation of the Johannine community—is the “hatred of the world” (15.18ff.),168 and the term ὁ κόσμος certainly does not refer exclusively or primarily to Jews. This means that the situation of the Christian communities in Asia Minor, in which the definitive break between the synagogue and the (Jewish-)Christians had been completed “at the latest since the 90s”169 and 164

Hirschberg 1999, 99. In my view, there can be no doubt that this actually refers to Jews; see also Yarbro Collins 1986; see further E. Lohse 1989; Lambrecht 2001. Unlike the Fourth Gospel, the author of Revelation reclaims the term Ἰουδαῖοι as a ‘title of honor’ (as in the Gospel of John Ἰσραηλίτης in John 1.47), which basically belongs to the Christians and not to this synagogue. 166 This has close parallels in the intra-Jewish polemic, e.g., in the Qumran writings where the phrase “community of Belial” (‫ )עדת בליעל‬occurs multiple times (1QHa X 24 [= II 22 Sukenik]; 1QM IV 9). Cf. Aune 1997–1998, I: 164–65. Perhaps the synagogue itself designated itself as συναγωγὴ τοῦ κυρίου (cf. Num 16.3; 20.4; 26.9; 31.16 LXX), so that the author of Revelation formed a polemical counterphrase from this. For ancient polemics as the context of the anti-Jewish statements in the New Testament, see Johnson 1989. 167 The question whether Jews must assume official functions here let alone whether authorities of capital jurisdiction must be due to them is not posed. This is ruled out for the whole Roman Empire. 168 On this, cf. also Vouga 1993. 169 So Hirschberg 1999, 115. 165

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presumably already much earlier, is also the situation of the ‘Johannine’ communities. This situation is reflected in the Fourth Gospel not only in the distance to ‘the Jews,’ who stand over against Jesus and his followers as a unified block in many passages, but also in the notes about the christologically based unity of Gentile and Jewish Christians (10.16; 11.51-52; cf. 17.21-22) in the community.170 To be sure, the sharpness of the polemic against ‘the Jews’ can only partially be explained on this basis. It probably points back historically to past controversies and processes of separation that are indeed concluded by now but have become firmly fixed in the ‘collective memory’ of the Johannine community and in the thought of the evangelist, who is himself a Jewish Christian after all. A reason for the fact that these controversies are so sharply revitalized in John 5–12 probably lies in the fact that in the present too, the Johannine community, in its political environment and in the contrast to the rather undisturbed synagogue, is threatened by tribulation and danger,171 to which the synagogue has also contributed its part according to John 16.2-3. 5. The Christological Controversy in the Mirror of the Gospel of John It would, however, fall short of the mark if one wanted to trace back the anti-Jewish polemic of the Gospel of John only to its sociopolitical context. At its core the controversy between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ depicted in John 5–12 reflects controversies over the true identity and dignity of Jesus and over Scripture, which was claimed by synagogal Jews and by Jesus followers with equal rigor. Despite the distance that has entered in by then, the Johannine proclamation—just like the synagogue—appeals to ‘Moses’ (5.39, 44) and ‘Scripture’ (10.34-36) and maintains that its view of the person of Jesus Christ corresponds to the (rightly understood) word of God and to Israel’s history of promise. Therefore, the legitimacy of this faith is continually demonstrated in contrast to the rejection of this interpretation by the majority of ‘the Jews.’ The ‘true Israelite’ Nathanael recognizes Jesus as Son of God and king of Israel (1.49), while ‘the Jews,’ who 170

On this, see Frey 1994a (= Frey 2013a, 297–338). Here there is a noteworthy agreement with Ephesians (Eph 2.11-18), which also most likely emerged in Asia Minor, perhaps in Ephesus itself (see Schnelle 2013c, 381-82; ET = 1998, 303). 171 This can be seen both in the Farewell Discourses (16.2-3, 33) and, e.g., in the mysterious concluding admonition of 1 John (5.21), which apparently refers with the warning against ‘idols’ to the danger of apostasy, to which the community—in the view of the author—is exposed. In my view, it most likely should be interpreted with reference to the demand that Christians worship the ruler.

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repudiate this insight, hand over their ‘king,’ a Jew (4.9), to the Roman power for execution (19.15; cf. 18.31).172 Paradoxically, the salvation that is attested in the Scriptures of Israel and that comes—in Scripture and in the person of Jesus—‘from the Jews’ (4.22) becomes salvation ‘for the world’ (4.42; cf. 3.16) precisely on the basis of the ‘lifting up’ of Jesus on the cross (12.32-33). Alongside the rejection of Jesus by ‘the Jews,’ there is also talk of the ‘hatred of the world’ (15.18ff.) in the Gospel, without it being possible to completely equate the two.173 The Easter perspective in which the Gospel speaks of Jesus’ ‘victory’ over ‘the world’ (16.33) or metaphorically of the light shining in the darkness (1.5) is based in the insight of faith, which is prompted by the activity of the Spirit and the newly understood Scriptures and in which believers from the ‘Greeks’ (cf. 7.35; 12.20, 32) and from ‘Israel’ (1.49-50), from ‘the world’ and ‘from his own’ (1.10-12), are joined together into the one flock of the one shepherd (10.16; cf. 11.51-52).174 While this drama is configured already from the perspective of distance, it also points back to particular concrete points of controversy. In doing so, the ‘trial’ over ‘the truth’ is placed in the mouth of Jesus himself and of his contemporaries in the narrated vita Jesu, so that his story paradigmatically displays what has determined the existence of the community in its history and in its present. The object of the controversy is the high Christology of the Fourth Gospel. Also historically this probably did not arise only as a consequence of the distancing from the synagogue (and thus as a tendentially ‘unJewish’ element).175 Rather, it appears to have already shaped the contro172 The Johannine passion story must also have appeared transparent for the community’s own present in the given social-political environment; see Hirschberg 1999, 115 n. 405 (there also on John 18.31 and 19.12). Van Tilborg 1995 provides further pointers on how the Ephesian situation could be reflected in John. However, he provides scarcely any discussion of the Jewish communities in this environment. On John 19.12, 15, see van Tilborg 1996, 216–19. 173 Thus the explanation—according to this view—that in the Gospel of John ‘the Jews’ are primarily ‘representatives of the unbelieving world’ or a ‘cipher . . . for unbelievers” (Grässer 1967, 170) is indeed a truncation that only perceives the ‘symbolic’ or theological reading level and no longer the historical-concrete circumstances, that is, the opposition of the influential synagogue. These circumstances, however, must be perceived if one wants to keep open the possibility of criticizing these statements (i.e., the content) on historical grounds. 174 In this regard the Johannine Prologue, like the Farewell Discourses, shows itself to be a text in which the standpoint of the Johannine community is adopted and the whole history is presented in a compressed overview. The self-understanding of the Johannine community as the ‘children of God’ gathered through Jesus’ death (11.52) finds expression here in 1.12-13; cf. Onuki 1984, 107–9 and 42–45. 175 Thus the hypothesis of Martyn 2003, 129ff.; opposed by Brown 1979, 173, who, to be sure, reckons very hypothetically with the entrance of a second group of (temple-critical)

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versy between the Johannine Jewish Christians and leading circles in the synagogue. The conflict emerges clearly when ‘the Jews’ accuse Jesus of making himself ‘equal to God’ in John 5.18 and then, in a varied form of the accusation in 10.33 and 19.7, of making himself ‘God’ (10.33) or ‘God’s Son’ (19.7). To counter this charge, John attempts to prove the legitimacy of Jesus’ self-claim with a bold exegesis of Psalm 82.6. In the background stands the conviction that God himself is at work in Jesus’ activity.176 John is by no means the first to voice this conviction,177 though it is of course expressed in an especially pointed linguistic form here. Most strikingly, the talk of Jesus as ‘God’ (θεός: 1.1, 18; 20.28) envelops the whole work, and the claim that is implied by it is expressed no less clearly in the I-am self-predications of the Johannine Jesus.178 For the evangelist these are precisely not arrogated but rather true statements about Jesus’ divine origin and divine dignity.179 Jesus is, in truth, the Son sent from the Father, the μονογενής (1.18), ‘one with the Father’ (10.30; cf. 17.22), indeed: “God” (1.18; 20.28). What he does is the work of the Father (5.1920, 30), and—in continuation of Jesus’ activity—this work takes place in the same way in the activity of the community of disciples, particularly in their proclamation (20.21-23; cf. 5.20; 14.12). In him the Father becomes visible (1.18; 14.9), and faith in the one God becomes explicated in the post-Easter period precisely in faith in Jesus (14.1). In Jewish ears such a claim by Jesus and such a faith of Johannine Christians could appear as blasphemy (10.33; cf. Mark 14.64),180 indeed as a crime worthy of death (19.7). Just as the sentence of death is already Jews and Samaritans that is said to have functioned as a catalyzer for the christological development (idem, 36–47), so that the influence of a ‘heterodox’ Judaism is ultimately responsible for the conflict with the synagogal ‘orthodoxy.’ The Christian-christological impulse appears to be estimated too small here (perhaps because the community is viewed as being in too great an isolation). 176 It is not only the fact of the Sabbath healing that is implied in 5.1-18 but also the entire life-giving—i.e., soteriological—work of Jesus. 177 Cf., e.g., the authority of Jesus to forgive sins, which is problematized in Mark 2.7; see further already in the pre-Pauline tradition statements such as Phil 2.6; 1 Cor 8.6; etc. On the one hand, Jewish patterns of speech are basically adopted in all these statements about the ‘exaltation’ of Christ, his ‘sitting at the right hand’ (cf. Ps 110.1), etc. On the other hand, the reception of these patterns of speech could then appear offensive or ‘systembreaking’ to other Jews. The complex processes cannot be sketched further here; cf. e.g., Bauckham 1999, 25ff.; Hurtado 2003; Frey 2013e. 178 On this, see Williams 2000. 179 Frey 2000b, 345; Kammler 2000, 32 and elsewhere. It is not evident that the evangelist would confront statements about Jesus’ equality with God only with reservation, as Theobald 1992, 43, e.g., suggests. 180 On the relatively broad definition of blasphemy in the Judaism of the first century, see Bock 1998, 30–112. Rabbinic statements on the accusation of blasphemy can be found

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passed in Mark on account of the confession of Jesus to being the Son of God, so too in John the attempts of ‘the Jews’ to kill Jesus follow such statements (5.18; 8.39; 10.39; cf. 7.30; 8.20) or deeds (11.53) of Jesus.181 Whether Johannine Christians were themselves victims of violent actions from the Jewish side is rather doubtful.182 By contrast, it can be assumed that such a faith in the crucified one as the ‘exalted one,’ as the ‘Son’ who acts in divine authority, indeed in the place of God, could have been understood as tendentially ‘ditheistic’ and thus as a violation against the oneness and uniqueness of God that was no longer acceptable.183 A pointer is found in the polemical designation of Jesus as a “possessed Samaritan” (8.48), in which the accusation of heresy is combined with a demonization. In view of this situation of conflict, the expulsion of the ‘heretics’—entirely without the means of a Birkat ha-Minim—appears only consequential, just as, conversely, the polemic directed against the ‘unbelieving’ Jews becomes intelligible to a certain extent. Here, however, it is conspicuous that the evangelist, who may have participated in this conflict himself, makes every effort to emphasize in his work the unity of Jesus with the Father and thus in the faith in the Son to safeguard the faith in the oneness of God.184 Thus, it is not least in the anti-Jewish polemic of the Gospel of John that the Jewish mother-soil of the conflict and of Johannine theology becomes clear. 6. Conclusion A detailed history of these events can no longer be written, nor can the stages of the development be precisely separated from one another. In the presentation of the Gospel, the horizons of the present of the addressees, also in Kriener 2001, 7–25. For the historical background of the accusation in the Gospel of John, see now also Söding 2002. 181 Significantly the decision that Jesus must die follows the raising of Lazarus in which Jesus does God’s work in an especially pronounced way—namely, to make the dead alive; cf. 5.22-23. 182 One cannot infer this from 16.2-3. The Johannine narrative cannot be evaluated as a whole as a ‘two-level drama’ in which all statements could be interpreted simultaneously on the level of the community. Rather, the attempts to bring someone to death apply here— just as in the Synoptic tradition—to Jesus himself, and interestingly the configuring of the dialogue with ‘the Jews’ is also framed by two scenes (2.18-22; 10.22-39) that are situated in the temple and “stand in connection with the Johannine passion tradition” (Theobald 2002, 568). Here one can see from a distance the historical anchor points from which the evangelist dramatically configured the presentation of Jesus’ struggle with ‘the Jews.’ 183 On this, see Segal 2012 [1977], 215–17; cf. also Theobald 1992, 59. 184 This is accurately observed by Kriener 2001, 148, even though his insistence on a subordinationist understanding of this statement raises questions.

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the history of the Johannine school, and—of course—the narrated history of Jesus185 of Nazareth fuse into a unity, which can no longer be neatly separated into individual parts. It is clear, however, that the conflict, which began as a ‘tragedy of closeness,’186 already finds expression from a certain distance in the Gospel. Thus, the statements, which can be located in a concrete situation of conflict, experience a problematic expansion. Formulations that stem from the controversy of the Jewish Christians with their Jewish contemporaries are introduced into the narrative presentation of the way of Jesus. However, they do not remain on this ‘historical’ level. Rather, in the framework of the entire work and its dramaturgy, they obtain paradigmatic significance for the continuing controversy between faith and unbelief. This is the reason why interpreters could read the Johannine image of ‘the Jews’ as a cipher for the ‘unbelieving world,’ while others— with less historical justification—could interpret the statements about the ‘cosmos’ as a cipher for the Jewish opponents. Both interpretations are problematic hermeneutically, and the effective history has made clear the potential for danger of these polemical statements of the Gospel. Since the levels that the evangelist has programmatically fused can no longer be neatly separated, a historical ‘deconstruction’ of the Johannine presentation is only possible to a certain extent. However, it is indispensable that we make recourse to the context and conflicts of the Johannine communities in the most precise possible way if our goal is to handle the texts responsibly, i.e., to perceive their theological interpretive achievement, while hindering an unwanted continuation of their anti-Jewish statements.

185 186

On this, see the foundational study of Trilling 1998. So the fitting formulation of E. Stegemann 1989.

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The Fusion of Temporal Horizons in the Gospel of John

The New Testament never explicitly thematizes the phenomenon of time in a philosophical or linguistic perspective. There is no discussion of its different modi (past, present, future), let alone of its ‘nature.’ In this respect the early Christian authors differ from ancient philosophers1 as well as from subsequent Christian theologians such as Augustine, whose famous section Quid est enim tempus? in book 11 of the Confessiones forms a high point in Christian thinking about time.2 This does not mean that the New Testament authors did not interact consciously with concepts of temporal order and did not apply them in their writings. The subtlety of the engagement of individual authors with the aspect of time has been highlighted not least by the modern narratological analysis of New Testament texts, with the result that some older judgments about the ‘understanding of time’ of early Christian authors must be reevaluated against this background.3 Above all the Gospel of John seems to offer a conception in which past, present, and future are connected with one another in an especially subtle way. Here the present knowledge of Christ has reshaped the narration of his earthly history in such a way that this no longer remains simply in a mere ‘back then’ but serves the illumination of the present time of the community. At the same time, the eschatological future is also so closely connected with the presence of Christ and with the community’s proclamation that the eschatological ‘weight’ lies entirely in the present 1

For an overview see Westermann 2002; 2004; as well as already Delling 1940, 5–39. On this, see Flasch 1993; as well as the interpretation of book 11 of the Confessiones in Ricoeur 1988, 15–53. 3 New surveys of the New Testament understandings of time can be found in Erlemann 2004; and concisely in Koch/Frey 2012. For an analysis of time and eschatology of all the New Testament writings, see van der Watt 2011; for my contribution to this volume, see Frey 2011b (= 2016a, 799–828). 2

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encounter with Christ. This is why the Gospel of John can be regarded as the most thought-out conception of New Testament thinking about time. After some preliminary general observations and spotlights on the state of the discussion, this thesis will be grounded with reference to linguistic details and clarified in its theological implications.4 1. Time in Human Perception and Narrative Configuration For the New Testament authors, time is, first, simply a ‘given condition,’5 which, as in the early Jewish environment, is presupposed. It is—the New Testament authors from Paul to 2 Peter are in agreement on this point— set and limited by God’s act of creation, so that it implies a beginning and an end. At the same time, time does not appear as a natural-scientific category, as a mere ‘measure,’6 as a homogenous temporal line or timeline. Rather, it is perceived and thematized in the prism of human experience, of faith, and of Scripture. It can appear ‘compressed,’ or ‘extended,’ and, in some cases, characterized and ‘filled’ by prophetic announcements or by the events that take place in it. Therefore, how New Testament writings understand time and how they view the configuration of their own time and present can only be deduced indirectly from specifications of temporal relations, with regard to the ‘end’ and its nearness, or with regard to the person of Jesus Christ, his function, or his ‘nature.’ Jesus Christ as the eschatological figure of salvation thus becomes the new standard for determining ‘what time it is.’ When with Jesus’ coming ‘the kingdom of God’ is ‘near’ (Mark 1.16) and the eschatological resurrection has begun with his resurrection for the early witnesses (1 Cor 15.21-22), then their own present is placed in relation to the end. At the same time, it is also Christ of whom it is first—and explicitly for the first time in the letters of Ignatius—said that he stands “above time” and is “timeless” (Ignatius, Pol. 3.2). Thus, in Christology, temporal statements become the means of expressing Jesus’ difference from all other people, indeed his participation in the divine nature, while in eschatology such statements serve especially to specify the nearness or relative distance of the ‘end’ and the position of one’s own present in relation to this expected end or within world history 4

On this, cf. Frey 1998; and the essays in Frey 2013a, some of which are translated in the present volume. Cf. also Eckstein 2003; Hoegen-Rohls 1996. 5 Thus the formulation in Delling 1970, 12: “Gegebenheit.” 6 Thus, e.g., in Aristotle, who defines time entirely under the aspect of its measurability and with reference to the movements of the heavenly bodies as a ‘measure of the movement’ from earlier to later (Aristotle, Physica 4.219b).

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as a whole.7 In this vein the notion of an ‘advancement’ of time can implicitly be expressed as in Romans 13.11 or, alternatively, the conviction of a ‘compression of time’ as in 1 Corinthians 7.29. In addition to explicit temporal statements, in narrative texts the narrative ‘treatment’ of time must especially be taken into account, for through the narrative a conception of the ordering and placement of the narrated actions is mediated. With the ‘narrative tempo’ is connected the sense of compression or decompression and thus aspects of focusing, and the narrated time is related to the time of narration, i.e., to the readers’ present. Thus, the narrative configuration of time contributes significantly to the mediation of aspects of the theological interpretation of the narrated events. 2. The Johannine Understanding of Time in Theological Interpretation In a theological exegesis that is concerned with the validity of New Testament statements, the interpretation of such temporal connections is not, however, a ‘neutral’ act; rather, it is dependent, in the hermeneutical circle, on the relationship of the respective interpreter to the presented subject matter and on his or her own understanding of time and history. In the modern period it was especially the criticism of the traditional future eschatology8 that was significant for the perception of the temporal components in the Gospels. After the historical reading of the biblical writings had opened the view for the failure of the primitive Christian imminent expectation, most interpreters could only accept an understanding of faith in which this near expectation had already been overcome or had been transformed into a perspective on the present that was independent of time, because only such an understanding could still ensure the truth and validity of the Christian faith. And indeed the Gospel of John differed conspicuously from the Synoptics precisely in the fact that in John no visible parousia of Christ “on the clouds” (Mark 13.26 parr.) is expected9 and in 7 For the various argumentative contexts in which temporal statements are found, see also Erlemann 1996, 135–41. 8 On this, see Frey 2011b (= 2016a, 799–828); and, in detail, Frey 1997b, 10–28, 43–47. 9 That the risen one in John 21.22-23 speaks simply of his coming (“until I come”) shows, however, that the expectation of the Parousia was known in the Johannine community. Also the Johannine letters speak forthrightly of his Parousia (1 John 2.28; cf. 3.2; 2 John 7-8), and the saying about ‘heavenly dwellings’ in John 14.2-3 thematizes Jesus’ ‘coming again’—a parallel in substance to 1 Thess 4.16-17—and has to be related to the individual hour of death or regarded as corrected through John 4.23 by exegetes who want to completely deny that the evangelist has a hope for the Parousia. Also John 16.16-19 probably likewise points to discussions about the meaning of the talk of Jesus’ ‘coming

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the fact that it speaks of the “eternal life” of believers as an already present reality (3.36 and elsewhere). Therefore, this Gospel was less offensive for some interpreters in the nineteenth century—such as Ferdinand Christian Baur, Albrecht Ritschl, or Heinrich-Julius Holtzmann—and the Johannine speeches of Christ could be regarded materially as more decisive than the Synoptic texts. This material preference for present eschatology was not even changed by the breakthrough (in the work of Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer) to the insight that the earthly Jesus himself had spoken not of a supra-temporal-inner kingdom but rather of an imminently dawning kingdom. Rather, it only became clear through this that the modern orientation to the religious present could no longer appeal to the earthly Jesus in a biblicist manner. All the more John seemed to provide a “purified” biblical reference point, though one is often left with the impression that in their search for the religiously valid, interpreters also ‘assimilated’ this Gospel or the figure of its author far too much to their own views.10 Thus for the advocates of the history-of-religion school, such as Wilhelm Bousset or Wilhelm Heitmüller, John appeared as a document of a religious mystic in which the dimensions of time ‘become blurred’ and are entirely engulfed by the present, which is understood in a mystic-atemporal manner. By contrast, in the existential interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann, the work of the evangelist reconstructed by him (which differs greatly from the Gospel that has been handed down) became the biblical forerunner of an existential understanding of time in which ‘time’ as ‘temporality’ and future as ‘futurity’ could be thematized only in strict relation to the respective moment, while the thematization of time with respect to its flow or of a merely outstanding future was regarded as a crass misunderstanding of the ‘actual’ understanding of time. Since for Bultmann and some of his students the ‘right’ conception of time could be regarded as a criterion for an appropriate understanding of faith, the work of the Johannine evangelist appeared as the clearest expression of the ‘eschatological consciousness’ in primitive Christianity, whereas many other texts could only be regarded as documents of a fundamental misunderstanding. Finally, in opposition to Bultmann, Oscar Cullmann interpreted even the Gospel of John as a witness of a salvation-historical view, according to which the community lives between Easter and parousia and the activity of Jesus represents the again.’ For the topic, see Frey 2000b, 148–53 and 204–18. But even though the Parousia idea cannot be completely negated for John, it is nevertheless accurate that it receives less emphasis here and is developed in a less ‘pictorial’ manner than in the Synoptics or in Paul. 10 I must forgo individual documentation. On the individual interpreters, see Frey 1997b, passim.

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middle of time. However, with his presupposition of a linear understanding of time, Cullmann exposed himself to the charge that he had interpreted John according to a schema that is oriented more to the Lukan conception. Does the Johannine evangelist have a linear view of time or a mystical or even existential one? It seems to be the case that all these ‘grand’ concepts only partly do justice to the distinctive characteristics of the Johannine text. But how can the understanding of time or the concrete treatment of time in John be described? In my own analysis of the Johannine understanding of time,11 I have attempted to find a starting point in the concrete linguistic usage, taking up and interpreting as comprehensively as possible the phenomena— reaching from the distinctive features of the use of the Greek tenses to the temporal situation and configuration of the Johannine narrative. Here, above all the emphasis on the ‘hour of Jesus’ (i.e., the time of the salvific event of Jesus’ death and resurrection) and the repeatedly made distinction between the time before and the time after this hour is significant. In this way the Gospel creates a structure in which the level of the narrated story of the earthly Jesus and the level of the post-Easter community (of the evangelist and his readers) are most intimately related to each other. This ‘hermeneutical fusion of horizons’12 is significant for the reading of the Gospel, both then and now. In what follows I would like to gather essential linguistic observations and explicate their significance and consequences for the reading of the Gospel of John and its theological interpretation. 3. Linguistic Observations on the Johannine Treatment of ‘Time’ Starting with linguistic observations has advantages vis-à-vis older approaches, which usually immediately turn to the classic controversial questions, such as the question of the evaluation of the Old Testament ‘salvation history’ or the tension—classically marked in the ἔρχεται ὤρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν (4.23; 5.25)—between the emphasis on the presence of salvation and the expectation of an ‘hour’ that is still future, i.e., an eschatological event “on the last day” (6.39, 40, 44, 54; 12.48).

11

Frey 1998. The lines of thought that follow are largely based on this more extensive analysis. 12 The term takes up insights of the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer and was adapted in the school of Ferdinand Hahn for the exegesis of John. On this, see Hahn 2006, 521–37 (536–37); Onuki 1984, 12–14 and elsewhere; Frey 1998, 249–52.

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3.1 Preliminary Considerations If one asks how time finds expression linguistically or how temporal relations are expressed, then one is confronted in different languages with a great variety of systems.13 Not every language has a clear ‘sequence of tenses’ (consecutio temporum) as in Latin. In particular, classical and postclassical Greek do not have a clear system for marking temporal relations. Thus, the temporal expression of some verb forms must usually be reconstructed from the combination of tense- or aspect-form (aspect) with the verb that is used (and its inherent mode of action [‘Aktionsart’]).14 Valid observations can rarely be obtained from isolated tense forms; rather, they can more likely be gained from specific temporal contrasts or other conspicuous forms of linguistic expression. In the first place the reference to time is primarily a deictic category, part of the reference to the spatial-temporal context in which every linguistic statement is situated. The reference to time depends on the position of the speaker and is then established especially through temporal adverbs (e.g., ‘now,’ ‘thereafter’), prepositional constructions (‘on the next day,’ ‘at the end’), and adverbial clauses, whereas (indicative) verb forms establish it only to a very small extent. However, these too can be informative. What is narrated in the past tense (usually aorist) presents itself to the hearers—at least fictively—as past. A sudden change from the aorist narrative tense to the ‘historical’ present functions rhetorically as a way of making the action present or vivid. In narrative texts, temporal references are initially perceived from the perspective of the narrator. Through retrospectives (analepses) or anticipations (prolepses), the spatial-temporal structure emerges before the inner eyes of the readers. In the Gospel of John, this structure reaches from “in the beginning” (1.1) to the “last day” (6.39-40 and elsewhere). For every single statement, the perspective from which it is made is significant—for example, whether it is expressed in a particular case from the perspective of the narrated time of Jesus or from the perspective of the evangelist and his readers. What is meant when Jesus in John 3.13 speaks in the perfect of the ‘ascent’ of the Son of Man, and what does this 13

Drawing conclusions from the structure of a certain language about a ‘thinking’ that stands behind it is, however, very problematic. Thus, attempts to contrast a ‘Hebrew thought’ with ‘Greek thought’ (e.g., Boman 1983) or to specify the nearness of individual New Testament statements to one or the other of these are also linguistically untenable and must be abandoned. On this, see the foundational work of Barr 1961, 46–88; see also Frey 1998, 13–14. 14 Some verbs form only a portion of the tense-/aspect-forms. For the problem, see comprehensively Fanning 1990; and already Mateos 1977.

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imply for the perspective adopted there? And what does it mean when Jesus speaks of two times in John 16.16ff., one in which the disciples will no longer see him and then another in which they will see him again? Does this refer to the time of his ‘rest in the tomb’ until Easter day, or does it mean the time of his ‘absence’ until the parousia? For the clarification of such questions, the analysis of the narrative structures is essential. 3.2 Observations Based on the Johannine Use of the Greek Tenses The use of the Greek tenses is a complex and often inadequately treated field of New Testament exegesis. Neither a mere statistical investigation nor a one-sided evaluation of individual verb forms can lead to valid conclusions, and every finding must be investigated with regard to its (potential) implications (in comparison with other texts) and the possible reasons for it (theme, textual genre, linguistic-historical developments). (a) Statistically,15 the Johannine texts show a higher proportion of verbs in the vocabulary in comparison with the other New Testament narrative texts and the epistles. In John, indicative and active forms are especially dominant. Among the tenses there is a higher proportion of present forms, a slight receding of the future and a conspicuous accumulation of perfect and pluperfect forms. But how is this evidence to be evaluated? Not in such a way that one could draw direct conclusions regarding the theological interest of the evangelist. After all, the concrete choice of a tense at a given point depends on many factors (linguistic-historical developments, the linguistic niveau of the author, the respective kind of text, specifics of individual lexemes, individual preferences in some cases, and, taking all those elements into account, the concrete communicative intention). It is clear that the aorist dominates in narratives—and thus also in the Gospel of John— and the present dominates in discourses with the high proportion of discourses leading to a higher proportion of the present tense. Future forms occur in high density in the Farewell Discourses. Perfects are especially frequent in the account of Jesus’ mission in John 17. Imperfects occur with special frequency in the narrative parentheses that are characteristic for John in which a ‘background’ of the narrated event is explained, i.e., time, place, circumstances, or significance (e.g., 1.40; 2.6; 4.6; 5.9b; 6.4; and elsewhere).16 (b) It becomes clear in individual passages that in John the tenses are indeed used with linguistic sensitivity and in a deliberate manner. Precisely 15 16

Cf. Frey 1998, 24–27. Cf. van Belle 1985; Culpepper 1983, 17–18; Frey 1998, 35–36 and 91–92.

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in the simple language of the Fourth Evangelist, special weight falls on the temporal differentiation and aspectual nuancing effected by the use of tenses. Three examples should suffice to show how subtly the evangelist uses the tenses. Right at the beginning of the Gospel, in the Prologue, the tenses appear to be chosen very deliberately. After the imperfect ἦν was used four times in the first four stichoi of the Prologue (vv. 1-2), v. 3 juxtaposes the first aorist ἐγένετο: “All things were created through him . . .” While this aorist refers to the ‘act’ of creation, the imperfect points back to its ‘background’ or, in other words, to a state ‘before’ creation: “In the beginning was the Logos”—before the world was created.17 Already from the beginning of the Gospel the readers are led to the subtle play with the tenses and its potential for marking material distinctions. In John 2.17 the disciples remember—in the light of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple—the statement of the Psalm: “zeal for your house will consume me (καταφάγεταί με)” (Ps 69.10a). In the LXX, which is evidently quoted here, we do not find a future but the aorist (κατέφαγέν με, corresponding to the Hebrew perfect ‫)א ָכ ָל ְתנִ י‬. ֲ The evangelist has changed the tense of the aorist into the future here. The reason for this change lies not simply in the general fact that the Psalms are read as prophetic witnesses that point ahead to the way of Jesus but, more precisely, in the notion—which belongs to the quotation in the narrated situation of the temple cleansing—that Jesus will actually suffer death because of his zeal for God’s “house.” In this way the evangelist literarily stresses the temporal movement of the narrated story of Jesus to his passion and provides in the temple cleansing scene (which he has placed compositionally at the beginning of the way of Jesus) a proleptic reference to the event of his death.18 The Baptist’s witness in the Prologue (1.15)—“This was he of whom I said, ‘The one who comes after me has become ahead of me, for he was before me’ ”—is a complex ‘self-quotation’ of the Baptist, which occurs again in John 1.30, with minor changes: “This is the one of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who has become ahead of me, for he was before me.’ ” The decisive difference is located in the introductory formula: To the present in 1.30 (οὗτός ἐστιν) corresponds an imperfect in 1.15 (οὗτος ἦν). While in the narrated scene of 1.30 the Baptist identifies Jesus who faces him (as the one whom he had previously announced) and both figures are copresent, in 1.15 the Baptist looks back at the history of Jesus (“This was he . . .”). Although the Baptist is a figure of the distant past for 17

In an illuminating contrast to this use of the imperfect, the creation account of Gen 1.1 LXX, to which the Ἐν ἀρχῇ of John 1.1 alludes, formulates in the aorist: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν (“In the beginning made/created . . .”). 18 Still, it is what prompts the arrest of Jesus according to the testimony of the Synoptics.

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the Johannine readers, he thereby enters into the chorus of the witnesses of John 1.14ff., becoming himself a present witness to Christ. The imperfect marks this retrospective perspective—in contrast to the present, as it is used in the narrated scene in 1.30. The choice of tense alone marks out the difference of the speech perspective between the narrated scene and the retrospective text of the Prologue, which makes the words of the Baptist present but in such a way as if he were looking back at his own encounter with Jesus. This too is an impressive indication of a conscious and nuanced use of tenses. Such details may not be set aside as insignificant with reference to a ‘blurring of the times’ or to the potentially limited linguistic ability of the evangelist.19 Rather, the evangelist appears to assume that his readers pay attention to such details, discover the subtle distinctions, and understand their significance.

(c) In the present context I can mention only a few other details of the Johannine use of tenses. They all move within the framework of correct linguistic usage and are employed by the author for the aspectual and temporal differentiation and nuancing of his text. The fact that John makes more use of perfect and pluperfect forms than other New Testament authors has often been explained as a result of his simple style, of Semitic influences, or of the late Hellenistic fusing of the perfect and the aorist.20 Such explanations, however, are unnecessary. The perfect tenses in John consistently display a clearly distinguishable expression of aspect. The accumulation of such forms in John 17 and, above all, the connection with specific lexemes such as δίδωμι, ἀποστέλλω, ὁράω, λαλέω, and μαρτυρέω21—which are important for the Johannine theme of sending and witness—show that John does indeed intend to mark material emphases through his use of the perfect. The resultative or continuative verbal aspect expresses that what the Father “has given” to the Son (δέδωκεν: 3.35; 5.22; 6.39; 10.29; 18.11) is definitely in his hand. It indicates that the sending of Jesus (ἀπέσταλκεν: 20.21), is regarded not only as an act of the past but as the enduring foundation of the sending of the disciples. It expresses that what the Son “has seen” (ἑώρακεν: 3.32) stays enduringly before his eyes, and what he “has spoken” (λελάληκα: 6.63; 8.40; 14.25; 15.3, 11; 16.1, 4, 6, 25, 33; 18.20) is enduringly valid revelation. The use of the perfect here results from an authorial choice of the linguistic expression. It characterizes the Johannine style and expresses, beyond this, the constitutive relatedness of the post-Easter 19

The assumption even that a New Testament author could not have made such precise distinctions at all is also hermeneutically senseless. Until the opposite is demonstrated, one must assume the linguistic competence of an author. 20 Examples in Frey 1998, 98–103. 21 Cf. Frey 1998, 33–34.

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community to the enduringly valid word and work of Christ and his connection back to the initiative of the Father, who sent and authorized him. Where narrative texts change to the present tense or where some verbs in the so-called historical present are interspersed, a special vividness of what is narrated is attained.22 In some (not all) narrative passages (1.35-51; 2.1-11; 4.126; and elsewhere), John uses the present tense to introduce what the figures say, and he also uses the present tense to introduce some prominent sayings of Jesus.23 Both linguistic devices have a ‘present-making’ effect for the readers. By having past events and conversations appear present rhetorically and, beyond this, by having the extended discourses be ‘quoted’ directly, the readers are fictively situated in the present of the activity of Jesus. In the speech act of the reading of the Gospel, Jesus’ words become present. In this way the temporal distance between the past time of the earthly activity of Jesus and the time of the later community is bridged and the community is confronted with the ‘made-present’ word of Jesus.

An especially striking and effective confrontation with Jesus’ word arises in those passages in which Jesus speaks of his person with the formula ἐγώ εἰμι (or also ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγώ). In John the ἐγώ εἰμι is restricted to Jesus and is a specific expression of his christological dignity and authority. Most importantly, with the aforementioned phrases the evangelist makes conspicuous connections, such as the statement of John 8.58, which is ‘impossible’ from the perspective of the logic of tenses: “Before Abraham became, I am” (πρὶν Ἀβραάμ γενέσθαι ἐγω εἰμι). The ‘existence’ of Jesus reaches back into the past prior to the time of Abraham.24 Conspicuous contrasts are also expressed in the converse direction, for example, in John 12.26 (“Where I am, my servant will also be” [ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ ὁ διάκονος ὁ ἐμὸς ἔσται]) and, similarly, in John 14.3 (ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ καὶ ὑμεῖς ἦτε). While the future or aorist subjunctive is used when the disciples are spoken of prospectively, the present tense is used for Jesus, namely (here with the order reversed) εἰμὶ ἐγώ. Via this contrast of tenses, the evangelist expresses a christological concern. While Abraham and the disciples can be spoken of in the modus of the past or future, Jesus, who alone uses the ‘revelation formula’ ἐγω εἰμι of himself, is time-overarching. He is already present before the becoming of Abraham, and the future of the disciples is also 22

This stylistic device also occurs relatively often in the Gospel of Mark. In Matthew the historical present is restricted primarily to verba dicendi, in order to let the sayings of Jesus appear present. Cf. Frey 1998, 82–83. 23 John 1.38, 39, 43, 51; 4.21, 26; 6.20; 11.23; 13.31; 18.5; 20.19, 22, 29; 21.19. Such an introduction is not needed in the large discourses of Jesus. The long direct discourse creates fictional present anyway. 24 A statement of preexistence is basically present here. On the topic of preexistence in John, see now the fundamental study of Kunath 2016.

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already present for him. Moreover, through this linguistic means, Jesus’ nature is distinguished from that of all humans. The ἐγω εἰμι can be understood only in the unity with the Father, also during his earthly activity.25 The play with contrasts of tenses and shifts of temporal perspective is especially conspicuous in the Johannine discourses, especially the Farewell Discourses. There is an accumulation of future and other prospective forms here, looking forward to what lies ahead for Jesus or the disciples (farewell, grief, hate of the world, coming of the Spirit, etc.). However, a series of conspicuously contrasting forms are interspersed among them in which there is already talk of the event of salvation and its consequences as though these had already taken place and been completed. This phenomenon is encountered for the first time in the programmatic opening of the Farewell Discourses in John 13.31: “Now the Son of Man is glorified . . .” (νῦν ἐδοξάσθη . . .), with this glorification being thematized as imminent by means of the future tense in the verse that immediately follows (εὐθὺς δοξάσει αὐτόν). If Jesus’ glorification is imminent (and in John 12.28 and 17.1, he explicitly asks the Father for this), one must ask how this is already thematized as a given in John 13.31. The perfect νενίκηκα at the end of the second Farewell Discourse in John 16.33 is similarly conspicuous: “I have overcome the world.” Are we really to think that Jesus has overcome the world now already, before his death? And when John 16.11 speaks in the perfect of the definitive judgment of the ‘ruler of this world,’ this too is an event that must actually be connected with Jesus’ death, so that the ‘resultative’ perfect at an earlier point stands out. The key to understanding is provided by statements for which the only possible explanation is that a post-Easter perspective has penetrated into the words of the pre-Easter Jesus. In John 16.4 and 17.12, Jesus already looks back in the imperfect (ὅτε ἤμην μετ’ αὐτῶν) to the time in which he was with the disciples, although he is, after all, still speaking with them in this moment, and in John 17.11 he already says, “I am no longer in the world,” although he still speaks in that world in the narrative context. Jesus apparently speaks to the disciples in a retrospective review of his ministry. The standpoint of the narrated scene in which he speaks to the disciples prior to his death and a standpoint in which he already looks back at the passion and Easter events are juxtaposed in a way that is unmistakable.

In the Johannine Farewell Discourses (from John 13.31 to 17.26), Jesus looks ahead to the post-Easter period, in which the Spirit will be sent etc., and, at the same time, he already looks back from the perspective of the glorified one (or of the post-Easter community) to what was effected in the 25

In John 8.6 the ἐγω εἰμι is unpacked in a revealing way: ἐγὼ και ὁ πέμψας με πατήρ.

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event of his death and his resurrection—his glorification, his victory over the world, etc. Thus, two perspectives overlap (already linguistically)— the prospective view of the Jesus who is speaking in the narrated scene and the post-Easter retrospective view of the community that looks back to the work of Jesus—and both are most closely interwoven in the Johannine Farewell Discourses. Thus, what we find in the Johannine Farewell Discourses is a temporal stereoscopy, which can already be recognized in the use of tenses. 3.3 Observations on the Narrative Treatment of Time As a narrative the Gospel of John expresses an action, a spatiotemporally situated, nonreversible development and thus the portrayal of a passage of time. In principle, its linguistic representation can take place only in a temporal sequence. The temporal structuring thus belongs to the constitutive elements of every narrative. The selection and successive ordering of the material and its placement in the course of time of a narrative is part of that shaping activity that—consciously or unconsciously—must be presupposed for every storyteller. The narrative configuration of time also determines the perception of the narrated world. For in the act of reading or hearing, the world that is presented in the narrative is perceived in a successive sequence. Thus, exploring the narrative treatment of time in a text serves to better understand “what effects the communicative process of narration has on the hearers and readers.”26 Methodologically the narrative fabric of time can be drawn out by an analysis of the explicit specifications of the position in time, the duration and the time relations, the anachronies (prolepses and analepses), the temporal perspective, as well as the narrative tempo (relationship between time of narration and narrated time) or narrative frequency.27 An initial observation of foundational significance is that the Gospel of John apparently places special value on temporal notes, i.e., his narrative—irrespective of what historical value these notes have—is carefully configured temporally.

(a) To be sure, the Gospel of John does not contain a specification of its exact temporal position as is the case in Luke 3.1, where the narrated 26

So Güttgemanns 1974, 56. On the categories of narratological methodology, see, e.g., Finnern 2010. For the analysis of the Gospel of John, see the fundamental study of Culpepper 1983. See also Frey 1998, 154–207. 27

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events are synchronized with “world history.” Nevertheless, the Johannine text adopts a temporal perspective from the very beginning. The Prologue already provides the essential parameters and serves as a reading guide. John 1.1 ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν begins with the unsurpassable state of preexistence; ἐγένετο in 1.3 refers to creation; the perfect γέγονεν points to the having-become-ness and continuing existence of the created world. Already here, and then even more clearly in the present in John 1.5 and the negated consummative aorist οὐ κατέλαβεν, the temporal standpoint of the witnesses of faith finds expression, from which 1.14ff. is then formulated: “We saw his glory . . .” This retrospective on the past and completed Christ event is the dominant perspective of the Fourth Gospel. It is from this perspective that the events are narrated, as is shown by the numerous narrative asides, in which the events are interpreted retrospectively for the readers (e.g., 2.22; 7.39; 12.16; etc.). And the two coordinates in the Prologue—i.e., the ἀρχή and the present of the readers—already establish the temporal framework, which is then developed further in the course of the narrative through back-references to Old Testament material and through anticipations of what is still future for the disciples, such as the ‘last day’ etc.28 (b) The narrative tempo in the Fourth Gospel is established by the festival chronology. Three Passover festivals are mentioned. The first forms the frame for John 2.13–3.21, the second—after John 6.4—provides the setting for the episode in John 6, and the third comes into view in John 11.55. Before one raises the historical question of the possibility of a three-year activity of Jesus, one must consider the narrative effect of the existing text. The year between the first and second Passover is bridged by two and a half chapters, and the year between the second and the third Passover by five chapters. In John 12 the narrative flow is abruptly slowed down, and in John 13–19 a narrated time of only a night and a day is covered in seven chapters. In the ‘hour of Jesus’—which is announced in 12.23—the narrative flow appears to come to a standstill. In this way the Gospel of John creates a concentration on the events in the hour of Jesus, i.e., his death and resurrection. Thus, the festival chronology certainly has a dramaturgical function—a particular focus on the event of the death of Jesus is effected through narrative means.29 28

On this, see Frey 1998, 155–68. On this, see Frey 2002c, 191–200 (= 2013a, 507–16). When interpreters have attempted to bring the Johannine chronology closer to the Synoptic chronology by reordering John 5 and 6, this has occurred in the interest of reconstructing from the Gospel of John a historical source that was parallel to the Gospel of Mark. Such attempts, however, showed too little respect for the Johannine text in its distinctiveness. 29

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(c) The interpretation of the temporal specifications in the Fourth Gospel is difficult. A symbolic meaning can be derived from some of them, but for others such a sense remains unclear. In any case the temporal notes have a function for the construction of the narrated world and the cohesion of the presentation. Various individual scenes obtain their dramatic unity through a chronological structuring, such as John 1.19–2.11 through the chronological specifications (1.29, 35, 43; 2.1), which as a whole point to a period of one week, or John 11 through the notes that Jesus waits two more days before he departs (11.6) and that Lazarus has then already been four days in the tomb. Through this detailed configuration of time in individual scenes, the readers are adroitly led beyond the fact that between these scenes large periods of time “stand empty” or are filled only through concise summaries. Many chronological notes primarily have the function of binding the text together scenically. Parenthetical specifications of time are characteristic for John (mostly in the imperfect), such as John 1.39 (“But it was the tenth hour”) and 4.6 (“But it was the sixth hour”). In these cases it is often questionable whether there is a “historical” recollection behind such statements. While the midday time of John 6 probably has symbolic features,30 attempts to identify a symbolic meaning for John 1.39 are not very convincing.31 In any case, a ‘narrative pause’ arises through this note. The voice of the narrator continues to speak, but the action stops. This enables the readers to pause and reflect on the significance of what had been narrated—in this case the first meeting of the disciples with Jesus. Other chronological notes have a strongly theological function. The Johannine passion chronology,32 which is, as is well known, opposed to the Synoptic chronology, seeks to present Jesus as the true Passover lamb. Jesus dies approximately at the time when the lambs are slaughtered in the temple for Passover. In this way the shaping of the Passover story corresponds to the Baptist’s testimony about the ‘lamb of God’ in John 1.29, 36.33 The structure of the specification of days in John 1–2 also serves a theological purpose. The beginning of the activity of Jesus appears as a week in a typological back-reference to the week of creation in Genesis 1, so that Jesus’ activity appears at the same time as an event of new creation (cf. 20.22).34 30

On this, see Frey 1998, 186–89. See Frey 1998, 189–91. 32 On this, see Frey 1998, 181–86. 33 For the interpretation of John 1.29, 36, see Frey 2002c, 200–216 (= 2013a, 516–31). 34 A symbolic reference to the passion could also be suggested for the temporal specification in John 4.6, the reference to the “sixth hour” as the time of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritans. 31

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The temporal notes, which are numerous in John, sometimes have a theological-symbolic meaning and sometimes merely a narrative or dramaturgical function. Least of all is it appropriate to interpret them in a historicizing manner. Nevertheless, it is also clear that the temporal structure that is formed through these temporal specifications is central for the Johannine configuration of the gospel genre. The temporal structure of the narrative may not be neglected as a dispensable, ultimately irrelevant textual element. The Gospel does not narrate a myth beyond connection to or fixation within time but rather events in time and space whose temporal determinedness—especially in the case of the event of the death of Jesus—are emphasized by various means.35 This is of decisive importance also in theological perspective.

3.3 The ‘Hour of Jesus’ and the Distinction between ‘Before’ and ‘After’ Of the different terms for time (ὥρα, ἡμέρα, χρόνος, καιρός, νῦν, etc.),36 one term is especially significant in the Fourth Gospel—the elaborate and meaningful talk of the ‘hour’ (ὥρα) of Jesus.37 Its ‘not-yet’ is repeatedly emphasized at first (2.4; 7.30; 8.20) before its arrival is then proclaimed in the scene in which ‘the Greeks’ come to Jesus (12.23). While the term is probably inspired by the Synoptic talk of the ‘hour’ as the hour of death (cf. Mark 14.35, 41), in John this ‘hour’ encompasses the whole nexus of events from John 12.23 to the end of the Gospel, i.e., the crucifixion together with the Easter events, the resurrection, the ascension to the Father, and the giving of the Spirit to the disciples, which—in contrast to Acts—are precisely not separated into distinct individual events in John but rather are joined together most closely. The Gospel of John repeatedly stresses the distinction between the time before this ‘hour’ and the time after it (or after his ‘glorification’ or the like). It is only the events in the ‘hour’ of death and resurrection that enable the proper understanding of both the activity and words of Jesus and the christological meaning of Scripture, and the post-Easter recollection effected by the Spirit is grounded in this nexus of events. This is clarified through the narrator’s commentary in John 2.22 and 12.16 as 35

On this, see Frey 2009a, esp. 509–10 (= 2013a, 585–638, esp. 636–37). On this, see Frey 1998, 208–16. 37 If an hour can be designated ‘the eschatological hour,’ it is certainly not ‘the coming of the revealer’ (Bultmann) but rather the constitutive ‘hour’ of the event of salvation. If one could speak of the ‘middle of time’ in John (even though this model is too schematic), one would have mention against Cullmann not the entire activity of Jesus but this ‘hour of Jesus.’ 36

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well as through the Paraclete sayings in the Farewell Discourses.38 It was only after Jesus’ resurrection or glorification that the disciples were able to understand his words, deeds, and fate. Only after his glorification was the Spirit given to them (7.39; cf. 20.22-23), and before this they also did not yet understand the Scripture (20.9). This general post-Easter perspective of interpretation is supported by many other notes, where temporal adverbs (νῦν, ἄρτι, ἤδη, οὔπω) direct the reader’s eye to the distinction between ‘before’ and ‘after’39 and ultimately point to the fact that the post-Easter community is in an extremely privileged position vis-à-vis the disciples of the earthly Jesus. Only through Jesus’ ‘departure’ could the Spirit be sent. Jesus’ death, interpreted from the perspective of Easter, is the foundation of life and salvation for those who believe in him after Easter. Thus, the event in the ‘hour of Jesus’ is the actual eschatological event. 3.4 The Problem of the Elapsing Time Of course the Gospel of John also shows an awareness of the problem of the elapsing time. One can speak neither of a mystical blurring of times nor of a merely ‘punctiliar’ understanding of time.40 In the riddling saying of John 11.9-10, the time of the activity of Jesus is compared to the twelve hours of the day, which ends only when ‘night’ begins (cf. 13.30), i.e., when the hour of his death arrives. The saying makes the point that the time of Jesus’ ministry is limited. Analogously, in John 9.4 it says: “We must work as long as it is day.” Knowledge of the expiring and extending of time is especially apparent when there is talk of the μικρόν in John 14.19 and 16.16-19. In 16.16 Jesus says to the disciples: “A little while and you will no longer see me (μικρὸν καὶ οὐκέτι θεωρεῖτέ με), and again a little while, and you will see me.” The disciples do not understand and ask one another about the meaning of the saying, which is conspicuously repeated through this (and thus emphasized for the readers), and again it says: “What is τὸ μικρόν? We do not know what he is talking about” 38

On this topic as a whole, see Hoegen-Rohls 1996. Peter, who misunderstands in John 13.7, is meant to “understand after these things.” Interestingly, from the first deed of Jesus in John 2.1-11, in which there is talk of Jesus’ ‘hour’ for the first time and in a manner that is still relatively unclear (2.4), the narrative displays a conspicuous accumulation of temporal expressions, which can be grouped in ‘not yet’/‘now,’ ‘up to now’/‘now.’ Thus this paradigmatic narrative already points to the temporal structure in the Gospel as a whole (on this, see Frey 1998, 224–26). 40 This was contested by Rudolf Bultmann and some of his students, who wanted to impute an existentialist understanding of time to the evangelist (e.g., Klein 1971, 273–75). See, however, Frey 1998, 227–31; 1997b, 187–98. 39

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(v. 18). This guesswork is given a conspicuous amount of space, and the μικρόν is repeated three times. The question of the shortness of the time is apparently urgent, specifically for the community of addressees. For whom else should the question be repeated and thereby stressed so conspicuously if not for the addressees of the Gospel? It is, after all, their problems that are reflected in the problems and questions of the disciples in the Farewell Discourses. Thus, it seems probable that the elapsing or extending of time—the “how much longer?”—was discussed in the Johannine circle. The problem of the nonappearance of the parousia, which also plays a role in other late New Testament writings, was apparently by no means unknown to the Johannine circle.41 4. The Fusion of the Temporal Horizons and Its Hermeneutical Significance We have seen in the case of the Johannine Farewell Discourses that there is a juxtaposition or even intertwining of two temporal perspectives in them. A multitude of statements is formulated against the backdrop of the narrated situation and from the perspective of the disciples of Jesus prior to the passion, who grieve over his impending departure and to whom coming tribulations and, above all, the sending of the Spirit-Paraclete is announced by means of future tenses. This is the perspective of the narrated story of Jesus. However, other statements in the same discourse context already look back at the completed events of salvation and presuppose their impact and validity. Jesus has loved his own until the τέλος (13.1; cf. 13.34), which certainly implies his crucifixion. Τhe Son of Man is glorified (13.31-32: ἐδοξάσθη aorist), even though he still needs to be glorified (13.31-32: δοξάσει; cf. 17.1). Jesus has conquered the world (16.33: νενίκηκα perfect). He has completed his work (17.4), sent the disciples (17.18), etc. This is the temporal perspective of the post-Easter community, of the evangelist and his readers, for whom the events of salvation lie in the past and at the same time form the foundation of the present life and faith. Both perspectives are programmatically juxtaposed in John 13.31-32, and they interpenetrate in the subsequent course of the Farewell Discourses through to the end of John 17. 41 Instructive for the expectation of the Parousia is, above all, the remark in John 21.22–23 where there is a discussion of the possibility of whether the beloved disciple could remain alive (to the very end), while martyrdom was prophesied for Peter: “If I want this one to remain until I come, what is that to you?” Here the “until I come” is used in a completely unstressed and nonpolemical way. Thus, one could apparently speak in the Johannine circle of Jesus’ (still impending) coming—and at the same time the question of the meaning of the μικρόν must have arisen. On this, see Frey 2000b, 14–22.

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Ultimately, we are dealing here not simply with a juxtaposition of tenses but with an intertwining of two material levels, the level of the earthly activity of Jesus attended by his disciples, as it is narrated in the Gospel, and the level of the post-Easter community, of its problems and trials as well as its theological insights, which go far beyond what the preEaster disciples understood. Upon closer examination such retrospective sprinklings can be seen also in other Johannine discourses, for example, in John 3.16, where John speaks in a summary fashion of the gift of the Son, thus scarcely referring solely to his coming into the world but also including his crucifixion (3.14-15).42 Likewise, the statement in the perfect about the ascent of the Son of Man in John 3.13 (ἀναβέβηκεν)—which stands, after all, in material opposition to John 6.62 and 20.17, where Jesus’ ascent (to the Father) still lies in the future—can only be understood in such a way that the post-Easter perspective of the community has penetrated into the phrasing of the speech of Jesus, and the same can be said about the ‘we’ statement of Jesus in John 3.11 or 9.4.43

In my view, these linguistic indications point to a phenomenon that goes beyond the level of linguistic expression and is highly significant for the understanding of the entire Gospel. In the Gospel of John, the story of the earthly Jesus becomes transparent for the situation of the community of addressees. This is practiced in an especially programmatic way in the Farewell Discourses, which are situated not by chance in the context of the ‘hour of Jesus,’ on the border between ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Here the transparency is especially clear. The situation of the disciples’ grief over the departure of Jesus ‘fuses’ with the situation of the post-Easter community’s grief over his absence, while, at the same time, the promises of Jesus, who is saying farewell, become understandable as promises for the subsequent community. Thus, the situation of the Johannine addressee community can best be inferred from the Farewell Discourses. In principle, however, the transparency of the Johannine narrative for the post-Easter period can be perceived in the whole Gospel—with differing densities in the various sections. Borrowing a term from Hans-Georg Gadamer’s reflections on the significance of the temporal distance in the understanding of past history,44 this phenomenon can be described as a ‘hermeneutical fusion of horizons.’ 42 On this, see Frey 2000b, 286–300; 2008b, 214–17 (= 2016a, 630–34); see further Popkes 2004, 239–46. 43 On this, see Frey 1998, 253–57. 44 Cf. Gadamer 1986, 296ff.; cf. the reflections in Onuki 1984; Frey 1998, 249–68.

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In the text of the Gospel of John, which narrates the story of the earthly Jesus from a certain temporal distance in retrospect, two horizons fuse—on the one hand, the horizon of the narrated story with the speech-perspective of Jesus and his disciples and, on the other hand, the horizon of the author and his addressees or, in general, of the post-Easter community, which already looks back to the way of Jesus and to his ‘hour’ as a completed event that has enduring significance for them. In this horizon much is presupposed that did not yet exist or was not yet conceivable in the time of Jesus: the completion of the event of salvation, the post-Easter recollections and insights enabled by the Spirit, the community’s experiences of tribulation and persecution (which are presupposed as a leitmotif in the Farewell Discourses; cf. 14.1, 27; 16.4b-6, 20-22, 23), and the theological language developed in the Johannine tradition with the concomitant image of Christ—all this is repeatedly brought into the narrative of the way and history of Jesus, into the sayings and discourses of the earthly one. The typically Johannine presentation of the figure of Jesus in the light of Easter, in the light of the post-Easter knowledge of Christ, which is at least much more consistently present in John than in the other three gospels, is possible only because this retrospective view penetrates the presentation linguistically and materially. To be sure, the fusing of the two horizons of the time of Jesus and the time of the author and his addressees does not mean that the one horizon is simply dissolved into the other. The evangelist does not simply assimilate the history of Jesus to his own time and circumstances. He does not place Jesus’ activity in the Ephesus of his own time, but rather clearly narrates Jesus’ story as past history in a specific temporal and spatial framework, in Judaea and Galilee, with Samaritan village inhabitants (in John 4), sprinklings of intra-Jewish discussions about the Messiah (e.g., in John 7), Jerusalem high priests (in the passion), etc. Precisely the specifications of place and time repeatedly highlight the localization of the narrated events in a framework that is far removed from the readers. In the hermeneutical process described here, the horizon of the interpreter does not disappear in the horizon of the narrated story, nor is the horizon of the narrated story dissolved into the horizon of the present of the interpreter. Rather, both horizons are joined on a new, third level, and this constitutes—also according to Gadamer—the productive ‘surplus value’ of the understanding of a past history from a certain temporal distance. Linguistically and materially the Johannine narrative repeatedly contains elements that clearly belong in the time and world of the earthly Jesus—this is, after all, what the story is about—and it connects these with elements (insights, formulations, etc.) which are comprehensible only on the basis of the post-Easter ‘development’ and in which the story of Jesus is interpreted from the situation of

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the post-Easter community (and sometimes concretely of the Johannine addressee community). The two horizons, which are joined in the Johannine text as in a double exposure, cannot be cleanly separated historically-exegetically. It is not possible to distinguish a “historical” level of the time and history of Jesus strictly from the post-Easter ‘overpainting’ and to separate—as modern exegesis with a one-sided interest in the historical value of the sources strived to do—history and theology.45 This is why the Gospel of John can be used to such a limited extent as a source for the ‘historical Jesus.’ Only in individual texts can we identify—partly with the aid of external sources and partly through the Johannine letters—places where the Gospel’s story of Jesus more likely reflects discourses of the Palestinian Judaism of the time of Jesus and places where the work more likely addresses questions of the community of addressees. The latter appears to be the case when, in clear analogy to the schisms in the Johannine circle spoken of in 1 John 2.18ff., there is talk of a division in Jesus’ circle of disciples, so that the very thing that probably affected the Johannine addressees existentially can already be recognized as an element of the history of the ‘incarnate Word.’ Thus, the community too, according to the Farewell Discourses, is not to be troubled or unsettled by the world’s ignorance and hate, for this hostility had already opposed Jesus before it opposed his followers later (15.18). At the same time, the Gospel also formulates the ‘answer’: the message that his death is, in truth, not a failure but rather the going to the Father, the victory over the world, and the foundation of a new life for the disciples—or, in the words of the Prologue, that the attempts of darkness to extinguish the light have failed and “the light shines in the darkness” (1.5).

Thus, the reading of the Gospel’s story of Jesus, the ‘processing’ of his way, including his passion, becomes for the reading community itself an aid for overcoming their own tribulations and for strengthening their own identity as believers on the basis of the Easter perspective, which is called to mind precisely in the presentation of the earthly way and death of Jesus. Thus, in reading the story of Jesus from the primordial Logos, via his earthly activity, his confrontations with his opponents, and his way unto death, and through to the Easter events and the conferring of the Spirit, the community of disciples is meant to understand its own situation anew

45

On the attempts to read the Gospel in a purely ‘historicizing’ or purely ‘theological’ manner, see sections 1.1 and 1.2 of chapter 1 of this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 5–12).

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and to move from grief to joy, from their trials to the reassurance of their standing in faith and to a new perception of their sending.46 5. The Gospel of John’s Structure of Communication and the Two-Level Reading Thus, in the Fourth Gospel we are faced with a nuanced communication. At least two levels of communication must be distinguished: on the one hand, the level of the narrated action with the embedded dialogues between Jesus and the other figures of the narration (between Jesus and his contemporaries) and, on the other hand, the level of the narration, the real communication event between narrator and his hearers or (only theoretically distinguishable from this) the author and his addressees. While the author of the Johannine letters directly addresses his addressees and their problems, the author of the Gospel communicates with his readership only indirectly, mediated through his narrative, which is, in turn, transparent for the problems of the addressees and seeks to contribute to the overcoming of these problems. This is significant in several respects. First, the speech of characters in the Johannine text (with the exception of the speech of Jesus) is never identical with the message of the author. Where figures within the text (the Samaritans, the “Jews,” or “the disciples”) make statements, appeal to Scripture, or formulate questions and answers, these utterances must always be read as the speech of characters and distinguished from the viewpoint of the Gospel as a whole.47 This viewpoint is reflected most clearly—apart from the discourses of Jesus—in the explanatory comments of the narrator and in the ‘narrative asides,’ which represent the (retrospective) perspective on the narrated events and the intended dimension of meaning, i.e., the one that is meant to be mediated to the readers.48 Secondly, this means that the reconstruction of the situation of the communities of addressees from the Johannine letters is much more possible than from the Gospel, in which the addressees are never (except in John 19.35 and 20.30-31) directly addressed. Their situation can be drawn out only to a very limited extent via a “mirror reading” of the narrated story of Jesus.49 While it is evident that 46

It is not by chance that sending statements are found at the end of the Farewell Discourses in John 17.20ff. and at the end of the (original) Gospel in John 20.22-23. On this movement in the reading of the text, see Onuki 1984, 173–82; and chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b; 2013a, 409–82). 47 For the references to Scripture in the speech of characters, see Moser 2014. 48 See van Belle 1985; Culpepper 1983, 17–18; Frey 1998, 35–36 and 91–92. 49 This was attempted especially by Martyn 2003, who sought to understand the Gospel—primarily the episode of John 9—as a “two-stage drama,” and assumed a

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the confrontation with the Jews takes up a considerable amount of room (and is also formulated terminologically in a way that shows clear traces of post-Easter development), the Jewish dialogue partners are, of course, nevertheless part of the narrated world, and it remains uncertain to which extent Jewish dialogue partners (still) shape the environment of the addressees of the Gospel and to which extent these discourses already lie in the past.50

Theoretically one could read the entire Gospel of John on two different levels, and this is precisely what characterizes specific approaches that have actually been implemented in the history of interpretation. On the one hand, the Gospel has been read entirely on the ‘historical’ level as an account of the history of Jesus, and, on the other hand, it has been read as a ‘theological allegory’ or illustration of theological ideas. Both readings are, however, too one-sided and precisely not appropriate to the whole created by the evangelist in its double perspective. Rather, the reading of the Gospel leads precisely to the readers being guided from one level to the other and vice versa. This is linguistically (as well as materially) clear in the case of the discourses of Jesus in the Gospel. If one wanted to read these exclusively as discourses of the earthly Jesus, then sayings that already look back to the event of salvation (such as John 3.13, 16; 13.31; 16.11, 33; etc.) lead to the conclusion that in the course of the narrative, the whole—the ‘completion’ in Jesus’ ‘hour,’ the Easter perception—is always presupposed. If, by contrast, one wanted to read them purely as a theological text from the postEaster period, then textual elements in which the concrete space (6.59), the concrete time (e.g., Jewish festivals), or certain dialogue partners are mentioned repeatedly remind us that we are dealing not with a timeless and placeless text but with a narrative about a concrete “back then.” A corresponding point can be made about the Johannine narrative passages and especially the semeia narratives.51 They display a structure of two levels that are superimposed on each other. First, there is the level of the narrated story, in which Jesus—in the past—acted in relation to far-reaching correspondence between events in the narrated world and events in the world of the narrative. Thus, from Jesus’ confrontations with ‘the Jews’ one should be able to make relatively direct inferences to confrontations with the synagogue on the level of the community of addressees. Such a reading, however, does not do justice to the semantic independence of the narrative text, which is not simply a mirror of its external world. A direct inference from the narrated story to the external world is therefore not possible. 50 On this, see chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a; 2013a, 339–77). 51 This was demonstrated by Welck 1994 in his lucid investigation. In every single sign narrative, Welck distinguished between the “dramatic dimension on the surface” and the “deeper salvation-dramatic dimension.” See now also Frey 2015b.

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his contemporaries. The Gospel obviously wishes to speak not only of symbolic deeds but of events in space and time. However, textual elements are interspersed in the sign narratives that do not allow the readers to remain at the level of this past history but lead them to another level, to the level of the christological-soteriological meaning of the event, upon which the events of the passion and resurrection are already presupposed. Thus, every individual narrative simultaneously becomes a paradigmatic and instructive presentation of Jesus’ salvific activity as a whole, a ‘sign’ narrative. For example, the episode of the wine miracle seeks, of course, to speak of an event at a certain place in the time of Jesus (even if the event appears to us today too miraculous to be able to be regarded as ‘historical’). At the same time, from the beginning, textual elements are interspersed that point to a deeper dimension of meaning. The temporal specification “on the third day” (2.1) alerts one to an “Easter dimension,” and, after the gruff rebuff of the mother, the reference to the ‘hour of Jesus’ (2.3-4) appears, at least within the horizon of the entire Gospel, to be a reference to the events of the passion. Moreover, the reference to the purity praxis of ‘the Jews’ (2.6) and the master of the banquet’s statement that the groom has not acted like ‘every person’ (2.10) point beyond the narrated event. Finally, this is clarified at the end (2.11) by the evangelist’s remarks that Jesus revealed his δόξα here and that this was the ‘beginning of the signs’ (or also the prototypical sign).52 Such elements that point beyond the concrete narrative also occur in the following sign narratives. They are, so to speak, ‘barbed hooks’ in the reading process, which do not allow the readers to read the story as a mere episode on the past way of Jesus but establish a relationship to the whole of the Christ event, so that the narrated action of Jesus himself becomes a sign for his dignity and for the salvation effected in his hour. For example, in the healing of the man born blind (9.1-41), the subject matter of sin is interspersed from the beginning (v. 2), which is then determinative in the following discussions through to vv. 39-41 and shows that the concern here is not only with physical seeing. The same is true for Jesus’ sayings about the “night in which no one can work” and about the “light of the world” (vv. 4-5), which, on the one hand, refer to the end of his earthly activity, his death, and, on the other hand, take up the saying of John 8.12. Finally, this is also the case for the conspicuous translation of the name of the pool of Siloam as “the sent one” (9.7), which implies that the blind man is meant to “wash himself in the sent one” in order to be healed.53 All these elements (and much in the dis52

See now Frey 2017b; 2015b. All attempts to isolate these ‘elaborating’ or symbolically-theologically deepening elements are problematic. They separate what the text of the Gospel has interwoven, and 53

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cussion that follows in vv. 8-41) indicate that more is meant to be narrated here than a mere healing episode from a past time. The sign narratives want to be understood in such a manner, and it is precisely the tragedy of the contemporaries of Jesus that they—for example, in John 6—perceive only the astonishing deed but do not draw the right consequences from it. To see and honor Jesus as the giver of a miraculous feeding is in the understanding of John precisely not yet the right insight, and whoever remains on this level has not “seen signs” (6.26).

From the perspective of linguistics, a ‘double isotopy’ is present in the Johannine text. The two horizons or levels are maintained and connected through recurrent, repeated signals. This means, however, that it is made impossible for the readers to read the text on only one of the two levels. If one reads it on the level of the history of Jesus, of the “back then,” the reading is disturbed by sprinklings from the horizon of the post-Easter retrospective, of the present of the readers, and of the theological interpretation. Conversely, if the addressees were to read the story only from their own questions, they would be drawn into the story of Jesus by the specifications of place and time as well as many other elements of a world that is foreign to them in order to be reassured of their own identity and sending in the reenactment of this story during the reading process. The guiding interest of the Johannine presentation is, however, to narrate the past history of Jesus in such a way that it can help to clarify the readers’ own situation and provide a deeper understanding of faith and of the person of Jesus, his words, and his fate. To be sure, the other Gospels also presuppose the Easter events as well as a certain further development of the Jesus tradition, as it took place in the first decades after Easter. For Mark, too, Jesus is the ‘Son of God,’ and for Matthew the Son of Man and judge of the world. And the triadic baptismal formula in Matthew 28.18-20 points, of course, to the time of this evangelist and his addressees. Nevertheless, the difference is also clear at precisely this point. While the Matthean Jesus admonishes the disciples to a verbatim teaching and observing of the words of the earthly one—that is, cultivates (irrespective of all factual changes) a clearly ‘conservative’ recourse to the Jesus tradition—the Gospel of John frankly acknowledges that the true understanding of the sayings of Jesus only became possible in the post-Easter period (2.22; whether or not the whole has developed from a ‘simple’ narrative of a mere healing cannot be determined and is also irrelevant for the interpretation of the text that we have. The failure of theories that assume a ‘semeia source’ is clear precisely in relation to texts such as John 9. For the interpretation of this text, see Frey 2013f. See also section 1.3 of chapter 1 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 12–17) and section 3 of chapter 2 of this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 353–65).

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12.16) through the Spirit, who reminded the disciples and taught them (including the ‘Beloved Disciple’) only ‘thereafter’ to see the true meaning. In this respect, John is more ‘progressive.’ Here a much higher value is assigned to the post-Easter further interpretation and reshaping of the older tradition. Thus, John can almost abandon the language of the ‘kingdom of God’ and replace it with the talk of ‘eternal life’—and apparently precisely such a process of translation was necessary for his addressees, whereas the mere ‘conservative’ retention of the traditional linguistic forms would not have sufficed.54 However, the fact that John nevertheless writes a Gospel and not a theological tractate, that he practices the fusion of the horizons programmatically in the Farewell Discourses, i.e., on the border between the pre- and post-Easter time, shows that the orientation of the message to the way of the earthly Jesus (viewed from the perspective of Easter) continues to be the criterion for whether a certain ‘updating’ or rephrasing is legitimate.55 6. Making Present the History and Future of Jesus Christ Theologically this presentation is possible and legitimate for the evangelist because in the recollection through the Spirit the true understanding of the person and words of Christ is mediated; indeed Christ himself is made present, and his person ultimately encompasses the times.56 The one who can speak his divine “I am,” the glorified one, is the incarnate one, and the glorified one presented as the incarnate one is also the preexistent one, who is one with the Father. While the community of disciples is still on its way, Christ encompasses the times in his person. For this reason, the Fourth Gospel does not know of a ‘historical’ Jesus, for whom this would not yet be valid. Rather, the earthly Jesus too is presented already in his unity with the Father and in his divine authority, although he is, after all, still approaching his death and glorification.57 54

On this, see now Frey 2016c. The problem appears to stand in the background of the Paraclete saying of John 16.13-15 in which the suggestion that the Spirit would speak independently is vehemently rejected. Rather, it is stressed that the Spirit (and with this the proclamation of the community) does and says nothing other than take from what belongs to Jesus, i.e., the connection to Jesus and his way continues to be decisive for the subsequent proclamation. 56 Blank 1964, 155–56, described this phenomenon with the terminology of “christological implication.” 57 It is still recognizable in the Gospel of John that the talk of the ‘glory’ of Jesus is rooted in his ‘glorification,’ i.e., in the Easter event or in the event of his death interpreted in the light of Easter. But this Easter glory is then projected in a first step onto the whole way of the earthly Jesus and in a second, more far-reaching step even onto Jesus’ 55

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For this reason the Gospel can—with reference to the ‘reminding’ Spirit—‘remember’ the way of the earthly Jesus in such a manner that upon this way Jesus already embodies and reveals the entire glory of the glorified one (2.11). In doing so, the framework of what is historically plausible can be markedly transgressed. For example, this happens when, in a clear intensification vis-à-vis the Markan account, not only the temple guard but also a Roman cohort confront the unarmed Jesus and yet then fall back at his mere self-presentation with the formulaic “I am” (ἐγώ εἰμι) and fall to the ground (18.6).58 In this way it becomes clear scenically that the one who here says “I am” possesses divine authority, which causes his armed captors to fall to the ground, and in which he later also speaks the verdict over his judge Pilate (19.11). Thus, going far beyond Jesus’ claim as one who is sent, as attested in the Synoptics, the earthly Jesus is presented as the bearer of divine authority, which expresses itself in his ἐγώ εἰμι. The earthly Jesus, indeed the one who goes into death because of love, is, in the Johannine view, the one and true image of God the Father (14.7; cf. 1.18).59 As “God” (1.18; 20.28), who is one with the Father (10.30), the earthly Jesus is also, at the same time, the bearer of life (5.26) and giver of the Spirit (20.22). He is the one who—as only God does otherwise—calls the dead from the tombs (5.28-29; 11.43) and who is not raised from the dead but rather rises in his own authority (20.6-8). As such he also bears the eschatological authority of the judge (5.22-23, 27), and, therefore, the judicial decision—to death or to life—is already definitively given in the encounter with him and his word.60 The one who believes in him “has life” definitively already now (3.36; cf. 5.25) and “is not condemned” (3.18), while those who do not believe are judged already now (3.18), i.e., they are and remain in death. The making present of the gift of life and of the judgment is the result not of a specific understanding of time (allegedly negating the future or downplaying its importance) but rather of the christological conviction that God is decisively encountered in Christ—in the earthly Jesus, as he encounters his contemporaries, as well as in the remembered Jesus, as he becomes present in the reading of the Gospel and in the proclamation of the witnesses through the Spirit. preexistent being ‘with the Father’ (cf. 17.5). For the problem, see section 3 of chapter 7 in this volume (GV = Frey 2008a, 391–95; 2013a, 656–60). 58 In addition, the mention of torches and lamps in John 18.3 calls to mind Jesus’ saying in John 11.10. 59 For further development of this point, see chapter 9 in this volume (GV = Frey 2016g). 60 The Johannine present eschatology is thus a consequence of Christology, as Blank 1964, 38; and Käsemann 1980, 42 (ET = 1968, 16) rightly stressed against Rudolf Bultmann.

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In this remembered Jesus, the past of his history—at the core his death and his glorification—and the eschatological present are equally present. To be sure, the disciples “in the world” continue to be on the way. They face bodily death and know in faith about the life that is given to them as believers (11.25). But where they are to be in the future, there Jesus “is” already (11.26; 14.3; 17.24). In his person the times are one.

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4

Johannine Dualism

Reflections on Its Background and Function

More than forty years ago, Jürgen Becker,1 in his article “Beobachtungen zum Dualismus im Johannesevangelium”2 (Observations on Dualism in the Gospel of John), gave a precise and stimulating impulse to Johannine scholarship—on the basis of a motif complex whose significance for the understanding of the Gospel and its language was beyond question. In light of the controversies over the classification of the Johannine dualism as a cosmic, ethical, or predestinarian dualism, as a dualism of nature or of decision,3 and in light of the open questions regarding its history-ofreligion background, Becker programmatically interpreted the polyphony of dualistic modes of expression in the Gospel of John as an indication of an inner development of the Johannine community. Thus, the respective shaping of dualistic statements became the litmus for the assignment of individual passages into the history of theology of the Johannine circle, so that, in his commentary on John, Becker could not only describe the history of Johannine dualism but also reconstruct the whole history (of theology) of the Johannine community on the basis of the development of its dualistic linguistics forms.4 In view of the models that existed around 1

The present chapter is an expanded version of a lecture held in Kiel on January 21, 2005. For the controversial and stimulating discussion I thank the participants of the symposium, and especially the honoree Jürgen Becker, to whom this essay remains dedicated. For their critical review of the manuscript I am grateful to Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Juliane Baumann. The essay builds on two extensive studies on dualism in the Qumran-texts and in the Gospel of John, which I have attempted to develop further with regard to the interpretation of John. Cf. Frey 1997a; 2004b. For a shorter English version of the latter essay, see Frey 2009e. Cf. also Frey 2013b. 2 Becker 1974. Unfortunately, this essay, which is perhaps Becker’s most important publication for the interpretation of John, was not included in his collected essays (Becker 1995). Cf. further Becker 1991a, 53–62, 175–79, and elsewhere; 2004, 140–47. 3 Becker 1974, 71. 4 Becker 1991a, 53–62. 101

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1970, which involved a consistently gnostic understanding,5 an equally clear anti-gnostic understanding,6 or an equally uniform derivation from early Jewish apocalyptic or Qumran,7 this advance to differentiation was innovative and provocative. This approach presupposes that dualism should be regarded as the “comprehensive framework” of Johannine theology;8 that the “general understanding of reality”9 is expressed in it, i.e., the ‘worldview’ of the Johannine community or its theological exponents; and that its respective stages of development found expression in individual dualistic formulations and remained preserved even into the text that has been handed down to us. A second presupposition for the carrying out of this approach is that the Johannine community, at least from a certain time, passed through a self-contained development that was largely uninfluenced by the rest of Christianity.10 To be sure, this assumption is based, to a considerable extent, on making an inference from the dualistic language of the Johannine texts.11 According to Becker’s reconstruction, the Johannine community passed through a multistage history-of-theology development. At its beginning Becker sees a still nondualistic phase of a Jewish Christian missionary community, which was still open to the rest of primitive Christianity.12 There then followed the influence by a Qumran-like predestinarian-ethical 5

Thus Schottroff 1970; 1969. Thus the influential interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann, which was established already in his early history-of-religion essays (Bultmann 1967c [1923]; 1967d [1925]) and in the interpretively decisive essay on Johannine eschatology (Bultmann 1933 [1928]), was then defended against critical objections with great sharpness (cf. Bultmann 1967a, 230– 54) and finally obtained its definitive form in his commentary on John (Bultmann 1986; 1971) and in his theology of the New Testament (Bultmann 1984; 2007). 7 From the time before 1970, cf. especially Kuhn 1950b, 209–10; 1962; Böcher 1965. 8 Becker 1991a, 59. This view is already found in his dissertation (Becker 1964, 221): “The Johannine corpus of writings interprets the activity of Jesus against the background of a pronounced dualism.” 9 Becker 1991a, 59; see also Becker 2004, 140–41. 10 Against the current trend of scholarship, which has clearly shifted since then, Becker has firmly defended again the independence of the Johannine circle from the synoptic tradition. See Becker 2001; 2004, 19–23. 11 This naturally gives rise to the question of the validity of such inferences from individual linguistic expressions to the shape of the community and its openness or seclusion. 12 This is inferred from the tradition of the Logos hymn in the Johannine Prologue (see Becker 1974, 73–77; 1991a, 175), in which (according to the underlying reconstruction) in the second strophe (vv. 5, 11, 12a-c) the darkness is “only shadows in the light” and is “overcome by the salvific goal of a life in accordance with creation” (idem). Here, it must be noted that Becker evaluates all the statements about light and darkness in the Johannine Prologue except for vv. 4-5 (thus not only vv. 7-8 but also vv. 9-10) as additions of the evangelist. 6

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dualism, according to which humanity is divided into two classes, with people’s membership in these classes being determined primarily through their works and with their nature becoming apparent in their behavior toward the light.13 According to Becker, the Johannine community took up such a dualism while it was still in its early phase, but the adoption of such a dualistic conception then strengthened its “secluding tendencies”14 and isolated the community within primitive Christianity. Their worldview then changed on the basis of other influences from the environment— now through a gnosticizing milieu15—to a gnosticizing cosmic dualism, a worldview in which the decisive opposition was constructed not horizontally between groups of people but vertically, between ‘above’ and ‘below.’ According to Becker, this form of dualistic thought was also the “worldview” of the evangelist,16 but he—as an outstanding theologian—is said to have interpreted his inherited worldview through the opposition of faith and unbelief as a “soteriological dualism of decision.”17 Finally, in a fourth phase, represented by later redactional layers and the Johannine letters, there emerges an ecclesiastical dualism with a renewed deterministic pattern of thought and a more rigid closedness of the community to the world. Now the main line of division runs between community and world.18 This four-stage model offers a seemingly quite plausible and easily retellable story of the community in which the ‘Johannine worldview’—i.e., the condensation of the views on the world of the collective body of theology-practicing individuals in the Johannine communities—runs through a winding path: from missionary openness to the world via a seclusion in determinism and its soteriological ‘opening up’ to its final groupspecific rigidification. It is a slalom course from a horizontally constructed 13

Becker seeks to demonstrate this form of dualism with reference to the traditional piece John 3.19-21. To this he adds the observation that further attestations of dualistic statements “are encountered . . . in all strata of the Johannine literature” (Becker 1991a, 176), so that he can infer that the dualism attested in John 3.19-21 continues to be present in modified form in the Johannine community (idem). It is noteworthy that in his most recent work (Becker 2004, 104–5), Becker speaks only of a traditional piece from a “Jewish milieu” (104), which is said to “be oriented to the description of sapiential dualities” but not yet “characterized by a dualistic understanding of reality” (105). Thus, the second stage of Becker’s multistage model is de facto abandoned. 14 Becker 1991a, 176: Abkapselungstendenzen. 15 Cf. Becker 1991a, 178: “Apparently the Johannine community, in the framework of a gnosticizing milieu, grew into a gnosticizing Christianity, without thereby giving up the Jewish-Christian inheritance . . .” 16 Becker 1991a, 178. As the model text for this, Becker used John 17 in his article. To be sure, he assigned this text to a deutero-evangelist stratum. 17 Becker 1991a, 179. 18 Cf. Becker 1974, 84–86; 1991a, 179. John 15.18-25 is regarded as a paradigm (alongside John 17, whose classification remains somewhat variable).

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antithesis (doers of good/evil works) to a vertical antithesis (those being determined from above / from below) and back again to another horizontally constructed opposition (community/world). In such a reconstruction of the process, changing environmental influences can simultaneously be postulated—first primitive Christian tradition, then ‘Qumran-like’ Jewish thought, later (despite all seclusion of the community) a gnosticizing milieu, and, finally, the ‘ecclesiastical’ experience of opposition to the ‘world.’ Moreover, an alternating influence between the Johannine ‘worldview’ and the structure of the community must be assumed, insofar as, on the one hand, the ‘Qumran-like’ dualism is said to have led to the seclusion of the community, while, on the other hand, this seclusion could also give the subsequently adopted gnosticizing dualism its framework of plausibility. While the evangelist is thought to have theologically modified the gnosticizing dualism toward a dualism of decision, the community’s negative experience of the world in the later period caused a renewed rigidification of the Johannine community’s closedness to the world. This eventful history of Johannine thought is certainly a story that is exciting to tell. It exercises a fictional appeal and had to be written in this way, even without the claim that this accurately describes an extratextual community reality or its intellectual-historical expression. Even if it did not happen in such a way—and the objections against the reconstruction and its premises are many19—it would certainly be well invented! In what follows I want not to pursue the details of this conception further but to present my own reflections on the origin and function of ‘the’ Johannine dualism. For to the present day the questions that stimulated Becker to his observations have by no means been adequately clarified. Can one speak at all of the ‘Johannine dualism’? Or are there not—entirely along the line of the differentiations proposed by Becker—different types of dualistic modes of thought or speech that stand alongside one another? Is it possible to provide a coherent history-of-religion explanation for the different dualistic motifs? And if not, how then should we understand their juxtaposition in the Johannine text? Is a dualistic perception of the world really the “comprehensive framework” for the Johannine theology, or would it not be more plausible to regard other elements, such as John’s Christology, as the comprehensive framework within which the dualistic

19

For detailed criticism of the constructions of Becker, see Frey 1997b, 278–87, 294– 97, and elsewhere. The objections formulated there (and analogously by numerous other interpreters) need not be repeated here.

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motifs20 must be perceived? And how can the intention and function of the relevant texts be determined in the framework of the whole Gospel? My reflections begin with observations on the history of research. These are followed by necessarily brief remarks on the history-of-religion problem. Finally, I conclude with observations on select examples of ‘dualistic’ motifs and their configuration and function in the Johannine text. 1. The Category ‘Dualism’ and the History of Johannine Research That the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel should be decided by the understanding of its dualism is by no means self-evident. And it is a not-to-be-underestimated achievement of Becker’s work to have decisively weakened this premise—from which he himself started—indeed to have made it into an episode of the history of research.21 Here I can provide only a few pointers regarding this history. As is well known, ‘dualism’ became a research term only in the modern period. It was introduced around 1700 to characterize the Zoroastrian teaching22 and successfully transferred from there to other teachings such as Manichaeism and Christian-gnostic heresies and, finally, to history-ofreligion phenomena that were further removed.23 Such a transfer could, to be sure, never be completely successful, and precisely in the Jewish Christian tradition it is nowhere possible—not even in Manichaeism—to identify a real symmetry of two first principles. Rather, one can only speak of a ‘dualism’ that is broken through a theology of creation or eschatologically. There is no such thing as simple dualism. Rather, there are only different forms of an antithetical, dialectical, or complementary opposition of principles or powers, so that a further specification of the respective ‘dualistic’ oppositions is required. However, it is here that the conceptual confusion begins. While the religious studies scholar Ugo Bianchi, for example, distinguishes three pairs of possible types of dualism (‘radical’ versus ‘moderate,’ ‘dialectical’ versus ‘eschatological,’ ‘cosmic’ versus ‘anti-cosmic’),24 biblical scholars speak in a completely different way of a ‘cosmic’ dualism,25 20

For the talk of ‘dualistic motifs’ see Popkes 2005a, 11–17. For further justification see Frey 2004b, 173–74 (= 2013a, 205–7). 22 Its use presumably goes back to Hyde 1700 (cf. Eucken 1912, 100; DuchesneGuillemin 1959, 334; Lanczkowski 1982, 199–202; Stroumsa 1999, 1004). 23 On this, see Stroumsa 1999. 24 On this, see Stroumsa 1999, 1005; fundamentally Bianchi 1983, 49ff.; 1978, 21ff. 25 While ‘cosmic’ dualism in the sense of Bianchi means that the world is created by the ‘good’ God (and not by an ‘evil’ demiurge or the devil; on this, see Stroumsa 1999, 1005), in biblical scholarship the term usually designates the opposition of the two highest 21

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and, among others, of an ‘ethical,’ ‘eschatological,’ ‘anthropological,’ ‘psychological,’ and ‘soteriological’ dualism, as well as of a ‘predestinarian’ dualism and a ‘dualism of decision’ that is contrasted with it. In addition, all these categories are defined differently, depending on the hermeneutical interests of the interpreter and the writings that are being investigated.26 Accordingly, the characterization of one or another proposition, thought form, or theology as ‘dualistic’ has seldom led to a material clarification. Exegetical literature prior to about 1900 hardly spoke of ‘dualism’ in the Fourth Gospel. ‘Johannine dualism’ was not a topic of Johannine scholarship. Rather, it became an issue only in the context of a specific history-of-religion perspective. It was only when Johannine thought as a whole was understood against the background of a notion of redemption fed by Iranian roots—i.e., in the interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann (who is dependent here on his history-of-religion authority Richard Reitzenstein)—that ‘dualism,’ now defined as gnostic, could become the key to the understanding of the Gospel of John. Such dualism could now be considered to represent the ‘pre-faith’ understanding of the world and existence that was decisively reinterpreted by the Johannine kerygma, namely in the sense of a ‘dualism of decision.’27 It was the Enlightenment philosopher and philologist Johann Gottfried Herder who presented the first Iranian parallels to the Gospel of John. In his 1775 work Erläuterungen zum Neuen Testament aus seiner neueröffneten morgenländischen Quelle (Elucidations on the New Testament from a Newly Published Oriental Source), he had pointed to parallels in this writing—the Zend-Avesta, which had become accessible four years earlier—to the book of Revelation and to the Fourth Gospel.28 As a pioneer powers (God–Belial or Michael–Belial) and the respective classes of people who belong to them. 26 Here one must also consider the fact that since the beginning of its application to phenomena of the history of the Christian religion, ‘dualism’ was a term for characterizing heretical streams, so that the labeling of individual elements as ‘dualistic’ was associated with the meaning of foreign religion or misguided teaching, which needed to be fended off or overcome. 27 Bultmann presented this existential interpretation for the first time in his agendasetting essay on the eschatology of the Gospel of John. In this essay he states at the very beginning that an understanding of the Johannine concept of life must be “obtained from the insight into the Johannine dualism” (Bultmann 1933 [1928], 135). For Bultmann, see now also Frey 2014d. 28 Herder 1884a. Herder referred to the edition of the Iranian Zend-Avesta produced by the traveler in the Orient A. Anquetil du Perron (du Perron 1771). Cf. the enthusiastic account of the discovery of the text and Herder’s discoveries therein in the intermediate piece from the writing ‘Johannes,’ which Herder planned but then left unpublished (Herder 1884b, 316–17), which was then incorporated in modified form in the “Erläuterungen” (Herder 1884a, 341–42). Cf. also the later writing ‘Von Gottes Sohn, der Welt Heiland.

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of the history-of-religion explanation of the New Testament, Herder also traced back the dualistic antithesis of light and darkness, notions of angels and eschatological adversaries, conceptions of judgment and end of the world, as well as the idea of rebirth to Zoroastrianism as the most original root.29 For Herder this assumption was connected with the thesis that the apostle John consciously took up the religious language of the Chaldeans as the ‘worthiest’ expression of his time without being materially influenced by it. Thus, a history-of-religion problem did not yet arise for him, and he did not yet speak of ‘dualism.’ The situation is different about sixty years later with Ferdinand Christian Baur. With regard to Christian Gnosticism, he does indeed speak of ‘dualism,’30 but he ultimately rejects this category in his presentation of Johannine theology.31 In John the opposition of light and darkness is said to be not entirely metaphysical—as it is in Gnosticism—but still conceivable from the principle of human freedom as “a consequence of a person’s moral self-determination.”32 Thus, John is said to remain on the “boundary” to Gnosticism without crossing it.33 As for the rest, John achieves—according to Baur’s idealistic interpretation—precisely the reconciliation of all oppositions of this world and the beyond, of world and God, insofar as for the evangelist “all antitheses always become . . . a fluid distinction,”34 so that it is impossible to speak of a strict dualism. The term ‘dualism’ also occurs only occasionally and without great emphasis in the works inspired by a history-of-religion approach from around 1900. Wilhelm Bousset thought that the dualistic characteristics were much clearer in Paul than in John,35 where the dualistic motifs are said to have been less precisely developed theoretically and also not carried out in a uniform manner, though the Nach Johannes Evangelium’ (Herder 1880, 253–424), where Herder describes Iranian thought and then continues: “John’s writings not only take up pictures of this system but are largely written in the same one” (279). In the accompanying footnote there are references to angels (John 1.51 and Revelation), the devil (John 8.44; Rev 12.7), and the division of the world into light and darkness, children of God and children of Satan. For Herder’s work on the Gospels, see Frey 2005b (on the ‘Erläuterungen,’ see 56–59; on ‘Von Gottes Sohn,’ see 70–74). 29 On this, see Frey 2005b, 75–76. 30 Cf. Baur 1967, 744 (in the index s.v. Dualismus). 31 Baur 2016, 338–39 (GV = 1973, 359–60) 32 Baur 2016, 341 (GV = 1973, 362). 33 Baur 2016, 340 (GV = 1973, 362). 34 Baur 2016, 375 (GV = 1973, 406). 35 Cf. Bousset 1970, 172ff., 178–79, 181–83, 199 (GV = 1967, 120ff., 126, 129–30, 144) on Paul; 1970, 243–44 (GV = 1967, 182–83) on John. Bousset regards especially the antithesis between flesh and Spirit and the Pauline pneuma-doctrine as ‘dualistic’ (1970, 172–73; 1967, 120–21), but this dualism is still understood to be an indication of a Hellenistic shaping of Paul.

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“practical dualism” is said to be “harder and more blunt” than in Paul.36 However, for Bousset this is to be explained primarily with reference to the intended polemic against Judaism, unbelieving world, and heresy,37 and not with reference to the influence by a specific religious milieu. In his commentary on John, which appeared a few years earlier, Wilhelm Heitmüller had reckoned with the influence of oriental-syncretistic elements and in this context had explicitly mentioned “dualism, terms such as light and life, rebirth, sacramental views,”38 but in his case too dualism could not become an independent topic, let alone the dominating element of interpretation. This first took place when John began to be explained no longer against the background of the older Hellenistic Christianity, and thus also of Paul, but entirely from the spirit of Gnosticism or the oriental worldview on which it was based. Such an explanation was first advanced by the outsider Johannes Kreyenbühl, who wanted to attribute the Fourth Gospel to the gnostic Menander39 but understandably hardly found agreement with this thesis. Only on the basis of the history-of-religion construction of Richard Reitzenstein, who had traced back the gnostic primordial man-redeemer myth to Iranian dualism,40 could Rudolf Bultmann and Heinrich Schaeder assume a dualistic worldview in the background of the Fourth Gospel or its sources.41 For if the gnostic understanding of redemption, as Reitzenstein thought, was based on Iranian dualism, and if behind the Fourth Gospel, as Bultmann and Schaeder thought, such a gnostic mythology could be recognized, then this ultimate ground would also have to characterize the self- and world-understanding that Johannine language and thought presupposed. Under this presupposition it could—indeed had to—be postulated that Johannine language as a whole (and not only individual elements) would need to be understood against the background of gnosticdualistic thought. Hence, oriental-gnostic dualism gave Bultmann’s interpretation of John its unity and, at the same time, its compelling power. Interpreted in a revelatory theological manner as the opposition between 36

Bousset 1970, 243 (GV = 1967, 182). Bousset 1970, 243 (GV = 1967, 182). 38 Heitmüller 1908, 698. 39 Kreyenbühl 1900/1905. Cf. idem, 91: “The Zoroastrian dualism of light and darkness is a locus communis of Gnosticism, and it is therefore entirely comprehensible that the Fourth Gospel and Basilides agree in this point.” 40 Reitzenstein 1904; 1927; and especially 1921. Rudolf Bultmann perceived and took up Reitzenstein’s works early on. See the list of the reviews in Bultmann 2002, 557. For (potent) criticism of the history-of-religion constructions of Reitzenstein, see Colpe 1961. 41 Cf. Bultmann 1967c [1923]; 1967d [1925]. See also especially the essay of the Iranologist Schaeder 1926. The significance of Schaeder’s work is often overlooked. Through him the whole Johannine Prologue was placed in the context of Iranian speculation regarding redemption. On this, see L. Schmid 1933, 39ff. 37

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God and world, ‘Johannine dualism’ now became the starting point for the interpretation of John.42 However, Bultmann’s thesis—polemically formulated against his critics—that Johannine language was a “whole” and that every individual term “obtained its firm specification”43 from this “whole” (that is, gnostic dualism and its understanding of revelation) was not so much a philologically based statement as a hermeneutical postulate, which possessed eminent significance for Bultmann’s overall interpretation of the Johannine work.44 Conversely, the unity of ‘the’ Johannine dualism could be asserted ultimately only in the shadow of the hermeneutics of Bultmann, in which the different dualistic motifs were presented as a coherent understanding of the world and of revelation, to which the Johannine kerygma could then make recourse. Under the pressure of this construction, which was justified in a source-critical and history-of-religion manner and was also extremely fruitful hermeneutically, ‘the Johannine dualism’ advanced to the key theme of Johannine research. Only in the shadow of the interpretation of Bultmann was it then possible that some interpreters, after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, could simply replace the gnostic background with a Qumranic background and could now understand the Johannine language in an equally uniform way as emerging from the “mother soil”45 of another dualistic worldview, namely the one attested in the Qumran texts. This dualism found in pre-Christian Jewish sources undoubtedly has a greater claim to plausibility as a source than the Mandaean and Manichaean texts drawn upon by Bultmann,46 and the assumption of the uniformity of Qumran thought was not yet a problem in the early period of Qumran scholarship because back then there were in any case only a few texts available from Cave 1. For the history-of-religion reconstruction, the replacement of the gnostic background with a Qumranic background was especially suggested 42

Cf. Bultmann 1933 [1928]. Cf. also the structure of the presentation of the Johannine theology in Bultmann 1984, 367ff.; 2007, §42ff. 43 So the thesis formulated in the brusque fending off of the careful criticism of Percy 1939 (Bultmann 1967b, 233). 44 For the significance of the history-of-religion Gnosticism thesis for Bultmann’s hermeneutics, see Frey 1997b, 130–32. Thyen 1974, 51, formulated the legitimate question of whether “Bultmann’s understanding of the unity of the Johannine language is not determined too strongly by his own pre-given systematic.” 45 Cf. Kuhn 1950b, 210: “In these new texts we get to grips with the mother soil of the Gospel of John, and this mother soil is Palestinian-Jewish. It is not, however, PharisaicRabbinic Judaism, but a Palestinian-Jewish sectarian piety with a gnostic structure.” For the context of this thesis in the history of scholarship, see Frey 2004b, 123–27; 2004a, 26–27 (= 2013a, 68–70). 46 So also Becker 1964, 220–21; Bergmeier 1980, 28.

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when the Qumran dualism was also derived from Iranian influences—as many scholars thought at the beginning.47 While the ‘Qumran thesis’ has succeeded the ‘Gnosticism thesis’ in terms of the history of scholarship, the hermeneutical framework of interpretation has remained largely unchanged, inasmuch as for the motifs and linguistic forms in the Johannine writings a relatively uniform worldview-dualistic background was postulated from which the theology of the evangelist could then be distinguished in a distinctive way. However, with respect to the evaluation of the Qumran texts too, the picture has changed considerably since the 1950s and 1960s, and New Testament research is faced with the fact that the dualistic views in the texts from Qumran can just as little be regarded as uniform as the dualistic motifs and linguistic forms in the Corpus Johanneum. Far from all of the texts discovered at Qumran reflect a dualistic pattern of thought, and one must distinguish materially—and probably also from a history-of-religion perspective—between the multidimensional dualism found in the Treatise on the Two Spirits 1QS III 13–IV 26 and the conglomerate of dualistic ideas in the War Scroll 1QM.48 Thus, it has become impossible49 to derive the dualistic linguistic elements of the Gospel of John from a Qumranic milieu in the form practiced by some exegetes.50 However, this has also rendered difficult, if not impossible, every attempt to explain all the elements of the Johannine language on the basis of a uniform theological or history-of-religion milieu. Thus, the unity of ‘the’ Johannine dualism has again become doubtful from a history-ofreligion perspective. This means, however, that the dualistic linguistic elements of the Gospel of John can no longer serve as the comprehensive background for the interpretation of the Gospel. Consequently, the interpretive dominance of ‘the’ dualism for understanding the Gospel of John appears to be an episode of scholarship in the shadow of the constructions of Reitzenstein and Bultmann. Jürgen Becker’s careful differentiation of different forms of dualistic thought in the Johannine writings and his attempt to reconstruct the history of theology of the Johannine community

47

Cf., e.g., Kuhn 1952, who compared the Treatise on the Two Spirits from 1QS III 13–IV 26 with some passages from the Avestan literature. In the early period of Qumran research, the derivation of Qumranic theologoumena from Zoroastrian was very popular; cf. in parallel to K. G. Kuhn also Dupont-Sommer 1952. See recently Philonenko 1995. 48 Cf. Frey 1997a, 289ff.; 2004b, 156–70. 49 See especially the studies of Brown 1955; and—with increasing firmness— Charlesworth 1990a; 1990b; 1996; 2002. 50 On this, see the extensive criticism in Frey 2004b, passim.

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on the basis of the developments of the Johannine dualism made a significant contribution to these findings.51 2. Dualistic Motifs in the Fourth Gospel and the History-of-Religion Question Whether a ‘dualism’ may be assigned to the Fourth Gospel (or some of its parts or sources)52 and what significance this has interpretively depends on history-of-religion and exegetical judgments. How can the dualistic motifs and linguistic forms be classified in terms of the history of religion and what interpretive significance is due to them? In order to clarify this question, it is first necessary to provide a—relatively cursory—overview of the main dualistic linguistic forms and motifs in the Gospel of John (section 2.1) before we can investigate the history-of-religion and traditionhistorical backgrounds of these motifs (section 2.2). Only on this basis can we then ask about their position and function in the text.53 2.1 Dualistic Linguistic Forms and Motifs in the Gospel of John: A Cursory Stocktaking A brief look at the Gospel of John already shows that not all its textual components are characterized by dualistic motifs and that these motifs occur in very different shaping.54 (a) Most conspicuous is perhaps the antithetical talk of light and darkness, which determines the Gospel from the Prologue (1.4-5, 7-8, 9) onward, though only until the end of the public activity of Jesus in John 12. The last attestations of this antithesis occur in John 12.35-36, 46. Thereafter the light imagery (though without the significant terms φῶς κτλ. or σκότος/σκοτία) resonates once more in John 13.30, when Judas goes out into the ‘night’ (νύξ), but there is no longer talk of the

51

On the question of the history-of-religion and functional unity of the Johannine dualism, see also Frey 2004b, 173–75. 52 A skeptical verdict in relation to this was already rendered by the Bultmann student Hans Conzelmann: “Despite the antithetical terminology one can speak only with caution of a Johannine dualism” (Conzelmann 1968, 385). Onuki 1984, 19, also speaks only of the “so-called Johannine dualism.” Similar statements can also be found in Kühschelm 1990, 266; Schwankl 1995, 355. Weder 1992b, 393–94, in particular places a theological question mark over the talk of the ‘Johannine dualism.’ 53 On this, see section 3. 54 For a stocktaking of dualistic motifs in the Gospel of John and the letters of John, see the itemization in Popkes 2005a, 14–17.

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‘light.’55 The whole complex of the Farewell Discourses as well as the passion and Easter story are configured without the motif of the opposition of light and darkness. Therein lies a strong indication that the Johannine light–darkness terminology is to be explained less on the basis of external history-of-religion influences and more with reference to its dramaturgical function in the text as a whole and that means on the basis of the creative intention of the evangelist.56 Apart from that, the negative aspect of darkness occurs much more often in the Gospel than the positive aspect of light,57 so that, due to this conspicuous asymmetry of usage, the actual dualistic antithesis is rather rare in the Gospel.58 (b) The second relevant pair of terms is the antithesis between life and death. In terms of subject matter it runs through the whole Gospel, though it too is not expressed linguistically in the Farewell Discourses or in the Johannine passion and resurrection story. This antithesis too is used in a conspicuous asymmetry.59 After all, life or ‘eternal life’ is the Johannine salvific term par excellence.60 It belongs to God and the preexistent Logos (1.4). The Son bears it in himself (5.26). He is ‘the life’ in person (11.25; 14.6). ‘Life’ is given to believers (3.15, 16, and elsewhere). They have “crossed over from death” (5.24; 1 John 3.14). With the talk of ‘crossing over’ (μεταβαίνειν) it becomes clear that the opposition of life and death in Johannine thought is soteriologically opened up. The victory of life is fundamentally presupposed in the Easter perspective of the Gospel, and the sharp opposition of life and death ultimately serves only to make clear the consequences of the Christ event.61 In this it becomes apparent that the dualistic elements in Johannine language are subordinated to Christology;

55 The motif suggests itself again in narrative form when the darkness before the Easter morning (20.1) is mentioned. John 19.39 is a simple back-reference to 3.2. John 21.3 is not thematically relevant. 56 This argument is also well founded when one—differently from what is presupposed here—denies the evangelist parts of the Farewell Discourses and assumes a preJohannine passion account. For it is uncontroversial that in the aforementioned textual sphere the theological concern of the evangelist is expressed in central places, so that there would have been sufficient opportunity to introduce dualistic linguistic forms. 57 See the attestations in Popkes 2005a, 14. 58 See just John 1.5; 3.19-21; 8.12; 11.9-10; 12.35-36. 59 The talk of life is much more frequent than the talk of death in the Gospel and in 1 John. The antithesis occurs in John 5.24-25; 6.47-50, 58; 11.25-26; 12.24-25. 60 For the Johannine concept of life, see, e.g., Stare 2004 and the literature cited there. Cf. also Frey 2000b, 262ff. 61 In accordance with the programmatic post-Easter perspective of the Johannine presentation, these consequences can also be seen in places where the narrative speaks of the departure of Jesus prior to his passion or his ‘hour.’

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indeed, they are ultimately an epiphenomenon of Christology.62 If Christ is ‘life’ and ‘light,’ then the respective opposites are juxtaposed accordingly and yet simultaneously integrated into the soteriological dynamic of the Gospel. (c) A third opposition, which emerges especially in the Johannine letters, is the opposition of truth and deception.63 In the Gospel it is present as an antithesis only at one point, namely in the place where there is talk of the Jews as children of the devil and of the devil as the liar from the beginning in John 8.44. This terminological opposition is also used entirely asymmetrically and in a christologically concentrated manner. The talk of the ‘truth’ as an attribute of God and his word (17.15; cf. 3.33; 7.28; 8.26) as well as of the Spirit-Paraclete (14.17; 15.26; 16.13) and especially as a christological predicate (14.6; cf. 1.9; 15.1; cf. on the word of Jesus, 5.32; 8.14, 45-46; 16.7; 18.37) runs through the work from the Prologue (1.9, 14, 17) to the passion story (18.37-38). Finally, the testimony of the ‘Beloved Disciple’ is affirmed—probably by the editor of the Gospel—as ‘true’ (21.24; cf. 19.35), so that the whole Gospel is ultimately presented as ‘true’ testimony. By contrast, the opposing term—here (unlike in Qumran) not ‘wickedness’ but deception—occurs only in a single verse (8.44).64 The asymmetry in the use of this pair of terms shows that also the Johannine talk of the truth is not simply to be evaluated as an indication of a pre-given dualistic ‘worldview.’65 62 In scholarship on this topic, this observation was asserted in dispute with Bultmann. While Bultmann wanted to integrate or subordinate the Johannine Christology (in) to eschatology (i.e., to the understanding of revelation and thus to the ‘dualistic’ worldunderstanding), exegetes as different as Ernst Käsemann and Josef Blank are agreed in maintaining that “Christology is the horizon of eschatology” in John (so Käsemann 1980, 42 [ET = 1968, 16]; Blank 1964, 38; on this, see Frey 1997b, 162, 237, 260). When Jürgen Becker interpretively uses the Johannine dualism as a key, he follows Bultmann in this point. 63 See the stocktaking in Popkes 2005a, 17. See also Frey 2004b, 187–88. 64 Cf. also John 7.18 where ἀδικία appears as the opposing term. 65 This was the position that was developed by Bultmann 1964a, who interestingly does not, to be sure, develop his understanding of ‘truth’ in the Gospel of John from the Johannine passages themselves but derives it from the previously established Hellenisticgnostic usage and describes it initially in dependence upon this usage (for analysis and criticism, see Landmesser 1999, 250–53; for a detailed discussion of Bultmann’s understanding of truth, see idem, 166–323). A closed dualistic worldview also cannot be claimed for those passages in which there is talk of ‘doing the truth’ (John 3.21; cf. 1 John 1.6). This expression sounds very unusual “for Greek ears” (thus Klauck 1991a, 89) and therefore can hardly be grasped in a Hellenistic framework. It has parallels in the Qumran texts (see 1 QS I 5; V 3; VIII 2) but previously already in the Hebrew Bible (2 Chron 31.20) and further in the LXX (Gen 47.29; Isa 26.10; Tob 4.6; 13.6) as well as in T. Benj. 10.3 (cf. T. Reu. 6.9). The Aramaic equivalent ‫ עבד קושטא‬is found in the Prophet Targum to Hosea 4.1 (see Frey 2004b, 133–34). While a duality of ethical ways of behaving (τὰ φαῦλα

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(d) Another pair of terms that can also sometimes form a ‘dualistic’ opposition is used differently in John. The antithesis between σάρξ and πνεῦμα, which emerges in a theologically pronounced way in Paul (Gal 5.16; Rom 8.3ff.), has completely different connotations in John.66 Here the lexeme σάρξ does not designate a power that is sinful or hostile to God. Rather, in the opposition to the πνεῦμα in John 3.6-9 and also in 6.63, the Hellenistic distinction between a lower and a higher sphere of being can more likely be heard.67 σάρξ designates the human-earthly way of thinking and judging (1.13; 3.6; 8.15), which is closed to the knowledge of Christ. When both terms are brought together in John 6.63, the concern is with the soteriological ineffectiveness of the earthly human approach and the necessity of revelation or of the life-giving Spirit, who opens up and mediates salvation through the words of Jesus that he enables the disciples to remember. If one wanted to speak of a ‘dualism’ here, this would in any case be a completely different dualism than the one that is given in the Pauline antithesis between flesh and Spirit.68 Likewise, there is a clear difference from the christologically concentrated oppositions light/darkness, truth/deception, and death/life in John. (e) Two additional motifs are significant with regard to the question of ‘dualistic’ distinctions: the ‘familial-metaphorical’ classification of ‘being a child’ or ‘being born’ or ‘being’ of God (1.12-13; 8.42), of the Spirit (3.5, 8), or of the truth (18.36) or, alternatively, of the devil (8.44),69 and the spatial distinction between ‘above’ and ‘below,’ which is implied in various word fields such as ἀναβαίνειν/καταβαίνειν (3.13; 6.33, 38, 41-42, 50-51, 58, 62) as well as οὐρανός/γῆ (3.31).70 These familial-metaphorical statements,71 which are significant for the self-understanding of the Johannine community, are used in a dualistic opposition when, according to John 8.44, ‘the Jews’ are traced back to the πράσσειν–ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν) is expressed in John 3.20-21, this is also constructed in an

entirely asymmetrical way (on this, see Frey 2000b, 299–300). 66 See the stocktaking in Popkes 2005a, 15. On the New Testament usage, see Schweizer 1971. See also Frey 1999, 45–46 (= 2016a, 265–66). 67 Cf. Bergmeier 1980, 220: “not . . . a thinking in oppositions in the sense of the twopower dualism but in the distinction of spheres.” 68 Whether Pauline terminology continues to have an impact here, as Horn 1992, 278, thinks, must remain open. At any rate, such an impact cannot be demonstrated. 69 On this, see Frey 2004b, 181–82. The stocktaking of dualistic motifs in Popkes 2005a, 16, assigns these statements to the overarching category “positive ontological basic state” / “negative ontological basic state.” 70 See the stocktaking in Popkes 2005a, 16. For the category above/below as a “conceptual imagery” in the Fourth Gospel, see now R. Zimmermann 2004, 228–31. 71 On this, see Vellanickal 1977; Rusam 1993. For the metaphor of the family in John, see comprehensively van der Watt 2000.

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devil as their father.72 However, this singular formulation parallel to the widespread talk of being children of God appears to be due not to a prior dualistic worldview but rather to a concrete situation of conflict in the Johannine circle.73 Familial and spatial metaphors are combined when there is talk of being born ‘from above’ (i.e., from God) in John 3.3 or when the being of Jesus or his opponents is described as ἐκ τῶν ἄνω or ἐκ τῶν κάτω in John 8.23 (cf. 3.31-32). In the view of some interpreters, the basic structure of Johannine dualism is present in this ‘spatial-metaphorical’ opposition of “above” and “below.”74 However, in this respect as well, there is no static separation between these two ‘spheres.’ Rather, from the beginning the talk of ‘above’ and ‘below’ is integrated into a revelatory and soteriological dynamic that is determined by the sending of the Son and—even more fundamentally in light of the Prologue—by his ‘becoming flesh.’ This is shown by a significant differentiation in linguistic usage. The only one who comes ‘from above’ is the Johannine Jesus (8.23). Believers are merely ‘born’ from above (3.3)75 and in this way come to belong to the ‘sphere’ designated by the metaphorical predicate ‘above.’ (f) As a final dualistic form of speech—which is often unjustifiably neglected—it is necessary to examine the designations for eschatological adversaries, with which ‘dualistic’ oppositions are sometimes construed.76 Alongside the talk—which occurs entirely as a matter of course—of the ‘devil’ (ὁ διάβολος: John 8.44; 13.2; cf. also 1 John 3.8 [3×], 10)77 or ‘Satan’ (ὁ σατανᾶς: John 13.27) and the talk of ‘the evil one’ (ὁ πονηρός: John 17.15; cf. 1 John 2.13-14; 3.12; 5.18-19), which is likewise connoted personally, the distinctive Johannine title ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου (τούτου) (John 12.31; 14.30; 16.11),78 which is, of course, likewise a designation for the devil, is especially conspicuous. Moreover, the Johannine letters show that the Johannine school must have had its own tradition about the end-time coming of an eschatological adversary, who was called—with a term that is attested for the first time there—ἀντίχριστος (1 John 2.18; 4.3; 2 John 7). In the letters this is applied—in a manner that is evidently 72

Analogously “children of God” and “children of the devil” stand in opposition to each other in 1 John 3.10. 73 On this, see in greater detail Frey 2004b, 182. The same can also be postulated for the talk of the opponents as τέκνα τοῦ διαβόλου in 1 John 3.10. This ‘devilization’ is also due to a concrete polemical situation. 74 Thus Aune 2002, 285: “the basic structure of Johannine dualism.” 75 This is pointed out by Bergmeier 1980, 220. 76 See the detailed stocktaking in Frey 2004b, 177–81. Cf. also Popkes 2005b. 77 Cf. also the statement of John 6.70, which is related to Judas. 78 On this, cf. Frey 2004b, 177–78.

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already secondary—not to an individual figure but to a plurality of false teachers. From this one can infer that the motif is based on older traditions that were taken up in the Johannine circle and modified in the light of the crisis addressed in the letters.79 This last example demonstrates that dualistic motifs and linguistic forms were at least partly configured on the basis of experiences in the Johannine community80 and thus do not point back directly to a specific religious milieu, from which they possibly originate. If this is the case, then it further compounds the difficulty of making history-of-religion inferences about ‘original’ history-of-religion contexts from the Johannine formulations. 2.2 On the History-of-Religion Derivation of the Dualistic Motifs If one nevertheless raises the question of history-of-religion parallels, then a decidedly multifaceted picture emerges. A unilinear derivation—whether it be from the Jewish (e.g., Qumranic) sphere or from Hellenistic Judaism, or from early Gnosticism that is hypothetically assumed or inferred from the Nag Hammadi texts—scarcely comes into question any longer.81 (a) Let us begin with the talk of eschatological adversaries. In the designations that are used for them, history-of-religion connections can find expression in a way that can be traced particularly clearly. Thus, much more concrete and valid history-of-religion connections can be drawn out on this basis than, for example, on the basis of mere analogies to an antithetical talk of light and darkness.82 The comparison of the designations for eschatological adversaries leads, however, to a rather sobering conclusion: a Qumranic or gnostic derivation of Johannine linguistic forms is not suggested. In the talk of ‘Satan’ and of the ‘devil,’ one can see traces of an early Jewish, apocalyptic tradition, which was taken up already by Jesus (cf. 79

On this, see in detail Frey 2000b, 23–29. In this vein, Becker 1974, 80, had already stated (in relation to John 3.19-21) that “the evangelist deals freely with various dualisms.” If one takes seriously the shaping activity of the evangelist, then the methodological inference from integrated pieces of tradition to the history-of-religion and history-of-theology character of the community in its early phase, which Becker attempted to make, is scarcely possible any longer. 81 See further Frey 2004c, 31–35 (= 2013a, 73–78). 82 The reference to the use of light–darkness terminology, as it is often encountered with regard to the Qumran texts as well as with respect to postulated gnostic parallels, does not have much force from a history-of-religion perspective since this terminology can be developed in very different contexts as an element of a religious ‘koine’ and therefore is able to say little about concrete history-of-religion connections. 80

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Luke 10.18) and in primitive Christianity prior to John.83 There are no indications of direct borrowings—on the contrary, in the Johannine writings there are no occurrences of the designation for the devil ‘Belial’ (‫)בליעל‬,84 which is characteristic of Essene dualism, or of the Greek form Βελιάρ,85 which appears frequently in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs but is taken up only once in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 6.15. This speaks decisively against the assumption of a direct or indirect reception of the language of the Qumran texts in the Johannine community.86 If such a reception were present, then one would have to assume that precisely this designation, which is characteristic of the Essene dualism, would have found expression in the Johannine tradition. In my view, this is the strongest argument against the assumption of a close relationship between the Qumran texts and the Johannine writings.87 The Johannine designations for the devil, ὁ διάβολος and ὁ σατανᾶς, point instead to a more general early Jewish background that has been mediated through primitive Christianity. The specific Johannine talk of the “ruler of this world” (ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου) also has predecessors in older Christianity. In 1 Corinthians 2.6, 8, Paul speaks—presumably with reference to human rulers—of “rulers of this age” (ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου),88 and in 2 Corinthians 4.4 even of the “God of this age” (ὁ θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου), which undoubtedly refers to the devil/Satan. Behind the two expressions stand Jewish-apocalyptic linguistic traditions about the devil as the ruler of the demons89 or of the world opposed to God as a whole.90 In John the term κόσμος takes the place of αἴων. Moreover, the widespread mythological motif of the ‘fall’ of the enemy of God—which is attested in Luke 10.1891 83

On this, see Leonhardt-Balzer 2007. Cf. also Leonhardt-Balzer 2013. Cf. Frey 1997a, 327–31; Steudel 2000; 2007. See also Sperling 1999. 85 Cf. T. Reu. 2.2; 4.7, 11; 6.3; T. Sim. 5.3; T. Levi 3.3; 18.12; 19.1; 25.3; T. Iss. 6.1; 7.7; T. Zeb. 9.8; T. Dan 1.7; 4.7; 5.1, 10-11; T. Asher 1.8; 3.2; T. Jos. 7.4; 20.2; T. Benj. 3.3-4, 8; 6.1, 7; 7.1-2; Liv. Pro. 4.6, 21B, 22; 17.2, 2B; Sib. Or. 3.63, 73. 86 On this, cf. Frey 2004b, 169–70, 180. 87 On this, see the detailed argumentation in Frey 2004b. Aune 2002; and Bauckham 1997; 2000; 2015, 116–19, also argue critically against close connections to Qumran. 88 See later Ignatius, Eph. 17.1; 19.1; Magn. 1.3; Phld. 6.2; Rom. 7.1; Trall. 4.2. 89 Jub 10.8; cf. Eph 2.2. 90 From a history-of-religion perspective, the talk of the “ruler of this world” has parallels in the later apocalyptic (e.g., Mart. Ascen. Isa. 1.3; 2.4; 10.29; T. Sol. 2.9; 3.5-6; 6.1; cf. also Barn. 18.2: the “ruler of the present time of unrighteousness”) and in the Rabbis, where the term ‫ שר העולם‬is found or the term κοσμοκράτωρ (‫)קוזמוקרטור‬, which is taken over as a foreign word. For attestations, see Kalms 2001, 267. 91 The allusion to the mythological tradition of the fall of the enemy of God (Isa 14.12), which is taken up in detail in Rev 12.7-10, 13, is clear here; Luke 10.15 also alludes 84

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and, with greater elaboration, in Revelation 12.7-10, 1392—is taken up only in a very abbreviated manner and reworked in a distinctive way. Additional apocalyptic motifs are connected with the motif of the fall of Satan, such as the motif of a heavenly battle (cf. Rev 12.7),93 but the Gospel shows no traces of taking them up. Rather, the conception of Satan as ‘ruler of this world’ and the motif of his fall probably came to the Johannine tradition or to the evangelist from the older Christian tradition (cf. Luke 10.18) and was then reworked in an independent manner and with a specific theological intention. The conspicuous term ὁ ἀντίχριστος in the Johannine letters—which is applied there, as already mentioned, not to a single adversary but to a plurality of false teachers—is also a Christian coinage, which shows that the notion of an end-time ruler or deceiver opposed to God (which is widespread in early Judaism)94 was taken up, handed down, and independently transformed in the conflict with the secessionists. The Johannine designations for eschatological adversaries attest no direct link between the Fourth Gospel and early Jewish apocalyptic or Qumranic traditions; rather, they attest the reception and independent further development of designations that are based on early Jewish linguistic traditions but are already attested in earlier primitive Christianity and that probably entered into the Johannine circle via this path. (b) Something similar can be maintained for the familial-metaphorical statements of belonging. To be sure, phrases such as “sons of light” and “sons of darkness” are common in various Qumran texts and very likely function there as self-designations of the members of the community or as designations for outsiders.95 Moreover, the Greek address τέκνα or υἱοί + genitive points, of course, to Semitic linguistic conventions (‫ בני‬in various constructions). However, analogous expressions are already attested prior to the Johannine literature in Paul and in the Synoptic tradition,96 so that a to Isa 14.12. Cf. Marshall 1978, 428–29; Fitzmyer 1985, 862. For the Lukan interpretation of the tradition, see also Kalms 2001, 207–34. 92 On this text and its early Jewish background, see in detail Kalms 2001, who demonstrates clearly the structural parallel between the detailed pictorial-mythological statement in Rev 12 and the concise mention in John 12.31. On John 12.31, see further Frey 2000b, 188–89. 93 On this, see Kalms 2001; Busch 1996. See also the fundamental study of Yarbro Collins 1976. 94 For the whole topic, see Frey 2000b, 23–28; and, in detail, Jenks 1991; Lietaert Peerbolte 1995; Lorein 2003. 95 See especially the significant ‘liturgy’ in 1QS I 9–10; see further 1QS II 16; III 13.24– 25; see also 1QM I 1–3.9–10.13.16, and elsewhere. Cf. further Popkes 2005a, 118–19. 96 Cf. John 12.36; 1 Thess 5.5; Eph 5.8: “children of light” (cf. also 1 Thess 5.5: “children of the day”); John 1.12; 11.52; 1 John 3.1-2, 10; 5.2: “children of God” (cf. also

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direct borrowing of this linguistic form from an early Jewish, Qumranic, or synagogal context cannot be shown to be probable. Precisely the idea of believers being children of God cannot be derived from Qumran, for there (11QMelch 2 i 8.14) the expression ‫ בני אל‬does not refer to members of the community but to angelic beings.97 Rather, the motif of being children of God is already attested in earlier Christianity, especially in Paul, so that for this too one must assume a further development of primitive Christian motifs in the Johannine circle. There are not any real parallels in Palestinian Judaism to the specific Johannine expressions γεννάσθαι ἐκ θεοῦ ἄνωθεν ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος. They can “have grown in this way only upon Hellenistic soil.”98 This too speaks against a direct linking of the Johannine language to Palestinian Jewish linguistic traditions and for a mediation of such traditions through the primitive Christian tradition and its further development in the Johannine circle. In light of these findings, the corresponding designation of the opponents in 1 John as “children of the devil” (1 John 3.10),99 as well as the ‘devilization’ of the Jewish opponents of Jesus in John 8.44, should probably be explained with reference to the sharpness of the conflict and not also with reference to the adoption of elements of a dualism that was pregiven in terms of the history of religion. (c) The spatial-metaphorical distinction between a heavenly sphere that is ‘above’ and an earthly sphere that is ‘below,’ which is especially conspicuous in the Johannine language, has, of course, various correspondences in some traditions of Jewish apocalyptic (e.g., in the Enoch literature) as well as in texts of Hellenistic Judaism and of pagan Hellenism. This opposition does not have a specific counterpart in the Qumran texts.100 Older scholarship often evaluated these spatial statements as an indication of an atemporal pattern of thought and therefore was more inclined to Matt 5.9; Rom 8.14, 16; 9.26; Gal 3.26; as well as Matt 5.45); Luke 6.35: “children of the Most High”; John 8.39; Matt 3.9; and elsewhere: “children of Abraham.” For negative examples, see Luke 16.8; 20.34: “children of this age”; Eph 2.2-3: “sons of disobedience,” “children of wrath.” 97 On the history-of-religion differences to the Qumran statements, see Popkes 2005a, 117–19; Rusam 1993, 59. 98 Thus rightly Bergmeier 1980, 217; cf. already Barrett 1955, 172. 99 For the notion, see also Acts 13.1 and Matt 13.38. To be sure, an exact antithesis is also not present here. While the children of God are “born” of God (1 John 5.1, 4, 18; cf. John 1.13), there evidently cannot be talk of a birth “from the devil” or “out of the devil.” On this, see Strecker 1989, 175. 100 On the history-of-religion profile of the spatial motifs of the Johannine Christology, see Popkes 2005a, 219–21; for the interpretation, see further R. Zimmermann 2004, 228–31.

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think of Hellenistic101 or even gnostic influences. However, a dichotomy between spatial and temporal statements is appropriate neither with regard to the Johannine texts nor with regard to the early Jewish parallels, and more recent scholarship has demonstrated the original juxtaposition of spatial and temporal forms of expression precisely for early Jewish apocalyptic.102 What is decisive, however, is the textual embedding and use of the categories of ‘above’ and ‘below’ in the Gospel of John. These are primarily used here to characterize the belonging of the sent one, Son, or Son of Man (1.51; 3.13; 3.31; 8.23), who comes from ‘above’—i.e., from God—and is connected with ‘heaven.’ In other words, it is used in a christological sense. The use in the anthropological or soteriological sense—i.e., to characterize the birth ‘from above’ (3.3)—is dependent on this primary christological usage. An apparent exception is formed by the statements in John 8.23, in which the opponents of Jesus are said to be ‘from below’ in contrast to Jesus himself, but the negative reaction of these persons to the self-revelation of Jesus precedes this statement narratively. Therefore, one cannot speak on the basis of these statements of a static separation, of a fixedness of human beings in the one or the other sphere, which is to be understood in a ‘predestinarian’ manner. Instead, the Johannine use of the ‘above’/‘below’ category precisely involves not a static separation or enduring division of the spheres but rather a movement—as we find in the talk of the coming or the incarnation of the Logos, of the sending of the Son or, conversely, of his exaltation as well as in the statements about believers ‘being born’ or ‘being begotten’ ‘from above’ (3.3)—so that the separated spheres appear to be opened up in a peculiar way. The spatial-metaphorical elements are likewise “an integral component of the Johannine Christology.”103 (d) The talk of ‘life’ appears especially difficult to place.104 This term has great significance in many Jewish and pagan texts (e.g., in the 101

For Dobschütz 1922, 220, the spatial categories were regarded almost as a “barometer for Hellenization.” However, the dichotomy between spatial and temporal categories, which is sometimes established, is appropriate neither to the Fourth Gospel nor to the texts of ancient Judaism. For the problem, see also Frey 1997b, 414–15. 102 This applies especially to the Enoch literature, which has been recognized to be the oldest tradition of apocalyptic in the meantime. In the Book of Watchers, notions of a ‘heavenly’ world (throne of God, cosmic journeys, heavenly ‘places’) and temporal notions (of the future judgment) are closely bound together. Only in the later ‘historical apocalypses,’ such as in Daniel, does the temporal dimension dominate more strongly. For more recent developments in research on apocalyptic, see Frey 2007a. 103 Popkes 2005a, 222. 104 On the history-of-religion background of the Johannine concept of life, cf. Frey 2000b, 262ff. For its semantic illumination, see Stare 2004.

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Hermetica)105 as well as in later Gnosticism.106 Against all derivations from pagan or gnostic contexts, the talk of ‘eternal life’ (ζωὴ αἰωνιος), which is fundamental for John, suggests that the Johannine concept of life is likewise based on a primarily Jewish linguistic matrix,107 which was taken up in primitive Christianity. Presumably proceeding from Daniel 12.3 (‫לחיי‬ ‫)עולם‬, this expression is found in some Qumran texts108 and other early Jewish writings109 and then also of course in pre-Johannine Christianity,110 so that the Johannine use can be explained against the background of the early Christian tradition. The ‘dualistic’ antithesis of death and life conspicuously has no correspondence in the Qumran texts.111 At the same time, the Johannine configuration of the talk of ‘life’ (and—in contrast to it—of death) clearly appears to be a result of the theological reflection of the Johannine circle. This is shown especially by the terminological replacement that can be seen in John 3, in which the ‘new’ salvation terminology ζωὴ αἰώνιος programmatically takes the place of the salvation terminology “kingdom of God,” which had been predominant in the older 105

Cf. Corp. Herm. I 9, 12, 17, 21, 32; XI 13, 14; XII 15; XIII 9, 12, 18–19. Cf., e.g., in the Odes Sol. (3.9; 6.18; 8.2; 9.4; 10.2; 15.10; 22.10; 24.8; 28.6-7; 31.7; 38.3; 40.6; 41.3, 16; as well as 11.6, 16, Greek text), for which a Johannine influence admittedly appears not to be excluded. See in the Nag-Hammadi writings NHC I 1.7; II 4.4; 20.19; 23.23; 24.15; 104.28; 107.4; 113.12; 115.12, 32; 121.27; III 53.8; 87.5; 95.5, 18–19, 32; 111.8; VII 91.8–9; 106.25; 107.13; 112.10; 113.15; XI 24; 29.30, 32; 30.31; 31.29; 49.31, 35. 107 Bultmann 1964b, 839 n. 56, can adduce only two attestations of pagan authors for this expression, Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 1 = Moralia II 351d/e (αἰώνιος ζωή as condition of the god, i.e., of Zeus) and Maximus of Tyre, Dialexeis 6.1 (Hobein 1910, 65.13– 14), and only the first of these is a rough contemporary of the evangelist. The appearance of the expression in the Odes Sol. (6.18; 9.4; 11.16 Greek text; 41.16) points to its Jewish Christian origin and perhaps even to Johannine influence. 108 Cf. ‫חיי עולם‬: 4Q181 1 ii 3–6; 4Q266 6 i 12; 4Q272 1 i 7; 4Q272 1 ii 1; see in addition ‫נצח‬: CD III 20; 4Q228 1 i 9; 4Q257 V 7; 6Q19 2,2. 109 Cf. 2 Macc 7.9: εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναβίωσιν ζωῆς ἡμᾶς ἀναστήσει; 7.11, 14: ἀνάστασις εἰς ζωήν; 7.36: πόνον ἀενάου ζωῆς; 4 Macc 15.3: αἰώνιος ζωή; and especially Jos. Asen. 8.9: ζωὴ αἰώνιος in 8.9 within the framework of a prayer of blessing for Aseneth in direct reference to the crossing over to the Jewish faith as a crossing over from death to life. In Palestinian Judaism see also Pss. Sol. 3.10-12 (cf. 13.11); 1 En. 10.10; 15.4, 6; 37.4; 40.9; 58.3; T. Ash. 5.2; 6.6; LAB 23.13; T. Ab. 14.14; 20.15. The two passages 1 En. 10.10 and 15.4, 6, could be even older than Dan 12.2-3. To be sure, the expression refers there to the ‘long’ life of the Watcher angels or of the humans of the primeval time, whereas Dan 12.2-3 uses the expression in connection with the hope for a resurrection of the dead for the first time. 110 Mark 10.30 par. Luke 18.30; κληρονομεῖν ζωὴν αἰώνιον: Mark 10.17 par. Luke 18.18; also Luke 10.25 and Matt 19.16; (ἀπ)έρχεσθαι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον: Matt 25.46; in Paul, Rom 2.7; 5.21; 6.22-23; Gal 6.8. 111 Cf. already Schnackenburg 1986, 113: “This is probably the strongest argument for the view that the Johannine ‘dualism’ cannot have been taken over from Qumran.” 106

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Jesus tradition but may have no longer been adequately understandable in the Greek-speaking sphere.112 The terminological shift in relation to the older tradition, which is recognizable here in the Johannine text itself and is apparently consciously reflected upon, makes clear that the Johannine linguistic elements cannot simply be traced back to religious ‘milieus’ or history-of-religion backgrounds but have been deliberately chosen in the framework of the presentation. (e) This appears to be true also for the talk of light and darkness, which is christologically concentrated in John. A derivation from Qumran is also not suggested here, where one had most often suspected it. Interestingly, the allegedly entirely Qumranic expression “children of light,” which is attested only once in the Corpus Johanneum, is found not only in the group-specific Qumran texts of the Qumran library113 but already in a clearly pre-Essene writing, the Aramaic vision of Amram, and it is even placed in direct opposition to “sons of darkness” there.114 Moreover, precisely this expression is already attested in pre-Johannine Christianity, in Paul (1 Thess 5.5), in Lukan traditional material (Luke 16.8), and then—perhaps contemporaneously with John—in Ephesians (Eph 5.8). The negative counterpart, the expression “sons/children of darkness,” is completely absent from the Johannine writings.115 Thus, the basic structure of the Essene use of the light–darkness terminology is precisely not taken up in the Corpus Johanneum. Rather, the function of the metaphor of light in John is completely different, so that a connection to Qumran is not suggested for this linguistic element either. The question of alternative derivations of the Johannine talk of light and darkness has been answered in two ways in recent scholarship. In his criticism of the Qumranic derivation, Richard Bauckham has pointed to the numerous early Jewish texts in which the light of the first day is metaphorically related to knowledge (e.g., of the truth) or to ‘life’ in a 112

On this, see Frey 2000b, 261; 2003, 100–104 (= 2013a, 279–80). Cf. 1QS I 9; II 16; III 13.24–25; 1 QM I 3, 9, 11, 13; 4Q177 12–13i7.11; with the article 4Q177 10–11,7; 4Q280 2,1. The attestations from the Teaching on the Two Spirits 1QS III 13.24–25, must be used only with caution since this text is an independent piece, which was received into the collection-manuscript 1QS (but is lacking in other parallel manuscripts of the Serekh-material in Cave 4) and very likely arose prior to the constitution of the Essene community (the ‫)יחד‬. While this text then had great significance for the ‘Essene’ community, which is shown by later quotations and allusions, it cannot be regarded as the worldview basis of this community. For the problem, see Frey 1997a, 295– 300; 2004b, 148–51; Lange/Lichtenberger 1997, 57–58; H. Stegemann 1993, 154. 114 4Q548 1 ii 2,10–11.15–16; cf. there also the opposition “sons of deception”–“sons of the truth” (4Q548 1 ii,8–9). 115 By contrast, such an opposition is intimated, after all, in 1 Thess 5.5. 113

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comprehensive sense in the interpretation of the creation account.116 This line of tradition is picked up by the Johannine Prologue, which, taking up Genesis 1, connects light and life with the Logos, the primordial Word of God. To this can be added, as a second line of tradition, the talk—which is widely attested in the Old Testament and had become conventional in ancient Judaism—of the Torah as light,117 which offered itself for the christological-soteriological transference, as well as traditions about the Messiah as light,118 which could easily be combined with the talk of the Torah as light. Alongside this, David E. Aune’s pointer119 to the early Jewish and primitive Christian conversion language—in which (likewise with an allusion to Gen 1.2-5) “light” and “darkness” are used as metaphors— also sheds light on this issue. In the prayer in Joseph and Aseneth 8.9, God calls all things “from the darkness to the light, from error to truth, and from death to life.” This metaphorical use of light and darkness in the framework of conversion language also appears in early Christian texts. In Acts 26.18 the turning of Gentiles “from the power of Satan to God” appears as an opening of their eyes, as a transition “from darkness to light.”120 In the framework of eschatologically oriented paraeneses, such as 1 Thessalonians 5.4-8 and Romans 13.12-14, this imagery could likewise be taken up.121 Against this background both the revelation-theological use of light– darkness terminology in the Gospel of John and the paraenetic use of the antithesis of light and darkness attested in 1 John against the backdrop of the community conflict appear explainable. The theological achievement of the evangelist must then be seen in the christological concentration, which is a characteristic feature of the Fourth Gospel in the use of the metaphor of light and in the talk of truth or life. The overview shows clearly that the various dualistic motifs in the Gospel of John do not form a history-of-religion unity.122 The talk of 116 Cf. Bauckham 1997, 276, which also references 4 Ezra 6.40; LAB 28–29; 60.2; 4Q392 1,4–7; 2 En. 24.4j; 25; Aristobulos (in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 13.12.9– 11); and Philo, De opificio mundi 29–35. See in greater detail on the early Jewish interpretations of the creation account, Endo 2002. 117 Cf. Ps 119.105; Prov 6.23; Isa 2.3, 5; 51.4. See further Wis 18.4; LAB 11.1; 19.4; 33.3; 4 Ezra 14.20; 2 Bar. 17.4; 18.2; 59.2. 118 Cf. Isa 9.1-2; 42.6-7; 49.6; 60.1ff. 119 Aune 2002, 289–91. 120 Cf. also 2 Cor 4.6; Col 1.12-13; Eph 5.8; 1 Pet 2.9; 1 Clem. 59.2. 121 There are also early Jewish parallels to this paraenetic use. Cf. T. Levi 19.1, which contains a developed cosmic dualism. 122 Johannine dualism could only appear as such when a single background was presupposed as decisive (as, e.g., the gnostic myth in the work of R. Bultmann and L. Schottroff or the Qumran dualism in the work of K. G. Kuhn and J. H. Charlesworth; on this, see section 1 above), against which the overall picture could then be systematized.

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‘above’ and ‘below’ or else of ‘being’ and ‘being born’ ‘from . . .’ more likely point to an influence of Hellenistic forms of thought and language. By contrast, the talk of eschatological adversaries clearly takes up early Jewish-apocalyptic traditions. The metaphorical talk of life and death, of light and darkness, and of truth and deception makes recourse to biblical and diverse early Jewish traditions, while one must also assume a mediation and modification by the Christian tradition. At no point can one make plausible a direct Qumranic or any other unmediated early Jewish influence, not even for John 3.19-31.123 Therefore, the thesis—based solely on these three verses—that the Johannine circle was influenced by a Qumranresembling dualism in its early phase is not adequately grounded and has also been abandoned by Jürgen Becker in the meantime.124 However, the assumption of a gnosticizing development of Johannine thought in a later phase can also scarcely be demonstrated on the basis of the text.125 In any case, the attempt to make inferences from the history-of-religion lack of unity of the Johannine text to different stages of the development of the Johannine community can scarcely be carried out, unless one can assume that the author of the Johannine text took over the earlier ingredients of his work without change. But one cannot presuppose this for such an independently configuring theologian as the Fourth Evangelist, and the 123

While some considerations support seeing an aphoristic tradition from the Johannine community in the antithetically formed saying (for analysis, see Becker 1991a, 154–55, 173–74), it is nevertheless questionable whether one can derive a developed deterministicdualistic worldview from this short piece of text. Becker 1991a, 174, 176, must conjecture many aspects that do not appear in John 3.20-21. He concedes that “this closed conception” is “no longer demonstrable as a whole in the Johannine literature” (176). The deterministicethical dualism, which Becker 1964, 222–23, derives primarily from the Teaching on the Two Spirits, is not expressed at all in these two verses. While the being entirely determines the doing according to the view of the Teaching on the Two Spirits, here this appears rather to be reversed in tendency: doing evil leads one to keep away from the light, while “doing the truth” is connected with “coming to the light.” A determinism is actually foreign to the double saying. Thus, Becker’s interpretation (which has subsequently been abandoned) reads something into the text based on the assumption that both verses have been Qumranically influenced. However, the linguistic parallels between the expression “doing the truth” and the expression ‫ עשה אמת‬attested in Essene texts (cf. 1QS I 5; V 3; VIII 2)—not in the Teaching on the Two Spirits—are by no means exclusively Qumranic. Rather, corresponding formulations occur in the LXX, in Tobit, and also in the Targumim. Jewish linguistic parallels (2 Bar. 55.8; 88.3; cf. Bergmeier 1980, 270 n. 559) can also be adduced for John 3.20, so that a specific dependence on Qumranic texts, let alone on pre-Essene or Essene determinism, cannot be assumed linguistically. 124 Becker 2004, 104–5. On this, see note 13 above. 125 On the history-of-religion profile of the dualistic motifs in the Corpus Johanneum, see the careful comparison with both Qumranic and gnostic parallels in Popkes 2005a, passim.

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observations on the use of the individual dualistic linguistic forms speak clearly against such an assumption. The evangelist’s creative shaping of the material can be seen not only in the christological concentration of the main pairs of oppositions but with special significance also in the distribution of the light-metaphorical statements in the Gospel. Accordingly, one can gain an understanding of the dualistic statements only if one examines the textual elements in their interplay with one another. Only then can a decision be made about whether one can really speak of dualism in John126 or whether this category as a whole—apart from individual motifs or linguistic elements— must be regarded as inappropriate to the Fourth Gospel. 3. The Dualistic Motifs and the Revelatory Dynamic of the Gospel In what follows I will ask no longer about ‘the’ dualism but only about individual dualistic motifs. I am also inquiring—unlike Jürgen Becker—not into individual textual strata but into the position and meaning of these motifs in the text of the whole Gospel.127 I also forgo the terms that are usually used to categorize dualisms and do not speak of cosmic or ethical dualisms, let alone of an ecclesiasticalized dualism. Rather, I am concerned to show the revelatory dynamic in which the various dualistic motifs are integrated in the Gospel and which determines their use.

126 Schwankl 1995, 356, points out that also the “traces of a . . . God-world or abovebelow division . . . only [yields] a ‘dualism’ if one isolates and absolutizes the statements,” i.e., removes them from their context, their dramaturgical embedding, and—even if they are judged to be traditional pieces—evaluates them as though they had not undergone a transformation in their Johannine reworking. 127 In this task John 21 must be examined separately as a probable addition to the Gospel. I remain unconvinced by the thesis—recently defended again by Thyen 2005, 4–5, 773, and elsewhere—that John 21 is an original component of the Gospel and that all the narrative threads come together for the first time there. For justification, cf. Frey 1997b, 446ff. Whether the Gospel was ever circulated without this addition—with respect to this point Thyen is correct—is extremely doubtful, since the textual tradition is not able to provide any positive indications of such a circulation.

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3.1 The Metaphor of Light and Its Johannine Use: On the Dramaturgical and Revelatory Function of a Dualistic Linguistic Form This revelatory dynamic becomes clear first in the metaphor of light,128 which in the Gospel encompasses only the sphere of the public activity of Jesus from the Prologue to John 12, and the use of it thus appears to be clearly determined by dramaturgical intentions. Already in the Prologue, which, with its creation statement, excludes a priori every metaphysical duality, the metaphor of light is introduced in John 1.4-5. That this is expressed from the beginning in dual form cannot be surprising in light of the reference back to the biblical creation account of Genesis 1.1ff. that is present in John 1.1-5: “The light shines in the darkness—and the darkness has not overcome it.”129 In many attempts to reconstruct a ‘pre-Johannine’ Logos hymn, John 1.4, 5, and John 1.9 are assigned to tradition,130 whereby different connections of the statements about the light shining in the darkness (1.5) and the ‘true’ light (1.9) can then be postulated—depending on how one assesses the structure and referent of the hymn.131 However, these connections on the basis of a reconstructed pre-Johannine text remain uncertain and ultimately irrelevant for the interpretation of the existing text. The reference of the textual statements on the level of the Gospel of John or for its ‘first readers’ is independent of the possible connections of the postulated textual Vorlage. If one understands John 1.1-5 in its present context—all connections to the biblical–early Jewish creation tradition notwithstanding132—as a Christian statement, then v. 5 can only be understood as being related to the present of the community, which verifies the shining of the light (in 128 On the broad metaphorical horizons of the light statements in the ancient context, see in detail Schwankl 1995, 38–73. On the Johannine light statements, see Schwankl 1995, passim. See also Popkes 2005a, 229–39. 129 For the translation of καταλαμβάνω, see especially John 12.35; cf. Theobald 1988, 212–16; Schankl 1995, 93–94; Hofius 1996a, 18 with note 108; Thyen 2005, 74. 130 Cf., e.g., Hofius 1996a, 10; differently, e.g., Becker 1991a, 85–86. For the variety and differences of the reconstructions, see the overview in Theobald 1988, 67ff. (especially the diagrams on pp. 71, 84, 95). The thesis of a pre-Christian origin of this hymn (thus for the first two strophes of the hymn Becker 1974, 75; following Bultmann 1986, 4–5; 1971, 17–18; different already Becker 1991a, 91–93) can no longer be upheld today. 131 Vv. 4-5 are often related completely to the context of the event of creation (see, e.g., Hofius 1996a, 17–18; Becker 1991a, 89), while for the ‘true’ light in v. 9 either a reference to the logos asarkos (thus Hofius 1996a, 18) or already a stronger reference to the Christ event is possible (see the documentation in Theobald 1988, 90ff. and 234). 132 On this, see in detail Endo 2002, passim.

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the present tense) and looks back to the fact that it was not extinguished as a historical event (in the aorist).133 Here a reaction to the Christ event is already present for the addressees of the Gospel.134 The post-Easter perspective135 that is later characteristic for the whole Gospel is already adopted here. Thus, from the very beginning the new reality that is given through Jesus’ death and resurrection is expressed with the aid of the metaphorical talk of light and darkness. This manner of speaking also makes it possible to think together the aspect of the primordial light of creation and the revelation that has become historical and not—as interpreters repeatedly attempted to do later—to distinguish them clearly. Text-pragmatically the Johannine readers’ image of Christ is thereby expanded toward its cosmic dimension and ‘unbounded.’136 This connection, however, only becomes clear a posteriori, namely when one has read not only the Prologue but also the whole Gospel to the end, in which the failed attempt of the darkness to overcome the light finds expression: the opposition that Jesus experiences, the fate of his passion and of his death, which in the Easter perspective of the Gospel must be understood not as his ‘elimination’137 but rather as his exaltation and glorification. Thus, Jesus’ passion and death is not a failure but rather the 133

Cf., in this vein, Onuki 1984, 43–44; Theobald 1988, 211–16; Frey 1998, 158–59. Where one wants to see—in some cases under the influence of assumptions about a preJohannine hymn—a temporal-chronological succession from logos asarkos to logos ensarkos in the Prologue, the φαίνει in v. 5 must necessarily remain “riddling” (thus in Haenchen 1980, 122–23: “Rätselhaft”; ET = 1984, 114: “a puzzle”). A ‘salvation-historical’ reading of the Prologue, i.e., the suggestion of a chronological succession of the reference points of the statements of the Prologue (creation—activity of the Logos before the incarnation— activity of the incarnate Logos) does not do justice to the text. 134 This, however, is not yet expressed in a completely unambiguous manner due to the metaphorical linguistic form. Rather, its ‘decoding’ is dependent on the prior information and reading position of the respective readers. The highly controversial question about where the step to the historical Jesus takes place depends, as Schwankl 1995, 144, accurately states, “on the outlook that the hearer/reader brings. The author has . . . Jesus in mind from the beginning and speaks already in v. 5 at the latest about the Christian foundational event, i.e., about the fate of Jesus, about his death and resurrection. To be sure, he speaks of it metaphorically and thus leaves it open to the reader whether s/he already discovers and fills in this concrete meaning. If he already believes in Jesus, he will also take it for granted that the Prologue immediately speaks of Jesus Christ.” In this reception-aesthetical perspective, some aporias of the interpretation of the Prologue are resolved, which arise from a reading that is oriented in a purely production-aesthetical or history-of-tradition manner. 135 On this, see Frey 1998, 247ff.; and in detail Hoegen-Rohls 1996, passim. 136 Thus Schwankl 1995, 144. Conversely, among readers who were not (yet) Christians, the image of Logos, light, or life that they brought with them could become more concrete and take shape by being successively related to the person of Jesus (idem, 144). 137 This intention becomes evident in the Sanhedrin’s decision that he should die in John 11.47-48.

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‘victory’ over the world138 and the beginning of the reign of the crucified one. “The complex ‘metaphorical process’ . . . , which the terms λόγος, ζωή, and φῶς set in motion, thus aims from the beginning at the Christ of the Gospel: the preexistent one, the earthly one, and the glorified one.”139 In the course of the reading of the Gospel, the metaphor of light teaches the reader with increasing clarity to see140 Jesus Christ141 as the incarnation of the primordial light and thus runs in generally accessible language142 “like a funnel” to the christological message of the Gospel.143 Conversely, it lets the one who is known appear in a defamiliarized, new way to those who know about Jesus and his story.144 If one perceives this communicative effect of the metaphoric talk of light, then the opposition to Qumranic and gnostic dualisms could not be greater. While the spheres of light and darkness are clearly demarcated from each other there145 and a permeability is precisely not intended, in the Johannine linguistic usage the light retains the upper hand from its first mention onward. It prevails and does not stop at the boundary of darkness. The revelatory dynamic of the Christ event is already reflected in the first passage of the Gospel, and it makes itself felt among other ways by means of the metaphor of light. The movements of meaning, in which the motif of light (and—in opposition to it—of darkness) is carried forward in complex ways and joined with other motifs in the progression of the Gospel, can be sketched only briefly in what follows. Already in the course of the Prologue, the light is set off as ‘true light’ (1.9) from its (mere) witness, the ‘human being whose name was John,’ and linked with the Logos who ‘became flesh,’146 whose glory the community attests and whose name, Jesus Christ, is finally mentioned (1.17). 138

On this, cf. John 16.33 as well as the talk of the judgment of the ‘ruler of the world’ in Jesus’ ‘hour’ (12.31; 16.11). 139 Schwankl 1995, 99. 140 For ‘seeing as,’ see Schwankl 1995, 101; R. Zimmermann 2004, 55–60. 141 This begins with v. 9, where the Logos is identified with the ‘true’ light, continues in the statement of incarnation in vv. 14, 16, and reaches its high point for the time being at the conclusion of the Prologue (vv. 17-18), i.e., with the mention of the name Jesus Christ. 142 For the accessibility of metaphorical or pictorial language, see R. Zimmermann 2004, 425ff. With reference to the example of the metaphor of bread, see also Frey 2000a (= 2013a, 381–407). 143 Schwankl 1995, 103. 144 For the vitalizing, renewing, and defamilarizing effects of the use of metaphors, see Schwankl 1995, 100–101. For the principle of “veiling and unveiling,” see idem, 112– 13; as well as Lausberg 1984, 196, 272. 145 On the light–darkness motif in Qumran, see Frey 2004b, 151–65, 189–91. For the use of the metaphor of light in the Gospel of Thomas, see Popkes 2004, 652–62. 146 The connection of the light to the Logos is already given in v. 9 of course: “He (sc. the Logos) was the true light . . .”

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Here the connection of light, life, and Logos, as it finds expression in a manner that is still relatively open in 1.4-5, falls, of course, entirely along the line of the Old Testament–early Jewish creation tradition.147 However, after vv. 6-8, which refer to the Baptist, it becomes focused—through the exclusive predicate τὸ ἀληθινόν in v. 9—on the connection of the ‘true’ light with the Logos, whose historical appearance is then explicitly thematized in 1.14-18. Thus, the use of the metaphor of light receives a clear christological connotation already at the end of the Prologue. Interestingly the light motif is not continued in the opening of the corpus Evangelii. Rather it occurs only “after the pass through the entrance hall”148 in John 3.19-21, following the first kerygmatic summary of the Gospel of John, which itself represents a “gospel in miniature,”149 i.e., at a place that is extraordinarily prominent compositionally, and now for the first time in the mouth of the Johannine Jesus. Here the talk of the light stands in the framework of a statement about the κρίσις that takes place in the coming of Jesus and in the corresponding reaction of the world of humans and also in connection with the following double statement of vv. 20-21, which presumably takes up a traditional double saying about the negative or positive stance of humans to the ‘light.’150 φῶς reoccurs in an especially concentrated manner here, namely five times within three verses, whereas the opposing term σκότος151 occurs only once. This concentration of the term φῶς already points back to that passage in which there was talk of light for the first time and in a similarly concentrated manner (1.4-9).152 By having John 3.19-21 inclusively take up the beginning of the Nicodemus dialogue,153 these verses link the themes of the Nicodemus dialogue with the light-metaphorical statements of the Prologue. At the same time, the light-statements in John 3.19-21 directly

147

On this, see Endo 2002, 216–19. Schwankl 1995, 148. 149 Thus, Rebell 1987, 13, 147. Cf. on John 3, in detail, Frey 2000, 242ff; and on John 3.19-21, Frey 2000, 283–85, 294–300; as well as the especially instructive discussion in Schwankl 1995, 148–85. 150 On the history-of-tradition analysis, see Becker 1991a, 154–55, 173–74. A more sapiential character of the dualism found here has been postulated in the meantime also by Becker 2004, 105. Interestingly this saying is completely lacking in the comprehensive compendium of Theobald 2002. 151 This marks here in v. 19 a difference from John 1.5 and from the subsequent uses in the Gospel. 152 φῶς occurs six times in John 1.4-9. 153 Cf. the back-references from John 3.19 “the light has come into the world” to 3.2 “a teacher come from God” and from 3.21 “comes to the light” to 3.2 “came to him by night” (see Frey 2000b, 244 n. 8). 148

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follow the kerygmatic formulations about Jesus’ sending,154 which were previously delivered in a manner that is almost unrelated to the situation of Jesus’ address to Nicodemus.155 The statement that “the light has come into the world” (3.19b) directly takes up the statements about the sending of the Son into the world (3.17) and about the descent of the Son of Man from heaven (3.13). In this way the christological kerygma is explained light-metaphorically, and, conversely, the metaphor of light is christologically disambiguated. In this way the christological focus of the talk of light established in the Prologue is clearly intensified. The motifs of light and darkness come into play in another way when the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman is situated at noon in John 4.6, whereas previously the conversation with Nicodemus had begun “at night” (3.2). While this νυκτός initially remains “ambivalent”156 (on the one hand, the night could be the time of undisturbed conversation and scriptural study; on the other hand, the choice of this time could also point to ‘fear’ of others [12.42-43]), the use of the lexeme in John 11.10 and 13.30 as well as the conspicuous contrast to the specification of time already in John 4.6 clarifies the negative symbolic value of this mention of the night, whose significance is highlighted again by the reminiscence in John 19.39.157 The chronological notes receive their symbolic power from the metaphor of light–darkness. While Nicodemus remains in ignorance (3.10) and thus—despite his coming to Jesus—in the darkness (cf. 3.20), the Samaritan woman, in the light of midday, becomes a witness to Jesus and the paradigm for the positive reception of his revelation. This reflects a revelation-theological usage of the antithesis of light and darkness, which, in the conception of the evangelist, is combined with the christologically focused use. This revelation-theological use experiences an interesting development when, in the context of the walking on the water in John 6.17, explicit reference is made to the darkness, which characterizes the time when Jesus was absent or had not come to the disciples (καὶ σκοτία ἤδη ἐγεγόνει καὶ οὔτω ἐληλύθει πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὁ Ἰησοῦς). With this note, which is certainly not to be understood simply as a simple specification of the 154 For the connection of 3.19-21 with 3.16-18, cf. Schwankl 1995, 159–61; for the compositional attachment of 3.19-21 to 3.18, see also Frey 2000b, 284–85; and Hofius 1996c, 68. 155 Cf. the—not really fitting—designation of the sections John 3.13-21 and 3.31-36 in Schnackenburg 1986, 374–77, 393–432; 1958. 156 Thus Thyen 2005, 185. However, the back-reference to John 2.23 already provides a negative connotation. Nicodemus is one of those many humans to whom Jesus does not ‘entrust’ himself—accordingly, the conversation also leads to a lack of understanding. 157 Cf. also Frey 1998, 188–89 with notes 159–60.

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time of day, the ‘dark foil’ is sketched against which Jesus’ epiphany takes place.158 Darkness and Jesus’ absence as well as wind and waves (6.18) characterize the situation that is changed by Jesus’ appearance or, more precisely, by his self-presentation with the words ἐγώ εἰμι. Light is not spoken of in this passage, but the portrayal of the darkness is sufficient for understanding Jesus’ appearance and his utterance as ‘illumination.’159 Notably, this formula of revelation,160 which is central for the Fourth Gospel, is uttered before the disciples for the first time here, after John 4.26 had merely narrated the self-disclosure before a single person, the Samaritan woman. Therefore, one should not overlook the fact that the ἐγώ εἰμι in John 6.20, with its exact parallel in Mark 6.50, is the most important connective link of this characteristic Johannine linguistic feature to the Synoptic tradition. The narrative of Jesus’ walking on the sea “contains, so to speak, the rootstock that anchors the Johannine I-am sayings in the Synoptic tradition.”161 With a view to the metaphor of light–darkness, it is, however, especially significant that the ἐγώ εἰμι in John 6.20, with its context (σκοτία, περιπατεῖν), leads semantically to John 8.12162 and that via these key word connections the metaphorical statement about Jesus as “the light of the world” (8.12) clearly points back to the walking on the sea and the epiphany of Jesus recounted in John 6.16-21. Prepared through John 6.20 and its context, the use of the metaphor of light reaches its high point when the Johannine Jesus explicitly speaks of himself as “the light of the world” (τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου). In this “summary of the Johannine revelation-theology,”163 the evangelist explicitly pronounces what was implicit in the narrative of the appearance of Jesus before the disciples in the darkness of the nightly sea journey.164 In the taking up of the ἐγώ εἰμι formulation, which is used absolutely there, the Johannine Jesus appears with the authority of God in his self-revelation. 158

This becomes clear in Hinrichs 1988, 44–49. Schwankl 1995, 190. 160 According to Hinrichs 1988, sixteen of these words contain “the irreducible concentrate of Johannine theology.” For the ἐγώ εἰμι words, see especially Thyen 1992; 1995—who rightly argues for the structural togetherness of the so-called ‘absolute’ and ‘metaphorical’ ἐγώ εἰμι attestations. Additionally, the I-am formula is carefully prepared for linguistically through the negation (“I am not . . .”) by the Baptist in John 1.19-21 (cf. 1.8: “he was not the light”) and the deictic variant (“this is . . .” / “you are”) in John 1.30, 33-34, 49; and 4.19; before the “I am” of Jesus is sounded for the first time in John 4.26; on this, see Hinrichs 1988, 18–28; Frey 2000b, 86–87. 161 Schwankl 1995, 188. 162 On this, see Schwankl 1995, 188–89; cf. Hinrichs 1988, 47. 163 Schwankl 1995, 206. 164 On this, see Schwankl 1995, 190. 159

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While some scholars have speculated that a preformed saying is present in this formulation,165 here, as so often in John, it cannot be excluded that the evangelist himself was involved in its formation and shaping.166 This saying is also not as isolated in its context as it may appear at first glance. It is prepared for not only through John 6.16-21 but also through Jesus’ brothers’ exhortation that he reveal himself “before the world” in John 7.4, and it is narratively continued later through the narrative of the healing of the blind man in John 9, so that the light-saying, despite its disconnectedness with the immediate context, does not stand there as an erratic block in the course of the Gospel but must instead be regarded as an important ‘stepping stone’ on the path of the light-statements. The later light-statements in particular show clear connections to John 8.12 in their vocabulary.167 What is decisively new in John 8.12 is the connection of the metaphor of light with the ἐγώ εἰμι formula of self-disclosure, which remains exclusively reserved for Jesus in the Gospel of John168 and in which the self-presentation of the biblical God (Exod 3.14 and especially Isa 43.11; 44.6, 24; 45.5) resonates for the hearer who knows the Scriptures.169 With this the focusing of the metaphor of light on the person of Jesus reaches its climax. Thus, with the ἐγώ εἰμι formula the Johannine Jesus moves (as already in the epiphany narrative of John 6.16-21) into the light of the God of Israel in his self-revelation. At the same time, with the predication ‘light’—or rather ‘the light’ (definite)—he steps, in an outbidding manner, into the line of those Old Testament entities through which God mediated himself to humans,170 especially the Torah (Ps 119.105; Prov 6.23; Wis 18.3-4) and Wisdom (Wis 7.26). What is also conspicuous is the linkage to biblical statements in which the servant of God171 is designated as “light 165

Thus the speculation in Becker 1991a, 339–40; see, more recently, Theobald 2002, 259–61. The saying in Gos. Thom. 77 can, however, scarcely be regarded as an independent witness for the same tradition. What is common is only the phrasing “I am the light,” while the further statements differ fundamentally. On the question of the relationship, see Popkes 2004, passim. 166 See the discussion in Theobald 2002, 260–61; and Schwankl 1995, 200 n. 46. 167 See the pointers in Schwankl 1995, 201. 168 For the linguistic preparation of the statement in the mouth of Jesus through corresponding negative statements of the Baptist and confession statements of others, see note 160. 169 On this, see H. Zimmermann 1960, 54–69, 266–76; Thyen 1992. 170 Cf. Ps 36.10; 43.3. In these texts God himself is “the source and the origin of the light, however . . . it shines only indirectly and in a mediated way: in the sanctuary or in God’s care for the righteous, who accompany him to the sanctuary” (Theobald 2002, 264). 171 For the reception of the Isaianic statements, see Frey 1994a, 256ff. (= 2013a, 329ff.).

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of the nations” (Isa 42.6; 49.6; cf. 1 En. 48.4) and in which the universal reach of that divine light is already intimated in the Old Testament tradition. The turning of the creator God to the world of nations or humanity is taken up by John in the fact that Jesus is decidedly predicated as τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου, as the (one and only) light of the (whole) human world. This, in turn, highlights a significant difference from all gnostic concepts (e.g., Gos. Thom. 77.1).172 The following soteriological phrase, “the one who believes in me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life,” thematizes in a conditional formulation—wooing and appellative and yet primarily promising173—the ‘gain’ of discipleship.174 Here, light and darkness are used metaphorically with reference to the way of life and the overall orientation of existence. The existence in unbelief is thus characterized as a walk (of life) in the darkness, while life in discipleship or in faith in ‘the light of the world’ appears as a—present—‘having’ of the ‘light of life.’ With the expression φῶς τῆς ζωῆς, this promise again takes up Old Testament–early Jewish expressions (Job 33.30; 1QS III 7; 1 En. 58.3) as well as the terminological joining of light and life, which is given already in John 1.4. Thus, “as the lynchpin . . . of the metaphor of light-darkness”175 of the Gospel of John, this saying summarizes, focuses, and amplifies the previously established connections of meaning and thus provides the foundation for the subsequent use of the light–darkness motif in the course of the narrative of the public activity of Jesus. Against this background the narrative of the healing of the blind man in John 9 appears as a narrative commentary, a “narrativization and enactment of the revelation-saying of 8.12.”176 The motif of light is taken up in this narrative in various ways. Jesus’ I-statement about the ‘light of the world’ is taken up in John 9.5 in shortened form.177 Here, Jesus’ being light is related to his presence ‘in the world,’ i.e., to his activity in the world. His illuminating activity appears to be temporally limited—as the day is 172

On the difference from Gos. Thom. 77.1 and other gnostic statements, see Popkes 2004, 663ff. 173 For the pragmatics of the saying, cf., accurately, Theobald 2002, 262; in critical dispute with Schwankl 1995, 203, who understands the saying as an “exhortation and guide to action.” 174 To this extent Schwankl 1995, 216, is indeed to be followed: “Discipleship . . . is advantageous, it ‘commends itself.’ ” 175 Schwankl 1995, 219. 176 Schwankl 1995, 225. 177 It is, to be sure, mitigated by the absence of the ἐγώ. Analogously εἰμί is lacking in John 12.46. Thus, John 8.12 remains the high point of the use of the metaphor of light, even though the content of the statements obtained here remain preserved in all the subsequent passages.

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by the night.178 In the narrative of John 9, the metaphor of light also applies to the talk of blindness and seeing. The fact that the man born blind has his eyes opened becomes a picture for the event of coming to faith, while, conversely, at the end Jesus’ opponents ironically ask: “Are we also blind then?” (9.40).179 Thus, seeing and being blind are equally related to belief and unbelief and become metaphors of existence. In this way the metaphoricism establishes a wider network. Jesus is the light of the blind and precisely therein the bringer of salvation in whom the salvific blessings that were promised in the Isaianic prophecies180 are fulfilled. Furthermore, the narrative also “illustrates and enacts the light-metaphorical saying of judgment in 3.19-21,”181 according to which some hate the light and others come (believing) to him. Before the metaphor of light is intensively used one last time in John 12, a concise saying about the twelve hours of the day (11.9-10) continues the aspect of the temporal limitation of the light that was sounded in John 9.4-5.182 Other key words of the previous light-statements, especially from John 8.12, resonate in it, such as, especially, the talk of “walking” (here in the day or in the night) and of the “light of the world,” modified as “light of this world” (cf. 8.12).183 Furthermore, the concluding statement “for the light is not in him” calls to mind the statement about “having” the light of life in John 8.12. Thus, irrespective of its loose embedding in the Lazarus pericope and its function there of grounding Jesus’ going to the tomb of Lazarus in spite of the fact that the Jews were seeking to kill him, the saying appears as a more general description of the disciples’ walking ‘in the light’ and—additionally—of the stumbling of those who grope in the dark. In this context the two light-statements “because he sees the light of the world” (11.9) and “because the light is not in him” (11.10) describe the relationship between Jesus and his disciples, so that here— entirely on the level of the christological concentration of the metaphor of light—“the light” functions as a cipher for Jesus himself. Here, one can see the extraordinary flexibility and variability of the metaphor of light in 178

On this, see Schwankl 1995, 228; Frey 1998, 228–29. A different position is taken by Thyen 2005, 457. 179 The irony is especially subtle here. In their blindness for Jesus the opponents form a contrast to the healed man who was born blind. But because they are nevertheless able to see—at least according to their own claim—their unbelief is culpable. 180 Cf. Isa 29.18; 35.4-5; 42.6-7, 16; 49.6; as well as Ps 146.8; on this, see Thyen 2005, 455–56. 181 Schwankl 1995, 225. 182 On this, see Schwankl 1995, 235–50; Frey 1998, 228–29; 2000b, 428–29. 183 While superficially the talk of the light of this world (φῶς τοῦ κόσμου τούτου) is to be related to the sun, the echo of John 8.12 suggests further metaphorical meanings.

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Johannine usage, which is very far from a use that is determined by a fixed dualistic worldview. The last attestation of the metaphor of light–darkness appears in the conclusion to the last public speech of Jesus in John 12.35-36 and then— once again in a ‘situation-detached’ way—in the summarizing kerygma in John 12.46. Finally, the last appeal in 12.35-36 strengthens diverse aspects. The limited time of the presence of the light is now stressed once more with special intensity, and the resulting appeal character is particularly prominent here—through the use of the imperative. However, what stands at the end is not the threatening reference to the darkness, which “takes hold of” (καταλαμβάνειν)184 those who persist in unbelief, but rather the positive promise to believers, that they, insofar as they believe in the light, may become “sons of light” (υἱοὶ φωτός).185 The “predominance of salvation” is confirmed through this positive conclusion.186 In a significant act of connecting previously distinct motifs, the metaphor of light is joined—for the first time—with the notion of ‘believing.’187 This exhortation of the contemporaries of Jesus to believe in the light in order to become “sons of light” is also the last public saying of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (before he ‘hides’ himself and then speaks only to his disciples). Furthermore, the echo of this saying in John 12.46 is a variation of John 8.12 and “brings nothing new materially . . . but recapitulates and summarizes what has been said thus far”:188 “I have come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes may not remain in darkness” (cf. also 3.19 and 9.4). The fact that the metaphor of light occurs so succinctly in the concluding summary of the public proclamation of Jesus and also shapes its actual conclusion shortly beforehand indicates the significance that this motif has for the Johannine presentation of Jesus’ words. At the same time, however, the “asymmetry”189 to which the christological-soteriological use leads becomes clear. The goal of the coming of the light, i.e., the coming of Christ, is precisely that those who believe do not remain in darkness (12.46) but come to the light (3.21); follow Jesus, the light (8.12; 12.35); 184

With this John 1.5 is taken up—with a differing reference. The darkness takes hold of the ones who persist in unbelief, while it is not able to take hold of ‘the light,’ i.e., Jesus himself. 185 With this the theme of the children of God, known since the Prologue (1.12-13), is simultaneously taken up and connected with the metaphor of light. 186 Thus, rightly, Schwankl 1995, 264. 187 The connection was previously given by the talk of ‘following’ (8.12) and narratively in John 9 through the motif of the healing of the blind man. 188 Schwankl 1995, 275. 189 Weder 1992a rightly highlighted this concept.

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or believe in him as the light (12.36; cf. also 20.30-31) and therein have the ‘light of life’ (8.12; cf. 11.9-10). The goal of the proclamation configured into his way is precisely that the addressees themselves come from the darkness to the light, i.e., to faith and to life (20.30-31; cf. 5.24). “The question of the Johannine dualism is also ultimately decided”190 by this soteriological aim and by the christological concentration of the metaphor of light and the resulting asymmetry of its use. This in any case is no longer dualism in the strict sense of the word. The revelatory dynamic of the use of the metaphor of light is achieved through the fact that the personal identity of the light is initially intimated only in a veiled way (1.5, 9) and is then successively explicated via an increasingly strong connection to the sending (3.19ff.) and self-revelation of Jesus (6.16-21), before it is then expressed clearly in John 8.12 and presupposed in all subsequent passages. Toward the end of the public activity of Jesus, the metaphor of light contributes toward characterizing the time of revelation, concretely of the earthly activity of Jesus, as a limited and concluded period of time. In this way the appeal to walk in the light and believe in this light gains urgency. The talk of the light establishes the connection between the revelation in Christ and the primordial creation event as well as the talk of the Easter glory, in which Jesus’ person and way are situated according to the perspective of the Gospel of John. At the same time it establishes the connection between Christology and the motif of the way, indeed the existential orientation, of humans. It thematizes the ‘illumination’ of life that takes place in faith and, conversely, their persisting entanglement in the darkness among those who reject the light. This undoubtedly expresses a conflict, but the question arises of which conflict is being addressed in these formulations. Is it a metaphysicalprimordial or eschatological battle, which is thought to stand behind the Gospel as a fixed worldview? The dynamic that expresses itself in the idea of the light shining in the darkness, or of the “coming to the light,” speaks against this, as does the fact that the metaphor of light is distributed so unequally throughout the Gospel, that it is rather deployed with a dramaturgical function. The post-Easter perspective, which programmatically determines the view of Jesus in the Johannine discourses, suggests that here, much more concretely, the conflict between belief and unbelief experienced by the Johannine community stands in the foreground, which is then retrojected into the narrated story of the earthly activity of Jesus. Thus, the dualistic motifs in the Gospel of John reflect the conflict situation in which the Johannine community found itself,191 and they interpret 190 191

Schwankl 1995, 360. On this, cf. Schwankl 1995, 359.

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this situation with recourse to the way and fate of Jesus Christ as well as in the reception of a revelation-terminology that already has Old Testament precursors and yet is also generally understandable as part of a religious koine of the ancient Mediterranean world. 3.2 The Antithesis between Community and World and the Motif of the Love of God The revelatory dynamic that has been demonstrated here with reference to the metaphor of light could be elucidated in a similar way with reference to the talk of life or of truth. These salvific terms are also related to Christ in a concentrated manner in the Fourth Gospel and used in a strongly asymmetrical way. A dynamic from death to life, from being bound in deception to becoming free through truth, also unfolds in their use. I cannot develop this line of thought further here and want instead to bring into play another—thus far undiscussed—duality, which has repeatedly been adduced as an indication of the ‘world-hostile’ stance of Johannine Christianity: the opposition between community and world, as it finds expression especially in the Farewell Discourses, in the talk of the hate of the world (15.18ff.). Irrespective of whether one ascribes these passages to the evangelist himself or to a later redaction,192 with regard to this antithesis the question arises of whether an ‘ecclesiasticalized’193 dualism, which is established sociologically through membership in a group, determines the conception of the Gospel. If this were the case, then, with regard to the Gospel in its final redacted form, one could hardly speak any more of a universality of the Johannine statements of salvation. In that case, the overall message of the work would have to be interpreted in a strictly particularistic manner.194 This at least would then present an analogy to the thinking of the Qumran community in which—at least in the last phase of the textual development—a strictly implemented opposition between

192

See the fundamental study of Wellhausen 1907. See also Becker 1970; 1991b, 572ff.; on this view, see the criticism in Frey 2000b, 113–19. Thyen 1988b, 216, wants to understand John 14.31 as a signal for the readers and as an indication of a subsequent excursus for the hearers; cf. Thyen 2005, 636–37. To be sure, attempts at a literarily or narratively unified reading of the Johannine Farewell Discourses suffer from the fact that this classic ‘aporia’ is often brushed aside only as a matter of a fundamental prioritization of synchrony. 193 Thus the—in my view, infelicitous—term in Becker 1991a, 179. 194 See the presentation of the approaches of interpretation by Käsemann, Bermeier, and Hofius in Popkes 2005a, 32–36.

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‘inside’ and ‘outside,’ of members and nonmembers, is present,195 with a person’s belonging to a respective group being explained as resulting from the establishment and determination of God, i.e., in a predestinarian way.196 Thus, we need to ask how the negative statements about the κόσμος are to be understood in the whole of the Gospel of John. Here too, terminological observations can help. The talk of κόσμος is likewise unevenly distributed and not connoted in a uniform way.197 Positive and neutral statements about the κόσμος appear alongside the pointedly negative talk of the ‘world,’ which did not know the Logos (1.10), which hates Jesus and the disciples (7.7; 15.18-19; 17.14), and which appears in this respect even as a sphere that is opposed to God (8.23; 12.25, 31; 14.17, 30; 16.8, 11, 20, 33; 17.9, 11, 15; 18.36). This series of statements is found especially in the Farewell Discourses, which use the term κόσμος to thematize the phenomenon of ‘unbelief,’ whereas in the presentation of the public activity of Jesus this phenomenon is predominantly expressed in the form of the concrete contemporaries of Jesus, the Ἰουδαῖοι. Conversely, ‘the Jews’ are almost completely lacking in the Farewell Discourses,198 as well as in the Prologue199 and in the Johannine letters, where ὁ κόσμος is respectively a cipher for the entity that is closed off to Christ or God. At the same time, one can observe a certain parallelism in the semantic connotations of the terms κόσμος and Ἰουδαῖοι.200 Both appear as ‘persecutors’ of those who believe (5.16; 15.20), and both are also connected with the devil.201 Then again, for both Ἰουδαῖοι (4.9, 22)202 and κόσμος (3.16; 4.42; 6.51; 8.12; 9.5; cf. 17.21, 23), there is also a decidedly positive use, at least at individual points and predominantly in the first chapters of the Gospel. 195

I have shown that this is not the case for all Qumran texts in Frey 1997a; cf. 2004b, 165–70. Decisive are the texts that certainly arose in the Essene community. 196 Cf. the determination—made with reference to the Qumran texts—of the Johannine dualism as a strict predestinarian dualism in Bergmeier 1980. 197 On this, see the excursus in Schnelle 2016, 110–11; Popkes 2005a, 352 n. 77. See further Cassem 1972/1973; and, more recently, Kierspel 2006. 198 Cf. only John 13.33 as well as—without this term—John 16.2-3. For the topic of ‘the Jews’ in John, see also chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a; 2013a, 339–77). 199 However the talk of the ἴδιοι in John 1.11 could be a reference to the talk of ‘the Jews’ in the body of the Gospel. 200 Kierspel 2006, 54–93. 201 Cf., on the one hand, the address of the Jews as ‘children of the devil’ in John 8.44 and, on the other hand, the talk of the ‘ruler of the/this world’ in John 12.31, 14.30, and 16.11. Cf. also the parallels between the conversations of Jesus with Nicodemus and Pilate (see Kierspel 2006, 92–93). 202 In general the use in John 1–4 is still consistently neutral (1.19; 2.6, 13, 18, 20; 3.1, 25) or even positive (4.9, 22), and it is only with John 5 (cf. 5.10, 16, 18) that it starts to become polemical-negative.

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This phenomenon lets one suspect that to a great extent the use of these two terms is also determined dramaturgically and aimed communicatively at the Johannine readers. For this reason one cannot infer from the parallelism of the use of κόσμος and Ἰουδαῖοι that ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John are merely a cipher for the ‘unbelieving world’203 or, conversely, that the ‘Johannine’ world, i.e., the environment of the Johannine community, was composed entirely or predominantly of Jews.204 The Johannine text is not simply a ‘mirror’ of its immediate time and environment.205 Rather, it is a complex fictional construction in which elements of the history of the earthly Jesus, of the older history of the early Christian and Johannine community, and of the situation of the evangelist and his addressees have fused into a multilayered whole,206 so that a simple inference from the Johannine narrative to the real world of the first readers is not appropriate. Attempts to infer a chronological succession of the Johannine community’s conflicts with Jewish and Gentile unbelief from the narrative sequence of the conflict of Jesus with ‘the Jews’ (John 5–12) and of the community of disciples with ‘the world’ (John 13–17)207 does not do justice to the dramaturgical configuration of the Gospel. If it is correct that the situation of the community of addressees can be recognized most clearly from the Johannine Farewell Discourses, then the Johannine community sees itself confronted with the opposition of a ‘world,’ which here is precisely not characterized any longer as predominantly, let alone exclusively, Jewish—as was previously the case in the account of the public activity of Jesus (John 1.19–12.36)—but rather appears in greater generality as κόσμος. A significant number of other indications also support the view that the environment of the Johannine community was at least already mixed, i.e., composed of Jewish and pagan opponents, just as Jewish and Gentile Christians must be assumed in the Johannine communities.208 The talk of the κόσμος, which dominates in the Farewell Discourses and in the Prologue as well as in 1 John, linguistically takes up the rejection of the Johannine proclamation by different circles on

203 Thus the position in Bultmann 1971, 86 (GV = 1986, 59); a similar position is found in Grässer 1973. 204 Thus, influentially, Martyn 1979; as well as Wengst 1992. On both models, see section 3.1 of chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a, 39–41; 2013a, 354–59). 205 Cf. Onuki 1982 (= 2004, 152–85); 1984, 10–11 with note 47. 206 Cf. the fundamental study of Trilling 1998. 207 Thus, especially, Brown 1979, 63. For criticism, see section 3.1 of chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a, 39–41; 2013a, 354–59). 208 On this, see in detail Frey 1994a (= 2013a, 297–338).

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the more fundamental level of meaning.209 However, the talk of the κόσμος would be inadequately understood if one wanted to understand it only as a ‘generalizing’ form of the description of the extralinguistic reality at the time of Jesus or of the Johannine community. Rather, the talk of the ‘world’—in the same way as the presentation of ‘the Jews’—is meant to mediate to the Johannine addressees themselves a new understanding of their life world, their place within it, and their sending.210 This occurs—in accordance with the dramaturgy of the Gospel—in the linear pass through the text in which the image of the ‘world’ is built up in a very multifaceted way. Thus, what matters is that one perceives the different nuances of the talk of the κόσμος. The first mention of the κόσμος occurs in the Prologue (1.9-10) and, thus, in the context of the reinterpretation of the work of creation. Here the term occurs four times in a few lines, i.e., in a conspicuously concentrated way.211 In this usage, as in an anticipated ‘summary’ of the Johannine narrative, the ‘world’ is brought to expression as divine creation that came into existence through the Logos and at the same time as the goal of the sending (1.9c) or the place of the revelation of the Logos (1.10b), before in the concluding statement, which is set off adversatively, the negative aspect is thematized: “the world did not know him.” Verse 11, which follows, describes an analogous movement with other terms. This suggests the hypothesis that the ἴδιοι, who are now mentioned, are meant to designate the ‘people of his possession,’ Israel, so that the rejection by the Ἰουδαῖοι thematized later in the Gospel would be intimated in this verse. If this is the case, then the revelation that is dramatically presented later and its rejection by ‘the Jews’ and by ‘the world’ is already mentioned here in John 1.10-11. The Prologue anticipates in two concise verses what is then expansively developed discursively in various sections (chapters 5–12 and 13–17) of the Gospel. In the further course of the Gospel, positive statements about the world initially predominate. The κόσμος appears as object of the salvific affection of God: the ‘sin of the world’ is carried away by the ‘lamb of God’ (1.29); the world is the object of the love of God, which grounds the sending and handing over of the Son. The goal of the sending of Jesus is the saving of ‘the world’ (3.17), and, at the end of the pericope of the Samaritan woman, Jesus is even explicitly identified as ‘savior of the world’ (4.42). The world is meant to receive the gift of life (6.33); indeed through Jesus’ ‘flesh,’ 209 210

Thus Onuki 1984, 110. On this, see the fundamental study of Onuki 1984, passim. See also section 3.3

211

In this there is a parallel to the heaped use of the talk of the light in the Prologue.

below.

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i.e., through his vicarious or salvific death (6.51), this life is to be given to the world. Finally, Jesus is explicitly presented as ‘the light of the world’ (8.12; 9.5), as the one who has come as light into the world, so that those who believe may not remain in darkness (12.46). However, with this last great light-statement, the problem of the reaction of the human world to the sending of Jesus simultaneously comes into play. And the statements about the κόσμος actually already become successively darker in the course of the conflict between Jesus and his Jewish contemporaries, as it is presented in John 5–12. The talk of κόσμος already has a more strongly negative undertone when the evangelist speaks emphatically of ‘this world’ (8.23; 9.39; 12.25; cf. 11.9)212 and when in this way the distance between Jesus and the humans who exist from ‘this world’ is established (8.23; 9.39). While the goal of the ‘salvation’ of the world is still expressed at the end of John 12 (12.47; cf. 3.17), the κόσμοςconcept has nevertheless also—in parallel to the conflict with the ‘Jews’— become ambivalent, especially insofar as there has already been talk of the negative reaction ‘of the humans’ (3.19) to the light previously, and this subject matter is now called to mind again at the end of the public activity of Jesus and connected with the theme of judgment. The talk of the κόσμος is clearly connoted negatively when there is talk in John 12.31 of judgment that is ‘now’—i.e., in the ‘hour of Jesus’ that has just been announced—being passed on ‘the world’ and of the casting out of the ‘ruler of this world’ (12.31; cf. 14.30; 16.11). ‘The world’ then appears in opposition to the community in the Farewell Discourses, when it is said that it—in contrast to the disciples—cannot receive and cannot know the Spirit (14.19) and that it—in contrast to the disciples—is not (or no longer) meant to be the recipient of the self-revelation of Jesus (14.22). The community of disciples’ ‘distance from the world,’ which is clearly expressed here, is then increased further in John 15.18ff., when it is explicitly emphasized that the disciples are ‘not-of-this-world’ (15.19) and when, with the greatest intensification, there is talk of the hatred of ‘the world’ for believers, which corresponds to its hatred for Jesus himself (15.18). In this context the significant term ἀποσυναγωγός (16.2) also occurs again, which allows one to infer the opposition of Jewish circles. Since, however, this is the only such reference within the whole of the Farewell Discourses,213 one is compelled to conclude that this aspect is 212

At least John 12.25 shows that the antithesis of this age and a coming age lies behind this formulation. Here Johannine thought takes over an opposition that is already attested in the older Jesus tradition (cf. the parallels in Matt 10.39; Mark 8.35; 16.25; Luke 9.24; 17.33). 213 The backward-pointing mention of the ‘Jews’ in John 13.33 can be ignored here.

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at least not paramount for the opposition to the ‘world’ thematized here. Finally, John 16.20 contrasts the joy of ‘the world’ with the grief or tribulation (16.33; cf. 16.6) of the disciples ‘in the world.’ To this one can add the concluding proclamation of the ‘victory’ of Jesus over ‘the world’ (16.33), which is comforting for the disciples, as well as the talk of the activity of the Spirit-Paraclete, who judicially demonstrates the sin of the world that persists in unbelief (16.8-9) and thus supports the community. In the so-called high priestly prayer, where the term occurs thirteen times, Jesus does not pray for the world (17.9). According to his own words, he is already ‘no longer in the world’ (17.11; cf. 17.12) in which the disciples live and—as already stated previously—experience hate and opposition (17.14). But they too are not ‘of the world’ (17.16; cf. 15.19), although they do live in the world, indeed are sent into the world (17.18), and Jesus’ petition aims at their preservation from ‘the evil one’ (17.15)— who is evidently connected with the world here (cf. 1 John 5.18-19). At the end of Jesus’ prayer, another perspective—which is indeed significant compositionally—is opened up, however: the unity of the disciples, for which Jesus prays, is to lead to the goal “that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them [i.e., the disciples], as you loved me” (17.23). Using πιστεύειν, John 17.21 states analogously “that the world may believe that you sent me.” In a corresponding way, the first Farewell Discourse already ends with a positive statement about the κόσμος. Jesus’ encounter with the ‘ruler of this world,’ the devil, who has no power over him, i.e., the events of Jesus’ passion and Easter, are to lead to knowledge on the side of the world: “that the world may know that I love the Father and thus act as the Father has commanded me” (14.31b). These statements—especially in light of their placement—must be perceived in their material weight. The supposedly closed opposition between Jesus and the disciples, on the one side, and the world, on the other side, is opened up through this.214 To be sure, there is no explicit talk of a conversion of the world: a universal nullification of humans’ unbelief and closedness to salvation is not held in prospect. At the same time, the κόσμος is not denied a capacity for getting insight, and here the content of the knowledge can certainly not be just the realization of one’s own state of being lost or under judgment. Rather, the love of Jesus for the Father, his unity of action with the Father, and the love of the Father for Jesus and the disciples is specified as the content of what is known. Thus, these statements—which are positioned in a compositionally weighty manner at the end of the first Farewell Discourse and of the Farewell Discourses as a whole—speak of a knowledge of the world, which is meant to be effected 214

On these statements, see Popkes 2005a, 346–49.

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through the disciples’ witness of love, through their unity, and through their orientation to the standard of Jesus. If this knowledge is to be ignited by the inner-community love (cf. 13.35; 17.23), then this means that the boundary between community and world is not, after all, immovably fixed. Rather, the Gospel reckons with its displacement, with a dynamic of knowledge that is mediated, indeed of salvation that is mediated. Thus, a dualism of community and world that is fixed or rigidly established in perpetuity cannot be recognized in the whole of the Johannine Farewell Discourses—at least if one takes them seriously in their compositional final form and does not break them to pieces through questionable sourcecritical operations. The motif that must be regarded as the decisive relativization of the dualistic statements of the Gospel of John comes especially into view from the perspective of the end of John 17—the motif of love. While this love is pretemporally aimed at the Son, in his sending it also embraces the disciples and their community and simultaneously aims at the κόσμος,215 as the programmatic formulation of John 3.16 had already stated about the love of God for the world. Attempts have often been made to restrict the material weight of the talk of the love of God for the world by regarding this as primitive Christian tradition that has merely been dragged along, as materially irrelevant,216 or as a statement that is meant only improperly within the framework of a materially determinative predestinarian dualism.217 Neither interpretation 215

“As the disciples recognized the love of the Father for them and the world in the sending and giving of Jesus, so ‘all people’ or ‘the world’ are to attain to the saving knowledge of Jesus’s sending and authority through the loving unity of the community” (Popkes 2005a, 354). 216 Thus, e.g., Käsemann 1980, 124–25 (ET = 1968, 59–60), who points out that this statement is not repeated in the Gospel. Rather it is said to be specified by 13.1 in the sense of the love of Jesus for his own. Even if it is correct that the Johannine sending formula was traditional in the Johannine circle, precisely the talk of the love of God is nevertheless a distinctive feature here, as well as in 1 John. It is true that the love of God for the world is not repeated, but—and Käsemann has overlooked this in his interpretation—it is materially taken up and continued in the other positive statements about the knowledge of the world etc. (17.21, 23). 217 According to Lattke 1975, 12, the statement falls “materially out of the framework,” so that it cannot be significant for the interpretation. A learned reinterpretation is made by Hofius 1996c, 66. He assumes that the evangelist uses the talk of κόσμος consistently as a qualitative statement in the sense of humanity hostile to God and never quantitatively in the sense of the entire world of humans. “If he [the evangelist] makes a positive statement about the world, then the elect are meant, who are no less ungodly and lost in themselves than the non-elect. That is to say, in these cases the Fourth Evangelist speaks synecdocally—specifically in the sense of a ‘totum pro parte’ metonymy—of the ‘world.’ Although the phrasing of John 3.16 unquestionably sounds universalistic, the

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is convincing. The statement about God’s love for the κόσμος is not only introduced at an extremely prominent point in the Gospel, in the first ‘revelatory discourse’ of the Johannine Jesus; it is also sounded at the compositional high point of this discourse section,218 and it contains specifically Johannine further developments of traditional early Christian statements. This means that the statement of the love of God for the κόσμος must not be underestimated also in its material weightiness. As much as the structure of the sending statement of John 3.17a (cf.1 John 4.9-10) and the giving statement of John 3.16aβ, which includes the death of Jesus, points back to pre-Pauline or Pauline traditions (cf. Rom 8.32), precisely the statement of the love of God that motivates this sending in John 3.16aα appears to be a specifically Johannine development of the sending formula. While there was already talk of the love of God with reference to Jesus’ death “for us” in Paul (Rom 5.8), this motif appears to be introduced in the Johannine line of tradition in such a way that “the sending of the Son is understood as a carrying out of the love of God.”219 In a modification of the linking of the talk of the love of God with the sending of Jesus,220 which was presumably already common in the Johannine circle (1 John 4.9, 10), the statement in John 3.16 relates this motif even more precisely to the giving of the Son by God,221 i.e., to the death of Jesus, to which already the prefixed statement in John 3.14 very clearly refers with the help of the typologically used image of the ‘bronze serpent’ and which is thus also the horizon of the ἔδωκεν in 3.16.222 Finally, another, very conspicuous step beyond the streams of tradition that are demonstrably older is the statement about the love of God for the statement is nevertheless not a universalistic statement (God has loved all people without exception) but rather a statement that focuses on the quality of the redeemed.” Nothing justifies the assumption that that a ‘totum pro parte’ metonymy is present in the Johannine text. Rather, this explanation smooths over the tensions in the Johannine text, while the text itself, despite the philological effort that is carried out, is not taken seriously but rather eliminated for dogmatic reasons with the help of a learned but unfounded explanation. 218 In John 3.11-14 the reader is led through the key word connections and linked parallelisms “as to a plateau” (Rebell 1987, 144), which is reached with vv. 14-15. To the prefiguration of the crucifixion of Jesus as exaltation, which is presented there with recourse to Scripture, is attached as justification the following statement about the giving (over) of Jesus by God in v. 16. For the structure, see also Frey 1994b, 180–81 (= 2013a, 118–20). 219 Thus Weder 1992a, 445. 220 On this, see Frey 2000b, 287. 221 This motif of love is also joined with the motif of the self-giving of Jesus in 1 John 3.16. 222 Here the giving over formula found in Rom 8.32 stands in the background. A distinctive feature of John’s use of language is the extensive avoidance of composite verbs. Therefore, it is not surprising that we find only ἕδωκεν here and not παρέδωκεν as in Paul. Thus, rightly, Hofius 1996c, 65; Schnelle 2016, 108; cf. also Frey 2000b, 287–88.

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world in John 3.16aα. This statement also goes beyond 1 John 4.9-10.223 One can scarcely remain satisfied with the notion that the talk of κόσμος is only taken over in an unconsidered way from the presumably traditional statements about Jesus’ sending into the world (1 John 4.9; John 3.17; etc.). Rather, in light of the central position of the statement and the considered composition of the section, one must conclude that the author very consciously formulated this first love-statement in his Gospel with reference to the cosmos and thus with a universal scope. Thus, the statement of God’s love for the world must be regarded as a “fundamental statement of the Gospel of John.”224 This statement is also not unprepared for in terms of tradition history.225 In the Old Testament there is talk of the unconditional love of God in a fundamental way within the framework of the talk of the election of Israel (Deut 7.6-8; cf. Jer 31.3b [LXX 38.3b]). In early Judaism we find, alongside decidedly particularlistic understandings of the statement of love (e.g., in 1QS I 3–4.9–10, etc.), also the statement that God loves all things that exist or that he has made (Wis 11.24-25).226 The Johannine statement can be understood as a continuation and specific intensification of this line of tradition. To be sure, in the Johannine context, the concern is not with God’s general stance toward the world but with the historical demonstration of the loving care of God for the world of humans that took place in the sending and giving of the Son and, conversely, with the ultimate anchoring of salvation in God’s loving will toward the κόσμος, in which the sending of the Son into the κόσμος and the handing (over) of him unto crucifixion is grounded. This is the determinative framework for the subsequent statements about the judgment that takes place in the sending of Jesus and in the negative reaction of the human world. Thus, the statements about the κρίσις must be read on the basis of the soteriological statements of John 3.14-15 and 3.16. This conspicuous preponderance of the divine saving action finds expression again right after this, when John 3.17 decidedly rejects that negative intention of the sending of Jesus. In the Johannine view, the coming of the light into the world occurs precisely not for the purpose of making a separation within humanity and judicially condemning a portion of it; rather, it is “aimed in an entirely undialectical and unambiguous way at 223

To be sure, 1 John 4.14 makes clear that the κόσμος is also an object of God’s love in 1 John. Thus, rightly, Schnelle 2016, 110 n. 113. 224 Thus, rightly, Popkes 2005a, 239. 225 On this, cf. Popkes 2005a, 242–45. 226 In the immediate context of this statement, there is even talk in Wis 11.22 of the κόσμος as a corresponding term to τὰ ὄντα πάντα (11.25a); cf. Popkes 2005a, 244–45.

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the salvation of the world”227—even if the division of believers and nonbelievers and the experience of the opposition to the ‘world’ was indeed recognizable for the Johannine community as a consequence of the activity of Jesus and the Christian proclamation and was probably a source of trials and tribulation.228 However, in response to the possibility that Jesus’ sending could have an at least ambivalent background, its exclusively salvific purpose is emphatically stressed. From start to finish, Jesus’ way and work are placed under the goal of the σωτηρία. This “preponderance of the divine salvific will,”229 which is expressed with emphasis in John 3.16ff., is confirmed in further positive statements about the κόσμος. Here one must mention first the predication of Jesus as “savior of the world” (4.42) and “light of the world” (8.12; 9.4) as well as the talk of his giving of his life “for the life of the world” (6.51). The universality of the Johannine soteriology finds expression again even at the end of the public activity of Jesus, when in John 12.19 the pharisaic opponents of Jesus say, “the world is running after him” (ὁ κόσμος ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ ἀπῆλθεν), and right after this the “Greeks” come in order to see Jesus (12.20). Even though this does not appear to be possible at this time (i.e., before Easter), we nevertheless find Jesus’ programmatic claim “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people (πάντες) to myself” (12.32) in the ‘speech to the Greeks.’230 The fundamental universal orientation of the Johannine soteriology finds expression in all of these statements. This insight cannot be reversed, not even through the statements about the judgment and about the opposition between ‘community’ and ‘world.’ To be sure, open questions remain in the Johannine conception with respect to the relationship between the universal salvific will of God stated at the outset and the closedness to salvation of a considerable portion of humanity that exists de facto. The tensions that exist here cannot be removed by means of source criticism. They also cannot be resolved logically, unless one is willing to violently unify the disparate textual statements by means of the imposition of an external scheme.231

227

Thus K. Barth 1976, 222. The fact that the exclusively salvific purpose of the sending of Jesus must be explicitly stressed (cf. 12.47) probably signals that a problem within the Johannine community may have been present here. 229 Thus the term coined by Blank 1964, 88. Cf. also Schnelle 2016, 110. 230 On this nexus, see Frey 1994a (= 2013a, 297–338). 231 Cf. also the excursus in Schnelle 2016, 172–76; which rightly quotes Bergmeier 1980, 231: “The evangelist thinks in a predestinarian manner but does not develop a doctrine of predestination that satisfies the laws of logic” (Schnelle 2016, 173 n. 62). 228

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The most besetting of these questions—presumably also for the Johannine proclaimers—is: Why, in light of the divine will of love, indeed in light of the loving act of the giving of the Son unto death or Jesus’ dying ‘for’ the life of the world, does the ‘world’ oppose, indeed hate, the community and its proclamation? Must not either God’s love or God’s power become doubtful here, so that a love that would have been meant from the beginning only for some elect people, in a particularistic way, can be intended232 or the deciding ‘power’ over the participation in eschatological salvation must be assigned to the ‘decision’ of humans?233 The difficult problems bound up with this cannot be discussed in detail here. However, in my view, the position that was advocated in a comparable way by Rudolf Bultmann and some of his students as well as by Joseph Blank, Rudolf Schnackenburg, and many other Roman Catholic interpreters hardly does justice to essential characteristics of Johannine thought. In both interpretations, in conspicuous harmony, a key role is assigned to human decision making. This is the case in the existentialist soteriology of Bultmann, according to which a “dualism of decision”234 is present in the Fourth Gospel, as well as in the view of Blank, who, while regarding the talk of ‘dualism’ as inadequate for John,235 nevertheless thinks that the Christ event places humans “before the decision between believing and not believing,”236 so that while faith is not a human possibility, unbelief is nevertheless the definitive “self-exclusion”237 from salvation, the “self-judgment.”238 According to Bultmann’s interpretation, “by sending his Son into the world God put the world, so to speak, in the balance (in suspenso),”239 so that the human being is thereby put in position to answer the question of “whether he chooses to remain in darkness, in death.”240 Thus, faith, just like unbelief, is the “answer to the question of the divine 232

Thus the resolution of the aporias in Hofius 1996c, 66. Thus, e.g., Schnackenburg 1986, 427: “It depends on the human being whether and how long he stays in the sphere of death . . .” 234 Bultmann 2007, § 42:21 (GV = 1984, 373). Cf. also Bauckham 2015, 114: “There is much to appreciate in this interpretation of Johannine theology. In particular, in my view, Bultmann’s account of the ‘dualism of decision’ is an indispensable insight into the way Johannine dualism functions.” Interestingly, the views of Bultmann, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical authors are quite similar at this point but differ from the theological insights of the Reformers (Luther and also Calvin), who might have taken some passages in (Paul and) John more seriously than many of their modern followers. 235 Blank 1964, 342. 236 Blank 1964, 93. 237 Blank 1964, 99. 238 Schnackenburg 1986, 427. 239 Bultmann 2007, §43:25 (GV = 1984, 377). 240 Bultmann 2007, §43:25 (GV = 1984, 377). 233

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love,”241 and, according to Bultmann, in light of the revelation “everyone has the possibility of letting himself be drawn by the Father.”242 However, here too logical aporias remain: for if with the coming of the light or of the revealer ‘judgment’ takes place at the same time,243 then the purely positive purpose of this coming, as it is expressed in John 3.17 and 12.47, can hardly be upheld.244 And when the—positive or negative—answer of the human being to the Christ event or to the proclamation is ultimately assigned salvation-deciding weight as a responsible act, then this clearly falls short of what is said in the Fourth Gospel. In the Johannine perspective, the salvation effected in Christ certainly does not consist only in the fact that the human is liberated and empowered to a ‘decision’ that must be made by him- or herself. The human being does not only come to a soteriologically ‘neutral’ situation, in which she could then decide freely herself; rather, going much further she comes from darkness into light, from slavery into freedom, and from death into life. And despite the appellative structure of many Johannine sayings of Jesus, which summon to belief (e.g., 10.37-38; 12.36; 14.1, 11), not least the invitations of the metaphorically predicated I-am sayings,245 it can scarcely be missed that the divine activity, the drawing and giving of the Father, is consistently regarded as the ultimate cause of belief in the Fourth Gospel (6.37, 44; cf. 10.29; 19.2, 6, 9; etc.). In John, salvation can only be thought of as “a radical miracle of new creation”246 and is entirely underivable from the human side. The ‘other side’ of this radical presentation of the grace character of the divine salvific action is that, also the other way around, the unbelief of Jesus’ contemporaries can be explained not solely with reference to their moral quality (3.20-21)247 or their fear 241

Bultmann 1971, 156 (GV = 1986, 113). Bultmann 2007, §43:23 (GV = 1984, 375). 243 Thus, Bultmann 1971, 155 (GV = 1986, 111–12) with reference to John 3.18: “Thus the judgment is not a specially contrived sequel to the coming and the departure of the Son. . . . Rather the mission of the Son, complete as it is in his descent and exaltation, is the judgment.” 244 The question of how these statements are to be connected with the judgment saying of John 9.39 remains difficult to determine. Nevertheless, one is not permitted to assume a predominance of the judging intention of the coming of Jesus. The positive retains the greater weight. 245 Bultmann 2007, § 43:21–23 (GV = 1984, 374–75); and Schnackenburg 1972, 330– 31, refer to this. On this, however, see note 173 above. 246 Thus, Hegermann 1970, 128. 247 Over against the moral interpretation of John 3.20-21, as one encounters it in very different ways, e.g., in Schnackenburg 1986, 429–30; and Haenchen 1984, 228 (GV = 1980, 228); as well as in the highly problematic interpretation of Röhser 1994, 204–7, one must insist that such an interpretation of the double saying does not do justice to its present linguistic form and contextual embedding. On this, see Frey 2000b, 298–300. 242

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of humans (12.42-43) but, in the last instance, solely with reference to a hardening or blinding effected by God (12.40; cf. Isa 6.9-10). In the Johannine view this divine activity in a negative or positive respect (as drawing or ‘blinding’), which is incomprehensible from the human side, is prior to every human ‘answer’ and must therefore be regarded as its actual basis. Accordingly, in Johannine thought one cannot speak of a real self-decision of the human person for faith or for unbelief.248 The predestinarian characteristics undoubtedly receive the more important role here. To be sure, these predestinarian characteristics are not consistently carried out in several respects. Thus, the Gospel remains far behind all later conceptions of a ‘doctrine’ of predestination—from Augustine via Luther and Calvin through to their present-day successors. Despite his conviction that salvation is not at our disposal and that God (or Christ or the Spirit) is the sole subject of the mediation of salvation, the evangelist explicitly maintains that the contemporaries of Jesus ‘actually’ should have believed in light of the signs performed by him (12.37-38) and that their unbelief—although it is effected by God himself—is by no means a mere fate but is really sin. The tension that exists here, at least for a modern understanding of moral responsibility, is not reflected on further in the Johannine theology. The predestinarian characteristics of Johannine thought are also not consistently thought through in such a way that the eschatological fate of the individual would already be decided prior to the world and its history. Rather, Johannine theology differs significantly from such a deterministic view, which is attested both in Qumran and in later gnostic traditions, in the fact that a strict temporal prae is nowhere expressed.249 The talk of “being out of” (8.23 and elsewhere) and the statement about the “dispersed children of God” (11.52) also do not permit the conclusion that the eschatological decision was already fixed before the creational existence of humans or before their encounter with Jesus Christ or the proclamation.250 Rather, the cause of the salvific turning of humans to Jesus appears to be regarded as a present ‘drawing’ of the Father (cf. 6.44), which occurs 248

Schnackenburg 1972, 328, also rightly opposes the attempt to relativize the weight of the predestinarian statements. To be sure, his interpretation is not always immune to this danger. 249 Interestingly, such a prae is only expressed for the divine love for the Son (17.5, 24; cf. 1.1-2). In the framework of the Prologue, the interest is only in the fellowship of Father and Son. In this respect the Gospel of John differs, e.g., from the statement in Eph 1.4. 250 Such an interpretation can only be carried out when one postulates a specific history-of-religion background, which then allows one to conjecture the lacking textual evidence. Cf., e.g., Trumbower 1992; or, alternatively, Stimpfle 1990.

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in each case in the encounter with his person or with the proclamation, and the ‘quality’ of the addressees of the proclamation proves itself in the act of their hearing or not-hearing. What is uncontroversial, however, is the fact that faith and thus salvation are exclusively attributed to the activity of God and thus appear as a divine miracle. What appears to have been especially ‘in need of explanation’ in the Johannine circle, however, is the phenomenon of unbelief.251 This is understandable insofar as for those who saw Jesus’ signs (in the right way) and heard his words (in a believing way), faith is, after all, the only appropriate reaction to the encounter with the revelation, whereas unbelief appears more difficult to comprehend. Accordingly, in John 12.37-38, stress is placed in a conspicuous way on the incomprehensible character of the unbelief of the contemporaries of Jesus, who did not believe despite the many signs of Jesus. This stance of ‘the Jews’ or of ‘the world,’ which apparently could be comprehended only with difficulty (and perhaps caused serious distress), is ultimately attributed to divine action, in this case to God’s biblically attested action of hardening (Isa 6.9-10). This is certainly the most far-reaching ‘explanation’ of unbelief, which is also predominant vis-à-vis other explanatory motifs (cf. 3.20-21; 12.42-43). What is conspicuous, however, is the fact that the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ sides of the event of salvation are not ‘equally weighted’ in John but rather are worked out in a conspicuously asymmetrical way. They display a perspectival character, from which their specific aim, and probably also their logical incongruities, are to be explained. If in the background of the proclamation of the Gospel—insofar as this is recognizable in the Farewell Discourses—there stands a troubled and afflicted community of addressees, then the statements of the Johannine text have a ‘paracletic’ intention. They seek to reassure the addressees of their salvation and to clarify for them—against all negative experiences—that Jesus has conquered the ‘world’ (16.33) and that faith in him is thus definitively in the right, whereas unbelief is in the wrong (16.8-11). In this ‘pastoral’ aim, the fact that having a share in salvation is not at one’s disposal and is wholly dependent upon grace is stressed, and at the same time the enduring fellowship with the Father and the Son is promised to those who believe. In comparison with this ‘positive’ intention, those statements that are concerned with the explanation of unbelief recede both quantitatively and materially. In the relevant Johannine statements, we are apparently not dealing with a predestinarian-deterministic ‘worldview’ that was pre-Johannine in terms of the history of religion and could perhaps be derived from a 251

Cf. Schnelle 2016, 271–72.

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specific form of a (Qumranic or gnostic) dualism. Still less is the concern in the Johannine texts with the mediation of a ‘doctrine of predestination’ or with an atemporal theory, as it was read out of the biblical texts later in the history of Christian theology. Rather, the Johannine texts contain an attempt to understand from the perspective of faith the historical-concrete experience that there is unbelief and with it hostility toward believers from the ‘world.’252 They thus offer a post hoc attempt to explain unbelief, which leaves many questions unanswered and—as the Johannine texts themselves show—also cannot cogently explain a series of phenomena.253 As a message for the Johannine readers, these texts are spoken into a concrete situation. They appear contradictorily aporetic, however, when one reads them as an expression of a theological truth abstracted from their situation and thus isolates them from their paracletic and paraenetic contexts. Only if one proceeds in this way—for history-of-religion or dogmatic reasons— can one regard the programmatic kerygma of John 3.16, in which the sending and giving of the Son by the Father is ultimately traced back to the love of God, as insignificant or as not meant to be taken seriously from the start. Despite the afflicting unbelief that de facto exists and despite the reality of judgment, which is upheld in the Fourth Gospel, and the eschatological rejection, the statement about God’s love for the world pronounced in John 3.16 remains the programmatic framework of the Johannine proclamation. If one perceives the networking and inner cohesion of the love statements that concern different relationships in the Fourth Gospel, then the “dramaturgical Christology of the love of God”254 becomes recognizable, which reaches from John 3.16 through to the last love statement in the eschatological concluding petition of John 17.24-26. It proceeds from the pretemporal love of the Father for the Son and is aimed at having this love find a dwelling place in the community of the believers (14.23) and at having the κόσμος—through the loving unity of the believers, which has its standard in Jesus’ work of love (cf. 13.34-35)—attain to the knowledge 252

Cf. Schnelle 2016, 173–74. This is most clear with respect to the phenomena of the secession of individual former community members experienced in the Johannine circle (1 John 2.18), which in light of the predestinarian thought of the Johannine theology can only be explained in such a way that the people in question never really belonged to the community (1 John 2.19) because it stands firm for this way of thinking that believers remain and those who do not remain never really believed. This matter was probably presented very differently by the Johannine secessionists. Johannine thought is apparently not able to deal with the phenomenon of ‘falling away’ or theologically grounded separation. The same model of explanation also appears in the Gospel, in John 6.60-65, which is presumably already a reflex of the process in the Johannine addressee communities that has been brought into the narrative presentation (on this, see Frey 2000b, 58–59). 254 Thus the fitting formulation in Popkes 2005a, 335 and elsewhere. 253

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of the claim of Jesus’ sending and of the mutual love of the Father, Son, and believers (17.23). In the parallel petition of John 17.21, there is even talk of the κόσμος “believing.” In the context of John 17.21, this surely speaks to an eschatological perspective of hope, which can never be fully caught up with, not even by the sending of the community and its proclamation. Nevertheless, only at the cost of doing violence to the text would it be possible to understand it in a nonuniversal way. When one takes into account the Johannine talk of the love of God and the revelatory dynamic grounded in it, it no longer appears appropriate to speak of a dualism that underlies the Fourth Gospel. Just as other dualistic linguistic elements, the talk of the ‘world’ also appears to be opened up soteriologically. In the Fourth Gospel, the κόσμος is by no means exclusively negative, characterized by its unbelief or by its opposition to Jesus or to the community of disciples; rather, it is placed within a positive perspective through emphasized universal statements at the beginning and the end. The world of humanity is the object of the pretemporal love of God and is intended, through the sending of the Son and the mutual love of the disciples, to recognize this love and to believe. At the same time, through its dramaturgical presentation the Fourth Gospel portrays the ‘attractiveness’ of this love and thus functions itself as the medium through which the love of God is now mediated to the readers and is effectively proclaimed to them—as the grounding of their own existence. The Johannine readers are meant to know that “the universal salvific will of God has not been shipwrecked by the rejection of the world”255 but continues to assert itself through the sending of the community of disciples and through their continued proclamation. In the talk of the world’s hatred for the disciples as for Jesus himself and of the world-conquering deed of Jesus (16.33) or of the judgment of the ‘ruler of this world’ that has already been made (12.31; 16.11) as well as in the front-placed statement in the Prologue about the light that could not be overcome by the darkness (1.5), this basic soteriological position proves itself in the light of the troubling experiences of unbelief and hostility, which the Johannine community apparently faces. 3.3 The Trials of the Community and Their ‘Processing’: On the Text-Pragmatic Function of the Dualistic Linguistic Forms This raises the question of the function of the dualistic motifs, which we already touched upon in the discussion of the predestinarian characteristics of Johannine thought. Why does the Gospel of John use dualistic linguistic forms, although it is not determined by a unified dualistic ‘worldview’ that 255

Popkes 2005a, 351.

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would be pre-given in terms of the history of religion, and what function do these linguistic forms have in the framework of the Gospel as we have it? What is the purpose of the dramaturgical shaping of the Gospel, and what is the aim of the revelatory dynamic in the light–darkness statements and the talk of the cosmos or of ‘the Jews’ with regard to the intended readers of the Gospel? Text-pragmatic approaches have proven fruitful for answering such questions. In this way one avoids the inadequacies that would result if one simply made an inference about the ‘worldview’ of the evangelist or of a redactor from the statements of the Johannine text. Such an inference is possible only to a very limited extent because linguistic statements, also in narrative texts such as a gospel, always occur with a concrete reference to an addressee and with a specific communicative intention. They do not simply represent the thoughts of the author, nor are they a mere representation of an extralinguistic reality.256 Rather, from diverse elements a new text-world is constructed in them, which is mediated to the readers through the reading of the text and which leads them—if they ‘wander through’ it—to a new understanding of their own world and their own situation and, in certain cases, guides and motivates them to a new behavior. These insights go back to impulses of text linguistics and reception aesthetics as well as to the sociology of knowledge and of literature, which cannot be developed in detail here.257 The necessity of the pragmatic line of questioning arises especially from the dramaturgical configuration of the Johannine narrative, which we were able to demonstrate clearly with reference to the use of the light– darkness statements and of the statements about ‘the Jews’ and ‘the world.’ The analysis of the use of these motifs has demonstrated that these formulations are not merely a mirror of the more or less dualistic worldview of its author, let alone a mere reflection of a certain religious milieu or influence. Rather, the dualistic linguistic forms of the Gospel of John must

256

While such a direct inference, both about the thought or theology of the author and about the direct circumstances or situation of the community at the time of composition, is widely practiced in John scholarship, such an approach leaves the literary character of the text unconsidered in a hermeneutically naïve manner. “In the extreme case, here every single statement on the textual surface is directly distributed to individual facts behind the text on a one to one basis. In this way the text is, so to speak, ‘allegorized.’ In doing so one simultaneously overlooks the fact that literary texts . . . are not a direct copy of objective states of affairs; rather, they claim for themselves a reality of their own that transcends the independent reality of being” (Onuki 1982, 160). 257 On reception aesthetics, see Frey 1992. For reflections on sociological approaches, see Frey 1997b, 331ff.

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be understood within the framework of the whole text and its impact upon the readers (which is rooted in the text and which must be drawn out of it). These questions regarding the pragmatic function of the Gospel of John as a whole and of its dualistic linguistic forms in particular were first raised in an exemplarily methodologically considered manner by Takashi Onuki.258 His insights, which were obtained on the basis of an analysis of the first Farewell Discourse of John 13.31–14.31, were taken up and largely confirmed by Roman Kühschelm with reference to the example of the concluding reflection of the public activity of Jesus in John 12.35-50.259 Both text segments can be regarded as suitable paradigms for specifying the function and intention of the Johannine text as a whole. The observations obtained here can also be confirmed with reference to the second Farewell Discourse and the high priestly prayer as well as the Easter narratives in John 20.260 The framework established thereby simultaneously shows itself to be fruitful for the interpretation of other theological themes in the Gospel, such as the interpretation of the death of Jesus and the topics of Christology and eschatology.261 The presuppositions and results of these analyses can be sketched only briefly here. The line of questioning is initially a decidedly historical one: Onuki’s concern is with the problem of ‘community and world’ “with reference to the historical-empirical tradents of the Johannine theology,”262 i.e., the Johannine community (or communities) community of addressees, and with the “repercussion on the conduct of life and selfshaping of the Johannine community in the midst of the world, . . . stated more concretely, . . . the pragmatic function of the Johannine text: to what sort of world-behavior does this text press the Johannine community, i.e., its community of readers?”263 Or expressed from the standpoint of the Johannine author: “What sort of world-behavior does the author seek to engender practically beyond the text in his reading community through the 258

Onuki 1984, passim; 1982. Onuki 1984, 10–11, recognizes the work of Meeks 1972 as a forerunner of his methodology, though without accepting Meeks’ conclusions. For the text-pragmatic analysis of the first Farewell Discourse, see Onuki 1984, 99–101. 259 Kühschelm 1990. 260 See the analyses on John 15–17 in Onuki 1984, 117–82, who, due to the adoption of the thesis that this chapter has the character of a redactional addition, admittedly brings together the results of these analyses only very cautiously with the results on the pragmatic function of the first Farewell Discourse (99ff.), of the Prologue (104ff.), and of the Gospel of John as a whole (109ff.). On the sending of the disciples in John 20.19-23, see idem, 85–91. 261 On eschatology, see Frey 1998, 269–83; 2000b, 480–81. On the interpretation of the death of Jesus, see chapter 5 in this volume (GV = Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). 262 Onuki 1984, 1. 263 Onuki 1984, 9.

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communication?”264 This raises the central questions of Johannine ecclesiology and at the same time fundamental questions of the interpretation of the dualistic motifs. Does the Fourth Gospel with its dualistic linguistic forms lead to a ‘sectarian’ world-behavior, to a seclusion of the community from the world, and do the statements that sound dualistic allow one to infer such a world-relation and a corresponding community situation?265 If a direct inference from the Johannine text to the underlying extratextual situation is impossible for communication-theoretical reasons,266 however, then more complex interpretive procedures must be chosen. Taking up the concept of the ‘fusion of horizons’267 coined by HansGeorg Gadamer, Onuki describes the phenomenon in which the Johannine author interprets the existing tradition of the history of Jesus (which, for its part, has already been mediated through the early Christian community and has incorporated its experiences into it) in relation to the present of his reading community, so that this story becomes transparent for the questions of the readers’ present, while he, conversely, projects the terminology and theology of the readers’ present into the history of Jesus. Thus, in the fusion of the ‘horizons’ of the time of Jesus and of the community of addressees (including its history), something new arises—a new view of reality, which corresponds neither to the extratextual reality of the time of Jesus nor to the extratextual reality of the addressees and which is mediated through the text of the Gospel. With this hermeneutical model, one can interpret in an extremely productive way268 the phenomenon that the Johannine Jesus speaks the language of the Johannine proclamation and that the activity of the earthly one is expressed in the light of the Johannine Christology that emerged only after Easter, so that the earthly one already appears also in the glory of the risen one and of the preexistent one.269

264

Onuki 1984, 9. Meeks made such an inference, according to whom the Gospel legitimated and also strengthened the actual isolation of the Johannine group from the surrounding society. On this, see the critical comments of Onuki 1984, 10–11 with note 47; Frey 1997b, 334–35. 266 The problem can be seen exegetically in the difficulty of specifying the concrete background of the Johannine texts (see section 3.2 above). 267 Cf. Onuki 1984, 34–37; and the fundamental study of Gadamer 1986, 296ff., especially p. 311 (ET = 2004, 291ff., especially p. 305). Prior to Onuki the talk of a ‘fusion of horizons’ already appeared in Hahn 1972 (= 2006). On the phenomenon, see in detail Frey 1998, 247–68. Cf. also chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). 268 For the hermeneutical fruit of the ‘fusion of horizons,’ see Frey 1998, 261–68. 269 In the Gospel of John this phenomenon appears to be explicitly reflected upon under the concept of the ‘remembrance’ effected by the Spirit (2.17, 21-22; 12.16; 14.26; cf. 16.13-15), so that here—more than in the Synoptic Gospels—one must assume a hermeneutically conscious process of the reinterpretation of the story of Jesus. 265

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When this ‘fusion of horizons,’ as Onuki observes, is carried out with special intensity in the Johannine image of the disciples of Jesus and in the image of his opponents, then this results in the fact that, in the reenactment of the story of Jesus through the process of reading, the Johannine addressees—with their own questions and problems—could recognize themselves in the literary image of the disciples and that they could, at the same time, perceive their own contemporaries who were rejecting the proclamation of faith in the portrayal of Jesus’ opponents, of ‘the Jews’ or ‘the world.’ Such reading experiences can no longer be empirically collected of course, but they can nevertheless be drawn out of the texts themselves with good reasons, so that one is given a view of the ‘movement’ of the Johannine reading community within and—with caution—also outside of the text and thus of the pragmatic function of the text itself. If one assumes that the situation of the community of addressees and its open questions is most clearly reflected in the Johannine Farewell Discourses, in the medium of the ‘last words’ of Jesus to his disciples,270 then the situation of this community can be described as one that is “troubled” to some extent externally and yet also internally.271 This emerges from the frame motifs of the first Farewell Discourse (John 13.31–14.31), in which the fundamental problem appears to be the ‘troubledness’ of the community of disciples (ταράσσεσθαι: 14.1, 27) evoked by the departure or absence of Jesus, and from the frame motifs and leitmotifs of the concluding section of the second Farewell Discourse (16.4b-33),272 according to which the disciples are beset by grief (λύπη: 16.7, 20, 22) over Jesus’ departure or absence and by tribulation (θλῖψις: 16.21, 33) in the ‘world.’ John 15.18-21 speaks more concretely of the ‘hate’ of the ‘world’ for the community of disciples and of persecution for the sake of Jesus. In 16.2 there is even talk of the endangerment of their physical lives. However, the inner tribulation appears to be just as severe as the external tribulation. Grief and troubledness over Jesus’ departure, weeping and lamenting over his invisibility (16.19-20), and the feeling of being ‘orphaned’ (14.18) are mentioned, and the grief of the disciples is juxtaposed to the ‘joy’ of ‘the world,’ which even appears to have been prompted by the lament of the disciples (16.20). Thus, the community of disciples appears to be assailed and ‘troubled’ by the invisibility and thus the supposed absence 270 However, this too occurs in indirect communication, partly in announcements of Jesus for the ‘time thereafter,’ partly in the transparent configuration of the image of the disciples. 271 To this extent the description in Wengst 1992 (Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus) is materially fitting. See also Onuki 1984, 29ff.; Dettwiler 1995; Frey 2000b, 105–9. 272 For the structure of Farewell Discourses, see Frey 2000b, 109–13.

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of Jesus, on account of which they are exposed to the unbelieving questions and mocking of ‘the world.’ It cannot demonstrate that it is on the right path with its faith and that Jesus has not, in truth, failed but rather that he is exalted to the Father (cf. 16.10), i.e., that his death is not the end but the accession to his reign. The trial consists in the fact that in the world the truth of faith is hidden and remains contested. Such an assaulted and unsettled faith is dependent inwardly and outwardly upon support, and the Paraclete sayings, especially John 15.26 and 16.8-11, concretize the reality of the Spirit with respect to his ‘forensic’ function. According to these two sayings, the Paraclete bears witness on behalf of Jesus and demonstrates vis-à-vis the world (at least before the ‘inner tribunal’ of the community of disciples) the world’s sinfulness, the wrongness of unbelief, and the truth of belief. Not only the Johannine Farewell Discourses, in which this trial is openly addressed, but the entire text of the Gospel of John appears to aim at the described situation of the community of disciples. The text seeks to mediate a reassurance of their faith and a deepened understanding of the person of Jesus and the meaning of his death. This occurs with the help of the history of Jesus—narrated in the interpretive post-Easter light— which, in an intensive fusion of horizons, is viewed together with the situation of the Johannine community’s proclamation.273 Thus, the interpretive ‘remembered’ narration of the history of the activity of the ‘incarnate’ Word in the world serves the clarification of the situation of the community of disciples, whose proclamation—in which Jesus’ word, indeed his person and his work, are now mediated—is likewise met with rejection and opposition. In this respect, there occurs in the Johannine text “an interpretation of the nature of the present situation of the Johannine community of readers itself, which is being viewed together with the history of the earthly Jesus”274 and thus “an eschatological retrospection or retrospective reflection regarding the entire fate of the revelation of God from its historical arrival in Jesus of Nazareth to the post-Easter present of the Johannine reading community.”275 Conversely, this means that in their reconsideration of the story of Jesus, in the reading process the Johannine readers experience a paracletic reconsideration of their own situation. More concretely, they are inspired to reconsider the rejection of their proclamation—which is difficult to comprehend for them—and the unsettling of their own faith that has been triggered by the unbelief of ‘the Jews’ and ‘the world.’ Through the 273

Thus Onuki 1984, 102. Onuki 1984, 102 (emphasis in original). 275 Onuki 1984, 102 (emphasis in original). 274

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‘remembrance’ of the story of Jesus in the Easter light, their faith is meant to be placed on its foundation anew and at the same time to be deepened. What they experience is a correlation and consequence of the conflict that took place fundamentally in Jesus’ sending and death. At the same time, they are reassured of their own identity, as those to whom in the light of Easter support has been given, who have life even in the face of death, and for whom the Easter light shines. The intensive effort, which is visible from the beginning (1.29) to the end (19.30) of the Fourth Gospel, to make clear the ‘correct’ interpretation of the death of Jesus as exaltation and glorification, as salvific event,276 and as the accession—hidden sub contrario—to his true kingly reign, serves this purpose.277 This purpose is also served by the Johannine image of Christ, which presents Jesus decidedly as the glorified and completed one, as the victor over ‘the world’ (16.33) and at the same time as the Son who has been loved from eternity and who is one with the Father, so that the identity of the community of disciples in the world is constituted anew from this standpoint. As becomes clear at the end of the Gospel (20.2123), the community should understand itself as gifted with the Spirit by the risen one278 and authorized and empowered to continue the eschatological work of Jesus. What is decisive for the question of the Johannine community of addressees’ relation to the world is the fact that the sending of the disciples is thematized both in the Farewell Discourses and so-called high priestly prayer and at the conclusion of the Gospel. Despite the trials and fear in the world, the disciples, in their connection with the exalted one, are meant to have peace and to be unafraid (14.27; 16.33) and to perceive their sending into the world (17.15, 18), which consists in carrying on the work of Jesus in the continued proclamation (20.23), so that forgiveness of sins and the appropriation of salvation take place and knowledge is granted also and precisely to ‘the world’ (14.31; 17.23). Thus, despite the experience of rejection and hate, in the reading of the Gospel the Johannine community of disciples is meant to be empowered and enabled to a renewed witness. This means, however, that the community cannot remain content with a ‘retreat’ from ‘the world,’ let alone with an ‘ecclesiastical’ or sectarian existence in a corner. What stands at the end is not the ‘sectarian’ seclusion of the community but—this is at the intention—its renewed turning to the 276

On this, see Frey 2002c (= 2013a, 485–54); and chapter 5 in this volume (GV = Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). 277 On this, see Frey 2000b, 271–76. 278 In this respect John 20.21-22 corresponds to the Paraclete promises in the Farewell Discourses and thus highlights their ‘fulfillment,’ even though the term παράκλητος is used only in the Farewell Discourses.

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world, which corresponds to the primordially grounded loving turning of God to the world, to the sending of the Son (3.16), and has its historical foundation in the commissioning of the disciples by the risen one. These reflections on the pragmatic function of the Johannine text as a whole do not yet provide an adequate answer to the question of the function of the dualistic linguistic forms in particular. Here, one must inquire into the meaning that these linguistic forms have for the Gospel and ask how they contribute to the intended impact of the work as a whole upon its readers. What is crucial here is the fact that the antithesis of light and darkness as well as the talk of ‘the Jews’ and ‘the world’ are used within the framework of the dramaturgical shaping of the Gospel and must be interpreted within this framework. This is especially clear in the case of the metaphor of light. In the Fourth Gospel it exclusively spans the account of Jesus’ public activity. At the same time, the talk of Jesus as ‘the light’ (8.12; 9.4) and of discipleship as ‘walking’ in the light (cf. 8.12; 11.9-10; 12.35) serves the purpose of expressing on a metaphorical level the existential relevance of Jesus Christ for the believers of the post-Easter period. This metaphorical mode of expression provides the opportunity of linguistically bringing together the narrated events of the time of Jesus and the faith experience of the community. In this way the metaphorical linguistic form contributes significantly to the fusion of the temporal horizons or to the ‘transparency’ of the Johannine presentation for the present of its intended readers.279 This ‘transparency’ or the ‘hermeneutical fusion of horizons’ is attained by different linguistic means.280 As Onuki has shown, it emerges with particular clarity in the image of the disciples of Jesus and in the image of their opponents, who are appropriately thematized as Ἰουδαῖοι in the context of the earthly activity of Jesus and as κόσμος in the Farewell Discourses, in the Prologue, and in 1 John. It also becomes evident in places where the figures of the Johannine story, i.e., especially the Johannine Jesus and yet also his opponents, take up theological terms and themes that come from the developments of the post-Easter period and in some cases from the direct conflicts of the Johannine community. These themes, especially the understanding of the death of Jesus, are also repeatedly taken up in the characteristic Johannine commentaries by the narrator and connected with the narrated incidents of the earthly activity of Jesus.281 In the speeches of 279

On the relationship between fusion of horizons and Johannine “symbolism,” see Onuki 1984, 34–37, though he predominantly thematizes the talk of the ‘Jews.’ 280 On this, see Frey 1998, 252–61. 281 The hour of Jesus is encountered in the narrator’s commentaries in John 7.30; 8.20; and 13.1. The glorification is found in 12.16, the resurrection in 2.22, and the Spirit in 7.39. In this way important themes of the Farewell Discourses are integrated at the same

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the Johannine Jesus, the fusion of material and temporal horizons can be seen most clearly in the incursion of conspicuous ‘we’ statements (3.11; 4.22a; 9.4) into the singular speech style282 as well as in the incursion of linguistically retrospective and materially post-Easter statements into the narrated pre-Easter context, such as the perfects κέκριται (16.11), νενίκηκα (16.33), and ἀναβέβηκεν (3.13; cf. 6.62), which is related to Jesus’ ascent to the Father, or the ‘complexive’ aorists ἠγάπησεν (13.34; cf. 15.9, 12), ἐδίωκαν (15.20), and ἠγάπησεν/ἕδωκεν (3.16),283 or in the statements in John 17.11-12 (cf. 16.4b), in which Jesus—although he still sojourns among the disciples according to the narrative context—already appears to look back on his earthly activity. The post-Easter perspective of the Gospel, which is linguistically highlighted in this way,284 is, however, repeatedly broken by statements that adhere to the narrated pre-Easter speech-situation and from this prospective viewpoint, i.e., in the mode of announcing, thematize the post-Easter situation of the community of disciples, such as the impending persecutions (15.18ff.) or the post-Easter gift of the Spirit-Paraclete (14.16-17, 26; 15.26; 16.8-11, 13-15). Both phenomena coincide, however, in the pragmatic function of connecting the post-Easter time of the community of addressees with the narrated time of the pre-Easter activity of Jesus. Finally, the Johannine configuration of the miracle narratives285 as well as other Johannine individual narratives286 that consistently contain elements that jut out from the respective individual narratives materially, indeed that burst their frameworks and establish connections to the whole of the activity of Jesus, to the ‘hour’ of death and resurrection and to the fruit of his salvific activity, and thus establish the soteriological significance of what is narrated for the post-Easter readers, serve this same purpose. Thus, the story of the man born blind in John 9, for example, is narrated in the framework of the earthly activity of Jesus, but this occurs in time into the part of the Gospel that deals with Jesus’ public activity. On this, see Culpepper 1983, 40; Frey 1998, 251–52. 282 On this, see Frey 1998, 252–57. 283 For a detailed itemization of the retrospective tense forms in prospective contexts in the Johannine speeches, see Frey 1998, 130–32; on John 3.16, see also pp. 254–55 with note 27. 284 On this, see the fundamental study of Hoegen-Rohls 1996. 285 On this, see the fundamental study of Welck 1994 and especially the summaries on pp. 88–89, 131–32, and 245ff. 286 The phenomenon mentioned here can be demonstrated with reference to almost all the Johannine narratives, from the account of the calling of the disciples in John 1 to the anointing in Bethany in John 12.1-11, the account of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem in John 12.12-19, and the narrative of the footwashing in John 13.1-20. For the pragmatics of the sign narratives for the Johannine individual narratives in general, see Welck 1994, 262–69.

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a manner that guides the readers by way of many elements to simultaneously see in this episode from the past earthly activity of Jesus their own experience of salvation and present situation of proclamation addressed: the ‘gaining of sight’ in believing, the experience of the forgiveness of sins (with allusions to baptism), the existence of the community of disciples in opposition to an outside world (which is sketched in a decidedly Jewish way here), and the painful rejection of their own proclamation. In that the Johannine readers recognize this connection in the medium of the narrated story of Jesus, the story of Jesus is illuminated in its relevance for the present, and, conversely, the present can be reflected on and understood anew in the light of the story of Jesus. The first use of metaphor of light in John 1.5 can be regarded as the ‘quintessence’ of the whole Johannine narrative of Jesus given at the very beginning. If the sending of Jesus involves the sending of the light into the darkness (3.18; 14.46), then in this story one can see—so to speak archetypally—the fundamental conflict between faith and unbelief and yet also the victory of the light, the overcoming of the darkness, which becomes manifest at Easter. Thus, when, in the reading of this text, the Johannine readers perceive their own situation, their own experience of being assailed and hated, in the light of the narrated story of Jesus, they are given the reassurance that the light could not be extinguished, not even by the powers of darkness, but rather unremittingly continues to shine in the darkness and illuminates the way of the community of disciples ‘in the world.’ Thus, the Johannine narrative, being ‘charged up’ by the use of the metaphor of light–darkness, offers a potent reprocessing of the afflicted situation of the Johannine community of addressees. This is confirmed by a concise look at the image of the ‘opponents,’ at the ‘Jews’ and the ‘world.’ To a great extent the Johannine talk of ‘the Jews’ likewise offers a ‘generalizing’ image. At any rate, it corresponds neither to the concrete opponents of the earthly Jesus nor to the historical reality of the synagogue in the life-world of the Johannine addressees, and one can therefore designate it cum grano salis also as “symbolic.”287 The term addresses an even more general level, for it makes it possible to thematize concrete Jewish reactions as well as non-Jewish reactions to the 287

Thus Onuki 1984, 34, 46, who admittedly does not presuppose an elucidated concept of symbolism. Cf., however, Koester 2003, 4: “A symbol is an image, an action, or a person that is understood to have transcendent significance.” Despite this definition, Koester investigates only individual persons who encounter Jesus and does not investigate ‘the Jews’ as a ‘symbol.’ For the definitional questions, see R. Zimmermann 2004, 137ff. It can probably scarcely be contested that the talk of ‘the Jews’ has taken up symbolic features and has ‘charged up’ certain contexts, such as the mention of Jerusalem, with the aspect of opposition to Jesus.

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Johannine proclamation, specifically the rejection and opposition experienced by it, and thus to thematize fundamentally the aspect of opposition to the earthly Jesus and to the community of addressees on a common, linguistically more general level. The dualistic linguistic forms—primarily the talk of ‘the Jews’ and of ‘the world’ and yet also the motifs associated with it, such as eschatological adversaries (Satan, the ‘ruler of this world’), truth/deception, and ‘above’/‘below’—take up the conflict-laden experience of reality of the Johannine addressees, the perception of unbelief, mocking, hate, and persecution, and create, in their being viewed together with the dramatically portrayed story of Jesus, a symbolic structure of meaning, in which this experience of reality can be ‘reprocessed.’ With recourse to the history of Jesus, the Johannine readers are at the same time guided “to distance” themselves “from their negative situation of proclamation” and in a “retrospective viewing and a viewing together” to reflect on “the fate of the revelation in the world.”288 Through the symbolic world of meaning of the Johannine text, they are led out of the clutches of their own immediate experience to a new understanding of their situation: to the understanding that, in their experience of opposition, they share the fate of Jesus (15.18ff.) and that, despite the ‘fear’ in the world, their present and future is illuminated because Jesus has conquered this world and its ‘ruler’ (16.33; cf. 16.11) and the light has not ceased to shine, even in the darkness. In the reading of the text, the dualistic linguistic forms, in their consonance, contribute to the Johannine reading community’s ability to overcome its negative experiences and take up again the proclamation in accordance with its sending. The soteriological dynamic that characterizes the Fourth Gospel is meant to be continued in the sending of the community of disciples in whose word Jesus’ word is mediated in the present. The dualistic motifs and linguistic forms are located in the framework of a specific communicative intention. The antithesis of community and world, just as the metaphor of light and darkness, is integrated into the revelatory dynamic of the Gospel, which seeks to encourage and enable the reading community to perceive their sending, to bear witness, and to proclaim the word. In light of this pragmatic goal, which is based in the text itself, the Gospel of John is far removed from every form of ideologically closed dualism, not only in terms of the history of religion but also from a material perspective.

288

Kühschelm 1990, 269.

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4. Summary and Perspectives What follows from the reflections presented here for the interpretation of the Gospel of John and its dualistic linguistic forms? (1) Methodologically it is necessary to maintain that the meaning and significance of specific linguistic expressions must be determined from the context of the whole Gospel and its literary composition and not from a possible or probable history-of-religion context. (1.1) The presence of linguistic forms that have more or less clear parallels in Jewish-apocalyptic, Qumranic, or gnostic texts in no way entails that the Johannine meaning of these linguistic forms can be derived from the worldview of these texts. (1.2) Rather, the Gospel of John differs in a material-theological way from the forms of dualistic thought that can be demonstrated in the texts of the Qumran community or in gnostic texts. (2) From a history-of-religion perspective, ‘Johannine dualism’ is not unified. For this reason, it remains doubtful whether we can speak at all of the ‘Johannine dualism’ or whether it would not be better to speak of ‘dualisms’ or dualistic motifs/linguistic forms. (2.1) Such a unity of the Johannine language could be postulated in scholarship only under the presupposition of a specific history-of-religion thesis; it had to collapse when this presupposition became questionable and became obsolete. (2.2) The different linguistic forms that are to be classified as dualistic have their parallels in very different history-of-religion contexts. While some of the motifs most likely come from early Jewish apocalyptic, others point to a form of thought that is more strongly Hellenistic. Almost all the individual motifs are also attested in early Christianity outside of or prior to Johannine Christianity, so that a direct adoption from an early Jewish milieu, let alone a specifically Qumranic one, cannot be assumed. (2.3) The inference from the dualistic motifs and linguistic forms to a specific milieu of origin is also made difficult by the fact that at least some dualistic motifs were configured on the basis of developments and experiences in the Johannine community itself and thus cannot be traced back to a specific religious context in their present form. (2.4) Precisely for the Johannine talk of light and darkness, a derivation from Qumran is just as unlikely as a derivation from gnostic thought. On the one hand, the metaphor of light is able to express religious contents in very different contexts without it being necessary to assume dependencies. On the other hand, there are a number of lines of tradition in ancient Judaism and in early Christianity from which the Johannine use of the talk of light and darkness could be inspired. What is decisive, however, is the

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fact that in the Gospel of John this motif is very clearly used according to dramaturgical perspectives and is focused in christological-soteriological intention. (2.5) The aspect of the creative composition by the hand of the Johannine author must therefore be estimated more highly than the influence of the history-of-religion milieu. (3) Literarily and materially-theologically the different dualistic motifs are embedded in the dramaturgy and in the revelatory dynamic of the Gospel of John. Their meaning and function must be determined from this point of departure. (3.1) This is most clear in the case of the metaphor of light, which spans only the framework of the public activity of Jesus and thus stands entirely in the service of the dramaturgy of the Gospel. In their own respective ways, the antitheses truth/deception and life/death, which are used in an entirely asymmetrical way and in a christologically concentrated manner in John, are also integrated into the revelatory dynamic of the Gospel. (3.2) Thus, the taking up of this motif does not reflect a basic ‘worldview’ of the evangelist. Rather, the Johannine use of these antitheses consistently aims at assuring the readers of the Gospel that the light shines in the darkness, that truth liberates from deception, and that life conquers death. The inherent dynamic from darkness to light, from deception to truth, and from death to life clearly differs from conceptions of a dualistic worldview in which the two spheres of light and darkness are rigidly separated and a coming or being drawn to the light or a transition from death to life is not foreseen. (3.3) The talk of ‘the world’ (in its opposition to the community of disciples) and the talk of ‘the Jews’ are likewise determined by dramaturgical interests in the Gospel of John. Both terms—which conspicuously are not exclusively connoted negatively but rather are also connoted positively in some places, especially in the first part of the Gospel—linguistically take up the opposition that confronts Jesus as well as the community of disciples. Thus, in the image of the opponents as well as in the image of the disciples, there is an eschatological synopsis of the horizons of the time and history of Jesus, on the one hand, and the time and situation of the community of addressees, on the other hand, so that in the Johannine story of Jesus we are ultimately dealing with an anamnetic reflection of the situation of the community of addressees. By passing through the story of Jesus retrospectively interpreted from the Easter perspective, the community of addressees is meant to understand its own situation anew and more deeply and to be guided to a corresponding stance and renewed action in relation to the world.

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(3.4) With the Johannine talk of ‘the world,’ the concrete experience of conflict of the Johannine community of addressees is linguistically taken up and processed on a generalizing ‘symbolic’ level. The goal of the ‘dualistic’ antithesis between community and world is not, however, an increased seclusion of the community from the world that surrounds it or the legitimation of such a seclusion. Rather, the talk of the cosmos in the whole of the Gospel of John shows that despite the opposition of the community to the ‘unbelieving’ world, the love of God that is related to the whole world and that has become manifest in the sending of Jesus remains upheld. Ultimately the goal remains the knowledge and belief of ‘the world,’ and the community of disciples is meant to be newly motivated and equipped to proclaim the message of salvation in and vis-à-vis the world. (3.5) Despite the use of dualistic motifs, a salvation-universal perspective dominates in the Gospel of John. This becomes especially clear in the statements about the love of God, Jesus, or the disciples, which are networked with one another in various ways and are sometimes reciprocal. These statements of love, from the talk of the love of God for the world in John 3.16 to the concluding talk of the knowledge of the world engendered by the mutual love of the disciples in John 17.21, 23, show that the assumption of a decisive predestinarian dualism does not correspond to the Johannine text. Rather, the dualistic statements come into their own, also within the framework of the Johannine soteriology, only in such a way that they are broken by the revelatory dynamic of the Gospel. (3.6) The predestinarian statements, which dominate in the Gospel of John and make talk of a ‘decision’ of faith (let alone a ‘dualism of decision’) appear inappropriate, ultimately serve to explain the incomprehensible phenomenon of unbelief. Both faith and unbelief can ultimately be understood only from divine activity. These predestinarian motifs in the Gospel of John are not systematically developed, so that many concrete questions remain open and processes in the Johannine community, such as the secession of former members (1 John 2.18ff.), can hardly be explained in a satisfactory manner. Since a temporal priority of the decision over the salvation of individuals is also not stated anywhere, one is not permitted to infer a prior predestinarian-dualistic worldview from the Johannine statements. (3.7) Of course, there is a remaining opposition between salvation and unsalvation, eschatological life and eschatological ruin, also according to the Johannine view. A universal conversion of the world or a ‘final reconciliation’ is not held out in prospect. So the talk of eschatologically dualistic structures may be justified. To be sure, the whole of early Christianity would then have to be called dualistic in this sense, so that not much

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is gained with this characterization. Theologically it is clear that in the Gospel of John one can speak only of a soteriologically broken ‘dualism’ or of soteriologically broken dualistic motifs, for neither a rigid division of the cosmos nor a pretemporal fixing of the respective dispositions can determine the belonging of individuals to salvation but only the faith that is granted in the encounter with Christ or with the proclamation of him. The Gospel as a whole is determined by this revelatory dynamic, and also the dualistic linguistic elements of the Johannine text are functionally integrated into it. (3.8) In the Gospel of John the different dualistic motifs and linguistic forms are a function of the revelation of Christ and not its ‘ideological’ presupposition. In each case their use takes place with a specific theological and communicative intention with a view to the addressees of the Gospel and for the processing of their concrete situation, which is characterized by conflicts and trials. (4) At most the dualistic linguistic elements of the Gospel of John form a unity in a functional perspective, i.e., with respect to their effect upon the Johannine readers. (4.1) In the reading of the text, different dualistic linguistic elements combine to form a functional unity: the talk of the opposition of ‘the Jews’ to Jesus and of the opposition of ‘the world’ to the community of addressees together with the antitheses of truth and deception, life and death, light and darkness, above and below contribute, in their consonance, to the impact of the whole Gospel upon its readers. (4.2) If the concern in the Gospel of John is that the addressees overcome their troubledness, which has been effected by unbelief and opposition in the ‘world,’ and that they find their way again to the proclamation of faith entrusted to them, then the dualistic motifs and linguistic forms serve the thematization of this negative experience and the realization of the soteriological dynamic of the Gospel. (4.3) If it is true that the situation of the community of addressees was characterized by tribulation and troubledness and that these experiences may have more powerfully determined the Johannine readers’ perception of the world than the conviction of the rule of the exalted Christ and his presence, then essential elements of the community of addressees’ experience of the world find expression precisely in the talk of the opposition of the world, of the darkness, and of the eschatological adversaries. By thematizing these elements in this way and integrating them into the revelatory dynamic of the Gospel, they are brought for the first time to a ‘processing’ through the Johannine proclamation.

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(5) Hermeneutically one must take into account the fact that precisely the dualistic motifs in the Gospel of John must not be interpreted in detachment from their connection to the addressees. (5.1) Where the talk of eschatological adversaries or of the opposition of community and world is drawn upon for the construction of a dualistic worldview or where, with the help of the predestinarian statements, an abstract doctrine of predestination is constructed, this must lead to problematic misunderstandings and into unresolvable aporias. (5.2) On the other hand, the metaphoric features of the Johannine language have a disclosing power. Above all the Gospel’s christologically focused metaphor of light offers an enormous ‘gain to language’ and makes in this way a significant contribution to the communication of the message of the Gospel.

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PART 3 Death, Resurrection, and Glory

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5

The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John

The event of the death of Jesus and its significance are illuminated from a variety of different angles in the Gospel of John.1 The individual beams of light let varicolored aspects emerge. While these can be differentiated and sometimes even contrasted, they nevertheless form at the same time a whole, which is mediated in the reading of the Fourth Gospel—as long as one does not isolate individual texts, lines of thought, or categories of interpretation but rather seeks to evaluate the work and its perspective as a whole. Exegetical scholarship rightly strives for a precise and nuanced perception of the terms that are used and the traditions that are taken up. Nevertheless, after the differentiation has taken place, it is also faced with the task of venturing a synopsis of the various aspects and categories if it does not want to miss the forest for the trees. Accordingly, in what follows I will attempt to describe and interpret four different aspects of the death of Jesus in their relation to one another. Since we are not dealing with motifs that are clearly defined in the language of the ancient sources itself but rather with categories of exegetical descriptive language, our concern is simultaneously with the problem of whether and to what extent these different categories of description—namely, the talk of ‘noble death,’ ‘effective death,’ the ‘vicarious’ character of Jesus’ death, and, most hotly disputed for the Gospel of John, the ‘atoning effect’ of his death—can 1

Revised and expanded version of a lecture given at the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense on July 27, 2005. The documentation in the footnotes has been restricted to what is most necessary. For helpful and critical discussions I thank the participants of the colloquium. For reviewing the manuscript at many stages I am grateful to Reinhard Bingener and Juliane Baumann. I refer here to a series of my own preliminary works on this topic, which have been modified here in specific differentiations and developed further: Frey 2002c (= 2013a, 485–554); 2005d (= 2016a, 175–223); 2006a (= 2016a, 225–61). See now also Frey 2014b. 171

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not only be demarcated from one another but also be coordinated with one another. 1. The Death Scene as the Goal of the Johannine Presentation Jesus’ death scene in John 19.28-30 can be viewed with complete justification as the inner goal of the Johannine story of Jesus. It is not its end: Jesus’ death is not the last thing that is narrated about him; it is followed by his removal from the cross and his burial and by the narratives of Easter encounters in John 20 and in the final chapter, which was presumably added later. The reality recognized in these encounters or the ‘perspective’ shaped by Easter is programmatically presupposed from the beginning in John: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1.5). However, neither Easter morning and the encounter with Mary Magdalene (20.11-18), nor the sending out of the disciples (20.21-23), nor the high christological confession of Thomas (20.28) is specified as the goal and ‘completion’ of the narrated way of Jesus but—paradoxically— his death. This is where Jesus’ sending reaches ‘completion.’ The perfect τετέλεσται occurs twice in these three verses (19.28-30), first with the generalizing πάντα, then repeated once more lapidarily: “Everything is completed.” To this can be added the statement of the fulfillment of “the Scripture,” which—unlike in the other fulfillment notices—is assimilated here, through the use of the verb τελειόω, to the completion terminology in the context.2 Thus, the death scene is characterized three times as completion within a very tight space. Everything that was to come to completion through Jesus, in accordance with Scripture and with the will of the Father who sent him (4.34), is completed here. The work that has been entrusted to him (4.34; 17.4) is completed in his death. This narrative characterization opposes every attempt to understand Jesus’ crucifixion in the Fourth Gospel as a mere “transition stage on the way to the Father.”3 When one argues in such a way, schemata4 that are more or less well founded from a history-of-religion perspective but ultimately foreign to the text gain the upper hand over the explicit signals in the text. These schemata are based on motifs that are indeed present in 2 On this, see Hengel 1989b, 279. On the understanding of τετέλεσται see also Bergmeier 1988; Schwemer 1998, 23–27. 3 Thus the characterization in Becker 1991b, 472. 4 Especially the schema that usually underlay the presentations of the ‘gnostic redeemer myth’ and according to which the redeemer descended from the ‘upper’ into the ‘lower’ world in order to leave this world again to go to his heavenly home. This schema is found, e.g., in Becker 1991a, 177–78; and in another manner in Bühner 1977.

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John—on the talk of the heavenly Son of Man’s descent and ascent (3.13; 6.62) or of the sending (3.16) and the return (17.11, 13, and elsewhere) of the Son of God sent into the world. But these motifs of the ‘sending Christology’ are integrated into a narrative dynamic that has its goal in the presentation of the death of Jesus. In the hour of his death it is said: “It is completed” (τετέλεσται). This can, of course, only apply if one takes seriously the pronounced post-Easter perspective that distinguishes the Fourth Gospel from the Synoptics.5 In the (according to John) ‘correct’ view, which is established by this post-Easter perspective, Jesus’ death is emphatically not a dying in God-forsakenness (so Mark 15.34-37) but rather the completion of the work given to him. It is not being conquered by the darkness (cf. John 1.5) but rather the victory over the world and its ‘ruler’ (16.11, 33). It is not the dishonoring evident in the cross but rather the glorification that is given through the incorporation of the Easter reality, a glorification that must be seen with the eyes of faith.6 Jesus’ death and its interpretation receives the utmost weight in the Johannine presentation. This is shown not only by the characterization of the death scene described above but also by a multitude of elements of presentation, beginning with the numerous narrative and interpretive anticipations,7 via the motif of the “hour” of Jesus,8 which receives great stress from chapter 12 onward, and the Farewell Discourses, which take up a conspicuously broad space, through to the fulfillment quotations, which significantly occur only between chapters 12 and 19 and thereby characterize the event in the ‘hour’ of Jesus as the fulfillment of Scripture.9 All this shows the “hour of Jesus”—concretely the time of his sentencing and crucifixion, which is specified in a conspicuously precise manner in John (19.14; cf. 18.28), and in the broader context the entire event from the proclamation of this hour via the Last Supper and the footwashing, the Farewell Discourses and farewell prayer, arrest, interrogation, trial before Pilate, crucifixion, and burial, through to the Easter appearances and the Easter conferment of the Spirit—to be the event in which the will of the

5

See the fundamental study of Hoegen-Rohls 1996. Cf. the title of the commentary of Moloney 1998a (Glory Not Dishonor). In his comments on his title (p. ix), Moloney refers to Theodoros Studites, Oratio II—In Adorationem Crucis (PG 99: 696B). 7 On this, see Frey 2002c, 194–200 (= 2013a, 509–16); Knöppler 1994, passim; Culpepper 1983, 34–43. 8 See Frey 2002c, 194–96 (= 2013a, 509–12); 1998, 215–21. 9 In John 12.38-40 and John 19.36-37, there is a double quotation (on this, see Hengel 1989b, 280–81). The doubled fulfillment quotations surround, so to speak, the ‘hour of Jesus’ and emphasize in this way their characterization as eschatological fulfillment event. 6

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Father recorded in Scripture is fulfilled and in which the work of Jesus reaches its completion.10 More space is given to this sequence of events in John than in the Synoptics.11 The narrative means of presentation support this accentuation. The narrated time of the work slows down toward the ‘hour of Jesus,’12 as if it were going to come to a standstill in this moment. This does not, of course, occur, and, after a small caesura,13 the narrative thread continues in 19.31 until the end of chapter 20 and—broken somewhat14—also into the subsequently added chapter 21, for the specifically Johannine perspective discloses itself only from the perspective of Easter. This narrative shaping shows that it was apparently especially the phenomenon of Jesus’ death that required an interpretation of its meaning. Also, the central topic of Christology, the question of the dignity of Jesus and the mystery of his person, can always be thematized only with a view to the fact that the Logos became flesh, that the Son of the Father was sent not only into the world but also into death, and that the one who is predicated at the end as “My Lord and my God” (20.28) enduringly bears the stigmata of the crucifixion. 2. The Interpretation of the Death of Jesus in Post-Easter Perspective The talk of the death of Jesus is overlaid by interpretations that describe this death as exaltation (with a double meaning: onto the cross and to the Father)15 and as glorification,16 as going to the Father (13.3; 16.10; etc.) and as victory over the cosmos (16.33) and its ruler. In subtle irony his condemnation and his crucifixion are presented as a cynical and anti-Jewish parody of a king,17 the deep christological truth of which is nevertheless 10

On this, see Frey 1998, 218–19. The inclusion of the Easter events in the event complex of Jesus’ ‘hour’ emerges above all from the fact that the comments of the Johannine narrator are related in conspicuous clustering to Jesus’ death and to his Easter glorification. 11 As distinct from the Synoptics, in which the passion story encompasses two (rather long) chapters, in the Gospel of John the events of a night and a day are stretched over seven chapters (13–19). 12 Cf. Frey 1998, 172. 13 This arises via the framing of the scene John 19.28-30 through τετέλεσται and through the explanatory narrative commentary in 19.31a. The action does not continue until 19.31b. 14 Also the connecting statements in John 21.1, 14, cannot obscure the fact that the Johannine narrative does not pass over without a break into chapter 21. 15 Cf. John 3.14; 8.28; 12.32-34. For the interpretation of these statements, see Frey 1994b, 185ff. (= 2013a, 124ff.); 2000b, 277–80. 16 Cf. John 12.23, 28; 13.31-32; 17.1, 5. 17 On this, see Frey 2000b, 273–76; 2014b.

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disclosed to the eyes of faith. The cross is, in truth, the kingly throne, and in his death the king accedes to his βασιλεία, which he speaks of before Pilate (18.36-37). This is, at the same time, the dawning of the reign of God, the eschatological event in which the victory over the world and its ruler takes place (16.11, 33). With these interpretations the human reality of the death of Jesus is not nullified. It makes its presence felt multiple times in the Johannine passion story,18 even though the aspect of suffering recedes clearly vis-à-vis Mark. The elements of post-Easter interpretation are, however, not introduced into the presentation of the earthly way of Jesus in an unconsidered manner but identified by linguistic signals as retrospective statements19 and explicitly as the fruit of post-Easter processes of remembrance (2.22; 12.16) and as the effect of the activity of the Spirit-Paraclete (14.26; 16.13-15). In this way the Gospel lays bare the fact that this knowledge was not yet available to the contemporaries of Jesus, including his disciples, and was disclosed only after Easter through the rereading of Scripture and the interpretive remembrance of his words and fate. In this Easter perspective, cross and glory slide over each other or, better, into each other, so that henceforth neither of them is to be taken into view without the respective other. The crucified one is the glorified one, and at the same time the glorified one is enduringly the crucified one. The situation in which such an interpretation of the death of Jesus became necessary is reflected in the Johannine Farewell Discourses in the situation of the disciples of Jesus within the horizon of his ‘departure’ (13.33; 16.5). Here, in a framing manner there is talk of sorrow (λύπη: 16.6, 20; cf. 16.22), tribulation (θλῖψις: 16.21, 33),20 and being troubled (ταράσσεσθαι: 14.1, 27)21 in light of Jesus’ departure, of the feeling of being orphaned (14.18), of Jesus’ absence and their not being able to see him (16.10), which causes the disciples to lament, while the (unbelieving) world rejoices over this because it apparently feels vindicated by this (16.20). John 16.10 thematizes the problem—“Jesus goes to the 18 Jesus’ death is clearly confirmed by the spear thrust in John 19.34 and the narrative of the burial in John 19.38-42. These exclude every form of an ‘apparent death’ hypothesis. Plus, in the passion story there is the extremely painful and usually bloody flogging (19.1), the crucifixion that takes place in an especially degrading manner without clothing (19.18), and Jesus’ thirst (19.28). Above all stands the presentation of the flogged ‘king’ crowned with the crown of thorns as ‘human being’ that takes place in the ecce homo scene. 19 Cf. the use of the perfect tense forms in John 16.33; 19.30; and elsewhere; for other significant tense contrasts (cf. 13.31-32) and the temporal structure in the Johannine discourses, see Frey 1998, 130–37, 247–68. See also chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). 20 For the structure of John 16.4b-33, see Frey 2000b, 179–81. 21 For the composition of the speech in John 13.31b–14.31, see Frey 2000b, 119–22.

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Father”—so that the disciples cannot see him any longer, but the righteousness that the Spirit discloses lies precisely therein. For Jesus is set in the right22 by being exalted to the Father—and not left in the wrong as appears to be the case in his crucifixion. In the struggle over the righteousness of the cause of Jesus and thus over the truth of faith, the understanding of his death is up for debate. Is it only negatively a withdrawal, a departure, a failure, or should it, in truth, be understood differently, as a going to the Father, as a vindication, as an installation into his δόξα or into his reign? In this struggle over the truth of faith,23 in the ‘trial’ between community and world, which the Paraclete leads for the community, the concern is centrally with the understanding of the death of Jesus, with its true meaning, which does not stand before one’s eyes but can be viewed only with the eyes of faith. For the contemporaries of the Johannine community, both Jews and Gentiles, the crucifixion of Jesus must have been a repellent notion and faith in a crucified person as Messiah, savior, let alone God, a blasphemy or an absurdity.24 Against this background the Farewell Discourses make clear to the community the salvific character of their own present despite the ‘departure’ of Jesus, and the whole Gospel constitutes an attempt to interpret his death in a way that corresponds to the Easter ‘perspective,’ which discerns in it not the end but the completion, not failure but victory. In this intention not only the paradoxical aspects of cross and δόξα25 overlay each other but also a multitude of other, different motifs of the interpretation of the death of Jesus. They are united, however, in their intention to interpret the death of Jesus as a salvific event and as the foundation of the life of the community. This means that it is not advisable to see the key for the Johannine understanding in a single motif of interpretation (such as glory or atonement). Rather, different motifs appear alongside one another in a supplementary manner. For this reason, I wish in what follows to discuss a few categories of interpretation that can be worked out in John with different levels of weightiness and depth.

22

For interpretation, see Frey 2000b, 185–86. For the motif of the ‘trial’ over the truth, see Lincoln 2000. See now also Parsenios 2010; Bekken 2015. 24 See in detail Hengel 1976, 25–84. 25 On this, see Knöppler 1994, 26–66. 23

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3. Four Categories of Interpretation 3.1 Noble Death A first category is the category of ‘noble death.’ Different forms of an ‘honorable’ or ‘heroic’ death, which can be found in different literary genres in antiquity, have been gathered together in the literature26 under this heading.27 The spectrum reaches from classical tragedies via historiography and biographical narratives (τελευταί, exitus illustrium virorum), elegies and epitaphs, funerary speeches and eulogies and the associated rhetorical progymnasmata, diatribes, writings and letters of consolation, through to pagan, Jewish, and Christian martyr acts. Occasions for a positive ‘evaluation’ are, for example, the death of soldiers who have fallen in battle, in other cases the ‘death-despising’ behavior of wise people or philosophers to the point of suicide, or in other cases the phenomenon of unjust or violent suffering and death. ‘Noble death’ is, of course, a category of modern research, and what it apprehends is thus a matter of definition.28 However, one can assume that there were indeed aspects in the cultural knowledge of ancient readers that enabled the death of a person to appear honorable.29 According to many texts, for example, what is honorable is an ‘upright’ death that occurs in the fulfillment of duty (e.g., in relation to the family or the polis), a death that benefits others or at least is meant to do so, a death that is voluntarily accepted (and, if need be, preferred to a life in captivity and slavery) and thus documents the insuperability of the one dying, further a death that 26 See the collection of texts with commentary of van Henten/Avemarie 2002. See further Seeley 1990; Droge/Tabor 1992; Yarbro Collins 1994; van Henten 1999; Neyrey 2001; Sterling 2001; Versnel 2005, 227–31. 27 Cf. van Henten/Avemarie 2002, 5. See the listing of relevant textual genres in Neyrey 2001, 268ff.; Sterling 2001, 385ff. 28 Seeley 1990, 13, includes, e.g., the following five components: “(1) obedience, (2) overcoming physical vulnerability, (3) a military setting, (4) vicariousness, or the quality of being beneficial for others, and (5) sacrificial metaphors.” Neyrey 2001, 275–76, states: “A death is noble if (1) it benefitted others; (2) it was either voluntary accepted or chosen; (3) the deceased died unvanquished or not as a victim; (4) the manner of death manifested both courage and justice; (5) there was something unique about the death of this soldier; (6) death produced posthumous honours; and (7) the fallen enjoy immortality in deathless praise and glory by the polis.” I depend on Neyrey in what follows, but I simplify his list somewhat. The aspect of the benefit or the efficacy of a death for others then leads further to the second model of “effective death” (for this see below). 29 For this it is not necessary in a concrete case that all possible significant aspects are present. It is probably sufficient if only some of them can be identified. The numerous texts compiled from Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian antiquity in van Henten/Avemarie 2002 certainly display differences, but they attest the prevalence of the basic notion that is relevant here.

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takes place “for a conviction”30 (freedom, philosophy, or a religious faith) and brings ‘immortal’ fame in the ages that follow. The examples of the impact of these motifs are numerous. The death of Socrates probably made the greatest impression.31 His example is often taken up in literature32 and inspired many to analogous behavior or comforted them in their situation.33 The despising of death and its voluntary acceptance is shown by the conquering of the fate of death that the true wise person—especially in the context of Stoic thinking34—should be capable of. Presupposing that the motif of ‘noble death’ belonged to the common property of educated people in antiquity because it had a firm place in literature and everyday life35 and was mediated in the rhetorical progymnasmata, it is clear that the Jesus vitae of the Gospels could be read and were read under the aspect of the ‘honorableness’ (or, alternatively, dishonorableness) of the death of Jesus reported there. This is documented by the discomfort that an educated reader such as Celsus expresses with regard to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane (Mark 14.35-36).36 Christian authors such as Justin, Origen, and Lactantius were indeed conscious of how disgraceful the crucifixion of Jesus must have appeared to their contemporaries,37 and the Gospel of Luke already shows how the offensive characteristics of the older Markan passion story were softened, so that Jesus approaches his death not with a fearful struggle in prayer but more calmly and without fear and is stylized in his dying 30

Cf. Versnel 2005, 227: “dying for a creed.” Plato, Apologia 30cd (see van Henten/Avemarie 2002, 12ff., 28ff.). Quotations from this text occur, among others, in Plutarch, De tranquillitate animi (Moralia 475de); Epictetus, Dissertationes 1.29.18; 2.2.15; 3.23.21; Enchiridion 53.4, 38; see the survey in Baumeister 1983. 32 Examples in Sterling 2001, 387–90; van Henten/Avemarie 2002, 13–14. Cf. also Döring 1979; Long 1988. 33 Cf. van Henten/Avemarie 2002, 13–14. Epictetus marvels at Socrates’ decision to prefer a noble death to a dishonorable life: “He saves himself through death, not through flight” (Dissertationes 4.1.165 and elsewhere). Tacitus presents the free deaths of Seneca and Thrasea Paetus as imitating the death of Socrates: Annales 15.60, 64; 16.34–35. 34 This is why for Epictetus the despising of death is the final expression of a rational, logos-conforming life. See Epictetus, Enchiridion 53.4; on this, see Baumeister 1983, 59: “With regard to the succinctness of the expression, which imprints itself upon the memory without further ado, one should probably think of a familiar saying that was generally known especially in the Stoic milieu and that may have been coined by Cynics . . .” For death in Stoicism, cf. now Rowe 2016, 14–21, 34–36, 210, 231–32. 35 This would include public burials, epitaphs, eulogies in the polis, etc. 36 Origen, Contra Celsum 6.10. For pagan reactions to the Gospels, cf. also Cook 2000; a pagan reading of the Gospel of Mark is offered also in Zuntz 1984. 37 Cf. Justin Martyr, Apologia 1.13.4; Origen, Contra Celsum 4.10; Lactantius, Divinarum institutionum libri 4.26; Epitome divinarum institutionum 50–51. Cf. already 1 Cor 1.23 and Heb 12.13. See Sterling 2001, 383 n. 1. Cf. further Hengel 1976. 31

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words as one who prays in an exemplary manner.38 This applies a fortiori for John, where the Markan Gethsemane prayer is explicitly rejected. Jesus cannot pray here that his father might save him from his hour of death; rather, in an explicitly corrective manner he prays for the δόξα: “What should I say: ‘Father, save me from this hour?’—No! For it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (12.27-28). Finally, Jesus’ readiness for death is reinforced once more in the arrest scene, in which Jesus rebuffs Peter, who is prepared to defend him: “Shall I not drink the cup that my Father has given me?” (18.11).39 Against the background of the categories sketched above, a multitude of features of the Johannine presentation of the passion let Jesus’ death appear as an honorable and ‘noble’ death. Jesus is the sovereign of his fate throughout. He knows of his impending death (13.1, 3), and he takes it upon himself as one who is innocent (18.23, 38; 19.4, 6) and voluntarily, out of love “for his friends” (15.13). In doing so, he follows the command of his Father (10.18). Already in the Lazarus episode, in which his way into death is intimated (11.16), he determines the time and hour of his going forth to meet the power of death. He announces his “hour” himself (12.23) and interprets it with the parabolic saying about the grain of wheat (12.24). He sets the event in motion at the farewell meal by extending the piece of bread to Judas and exhorting him to act “soon” (13.26-27). He hands himself over willingly to the armed men, prohibits Peter’s resistance, and confirms his readiness to take the cup of death (18.8, 11). He answers the high priest and Pilate with majestic sovereignty (18.19-21, 23; 18.34, 36-37; 19.1, 11), which is perceived as conspicuous, even improper (18.22; 19.10), but is further emphasized through the royal motif. Finally, he carries—unlike in Mark—his cross himself (19.17), arranges his personal matters from the cross (19.25-27), fulfills the Scripture in a final detail (19.28-29), states the completion of his work, and hands over—this too in an active formulation—the spirit (παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα: 19.30). This presentation corresponds to the programmatically stated observation in 10.17-18 that Jesus has authority (ἐξουσία) over his life—the authority to lay it down and to take it up again. He, the one who has life in himself (5.26), has the power of life in the strict sense, as two of the I-am sayings also confirm (11.25; 14.6). This ἐξουσία distinguishes Jesus, as the “Son” of God, from all other figures in the Gospel. Moreover, the notion 38

On this, see Sterling 2001, 395–400, with documentation; for the successive moderation of the Gethsemane tradition, see also Frey 2002b, 85–95; 2013a, 265–71. Contrast Bauckham 2015, 194, 196. 39 On this, see Frey 2002b, 90–91. For a detailed discussion of the reception of John’s reception of Synoptic tradition, see Frey 2003 (= 2013a, 239–94).

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that his death could be determined by foreign powers is expressly fended off in 10.18. He lays down his life himself; no one takes it from him. His death is grounded completely in his own authority and in the command and sending of the Father (10.18fin). Thus, in actuality, neither Judas, nor the high priest, nor Pilate (19.11), nor the ‘ruler of this world’ (14.30) has power over him. Jesus is, in the strict sense, the active one in his passion. Even though the features of human suffering (18.5; cf. 19.28: thirst), violence (18.22; 19.3: slaps in the face; 19.1: scourging), and dishonoring (crucifixion in a naked condition)40 can by no means be overlooked in the Johannine passion story, these features do recede in comparison with the other Gospels; they are overlaid by interpretations that express Jesus’ sovereignty and authority.41 Thus, according to John, Jesus’ death is certainly a ‘noble death.’ He is the sovereign of his fate. Moreover, his voluntary acceptance of death is “upright”—namely, in the fulfillment of his sending. It reflects his dignity and ultimately leads to δόξα. Thus, in a certain sense this manner of presentation, which could be perceived by ancient readers in the vein of an ‘honorable’ death,42 corresponds to the theological concern to portray Jesus’ fate in the light of Easter, to present his death not as a failure but as a victory. However, in contrast to this concern, the features of the ‘noble death’ express only a rather external aspect of the event, which does not yet adequately capture the intended theological dimension of the Johannine presentation. For this, only three points of evidence can be listed here: (a) The well-known fact that the interpretive motifs of “exaltation” and “glorification,” which are so central for John, refer back to an Old Testament text in a precise manner—namely, to Isaiah 52.13 (LXX: ὑψωθήσεται καὶ δοξασθήσεται)—shows that the Johannine talk of δόξα/ δοξάζεσθαι is concerned not with a phenomenon of the demonstration of honor in the framework of ancient society43 but rather, in the first place, 40

The mention of the taking away of the χιτών (19.23) goes beyond the Synoptic presentation. Even though the suffering of Jesus finds less strong expression elsewhere in John, here the aspect of dishonoring (and thus also an element of his humanity and suffering) is emphasized more strongly. 41 In doing so, the evangelist reveals that the sovereignty of Jesus presented in the Johannine narrative was not simply evident on the level of the narrated event. The disciples misunderstand all his announcements before Easter, and only through an ironic double meaning are the trial of Jesus and his crucifixion shown to be what John regards them to be in truth—Jesus’ enthronement and the accession to his reign. 42 To be sure, we should not assume that this removed everything that would be offensive for readers like Celsus. The Gospel of John as well must have appeared hard to digest for pagan readers. This already becomes clear in the “reading instruction,” the Prologue, when it is said that the Logos, who is God (1.1), became “flesh” (1.14). 43 John also knows of this use; cf. 5.44.

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with the eschatological fulfillment of events prefigured in Scripture. Jesus’ death is a fulfillment event and as such a salvific event. This calls for other categories of interpretation. (b) A second aspect likewise leads clearly beyond the elements of ‘noble death’ that we sketched above. In Jesus’ death the concern is not only with his own δόξα (17.1) but also with the “fruit” (12.24), the benefit for others. Jesus’ giving of his life takes place “for his friends,” “for his own,” etc. The concern is thus with an event that is effective for others, and this brings into play a second heuristic category that is indeed connected with the talk of ‘noble death’—the talk of ‘effective death.’ (c) Finally, the framework of Johannine Christology establishes narrow boundaries for the comparison of the death of Jesus with the ‘noble’ death of other figures of antiquity. Against the background of the ‘default setting’ that is established for every reading in the Prologue, the death of the one who from the beginning is the eternal Logos, even θεός (1.1, 18; 20.28), and ‘one with the Father’ (10.30), can be connected only in an improper manner with the death of people such as Socrates and Alcestis. And the motifs that could characterize his death as ‘noble’ in the eyes of ancient readers, such as the motif of voluntariness and sovereign knowledge about his ‘hour’ (13.1), are situated in the framework of a much greater ‘authority,’ which distinguishes him from other people, namely, the ἐξουσία to lay down his life and to take it up again (10.18). This power of life belongs to him as the one who has received to possess life in himself (5.26) and who is, in the Johannine view, categorically distinguished from all other people in this respect. 3.2 Effective Death With the category of ‘effective death,’ the talk of ‘noble death’ is deepened, and it makes sense here to distinguish between them, even though dying “for” or “for the benefit of” others also belongs to the factors that let a death appear ‘honorable.’ The term ‘effective death’ was introduced for the understanding of the death of Jesus by the ancient historian Henk Versnel44 in order to characterize a death that takes place not simply for “for a creed” but “for others” (i.e., “for the benefit of others” or “in the place of others”).45 It expresses “that the death of a person brings forth a positive effect (or that such an effect is at least intended), without this already 44 Versnel 1989. In summarizing form recently in Versnel 2005. For John, see also Schröter 2000. 45 Versnel 2005, 230 (for the distinction from mere ‘noble death,’ see Versnel 2005, 227).

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saying something about what this effect or intention concretely consists in.”46 Thus, it serves to avoid a premature and perhaps too undifferentiated use of more far-reaching theological interpretations such as sacrifice, atonement, or vicariousness. It is also possible to produce many examples from the Greek and Latin tradition for this category of interpretation.47 The example of Iphigenia, who offers herself “for Hellas” (Ἑλλάδι) and its freedom, is especially impressive.48 Her self-sacrifice is meant to make a god—more specifically, Artemis—well-disposed again and to bring back fortune in war to the Hellenes. Thus, her impending death is not only honorable but also at the same time intentionally effective for the Hellenes. Something similar applies to Alcestis, who is prepared to rescue her husband from death through her voluntary death (ὑπερθανεῖν).49 These examples go far beyond the death of Socrates who took the cup of poison solely for a conviction. Iphigenia and Alcestis even provide examples of a personal substitution. In many cases of a death for the benefit of the fatherland or for the benefit of relatives or friends,50 the preposition ὑπέρ is used.51 In terms of substance one must distinguish between a death, as it occurs, for example, in a battle, and the—rarer—attestations of a vicarious self-giving by a person for others in the sense of dying in their place.52 Not every ὑπέρformulation has eo ipso this implication; not every death “for” others can be characterized as an act of personal “place-taking,” such as we find in Alcestis and Iphigenia and also in some of the primitive Christian ὑπέρstatements that are used to interpret the death of Jesus. Here I cannot enter into the complex discussion concerning the extent to which the pagan-Greek talk of dying “for” (ὑπέρ) others had already influenced the primitive Christian interpretation of the death of Jesus53 and whether, from a history-of-religion perspective, this circle of motifs 46

Schröter 2000, 265 n. 11 (emphasis added). An extensive survey of the Greek sources is provided in Eschner 2010. 48 Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis 1395–99; cf. van Henten/Avemarie 2002, 31–32. 49 Euripides, Alcestis 155 and elsewhere. 50 Documentation in Versnel 2005, 231. 51 For the formulations ἀποθνῇσκειν ὑπέρ and ὑπερ(απο)θνῇσκειν, see Versnel 2005, 47

230.

52

Vernel 2005, 232–33. Cf. Gathercole 2015, 91. The Maccabee books show that such formulations have influenced the Jewish theology of martyrdom. According to 2 Macc 8.21, Judas Maccabee is prepared “to die for the law and country.” According to 1 Macc 6.44, “Eleazar gave his life to save his people.” The martyrdoms of Eleazar (2 Macc 6.18-31), of the mother and her sons (7.1-42), and of Razis (14.37-46) provide examples of this commitment to the law (2 Macc 6.28; 7.9, 11, 37) and to the Jewish cause (14.38). On the other hand, they simultaneously display an aspect that is specifically Jewish. The martyrs suffer also because of their sins (2 Macc 7.18, 32). This 53

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can come alongside the connection with Old Testament–Jewish tradition (especially Isa 53) or even replace it.54 For the Gospel of John, which already presupposes a lengthy tradition of Christian proclamation,55 this question is not directly relevant anyway.56 Nevertheless, Jens Schröter is certainly right in saying that for the Johannine ὑπέρ-statements57 as well we must carefully work out precisely in which sense the ‘effectiveness’ of the death of Jesus is expressed in each case.58 An interpretation throughout in the sense of personal vicariousness, let alone atonement,59 would be at least premature. If one wishes to proceed more cautiously, then it seems better to speak initially only of ‘effective death.’ This can then be supplemented by different traditional motifs and image fields, from which further contents can emerge. In this context I can only briefly illuminate just a few of the Johannine ὑπέρ-statements and suggest how their meaning goes beyond the meaning of an unspecific ‘effective death’ and calls for more far-reaching theological categories of interpretation. takes up a specific element of the biblical tradition terminologically, which is combined here with motifs that are more broadly attested in Hellenism. 54 In addition to Versnel 2005, passim, see especially (with a rejection of a biblicalJewish derivation) Breytenbach 2003, 447–75. On this, see the critical assessment in Frey 2006a (= 2016a, 225–61); 2005d, 33–36 (= 2016a, 206–9). There is certainly an influence of this Greek tradition on the Jewish martyr theology—e.g., in the Maccabee books—and an author such as Paul was very familiar, of course, with the talk of dying “for the good” or “for a righteous person” (Rom 5.7). However, in my view the primitive Christian formulations that Christ died “for our sins” (1 Cor 15.3) or “because of our transgressions” (Rom 4.25) and the talk of giving his life “for the many” in the Markan Lord’s Supper tradition (Mark 14.24) cannot be explained from a pagan-Greek background. 55 On this, see Frey 2003 (= 2013a, 239–94). The talk of Jesus giving his life “for us” was probably already adopted as a formulaic tradition in the Johannine community, as is suggested by 1 John 3.16, where this motif is connected with the motif of the love of God. 56 The thesis that the Johannine language represents an early stage of the primitive Christian tradition in which the idea of a ‘vicarious’—let alone ‘atoning’—death was not yet known (so Berger 1997, 238, who wants to view the Johannine ὑπέρ-formulas as an understanding of the death of Jesus that can be explained against the background of the martyrological tradition of Judaism and does not yet know the notion of vicarious—let alone atoning—death) is untenable. In my view, the explicit statements of atonement in 1 John (1 John 2.2; 4.10; cf. 1.7; 5.6-8) and a series of ὑπέρ-statements in the Gospel speak clearly against this assumption. 57 ὑπέρ-formulations occur in the Fourth Gospel in John 6.51 (“for the life of the world”); 10.11, 15 (“for the sheep”); 11.50-52 (repeated in 18.14) (“for the people [λαός/ ἔθνος]”); 13.37-38 (“for you/me”); 15.13 (“for the friends”); 17.19 (“for them”); cf. the table in Knöppler 2001, 250. 58 Schröter 2000, passim. Cf. my critical discussion of Schröter’s theses in Frey 2002c, 197–213 (= 2013a, 512–30); 2005d, 38–40 (= 2016a, 211–14). See further Scholtissek 2004a, 433–34. 59 Knöppler 2001, 249–50, also interprets only John 6.51 and 17.19 in an atonementtheological sense.

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John 15.13 most strongly echoes the Greek tradition of ‘noble death.’ This statement simultaneously takes up a central aspect of Hellenistic ‘ethics of friendship.’ Jesus gives his life “for his friends.” In the framework of the Farewell Discourses, his giving of his life is simultaneously framed by the motif of the love of Jesus, which is meant to ground the subsequent love of the disciples for one another (13.34-35; 15.9-12, 17). His death is thus the highest “expression of friendship love.”60 There is no talk of a vicarious—let alone an atoning—character of his death here. Thus, in this formulation it remains open how Jesus’ death is to be ‘effective.’ It would, however, be inappropriate to seek to derive the meaning of the ὑπέρstatement of John 15.13 only from the framework that is present here. In the context of the Fourth Gospel the expression should be read not in isolation but only against the background of the talk—which has occurred multiple times already—of τιθέναι τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπέρ or ἀποθνῇσκειν ὑπέρ.61 The short, ironic-ambiguous dialogue between Jesus and Peter in 13.37-38 must be understood more clearly in the sense of a personal staking of one’s life ‘for’ the life of another. Peter, who apparently understands Jesus’ announcement of his departure inadequately, offers to give his life “for” Jesus—which primarily means to stake his life for him, if need be with deadly consequences. Jesus’ answer is significant. It is conspicuously repetitious in wording and displays therein a counterquestion with an ironic deeper meaning: “You want to give your life for me?” The repetition in wording with simultaneous exchange of pronouns62 already leads one to suspect a certain deeper meaning of the statement, and the announcement of the denial that immediately follows (13.38) makes clear how unreal—indeed impossible—it is that Peter offers to give his life for Jesus. The starting point of the verbal exchange is the announcement of the ‘departure’ (i.e., the death) of Jesus (13.33) and Jesus’ announcement in 13.36 that Peter cannot follow him ‘now’ (νῦν) but will follow him ‘afterwards’ (ὕστερον). This announcement—which directs one’s eye to the ‘threshold’ between ‘now’ and ‘hereafter,’ between the situation of the pre-Easter disciples and the situation of the later community63—already contains an allusion to the martyrdom that awaits Peter, a martyrdom in

60

Thus Scholtissek 2004a, 433. On this, see Frey 2005d, 40–41 (= 2016a, 213–14). 62 The ὑπέρ-statements change through this from the (affirmed) ὑπέρ σοῦ to the (questioned) ὑπέρ ἐμοῦ. 63 The irony of the scene aims to show that now—in the death of Jesus—the disciples’ possibility for earthly ‘discipleship’ ends and henceforth another, post-Easter form of ‘faith’ is required (14.1). On this, see Frey 2000b, 127–28. 61

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which Peter was, in fact, to follow his master.64 Peter’s staking of his life, which is addressed here, can therefore be related only very superficially to the sword thrust that is reported in 18.10 and sharply rejected by Jesus immediately. Rather, the starting point, the announcement of Jesus’ departure and the allusion to the subsequent martyrdom make clear that in this announcement the concern is ultimately with an interpretation of the death of Jesus. If it is impossible for Peter to give his life for Jesus (τιθέναι τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπέρ), this shows the unique quality of the τιθέναι τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπέρ announced in relation to Jesus himself. Peter cannot stake his life in order to preserve Jesus from death; he cannot die in Jesus’ place. This implicitly suggests the notion of a vicarious giving of life in the opposite direction, even though these verses do not explicitly state that Jesus gives his life “for” Peter. But this passage refers back to earlier statements. Johannine readers know already that Jesus will give his life “for” his own or die “for the people.” The notion of giving one’s life for others, which has already been mentioned earlier, is now made more precise through Peter’s offer to take his place—namely, in a way that clarifies the idea of a personal place-taking. Additional aspects are supplied by the context of 13.31– 14.31. Jesus’ departure, i.e., the giving of his life ‘for’ the disciples, has the consequence that he will prepare for them a place to stay with the Father and will ultimately receive them anew into his fellowship (14.2-3). This expresses both the uniqueness and the soteriological effect of his death. The aspect of the vicarious giving of life can be heard most clearly in the scene in which the decision for Jesus’ death is made, when Caiaphas states that it is better that one person die “for the people” than that the whole nation perish (11.50).65 The statement can initially be understood on the level of political calculation, which could suggest that the priestly aristocracy remove a cause of possible unrest before the occupying power regarded it as necessary to intervene or even destroy the temple and thus to “take away the holy place (τόπος) and the people” from the leaders of the people (ὑμῶν).66 However, the statement is full of subtle irony.67 The Johannine readers know, after all, that the political calculation did not work out. Despite the ‘removal’ of Jesus, which seemed opportune here, the temple was destroyed, and as a result the chief priests were also stripped of their influence over the people. In light of the fact that the statement of Caiaphas 64 John 21.18 refers clearly to the martyrdom of Peter and shows that this was known in the Johannine community—not only in the addition of chapter 21. 65 On the subtle play with the terms λαός and ἔθνος, see Frey 1994a, 238–43 (= 2013a, 309–15). 66 Cf. John 11.48. The reference to the events of 70, which are certainly known to the Johannine readers, is evident. 67 On this, see Frey 1994a, 238ff. (= 2013a, 309ff.).

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is additionally characterized as “prophecy” by virtue of a charisma of the high priestly office, and thus as true in a deeper sense (11.51),68 and called to mind again later at the interrogation of Jesus (18.14), this statement must have special weight. Jesus dies “for” the people (λαός)—in place of the people and for its benefit—which is further unpacked subsequently: not only for the people alone but also for the gathering of the dispersed children of God (11.52). Here motifs of the gathering of the diaspora and the unity of the community of salvation comprised of Jews and Gentiles are taken up as well. In any event, Jesus’ death in this context is far more than a dying for the mere protection of the community or for the fending off of damages from the Jewish nation.69 Rather, it is characterized as a vicarious assumption of death and as an event that is constitutive for the survival of the community and, in this, as an event that effects salvation. I can break off here. The detailed analysis of the Johannine ὑπέρstatements leads to the result that the effect of the death of Jesus can ultimately be formulated only in theological categories. The concern is not merely—as in many pagan parallels—with the protection of a community from enemies or from its downfall; rather, in the case of the death of Jesus, the concern is with an event of personal giving of a life in the place of others, with salvation from death, and with the constitution of salvation and life. With this in view, we will now consider two frequently used theological categories of interpretation, ‘place-taking’ and ‘atonement.’ 3.3 Vicarious Death “Vicarious death” is, of course, also a modern scholarly category, for which there is no single corresponding Greek equivalent.70 The German abstract noun Stellvertretung (place-taking, vicariousness) was only coined in the Enlightenment to replace expressions such as satisfactio vicaria (vicarious satisfaction),71 with the aim of underlining the personal character of the Christ event in distinction from the cultic, judicial, or mercantile aspects 68

For the structural correspondence with John 10.40-42, see Frey 2000b, 410. So the interpretation of Schröter 2000, 272, which is not, however, adequate. A deeper dimension is also present. Just as the Roman governor Pilate, as the highest judge, establishes the innocence of Jesus in a legally valid way, so the high priest Caiaphas, as the highest authority in ‘cultic’ matters, declares his death as soteriologically valid. The Fourth Evangelist intentionally places such judgments in the mouths of the authorities who are responsible in each case. 70 This is, of course, no decisive reason against its use, since this is true for many terms in academic descriptive language. For this problem, see Frey 2006a (= 2016a, 225– 61); 2005d, 21–26 (= 2016a, 194–98). 71 Cf. Gestrich/Hüttenberger 2001, 146; Menke 2000, 953; 1991, 82ff.; Schaede 2004. 69

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that were often stressed in the theological tradition.72 Very different Latin terms and concepts stand behind this new coinage,73 so that in an individual case it is indeed necessary to specify in greater detail which kind of ‘placetaking’ is in view. If the category is to be exegetically useful, a rather broadly understood basic conception must be presupposed, which can then be made more precise in different ways.74 This conception includes different forms of partial or holistic activity of a person ‘in the place’ of another person or group.75 At the same time, the motif of the vicarious giving of a life must be distinguished from the talk of Sühne (atonement), which is related in subject matter and terminology to the Old Testament sacrificial cult.76 Vicarious assumption of guilt and personal ‘place-taking’ are expressed in some of the statements about Jesus’ dying “for” someone or “for” something (e.g., “our sins”), but this phenomenon can also be expressed in other ways, for example, through specific lexemes77 or in narrative form (e.g., of a ‘narrated’ changing of places).78 As is well known, talk of Jesus dying “for us” (or “for our sins” etc.) is already attested in pre-Pauline formulas. In the Pauline letters it is

72

In biblical scholarship one can also observe that the term Stellvertretung (placetaking, vicariousness) is often used to exclude the interpretation of a more cultically connoted understanding of Sühne (atonement). Thus, e.g., the forceful argument of Käsemann 1971, 43 (GV = 1969a, 79), with the argument that the motif of sacrifice has “no essential significance” in Paul. According to Käsemann, christological weight is born only by the notion of place-taking, which may not, however, be understood in the sense of a vicarious punitive suffering. 73 Schaede 2004, 7–269, names especially vicariatio, substitutio, subrogatio, procuratio, repraesentatio, and locitenentia. 74 Cf. also Spieckermann 2001c, 135: “In a broad sense of that mediatorial office of legal and religious character, in which someone acts in the place of others (or another).” The definitional restriction to phenomena of the ‘exclusive’ substitution, which Röhser 2002, 29ff., carries out, appears arbitrary and untenable in light of the history-of-terminology analyses of Schaede 2004. 75 The phenomena of vicariously offered sacrifices, vicarious intercession (Rom 8.33; 1 John 2.1; and elsewhere), and vicariously undertaken baptisms (1 Cor 15.29) can be described in this framework. However, the New Testament use of the motif of place-taking is overwhelmingly focused on Jesus’ dying or death. Only from this standpoint was it possible to formulate other forms of place-taking through Jesus’ whole life in the sense of a ‘preexistence’ or in his incarnation. 76 See section 3.4 below. For this differentiation, see in detail Frey 2005d, 14–26 (= 2016a, 186–98); 2006a (= 2016a, 225–61). 77 E.g., ἀντάλλαγμα (Mark 8.37 par. Matt 16.26) or ἀντίλυτρον (1 Tim 2.6); cf. Knöppler 2001, 143. 78 On this phenomenon in the Gospel of John, see Frey 2002c, 215–17 (= 2013a, 531– 34); see also Scholtissek 1998a.

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connected with other motifs of interpretation79 and enlarged into a loadbearing motif of his soteriology. Vicariousness can come to expression there with or without the motif of cultic atonement, and in some passages it is developed in a participatory manner into an ‘inclusive’ form of placetaking (cf. 2 Cor 5.14-15; Rom 6.4). Statements of place-taking are also found with different weighting in the Gospel of Mark80 and in Luke–Acts.81 Since the talk of the death of Christ “for us” also occurs in 1 John in a rather formulaic manner (1 John 3.16),82 one must assume that this specific interpretation was not formed completely anew in the Johannine school but taken from the older early Christian tradition before it was connected with specific Johannine motifs83 and developed in different narrative contexts. Thus, the Johannine school had probably inherited the notion of place-taking from the tradition. In the Fourth Gospel the ὑπέρ-statements about Jesus’ death or his giving of his life “for the life of the world” (6.51), “for” the sheep (10.11, 15), “for” the people (11.50-52), “for” his friends (15.13), or “for” his own (17.19) mutually illuminate one another in their recurrence and come together to form a semantic network, so that the individual statements must be understood not in isolation but only in their consonance in the whole Gospel.84 In that process of hearing them together, the aspects that are recognizable in the respective passages come together and supplement 79

Cf. the redemption motif in Gal 3.13, the motifs of reconciliation and new creation in 2 Cor 5.14-21, the notion of atonement in Rom 5.9, the motif of justification or making righteous in 2 Cor 5.21, and the motif of the intercession of the exalted one in Rom 8.32-34. In the train of thought of Romans the two motifs of atonement and place-taking are connected when Paul first takes up the interpretation of the death of Jesus as ‘place of atonement’ in Rom 3.25 and then takes up the formula—which is dependent on Isa 53—of vicarious delivered-up-ness ‘because of our transgressions’ (and thus for their removal) in Rom 4.25; on this, see Söding 2005, 375–96. 80 On this, see Frey 2006a (= 2016a, 225–61). For Mark, cf. in detail Weihs 2003; Backhaus 1995. For Mark 10.45, see also especially Stuhlmacher 1986 (GV = 1981, 27– 42); Kertelge 1975. 81 Cf. the double “for you” in the words of interpretation of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22.19b-20). An interpretation under the leading motif of the “staking one’s life for . . .” or the “proexistence of Jesus” is offered by Böttrich 2005 (for the term ‘proexistence’ see p. 415 n. 15). Cf.—going even further with regard to the motif of atonement in Luke–Acts—Mittmann-Richert 2008. 82 Knöppler 2001, 227, speaks of a “Hingabeformel” (giving of one’s life formula) or, more precisely, of an “Entäußerungsformel” (divesting formula). One must, of course, also point to atonement statements in which in the same way an aspect of place-taking comes to expression: “for (περί) our sins” (1 John 2.2; 4.10) or “for [the sins] of the whole world” (so the expansion in 1 John 2.2). 83 In John 3.16 this is the motif of love and the aspect of ethical exemplariness; cf. similarly John 15.13; on this, see Popkes 2005a, 308–13. 84 On this, see section 3.2 below; see further Frey 2005d, 41 (= 2016a, 214–15).

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one another. The aspect of the personal “vicarious” dying can be recognized in the dialogue with Peter (13.37-38) and in the multiplicity of the recipients of salvation in the Caiaphas saying (11.52). Alongside this, sacrificial-metaphorical terms also occur in the shepherd discourse of John 10.85 This is situated narratively in the temple district (10.23) and in the framework of the festival of dedication. The talk of the αὐλή (10.1, 16) does not refer merely to a stable or pen, but simultaneously suggests the association with the forecourt of the temple, in which the sacrificial animals were rounded up. While the thief comes in order to slaughter the sheep (θύειν: 10.10), the good shepherd ‘drives’ them out of the αὐλή (10.5). These terms, which burst the image field in a productive manner, suggest that in the good shepherd’s staking of his life for his sheep the concern is not only with their protection from danger but, going further, also with their salvation from death. Here, the fellowship is not only preserved but fundamentally constituted (10.16). The good shepherd’s giving of his life takes place for the sheep that are in life-threatening danger. It saves them (10.9) and opens up life for them, whereas they would die otherwise. For this reason, one should also not deny that the good shepherd’s laying down of his life has a ‘vicarious’ character as well.86 In John 17.19 we can clearly find sacrificial language: ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἐγὼ ἁγιάζω ἐμαυτόν. Jesus’ self-sanctification leads to the sanctification of his own. His voluntarily accepted fate of death results in the fact that they too are dedicated to the Father and get their home enduringly in the fellowship with the Father and the Son. Here one can speak of a place-taking that is expanded in a participatory manner, as it is also occasionally formulated in Paul. Finally, with clear recourse to the Lord’s Supper tradition, John 6.51c formulates the life-opening, salvation-creating character of Jesus’ giving of his life.87 Thus, despite the variety of image fields and contexts of tradition, the different ὑπέρ-statements come together to form a whole, according to which Jesus steps in for the good of his own and thus “for” them, with the benefit consisting not only in the protection and upholding of the community but, fundamentally, in its constitution (10.16; 11.52), in the salvation and “sanctification” (17.19) of his own. It is probably accurate that the Johannine ὑπέρ-statements do not express the notion of place-taking as pronouncedly and clearly as the ὑπέρ-formulas of the pre-Pauline and Pauline tradition. There, we find concrete talk of 85

For what follows see the lucid interpretation of the image contents of the good shepherd discourse in R. Zimmermann 2004, 392–96. 86 Thus accurately Janowski 2001, 40 n. 107. 87 For the recourse to the Lord’s Supper tradition, see also Frey 2000a, 357–58 (= 2013a, 403–5).

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the vicarious assumption of the punishment for sin (Rom 4.25a: = because of / for the removal of our transgressions)88 and, beyond this, of the assumption of the role of the paradigmatic sinner (2 Cor 5.21) by the righteous one and thus of an “exchange of roles” or “exchange of places” between Christ and “us” (cf. analogously Gal 3.13). Both aspects are not found, to be sure, in the framework of the ὑπέρ-statements in John, but material that is analogous in subject matter can be found in other linguistic forms. Here, one must mention first the programmatic saying of the Baptist in John 1.29, which, together with its repetition in abbreviated form in 1.35, forms, as it were, a “gateway to the Johannine understanding of Christ.”89 It makes no difference whether the talk of the “lamb” presents a Passover reference90 or whether other references are to be heard; for the question of ‘place-taking’ the αἴρειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου is decisive. This phrase, which refers back rather clearly to Isaiah 53.12 LXX,91 characterizes Jesus as the one who carries away the sin of the world, i.e., he himself bears it and thereby removes it. Thus, this phrase is concerned with the removal of sins through the one’s vicarious assumption of the consequences of sins for the benefit of the κόσμος (cf. 1 John 2.2)—and thus with ‘placetaking.’ Even though there is no explicit talk of Jesus’ death in John 1.29 and its context, this anticipation can, in my view, be sensibly related only 88

Cf. Frey 2006a (= 2016a, 225–61). Knöppler 2001, 67. Later, the saying is reinforced again before the Lazarus pericope looking back: everything that the Baptist said about Jesus is true (10.41); for the correspondence of this statement with the Caiaphas prophecy after the Lazarus pericope, see Frey 2000b, 408–11. The saying of the High Priest (11.50), explicitly characterized as prophecy (11.51), simultaneously corresponds to the reference of the Baptist’s testimony to the death of Jesus. The Baptist as well as the chief priests confirm with their witness the soteriological content of the death of Jesus, and these statements frame the Lazarus pericope, which is intimately related, in turn, to the events of the death and resurrection. 90 This has recently been emphatically disputed again; cf. Schlund 2005, 173ff. In view of the relatively clear Passover typology in John 19.36 (so also Schlund 2005, 130), which is at least supported by the Johannine chronology of the passion, it is, in my view, scarcely possible to compellingly dispute an allusion to this circumstance and to Jesus as the true Passover lamb in John 1.29. On the other hand, it should be conceded that the talk of the ‘lamb of God’ at this point of the Gospel is an open cipher, which can be ‘explained’ only with difficulty from a single stream of tradition (for the complex tradition history of the talk of a ‘lamb,’ see now in detail Johns 2003; more recently Theobald 2009, 163–172; and Zumstein 2016b, 89–103). The difficulty that the backgrounds offered for the motif of the lamb do not directly support also the aspect of the removal of sins shows that in this formulation the evangelist creatively brings together different biblical or traditional backgrounds. For this subject matter, cf. also Frey 2002c, 202, 208ff. (= 2013a, 518, 524ff.). Cf. now also Bauckham 2015, 153–57. 91 Καὶ αὐτὸς ἁμαρτίας πολλῶν ἀνήνεγκεν. Cf. in addition Isa 53.4: φέρειν. On this, see Knöppler 2001, 84. See in detail Hasitschka 1989, who favors, to be sure, an exclusive derivation from the servant of God tradition—in my view too one-sidedly. 89

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to this event. Recent attempts to detach the reference of this statement from the concentration on Jesus’ death and to relate it to his whole way of life92 do not do justice to the subject matter. When in the Gospel of John the entire way of Jesus from the beginning onward is related to his death through diverse narrative means of representation93 and when all the Johannine individual narratives are configured in such a way that they point to the decisive event in his ‘hour,’94 then the predication of Jesus as the one who carries away the sin of the world and thereby removes it can be sensibly related to Jesus’ way only insofar as his death is the ‘integral’ of his life and the goal of his way narrated in the Gospel. There is no other point, no other event that was causally connected with the removal of sins or the effecting of the forgiveness of sins in the primitive Christian tradition other than his death.95 It is a mere postulate to claim that the Fourth Gospel wanted to firmly distance itself from the primitive Christian tradition here. Rather, the talk of the “carrying away” of sins already at the beginning of his earthly way points to Jesus’ death,96 to which, according 92

Thus, Schröter 2000, 286, wants to discern only an “indirect reference to the death of Jesus.” Rusam 2005 also refers the taking away of sin concretely to the baptism with the Spirit or the conferring of the Spirit to the community (76), through which unbelief is removed, while a soteriological effect of the cross is said to be “not recognizable” here (80). But his interpretation presupposes that the expression is understood as a genetivus qualitatis (‘worldly’ sin = unbelief) and not as a genetivus subjectivus. However, the closest parallel to this expression, namely, 1 John 2.2, where—though with the plural “sins”—we are clearly dealing with a genetivus subjectivus (“for our sins, not only for ours alone but also for those of the whole world”) militates against this view. Bieringer 2007 also wants to relate the talk of the lamb of God in John 1.29 in the first place to Jesus as bearer of the Spirit (1.32) and thus to the whole way of Jesus, but the concentric structures in John 1.2531 or 1.29-34 that he draws on for this view seem somewhat forced, which also diminishes the persuasiveness of the consequences drawn from them. 93 See section 1 above. 94 Welck 1994 has convincingly worked this out for the Johannine miracle stories. 95 This event must, of course, be distinguished from various salvific acts toward individuals and from the appropriation of salvation. However, in the post-Easter period these are always tied back to the constitutive Christ-event. Thus, the granting (or nongranting) of the forgiveness of sins is, to be sure, connected with the Easter sending of the disciples, but it is, of course, related back to Jesus’ sending or, more precisely, to his death and resurrection. This is insufficiently taken into account in Rusam 2005, 80. If one wanted to identify a different reference point for the forgiveness of sins, one could more plausibly think of the statements of Jesus’ ‘sending,’ which are often connected with the specification of the purpose of the conferring of salvation and life (cf. 1 John 4.9-11). On the other hand, the sending statement in John 3.16 is precisely modified in the sense of the ‘giving’ of the Son, so that these statements can be understood not only in the sense of the coming of Jesus or the incarnation but certainly imply his death (on this, see Frey 2000b, 286–89; for the relationship between statements of sending and statements of giving, see further Popkes 2005a, 222–23 and 239–46). 96 Cf. the repeated αἴρειν in 19.17: Jesus carries the cross himself.

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to the Johannine presentation, his whole way leads in a consequent manner and in which his sending and work “is completed” (19.30). In the notion that Jesus dies in the assumption of—or for the removal of—the world’s burden of sins, the motif of (exclusive) place-taking or substitution is no less clearly taken up than, for example, in Romans 4.25. It is a peculiarity of the Gospel of John that the place-taking motif is presented at several points in narrative or dramatic form, specifically, in a series of exchange-of-places scenes97 that display soteriological connotations. This motif is encountered in its most profound form in the Lazarus episode, which as a whole is a narrative presentation of Johannine Christology, soteriology, and eschatology.98 Jesus’ encounter with the power of death lets the one whom he loves (11.5) receive life and freedom (11.44). At the same time, this last and greatest of the miracles of Jesus—the demonstration of his power of life (11.25-26)—is the cause for the sentence of death over him (11.45-54). Thus, Jesus’ way to the grave of Lazarus is the way into his own death (11.8, 16), just as Lazarus’ raising is a prelude to his own resurrection. Once one has become aware of this subtle exchange-ofroles motif, other passages suggest themselves in which an analogous structure of acting figures—though in a much more simplified form—is present and confirms what has been recognized. In the scene in which Jesus voluntarily presents himself to those who come to arrest him, he effects freedom for the disciples.99 In the scene of the Passover amnesty, Jesus is appointed for crucifixion as the innocent one, while the ‘bandit’ (λῃστής) is released (18.38b-40). An exchange of roles also takes place, at least in less developed form, in the scene beneath the cross (19.25-27). While it is not explicitly said that Jesus dies ‘in the place of’ the paradigmatic disciple, this disciple does take his place as the son of the mother. Here, the adoption of the other’s role is explicated in only one direction—the corresponding side remains a ‘blank space,’ but it can be filled out in an appropriate manner by the Johannine readers. The innocent one dies in the place of the ‘sinner,’ also in the place of the paradigmatic disciple beloved by Jesus. Jesus’ arrest and his death bring the disciples freedom and life, and the laying down of his life for their life (11.44) leads Jesus himself into death. In this use of the motif of the narrative exchange of roles, we find indeed an analogy to the statements of 2 Corinthians 5.21 and Galatians 3.13. 97

On these ‘stagings’ of the notion of place-taking in the Gospel of John, see Frey 2002c, 215–17 (= 2013a, 532–34); Knöppler 2001, 215–16; Lang 1999, 316–18. 98 For interpretation, see Frey 2000b, 403–62; Hofius 2005. 99 John 18.8: “If you seek me, then let these people go.” Interestingly the formulation resonates with the conclusion of the Lazarus episode (11.44) where Jesus gives the command to unbind Lazarus and “let him go.”

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Finally, aspects of place-taking also surface in individual terminological details, such as in the use of the lexeme ταράσσεσθαι.100 After all, it is one of the strongest expressions of human emotion by the Johannine Jesus that he experiences ‘being troubled’ at multiple points. The term is used especially in places where Jesus, as the one with the power of life in himself, encounters death—in the proclamation and in the dawning of his own hour of death (12.27), in the perception of the power of death at the grave of Lazarus (11.33), and, finally, in the announcement of his betrayal (13.21). Conversely, in the Farewell Discourses the disciples are programmatically exhorted not to be troubled or fearful in light of the death of Jesus or his later ‘absence’ but to ‘believe’ (πιστεύειν: 14.1, 27). The first Farewell Discourse is framed by this motif, so that in a certain sense the text-pragmatic goal of this speech—and thus in nuce also of the whole Gospel—can be recognized therein.101 This can be interpreted in the sense that Jesus’ own assumption of this condition of being troubled, his struggle with the power of death, is to enable the disciples to have the fearless confidence of faith, even in the face of the death of Jesus. In this as well, an element of place-taking can be seen. 3.4 Salvific Death—and the Question of Atoning/Expiatory Death A fourth category of interpretation cannot be neglected here, since it traditionally occupies a very prominent position in the exegetical discussion. The category of ‘atoning death,’ which must—as has already been mentioned—be distinguished terminologically and tradition-historically from ‘place-taking.’ However, in the discussion one can recognize a great fuzziness in the use of the respective terminology, which obfuscates the scholarly discourse.102 The question of whether or not the Gospel of John also speaks of Sühne (atonement) and, thus, of Jesus’ death as a “vicarious atoning death”103 has been hotly debated time and again in scholarship—not least in the interest of the “distinctive character” of the Fourth Gospel.104 In the background 100

On this, see Frey 2000b, 132; 2000c, 1514, 1516. On this, see Frey 2000b, 131–34; for the relationship between the pragmatics of the first Farewell Discourse and that of the entire Gospel, see Onuki 1984, 110–11. 102 For the differentiation of the terminology, see also the attempt at clarification by Schröter 2005. 103 So, e.g., Hengel 1989b, 281; with differentiation Frey 2002c, 200–212 (= 2013a, 516–30). 104 Cf. Müller 1997. According to Müller 1975, 63, the “reference to the sin-removing effect of the death of Jesus” in John 1.29, 36, is “not specifically Johannine.” For discussion, 101

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of these discussions stand at the same time diverse material-theological judgments that often recognizably constrict the exegetical perspectives and results.105 Accordingly, also the use of the category of ‘atonement’ is strongly dependent on how this notion is defined. If one understands ‘atonement’ broadly as a sin-removing and life-enabling salvific action, then the talk of a “vicarious atoning death” is certainly justified.106 However, if—for the sake of a more precise grasp of the respective details— one works with a tradition-historical and material distinction between the motif of atonement and the notion of place-taking and only speaks of atonement when the lexeme ἱλάσκεσθαι and its derivatives occur or when other references to the biblical cult of atonement are present (such as the talk of the salvific effect of the ‘blood’ or elements of sacrificial terminology),107 then one must maintain that an explicit taking up of the atonement motif is not present in the Gospel. This motif is much more clearly present in 1 John,108 where the term ἱλασμός is connected with the expression “for our sins” (περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν) in 1 John 2.2 and 1 John 4.10 and is, in addition, expanded universalistically in 1 John 2.2: “not only for ours, but for the sins of the whole world.” Thus, it is clear that the motif of cultic atonement, which is expressed through the use of the lexeme ἱλάσκεσθαι κτλ.,109 was known in the Johannine school and could be used in connection with the motif of the removal of sin or the vicarious assumption of the consequences of sin. In view of the fact that the letters of John provide the closest commentary on the Gospel—irrespective of how one specifies the literary and historical relationship between the them—the assumption that the evangelist did not know the motif of cultic atonement110 is scarcely possible historically. Where one seeks to bring the evangelist into opposition to the notion of atonement, this is more likely to be a moderndogmatic imposition.111 At the same time, one should indeed pay attention see on the whole Knöppler 2001, 220–51; and with critical differentiation Dietzfelbinger 1997b. 105 See my attempt to specify some of these premises in Frey 2005d, esp. 7ff. (= 2016a, 180ff.). 106 I worked with such a broad understanding in Frey 2002c, 200–212 (= 2013a, 516– 30). See the documentation on pp. 207–8 (522–24). The present reflections attempt to do justice to the demand for a somewhat more precise terminological differentiation. 107 Thus my attempt to obtain greater precision in Frey 2005d, 14–21. 108 On this, see Morgan 2004. 109 One must, however, pay attention to the fact that not every use of ἱλάσκεσθαι κτλ. can already be understood in the sense of the cultic notion of atonement. Cf. Breytenbach 1999; Schröter 2005, 62–63. 110 So Berger 1997, 238. 111 Something similar holds true for the attempts to ‘purify’ the Gospel of John from all traces of a future eschatology (on this, see Frey 1997b; 2013a, 661–98; 2014d) or from

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to the absence of an explicit terminology of atonement. The typological use of the Passover motif—which, in my view, is present not only in 1.29 but above all in the passion chronology (19.14) and in the context of the scene of Jesus’ death—presents no basis for a sacrificial-cultic interpretation. One can, of course, ask whether the “subject matter of atonement,”112 i.e., the content that is expressed in other places through atonementtheological terms, is nevertheless present—even without explicit atonement terminology. When this “topic”—according to the Old Testament and Early Jewish specifications—consists in the fact that salvation and the opening of new life takes place through God’s salvific act, that “the existence of humans forfeited by guilt” is snatched “from the deserved death,”113 then this can indeed be affirmed with regard to the death of Jesus. For it is evident that the death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is understood as a ‘salvation-creating’ act of God, through which the removal of sin, salvation from death, and the opening of new life takes place. The idea of sin removal determines the Johannine presentation from the first, programmatic reference to Jesus’ identity in the Baptist’s testimony of John 1.29. In the subsequent course of the narrative, there is talk of the impending “dying in sins” (8.21-24) and of the “freedom”—which must be received through faith in Christ—from the slavery of sin (8.36; cf. 8.34). In all this, the idea of the death of Jesus—simultaneously understood as exaltation and glorification, i.e., perceived from the perspective of Easter—is presupposed, even though this is not expressed at all stations of the narrated earthly way of Jesus. The salvation from death that is brought about through Jesus’ giving of his life is expressed paradigmatically in the Johannine kerygma of John 3.16 and is dramaturgically displayed in, among other texts, the Lazarus episode, which is very closely connected with the passion narrative. The opening up of new life through Jesus’ giving of his σάρξ is expressed in John 6.50. Further, one needs to consider individual terms that can carry cultic associations, such as the talk of the self-“sanctification” of Jesus in John 17.19 or the talk of “purification” (13.10-11), which is, however, received through the word of Jesus (15.3) or the motif of Jesus himself—his body (and thus the crucified one)— becoming the new temple and the place of the salvific presence of God (cf. 1.51; 2.21; 7.38-39; 19.34).114 The death of Jesus thus appears as an a knowledge and practice of the sacraments. 112 So the somewhat daring formulation in Knöppler 2001, 233. 113 So the definition in Knöppler 1994, 91; which is based on the works of Gese 1989, 90–91 (ET = 1981, 99); and Janowski 1982, 175–76. 114 On this, cf. in detail Rahner 1998.

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event in which this new salvific presence of God is constitutively made possible. In it the victory over the cosmos takes place. Here, the salvation from death given to believers is constituted, and the new, eschatologically valid—in John’s language “eternal”—life (3.15, 16, etc.) is grounded. It is not by chance that the τετέλεσται, with which the earthly Jesus ends his life, points to the account of the conclusion of the biblical work of creation in Genesis 2.1-2.115 According to the account of the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ work, climaxing in the event in his ‘hour,’ is an act of new creation. The salvation and life of the post-Easter community have their origin and enduring foundation here. 4. Concluding Remarks The interpretations could be presented more broadly, and other aspects could be added. It must be stressed that we have to start from a thick mesh of different interpretive motifs in the Gospel of John. No single motif dominates in such a way that one could justifiably regard it as the sole key to its understanding, whether one thinks of the interpretation of the death of Jesus as exaltation and glorification, or of the notion of place-taking, or of the motif of (cultic) atonement. Numerically the motifs that highlight the ‘honorable’ character of the death of Jesus may dominate—or, expressing the matter more accurately in theological language, the motifs that stress his authority over life and death, his divine dignity, and thereby correspond to the post-Easter perspective of the Gospel. The perception of the death of Jesus from the perspective of the post-Easter community, which is programmatically presented in the Johannine ‘perspective,’ makes clear the soteriological fruit of his dying, which is in view from the start (1.29) in the sense of the removal of sin and the opening up of eschatological life (3.15, 16). Closely connected with this is the fact that from this perspective Jesus’ fate appears as the fulfillment of Scripture and thus as an eschatological fulfillment event. In the Fourth Gospel this is expressed especially through the ‘fulfillment formulae’ between John 12 and 19 and through the completion terminology in John 19.28-30. In traditional-historical perspective it becomes clear that the interpretive motifs of ‘exaltation’ and ‘glorification,’ of the revelation and manifestation of the divine δόξα, are also based on particular scriptural traditions, so that the Christ event, and the perception of the glory of the crucified one in particular, are based on Scripture and its (post-)Easter reading, which is classified in John as Spirit-effected. In this light what occurs in the dying of Jesus and in the laying down of his life is the completion of the divine salvific will and at 115

On this, see Hengel 1989b, 284–85; Frey 1998, 195–96.

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the same time, constitutively, the eschatological new creation, which is given to the disciples after Easter in the conferrment of the Easter Spirit in a way that simultaneously authorizes them (20.22-23) and gives them insight (14.26 etc.).

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Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John

1. The ‘Spiritual’ Gospel and the Spiritualizing Trajectory of Interpretation1 According to the famous note of Clement of Alexandria, the evangelist John composed his work as a ‘spiritual gospel” (πνευματικὸν εὐαγγέλιον), after the other three evangelists had recorded the bodily things (σωματικά) about Jesus.2 With this statement, which is said to go back to the tradition of the ancients of the early period, i.e., probably of the presbyters of Asia Minor,3 the Alexandrian teacher comments on the problem of the contradictions among the four Gospels that became canonical—especially between John and the Synoptics. This problem was an unavoidable consequence4 of the emergence and establishment of the Four Gospel 1

I thank Nadine Ueberschaer for her helpful comments on the German version of this essay. 2 Clement of Alexandria, Hypotyposeis 6 (Stählin 1909, 197), according to Eusebius, Historia ecclessiastica 6.14.7: “But that John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the Gospels, was urged on by his disciples, and, divinely moved by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel” (translated by Oulton 1994, 49). 3 Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6.14.15: τῶν ἀνέκαθεν πρεσβυτέρων. Clement of Alexandria hands down additional traditions that are probably from Asia Minor, such as (in Quis Dives 42) the tradition of the saving of a young man who had turned to robbery and the ascetic legend of John and the partridge. On this, see Hengel 1993, 115–16. 4 Papias of Hierapolis, who composed his five books on the “Exposition of the Words of the Lord,” already appears to have been aware of this problem when, in his famous note on the evangelist Mark (Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.39.15), he makes the criticism that Mark wrote down the proclamation of Peter, so far as he remembered it, not in the right order (οὐ μέντοι τάξει), which probably points to the fact that he must have known of a work with a fundamentally different sequence (i.e., most likely the Gospel of John); on this, see Hengel 2008c, 124–25 (ET = 2000, 66–67); 1993, 87; in greater detail Merkel 1971, 45–51. Cf. also Bauckham 2017, 423–25, 435–36. 199

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collection5 and was heatedly discussed time and again in the early church6 until it was finally temporarily set aside within the framework of a harmonizing approach.7 At the same time, with his statement Clement stands relatively at the beginning of a trajectory of the ‘spiritualizing’ approach to the Gospel of John, for which the ‘bodily’ things are of secondary importance, while the ‘spiritual’ content, the deeper sense, the symbolic and theological meaning constitutes what is actually valuable in this gospel. In this regard John obtained preeminent significance for the development of the early church Christology and doctrine of the Trinity. John was soon regarded as ‘the theologian,’8 the ‘eagle evangelist,’9 the one who soared to ‘spiritual’ heights and presented Christ in his true divine glory. Therefore, the ‘spiritual Gospel’ received special significance for the faith and teaching of the church. An especially high estimation of the Gospel of John unites very different interpreters of all epochs, from the Valentinians10 via Martin Luther11 5

That the Four Gospel collection had long circulated by the time of Clement is shown prior to him by the earlier Diatessaron of Tatian, which bases its chronological framework on the Gospel of John, and by the work of Irenaeus, who does not establish the Four Gospel canon in the first place but grounds an already existing entity with it. On this, see Hengel 2008c, 15–22 (ET = 2000, 10–12); Heckel 1999, 350–53; Mutschler 2006, 34–42, 249–80, and 503–4. 6 On the problem, cf. in detail Merkel 1971. See also the concise sketch in Frey 2003, 60ff. (= 2013a, 240ff.). 7 Thus with great influence for centuries in Augustine’s writing De consensu evangelistarum; on this, see Merkel 1971, 218–61. Cf. also Watson 2013, 13–61. 8 John receives the honorary title ὁ θεόλογος, so, for the first time, in Origen (Commentarii in evangelium Joannis Fragment 1 [Preuschen 1903, 483.14; see also 484.7 from later catena]), and in the Acts of John (Acts of John 5: Lipsius/Bonnet 1959, 155.33 [individual manuscripts]). See further Markschies 2015, 5–20, especially 13–14 (GV = 2007, 15–31, especially 23–24). 9 According to Rev 4.7 (cf. Ezek 1.11; Isa 6.2) the eagle is one of the four throne figures, which were first interpreted by Irenaeus (Adversus haereses 3.11.8) as a reference to the unity of the fourfold gospel (on this, see Mutschler 2006, 67–70). Later the assignment of the human being to Matthew, the lion to Mark, the ox to Luke, and the eagle to John, advocated by Jerome (Commentariorum in Ezechielem 1.1) and Gregory the Great (Homiliarum in Ezechielem 2.1 and 4.1), established itself and determined the presentation of the evangelists in Christian art. Cf. Nilgen 1968, 711ff. Cf. also Watson 2013, 553ff. 10 For the high estimation of John among the Valentinians, see Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 3.11.17 (on this, see Mutschler 2006, 249–54). See further Hengel 1993, 41–45, who mentions the Valentinian student Ptolemy (on Ptolemy, see Markschies 2000), Heracleon as the first Johannine commentator (see Wucherpfennig 2002), and Theodotus, and from Nag Hammadi the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Philip, and the so-called Letter to Rheginus (De resurrectione). 11 This high estimation of the Gospel of John had a specific reason based in his theology—the stronger emphasis on the words and discourses of Jesus as distinct from

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through to Rudolf Bultmann,12 but the line of its spiritualizing interpretation was especially taken up in the time of the ‘Johannism’ around 180013 and continues to have effects into the present. For thinkers such as Lessing,14 Herder,15 Fichte,16 and Schleiermacher,17 precisely the idea that John was less interested in the ‘external’ matters of history than in the ‘suprahistorical,’ spiritual, or mythical dimension lets this work appear especially valuable and philosophically acceptable. This tendency is impressively implemented in the idealistic exegesis of Ferdinand Christian Baur. For the founder of the critical ‘Tübingen school,’ John is the Gospel “that stands over all the others and is distinguished from them in a peculiar way”18 because “from the standpoint of the absolute idea it sets itself above the features of a historical account.”19 Thus, the ‘spiritual’ Gospel was read by Baur and many of his successors in a way that could disregard the questions of actual history, the concrete materiality of the narrated miracles, and the bodily dimension of death and resurrection. In the light of the criticism that had called into question the his (miraculous) deeds: “Now John writes very much about his preaching, while the other evangelists write much about his works and little about his preaching. Therefore John’s Gospel is the one, fine, true, and chief gospel, and is far, far to be preferred over the other three and placed above them” (LW 35, 362). 12 “One may speak of a preference of Bultmann for the evangelist John” (Ott 1955, 120). Rudolf Bultmann’s high estimation of the Gospel of John is shown in his commentary, which interprets the work of the evangelist in far-reaching agreement. For Bultmann the eschatological consciousness is expressed in its clearest form in this work (but not in the redactional final version!). On this, see Frey 1997b, 107–8; for Bultmann’s Johannine interpretation as a whole, see pp. 85–157. See also Frey 2014d. 13 On this, cf. Timm 1978; see further Schulze 1964. 14 Lessing 1976, §63–64, viewed John as the valuable, higher standing “Gospel of the Spirit,” which alone “can give the Christian religion its true consistency.” In this Lessing follows Clement of Alexandria. 15 Herder 1880: John “not only explained, but purified the Palestinian gospel legend . . . for it was to persist” (264). He “forgot . . . what was earthly of his Palestinian friend who was bound to place and time in order to portray what was eternal in him, which transcends place and time and unites all of humanity in itself” (379). John is “the echo of the older Gospels in a higher tone” (424). 16 For his interpretation of the Gospel of John, see Fichte 1845. See esp. pp. 476–77: “The philosopher can agree only with John, for he alone has respect for reason and relies on the proof that can alone be valid for the philosopher—the inner proof.” In his interpretation Fichte rejects belief based on history and belief in a resurrection. 17 Schleiermacher also prioritized the Johannine picture of Christ historically and based his lectures on the ‘life of Jesus’ (starting in 1819) on the Gospel of John. Cf. the posthumously edited lectures on the introduction to the New Testament: Schleiermacher 1845, 315ff. (ET = 1975). 18 Baur 1847, 386. 19 Baur 1973 [1864], 401 (ET = 2016, 371, which has informed our translation of the German).

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historical value of the Fourth Gospel in an especially radical way, John appeared to be only a philosophical poem or a theological allegory to the leading interpreters at the beginning of the twentieth century.20 However, with the abstraction from real history, the true humanity of Jesus, his bodily existence, his suffering and death, had to appear insignificant vis-à-vis the idea of his divine glory presented in John. This tendency was continued in the framework of the history of religions school, in the works of Wilhelm Bousset and Wilhelm Heitmüller, and the Gospel of John was regarded as a mystical work uninterested in concrete history and ‘bodily’ phenomena.21 Moreover, once the Gospel of John had been brought into connection with Gnosticism,22 history-of-theology, history-of-religion, and source-critical arguments could in different ways be used to interpret the work in its final form, or even only in a postulated preredactional form, as ‘close to Gnosticism’ or docetizing.23 The most provocative study was Ernst Käsemann’s monograph Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (The Testament of Jesus: A Study of John in the Light of Chapter 17), which, with explicit reference to Ferdinand Christian Baur, sought to interpret the Fourth Gospel programmatically on the basis of the statement about the eternal divinity of the Logos (1.1, 18) and from this standpoint viewed the notion of the incarnation (1.14a) as subordinated to the eternal glory of the Logos (1.14b).24 In this reading the whole narrated story of Jesus then appears as a story of the eternal Logos, 20 On this, see Frey 1997b, 38, on Adolf Jülicher, Heinrich-Julius Holzmann, and Alfred Loisy. 21 Heitmüller 1918, 15: “All the historical is only a parable.” For Wilhelm Bousset, see Frey 1997b, 73–74; and Berger 1986, 85ff. 22 Ferdinand Christian Baur can already be regarded as a forerunner of this interpretation. However, in his understanding, Gnosticism is still a Christian phenomenon, and on the way to Gnosticism the evangelist “stays on the boundary” (Baur 2016, 340; cf. Baur 1973 [1864], 362). Along the lines of Baur, Adolf Hilgenfeld then interpreted the Gospel of John as a witness to a Christian Gnosticism. The Gospel then appeared for the first time as a gnostic text redacted in a Christian manner in 1900 in the work of Johannes Kreyenbühl, who wanted to ascribe the conception to the gnostic Menander. On this, see Frey 2004c, 11–15 (= 2013a, 54–57). 23 With source-critical arguments, Rudolf Bultmann isolated what he called the revelatory discourse source and the Logos hymn of the Prologue as originally gnostic texts that the evangelist brought with him from his early period. On these theses, see Frey 1997b, 127–41. But while the evangelist, according to Bultmann, interpreted anti-gnostically (and understands John 1.14 programmatically in the sense of the paradoxical humanity of the revealer), the Johannine evangelist himself came into the vicinity of Gnosticism in later source-critical conceptions—usually with the assumption of an ‘anti-docetic’ redactional layer subsequent to the work of the evangelist (for the conceptions of Georg Richter, the early Hartwig Thyen, and Jürgen Becker, see Frey 1997b, 273–94). 24 Käsemann 1980 (ET = 1968). On Käsemann’s thesis, see also chapters 7 and 8 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 639–62; 2014c).

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which takes place, to be sure, in space and time, but in which the individual narrated events are ultimately only “manifestations of the preexistent one.”25 Jesus’ coming and mission is then merely a change of place, which does not really touch his eternal nature.26 His humanity appears reduced to the “absolute minimum of the costume,”27 and his earthly life can be regarded only as the “foil of the Son of God striding through the world of humans.”28 Finally, his cross is nothing but the return to his prior glory (17.5), a way station without weight of its own. For Käsemann this understanding of the Gospel of John excludes every ‘salvation-historical’ interpretation29 as well as its understanding in the sense of a theology of the cross.30 The human suffering of Jesus is just as devalued as the aspect of the bodily resurrection, and Jesus’ miracles are considered significant not in their earthly facticity and drastic bodiliness but only in their christological symbolism. I cannot enter into the discussion surrounding Käsemann’s interpretation and the significance of the cross in the Gospel of John in detail in this context.31 Here I must also leave aside the source-critical question of different reconstructed preredactional strata and the question of the relationship of the Gospel to the letters, although these very questions are of great significance for the decision between a ‘docetic’ and an ‘undocetic’ or even an ‘anti-docetic’ understanding of the Gospel of John.32 With the exception of the detachment of John 21 as a subsequent addition, I regard source-critical divisions within the Gospel as inappropriate.33 Therefore, in what follows I take as a basis John 1.1–20.31 as a compositional unity, while thinking that the insights that are to be obtained there are also not fundamentally changed through the addendum chapter John 21. I wish to take as my starting point some observations that suggest that in the narrative of the Fourth Gospel it is not only the coordinates 25

Käsemann 1980, 49 n. 53. There is no equivalent footnote in the English translation. Käsemann 1980, 34 (ET = 1968, 12). 27 Käsemann 1968, 10 (GV = 1980, 28: “Mindestmaß der Ausstattungsregie”). 28 Käsemann 1980, 35; cf. 1968, 13. 29 Käsemann 1980, 96 n. 37. 30 Käsemann 1980, 32; 1968, 11–12. 31 On this, see in detail Frey 2002c (= 2013a, 485–554). 32 Significant is the turn in the work of Hartwig Thyen, who initially assumed an anti-docetic final redaction (of a docetic Grundschrift) but then rejected this construction with his turn to a synchronic reading. For this development, see Thyen 2007, 351–71. The change from the ‘anti-gnostic’ interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann to the ‘docetic’ and ‘gnosticizing’ interpretation of John by his student Käsemann, which is significant in terms of the history of scholarship, is also connected with the rejection of the source-critical construction of Bultmann (on this, see Frey 1997b, 160–63, 165–66). 33 See Frey 2008c, 755ff. 26

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of time and space that are of significance but also the bodily dimension of what is narrated (section 2). I will then deepen the aspect of bodiliness with regard to the resurrection hope in relation to the example of the Lazarus narrative (section 3) and then in relation to the Easter narratives of John 20 (section 4). Finally, I will conclude with some further reflections (section 5). 2. Traces of Bodiliness in the Gospel of John 2.1 Not a Mere Myth but a Narrative with Concrete Ties to Places and Times While the Gospel of John, with the Prologue “in the beginning” (1.1), begins before time and world,34 it is nevertheless not a timeless and placeless myth35 but rather a narrative with integrated speech sections that is concerned with events in time and space.36 Jesus’ activity and his passion occur at concretely specifiable places in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. While the mentioning of these places lets unmistakable symbolic overtones resonate, it nevertheless mediates an entirely comprehensible topographical conception to the readers. What applies to the specifications of place also holds true for the relatively numerous and sometimes rather exact specifications of time.37 These too are obviously sometimes symbolically charged in the Gospel of John—such as the night of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (3.2), the midday of the conversation with the Samaritan woman (4.6), the night into which Judas goes out (13.30), and the references to specific Jewish festivals. Nevertheless, it is conspicuous that some Johannine episodes are very clearly structured scenically and

34

The broad discussion of whether and to what extent a temporally conceived existence ‘before’ creation is expressed (or is able to be expressed at all) in the Johannine Prologue cannot be taken up here. The link to Gen 1.1 is clear, with the act of creation itself coming to expression in John 1.3. The instructive difference in tenses between vv. 1-2 (ἦν) and v. 3 (ἐγένετο) lets the statements in vv. 1-2 appear as the ‘background’ to the creation of the world mentioned in v. 3. On this, see Frey 1998, 73–74, 156–58; for the use of the imperfect in the Johannine preexistence statements, see pp. 92–93. On the topic of preexistence, see now Kunath 2016. 35 E.g., in the sense of the ‘definition’ of the neo-Platonic philosopher Sallustius, De diis et mundo 4.9: ταῦτα δὲ ἐγένετο μὲν οὐδέποτε, ἔστι δὲ ἀέι. 36 This is stressed already by Kieffer 1989, 32. 37 For the temporal framework of the Gospel of John and the different functions of the chronological notes, see Frey 1998, 153–207.

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sometimes also chronologically38 and thereby mediate a conspicuously dense conception of time as well. The specifications of time in the Johannine passion narrative are especially precise,39 particularly the statements regarding the day of Jesus’ death (18.28) and the time of his final condemnation (19.14; cf. 18.28; 19.32, 41), which stand in contradiction to the Synoptic specifications (cf. Mark 15.25). The Fourth Evangelist is apparently concerned to give an exact specification of the day and hour of the crucifixion of Jesus and his condemnation to execution (19.14), which is meant to be understood to have taken place right before that. Irrespective of whether or not these historical specifications are accurate,40 it is narratively and theologically significant that the time of Jesus’ death is specified in an almost recordlike form. The event of Jesus’ death—which is also captured with the cipher ‘his hour’ in John—appears to be emphasized in the relation to the course of the narrative also through this linguistic means. In the view of the Johannine narrator, the ‘eschatological’ event of Jesus’ death occurred at a specific place and at a specific, specifiable time—not in the mythical everywhere and nowhere. This indicates that the evangelist wants at least this event not to be understood in a ‘docetizing’ sense. To be sure, the event of salvation in John is an eschatological event, but it is nevertheless held fast to in its earthly, spatial, and temporal concretion, and thus in its tie to real history, and is not evaporated into the mythical. The salvation of God is effected in elementary reference to history, indeed in history, and not in disregard for history or beyond it. This also applies, proceeding from the event of the ‘hour of Jesus,’ i.e., from the nexus of events surrounding his death,41 to the other individual events of the Johannine story of Jesus. They occur in concrete places at concrete times, mostly in relation to the festivals of the Jewish festival year. Even though the historicity of these narratives must remain questionable 38

Conspicuously clear structuring of scenes is also found in John 4.1-42; 10.40– 11.54; and 18.28–19.16 (the Pilate pericope). For an analysis of the structure of the Johannine pericopae, see L. Schenke 1998. For the Pilate periscope, see now Frey 2014b. 39 On this, see Frey 1998, 181–86. 40 The Johannine interest in the typology of the Passover lamb (19.36; cf. 1.29) suggests the hypothesis that the Johannine chronology of the passion is also reshaped in accordance with a symbolic-theological interest. 41 The ‘hour’ is probably taken over as a term from Mark 14.41 and developed in John to the programmatic term for the event complex of cross and resurrection, which begins with the coming of the ‘Greeks’ (12.20), when the ‘hour’ is proclaimed as ‘having come’ (12.23), and includes Jesus’ ‘exaltation’ (12.23), his ‘glorification’ (12.27-28; 17.1), his death (12.24), his going to the Father (13.1-2), and thus ultimately also the resurrection, sending of the Spirit, and sending of the disciples. In John all this is summarized in the ‘integral’ of the ‘hour of Jesus.’ For the phrase and conception, see Frey 1998, 216–21.

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in detail and some episodes are to be understood mainly as ‘signs’ for something else, the narrative embedding into the way and history of the earthly Jesus is upheld throughout. The Johannine understanding of the miracles of Jesus as ‘signs’ of his true dignity and glory (2.11) and the specific literary configuration of the miracle stories as sign narratives do not nullify this anchoring in the earthly way of Jesus. It is true that the whole Johannine story of Jesus, beginning from the Prologue (1.5, 14b, 16), is strongly and programmatically portrayed in the light of Easter and under the banner of his divine authority, but it is nevertheless a narrative about the earthly Jesus in conflict with his contemporaries and not the story of a “God striding upon the earth,”42 in which the earthly reality and “the concrete onceness of real history”43 were absorbed in the ‘eternal now.’ 2.2 The True Humanity of Jesus Despite the Reduced Presentation of His Suffering Despite the presentation being shaped throughout by the idea of the ‘glory’ of Jesus or the ‘glorification’44 that took place in his ‘hour,’ the characteristics of the earthly figure of Jesus, i.e., of his true humanity, are unmistakable in the Gospel of John. Therefore, they must not be ignored interpretively in favor of the emphasis on his divine authority and glory. Without being able to provide an exhaustive list here, I will point in this section to only a number of textual indications. (a) Already in the Prologue, the confession ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο . . . (1.14a) is compositionally stressed through the resumption of the term λόγος from John 1.1.45 This phrase is not devalued by its continuation ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ (1.14b).46 Irrespective of how one interprets 42

Thus the characterization of the Johannine image of Jesus in Käsemann 1980, 26 (cf. 1968, 9). 43 Thus the thesis in Käsemann 1942/1946, 189. 44 On this, see my interpretation in chapter 7 of this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62). 45 For an analysis of the syntax, see especially Theobald 1988, 199–205, who recognizes 1.14 as the third new start of the Prologue (after 1.1 and 1.6), which is prepared for through the somewhat overlong conclusion of the middle series of sentences of the Prologue in 1.12-13. See also chapter 8 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c). 46 The controversy between Bultmann and Käsemann can be seen with particular clarity in their discussion of John 1.14. While Bultmann regarded ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο (1.14a) as “the theme of the whole Gospel of John” (2007, § 46:40; 1984, 392; cf. 1971, 68; 1986, 44) and wanted to see the δόξα of the revealer in a paradoxical way in the σάρξ and “nowhere else but in the σάρξ” (1986, 41; cf. 1971, 63), the accent, according to Käsemann’s interpretation, lies on John 1.14c (καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ), which means that incarnation and crucifixion are subordinated to the statement of preexistence.

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the notion of the incarnation in detail, here we have a statement about the divine Logos that would have been unacceptable for docetic thought. The statement of incarnation in the Prologue already has in view the appearance and way of Jesus Christ in the story that is to be narrated in what follows.47 The talk of the incarnation expresses “the full participation of Jesus Christ in the creatureliness and historicality of everything that exists.”48 Thus, the story of the earthly Jesus is to be read programmatically as the story of the incarnate one, who is not, to be sure, “purus homo” (mere human)49 but is, nevertheless, emphatically ‘verus homo’ (true human). (b) While the Gospel of John does not offer a synchronizing reference to political history like Luke (cf. Luke 2.1: Augustus, Quirinius; 3.1: Tiberius, Herod, etc.), it does contain a linking of the activity of Jesus to the activity of the ἄνθρωπος John (the Baptist [1.6]) and thus shows itself— according to the reading instruction through the Prologue—to be a narrative presentation of the activity of the earthly Jesus from his encounter with the Baptist to his passion and the Easter experiences. In this respect, John is, despite its distinctive characteristics, a ‘Gospel’ in the sense of the genre first created by Mark. (c) Already the first scene, which recounts the appearance of Jesus (in connection with the appearance of the Baptist), is narratively localized in a precise manner. The Baptist is active “in Bethany beyond the Jordan” (1.28), and it is at this place that he points his disciples to Jesus, so that they can “come” and “see” and “remain” with Jesus (1.39). The calling of the first disciples is localized precisely in John’s presentation (in deviation from Mark); provided with a conspicuous, though also riddling, temporal specification;50 and narrated as a physical encounter. From the hour of meeting Jesus onward, the first two disciples “stay” with him for the whole day. Implicitly this means that they share his night’s lodging and stay where he “stays” (1.38).51 47

Schnelle 2016, 58. Schnelle 2016, 57, stresses that through γίνομαι John 1.14 expresses an alteration, a change: the Logos “is now what he was not before: true and real human being”; the ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο expresses “the fundamental change of the nature of the Logos amidst the preservation of his divine identity.” 49 Bultmann 1971, 63, speaks of the “sheer humanity” (GV = Bultmann 1986, 40: “In purer Menschlichkeit”). 50 John 1.39: “But it was about the tenth hour.” A symbolic meaning of this temporal specification can no longer be clearly recognized. The narrative function is that of a narrative ‘pause’ or a highlighting of the previously narrated scene. On this, see Frey 1998, 189–91. 51 Thus, in the first disciples initial encounter with Jesus there is already a fulfillment of what is later given to the disciples as an eschatological promise—they are to be where Jesus is (14.3; cf. 12.26; 17.24). 48

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(d) The conspicuous link to Israel—to its salvific expectation and to its ancestral figures—in the first sequence of scenes also lets the incarnate one appear as part of a concrete, earthly history. In this passage, “Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (1.45) is not only designated with a long series of christological titles and integrated into the Israelite-Jewish salvific hopes that were inaugurated by Moses and the prophets; rather, it is precisely Nathanael, the “true Israelite,” who, after initial doubt, recognizes him in the personal encounter as the fulfillment of this hope and addresses him with the highest predicates (“king of Israel, Son of God”: 1.49). (e) The Johannine miracle or “sign” stories, which are literarily configured in a very specific way, also display concrete characteristics of the humanity of Jesus.52 Despite the distinctive web of references, in which these narratives are interpreted as ‘signs’ and related in an exemplary and paradigmatic manner53 to the whole of the Christ event—to cross and resurrection —on the level of the narrated story we find a conspicuous heightening of the miraculous vis-à-vis the Synoptics and sometimes a striking materiality.54 The concern is with a great abundance of wine of high quality that can be tasted (2.1-11), with the healing of a person who has already been sick for thirty-eight years (5.5), with the healing of a person born blind (9.1), and with the resurrection of a dead person who already stinks, i.e., who is already decaying (11.39). If one does not follow the modern idea—which is scarcely plausible for an ancient author—that the evangelist himself understood what he wrote not in the literal sense but in a purely symbolic manner,55 then these narrative features must be judged to be an indication that the activity of the incarnate one, in the conception of the evangelist, should certainly be perceived in its bodily dimension. Only 52

As Welck 1994 has convincingly shown, the ‘symbolic character’ is actually to be seen in the narrative form, in which the incidents from the activity of Jesus are consistently presented in such a way that they point to a ‘salvation-dramatic’ level, i.e., to the cross and resurrection of Jesus or to the salvation effected thereby, without the level of the historicalconcrete event being abandoned thereby. Thus, we are dealing neither with pure symbolism nor with an allegory of history. 53 On this, see Welck 1994, 239, 263–64, 266–67. 54 On this topic as a whole, see Schnelle 1987. 55 This is ultimately the case if one assumes a critical distance between the author and his ‘semeia source’ or another miracle tradition and—in the interest of a philosophically or intellectually ‘acceptable’ picture of the gospel—makes him a critic or ‘demythologizer’ of the miracle stories narrated by him. This takes place classically on the basis of the assumption of an aretalogical semeia source in Rudolf Bultmann’s John commentary (and following him in Jürgen Becker’s work; on this, see Frey 1997b, 284). Siegert 2008, 676– 93, advocates a similar view on the basis of a new source-critical reconstruction—which is, to be sure, implausible.

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on this assumption can one understand the astonishment that the beholding of the miracles by his contemporaries did not lead to faith in him (12.37). Thus, the materiality of the miracles narrated about Jesus belongs to the radically nondocetic or even ‘anti-docetic’56 features of the Gospel of John.

(f) A conspicuous feature of the humanity of Jesus, which would certainly have been offensive to the ancient reader, is encountered in the Samaritan scene in John 4. Because of the long walk in the midst of the day, Jesus is tired and worn out (4.6: κεκοπιακώς). He is thirsty and asks a woman for something to drink (4.7). Even though there is ultimately no narration of Jesus actually taking a drink57 and even though the conversation moves onto a metaphorical level, the thirst of Jesus here and in John 19.28 is an unambiguous sign of his humanity.58 (g) The fact that stirrings of emotions are ascribed to Jesus in individual scenes points even more clearly in this direction.59 In that regard one can refer to the “zeal” for the temple (2.17; cf. Ps 69) expressed in the temple cleansing, which has an especially militant character in John,60 to the love for Lazarus and his sisters (11.3, 5, 36),61 to his weeping at the tomb of Lazarus (11.35), to his ‘becoming angry’ (ἐμβριμᾶσθαι) about the unbelief of his contemporaries (11.33, 38), and to his ‘being troubled’ in the face of his own hour of death and the handing over of him (12.27; 13.21). Precisely the last-mentioned aspect merits attention, for here, in the context of his ‘hour,’ something is said about Jesus, which is meant to be avoided later with regard to the community of disciples. While Jesus has taken this deepest troubledness upon himself in the encounter with death, in light of his death the disciples are to believe and thus not fall into the fatal troubledness and trial of their faith.62 This expresses in a subtle manner Jesus’ vicarious assumption of the disciples’

56

Thus the thesis of Schnelle 1987, passim (ET = 1992). In John 4.34, Jesus likewise appears to reject the food, but there the concern is not to deny his hunger but to interpret the motif of food in relation to the relationship between Father and Son. There is explicit talk of Jesus drinking only in John 19.30, and there is no mention at all of him eating. 58 So also Thompson 1998, 3–4; Thyen 2005, 244; Keener 2003, I: 591. 59 On this, see Voorwinde 2005. 60 Cf. John 2.14-15. A whip is mentioned only here, and, unlike in Mark and Matthew, Jesus not only overturns the tables of the money changers but also pours out their coins. 61 Cf. John 13.1, 34-35, though one must consider the fact that Jesus’ love for his own that extends to death (15.13) is understood precisely not as a mere human attitude that corresponds to an ideal of the ethics of friendship but rather is interpreted in correspondence to the love of God (3.16). 62 John 14.1, 27: μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία. On this, see Frey 2000b, 132. 57

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fear of death and of the world and thus his assumption of human existence, including death, for their benefit.

(h) The emphasis on the humanity of Jesus surfaces most clearly in the passion narrative. The incarnate one is ‘flesh’ (1.14), i.e., a mortal human being, and in his death the incarnation of the Logos reaches its ultimate consequence. To be sure, the Johannine passion narrative (like the whole Gospel) is portrayed strongly from the perspective of Easter and fundamentally by means of the interpretive categories of ‘exaltation’ and ‘glorification.’63 Moreover, in comparison with the Synoptics the physical suffering is not as strongly emphasized, while, on the other hand, the voluntariness and foreknowledge of Jesus (13.1; 18.8, 11; etc.), his active role in what happens (13.26-27; 18.8; 19.17, 30), and his own authority (ἐξουσία) over life and death (5.26; 10.18) are more prominent. However, the Johannine presentation is still far from what educated contemporaries could have accepted as a real ‘noble death.’64 The offense taken by pagan critics such as Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian the Apostate, which is expressed, for example, in their discomfort with the Synoptic Gethsemane scene,65 would also have applied—although John firmly rejected the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane (12.2728; 18.11)—to the Johannine passion narrative.66

Despite the reduction of the motif of suffering vis-à-vis the Synoptics, the reality of the physical suffering of Jesus is unmistakably expressed also in the Johannine account. In that regard, one must keep in mind the fact that ancient authors report of crucifixions only sparingly and that, generally, the Gospels are our most detailed witnesses here.67 Ancient readers, who were familiar with the practice of crucifixion, could also imagine what was not explicitly narrated. However, the Johannine report does, at least, briefly mention the flogging (19.1), which usually preceded a crucifixion—and 63

The categories must be traced back to Isa 52.13 LXX and occur in particular density after 12.23, the proclamation of the ‘hour’ of Jesus. 64 On this, see chapter 5 in this volume (GV = Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). It is true that John uses such elements to interpret the death of Jesus as a giving of his life “for his friends” and as a demonstration of perfect love (15.13), but this category does not get at the core of the Johannine interpretation of the death of Jesus. 65 Origen, Contra Celsum 6.10. For the pagan reactions to the Gospels, see also Cook 2000. 66 Christian authors such as Justin, Origen, and Lactantius were aware of how shameful the crucifixion of Christ must have appeared to their contemporaries. See Justin, Apologia 1.13.4; Origen, Contra Celsum 6.10; Lactantius, Divinarum institutionum libri VII 4.26; and already 1 Cor 1.23; and Heb 12.13. 67 On this, cf. Hengel 1976, 139 (= 2008b, 608–9).

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could itself often cause the death of the offender.68 Moreover, following Mark, John recounts the sadistic and at the same time ironically mocking coronation with the crown of thorns (19.2),69 as well as the dishonoring slaps to the face (19.3).70 (i) Especially significant is the ecce homo scene (19.5). Through Pilate’s predication and presentation of Jesus as “the human being” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος), Jesus’ humanity is explicitly expressed—namely, in the image of the one who is flogged, crowned with a crown of thorns, and ironically mocked as “king of the Jews” with a purple garment. This means that, in John’s understanding, it is precisely the image of the humiliated one (who is simultaneously ‘staged’ in a paradoxical manner as king), the “caricature of a king”71 to which the predicate ὁ ἄνθρωπος is ascribed. Here the σάρξ ἐγένετο of John 1.14 is “visible in its extremest consequence.”72 (j) The crucifixion itself is mentioned only very tersely (19.18). The evangelist can forgo any further description in that regard. The configuration of the note about the division of the garments and the taking away and casting lots for the undergarment (χιτών)73 implies the conclusion— though the readers must draw it themselves—that Jesus was crucified naked. In this point the Gospel of John actually emphasizes—going even beyond the Synoptics—Jesus’ human humiliation. The Son of God “hangs naked and humiliated on the cross; the last honor has been taken from him, he is naked.”74 (k) Finally, John mentions the thirst of the crucified one (19.28). In the first place this happens because once more a word of Scripture is meant to be fulfilled (Ps 68.22 LXX). Still, ancient readers were certainly aware that thirst belongs to the physical torments of crucifixion, and the mention of Jesus’ thirst (and drinking) unambiguously demonstrates once more his real humanity. (l) It is mentioned with equal terseness and only in a subordinate clause that Jesus was already dead when the soldiers wanted to carry out the crucifragium. With this note the physical death of Jesus is recorded in passing

68

See, e.g., Philo, In Flaccum 75. Cf. Hengel 1976, 142–43 (= 2008b, 611–12). Here too the closest parallel is Philo, In Flaccum 36–40, with the scene of the mocking of Carabas. For the Markan account, see now Mutschler 2008. 70 John alone speaks of slaps (ῥαπίσματα) here. 71 Bultmann 1971, 659 (GV = 1986, 510). See also Schnelle 1996, 116 (GV = 1991, 136): “Here the paradox of the incarnation of the pre-existent One is intensified in the extreme. On the surface Jesus appears to be the king of fools, yet he is the true king.” 72 Bultmann 1971, 659 (GV = 1986, 510). 73 John 19.23-24. The Synoptics say nothing about an undividable undergarment. 74 Schnelle 2016, 367, who sees a clear anti-docetic accent here. 69

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and yet unambiguously. Every attempt to read the death of Jesus in John along the lines of an apparent death hypothesis75 founders on this passage. (m) Finally, one must mention the scene of the piercing of Jesus’ side and the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side. While one can discuss its theological-symbolic meaning in different ways, narratively it serves, in the first place, to record the factuality of the death of Jesus (19.34a). (n) Finally, this is narratively sealed by the episode of the burial of Jesus (19.38-42), which destroys every possibility of speaking of an exaltation or glorification of Jesus on the cross without taking into account his real physical death and excludes every possibility of letting Good Friday and Easter fall together interpretively.76 2.3 The Bodily Dimension in Other Johannine Narrative Features Before we can reflect on this in relation to its consequences with regard to the resurrection, I want to discuss at least briefly some aspects of bodiliness that concern not the person of the earthly Jesus and thus the ‘problem of docetism,’ but in a broader sense the action narrated in John and the mediation of knowledge and salvation that takes place in the narrative itself (i.e., through the text). (a) In this respect it has always been conspicuous that in John the believing recognition of the identity of Christ is consistently mediated in scenes of personal encounter—which may also mirror the communicative structures in the environment of the Johannine ‘school.’ In their coming, seeing, and staying (1.39), the first disciples reach the point that their seeking (1.38) turns into finding (1.41),77 and Peter, Philip, and Nathanael also come to faith in the personal encounter with Jesus, in their being addressed by Jesus (1.42-43, 47-48).78 This structure of faith through personal encounter with Jesus is maintained throughout the whole Gospel, from the Samaritan woman (4.4-42) and the people of her village (4.26, 29, 39-42) via the healed men in John 5.14-15 and 9.35-38 as well as Martha and Mary in John 11.24-27 and 12.3 through to the Easter narratives with Mary Magdalene (20.16), the disciples 75 These attempts go back to the period of rationalism and idealism. Following older attempts of a novelistic life of Jesus, Schleiermacher also played with the idea of a ‘second life’ of Jesus. See Haenchen 1984, 24–25 (GV = 1980, 25). 76 Thus Bultmann 2007, § 47, p. 57 (GV = 1984, 410). 77 These terms then reoccur in John 12.20-23 in the coming of the ‘Greeks,’ who want to ‘come’ and ‘see’ Jesus. 78 An exception in this sequence is Philip in John 1.43.

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(20.19-23), and Thomas (20.27-28).79 It is also reflected in the statements of the Farewell Discourses, in which the disciples are addressed as friends of Jesus and beloved by him. By contrast, the speeches to larger crowds usually do not lead to faith but to confrontation, and the many who believe on the basis of the (mere) seeing of the signs are mentioned only with considerable skepticism (2.23-25; 6.26).

(b) Bodily aspects are also repeatedly found in these encounters— even extending to bodily touch. A paste of spit is applied to the man born blind and he is to wash it off in the pool of Siloam (9.6-7). Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus and dries his feet with her unbound hair (12.3)—a scene with unmistakably erotic resonances. Mary Magdalene appears to want to grasp the risen one with her hands (20.17).80 Thomas demands a visual and tangible confirmation of the reality and identity of the risen one (20.25), and this is granted to him (20.27)—even if no touching is then recorded. (c) The bodily dimension also surfaces when Jesus himself takes on the role of the one serving and washes his disciples’ feet to their amazement and—as is explicitly emphasized—dries them with a towel (13.4-5). Irrespective of the christological-symbolic and ethical dimensions of this action, the simultaneously social and bodily action as ‘performance’ merits attention. (d) Moreover, this dimension finds expression in the meal scene when Judas receives the morsel from Jesus and when Satan, with the eating of this morsel, enters into him—in a quasi-bodily manner (13.27). (e) To this negative event of a bodily ‘inspiration’ corresponds the talk of the bodily-concrete eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Jesus, i.e., the massively bodily-realistic understanding of the Eucharist (6.51-58), which many interpreters have often regarded as a redactional addition but which is firmly anchored in the metaphoricism of John 6.81 Likewise, baptism with water (3.5)82 and the eating of the bread—not only in a metaphorical sense—is presupposed in the text of the Gospel 79

Only the ideal figure of the ‘Beloved Disciple’ believes without being addressed by Jesus (20.8). 80 Something similar is present at least in the Matthean parallel (Matt 28.9), where the women want to grasp the feet of Jesus. If John presupposes this or a similar tradition, the warding off in John 20.17 (μὴ μου ἅπτου, i.e., probably: “Do not hold onto me!”) is understandable; so Thyen 2005, 763. On this, see section 4.2 below. 81 On this, see Frey 2000a (= 2013a, 381–407). 82 The emendation by many interpreters from Julius Wellhausen and Hans-Hinrich Wendt to Rudolf Bultmann and Jürgen Becker is motivated purely by reasons of content, which can be explained against the background of the spiritualizing (and in modernity antisacramental) tradition of interpretation. There is no text-critical or linguistic basis for it. John 3.3 and 3.5 were probably traditional sayings in the Johannine community. On this, see Frey 2000b, 248–54.

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and cannot be distanced from the evangelist, let alone from the Johannine community. 2.4 The Significance of the Senses in the Reception of the Story of Jesus The question of bodiliness simultaneously leads further to the question of the significance of the human senses in the perception of the story of Jesus and his message and, consequently, in the mediation of knowledge and salvation.83 (a) It would be a (typically Protestant) reduction if one were to attribute importance only to the hearing of the words of Jesus (or the Johannine proclamation). This, to be sure, has fundamental importance. From the scene of the encounter of the first disciples with Jesus (1.37), onward faith is connected with hearing a witness (1.37), hearing Jesus himself (4.42), hearing his voice or his word (5.24-25; 10.3, 16, 27; 18.37), or hearing the word of God (8.47; 14.24), while unbelief and hardening is described as ‘not being able to hear’ (8.43). The ‘hearing’ sets people at least in motion (12.12, 18), even if believing hearing goes beyond merely physical hearing. Nevertheless, this (or then, in its continuation, the act of reading and thus the visual mediation) is a presupposition of faith. (b) Seeing, i.e., visual mediation or imagination, appears to be even more significant for the mediation of faith.84 The relevance of seeing is often underestimated due to an inadequate understanding of the macarism of John 20.29. However, this text is not primarily a reproof of Thomas’ desire to touch Jesus85 but rather a promise for those “generations that can no longer come to faith through an unmediated seeing of the risen one.”86 For the faith of the Easter witnesses—including the Beloved Disciple in John 20.28—seeing is constitutive (20.20), and those who come later are dependent upon this testimony of the witnesses (19.35; 20.29). (c) This also applies to the ‘signs’ of Jesus, which have a fundamental epistemic function in the framework of the Johannine narrative of Jesus. As much as the mere seeing of the deeds of Jesus does not yet eo ipso lead to faith and a mere ‘faith’ on the basis of the miracles must be regarded as deficient (cf. 2.23-25; 4.48; 6.26), John 12.37 nevertheless reflects the 83

2017.

84

For a detailed discussion of the aspects associated with this, see Hirsch-Luipold

On this, see in detail Hergenröder 1996, 301; and, from the literature on the sign narratives, especially Bittner 1987. 85 The statement is interpreted as a fundamental opposition between faith and seeing in Bultmann 1971, 695–96; 1986, 539; and, following him, in Becker 1991b, 743–45. 86 So Schnelle 2016, 390. Cf. already Hahn 1972, 131.

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expectation that the seeing of the signs ‘actually’ should lead or should have led to faith—that this was not the case then requires an explanation, which is provided by John 12.40-43. (d) In addition, the significance of the visual dimension is signaled by the christological-soteriological figurative language—which is developed far beyond the Synoptics—with the appealing metaphorical predications of Jesus as bread, light, shepherd, or vine, and the metaphorical networks developed in the figurative use of water, wedding, and royal terminology.87 (e) In particular, the crucifixion of Jesus is presented literarily as an enduringly visual event (3.14-15) in a bold typological prefiguration through a graphic, but theologically profound, Old Testament image, the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up on a pole (Num 21.4-9),88 and the ‘beholding’ of the crucified one is mentioned at the end of the spear thrust scene in the Scripture quotation from Zechariah 12.10 (John 19.37). According to this Scripture, salvation is found in the believing contemplation of the ‘pierced one.’ This demonstrates that in the Johannine view, decisive significance is assigned not to the miracles of Jesus but precisely to the image of the one ‘lifted up’ on the cross or of the—according to Easter faith—glorified crucified one. (f) It is noteworthy, however, that the other senses of the human body—in addition to hearing and seeing—also receive attention in the Johannine narrative. Only in the tasting of the miraculous wine does the master of the banquet recognize the miracle (2.9). The aroma of the fragrant nard oil fills the house (12.3; cf. 11.40). And, at the end of the Gospel, even the touching of Jesus is held out in prospect (20.27; cf. 1 John 1.1-3). (g) Not least the subsequent community’s lasting dependence on the witness of the ‘Beloved Disciple,’ which had become a book, also marks a bodily dimension of the mediation of the Gospel of John, which is of continuing significance in the post-Easter period. 3. The Bodily Resurrection of Lazarus and the Resurrection of the Dead from the Tombs The question of ‘bodiliness’ is, however, especially significant with regard to eschatology. Not only the ‘bodily’ resurrection of Jesus but also the believers’ hope of a bodily resurrection of the dead belong to the themes that have been disputed and that have nevertheless been of central importance for the understanding of the Gospel of John since the time of the ancient church and especially since the interpreters of the 87 88

For the christological figurative language, see R. Zimmermann 2004; 2006. On this, see Frey 1994b, 200–201 (= 2013a, 140–41).

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Enlightenment and German Idealism.89 For this reason, special attention must be given to both of these spheres. In the greatest and last sign of Jesus, the resurrection of Lazarus (11.144),90 the bodily dimension of the Johannine sign narratives reaches an unsurpassable high point. At the same time, the Lazarus narrative is most closely connected with the Johannine passion and Easter narrative.91 In this way the ‘miracle’ in the Johannine portrayal not only presents the occasion for the legally binding death sentence of the Sanhedrin over Jesus (11.4654), but it is also at the same time a prefiguration and image of what is to happen or be effected in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Furthermore, the pericope provides a conspicuous back-reference to the eschatological talk of John 5.19-30,92 so that it can be simultaneously viewed as a demonstration of Jesus’ present power of life (11.25-26; cf. 5.26) and as a confirmation of the futuristic promise of John 5.28-29. Thus, the resurrection of Lazarus is also sign and prolepsis of the coming hour or of the eschatological resurrection “on the last day” promised in John 6.39, 40, 44, 54. 3.1 The Dramatic Form of the Narrative and Its Climax in the Resurrection Scene of 11.38-44 However, the Lazarus episode differs from the sign narratives in John 5.118; 6.1-15; and in a certain way 9.1-41, in the fact that the interpretation of its meaning does not follow in an attached, more or less dialogical discourse that interprets the miracle. Instead, this interpretation narratively precedes the actual miracle—in the conversation with Martha, in which Jesus predicates himself as “the resurrection and the life.” It has sometimes been concluded from this narrative configuration that the bodily, concrete miracle that follows this ἐγώ εἰμι saying is ‘actually’ superfluous.93 However, such an assessment misjudges the distinctive scenic dramaturgy. After the exposition (11.1-5) and the scene with the delaying conversation with the disciples (11.6-16) as well as the two parallel and yet distinctively shaped scenes with Martha and Mary (11.17-27 and 28-37), it is only with the concluding scene at the tomb (11.38-44) that the climax of the whole and the resolution of the previously produced and artificially heightened 89

The literature is immense. Important new contributions include Schneiders 2005; Lincoln 1998; Attridge 2008. 90 On this, see my interpretation in Frey 2000b, 403–62; see further especially Kremer 1985; Welck 1994, 208–35; Labahn 1999, 378–465; North 2001; Thyen 2007, 182–212; R. Zimmermann 2008. 91 On the thematic and lexical connections, see in detail Frey 2000b, 412–14. 92 On this, see Frey 2000b, 414–16. 93 Thus already Wellhausen 1908, 51.

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tension is presented. Irrespective of how the pericope may have arisen and whether or not it is possible at all to postulate a ‘more original’ form,94 we must, nevertheless, interpret the compositional final form. The tension can be described with reference to the identical speech of the two sisters. Both of them say to Jesus in a lightly accusatory tone: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (11.21, 32). The disappointment over Jesus’ absence and the trial by the power of death appears in this identically phrased complaint.95 The remarks give the impression that the bodily presence of Jesus should preserve one from physical death, while it remains unclear whether a view that believers should “not taste death” (8.52; cf. 8.51) actually existed in the Johannine community (perhaps in an older phase)96 or whether this view is only placed in the mouth of the sisters for dramaturgical reasons. The tension is heightened through the fact that, after receiving the news of the sickness of the friend (11.3), Jesus appears consciously to wait and departs to Lazarus only two days later (11.6). One need not conclude that, with the two-day delay, Jesus waited for Lazarus to die first,97 but the two days are certainly required to make it ultimately possible for Lazarus to have remained in the tomb for four days. This specification appears twice with conspicuous emphasis (11.17, 39) and underscores even more the greatness of the miracle. It becomes clear that the resurrection of Lazarus presents us with an act that surpasses all human hopes, with an act of creation, indeed with a divine 94

I remain extremely skeptical of such attempts. The reconstruction of a semeia source or an even older ‘simple’ miracle report (which mostly has only a healing and not a resurrection as its object; so, e.g., Kremer 1985, 106) lives from the subtraction of all Johannine (theologically explanatory or dialogically composed) interpretive elements and from the form-critical illusion that a ‘pure,’ simple form stood at the beginning. In my view, both are methodologically flawed, arbitrary in the criteria, and worthless in the result. In this vein see also Thyen 2005, 510. Cf. also Lincoln 2005, 332–34. 95 This trial apparently shook the Johannine community—as the Johannine Farewell Discourses document. 96 This is surmised in North 2001, 71–81; and in Stimpfle 1990, 114, according to which the author is said to have taken up an ‘enthusiastic-gnostic’ primitive form of the salvific saying of John 11.25 without the concession κἄν ἀποθάνῃ. These are said to have (as also John 6.57-58 and the οὐκ ἀποθνῄσκει of John 21.23) not yet reckoned with the dying of members of the community. The admission of bodily death is said to have only been added in light of the death of the ‘Beloved Disciple’ (which for Stimpfle is literarily portrayed in Lazarus). 97 This would be an inappropriate psychological insertion—irrespective of which consequence were drawn from it in each case. Even without the two days from v. 6, Lazarus would have already been dead for two days when Jesus arrived. According to the most plausible understanding of the narrated events, Lazarus must have died immediately after the sending of the messengers and have already been dead when the messengers reached Jesus.

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act, for here someone who already ‘stinks’ (v. 39)—i.e., someone who is decaying—is raised, that is, someone whose return is totally inconceivable from a human perspective.98 3.2 The Miracle as a Sign of the Divine Dignity of Jesus The miracle itself is effected by Jesus in divine authority. Unlike in the raisings-of-the-dead of the biblical tradition—for example, in the case of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kgs 17.17-24; 2 Kgs 4.8-37)—Jesus does not pray but acts in his own divine authority, which comes from the unity with the Father. He thanks the Father for always hearing him (11.41-42), and an implicit explanation for the readers is contained in his words: “I knew that you always hear me, but I said it (only) on account of those standing around, in order that they may believe that you sent me” (v. 42). This means that Jesus’ prayer, his words to the Father, were actually not necessary at all. They are spoken only in order to clarify to the watching crowd that he acts in unity with the Father.99 The fact that Jesus himself calls Lazarus out of the tomb is a sign that the authority to raise the dead and mediate life is his own (5.26). Here, the Son of God does what is exclusively God’s work in the Old Testament and in early Judaism and thus steps wholly onto the side of God. After that, it is highly conspicuous how the one having been dead (τεθνηκώς: v. 44)100 comes out of the tomb: “bound with linen cloths on the feet and hands,” i.e., as a ‘wrapped corpse,’ which is actually unable to walk. The grotesque is further intensified through the specification “and his face was covered with a cloth” (v. 44). Thus, the one who is called from the tomb is also unable to see of his own accord. Only after another command of Jesus will he be freed from the bonds, so that he can walk again and can ‘arrive’ at earthly life.101

98

In the background may stand the view—which is relatively sparsely attested—that the soul of a person who has died remains for three days in the vicinity of the body and then permanently departs from it (which is probably inferred from the physical alteration of a dead person in the process of decay). Attestations in Schnelle 2016, 247 n. 200. 99 This is a consequence of the Johannine Christology. Jesus’ praying in the Gospel of John is no longer a real prayer; rather, it is primarily a christological proclamation. See John 12.27-28 and John 17 as a whole. 100 Thyen 2005, 537, thinks that the perfect participle has a pluperfect sense. 101 To be sure, the reaction to this command of Jesus is no longer narrated. One can see this as a dramatically effective shortening at the end of the narrative or as a gap that prompts the readers or hearers themselves to a ‘reaction’ (so Thyen 2005, 537).

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3.3 The Resurrection as Sign and Prolepsis of the Eschatological Resurrection While the demonstration of the divine authority presented here merely involves a reanimation and Lazarus must of course be envisaged as mortal again after his ‘awakening,’ this scene is at the same time a prefiguration of what is promised for the eschatological hour in John 5.28-29: “The hour is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come out . . .” This future-eschatological statement—which, in my view, is not a redactional addition but rather has been consciously inserted in John 5.1930 compositionally and placed alongside the statements about the present eschatological authority of Jesus102—perceptibly resonates in the narrative of the miracle. Here, one who is in the tomb (μνημεῖον: 5.28; 11.17, 31, 38; 12.17)103 hears the voice (φωνή: 5.28; 11.43) of Jesus and comes out (ἐκπορεύεσθαι: 5.28; cf. ἐξέρχεσθαι: 11.44), and this is summarized again in 12.17: Jesus has “called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead.” Thus, the Lazarus-pericope is the narrative counterpart to the eschatological statements of John 5, with the greater linguistic closeness to the statement in 5.28-29, which is clearly future, than to the bitemporal statement of John 5.25, which is formulated in the present (καὶ νῦν ἐστιν). While the Lazarus-narrative manifestly demonstrates Christ’s present power of life, the resurrection of Lazarus also appears as a confirmation of the promise of the resurrection of those who are in the tombs and as a symbolic prolepsis of that coming hour of the resurrection—though without mentioning the aspect of the judgment or the negative side of the ‘double’ resurrection mentioned in John 5.28-29. This corresponds to the orientation of the Gospel to those who believe, which is likewise expressed in the formulaic repeated statement “. . . and I will raise him up on the last day” (6.39, 40, 44, 54). The bodily dimension in particular is drastically placed before one’s eyes in the Lazarus narrative. The stone before the tomb has to be removed. At Jesus’ command, Lazarus comes out of the tomb as a wrapped-up corpse, is freed from the bands, and can walk and can later be ‘viewed’ as a living object of demonstration of the authority of Jesus (12.9). The varied elements of presentation show that, as much as it follows a christological intention, the sign-narrative, as “a symbolic narrative,” cannot be detached from the narrated earthly manifestation. Rather, in the understanding of the evangelist, both dimensions, the dignity of the Son of God and his real 102

For this passage’s embedding in the context and structure of argumentation, see Frey 2000b, 333–36, 398–401. 103 On οἱ ἐν τοῖς μνημείοις in John 5.28, see Isa 26.19 LXX.

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power over physical death, his present power to give ‘eternal’ life and the promise of the eschatological overcoming of death, are inseparably kept together.104 3.4 The “Eternal Life” of Those Who Believe and the Resurrection of the Dead One could, of course, ask whether such a bodily resurrection, as it is promised in 5.28, is not actually superfluous in light of the word of promise in John 11.25-26. Is not the hope for such a resurrection, especially one envisaged as bodily, obsolete if believers already have “eternal life” now? Has not death, as some interpreters claim (entirely along the lines of the spiritualizing interpretive tradition), become “unreal”105 for believers or “an irrelevant episode”106? In my view, such an assumption precisely does not capture the thinking of the evangelist or his community. Rather, the revelatory saying is formulated in a much more subtle sense: “The one who believes in me, s/he will live, even if s/he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me, will never die.”107 Here, there is recognizably talk of “dying” in a double sense. Physical death is to be reckoned with—also for believers—but even in this the one who dies in faith will not be separated from Christ and will participate in ‘eternal life’ beyond physical death. The Lazarus pericope makes clear that for the evangelist and his community the present certainty of possessing life does not exclude the expectation of a future resurrection from the dead but precisely includes it. A logical contradiction between these conceptions is not perceived. Rather, the hope for the definitive overcoming of death is indispensable as long as believers as well are threatened by bodily death and—in distinction from Christ—are not yet completed. The life out of death held in prospect here indispensably possesses— also in the Johannine conception—the character of bodiliness. This is realistically prefigured in the resurrection of Lazarus, on the one hand, and in the bodily resurrection of Jesus himself, on the other. Here one must 104

See also Thyen 2005, 538: “Corresponding to the mode of symbolic speech, their symbolic overtones can neither be separated from the reality of the narrated basis event, because it would thereby become a mere allegory, nor can they be subjected to a propositional logic, so that their interpretations would have to be characterized as ‘correct’ or ‘false’; rather, the symbol makes . . . room ‘for thought’ beyond ontology and opens up thereby the processes of concretion that are interminable.” 105 See classically Bultmann 1986, 308: “wesenlos”; 1971, 404: “unreal.” 106 Stimpfle 1990, 115. 107 For the interpretation of this revelatory saying and its semantic structure, see Frey 2000b, 448–52. Thyen 2005, 524–28, is largely in agreement.

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guard oneself against a flatly materialistic understanding of ‘bodiliness’— Johannine thought at this point is much more subtle, as is shown especially by the configuration of the Johannine Easter narratives. Accordingly, we must turn, in conclusion, to the presentation of the discovery of the empty tomb, the encounter with the risen one, and the constitution of the Easter faith. 4. The Bodily Form of the Risen One and Its Perception by the Easter Witnesses in John 20 In what follows I will limit myself to the original concluding chapter, John 20, which can be literarily structured into four scenes—the two disciples at the empty tomb of Jesus (20.[1-]3-10), the risen one’s encounter with Mary Magdalene (20.11-18), Jesus’ appearance among the circle of disciples (20.19-23), and the appearance before and the encounter with Thomas (20.24-29). Presupposed in this sequence is the narration of the passion of Jesus (starting in 18.1), of his death (19.30; cf. 19.33a), of the spear thrust that confirms this death (and is interpreted in the sense of a Passover typology), as well as of the scene of the burial of Jesus in a new tomb in a garden (19.38-42). The four scenes in John 20 are closely connected108 and form, as Udo Schnelle has rightly observed, a climactic sequence in which there is “an intensification of the presence of the risen one into a new bodiliness that is not at the disposal of others.”109 I will briefly explicate and reflect upon this in what follows. 4.1 The ‘Sign’ of the Burial Cloths and the Faith of the Beloved Disciple (John 20.2-10) The first scene with which John presents the Easter reality forms a distinctive metamorphosis and continuation of the older tomb traditions.110 108

The scene of the two disciples at the tomb in 20.2-10 has been inserted into the narrative of the appearance of Jesus before Mary Magdalene. This is recognizable in the not quite coherent specification of place in v. 11. 109 Schnelle 2016, 378. The second, opposing movement in this chapter concerns the certainty of faith, which appears in a descending way from the Beloved Disciple through to Thomas (see idem, 378). This cannot be reflected on further here. See, however, Frey 2009b. 110 One can still recognize in small details that there is an older underlying tradition here. In v. 1, Mary hurries alone to the tomb and speaks in v. 2 in the plural (οἴδαμεν). This points back to a tradition with multiple women (the three women from Mark 16.1, the four from Luke 24.1,10, or the two from Matt 27.61 and 28.1). After the singular ἐξῆλθεν Πέτρος, the mention of the other disciple is apparently added without a change of the singular into the plural, which may point to an original tradition in which Peter appears alone.

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While multiple women go to the tomb according to the Synoptics, in John this tradition is reduced to a single witness, Mary Magdalene.111 In John she is the first real witness of the risen one,112 who experiences the protophany—as is the case later in apocryphal traditions. However, she initially discovers—while it is still dark—only the rolled-away stone,113 only to run away in evident confusion and announce her discovery to the disciples, whose story is then inserted. In her case, the empty tomb (or the external indication of the rolled-away stone) leads only to confusion and despondency, for she appears to reckon with a ‘removal’ of the corpse of Jesus (by an unknown person), that is, she appears to assume that the body has been stolen. The two disciples who now appear are Peter and “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” that mysterious figure who is explicitly introduced for the first time at the beginning of the passion narrative (13.23). He stands closest to Jesus, is present—unlike Peter—under the cross (19.25-27), and is always a step ahead of the apostle who is so prominent in the tradition. This is also evident in the episode incorporated here. While Peter runs alone to the tomb in Luke 24.12 (ἔδραμεν),114 here the Beloved Disciple is placed at his side, and he then outpaces Peter in the truest sense of the word. With conspicuous narrative elaboration, John 20.2-10 narrates a ‘race’ between the two disciples to the tomb. The beloved disciple runs more quickly ahead of Peter (προέδραμεν τάχιον) and comes first (ἦλθεν πρώτος), still prior to Peter, to the tomb. But, oddly enough, he does not enter immediately. Instead, he only bends down (παρακύψας) to look in, allows Peter to enter the tomb first, and then goes in after him.115 The fact that this is narrated in such detail is certainly not accidental but has to do 111

This is shown by the οἴδαμεν in v. 2. By contrast, John 3.2, 11, is not really a parallel to this phenomenon (contra Schnelle 2016, 379 n. 6). 112 On Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John, see Ruschmann 2002; Taschl-Erber 2007. 113 This too points to older tradition. In John there is no talk of a stone rolled in front of the tomb. This is found only in Mark 15.46 and Matt 27.60, 66. This piece of information is presupposed by the mention of the stone in the Easter narrative in John and Luke (24.2). Still, the mention of the stone is prepared by the Lazarus episode (11.38-39, 41). 114 The textual originality of Luke 24.12 can probably be regarded as secure. On this, see Schnelle 2016, 380–81; Thyen 2005, 759–60; Wolter 2017, 529. But, in that case, this verse offers important key words for the Johannine episode: ἔδραμεν, μνημεῖον, παρακύψας, βλέπει τὰ ὀθόνια, ἀπῆλθεν. This makes a dependence on the Lukan account of a visit of Peter to the tomb very likely. Cf. Wolter 2017, 426–29. 115 It is not the case that this takes place in agreement with the primitive Christian tradition. This mentions a protophany (1 Cor 15.3ff.; Mark 16.7; Matt 28.7; Luke 24.34) of the risen one before Peter but not a first entering of the tomb. In Luke 24.12 Peter also only bends down (παρακύψας) without a reference to him entering the tomb. This verb form is then used in John 20.5 for the Beloved Disciple.

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with the fact that, according to John, the Beloved Disciple is to be identified as the first person to believe—although Peter enters the empty tomb before him. More importantly for our line of questioning is the conspicuously dense reference to what is to be seen in the tomb. Here the two disciples do not encounter an angel with the Easter message. Rather, the Beloved Disciple, when he bends down, already sees (βλέπει) the linen cloths (τὰ ὀθόνια) lying there (v. 5; cf. Luke 24.12). Peter, who then enters into the tomb, apparently looks more closely. He sees (θεωρεῖ) “the linen cloths lying there but the face cloth (σουδάριον) which had been around Jesus’ head not lying among the linen cloths but folded up in its own place” (vv. 6-7b). Peter, to be sure, does not yet draw any conclusions; rather, it is said only of the Beloved Disciple, who enters afterward, that he “saw and believed” (v. 8). In this way the Beloved Disciple is shown to be the first believer, paradigmatic for all other believers. The cumbersomely broad description of the location of the burial cloths for the corpse and the face cloth is especially conspicuous from a narratological perspective. It is probably meant to attract attention and mediate something decisive to the readers. In the cloths that are carefully set aside one can see, first, that the assumption that the body was stolen (cf. v. 2) is incorrect. Instead, the arrangement makes clear that Jesus left his tomb on his own and ‘in an orderly manner.’ The difference is significant precisely in the reference back to the Lazarus narrative. In that passage there was no mention of ὀθόνια—prior to John 20 this word occurs only in Luke 24.12,116 but the word σουδάριον, which is lacking in Luke 24.12, occurs in John 11.44 and appears to be added here (20.7). Thus, the Gospel itself suggests the comparison between Jesus and Lazarus. While Lazarus is bound when he comes out of the tomb and first needs to be unbound at Jesus’ word, Jesus apparently takes off the bands of death himself. This corresponds to the conviction that Jesus, according to John, has life in himself (5.26), indeed is himself life (11.25), and possesses the authority to lay down his life and (actively) to take it up again (10.18). According to the Johannine presentation, the faith of the Beloved Disciple is based on the “seeing” of these ‘signs’ of the burial cloths. He perceives them and draws the (correct) conclusions. Thus, the content of this faith is not simply ‘that Jesus is risen from the dead’ but, more precisely, his divine authority and dignity. 116

In John 11.44, Lazarus is bound with κειρίαι and not with ὀθόνια so that there is only a material parallel and not a parallel in wording to John 20. The σουδάριον ensures, however, the connection between John 11.44 and John 20.6-7.

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By contrast, Peter, despite his entrance into the tomb, is not yet reckoned among the believers. His return from the tomb (v. 10) is no less characterized by astonishment and lack of understanding than that of Mary. This appears to be the meaning of the mysterious explanation that the disciples “did not yet understand the Scripture that he must rise from the dead” (20.9).117 Conversely, this emphasizes “the extraordinary miracle of this anachronistic faith of the Beloved Disciple,”118 who—unlike all other figures in the Gospel—believes without a personal encounter with the risen one,119 solely on the basis of the ‘signs’ in the tomb. The faith of the Beloved Disciple emerges from the mere observation of the ordered conditions in the tomb. He ‘needs’ neither a message from an angel nor an appearance of the risen one nor a demonstration from Scripture but believes on the basis of the tomb, which functions as a ‘sign.’120 In this way he becomes the first and paradigmatic witness of the resurrection faith, who “saw and believed.”121 Thus, here the Easter faith is indeed based on a physical arrangement or in a visual perception, with this—as all the signs in the Gospel of John—being open to multiple interpretations. The one draws the correct conclusions from what is seen: he sees the physical reality as a sign that points to something else and believes. The other remains in the dark and—initially—in unbelief. Although the concern is ultimately with this signified reality of the true dignity and divine authority of Jesus, the physical reality of the resurrection and the risen one is especially emphasized in this presentation, in which not only the ‘empty tomb’ but also the arrangement of the burial cloths serves as reference point for the emerging faith. This emphasis is intensified even more in the following scenes. 4.2 Mary’s Encounter with the Risen One (John 20.11-18) The second scene, Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen one, poses especially great difficulties, which I cannot discuss in detail here. 117 Schnelle 2016, 382, hypothesizes that the statement, perhaps in the singular, followed an older tradition that, as Luke 24.12, only dealt with Peter. 118 Thyen 2005, 760. 119 One could add: also without a thought of or reference to “Scripture.” 120 Precisely commented on by Zumstein 2007, 272: Pour lui, l’état du sépulcre est un signe; 2016b, 746: Er erkennt im Zustand des Grabes ein Zeichen (He discerns in the condition of the tomb a sign). 121 In John 21 this priority is continued in an interesting way insofar as the Beloved Disciple is then also the first person who expresses his faith, who ‘proclaims’: “It is the Lord” (21.7). And Simon Peter, who had already “followed” (ἀκολουθῶν) the Beloved Disciple in John 20.6, also reacts here and as a result of this throws himself into the water in order to meet Jesus.

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Mary is now at the tomb again,122 and she weeps. She remains outside without entering it. It is also true for her that she—like Peter—does not yet understand the Scripture that Jesus must rise. But as she now (just as the Beloved Disciple did previously) bends down and looks into the open tomb, she sees something different from what he saw—two ‘men’ in white garments,123 who first ask her, again in a typically Johannine way: “Woman, why are you weeping?” In response she—as she had done previously to the disciples—explicates her grief (and continues to assume that the body has been stolen): “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”124 The angels give her no answer. Instead she turns and sees a figure whom she—in a productive misunderstanding (in which the imagery of paradise simultaneously resonates)—takes to be the gardener.125 The interplay of question and renewed expression of perplexity is repeated. The ‘gardener’ asks her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”126 And the answer is a significant expression of her love for Jesus: “Κύριε (!), if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him, then I will take him” (v. 15). Only when Jesus addresses her with the name Μαριάμ127 does she recognize Jesus and likewise respond in her language with the intimate address ῥαββοῦνι.128 Thus, the recognition of the unknown one, the identification of the ‘gardener’ with her familiar ‘master,’ occurs through the word, the address of Jesus. This bodily sign

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Here a transition occurs that is not entirely unproblematic. In v. 11, Mary is at the tomb, which she had actually walked away from in vv. 1-2. That she “returned to the tomb,” as Thyen 2005, 762, postulates, is a conjecture. 123 In Mark 16.5 par Matt 28.2-6, the women encounter only one angel. In Luke 24.4 there are two. 124 In contrast to the slight inconsistency in v. 2, the first person appears here. Beyond this, the statement is very personalized (“I,” “my Lord”). 125 A productive tension arises when it is specially conveyed to the readers that she sees Jesus—but she herself does not know. The deep irony in this scene lies in the fact that the misunderstanding of Mary is not simply wrong but is even true on a deeper level. Jesus is the ‘Lord of the garden,’ and he has ‘taken away the body’ in his resurrection. On this, see Thyen 2005, 762. 126 Cf. Jesus’ first question to his first disciples in John 1.37-38. There Jesus had turned to his disciples. Here the woman turns to him—the question is almost the same (cf. Siegert 2008, 606). 127 The transcription of the name points here clearly to the Aramaic form of the name, especially since the name was transcribed previously in vv. 1, 11, without the concluding μ. To the Semitic Μαριάμ corresponds then in the Johannine text the address ῥαββοῦνι, which is also taken over as a foreign word. 128 One can refer here to the good shepherd speech: the good shepherd calls his sheep by name (10.3); they recognize him and follow him (10.3-4, 27).

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enables the identification of the unknown person with the known one, the Lord, an identification that characterizes all the Easter encounters. While a bodily—i.e., a hearable—sign is already present therein, precisely in this scene the bodiliness of the one encountering Mary is not yet ‘graspable’ without further ado. To be sure, Jesus’ mysterious answer μή μου ἅπτου is probably misunderstood in the classic translation noli me tangere. The concern is not with a form of untouchability but, as shown by the justification that follows, with the fact that here Jesus is apparently (still) in a ‘movement’ that has not yet reached its definitive conclusion: “for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” In Matthew 28.9 it is reported that the women, when they encountered Jesus, grasped (ἐκράτησαν) his feet, and it is conceivable that such an intention is in the background here, which is now warded off. One should not detain one who is traveling,129 and apparently Mary must still learn here the lesson that was already conveyed to the disciples in the Farewell Discourses—that she should not “take” to herself the body (v. 17) and also not hold fast to the earthly one in the form that is familiar to her but consent to his departure, which leads to a fundamentally new, post-Easter relation of the female and male disciples to Jesus himself and to God.130 This is why she is then commissioned to say to the “brothers”: “I am ascending to my Father and to your Father, to my God and to your God.” This sentence is also mysterious. Here the risen one speaks, on the one hand, of his God and, on the other hand, in a conspicuous juxtaposition of “my Father” and “your Father.” In this way John maintains that the disciples, even though they are now called “brothers” of Jesus, still have a different kind of relationship to the Father than Jesus has as ‘the Son.’ In John there can be no “our Father,” which would unite Jesus and the disciples. On the other hand (and although this is often overlooked), the talk of God as the Father of the disciples occurs for the first time here—so that the essence of this scene is the installation of a fundamentally new relation to God for the disciples in the post-Easter period.131 With respect to the figure of Jesus and his bodiliness, some things still remain unclear in this scene. In the first appearance of the risen one, he appears to be still en route, not yet definitively at his goal, and therefore not yet ‘presentable’ in the full sense. 129

So the commentary in Thyen 2005, 763. An “intermediate state” of Jesus (thus Schnelle 2016, 384) is not announced here. Rather, this Jesus is still in motion—and it remains open when this movement reaches its goal. Most interpreters suspect that it is reached in John 20.19-23. 130 Cf. John 16.7 and elsewhere. 131 On this, cf. Back 2012.

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However, the character of the Easter recognition already becomes clear in this first scene. What is at issue is the identification of the risen and appearing one with the known Jesus, the crucified one. This identifying recognition is enabled by a bodily sign, in this case the address by name in the appropriate dialect. The Easter recognition is granted by Jesus himself, who overcomes the disciples’ lack of understanding and corrects their wrong attitudes, in this case their clinging to the time of the earthly one. Here it is notably a female disciple, Mary Magdalene, who becomes an Easter witness before the other disciples. She must leave the role of the ideal, prototypical believer to the Beloved Disciple, but she is the recipient of the protophany and comes to Easter faith before the other disciples (among whom Peter himself is presumably to be included). As the—alongside the Beloved Disciple—first believer, she is, additionally, the first person to be commissioned with the passing on of her experience, and thus she proclaims to the gathered disciples her newly gained recognition (“I have seen the Lord!”) and the content of the message given to her.132 To be sure, this did not result in the disciples being able to believe already on the basis of her witness, and there is also no trace of the insight of the Beloved Disciple within the circle of the gathered disciples in John 20.19. Rather, in order to believe, they require their own ‘seeing’ of the risen one and their own experience of being addressed by him.133 4.3 The Recognition of Jesus by the Signa Crucifixi (John 20.19-23) The scene of the appearance in the circle of disciples (20.19-23) carries special weight since here not only does the whole group of disciples become witnesses of the risen one but the commissioning of the disciples, the conferring of the Easter Spirit (the Johannine Pentecost), and the authorization to carry out eschatologically valid work also take place within this framework (20.21b-23). One can ask whether Jesus’ ‘ascension’ to the Father, which had not yet been completed in John 20.17, is now regarded as concluded. In terms of content, this would have to be assumed when he now commissions the disciples, gives them the Spirit (which comes, after all, “from the Father” according to John 15.26), and authorizes them for their witness

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In this respect the ‘Johannine’ Mary Magdalene differs from the women in Mark 16.8; cf., however, Matt 28.9-10. 133 That is, as Thomas in John 20.24-29, all the disciples do not believe without seeing.

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and post-Easter activity.134 However, this text provides no indications of this. John is apparently not interested in a demarcation of ‘stages’ of the way of Jesus.135 The scene displays especially close parallels to Luke 24.36-43(-53). Jesus encounters the disciples with the greeting of peace, they become afraid, he identifies himself through the signs of his crucifixion, and the disciples rejoice. Also the motifs of the commission to proclaim the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24.47) and the authorization with the Spirit (Luke 24.49) are prefigured in Luke and then configured in a very specific way in John, which compellingly suggests that John takes up the Lukan account— but significantly reshapes it.136 It is characteristically Johannine that the fear of the disciples is a fear “of the Jews,”137 and this explains the closed doors in John 20.19.138 It is also typically Johannine that in John 20.20 Jesus shows not his hands and feet but rather the hands and the side (pierced by the spear thrust). Furthermore, the conferring of the Spirit, which is only promised in Luke 24.49 and then follows on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2.1ff.), is relocated to the day of Easter and thereby also integrated materially into the Easter event and configured as an event of new creation by the exalted one (who is equipped with the power of creation).139 Finally, the idea of the proclamation of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24.47), which in Luke can likewise take place only as a result of the Pentecost event, is integrated into the scene and reshaped in the sense of an authorization that is open for the future (and for coming generations of disciples) (20.23).140 However, what John omits is also significant. In Luke the fear of the disciples appears to be based on the opinion that a ghost could appear to them, so that the risen one comforts the disciples who take fright at his appearance with the words: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit (πνεῦμα) does not have flesh and 134

Thus Zumstein 2007, 283, 2016b, 758–59; Dietzfelbinger 1982, 41. Here we find a conspicuous contrast with Luke, who must specify the nature of the bodiliness of Jesus in the forty days between resurrection and ascension. 136 See the argumentation in Lang 1999, 280ff. 137 John 7.13; 19.38 (cf. 12.42). 138 By contrast, one cannot recognize in John a specific interest in the ability of the risen one to penetrate through doors. 139 The breathing into the disciples with the Spirit takes place in analogy to the breathing into human beings with the spirit of life in Gen 2.7 LXX (in both places with ἐνεφύσησεν). 140 Here the concern is not only with a commission of a defined circle of direct Easter witnesses (the ‘twelve’ are not, after all, mentioned in this pericope, though they are in the characterization of Thomas as “one of the twelve” in v. 24). 135

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bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24.39-40).141 And even after the presentation of the hands and the feet, i.e., the signa crucifixi, the joy of the disciples is still ambivalent and characterized by unbelieving marveling,142 so that Jesus still needs to eat a piece of roasted fish ‘in their presence’ in order to unambiguously demonstrate his human physique. At the end the disciples are taught by Jesus (Luke 24.44-48) and blessed (Luke 24.50), but their faith remains oddly up in the air. All these aspects are omitted in John. The author does not think the possibility that the appearance could be the appearance of an incorporeal spiritbeing, let alone of a spirit of a dead person, is worth mentioning. He also does not speak in such an unsophisticated way as Luke of flesh and bones or of the eating of baked fish. Jesus’ showing of his hands and his feet is apparently sufficient to convey to the disciples who the appearing one is. Without any ambiguity, the disciples, according to the Johannine account, are filled with joy “because they saw the Lord.” He speaks peace to them once more, and they thus appear unambiguously as Easter believers,143 who experience the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise of joy (15.11; 16.20-22, 24), peace (14.27; 16.33), and the Spirit (14.16-17, 26; 15.26; 16.8-11, 1315). The day of Easter (and the Easter events) grounds their faith and with it also their eschatological joy and their witness. The primarily anti-docetic interest that determines the Lukan account is apparently overlaid in John by other theological motifs that are more central for the evangelist. Here the concern is also with the fact that with the resurrection of Jesus the gifts of peace, joy, and Holy Spirit are given and with this the new, Easter understanding of the pre-Easter Jesus is made available.144 Thus, the concern here is already with the implications of the Easter faith and not merely with ensuring the bodiliness of the risen one.

141 In Luke the intention is apparently to ward off the notion that Jesus’ Easter appearance was of a ghostly nature, and the demonstration of the hands and the feet as well as the eating that follows serve this proof of the real humanity of the risen one. The saying of Jesus quoted here has a broad posthistory, which is probably determined by Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans 3.1–2; see further Origen, De principiis 1 praefatio 8 (Görgemanns/Karpp 1992, 94–95); Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 3.36.11–12; Jerome, De viris illustribus 16 (Bernoulli 1895, 17–18); and Commentariorum in Isaiam libri XVIII, prologue 65 (Adriaen 1963, 741). 142 Luke 24.41: ἀπιστούντων, θαυμαζόντων. 143 According to Thyen 2005, 766, Thomas represents the ἀπίστουντες among all the disciples. However, according to John, all the people present in 20.19-23 come to Easter joy. 144 Previously the narrative asides in John 2.22 and 12.16 with the key word ‘remembrance,’ which is connected, for its part, with the Spirit-Paraclete in John 14.26, had pointed to the significance of this new understanding that only came in post-Easter.

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As in the preceding scene with Mary, it is recorded that the disciples saw “the Lord,” i.e., that they recognized the one who appeared to them as their familiar Lord. This is effected not through a demonstrative eating but through a personal experience of encounter that mediates the new assurance and Easter joy. This experience is also ignited here through the address by Jesus (in this case with the greeting of peace) and through the bodily form of the crucified one, which is characterized as unmistakable not through a reference to his hands and feet but—in correspondence with John 19.34—through the reference to the hands and the ‘side.’ The risen one is thus the one who is familiar to the disciples from the time of his activity and—emphatically—the crucified one, with his identity after Easter also being enduringly characterized by the signa crucifixi. The stigmata of the crucified one, the marks of the nails in his hands145 and the wound in his side, confirm the identity of the appearing one with the crucified one. In them it becomes clear whom the disciples see—namely, the previously crucified “Lord.” His appearance drives away fear, mediates Easter joy, and enables the disciples, in the power of the Spirit, to continue the work of this Lord in the post-Easter period (cf. 14.12). As in the preceding scene, here too the emergence of the Easter faith is caused solely by the risen one, who comes directly into the midst of the disciples, who have, in their fear, locked themselves in; addresses them with the greeting of peace; discloses his identity; and then commissions and authorizes them. Through Jesus’ breathing of the Spirit onto them, the emergence of the Easter faith is simultaneously characterized as a work of creation, as an act of the risen one who is equipped with the power of the creator (1.3), of the incarnate and exalted Logos. 4.4 The Thomas Scene and the Bodily Signs of the Risen Crucified One In the fourth scene of the chapter, the famous Thomas episode (20.2429), the accents set in the scene with the disciples are continued in a very specific way. Through the figure of Thomas, who had not been very prominent as a disciple previously (cf. only 11.16; 14.5), the doubt concerning the reality of the resurrection of Jesus is explicated on its own.146 Thomas cannot 145

Here, one must already think implicitly of the marks of the nails. Elsewhere there is explicit talk of disciples doubting in the Easter context only in Matt 28.17. On this text, see Schliesser 2017b. For the topic of doubt in the New Testament in general, see see the Habilitation thesis by Benjamin Schliesser to be completed in 2018 (Schliesser, forthcoming). 146

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simply believe on the basis of the witness of others. He can and will “only give credence to the seeing of the risen one when this one is identifiable as the crucified one” for himself.147 Here we see again that the mere communication of one’s own Easter experience cannot necessarily make this plausible to others. Just as the ‘proclamation’ of Mary among the disciples apparently was not able to awaken any faith, so also the witness of the disciples is without effect in relation to Thomas, who had not been present on the day of Easter. In this way Thomas becomes the paradigm of the doubter. However, the concern in the episode is not with Thomas as an individual person or as a representative of a line of tradition,148 let alone with a ‘Thomas community.’149 In my view, such an interpretation of the Johannine disciple figures as polemical types misses the subtle narrative use of the figures within the text in the Gospel of John. On the other hand, Thomas is also not simply the model of the ‘one who is disbelieving’ or ‘weak in faith,’ as he was later regarded to be on the basis of this scene.150 Even more so, this scene does not involve a fundamental opposition between believing and seeing.151 Rather, in the figure of Thomas the concern—as already previously in the appearances of Jesus before Mary and the disciples—is with a foundation for the subsequent proclamation, namely, the constitution of the Easter message that takes place in the personal encounter with the risen one. “All those who are henceforth called to faith and come to faith,” including the subsequent readers of the Gospel, “are dependent for their ‘seeing’ and ‘believing’ on the constitutive significance and function of the first witnesses.”152 Indeed, in the time of the second and third Christian generation, faith is only possible on the basis of the witness of others or on the basis of the witness—which has become a book—of the evangelist, who is identified in John 21.24 with the Beloved Disciple. Accordingly, the concluding 147

Thus Kohler 1987, 175. In my view, the inclusion of Thomas in the speculation about the Johannine Beloved Disciple is not adequately grounded; thus, rightly, Dunderberg 1988, 70ff. 149 In my view, the diverse attempts to connect the Johannine Thomas with the later Thomas literature (Gospel of Thomas, Acts of Thomas, Book of Thomas the Athlete) and to (re)construct a shared line of tradition have little plausibility. Completely differently than in John, in the Gospel of Thomas (Incipit) Didymus Judas Thomas has the function of writing down the hidden sayings of Jesus. Thus, he occupies a prominent position in the circle of disciples. The Johannine narrative has nothing to do with the later Thomastradition that uses Thomas as ‘Jesus’s twin’ and bearer of esoteric tradition. 150 For the effective history, see Most 2007 and Schliesser 2017a. 151 Such an opposition is often inferred from John 20.29. See in this vein, e.g., Bultmann 1986, 539–40 (= 1971, 695–96); Becker 1991b, 743, 745. 152 So, rightly, Hahn 1972, 131. 148

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macarism, “Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe!” (20.29), is to be understood not as a reproach of the ‘disbelieving Thomas’ and of his desire to understand but rather as a promise to the believers of later generations and thus also to the readers of the Gospel:153 ‘Blessed are those who can no longer see and yet believe!’ In substantial parts the Gospel of John appears to aim precisely at conveying this perspective to its addressees. Their situation in the subsequent post-Easter period is by no means less favorable than the situation of the first witnesses, even though Christ can no longer be directly seen (16.10, 17) and physically touched by them, for through the Spirit and in the post-Easter presence of the exalted one they have been given the fullness of the gifts of salvation, and a deepened understanding of the words, deeds, and fate of Jesus is opened to them ‘in retrospect.’ It is to such a faith that is ‘mediated’ by the witness of others that the Fourth Gospel seeks to guide its readers. This already becomes apparent in the first scenes of the calling of the disciples, in which it is demonstrated how faith is consistently awakened by the witness or the pointer of someone else and then solidified in the encounter with Jesus (1.37-39, 41-42, 45). At the same time, for the direct Easter witnesses the Gospel nevertheless reports an Easter recognition that is based on the direct personal encounter with the risen one. The tension between the constitutive significance of the Easter witnesses and the fundamentally different form of the ‘faith experience’ of later generations is therefore finally processed in the Thomas episode. Thomas experiences here special attention from Jesus, who becomes personally accessible to him (as previously to Mary), precisely addresses his doubts that he had expressed in relation to his fellow disciples, and invites him to look at the nail marks in his hands and the wound in his side and even to touch them (20.27). The miraculous knowledge about the doubts of the disciples belongs to the Johannine image of Christ. As Jesus recognizes Nathanael under the fig tree (1.47-48) and illuminates the life of the Samaritan woman to her (4.18), so he knows about the unbelief of his disciple and his refusal to believe the testimony of the others without his own autopsy, indeed—intensified—without physically touching the risen body. Thomas insists that he can believe only on the basis of his own experience (cf. 4.42), and the Johannine Jesus responds to this humanly very understandable (and in the Johannine community presumably equally known) objection. He offers him the demanded physical ‘test,’ a ‘finger probe’ of the reality of the risen one. 153

Cf. Kohler 1987, 184.

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The scene appears as an ancient variation of the modern question, which the writer Heinrich Böll once formulated: “Would I, if I had been there, have been able to photograph the resurrection or the risen one?” The question leads into aporiae among those who give an emphatically positive answer for the sake of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and among those who answer in the negative on the basis of a greater historical skepticism. In the systematic discussion that starts here, it becomes clear that the dimension of the physically, optically, or tangibly ‘verifiable’ reality cannot grasp decisive aspects of what the resurrection of Jesus Christ implies.

It is conspicuous that an actual ‘finger probe’ is not narrated in John 20.27.154 Rather, Jesus’ address to Thomas ends with the exhortation: “Be not unbelieving but believing!” The readers remain in the dark about whether Thomas actually reaches into the wounds of his Lord or whether the physical touch is perhaps no longer necessary after the exhortation of Jesus and Thomas can overcome his unbelief and formulate the confession “My Lord and my God!” (20.28) already on the basis of Jesus’ address. To be sure, Jesus’ answer—“Because you have seen me, you believe”— suggests that the touching that had initially been demanded is no longer necessary for the faith of Thomas.155 After all, Thomas appears in the end as a conquered one, whose previously formulated condition—“If I do not . . . then I cannot believe” (20.25)—is turned by Jesus’ sovereign intervention into the highest confession of faith in the whole Gospel. Narratively this highlights again the fact that the Easter faith does not depend on human dispositions but is effected through the sovereign action of Jesus himself. At the same time, with this verbal exchange and the previously expressed desire of Thomas, the bodily reality of the risen one is finally reinforced once again in a heightened manner and conclusively. There can be no doubt regarding the bodily form of the risen one and his physically perceptible identity with the crucified one, even though he passes through closed doors and appears to be no longer subject to the limitations of the earthly material life. Thus, it is consciously no flat ‘materialism’ when the bodiliness of the risen one is stressed here, as already in the preceding scenes, and when it is recognized with the help of the indications of the orderly arranged burial cloths (20.8), the address of Mary by name and in her own language (20.16), and the wounds of the crucifixion (20.20). 154

Here John remains much more reserved than, say, the Protevangelium of James (chapters 19–20) in the midwife narrative, where Salome examines the virginity of Mary with a ‘finger probe.’ In this ‘testing’ of God, her hand is burned, which is then healed again through a miracle, in the worship of the divine child. 155 So, correctly, Zumstein 2007, 291; 2016b, 765. A differing view is argued for in Schliesser 2017a.

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Unlike Luke, John does not speak of the risen one eating or of his flesh and bones. He is not interested in the physical ‘status’ of a resurrected one who still tarries on earth for forty days, and—at least after the appearance before Mary, which is still located in the vicinity of the tomb—the selfdisclosure of the risen one appears to occur not from an earthly sphere but from the Father. The bodiliness that is emphatically highlighted in John 20 is also not to be understood in the sense of an earthly materiality. At any rate, it would border on the grotesque if one were to imagine that the crucified one, as one glorified by the Father, clothed with divine δόξα (17.5), still bore the bloody welts of the flogging and the open wound marks of the crucifixion. It would appear scarcely less grotesque to imagine a risen one who removes the stone from the grave in divine power but simultaneously pedantically arranges his bed-linens like a soldier. The consequence of these reflections can only lie in the insight that in the description of the reality of the risen one we are dealing with linguistic elements from the figural level from which we cannot simply infer a ‘historical’ reality.

The offer to touch the marks of the wounds invites one, to a certain degree, to an earthly material understanding of the reality of the resurrection, but such an understanding is ultimately made impossible through the saying of Jesus in v. 29, in which there is only talk of seeing. In the end, what is paradigmatic is not the faith of Thomas but the faith of the Beloved Disciple, who, without seeing the risen one himself, draws the right conclusion from the mere ‘sign’ of the burial cloths and ‘believes’ (20.8). This faith points the way for the community of readers, as much as, on the other side, the witness of those who have “seen the Lord” (20.18, 20b) is of constitutive importance. The Thomas episode is essential, for it already processes the experience of doubt and deals with its overcoming through the encounter with the exalted one. Materially the evangelist is apparently concerned to record these experiences of the Easter witnesses and at the same time to open them up for a later readership, to whom this experience can only be mediated narratively. In the Johannine appearance accounts—unlike in many modern discussions—the concern is not with the demonstration that the crucified one has risen from the dead but, the other way around, with the recognition that the appearing one is identical with the crucified one and the one whom they know from the time of their earlier discipleship. Thus, what is theologically decisive for John is the identity of the risen one with the incarnate and crucified one, i.e., the statement that the exalted one also continues to bear the reality of the incarnate and crucified one on himself

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and that the earthly way of Jesus is thus present in the person of the (incarnate, crucified, and glorified) Christ. 5. Summary After all this there can be no doubt that the dimension of bodiliness is extremely significant in the Gospel of John. A spiritualizing reading of this work is forced to ignore or reinterpret essential textual elements. The work—at least in the form that has been handed down—can certainly not be regarded as tending to docetism. Whether one may evaluate it as antidocetic remains less certain due to the fact that in the discussed sections we could not detect any explicit polemical rejection of a specific position, and the emphasis on the bodily appearance of the risen one in John 20 is connected with other theological aspects and partly overlaid by them.156 The bodiliness does not pertain only to the reality of the incarnate one, whose true humanity is upheld in the Gospel of John, though the way of Jesus is already surrounded by the Easter light and by the δόξα of the glorified one. The facticity of the bodily death of Jesus can by no means be doubted after the spear thrust and burial narrative, even though the aspect of physical suffering receives less emphasis than, for example, in the Synoptics. But the bodiliness also characterizes the reality of the risen and exalted one. A bodily dimension of the resurrection is presupposed with equal clearness in the narrative of the empty tomb and the emphatic reference to the burial cloths and in the corresponding narrative of the raising of Lazarus. To be sure, the concern appears to be less with the physical materiality (which is more strongly emphasized in Luke) than with the personal identity of the risen one with the crucified one that is recognizable through the bodily signs. This is reinforced, in closing, by the Thomas pericope. In the signa crucifixi, which point “to the historical reality of the crucified man Jesus of Nazareth,”157 the identity of the risen one with the crucified one proves itself and thus, at the same time, the enduring and unmistakable significance of the Jesus of history. The narrated story of Jesus, which culminates in his death, does not become obsolete through his resurrection, as is the case in some later gnostic revelatory discourses, but it remains—being called to mind and interpreted by the Spirit—the ‘foundational event’ that underlies every faith in later times. 156 With its ‘indirect’ communication, the Gospel differs here from 1 John in which this opposition can be directly recognized and which can be most easily interpreted, in my view in the sense of a warding off of docetizing positions. 157 So Kohler 1987, 166.

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At the same time, an anthropological dimension is connected with this christological dimension. Human history with its actions and suffering, including bodily death, is coram Deo precisely not irrelevant and ‘unreal’ but rather incorporated into the salvation that gets appropriated in Christ. Therefore, the Gospel of John’s hope of salvation also implies the expectation of a bodily resurrection of believers and of an enduring fellowship of the disciples with the exalted one in the ‘house of the Father’ (14.2): they are to be “where he is” (14.3; 17.24).

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The Gospel of John’s picture of Christ differs from that of the Synoptics in a distinctive manner. From the very beginning the way of the earthly Jesus is surrounded by his glory. He reveals this in his miraculous deeds (2.11) and openly declares his dignity in his proclamation, in a particularly focused manner in his “I am.” Nevertheless, talk of his ‘glory’ (δόξα) or his ‘glorification’ (δοξάζεσθαι) is conspicuously concentrated at the place where many other lines of the Johannine presentation also culminate—in the context of Jesus’ ‘hour’ (12.23, 28; 13.31-32; 17.1, 4, 5, 22, 24) and thus within the horizon of his impending death. The Farewell Discourses programmatically begin with a saying about his ‘glorification’ (13.31-32), and at the end of the so-called high priestly prayer, in which δόξα-statements are especially concentrated, we find, as the ‘last will and testament’ of Jesus, the statement that the subsequent disciples are to ‘see his glory’ (17.24). This statement of the ultimate perspective of the final petition in John 17 not only expresses a specific aspect of Johannine eschatology1 but can also be regarded as a statement of the ultimate perspective of the entire Johannine presentation. Those who believe in Jesus through the word of the witnesses (17.20), i.e., not least the readers of the Gospel (19.35; 20.31), are meant to perceive Jesus’ δόξα—the glory of the crucified one. This, however, gives rise to numerous questions. Is the δόξα mentioned here not already the very same δόξα that belonged to Jesus before the foundation of the world, the δόξα of the preexistent one (17.5)? How then is the δόξα of the exalted and glorified one related to that of the preexistent one? How is it related to the δόξα of the one who had become flesh, of the earthly Jesus, whose activity is programmatically designated 1

See Frey 1997b; 1998; 2000b; Schwindt 2007, 369–78. 237

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as a revelation of his δόξα (2.11)? Above all, how can the not-yet-glorified Jesus (7.39) already reveal ‘his’ δόξα? Thus, how is the δόξα of the miracle worker related to the ‘glorification’ (δοξάζεσθαι: 12.23; 13.31-32; 17.1, 5, 10) that only takes place in his ‘hour’? And how should the event of the ‘glorification’ of Jesus be understood? When does it take place, and what does it consist in? And how is this ‘glorification’ connected with statements about Jesus ‘glorifying’ the Father (17.1, 4; cf. 14.13) or the Father ‘glorifying’ his own name (12.28)? Thus, how is Jesus’ δόξα related to God’s δόξα (11.4, 40)? And how are they connected with other statements in which people ‘glorify’ God (21.19), the Father is ‘glorified’ in believers (17.10; cf. 15.8), and the Spirit-Paraclete ‘glorifies’ Jesus (16.14)? With the question regarding the Johannine understanding of δόξα and the relationship between σάρξ and δόξα (1.14), one of the most important questions of Johannine interpretation is thematized. It must be clarified if we are to understand the Fourth Gospel adequately, especially if we are to plan a commentary on this work.2 In particular, we are concerned with the distinctiveness of the Johannine picture of Christ in its difference vis-à-vis the older tradition, the classic question of the historical value of the Johannine presentation,3 and the question of the material basis of the Johannine ‘mode of viewing,’ i.e., with its theological legitimacy.4 With recourse to two new monographs I want to identify some fundamental problems and then ground my own model of Johannine interpretation with reference to classical models of interpretation (section 1). After this, I will concisely discuss the questions of the conception, traditionhistorical background, and meaning of the Johannine talk of δόξα (section 2). Then, taking the δόξα-statements in the context of the ‘hour’ of Jesus 2 I am writing the commentary on the Gospel of John in the Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar (EKKNT) series. Frey 1997b; 1998; 2000b; and numerous essays in Frey 2013a and in the present volume are preparatory works for this commentary. 3 The fact that the Gospel of John has been removed from the discussion of the ‘historical Jesus’ ever since the breakthrough of critical scholarship around 1900 (see Schweitzer 1984, 240; 2000, 185–87; on this, see Frey 1997b, 37–39) has been repeatedly challenged, influentially in recent times by the ‘Pope’s Jesus book’: Ratzinger 2007b (GV = 2007a). However, in view of the differences from the Synoptic picture of Jesus and the interpretive tendency that is explicitly acknowledged in John (e.g., in the anamnesis notes of John 2.22; 12.16; cf. 14.26), this is probably fitting on the whole, even if the Gospel of John may offer individual pieces of valid historical information. See now also Frey 2017a and, more extensively, 2018c. 4 This challenge was emphatically expressed in Käsemann 1980 (ET = 1968). Schwindt 2007, 277, formulates the problem accurately as “the question of the relationship between narrative Jesus-history, which is obligated to the human historical figure of the man from Nazareth, and the mythological-ontological statements and statements of the Prologue, which envisage Jesus as the pre-existent and post-existent Son of God.”

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as my point of departure, I will point out the significance of the glorification of Jesus for the presentation of the Gospel and the interpretation of its story of Jesus (section 3), before formulating a few concluding perspectives (section 4). 1. The Understanding of δόξα and Approaching the Interpretation of John 1.1 Two New Monographs on the Understanding of δόξα Despite its acknowledged significance, the topic of the Johannine understanding of δόξα had long been neglected in scholarship,5 and it was only in 2007 that it received a comprehensive treatment in two monographs.6 While Rainer Schwindt discusses the notion of glory in Johannine Christology in comparison to the Pauline conception and interprets the content of both in a comparative manner against the background of Old Testament–early Jewish tradition history, Nicole Chibici-Revneanu traces the semantic development of the δόξα-statements in a careful march through the Gospel in order to work out their meaning against the background of the pagan-Greek and early Jewish attestations. Amid all differences, the commonalities are noteworthy. Both interpreters see that source-critical approaches scarcely bring us further with this topic. Rather, the analysis of the δόξα-statements confirms the theological coherence of the Johannine presentation.7 Furthermore, both of them work out the fundamental significance of Old Testament horizons for understanding the Johannine usage. With few exceptions,8 the sense of the Johannine δόξα-attestations goes far beyond the pagan-Greek semantic

5 Ibuki 1988, 38, accurately stated that “thus far this basic concept of Johannine Christology has not yet been granted the significance that is due to it.” 6 Schwindt 2007; Chibici-Revneanu 2007. The last larger investigation was W. Thüsing’s dissertation (Thüsing 1960). In addition to the foundational older works of Schneider 1932 and Kittel 1934, attention should be given to Dodd 1965, 201–8; Caird 1968, 265– 77; Loader 1989, 107–23; Knöppler 1994, 52–65, 165–73; Dietzfelbinger 1997a, 283– 92; Hurtado 2003, 374–81; Bauckham 2015, 43–62. For the history of scholarship, see Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 4–33. 7 Cf. Schwindt 2007, 279: “It will become clear that precisely the statements on glory establish a textual and semantic coherence that is linguistically, literarily, and theologically understandable as the creative conception of a single individual.” See also ChibiciRevneanu 2007, 328–29. 8 Cf. John 5.41, 44; 7.18; 8.50, 54; 9.24; and 12.43, where the sense of “honor” or “fame” is recognizable. However, the pagan-Greek sense and the christologically determined dimension of meaning already overlap in John 7.18 (see Schwindt 2007, 424).

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spectrum of “opinion” or “appearance,” “fame” and “honor.”9 This is why an interpretation in the framework of an anthropological schema of ‘honor and shame,’ and ‘broker and client,’ inevitably truncates the Johannine conceptual framework or even misses it entirely.10 Finally, both interpretations seek a way to understand the Johannine talk of δόξα as a material unity11 and to overcome the widespread distinction between different δόξαι or different ‘stages’ of δόξα.12 Here, however, there are interesting differences. According to ChibiciRevneanu, Jesus reveals the one δόξα of God, which he has in his earthly activity “from the Father” (παρὰ πατρός), while it belongs to him in his preexistence and postexistence “with the Father” (παρὰ πατρί). This model comes close to Thüsing’s understanding of the two stages, but it overcomes it in its theocentric and Old Testament anchoring. Jesus’ δόξα is the one δόξα of God, which belongs to him in each different mode. His glorification “marks the transition . . . from the δόξα παρὰ πατρός to the δόξα παρὰ πατρί.”13 In distinction from this linguistic differentiation (which cannot be verified in all attestations), Schwindt finds the material basis for the unity of the δόξα-statements in the Son of Man Christology14 because the preincarnational preexistence of Jesus and his Easter postexistence are connected in an analogous way in the Son of Man concept and both are joined in the closest way with the historical way of Jesus and even with his ‘hour.’15 If the Johannine δόξα-statements are concerned with the relationship between the mythological-ontological view of Jesus as the eternal Son of God and the narrated story of Jesus of Nazareth, his way to the cross, then this gives rise to the question of the starting point from which one should 9

See in detail Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 336–44, who explicitly maintains, however, that the evangelist “also knows how to work with a pagan-Greek interpersonal notion of δόξα-honor” (335). 10 For such approaches, cf., e.g., M. S. Collins 1995; Piper 2001. See the review in Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 24–32, and her analysis of these approaches in the discussion of each individual δόξα-statement. 11 Thus Pamment 1983; Ibuki 1988 (on both of them, see Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 47–48). 12 In this vein Thüsing 1960, 240–49, who also makes a fundamental distinction between “two stages” of the work of salvation, namely, the activity of the earthly Jesus and that of the exalted Christ. Such distinctions are inspired above all by the dogmatic teaching of the status Christi, according to which a distinction is made between the δόξα of the preexistent one, the δόξα of the incarnate one, and the δόξα of the postexistent one, or between a heavenly δόξα and an earthly δόξα. 13 Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 326. 14 Schwindt 2007, 423. 15 Schwindt 2007, 430. It is hardly coincidental that Jesus’ glorification is announced at the beginning of the Farewell Discourse in a Son of Man saying (13.31-32).

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appropriately illuminate this relation of tension. Is John 1.14 the key to the whole, or does precisely this verse disclose its meaning “only on the basis of the whole of the Gospel”?16 Should one therefore start from the statements about Jesus’ revelation of his glory in his ‘signs’17 or rather from the culmination point in the hour of his death18 in which there is talk of his ‘glorification’? This touches upon fundamental questions of the interpretation of John. The statements of glory are, in a certain sense, a test case for the hermeneutical overall perspective on the Fourth Gospel. 1.2 Three Classic Models The classic alternative is between a protological and an incarnationaltheological approach.19 The latter was developed in a pronounced manner by Rudolf Bultmann. He discerned “the theme of the whole Gospel of John”20 in the statement ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο (1.14a) and thereby subordinated the aspect of glory to the aspect of incarnation. According to this view, “the δόξα is not to be seen alongside the σάρξ, nor through the σάρξ as through a window,” but rather “it is to be seen in the σάρξ and nowhere else,” and “if man wishes to see the δόξα, then it is on the σάρξ that he must concentrate his attention.”21 According to Bultmann, revelation can be found only in this paradox. For the revealer is, after all, only “a sheer human being,”22 and every attempt to ‘see’ something beyond this sheer human being and to want to determine the dignity of Jesus as ‘something objectifiable’ would be an act of unbelief. John 20.29 thus calls blessed those who do not (want to) see but who believe the revelation (that is given only in the paradox). It is evident that the miracles of Jesus narrated in the Gospel of John can be received only in broken form under these 16

Thus Schwindt 2007, 379. Thus the approach in Schwindt 2007, who first discusses the ‘glorification in signs’ (283–303) and then on the basis of the Son of Man statements the “economy of salvation of the glorification’ in the Farewell Discourses (353–79). 18 In this vein F. J. Moloney placed only John 13–21 under the concept of glory in his multivolume commentary: see Moloney 1998a (Glory Not Dishonor). 19 On this, see Frey 2002c, 186–91 (= 2013a, 501–7); cf. further Onuki 1984, 185–213. 20 Bultmann 2007, § 46, p. 40 (GV = 1984, 392). At the same time the interpretation of John 1.14 in Bultmann’s commentary reads like a systematic summary of Bultmann’s theology of revelation (Bultmann 1971, 60–76; 1986, 38–51). On this, see Onuki 1984, 185–87; Kohler 1987, 21–45. 21 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 41) (emphasis in original). 22 Bultmann 1986, 341: “ein purer Mensch”; 1971, 445: “a mere man.” See, however, the criticism in Knöppler 1994, 28 n. 6, who disputes the fact that this statement captures what is meant by the evangelist; rather, this is said to be the claim of the Ἰουδαῖοι who accuse Jesus of βλασφημία. 17

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hermeneutical premises. Bultmann can solve the problem source-critically by assuming a semeia source that the evangelist himself appropriated only critically,23 so that the evangelist already appears as a miracle-critical interpreter of the story of Jesus, who takes seriously the paradox of revelation. In sharp contrast to this interpretation, Ernst Käsemann—taking up the idealistic interpretation of F. C. Baur24—placed the emphasis on John 1.14c (καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ) and specified the theme of the Gospel as the “praesentia dei in Christ.”25 Jesus’ incarnation and crucifixion were thus subordinated to the preexistence of the Logos.26 Incarnation and cross are only “manifestations” of the preexistent one,27 in which he “does not really change himself, but only his respective place.”28 The δόξα that Jesus reveals is therefore the δόξα that belongs to him as the preexistent one and that is merely veiled during his earthly way.29 Jesus’ death or his ‘glorification’ are thus nothing other than the “return to the glory of the preexistent one.”30 It is clear that in this Christology-of-glory interpretation the narrated history of Jesus and especially his crucifixion can have only a broken significance. Käsemann manages to support his view by the idea that the evangelist has taken the passion story merely from the tradition and dragged it along nolens volens.31 With the assessment that for the Fourth Evangelist Jesus was no mere human being but a “God striding upon the earth”32 and that his image was thus reshaped by a metaphysical ‘speculation,’ the connection of Johannine thought to reality also becomes questionable. Such a Christology of glory had to fall under the suspicion of illusionary enthusiasm. Provoked by Käsemann, Günther Bornkamm and then Ferdinand Hahn and his students33 developed a different interpretive perspective that 23 On this, see comprehensively van Belle 1994, 24–40; cf. also the lucid criticism in Berger 1984, 1230–31. 24 Käsemann 1980, 26 n. 9 (ET = 1968, 9 n. 6), himself refers to F. C. Baur. Heitmüller 1918, 27, also interprets in the same direction. 25 Käsemann 1964, II: 174 (ET = 1969b, 159). 26 Käsemann 1968, 43 (cf. 1980, 95–96): “The revelation of the Logos is the meaning and the criterion of the incarnation, not vice versa, as if the incarnation were the truth, the confines and limits of the Logos.” 27 Käsemann 1980, 49 n. 53 (there is no equivalent in the English translation). 28 Käsemann 1968, 12; cf. 1980, 34. 29 Käsemann 1968, 12; 1980, 33. Cf. 1968, 44: “incarnation does not have to mean kenosis” (GV = 1980, 97). 30 Käsemann 1980, 49 n. 53 (there is no equivalent in the English translation). 31 Käsemann 1980, 22–23; 1968, 7. 32 Käsemann 1980, 26 (cf. 1968, 9); cf. also 1980, 151; 1968, 73. 33 Bornkamm 1997 (GV = 1968, 104–21); cf. Hahn 2006; further Onuki 1984, 190– 93; and Hoegen-Rohls 1996.

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is pneumatological and appears more appropriate to the Johannine text. For Bornkamm the Farewell Discourses, which are characteristic for John, constitute “the hermeneutical perspective from which his Gospel is to be understood,”34 and the Paraclete sayings, which are integrated there, offer the “hermeneutical key to the understanding of Johannine Christology,”35 insofar as reference is made to the process of post-Easter ‘anamnesis’ (14.25-26; cf. 16.13-15), which had opened up to the disciples the ‘true’ understanding of Jesus’ words, deeds, and fate and of the testimony of Scripture only in retrospect—as the evangelist explicitly stresses (2.22; 12.16). From this perspective the whole of the Gospel of John appears as an anamnesis of the history of Jesus from the perspective of the postEaster community. In this perspective, and in contrast with Bultmann’s and Käsemann’s interpretations, the historical standpoint of the tradents of the Johannine theology—of the Johannine community or ‘school’— can be perceived as well, whose theological language and point of view determine the work from the very beginning. At the same time, the earthly history of Jesus can be grasped in its historical onceness, even though it is portrayed in retrospect under the banner of the δόξα of Jesus that is recognized in faith.36 Finally, from this point the material basis of the Johannine ‘perspective’ can be reconstructed. It is the Johannine Easter experience that prompted the witnesses to recognize the glorified one in the crucified one and that led to the fact that in John the way of the earthly Jesus is also already ‘remembered’ and presented in the light of his δόξα. 1.3 The Farewell Discourses as Interpretive Key This Easter experience, which includes the concomitant experience of the Spirit, is reflected in the Johannine Gospel writing. It is not only the Farewell Discourses—in which Jesus’ impending death is programmatically interpreted—that aim to show the crucified one as the glorified one. The whole Gospel portrays the way of the earthly one in the light of his δόξα, i.e., in a perspective that was opened up to the witnesses only in retrospect, in the Spirit-effected remembrance and Spirit-effected reading of Scripture. Therefore, talk of the δόξα of the earthly one and especially talk of the δόξα of the preexistent one are likewise possible only in retrospect,

34

Bornkamm 1997, 109 (GV = 1968, 115); cf. 105–8 (GV = 112–14). Bornkamm 1968, 88. 36 Cf. Onuki 1984, 192. 35

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in the believing recognition of the glorification of the crucified one. Here lies—at least noetically—the basis of the Johannine Christology.37 This is why a suitable key to the understanding of the Johannine δόξαstatements is found especially in the Farewell Discourses or the complex nexus of the ‘hour’ of Jesus, in which the talk of Jesus’ δόξα and his δοξάζεσθαι is particularly dense: (a) in the ‘speech to the Greeks,’ in which the dawning of the ‘hour’ characterized by the δοξάζεσθαι is proclaimed (12.23) and in which the Johannine Jesus—modifying the Markan Gethsemane prayer38—does not ask to be spared the cup of death but rather asks for the ‘glorification’ of God’s name (12.28); (b) in the opening saying of the Farewell Discourses (13.31-32), in which the glorification of the Son of Man is thematized ‘in bitemporality’ as already complete and as still outstanding;39 and (c) in the farewell prayer in which Jesus asks for his glorification (17.1, 5). Through their interplay, the glorification statements of John 13.31-32 and 17.1-5 form something like a “semantic axis”40 of the Farewell Discourses. Furthermore, in the context of these discourses there is talk of the glorification of Jesus through the Paraclete (14.13) and of the glorification of the Father in the Son (14.13) and in the disciples (15.8). Finally, at the end of this passage—as the last δόξα-statement in the original Gospel41—the praying Jesus expresses his wish that future believers may behold his δόξα (17.24). 2. Glorification and Glory as Eschatological Revelation: On the Background of the Use of δοξάζεσθαι and δόξα What is the tradition-historical background of these statements in the context of Jesus’ hour of death? What do they take up? There is no need for me to discuss here the detailed semantic investigations on the talk of δόξα in the context of the Bible and early Judaism.42 The sifting of all possible parallels shows that “the decisive ‘root’ of the Johannine notion of glory . . . is

37

The ontological statement that Jesus was from the beginning the one who he was recognized to be after Easter was, viewed historically, only possible upon this basis. An interpretation that neglects this historical reconstruction and begins only ontologically with the preexistent δόξα or the deity of Christ leads to irresolvable aporias, as is shown most clearly in Käsemann’s interpretation. 38 See Frey 2003 (= 2013a, 239–94); Haldimann 1999, 6–8. 39 On this, see Frey 1998, 134–36; 2000b, 123–24. 40 So Schwindt 2007, 358. 41 John 21.19 belongs to the concluding chapter, which was added subsequently. A shift in meaning is present here. 42 Cf. Schwindt 2007, 13–105; Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 344–464.

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the book of Isaiah”—namely, “in its LXX version,”43 which contains statements about the δόξα and its eschatological revelation that go far beyond what can be found in the Hebrew text.44 2.1 “Isaiah Saw His Glory” (John 12.41) The evangelist gives a substantial pointer to this background in his commentary on the double quotation from Isaiah 6 and 53 in John 12.38-40, when he explains in v. 41 that Isaiah saw his glory and spoke about him (εἰδεν τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐλάλησεν περὶ αὐτοῦ). This double quotation opens up the series of explicitly introduced “fulfillment quotations” that are found in John only in the context of the ‘hour’ of Jesus, between 12.38 and 19.37.45 The conjoined quotations in John 12.38 and 40 are the only two Johannine scriptural quotes in which the name of the biblical author is specified in the introduction to the quotation (vv. 38, 39);46 elsewhere the Gospel of John speaks only of the γραφή or of the νόμος. Thus, the report of the public activity of Jesus (1.19–12.50) is framed by two quotations that are explicitly traced back to Isaiah. This alone already gives Isaiah a special place in John.47 It is clear from the context whose δόξα Isaiah saw according to the evangelist and about whom he is speaking. The repeated pronoun αὐτοῦ in v. 41 picks up the αὐτόν of v. 37 and refers to Jesus, in whom his contemporaries did not believe despite the signs performed by him. This circumstance is first explained by the question from Isaiah 53.1 LXX: “Who has believed our proclamation, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”—before the negative answer to this question (“not a single one”)48 is then justified by another quotation from Isaiah, namely, the hardening saying from the commissioning vision in Isaiah 6.10, which 43 Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 494, who adds, however, that “one can assume that the evangelist also knew the Hebrew text as well as targumic traditions” (494 with notes 625–26). 44 For the notion of the ‫ כבוד‬and its eschatological revelation in the book of Isaiah, see Schwindt 2007, 29–32. For the (expanded) use of δόξα in the LXX, see Schwindt 2007, 34–43; Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 362–65. For the importance of the book of Isaiah for the Gospel of John, see already Williams 2005; 2006. On John 12.41 in particular, see Williams 2010. 45 On this, see Hengel 2007, 630–32. 46 The name Isaiah is also specified in the clause that follows the quotation in John 1.23. 47 It is true that the number of quotations from the Psalms is higher, but central Johannine motifs such as the I-am predications are influenced by Isaiah (esp. 40–66). On this, see Williams 2005. 48 On this, see Thyen 2005, 569.

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simultaneously takes up the conclusion of the episode of the man born blind (9.39-41).49 The commissioning vision of Isaiah 6 and the fourth servant song, i.e., Isaiah 52.13–53.12, are already joined in the Hebrew text of Isaiah by a conspicuous verbal linkage, which is further reinforced in the LXX. The linkage consists, first, in the aspect of ‘exaltedness.’ According to Isaiah 61, Isaiah beholds the throne of God ‘high and exalted’ (‫רם ונשא‬: Isa 6.1), and at the beginning of the song, i.e., in Isaiah 52.13, we read that the servant is to be exalted—spatially envisaged—to God: “Behold, my servant will have success. He will rise and be taken up and be very high”50 (‫ירום‬ ‫)ונשא וגבה‬. The LXX introduces the δόξα-terminology into both statements. In Isaiah 6, where Yahweh’s ‫ כבוד‬had been part of the Hebrew text of the trishagion of v. 3, there is now in the Greek already talk of the δόξα in v. 1. The sanctuary is no longer filled anthropomorphically by the train of Yahweh’s robe but by his δόξα. In Isaiah 52.13 it now says the following about the servant of God: “Behold, my servant will have insight and he will be exalted and greatly glorified” (ἰδοὺ συνήσει ὁ παῖς μου καὶ ὑψωθήσεται καὶ δοξασθήσεται σφόδρα). Here the two words ‫ ירום ונשא‬are summarized by ὑψωθήσεται, while ‫ וגטה‬is rendered by δοξασθήσεται.51 In both passages the heightening of the aspect of ‘glory’ that has taken place in the LXX is shown by an increased use of δόξα and its derivatives, which now render other lexemes besides the Hebrew ‫ כבוד‬or enter into the text without a Hebrew Vorlage.52 In this process of an increased entering of δόξα-terminology into the Greek text, the word pair ὑψοῦν–δοξάζειν occurs not only in Isaiah 52.13 but also at other places in the book of Isaiah, usually in a free rendering of the Hebrew text and with eschatological connotations.53 In Isaiah 52.13 there is a statement about the future of the servant of God, a passivum divinum. Despite his lack of δόξα, i.e., his lack of prestige and renown (52.14; cf. 53.2b),54 the servant is to be exalted according to God’s judgment or through God’s action and equipped with eschatological δόξα. The goal of 49

On this, see Lieu 1988, 85. For the form of the quotation, see Evans 1989, 129–335; Menken 1996, 99–122; Obermann 1996, 235–255. 50 English translation of the German translation of Schwindt 2007, 76; for the spatial conception, see Baltzer 1994. 51 Hofius 1992. 52 If the evangelist drew together the two passages with a technique comparable to a ‘gezera shawa,’ then he follows a joining that was already set up in the redaction of the Hebrew text and strengthened once again in the LXX version. 53 Isa 4.2; 5.16; 10.15; 33.10; on this, see Schwindt 2007, 81–82. 54 The LXX already plays with the everyday sense of δόξα as ‘renown’ or ‘prestige’ in the ἀδοξήσει of Isa 52.14.

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this exaltation is formulated in 52.15 (LXX): nations are to marvel at him, those who had not heard about the servant are to understand, and those to whom nothing had been reported are to see him—i.e., a universal and salvific effect is to proceed from this servant. Thus, the evangelist sees a fulfillment of Scripture not only in the unbelief of the contemporaries of Jesus; rather, he sees also the δόξα of Jesus foretold already in the prophecy of the book of Isaiah. That the prophet saw this δόξα (12.41) therefore refers not only to the temple vision but at least in equal measure to the δόξα of the servant of God attested in Isaiah 52.13 LXX. Accordingly, John 12.41 speaks not of the beholding of the preexistent ‘Logos asarkos’ in the time of the Old Testament but rather of the prophetic beholding in advance of the δόξα of the crucified one, whose glorification is not only announced in Isaiah 52.13 but also presented quite visually (ἰδού). 2.2 Exaltation and Glorification The word pair ὑψοῦν–δοξάζειν—which is related to the servant of God in Isaiah 52.13—provides two motifs of interpretation, which are used differently and yet in close connection with the interpretation of the death of Jesus in the Gospel of John. They occur with particular density where Jesus’ ‘hour’ (which had ‘not yet’ come in John 2.4; 7.30; and 8.20) is proclaimed: in the ‘speech to the Greeks’ of John 12.23-34, which at the same time speaks programmatically about the universal salvific effect of Jesus on account of his ‘exaltation’ and ‘glorification.’ Here, δοξάζειν is attested four times and ὑψοῦν twice, and, alongside this, the strong emphasis on the ‘hour’ that has come (ὥρα) in 12.23, 27 (2×), and the moment (νῦν) connected with it in 12.27.31 (2×) is conspicuous. With this proclamation of the ‘hour,’ the turning point of the Johannine story of Jesus—which has been long prepared for narratively—is at hand. After his last and greatest deed of power, he is sentenced to death (11.4753). The Pharisees state with resignation that “the world” is running after him (12.19), and immediately thereafter some “Greeks” appear for the first time in John—so to speak as a vanguard of the non-Jewish world55—who want to see Jesus (12.20-21). After John 7.30 and 8.20, the readers must recognize the ‘hour’ that is now characterized as present in 12.23 as the hour of his death. At the same time, Jesus’ impending death is interpreted as an event that is necessary for the emergence of ‘fruit’ through the parabolic saying on the grain of wheat in 12.24. It initially remains unclear which fruit is meant, but the course of the speech suggests that what is 55

Cf. Frey 1994a, 253–59 (= 2013a, 327–34).

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in view is the universal salvific effect of the one who is exalted upon the cross, which transcends the framework of Israel. According to 12.32, the one who is ‘lifted up from the earth’ is to draw all people—including the Greeks and thus also and not least the readers of the Gospel—to himself.56 However, there are significant differences in the use of the two terms ὑψοῦσθαι and δοξάζεσθαι. In John 3.14-15 the talk of exaltation is introduced in the typological reference to the episode of the raising up of the ‘bronze serpent’ as a sign of deliverance (Num 21.4-9),57 in which the necessity (δεῖ) and soteriological significance of the ‘exaltation’ is expressed, whereas the precise way in which Jesus is to be exalted still remains unclear. It becomes clear only via 8.28, where the opponents are the subject of the ὑψοῦν, and then via 12.32-34 that here, in contrast to the primitive Christian usage elsewhere (Acts 2.33; 5.31; cf. also Philippians 2.9), the ὑψοῦν is meant to designate the specific kind of death, crucifixion. Interestingly, in John the term is consistently connected with the Son of Man title. In 3.14 it is introduced in a defamiliarizing actualization and revision of the Markan announcement of the passion58 and simultaneously expressed in visual form through the reference to the biblical episode about the serpent. Thus, the exaltation of the crucified one ‘from the earth’ (12.32) becomes a picture of the paradoxical meaning of the crucifixion as the installation into a universal salvific significance, as it resonates again in John 19.37 at the end of the account of the crucifixion in the quotation from Zechariah 12.10 (ὅψονται εἰς ὃν ἐξεκέντησαν). By contrast, the talk of glorification is less precisely related to the crucifixion of Jesus. It remains open for the incorporation of the Easter events and the post-Easter activity of the Spirit. The glorification that has ‘not yet’ occurred is already connected with the gift of the Spirit and the understanding of the disciples when it is first mentioned in 7.39, and in 12.16 Jesus’ glorification is likewise the beginning of the disciples’ understanding remembrance. In 12.23 his glorification is connected with the dawning ‘hour’ and thereby also with the event of his death. Through this the content of the ‘hour,’ which has been connected with the killing of Jesus since John 7.30 and 8.20, is now described in a paradoxical manner as ‘glorification.’ As in the visualized talk of exaltation, the concern here is with a surprising adjustment of the angle of vision, a new ‘perspective’ that enables one to recognize in the hour of death the glory revealed in it,

56

On this, cf. Frey 1994a, 259–64 (= 2013a, 334–38). Cf. Frey 1994b (= 2013a, 89–145). 58 Cf. Schwindt 2007, 338. 57

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and thus the salvific effect of this death, and to perceive the death “from the perspective of it being conquered.”59 The combination of exaltation, glorification, and universal salvific effect is pre-given to the evangelist in Isaiah 52.13-15 LXX. This is made more precise in the ‘speech to the Greeks,’ but the exact reference of the δοξάζεσθαι and its temporal placement remains unclear. In John 12.2728 there is another glorification statement in a clear but critical taking up of the Gethsemane scene (Mark 14.32-33). In contrast to the Markan tradition, the Johannine Jesus cannot ask to be delivered from ‘this hour’ (12.27) or to be spared the cup of death and judgment (18.11). Rather, Jesus’ prayer is reformulated in a characteristic manner: “Father, glorify your name” (12.28).60 Right after this—and as is specially explained, only to inform the crowd and not as an answer to Jesus, who does not need such information—a heavenly voice answers: καὶ ἐδόξασα καὶ πάλιν δοξάσω (12.28). Here, it is conspicuous that δοξάζειν is related at first not to Jesus (as it is later in 13.31 and 17.1, 5) but to the name of God, with the event of glorification proceeding from God and ultimately returning again to him. It remains mysterious which acts in particular are designated by the voice. Wherein has God (already) glorified his name, and wherein will he glorify it (again)? Does ἐδόξασα designate the revelation of glory in Jesus’ earthly activity, for example, in his miraculous deeds,61 and δοξάσω a glorification that still lies in the future? It speaks against this view that to this point there has been no talk of a glorification of the name of God during the earthly activity of Jesus and that up to John 12.16 the δοξάζεσθαι was consistently designated as still lying in the future with regard to Jesus as well. Should we thus understand the aorist as gnomic and atemporal?62 Or is it meant to express in a ‘complexive’ sense, and thus with a certain completedness, the glorification in the hour of Jesus, including his death?63 What still remains up in the air here becomes clearer in the opening saying of the Farewell Discourses. In John 13.31-32 there is clearly talk of the fact that Jesus has been glorified ‘now’ (νῦν) and is to be glorified ‘soon’ (εὐθύς). The ‘bitemporality’ of this saying is so pronounced that one cannot explain it as a lapsus linguae but must recognize its programmatic character. This is all the more true since the saying constitutes the opening of the Farewell Discourses. 59

Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 180. The closest parallel to this is probably the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6.9b; par. Luke 11.2). 61 Barrett 1978, 426. 62 So the solution favored by Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 187; and Pamment 1983, 13. 63 Cf. also John 17.4. For this understanding of 12.28, see Frey 1998, 136; cf. already Blank 1964, 279. 60

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Here, Jesus’ glorification by God and God’s self-glorification in him are most intimately interwoven. In this respect John 13.31-32 summarizes the aspects of John 12.23 and 12.28 and takes them a step further. But what is meant by ἐδοξάσθη here? A reference to Jesus’ miracles appears to be excluded by the νῦν, and the assumption that Jesus is glorified by the identification through the betrayer or by the departure of Judas misses the sense of δοξάζεσθαι that we find elsewhere.64 Attention must be given to the fact that the temporal adverb νῦν, which already served as a signal word for the nexus of the ‘hour’ of Jesus in John 12.27, 31, localizes the glorification in this hour. The difficulty can only be resolved by assuming that this chain-saying speaks of the same event of the glorification of Jesus in his ‘hour’ from two different angles of vision—from a prospective angle, which looks ahead to Jesus’ death in the farewell situation and from a retrospective angle, which thematizes this event already from the post-Easter viewpoint of the community.65 In this way the opening saying adopts the temporal double perspective that characterizes the Farewell Discourses as a whole. For the meaning of δοξάζεσθαι, this means, however, that it is related entirely to the nexus of events relating to the ‘hour’ of Jesus, i.e., to his death inclusive of the resurrection and the post-Easter activity of the Spirit, and not to preceding individual events such as his miracles, let alone the departure of Judas. This observation receives further confirmation in light of the glorification statements in John 17. Here, with a total of six occurrences, we find the densest concentration of δόξα-statements in the whole Gospel (17.1, 4, 5, 10, 22, 24). Once again the “hour that has come” is thematized, and once again the departing Jesus asks the Father to glorify him. This petition simultaneously takes up the δοξάσει from the opening saying of the Farewell Discourses (13.32) and leads on to their climax, the farewell prayer. What was held out in prospect in 13.32 is now requested once again—the glorification of the Son through the Father as an answer to Jesus’ completed activity of revelation (v. 4) and as a precondition for the further glorification of the Father through the Son (17.1b). Through this the reciprocity of the event of glorification is stressed, which is not exhausted in Jesus’ death but includes the Easter and post-Easter activity of revelation, while still having its foundation in the historical event of Jesus’ crucifixion. What is confusing is only the reference to the δόξα that Jesus had already had with God (παρὰ σοί) before the foundation of the world (17.5). Are we to assume that the glorification of Jesus in ‘his hour’ meant tο bring nothing ‘new’ but only his reinstallation into a prior δόξα? And what kind 64 65

Stimpfle 1990, 13, 228, proposes this solution with problematic consequences. On this, cf. Frey 1998, 132–36 and elsewhere.

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of δόξα could this be? Does 17.5 make it necessary to distinguish between different δόξαι? If one inferred from this statement a distinction between different δόξαι, then it would follow from this that the δόξα revealed in the earthly activity of Jesus would be only a consequence or projection of the preexistence-δόξα and that the δοξάζσθαι related to the hour of death would be undermined.66 To be sure, if one wants to explicate the Johannine notion of preexistence consistently, then one must also speak of the δόξα of the preexistent one. However, if one wanted to deduce from this single statement all the other statements about Jesus’ δόξα, then the accents that have been programmatically set previously in the Johannine text would be blotted out. The historical reference of the δόξα of Jesus, its connectedness to the event of the ‘glorification’ in his hour—that is, to the nexus of his death, resurrection, and spirit-effected remembrance—cannot be called into question from this standpoint. In light of the configuration of the “Johannine perspective,” it is clear that it is only on the basis of this remembrance that one can speak of the glorification of the crucified one and that it is only on this basis that Jesus can be perceived as the glorified one. Likewise, according to Johannine thought, it is only on the basis of Jesus’ exaltation and glorification that his universal salvific effect becomes possible (12.32), so that he himself and the Father can then also be glorified in the disciples (14.13; 15.8; 16.14) and, conversely, the disciples can see Jesus’ δόξα (17.24). Thus, this δόξα ‘beheld’ (1.14) by the witnesses is not simply identical with the ‘preworldly’ glory of the Son with the Father (17.5).67 Rather, it is the glory of the glorified crucified one, who brings his ‘history’ with him and whose glory is no longer conceivable without his earthly history, indeed without his cross. 2.3 Glory and Glorification: The Essential Tie to History Thus, the nexus of the Johannine Farewell Discourses makes clear that the Johannine talk of the δόξα of Jesus must be understood only in relation to the historical event of his glorification in his ‘hour.’ The δοξάζεσθαι is the key to the Johannine understanding of the δόξα of Jesus. 66

This happens in the conception of Ernst Käsemann, for whom the δόξα of the earthly one is only a projection of the preexistence δόξα and the glorification in the hour of death is only a return to this δόξα so that Jesus’ death can no longer introduce anything that is really new. 67 John 17.24 speaks only of the love of the Father “before the foundation of the world,” which is the ultimate foundation of the eschatological beholding of the δόξα of Jesus. Here, there is no talk of a preworldly δόξα of Jesus—and even less of a correspondence to this δόξα.

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To be sure, from the early Jewish and primitive Christian understanding of δόξα one can mention a plethora of aspects that have been taken up in the Johannine understanding.68 δόξα is not a static but rather a dynamic, relational concept. δόξα proceeds first and foremost from God and ultimately returns to God. It is bestowed or given and is especially revealed eschatologically. However, as shown by the analysis of Nicole ChibiciRevneanu, the “proprium of the Johannine understanding of δόξα” goes beyond all the texts for comparison in a characteristic way—namely, in “the application of the verb δοξάζειν to the ‘hour’ of the passion of Jesus.”69 This specifically Johannine imprinting differs clearly from other early Christian statements such as Acts 3.13 or 1 Peter 1.11, 21. These texts speak of δόξα with regard to Christ, but they relate it very clearly to the resurrection or enthronement of Christ. However, Paul, taking up an apocalyptic predicate of God,70 had previously already spoken of Christ as the κύριος τῆς δόξης (1 Cor 2.8) and related this predicate in a pronounced way to the message of the cross: the ἄρχοντες have “crucified the Lord of glory.”71 In Paul too the talk of the δόξα of Christ is rooted in his resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of God, so that from this standpoint Paul’s own Christophany can appear as a revelation of δόξα (2 Cor 4.6).72 However, the Johannine presentation goes far beyond this, for it narratively binds the talk of the glory of Christ directly to the passion of Christ and speaks of ‘glorification’ not only with reference to the conquest of death but already with regard to the earthly one’s way into death. In my opinion, this proprium of the Johannine understanding can be explained only in light of the aforementioned scriptural connections, especially as an application of the fourth servant song, to which the evangelist himself refers in John 12.41. 3. The Glorification of Jesus in His Hour and the Johannine Presentation of the Story of Jesus The interpretive perspective presented here must prove its worth in the interpretation of three complexes in the Gospel of John—first in the 68

See in detail Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 496–510. Chibici-Revneanu 2007, 506. 70 1 En. 22.14; 25.3, 7; 27.3, 5; 36.4; 63.2; 75.3; 83.6; see also Apocalypse of Elijah 19.11. For the background, see Schrage 1991, 255; Schwindt 2007, 210–11. 71 Cf. also Gal 6.14, which speaks of the crucified κύριος. 72 However, this δόξα-statement is also connected back to the cross event insofar as the knowledge of the δόξα of God on the πρόσωπον of Christ (2 Cor 4.6) implies that the face of the crucified one lies in the background. Thus, here too the concern is with the revelation of the glory of the crucified one. 69

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interpretation of the Johannine passion narrative, which does not contain a single occurrence of δόξα or δοξάζεσθαι, then with regard to the earthly way of Jesus, where, at central points, we find talk of the revelation of his glory (2.11) or of the glory of God (11.40; cf. 11.4) in Jesus’ miracles or signs, and, finally, with regard to the Prologue, whose statement “and we beheld his glory . . .” (1.14b) functions as the entryway to the δόξαstatements of the Gospel. This analysis can be sketched only briefly here. 3.1 The Presentation of the Passion That Is Transparent for Jesus’ Majesty Apart from a passage in the chapter that was added later (21.19), the δόξαterminology no longer appears after John 17. It is completely absent from the passion narrative. However, the δόξα-statements in John 17 are not only a decisive reading guide for the following passion narrative, but they are also continued in the passion narrative itself through different elements of presentation that have a corresponding effect. For in the passion narrative as well, there are means of presentation that guide the readers to regard the arrest of Jesus as the enablement of freedom, lowliness as loftiness, and death as completion (19.28-30). The most conspicuous motif is probably the use of the terminology of kingship. Through this Jesus’ condemnation and crucifixion becomes a cynical anti-Jewish parody of kingship, which nevertheless portrays the hidden dignity of the true king in an ironic reversal.73 This dignity is disclosed to the readers against the background of the motifs of interpretation inserted both before the passion narrative and in it. Jesus professes his kingship before Pilate (18.36-37). Homage is paid to him by the soldiers (19.1-3). He is crowned with a crown of thorns and clothed with a purple coat (19.5). He is presented as “man” (19.5) and “king” (19.13-14), but he experiences rejection in the shout ‘crucify him’ (19.6, 15). His crucifixion is—as the interpretations given in advance indicate—his ‘exaltation’ (cf. 12.33; 18.32), so that the cross appears as his throne, from which he exercises his universal βασιλεία and—as one exalted from the earth according to John 12.32—“draws all to himself.” Finally, in a correspondingly universal manner, the crucified one is proclaimed as king in three languages (19.20), and this titulus is authenticated once more by Pilate (19.21-32). The inner tension between the narrated actions of condemnation, mocking, stripping, mistreatment, and crucifixion and the interspersed majestic and royal motifs of interpretation give the text an ironic ambiguity, in which the christological truth hidden beneath its opposite is mediated to 73

On this, see Frey 2000b, 273–76 and also Frey 2014b.

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the readers of the passion narrative—namely, that in Jesus’ way to death his true majesty, his kingship, is simultaneously shown in a paradoxical manner in his way of death. Some of the passion narrative’s elements of presentation can simultaneously be understood in the framework of the categories of a ‘noble’ or honorable death. Jesus goes to death willingly (18.1, 4-6, 8-11, etc.) and as an innocent man (18.23, 28; 19.4, 6). He answers the high priest and the governor in majestic sovereignty (18.19-21, 23; 18.34, 36-37; 19.9, 11). Unlike in Mark, he carries his cross himself (19.17), and at the end he actively hands over the spirit (19.30). Thus, also in his passion he remains the active one who possesses ἐξουσία over his life (cf. 10.17). This can make his death appear honorable in the light of ancient categories. To be sure, the category of ‘noble death’ is not sufficient to explicate the Johannine understanding of the death of Jesus,74 but the aforementioned elements of presentation support the theological concern to interpret Jesus’ death not as a failure but as a victory, not as the end but as the completion of his work and as the dawning of the reign of the crucified one. This means that even without the use of the δόξα-terminology the fate of Jesus is narrated in such a way that the readers can recognize the crucified one as the true king and thus as the glorified one by turning their gaze from the surface level of the reported scene to the christological and soteriological depth dimensions. In this vein the Johannine passion narrative also corresponds to the anticipating interpretation of the event of the ‘hour’ of Jesus as ‘glorification.’ 3.2 The Sign Narratives and Their ‘Depth’ Dimension Let us look back from here on the presentation of the public activity of Jesus, where δόξα-statements occur in prominent places. It is stated programmatically in the first and also prototypical ‘sign’75 in John 2.11 that Jesus “revealed his δόξα,” and in the exposition of the Lazarus narrative it says that his sickness served the purpose “that the Son of God be glorified through it” (11.4). The miracles narrated of Jesus are meant to be understood in general as a revelation of his δόξα. But which δόξα does the Johannine Jesus reveal there? Can a δόξα be meant that is not affected by the δοξάζεσθαι in Jesus’ hour, which still lies in the future narratively, by cross and resurrection?

74 75

On this, see chapter 5 in this volume (GV = Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). See now Frey 2017b.

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This view is called into question not only by the fact that the entire way of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is narrated from the post-Easter retrospective76 but also by the literary shaping of the sign narratives. These narratives do not want to be read as mere snapshots of the way of the earthly Jesus let alone to be understood in a ‘historicizing manner.’ Rather, they are configured in such a way that the narrated deed of Jesus is ‘enriched’ through interspersed references to a deeper dimension of the event. Certain textual elements refer to other passages in the Gospel and thus introduce the full significance of the Christ event into the individual narrative by directing the reader’s attention to the salvation effected by Jesus’ death and resurrection. In John 2.1-11 these pointers include the mention of the ‘hour’ of Jesus (2.4), the mention of the purification practice of ‘the Jews’ (2.6), and perhaps also the mention of the ‘third day’ (2.1) as well as the statement that the groom (or, more correctly, Jesus) has not acted like ‘every person’ (2.10), etc.77 In the second sign of John 4.46-54, the peculiarly stressed “Your son lives!” (v. 50; cf. vv. 51, 53) and the reference to the ‘hour’ (v. 53) in which the healing takes place provide a basis for establishing a connection to the whole of the Christ event beyond the individual narrative in the reading. These textual elements, which occur in all the Johannine miracle stories, do not permit them to be read as mere reports of past events of the earthly activity of Jesus. They help to establish the connection to ‘what is signified’ and thus make the narrated event into the ‘sign.’ Irrespective of how one reconstructs the genesis of these texts, this horizon of interpretation belongs to their final form, and in this the Johannine miracle stories function as paradigmatic and instructive Jesus narratives,78 which are meant to awaken faith in Jesus’ true nature among the readers (20.30-31) and to direct them in the reading of each individual narrative to the whole of the Christ event and the salvation based on it. This manner of presentation can be understood as a form of—according to the Johannine view, Spirit-inspired—‘remembrance,’ in which the true significance of the activity and fate of Jesus as well as the statements of Scripture about him were disclosed to the witnesses in the post-Easter retrospective. Only from this perspective can Jesus’ deeds be narrated and understood as a revelation of his δόξα. It follows from this, however, that the glory that reveals itself in Jesus’ signs is the glory that was bestowed on Jesus in ‘his hour,’ which even his disciples recognized only later but which now—in the retrospective presentation of the Gospel—also illuminates the episodes on his earthly way. 76

See fundamentally Hoegen-Rohls 1996; see also Frey 1998, 221–27, 247–68. On this, see the detailed demonstration in Welck 1994, 135–38. 78 On these terms, see Welck 1994, 289. 77

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3.3 The Beholding of the Witnesses and the Guidance for Seeing the Glory Finally, we must reflect briefly on John 1.14b. Here, in the framework of the speech of the witnesses that dominates the final section of the Prologue (vv. 14-18) and looks back at Jesus’ entire earthly way, it says, “We beheld his glory . . .” It initially remains unspecified who the “we” are, who speak here, and which “beholding” at which point in time is meant. However, if one were meant to think of Jesus’ signs, which is suggested by the next δόξα-passage in John 2.11, they would be envisaged precisely as the signs interpreted as a revelation of glory in the light of the post-Easter remembrance. Accordingly, John 1.14 also discloses itself only with a view to the whole of the Gospel, just as the relation between σάρξ and δόξα can be determined only in light of the entire presentation. If the Prologue functions as a reading guide for the Gospel, the speech of the witnesses in John 1.14b simultaneously invites the readers—on the basis of the existing witness and the ‘signs that have been written down’ (20.31)—to recognize Jesus’ true dignity themselves and therein to have life. In this intention there is also a correspondence between the first δόξαstatement of the Prologue and the ‘last will and testament’ of Jesus formulated in 17.24, namely “that they may see my glory, which you gave to me.” To be sure, what is asked for here goes beyond the believing knowledge of the true dignity of Jesus and implies an eschatological beholding of the glory of the crucified one, which is no longer afflicted by the conditions of the σάρξ. But this statement also sums up the goal of the Johannine presentation, for the readers are encouraged to see the earthly one and especially the crucified one as the one who has been ‘glorified’ by God himself and installed to a universal salvific effect. In so doing, John 17.24—unlike 17.5—does not suggest the idea that this δόξα given in the hour of Jesus would correspond to that of the preexistent one. Here there is talk only of the pretemporal love of the Father for the Son. The δόξα, however, is the glory that the Father has ‘given’ to the Son and that—thus one will need to conclude after what has been said—encompasses the history of Jesus and thus his crucifixion, just as Thomas in John 20 recognizes the risen one by his wounds and addresses the resurrected crucified one as “my Lord and my God” (20.28). 4. Conclusions and Perspectives From its Easter insight and post-Easter remembrance, the Johannine proclamation portrayed the way of the earthly Jesus as one surrounded by glory. However, this presentation is actually a retrojection of the glory

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of the crucified one, as it was recognized after Easter, into the history of the earthly Jesus. In retrospect, on the basis of the Easter experience, the reminding activity of the Spirit, and especially the Spirit-directed reading of Scripture, the Johannine ‘perspective’ established itself, i.e., the depiction of Christ that sees the crucified one as the glorified one and the earthly Jesus—far beyond the older tradition—as already acting with divine authority and glory. That this depiction does not simply correspond to the ‘historical’ reality of the earthly Jesus can still be recognized from the Johannine presentation itself. First, this is evident in the pointer that the contemporaries of Jesus were blind to the message of the ‘signs’ and did not believe (12.37), which is inexplicable for faith and has to be justified specifically from Scripture. Secondly, it is evident in the open admission that also the disciples of the earthly Jesus did not understand his words, deeds, and fate prior to his resurrection or, more precisely, his glorification (2.21; 12.16; and elsewhere) and reached the understanding that forms the foundation of the Johannine Gospel presentation only after the fact through ‘remembrance.’ In the Gospel of John it is openly conceded that it was a journey, a ‘development’ in noetic and linguistic respects, which brought the witnesses of the earthly Jesus and his history to such a view of Christ. There is no path that leads behind the existing textual witness to a statement about who Jesus ‘really was.’ However, it is clear historically that the statements we find here—for example, about the preexistent one and his δόξα—could have been formulated only on the basis of a linguistic and theological development, as a consequence of the recognition of the δόξα of the risen crucified one that was drawn from Easter and Scripture.79 This journey is not adequately taken into account when one—like Joseph Ratzinger in his Jesus book—places the witness of John seamlessly alongside the Synoptics and seeks to understand the ‘biblical Christ’ that emerges through this simply as the historical Jesus.80 The distinctive character of the Johannine presentation is likewise not adequately taken into account when more recent exegetical attempts place the Fourth Gospel, with nebulous criteria, again on the same level as the Synoptic tradition and use it as an additional source for the historical Jesus.81 Irrespective of how highly one estimates John’s knowledge and use of the Synoptics, 79 Schwindt 2007, 445, formulates as follows: “Only as the incarnate one is Jesus the preexistent Son of God.” In light of the argumentation advanced here, one could formulate more sharply and say: Only as the glorified crucified one is Jesus the preexistent Son of God. 80 On this, see critically Frey 2007c. Cf. also Frey 2017a; 2018c. 81 Thus Anderson 2006. Cf. also Anderson 2009; Anderson/Just/Thatcher 2007; 2009; 2015.

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the Gospel of John shows an advanced stage of christological development in comparison with the other Gospels and explicit reflection—which is not found there—on the new interpretation of the story of Jesus that it provides. It presents itself in a hermeneutically conscious manner as post-Easter remembrance, and the underlying modification of the older tradition of the history and proclamation of Jesus—the introduction of the Easter δόξα into the entire history of Jesus as the incarnate Logos—is legitimated as an activity of the Easter Spirit, which reminds and teaches the community and ‘glorifies’ Christ (16.14). The δόξα that is promised in Scripture and recognized in the Easter reality belongs, in this way of looking at things, precisely to the crucified one—and from this point of departure also to the earthly, incarnate one and finally also to the preexistent one. It is God’s δόξα, which, according to the Johannine presentation, has become ‘visible’ in Christ, “full of grace and truth” (1.14), i.e., for the salvation of those who ‘see’ him in the reading of the Gospel and in faith. This δόξα is not a mere restitution of a prior preexistence glory, nor is it only present in the paradox of the ‘sheer human being.’ Rather, it is marked by a new visibility arising from the Easter experience and the witness of Scripture. The crucified one is—as the glorified one—meant to be ‘seen,’ as shown in the Fourth Gospel by the quotation from Zechariah 12.10 after the spear thrust (19.37) and at the end by the Easter encounter with Thomas. And for those who can no longer directly share in the Easter experience, who can no longer see and yet believe (20.29), the Johannine work itself has become the enduring visualization in the form of a book of this faith-establishing experience. The goal of the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive presentation of Christ is that believers of later times see Jesus’ δόξα (17.24).

PART 4 Christology and Theology

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The Incarnation of the Logos and the Dwelling of God in Jesus Christ

1. The Problem of the σὰρξ ἐγένετο Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἠμῖν (1.14a).1 This key sen-

tence from the Johannine Prologue plays a central role in the interpretation of the Gospel of John. Ever since the interpreters of the late second century, it has been the most important scriptural attestation for the talk of the becoming flesh, of the “incarnation” of the Logos or of God’s “becoming human” in Christ.2 The formula of the doctrine of the two natures,3 which was developed in the ancient church on the basis of the demarcations of the New Testament, or—expressed more simply—the statement that “divinity and humanity are united”4 in Christ could appear unproblematic to the premodern theology for a long time. With the problematizing of 1

This essay is based on a lecture delivered in Tübingen on March 27, 2010. It is dedicated to the memory of my late father Friedrich Frey, who died on March 23, 2010. For help with the corrections of the expanded version, I thank Nadine Ueberschaer and Benjamin Schließer. 2 For the history of interpretation of John 1.14 in the ancient church prior to Nicaea, see Uhrig 2004. According to this study, the first clear attestation for the use of the logion can be found in Irenaeus. Direct references to John 1.14 cannot be demonstrated for the time prior to Irenaeus, even if the formulations in Ignatius (Pol. 3.2: κύριος . . . σαρκοφόρος. . . ; Smyrn. 4.2: τοῦ τελείου ἀνθρὼπου γενομένου), in 1 Clement (9.5: ὁ κύριος . . . ἐγένετο σάρξ), in Justin (Apologia 1.32.10: σαρκοποιείσθαι), and in Melito (Peri pascha § 70, 104: ὁ ἐν παρθένῳ σαρκωθείς) come close to this statement and to other Johannine statements (on this, see Uhrig 2004, 510). According to Nagel 2000, 113, “the terminological proximity of the Justinian Logos and incarnation Christology to John 1.14” is “hardly a coincidence.” For the interpretation of the Johannine Prologue in the second century, see further Hengel 1993, 9–95; Hill 2006. For Irenaeus, see especially Mutschler 2006. 3 For its development, cf. still Grillmeier 1990 [1979]. 4 Thus the early pietistic songwriter Johann Ludwig Konrad Allendorf (1693–1773) in a church hymn for Epiphany (Evangelisches Gesangbuch 1995, nr. 66.1): “Gottheit und Menschheit vereinen.” 261

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the formula of the doctrine of the two natures, however, the how of the connection of God and humanity in the incarnation became an issue again, and this question has henceforth accompanied the interpretation of John 1.14. How should we understand the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο? What is the meaning of ὁ λόγος and σάρξ, and what does ἐγένετο mean? Does John really mean that the eternal, divine Logos became something that he was not previously? Does this imply, for example, that he thereby surrendered what he previously was? Did the Logos thus renounce his divinity permanently or only for a certain time, or did he merely veil it in order ultimately to retain it? And did he become what he became—namely “flesh,” i.e., a concrete, frail, and even mortal human being—merely temporarily, for a certain, limited time? Or did he remain “flesh” forever? And how could he then still be and remain “God” (1.18)? All these questions, which were already discussed in the older history of theology, for example, in the Old Protestant Crypto-Kenotic controversy,5 accompany the modern discussion of John 1.14, and they are now expanded further by specifically modern lines of inquiry, for example, regarding the relationship between myth and history in the story of Jesus.6 How could the first readers have conceived of the event thematized here with their contemporary cultural knowledge? What indications and helps does the text offer for understanding the so mysterious and later so controversial σὰρξ ἐγένετο? A (mis)understanding that initially seems plausible would be to understand the statement of the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus Christ in accordance with the scheme of transformation, which was indeed familiar in antiquity and which Apuleius sets before our eyes in an entertaining manner in his Metamorphoses.7 The protagonist named Lucius is transformed by witchcraft into an ass in order to be transformed back into a human being again at the end, after some adventures as an ass. To be sure, he never actually becomes an ass in this process. Rather, his thinking and feeling remain deeply human, and at the end he is happy to have the magical game of his imprisonment in the body of an ass and his fate in such a form behind him. This scheme of transformation is by no means appropriate to the seriousness of the statements that are made about the way of Jesus Christ. Lucius does not die the death of an ass, and, in any case, the concern there is merely with “fiction” and not with a “true” story, let alone an event within the horizon of eschatology, of “that which is ultimate.” 5

See now the detailed study of Wiedenroth 2011. For the modern discussion, cf. Pannenberg 1991, 421–22. 7 Cf. Helm 1978; Hanson 1989. 6

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Even though Greek mythology speaks in various ways of divinities who transform themselves occasionally and, of course, only temporarily into other forms,8 i.e., into animals or humans—on the one hand, in order to mediate certain insights or “revelations,”9 or, on the other hand, in order to visit the world of humans incognito and, for example, to test10 the hospitality of humans or, occasionally, in order to approach a human woman11—these are at best distant parallels to what John aims to say about the Logos, who “was God” (1.1). The motif of transformation was certainly well known to ancient recipients of the Gospel of John. However, it could scarcely be viable as a model for Christology—even though it sometimes appears attractive to exegetes with an interest in the history of religion. Moreover, in those places in early Christian texts where one later encounters traits of a “polymorphic” Christology,12 such as in the apocryphal acts of the apostles, it also soon becomes clear that these texts are far removed from the depth and fundamental character of the bold christological statement in John 1.14. However, if one does not want to grasp the incarnation of the Logos as a mere paradox that cannot be understood further, one must inquire into possibilities of understanding against the background of ancient horizons of thought. Are there alternatives? Could not the tradition of the “shekinah,” the dwelling of God in the world and in Israel, which is taken up in John 14aβ, provide an aid to understanding John 1.14α? In my view, the second stichos καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἠμῖν “and he [the divine Logos] tented among us,” which is joined to ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο and is treated with astonishing brevity in many commentaries, has, as an explanation and aid to the understanding of the σὰρξ ἐγένετο, a significance that can scarcely be overestimated. 8

Examples can already be found in Bauer 1933, 23–24. See also Zeller 1988 (= 2006, 61–81); Vollenweider 2002. 9 So Isis and Osiris, who come to earth for a time according to the hermetic writing Kore Kosmou (see Nock/Festugière 1954, 21–22): “They anthropomorphize the life there, found cult and culture and finally rise again to heaven” (Zeller 2006, 74). 10 Dionysus thus appears in the form of a human Bacchant in Euripides, Bacchae 4; and Jupiter and Mercury come incognito to Philemon and Baucis in specie mortali in Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.616ff. 11 Cf., e.g., the transformation of Zeus, which Seneca, Phaedra 299–308, recounts. For the subject matter, see also Walde 2000. 12 One might consider, e.g., the portrayal of the resurrection in Gos. Pet. 39–40, where the figure of Christ grows to heaven (on this, see Foster 2010, 165–69) but also in texts from the apocryphal acts of the apostles, e.g., Acts John 87 (where the Lord appears to Drusiana in the tomb as John and as a young man), and Acts Paul 21 (where Thecla sees the Lord in the form of Paul); see further Herm. Sim. IX 6.1; 7.1; 12.8. In Acts Thom. 48, 153, the term πολύμορφος is used for such ‘metamorphoses.’ Cf. Junod/Kaestli 1983, 698–700; Lalleman 1995.

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2. Scholarship between σάρξ and δόξα The classic tension in John 1.14, which, in the understanding of the Gospel of John, cannot be dissolved in either direction, is between σάρξ (1.14a) and δόξα (1.14b), between the human creatureliness, frailty, and mortality, on the one hand,13 and the divine or eschatological glory, on the other hand,14 which, in the Johannine view, belonged to the Logos or Jesus Christ before the beginning of the world and which also continues to belong to him as the exalted and glorified one (13.31-32; 17.1; etc.). The main controversies over the understanding and placement of the Gospel of John are reflected in the determination of the relationship between 1.14a (καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο) and 1.14b (καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ . . .). Since Ferdinand Christian Baur, the historical question of the relationship between the Gospel of John and early Christian Gnosticism and thus the theological alternative between a tendentially “docetic” and an “anti-docetic” understanding of the Gospel of John or— in the background—between an idealistic and a “realistic” or paradoxical understanding of his Christology has constituted the “litmus” of Johannine interpretation. What the Johannine Prologue juxtaposes in a seemingly unproblematic way—or, rather, strings together with καὶ . . . καί—now had to be made more precise conjecturally through other Johannine, extraJohannine–early Christian, Hellenistic-Jewish, or pagan texts, if it was not simply determined within the framework of a comprehensive overall view. (a) For the head of the Tübingen School, F. C. Baur, it was clear that the incarnation of the Logos could only be something accidental. For him the σὰρξ ἐγένετο is only a “secondary characteristic.”15 It “allows one to think only of the assumption of a body”16 and not, for example, of the assumption of a soul, let alone of the Logos “actually becoming a human 13

Thus usually in the Old Testament, cf. Isa 40.6. God is precisely distinguished from this frailty and weakness. John’s usage is not touched by the association of σάρξ with sin or with a life orientation that is contrary to God, which is attested for the first time in early Christian sources in Paul (see especially Gal 5.17; Rom 8.5-8) and goes back to discourses in the Palestinian-Jewish wisdom tradition (and, independently of this, also in the Qumran community). In general the Pauline imprinting of this term was scarcely taken up in early Christianity after him. On this, cf. Frey 1999 (= 2016a, 265–300). 14 The New Testament use of δόξα is heavily influenced by the LXX and differs fundamentally from profane Greek usage. For the understanding of δόξα in John, see ChibiciRevneanu 2007; Schwindt 2007. For the specific problems in the Gospel of John, cf. also chapter 7 in this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62). 15 Baur 2016, 342 (GV = Baur 1973, 363: Nebenbestimmung). On Baur’s interpretation of John, see Frey 2017d (GV = 2014a). 16 Baur 1973, 363; cf. Baur 2016, 342.

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being.”17 The incarnation is not a central moment in the history of the Logos. Rather, “from the beginning the Logos is so decidedly the same self-identical subject, that, in the entire course of his operations, nothing can arise that would have made him for the first time into this specific subject, or into a different subject than he was before.”18 “Hence ‘becoming flesh’ by no means has the significance it apparently has to have as ‘becoming human.’ ‘Becoming flesh’ is only an accidental feature of the personhood of the Logos, which remains forever self-identical.”19 Here the idealistic understanding of the Gospel of John and a historical placement of the work “wholly on the borderline with the gnostic way of looking at things”20 join to form a view that can assign only a reduced significance to the statement of the σὰρξ ἐγένετο. Therefore, interpreters who follow Baur’s line—most prominently Ernst Käsemann21—repeatedly see themselves forced to diminish the weight of this statement through structural, source-critical, or history-of-religion arguments. (b) A contrasting view to this is adopted by those interpreters who think that John is in critical dialogue with a gnosticizing or even a gnostic view. The most prominent advocate of this view is, of course, Rudolf Bultmann, whose interpretation of John 1.14 in his commentary on John basically presents a brief summary of his own theology of revelation.22 At this point Bultmann thematizes in advance23 how in the language of mythology, with which John speaks here in his view,24 the notion of revelation is developed, according to which “revelation is an event with an other-worldly origin,” which “if it is to have significance for men, must take place in the human sphere.”25 Bultmann states in this context that in the concept of revelation, people have “a prior knowledge of revelation”: “man knows what revelation means.”26 To be sure, this is only a “negative knowledge: the

17

Baur 1973, 363: von einer eigentlichen Menschwerdung (cf. Baur 2016, 342). Baur 2016, 342 (GV = 1973, 363–64). 19 Baur 2016, 342 (GV = 1973, 364). 20 Baur 2016, 344 (GV = 1973, 367). 21 In Käsemann 1980, 26 n. 9 (ET = 1968, 9 n. 6), Baur is mentioned alongside G. Wetter and E. Hirsch as forerunners. Cf. the programmatic sentence on p. 43 (Käsemann 1968; cf. 1980, 95–96): “The revelation of the Logos is the meaning and the criterion of the incarnation, not vice versa, as if the incarnation were the truth, the confines and limits of the Logos.” 22 Bultmann 1971, 60–76 (GV = 1986, 38–51). 23 Cf. Bultmann 1971, 60–61 (GV = 1986, 38–39). 24 What is meant concretely is the gnostic redeemer myth behind the Gospel of John presupposed by Bultmann. For its reconstruction and problems, cf. Frey 1997b, 129–41. 25 Bultmann 1971, 61 (GV = 1986, 39). 26 Bultmann 1971, 61 (GV = 1986, 39). 18

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knowledge of man’s limitations and his estrangement from God.”27 This means that in Bultmann’s interpretation a peculiar “tenor of the demarcation of God and world,”28 which can only be understood from his overall theological concept, dominates. Under the presupposition of a thoroughgoing dualism between the “sphere of the human and the worldly” (σάρξ) and the sphere of the divine (πνεῦμα), which he introduces here from other Johannine passages (3.5-6; 6.63),29 Bultmann strictly negates the view that the humanity of the revealer could still be transparent in any way for his divinity and decrees that “it is in his sheer humanity that he is the Revealer.”30 While humans desire and expect “that the Revelation will somehow have to give proof of itself,” that the Revealer “must also in some way appear as a shining, mysterious, fascinating hero or θεῖος ἄνθρωπος, as a miracle worker or mystagogue,”31 revelation takes place precisely as a disappointment of this expectation, as “offense,” and precisely this “is brought out as strongly as possible by ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο.”32 The Logos is the Revealer simply and only “in his sheer humanity.”33 The Revelation is “veiled” in the paradox of the σάρξ, and the paradox that runs through the entire Gospel lies, according to Bultmann, precisely in the fact that “the δόξα is not to be seen alongside the σάρξ, nor through the σάρξ as through a window; it is to be seen in the σάρξ and nowhere else. If man wishes to see the δόξα, then it is on the σάρξ that he must concentrate his attention, without allowing himself to fall a victim to appearances.”34 This interpretation corresponds to Bultmann’s theology of revelation in which “seeing” and “believing” stand in strict opposition to each other. However, whether this reproduces the Johannine view in an adequate way appears at least open to question. In Bultmann’s strict anti-docetic interpretation of John 1.14, one can at any rate maintain only with difficulty that the Logos as σάρξ is also still the divine Logos (and that his divinity is defined not only as “unworldliness”). In any case, the statement of John 1.14b, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ (“and we saw his glory”), is 27

Bultmann 1971, 61 (GV = 1986, 39). See further Bultmann 1971, 61 (GV = 1986, 39): “the knowledge that God does not confront me in my world, and yet that he must confront me if my life is to be a true life.” 28 Müller 1990, 7, astutely took this as the starting point of his own interpretation. The programmatic sentence of Bultmann 1971, 62 (GV = 1986, 40), reads: “The event of the revelation is a question, is an offense. This and nothing else is what is meant by ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο.” 29 Cf. Bultmann 1971, 62 (GV = 1986, 39). 30 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 40). 31 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 40). 32 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 40). 33 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 40: In purer Menschlichkeit). 34 Bultmann 1971, 63 (GV = 1986, 41).

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interpreted in a restricted sense from the start with reference to “the seeing of faith,” which is “neither sensory nor spiritual.”35 Instead, the characteristic of the δόξα of the incarnate one as δόξα of the ὡς μονογενὴς παρὰ πατρός is said to confirm “that his glory consists in nothing other than in being the Revealer.”36 Correspondingly, in the interpretation of the Johannine narrative, Bultmann assigns no significance to the physical seeing, the sensory perception of the witnesses—which can scarcely do justice to the configuration of the Johannine sign-narratives or of other sections of the Gospel.37 Bultmann’s reading of John 1.14 is undoubtedly an impressive interpretation within the framework of his own systematic-theological basic position. That he—in contrast to Baur—placed the interpretive center of gravity on the key statement of 1.14a is probably also appropriate textually. However, it is understandable that Bultmann’s equally brilliant student Ernst Käsemann reversed the placement of the center of gravity and—not less one-sidedly—set the accent on the καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ in John 1.14b. However, in doing so, he necessarily produces a massive undervaluation of John 1.14a when he classifies this sentence as a mere “transition,” which allows the evangelist to come to what is actually important.38 And if the human form is only “an absolute minimum of the costume” for the one who “dwelt for a little while among men, appearing to be one of them,”39 then the history of Jesus and his death also cannot be assigned any load-bearing significance.40 It is evident that these interpretations are strongly guided by theological basic concepts, which are used conjecturally to reach a decision about issues that are precisely not clarified in John 1.14.41 And it is conspicuous that in the discussion of John 1.14 all the attention is devoted to the statements ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο and καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, whereas the second stichos of the first “verse half” καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν has attracted hardly any interest. Bultmann devotes only about 35

Bultmann 1971, 69 (GV = 1986, 45). Bultmann 1971, 71 (GV = 1986, 47). 37 For the significance of the dimension of sensory perception in the Gospel of John, cf. now Hirsch-Luipold 2017. See also chapter 6 in this volume (GV = Frey 2009c; 2013a, 699–738). 38 Cf. Käsemann 1969b, 154; cf. idem, 159: “transition to what follows” (GV = 1964, II: 170, 174). 39 Thus Käsemann 1968, 10–11 (GV = 1980, 28–29). 40 For critical discussion of this approach, see in detail Frey 2002c (GV = 2013a, 485–554). 41 This is seen by Bauer 1933, 24: “How John understood the transition of the Logos from the heavenly manner of existence to the human manner is precisely not stated by him.” Even so, Bauer appropriately refers to Sir 24.8. 36

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four lines of his otherwise detailed interpretation to it.42 Käsemann does not elaborate on these four words,43 even though they promise an essential explanation of the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, nor are they discussed in detail in the commentary of Jürgen Becker.44 The all-determining topic of the discussion is—at least since Baur—the question of “docetism” or the real humanity of the Revealer in the Johannine view. 3. History-of-Religion Parallels and the Semantics of the Phrase σὰρξ ἐγένετο In light of the subsequent history of theology, it is indeed understandable that the problem of docetism came to the fore in modern scholarship here. While Irenaeus, precisely with Johannine justifications, made the incarnatus the central theme of his theology and quoted John 1.14 in particular with special frequency,45 the John of the Acts of John, for example, claims that Jesus left no recognizable traces upon the earth.46 Thus, is the earthly Jesus, as he is presented here, a god walking or even floating upon the earth, or is he a being that has really and wholly become human, body and flesh? Apparently, early readers were already able to extract both views from the Fourth Gospel—or they could understand it within the framework of their possibilities of thought in the one way or in the other. It can be recognized in many attestations—not only from Pagan Greek works but also from Hellenistic Jewish literature, for example, in Philo of Alexandria47—that “the notion of a real incarnation contradicts Hellenistic thought,” which “is interested in the helping power of the undiminished epiphany of the divine and not in the surrender of it.”48 And the mythological narratives of the descent of the gods are philosophically explained, of course, in the sense that their visible bodies were only apparent bodies and not real bodies composed of flesh and blood.49 Thus, it is also understandable that the Middle Platonist critic of Christianity Celsus took 42

Cf. Bultmann 1986, 43 with notes 3–5; 1971, 66–67 with notes 5, 6, and 1. According to Käsemann 1969b, 158 (GV = 1964, II: 173), the stichos (in Käsemann v. 14b) is only a “continuation” that leads to the third stichos (for him v. 14c). Both are concerned with the “ ‘presence of God’ on earth” (1969b, 158; GV = 1964, II: 173). 44 Cf. Becker 1991a, 93–94. 45 Cf. Mutschler 2006, 155–56. 46 Cf. Acts of John 93: “And I often wished, as I walked with him, to see his footprint in the earth, whether it appeared—for I saw him raising himself from the earth—and I never saw it” (trans. after K. Schäferdiek in Schneemelcher 1963/1965, II: 227). 47 Cf. the lucid comparisons in Siegert 2008, 654–70 (esp. 660–64). 48 Thus Müller 1990, 11. 49 Thus Cicero, De natura deorum 1.18.49: . . . quasi corpus, nec habet sanguinem, sed quasi sanguinem (quoted by Siegert 2008, 664). 43

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offense especially at the notion of the incarnation: “No God or son (παῖς) of God has ever descended nor could he descend.”50 The real incarnation of a divine being, which is not only an “epiphany” or a temporary metamorphosis, appears just as impossible as the notion that a real, bodily, and mortal human is “god.” And even an ancient reader of the Johannine Prologue who was friendly toward Christianity, the Neo-Platonist Amelius, presents in his report a subtle “reinterpretation” of the statements of the Gospel of John when he sees the Logos “clothed with flesh” there and says that he appears (φαντάζεσθαι) as a human being.51 How then are the Johannine readers meant to envisage and think what is presented in the Johannine narrative and pointedly expressed in advance in John 1.14? Are they to understand the event expressed here within the framework of the presuppositions of thought that become visible in Celsus and other authors? This horizon has been argued for in the exegesis especially through history-of-religion parallels that speak of the transformation or epiphany of divine beings in human form (which do not, of course, imply a real incarnation or act of becoming a human being). This view has been supported not least with the terminological-semantic argument that “the Greek γίνομαι can indeed be understood as a synonym to φαίνομαι = ‘appear,’ ‘become visible in,’ i.e., ‘come into the world.’ ”52 Thus we find “ ‘to become something’ as an expression for the assumption of another form . . . several times in Lucian’s Dialogi deorum. Zeus descends to the earth and becomes (γενόμενος) golden rain, a satyr, or a bull.’ ”53 In Lucian’s Philopseudes the concern is with the moon goddess “who ‘first showed herself in the form of a woman,’ ‘then she became (ἐγένετο) a beautiful cow, then she appeared (ἐφαίνετο) as a dog.’ ”54 Early Christian texts also sometimes speak of a polymorphy of Christ55 or of the “Antichrist.” The latter transforms himself into different forms in order to lead people astray.56 50

Celsus, Alethes Logos 5.2; on this, see Cook 2000, 62. Cf. in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica 11.19 (cited in Siegert 2008, 205): “And this then was the Word, on whom as being eternal depended the existence of the things that were made, as Heraclitus also would maintain, and the same forsooth of whom, as set in the rank and dignity of the beginning, the Barbarian maintains that He was with God and was God: through whom absolutely all things were made; in whom the living creature, and life, and being had their birth: and that He came down into bodies, and clothed Himself in flesh, and appeared as man, yet showing withal even then the majesty of His nature” (trans. Gifford 1981). 52 So Theobald 2009, 128; with reference to Berger 1974; and Müller 1990, 47–48. 53 Müller 1990, 47; with reference to Lucian, Dialogi deorum 5.2; cf. 16.2; 20.14. 54 Theobald 2009, 128; with a quotation from Lucian, Philopseudes 14. 55 On this, cf. Weigandt 1961, 40–55. 56 Cf. the attestations in Müller 1990, 48. 51

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This semantic observation is correct indeed. The verb γίνομαι can refer, of course, to various kinds of transformation, without this already determining whether merely a transformation of the exterior appearance is stated or an essential change that goes beyond this. Thus, the σὰρξ ἐγένετο in John 1.14a does not point eo ipso to an essential transformation that is not merely related to the exterior appearance. However, it does not seem appropriate simply to treat the model of the epiphany of divine beings as the presupposition for the understanding of John 1.14 on the basis of the semantic openness of ἐγένετο. After all, the concern here is emphatically not with the human appearance of a god in the context of ancient polytheism but with the incarnation of the only Son of the one biblical God,57 whose activity as creator is clearly referenced from John 1.1 onward. Moreover, if one attends to the firm talk of “flesh,” then this also suggests that a different statement, which goes beyond the pagan model of the epiphany, is intended. Above all, one must perceive “what a surprise it is when the term ‘flesh,’ which had conventionally negative connotations in v. 13, now receives something positive, indeed is used to express the event of salvation.”58 In connection with this term, which is prominently introduced here in a surprising way, the ἐγένετο is to be understood not merely in the sense of a change of form but on a level with the ἐγένετο that designated the event of creation in v. 3. The structurally elevated position in the whole of the Prologue (see below) distinguishes the statement from any transformations of gods and humans described narratively. The Logos becomes what he was not before, and nothing indicates that this held true only ostensibly or only temporarily, especially since the beholding of his glory in v. 14b is apparently to be understood as a beholding of the glory of the “incarnate one.” Of course, John 1.14 also does not say that the Logos ceased to be “God” (v. 1) by “becoming flesh” or that he “emptied himself” of his divine dignity (Phil 2.6-7). However, the choice of the term σάρξ in an unconventional connotation already points ahead to the one who is then mentioned by name in v. 17 (again with ἐγένετο) and with whom the Johannine narrative deals thereafter—to the concrete, earthly corporeal, and mortal human being Jesus of Nazareth. And in the understanding of the evangelist, the expression ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο in John 1.14 claims by 57 Thus, with justification, the qualification (against his own thesis) in Zeller 1988, 173: “The concern cannot be to derive the Christology of the Greek-speaking community from its environment as if it consciously copied it or attempted their own counterconception. The thesis is that they most likely found their possibilities of thought here. . . . To be sure: Not a god became human but the only son of God; and not the son of a god—as in the ruler cult—but the son of the one God” (emphasis in original). 58 So, rightly, Siegert 2008, 205.

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way of anticipation nothing less than “the identity of the Logos with Jesus of Nazareth.”59 As a witness who is certainly unsuspicious in this regard, the commentator from the history of religions school, Wilhelm Heitmüller, already stated that “the notion of a transformation into flesh or the notion of an apparent body is excluded by the expression, probably with full intention.”60 Similarly, according to the judgment of Hartwig Thyen, who has abandoned his earlier anti-docetic interpretation of the Gospel of John in the meantime, “the expression unmistakably indicates that here—quasi prophylactically—an insurmountable obstacle is also placed in the path of every future docetic interpretation of the Gospel.”61 So, is John 1.14 an anti-docetic statement? Is it already directed as such against a specific (proto-)heretical view? The stichos was first interpreted in this way not in Bultmann’s anti-gnostic interpretation of John but already by the anti-gnostic heresiologists since Irenaeus. However, completely irrespective of the problems associated with the still relatively unclear heresiological terminology “docetic”/“docetism,”62 a decision about the presence of such an anti-docetic “thrust” cannot, in my view, be made on the basis of this verse. This decision is especially connected with how one specifies the relationship of the Gospel of John to the Johannine letters and whether the position combatted there, the denial that Jesus has come “in the flesh” (1 John 4.2; 2 John 7), can already be presupposed for the Gospel (and how exactly this expression is to be understood). To me it appears to be the case that the evangelist already knows of the challenge of a way of thinking that has difficulties with the real humanity of the Son of God and that at specific points in the Gospel he seeks to clearly exclude an interpretation that “reduces” the real humanity, corporeality, and, above all, mortality of Jesus. However, in the Gospel this concern is overlaid by other concerns—above all the mediation of the story of Jesus that is determinative for the present—and is not as dominant as it is, say, in 1 and 2 John or, for example, in the Lukan Easter narrative (Luke 24.39-40), 59 Theobald 2009, 129. Theobald states further: “This Logos does not dwell first here and then there (cf. Wis 7.27-28); he also does not show himself now in Jesus and later elsewhere (the Logos is not the world spirit who becomes manifest in history!). Rather, the Logos of John 1 indissolubly joined himself with the ‘I’ of Jesus in such a way that the following statement holds true for the evangelist: Exclusively Jesus is the incarnate Word of God” (emphasis in original). 60 Heitmüller 1918, 44. Heitmüller states further: “In the rest the evangelist leaves the reader freedom.” Also Peterson 2003, 90, recognizes in the choice of the term “flesh” an element that goes beyond the mere “human.” 61 Thyen 2007, 408. 62 Cf. the still fundamental work of Weigandt 1961, 40–57, who understands the term more narrowly than the older research. See also Brox 1984; and Frey 2016b.

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which refers much more clearly to the real corporeality of the appearing one than the Johannine Easter narrative in John 20.19-29 does.63 4. The “Tenting” of the Logos “Among Us”: The Meaning of John 1.14aβ What is conspicuous in all this discussion is the fact that the textual “link” between John 1.14aα and 1.14b and thus between σάρξ and δόξα, the statement about the “tenting” of the Logos “among us’ (1.14 aβ), is not dealt with adequately. Very few commentators provide a detailed discussion of this stichos,64 and Bultmann states, without further justification, that one probably must hear as an overtone that the Logos tented “as a guest who took his leave again.”65 Bauer too refers to the “custom of calling the perishable human body a tent”66 and comments “the earthly body is only a short episode for the eternal Logos.”67 And even C. K. Barrett, who comments in somewhat more detail on the stichos, adopts Bultmann’s interpretation: “temporary residence among men.”68 With reference to Bauer (and to this extent somewhat confusingly),69 Udo Schnelle sets a very different accent when he emphasizes that the stichos “presents an intensification of the incarnation statement in v. 14a.”70 In any case an important elaboration of this statement is present here, and one must ask whether an essential reference point for understanding the σὰρξ ἐγένετο is left out of consideration when it is neglected. If it is correct that the καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν

63 On this, cf. in greater detail chapter 6 in this volume (GV = Frey 2009c; 2013a, 699–738); 2009b, 278–79. 64 Cf., however, Barrett 1978, 165–66; Wengst 2000/2001, I: 61ff.; Siegert 2008, 206– 7; McHugh 2009, 54–57. 65 Bultmann 1971, 67 (GV = 1986, 43), who appears, however, to notice the problematic character of this statement when he adds: “though the emphasis lies on the positive aspect of the statement” (1986, 43; this statement does not appear in Bultmann 1971, 67). Bultmann provides, among other things, a series of parallels from Jewish wisdom literature (1971, 67 n. 1; 1986, 43 n. 5: 1 En. 42.2; Sir 24.4, 8; Bar 3.28), but these are assigned, together with the Mandaean Ginza, to a unified “Wisdom myth” (i.e., to the gnostic redeemer myth constructed by him) and thus detached from their specific Jewish character. 66 Bauer 1933, 24; idem, 24: “One lives in the house permanently, in the tent temporarily.” 67 Bauer 1933, 24 68 Barrett 1978, 165–66. 69 Bauer 1933, 24, had pointed precisely to the ancient parallels of an epiphany. 70 Schnelle 2016, 58–59; idem, 59: “The revealer Jesus Christ who became human dwelled in actual fact among human beings, lived in time and history, had his history and determined history.”

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made use of specific “Jewish linguistic possibilities”71 and that it alludes to a fundamental horizon that connects the first stichos with the talk of the Logos and the third stichos with the statement about beholding the glory, then it is advisable to address the question of the meaning of John 1.14aβ from this standpoint. Moreover, beyond the rather conceptual statement of 1.14aα, ἐσκήνωσεν provides a pictorial horizon that can guide one to a more specific interpretation of the underlying christological conceptions.72 If one starts from this pictorial content, one can, in my view, clarify more precisely and beyond the sketched aporias how God’s presence in Jesus Christ should be conceived of according to the text of John. 4.1 On the Prologue of John I cannot enter into a more detailed discussion of the problems of the Johannine Prologue as a whole and especially not of the numerous attempts at reconstructing a “pre-Johannine” hymn available to the evangelist,73 which I am still not convinced existed. Even if one takes seriously the linguistic-stylistic indications that allow the homogeneity of the text to appear problematic,74 in my view the form of a Vorlage still cannot be securely established via tradition criticism. To be sure, the origin of the Prologue is of secondary importance at best for its interpretation as the opening text and reading instruction75 of the Fourth Gospel76—unless one wants to draw out in a methodologically problematic way the meaning of the text from the contrast between the source and the “commentary” on it.77 71

Thus Wengst 2000/2001, I: 62—who then refers, to be sure, predominantly to texts from the latter rabbinic tradition, the usability of which remains doubtful for the time of the Gospel of John. 72 On the pictorial character of the Christology of the Gospel of John, cf. the fundamental study of R. Zimmermann 2004. 73 For the older attempts at reconstruction, cf. Theobald 1988, 3–161; for some more recent attempts, see also Thyen 2007, 372–410. In his commentary Michael Theobald has submitted another proposed reconstruction (2009, 106), which differs considerably from the reconstruction of his habilitation thesis (1988, 469). Now v. 1 (!), v. 14a (!), and v. 17 are once again elements of the postulated community song. That this Vorlage actually existed as an independent “pre-Johannine” text remains doubtful in my view for both reconstructions. 74 On this, cf. Theobald 2009, 105–6. 75 Cf. my reflections in Frey 1998, 155–60; 2009a, 491–97 (= 2013a, 617–23). 76 Cf. in this vein also Thyen 2005, 64, who is to be affirmed in this regard, even though I cannot follow his principled synchronism and tendentially ahistorical approach. 77 This is, however, the basis of numerous models of interpretation. On this, cf. Theobald 1988, 67–90, under the heading “a hymn and its commentary.”

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With regard to the structuring of the text, only a few observations need to be made. I mainly follow the model that Michael Theobald developed on a text-linguistic basis. According to this model, the Prologue consists of three sections, which—especially with regard to the temporal structure—do not follow one another in a linear sequence but thematize three different “beginnings” of the story of Jesus, with each one leading to the present of the readers of the Gospel.78 • From the “ultimate beginning” of the Logos with God (v. 1) the first sequence leads to the statement about the (present) shining of the light in the darkness (v. 5), which must already be understood with reference to Easter.79 • From the “beginning” of the activity of Jesus with the “witness” John (v. 6) the second sequence leads to the believers becoming children of God (vv. 12-13). • Finally, starting from the “beginning” of the earthly-historical existence of Jesus, the “becoming flesh” of the Logos, the third section, in the we-speech of the witnesses, expansively thematizes the salvation (“grace upon grace” [v. 16] or “grace and truth” [vv. 14, 17]) that has “become” with the coming of Jesus Christ [v. 17], climaxing in the statement that the invisible God has become visible in him (v. 18).

However, it would be an error to assume that the Prologue—as is often claimed—turns to the Christ event only with v. 14.80 In actuality this event is already in view for the author and his readers since v. 1, and at the latest it is unmistakably thematized retrospectively in v. 5 with the statement that the light was not extinguished by the darkness and that it also shines (present!) in the darkness.81 This structure of the existing text determines how it is read. By contrast, attempts to identify behind (or in) the text a “running narrative,”82 78

Cf. Theobald 1983; 1988, 171–208. In v. 5a the present φαίνει is concerned with the “enduring presence of the light, which dates back to a specific event in the past” (Theobald 1988, 189), and the negated aorist κατέλαβεν is concerned with the darkness’ failed attempt to overcome this light (idem, 214). Thus, John 1.5 already contains a statement that materially and temporally presupposes the event of cross and resurrection and expresses it in advance on a ‘more general’ level with the aid of the metaphor of light. Cf. also section 3.1 in chapter 4 in this volume (= Frey 2006b, 31–42; 2013a, 438–50). 80 Cf., e.g., Gese 1989, 167 (ET = 1981, 184). 81 On this, cf. Frey 2000b, 158–59. See also the first part of section 3.1 in chapter 4 of this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 31–34; 2013a, 438–41). 82 Eltester 1964, 124, who seeks to identify “a presentation of the endeavors of the Logos to call humans to God” as the theme of the whole Prologue. 79

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a temporal sequence in the vein of the biblical salvation history,83 or the myth of the preexistent Wisdom or a divine redeemer figure are scarcely relevant to the meaning of the existing text. However, even if one refrains from assuming a linear sequence in the background of the Prologue text and from reconstructing a wisdom myth, let alone a hymnic Vorlage of the Prologue,84 the abundance of wisdom parallels remains significant from the perspective of tradition history.85 4.2 The Sapiential-Theological Background The tradition-historical investigation of the Johannine Prologue also need not be repeated here. If one sifts the biblical and early Jewish parallels independently of all source hypotheses, then references to the creation story (Gen 1–2) and its early Jewish interpretations86 predominate as well as references to the revelation at Sinai (Exod 33–34),87 to which recourse is made especially in vv. 14-18. However, the sapiential background is evident beyond this, for the (creative) Word of God, his Wisdom, and the Torah move most closely together precisely in sapiential theology, and God’s Wisdom—or else his creative Word—is understood, on the one hand, as preexistent and active in creation and, on the other hand, as an entity that took up residence in Israel in the Sinai event, sought a place for itself, and mediated itself to the people. The closest parallels are found in the praise of Wisdom in Sirach 24.88 According to this speech of preexistent Wisdom, Wisdom “came 83 Cf. Haenchen 1965. Following Haenchen, Eltester, and Gese 1989, 152–201 (ET = Gese 1981, 167–222), Hengel 2008a (= 2010, 34–63) also interpreted the Prologue as a ‘salvation historical’ presentation. 84 In scholarship, however, precisely these attempts have been especially influential. It was first Bultmann 1967c [1923], 10–35, who explained the Prologue “as the result of the overlaying of a Vorlage by its subsequent interpretation” (so Theobald 1988, 56) and related the Vorlage in vv. 4-5, 9-13, to a preexistent divine being, whereas the revised Prologue then intended to speak of the concrete way of Jesus Christ. In this early essay from 1923, Bultmann still assumed a myth of Wisdom, which he reconstructed from a combination of Old Testament and early Jewish texts, i.e., Sir 24; Bar 3.9-4.4; Deut 30.11-14; Job 28; 1 En. 42.1–3; 84.3; 4 Ezra 5.9-10; 2 Bar. 48.36; Prov 1.20-32; Wis 7.27-28 (Bultmann 1967c [1923], 13–19). Later he replaced it with a “gnostic” redeemer myth put together on an even broader source basis (Bultmann 1967d, 59). His “model of overlaying” has influenced most later attempts to isolate a pre-Johannine hymn or to see the “pre-history” of the Logos become flesh in or behind vv. 1-13 (on this, cf. Theobald 1988, 67ff.). 85 On this, cf. the fundamental study of Gese 1989, 152–201 (ET = 1981, 167–222); and Evans 1993, 83–94. 86 On this, cf. Evans 1993, 77–79; and, in detail, Endo 2002. 87 Cf. Evans 1993, 79–83. 88 On this, cf., e.g., Janowski 2009.

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forth from the mouth of the Most High” (24.3; cf. John 1.1). She had her dwelling (or her “tent”) in heaven (ἐν ὑψηλοῖς κατεσκήνωσαι) (Sir 24.4) and received the command from the “creator of all things” (Sir 24.8; cf. John 1.3), who said: ἐν Ιακωβ κατασκήνωσον (“pitch your tent in Jacob”) (Sir 24.8). In this statement it is clear that σκήνη is by no means used to designate a place where one stays only temporarily. Rather, Wisdom claims in the same verse that the Creator of all things (and also of herself) κατέπαυσεν τὴν σκηνήν μου. This expression, which is un-Greek and therefore difficult to render, is, as Hartmut Gese noted,89 probably a “literal” rendering of the Hebrew ִ‫ ִהּניִ ַח ִמ ְש ָכנ‬and thus should most likely be translated with: he “made my tent to rest.” The concern is therefore precisely with the fact that the Wisdom of the Creator comes to “rest” in the tent of meeting (and later this means in the temple in Jerusalem), i.e., that she receives an enduring place of residence. Wisdom served then in the holy tent (σκήνη) and was firmly established on Zion (24.10). She received “in the beloved city” a place of rest (ἐν πόλει ἠγαπημένῃ ὁμοίως με κατέπαυσεν) and “authority” (ἐξουσία) (24.11) among the people to whom δόξα is given (24.12). She became like a tree with branches full of δόξα and χάρις (24.16). After that, this is all related to the law that Moses commanded (24.23), and it is said again of the law (v. 27): “It shines forth instruction as a light” (ὁ ἐκφαίνων ὡς φῶς παιδείαν).90 It is evident that in this song of Wisdom such a plethora of terminological and material parallels are gathered that it is natural to interpret the overall statement of the Johannine Prologue against this background. The central terms (or close cognates) of the Prologue such as ἀρχή, κατασκηνοῦν, σκήνη, ἐξουσία, δόξα, χάρις, νόμος, γινώσκειν, φωτίζειν, and φῶς are gathered here. The only element that is missing is the Logos or a “becoming flesh”—accordingly, this is what is distinctive in the Prologue against its sapiential background. Interestingly, the talk of Wisdom in Sirach 24 is also not “chronologically” ordered. Wisdom does not speak of the fact that God created her “before the world, at the beginning” (πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἔκτισέν με) until Sirach 24.9—which offers, of course, a parallel to the talk of the ἀρχή in John 1.1 (cf. 17.5, 24). The construction of a chronologically linear “myth” is suggested neither by this text nor by the Johannine Prologue. The clustering of the lexemes σκηνοῦν and σκήνη (and their cognates) is especially conspicuous. They appear in Sirach 24.4 with a view to the dwelling place “in heaven,” and then twice in v. 8 with reference to the holy tabernacle. Thus, it is natural to understand also the καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν 89 90

Gese 1981, 200 n. 15 (ET = 1989, 182 n. 15). The Greek text differs here from the Hebrew.

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ἐν ἡμῖν in John 1.14aβ against this background. The tenting of the Logos “among us” is expressed in a decided taking up of the talk of the dwelling of the divine, preexistent Wisdom in Zion, and the talk of the “tent” is, in this context, precisely not to be understood in the sense of an only episodic appearance but precisely as an enduring place to stay or a dwelling that has been set up for the long haul. The associations that Bultmann and others have connected with the motif of the “tent” are therefore misleading. Thus, with its talk of the “tenting” of the Logos “among us,” the Johannine Prologue takes up a line of the biblical–early Jewish “shekinah theology,”91 i.e., of the theological concept of the dwelling of Yahweh (Hebrew ‫“ )שכן‬in the midst of the Israelites,” which developed in the exilic period from certain preliminary stages and is demonstrable especially in the priestly conception of the tabernacle (Exod 25.8; 29.45-46) and in Ezekiel (Ezek 43.7, 9) as well as in Deuteronomistic texts (1 Kgs 6.12-13).92 In the late Old Testament period this conception, formed after the loss of the first temple, developed in different directions. A line of tradition turns the conception of the dwelling of Yahweh in the midst of his people to an eschatological future (so, e.g., Zech 2.14-15; 8.3; Joel 4[ET 3].17, 21; as well as then in 11QTa 29,7–8 and Jub 1.17). This tradition is taken up in the New Testament—likewise with the use of the lexemes σκήνη and σκηνοῦν in Acts 21.3 and related to the eschatological fellowship of God with his people in the renewed creation. By contrast, the second significant line of reception of the exilic-postexilic shekinah theology leads to the wisdom tradition, to Sirach 24. It is this line that is taken up in John 1.14 where the dwelling of the divine Logos is precisely not expressed as something hoped for eschatologically but presupposed as given in the “one who has become flesh,” in Jesus Christ and his activity, and is commented on in the retrospective perspective of the witnesses.93 However, both lines of reception recognizably point back to the conception of the tent of meeting and of the revelation of God or his “glory” at this place of the dwelling of God in the midst of his people. Accordingly, when John 1.14 “designates the incarnation of the Logos as a ‘dwelling among us,’ ” the incarnation is “connected with the Old Testament shekinah theology even in its terminology.”94

91

For its early history, cf. especially Janowski 1993; Janowski 2011 (GV = 2004). On this, cf. Janowski 1993, 168–86. 93 For this comparison, see Frey 2013c. 94 Janowski 1993, 192. 92

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4.3 The “Shekinah” of the Divine Logos as a Key to the Understanding of the σὰρξ ἐγένετο From here the aforementioned problems of interpretation in John 1.14 also find clarification. The conception of the dwelling of the divine Wisdom and ultimately God himself in the midst of his people serves to explain how the σὰρξ ἐγένετο is to be understood in the Johannine sense. The scope and explanatory value of this motif can be further specified against the background of a number of syntactic and semantic observations. 14aα 14aβ 14bα 14bβ 14bγ

Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας

Syntactically we can observe first that John 1.14 constitutes a new start. After the long and somewhat overloaded conclusion of the preceding section of the Prologue in v. 13, the καὶ ὁ λόγος marks a reference back to the beginning (v. 1), while simultaneously constituting the high point of the Prologue. Here the conjunction καί offers not only a sequential joining but—after all the sentences in the preceding verses began asyndetically (except for v. 12: δέ)—a new accentuation, in which the καί is to be interpreted either adversatively in relation to vv. 10-11 or affirmatively in connection with vv. 12-13. Since vv. 12-13 cannot be bracketed out as an interpolation, the affirmative connection to these verses is much more likely, so that καί, following the already “positive” statement about being children of God, marks, in a further intensification, a new level, a climax.95 Thus, the καί accentuates and substantiates: “Yes, the Logos became flesh . . .” That a new level is reached here is also confirmed by the first use of the first-person plural in the second and third stichos, the “we” in ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν and in ἐθεασάμεθα. In this way too v. 14 strikes a new note in relation to the entire text to this point—here is the transition to the speech of the witnesses. Syntactically we can also observe that the first two stichoi of v. 14 are closely connected by the common subject ὁ λόγος, while the third stichos καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ is somewhat further removed and receives two additional elaborations. Thus the καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν is 95

Cf. the discussion in McHugh 2009, 49–50. See also p. 50: “the καί is then a conjunction expressing astonishment, as the next words are intended to evoke adoration.”

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more closely connected to the first stichos than to the third. It follows from this that the καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν must be regarded as the closest elaboration of the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, though it already leads across—at least semantically (precisely against the background of the shekinah tradition)—to the third stichos and to the motif of δόξα. Therefore, the goal in v. 14, and thus the material accent, probably does lie on the complexive aorist ἐθεασάμεθα with its double specification.96 This does not, however, mean that the statement of the “becoming flesh” would be less significance in comparison. The alternative between 1.14a and 1.14b, which was established in the controversy between Bultmann and Käsemann, is flawed. Both verse parts retain their weight, even though the line leads to the witness in 1.14b. The close connection between the first two stichoi implies that the phrase καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν is to be regarded as the closest elaboration of ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο. The phrase (σὰρξ) ἐγένετο, which is difficult to interpret and not made more precise in itself, is elaborated by a more heavily pictorial expression that is recognizably related at the same time to a preexisting tradition that forms the background. However, the tradition of the Old Testament dwelling of God is simultaneously connected with the content of the revelation of the glory, which is then thematized in 1.14b. The discussions about the meaning of the σὰρξ ἐγένετο and its connection to the subsequently mentioned δόξα can be made more precise from this standpoint. Semantically the resumption of ὁ λόγος picks up on vv. 1-2, of course. Although this Logos was also spoken of in the entire course of the Prologue (with the exception of vv. 6-8) via the reference of the pronoun οὗτος, the explicit repetition of this term here especially calls to mind the statements of the beginning, i.e., the fact that the Logos who is meant here “was” indeed “before” the creation thematized in v. 3 and that he existed in the most intimate fellowship with the biblical God, indeed was himself of divine nature. It is the echo of Genesis in 1.1—which was unmistakable for the first readers of the Gospel—that removes the talk of the Logos from its semantic openness and history-of-religion or history-of-philosophy polysemy from the outset and places it in the context of the revelation of the God of the Scriptures of Israel. It is now this divine Logos, or, more precisely, the personified creative Word, who precedes the world in creative power and stands in relation to it, about whom the σὰρξ ἐγένετο is announced and in relation to whom this extraordinary statement, i.e., σὰρξ ἐγένετο, forms an extremely great contrast. 96

Cf. Theobald 2009, 126.

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The observation that ὁ λόγος is no longer used as a “name” or christological designation in the subsequent course of the Gospel suggests that for the evangelist the term ὁ λόγος is meant to remain reserved for the talk of the divine Word “before” his incarnation.97 Above all, the σὰρξ ἐγένετο becomes in this way the last and final statement about this Logos, and there is no support at all for the view that the author somehow thought that the one who became flesh, Jesus Christ, discarded again the σάρξ that he had assumed. Even as the crucified and glorified one, he remains the one who became flesh.98 On the other hand, nothing suggests that the becoming flesh implies a “reduction” or abandonment of his divine nature predicated in 1.1-2, though the talk of σάρξ forms a strong contrast to this. Rather, the identification of Jesus Christ with the primordial, divine Logos—which is made explicit in 1.17 but is, of course, already implicitly made previously—is precisely what John aims to present and for which no better formulation was at hand. The concern in the early Christian tradition is precisely to connect in the closest possible way the historical Jesus of Nazareth—the crucified and resurrected or exalted one—and the salvation effected by him with the primordial creative action of the biblical God and thus to anchor the divine salvific action in the original and primordial loving will of the creator God (cf. John 3.16; 1 John 4.9-10; etc.). This is the angle of vision that leads to the taking up of the talk of the Logos and not the question of how a divine being could appear in human form. To be sure, the talk of σάρξ is also conspicuous and surprising. After all, the term is used—shortly before—in v. 13 when those born of God are negatively distinguished from those born of the “will of the flesh.” This expression, which initially designates natural birth without negative connotations, moves into a rather negative light when it is opposed to being born of God. In 1.13 and 3.6, σάρξ represents a merely human level that stands against the sphere of God or his activity of new creation and has no understanding of the latter. Against this background it must be especially surprising when the term “which had conventionally-negative connotations” previously “receives something positive, indeed is used to express the event of salvation.”99 Semantically σάρξ stands here synecdochically for ἄνθρωπος. It designates the whole person and precisely not only one’s bodily form.100 An opposition to πνεῦμα or an association with sin and behavior that is 97

Cf. McHugh 2009, 51. On this, cf. the interpretation of John Chrysostom (Homiliae 11.2), which is quoted by McHugh 2009, 51. See also chapter 6 in this volume (GV = 2009c; 2013a, 699–738). 99 Thus, rightly, Siegert 2008, 205. 100 McHugh 2009, 51–52, rightly states that σάρξ implies here “bones and blood and soul as well.” “It is worth adding, in view of the latter Apollinarian controversy, that the 98

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opposed to God—which is attested, for example, in Paul—is not present here. Rather, only the Old Testament connotation of the frailty and perishability, indeed mortality, appears to be in view.101 σάρξ is the perishable par excellence;102 it sets a strongly realistic103 tone. And presumably it is precisely this aspect that prompted the author to choose σάρξ and not ἄνθρωπος.104 However, the expression receives its decisive shaping through the connection with the verb γενέσθαι. In this way the statement is, on the one hand, referred back to the statements about the primordial “being” of the Logos (vv. 1-2: ἦν) and, on the other hand, understood, in contrast to this, as having the character of an event. The Logos became what it was not previously,105 and precisely in contrast to the formulations of other early confessions, which speak of him appearing “in the flesh” (1 Tim 3.16; Barn. 6.14) or “in the form” of the flesh (Rom 8.3), this formulation appears to have been chosen precisely in order to exclude the notion that the flesh could be something like a removable robe.106 The history-ofreligion parallels of the temporary transformation of gods into human or animal form precisely do not match what is intended here. In these texts the transformation (e.g., of Zeus into a bull or into a golden rain etc.) is always only temporary, and it does not touch the actual nature of the god. In particular the immortals do not thereby become mortal. If, however, this evangelist would hardly have considered a body without any human intellect as matching the concept of the Word made flesh: he meant to affirm that the Logos became fully human.” 101 Cf. Gen 6.3; Isa 40.6-7; Jer 17.5; Sir 14.17-18. 102 Thus McHugh 2009, 53: “Flesh is the most vulnerable, the most corruptible, the most easily destructible, part of the human being. . . . The Logos is the Eternal. Flesh is τὸ φθαρτὸν τὸ κατ’ ἐξοχήν.” 103 Cf. Brown 1966/1970, I: 31. 104 Whether one can explain the choice of the term as arising from the early Christian confessional language (so Theobald 2009, 127) is doubtful in my view. To be sure, this confessional language does use the term “for Jesus’s earthly mode of existence” (idem, 127, with reference to Rom 1.3; 8.3; 1 Tim 3.16; 1 Pet 3.1; Barn. 6.14; 2 Clem. 9.5), but it uses it in the opposition of two spheres of the σάρξ and the πνεῦμα (Rom 1.3; 1 Pet 3.18) or in an even more pronounced manner when there is talk of the “form of sinful flesh” (Rom 8.3) or of his appearance “in the flesh” (1 Tim 3.6). Only 2 Clem. 9.5 says that Christ was first πνεῦμα and then became σάρξ. But the antiquity of this expression is difficult to prove. The Johannine σὰρξ ἐγένετο differs from it once more. 105 Cf. Theobald 2009, 127–28; cf. Uhrig 2004, 28. 106 So, rightly, McHugh 2009, 53: “To write ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο is to exclude any possibility that the human flesh of Jesus was something similar to clothing which he had put on, something quite external to him, which he could discard at will. Had that been the evangelist’s thought, he could have easily expressed it without ambiguity.” See Augustine, De Trinitate 2.11.6 (quoted by McHugh 2009, 53 n. 15): Aliud est enim Verbum in carne, aliud Verbum caro; id est, aliud est Verbum in homine, aliud Verbum homo.

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is meant to be implied in the talk of the σάρξ—and this is confirmed by the continuation of the Gospel—then the statement in John 1.14aα clearly goes beyond the talk of an epiphany.107 John McHugh’s formulation is on target: “The purpose of the ἐγένετο is to emphasize that the Logos did not just ‘dwell in’ human flesh, did not just ‘have’ a human body in order to speak his part for one or more performances, like a Greek actor walking on stage with a particular mask. He, the divine Logos, was in reality the principal character in the drama.”108 On the other hand, the notion that the Logos was simply transformed into a human being appears equally inadequate, for his divinity appears to be precisely not abandoned when—as the third stichos (v. 14bα) stresses— the δόξα of the one who became flesh is to be beheld precisely as the δόξα of the “only-begotten one from the Father,” as the divine δόξα. How are we to describe what is in view here between these two conceptions (each of which is each inadequate on its own): on the one hand, of the simple transformation of the divine Logos into perishable flesh with the abandonment of his divinity and, on the other hand, the mere epiphanic clothing of the Logos with perishable flesh with the avoidance of the full and entire humanity? It is precisely here that the second stichos καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν (1.14aβ) comes into play, namely through multiple connections: Through the conjunction καί there is not merely a sequential connection but (as already in John 1.14aα) a “step-by-step” continuation to the climax of the speech of the witnesses, which we reach in 1.14b. The circle of the “addressees” takes the stage—for the first time in the Prologue—with ἐν ἡμῖν. This allows for a connection with the talk of the σάρξ, so that the suggested meaning is that the Logos, in his becoming flesh, became “one of us,” that is, precisely—as already explained—a full, real human being. The terminologically clear taking up of the traditions about the dwelling of the preexistent Wisdom of God in Israel or of God himself (and his δόξα) in the midst of his people explicates in a pictorial manner the mode in which God’s Logos—i.e., his primordial Word, his creative power, and his loving nature—became present in the concrete human being Jesus of Nazareth and are also present beyond his earthly way in the remembering consideration of this way. 107

Especially when the God who is spoken of since John 1.1 is the one biblical God, such an epiphany conception is not appropriate. It is not enough to say that the Logos becomes “epiphanic” in the flesh (thus Theobald 2009, 128, though only with reference to a possible understanding of the death of Jesus in John 19.30 as the “return of the spirit-soul to the Father”). 108 McHugh 2009, 53.

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Terminologically, the tradition of the dwelling of God in the midst of his people and—specifically in Sirach 24—of the dwelling of Wisdom in Israel provides the connection between 1.14aα and 1.14b. The talk of the tenting of the Logos as an elaboration of the talk of the becoming flesh connects the latter with the aspect of the revelation of “glory.” In the tent of meeting, the glory of the invisible God appeared (Exod 40.34). The motif of the tent can at the same time characterize in a unique way the person of Jesus as the place at which God’s very own Word, his life-giving power and his glory, became present and manifest among humans.109 At the same time the becoming flesh of the Logos in Jesus Christ can thus be depicted as a fulfillment of those eschatological promises that God would one day “tent” in the midst of his people (Ezek 37.27; Joel 4[ET 3].17; Zech 2.14). Thus, the motif fits within the Gospel of John’s (present-)eschatological tendency to view the goods of salvation that are traditionally hoped for at the end of time as fulfilled in Christ.110 The “bridge” between the statement of the Logos becoming flesh and the beholding of his glory, which is established by the shekinah tradition, allows the full and unreduced humanity of Jesus of Nazareth and the presence of the divine δόξα in him, in his words, and in his way to be held together.111 The talk of “dwelling” can forgo every specification of the “point in time” of the dwelling. There is no reference to the birth of Jesus112—just as, after all, the Gospel of John as a whole can affirm the divine sonship of Jesus without any qualification of his descent from a human father and designate Jesus as “son of Joseph from Nazareth.”113 Even though the talk of beholding the divine δόξα in Jesus Christ constitutes the goal of 1.14, the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο loses nothing of its offensiveness, for it expresses something that is unheard of for common ancient thinking. And although the “model” of dwelling takes up a 109

Cf. Koester 1989, 102 (quoted by Evans 1993, 82). By contrast, the future-eschatological reception of the shekinah tradition can be found in Rev 21.3. On this, cf. Frey 2013c. 111 To be sure, along the lines of the Johannine conception of the δόξα, one must pay attention to the fact that the recognition of the δόξα of the incarnate, crucified, and exalted one is a post-Easter recognition for John that is based in the event of his ‘glorification’ (i.e., in the “hour” of Jesus, in the context of which δοξάζεσθαι is used with particular density) and is transferred from there to the entire way of Jesus and also to his “prehistory.” For justification of this view, cf. in detail chapter 7 in this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62). 112 This is why one also should not translate σὰρξ ἐγένετο with “was born as flesh.” The understanding with reference to the birth of Jesus, as O’Neill 1991 wants to assume it, can be justified only on the basis of later texts that already view together John 1.14 with the Synoptic texts of Jesus birth in a harmonizing manner. 113 On this, cf. Frey 2011c. 110

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biblical–early Jewish line of tradition, the statement of the divine Word becoming flesh and, conversely, of the fully valid presence and complete revelation of the biblical God in the human Jesus of Nazareth is offensive also to Jewish thinking.114 Theologically the shekinah theology provides an expression of the “condescension” of God, which is intensified in the Gospel of John all the way to the cross of Jesus, and precisely this horizon is already signaled in advance in 1.14 by the pronounced talk of the σάρξ. What the Gospel of John expresses in its narrative, which is directed to the passion—namely, that the crucified one is, in truth, the one clothed with glory by God and as such is the basis of faith and salvation—is already signaled in an anticipatory way in the collocation of σάρξ and δόξα in the Prologue, and the employment of the biblical model of the dwelling of God in the world or, more concretely, in “his people” illustrates this ostensibly paradoxical connection and fits it into the biblical tradition history. The becoming flesh of the Word—as a variation of the dwelling of God in the midst of his people—is aimed at the cross, where the sent one, who is crucified as “king of the Jews,” completes his way. And God’s nature and primordial loving will are, according to John, enduringly recognizable precisely in this glorified crucified one.

114

What Paul says about the word of the cross in 1 Cor 1.23—“to the Jews an offense, to the Gentiles foolishness”—applies in a corresponding manner to the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο in John 1.14.

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Jesus as the Image of God in the Gospel of John

“No one has ever seen God.1 The only-begotten one (μονογενής), who is God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him” (1.18).2 These are the words that conclude the Prologue of the Gospel of John, that monumental opening text that leads into the following Johannine narrative as a reading instruction. Each and any direct vision of God is categorically contested in this way.3 Neither Moses nor other biblical figures nor some other mystics and visionaries could claim to have a direct access to the face of God and thus to the knowledge of his true nature.4 In a programmatic manner John simultaneously expresses both the unsurpassable nearness to God and the exclusive revelatory function of the μονογενής.5 Jesus Christ, whose name was mentioned for the first time in John 1.17, is the “only begotten one from the Father” (1.14), the Logos who has become 1

This chapter represents a lightly revised version of a lecture held in Graz on March 7, 2015. The lecture style has been retained, and the documentation in the footnotes has been kept to a minimum. For her critical review of the text and numerous suggestions for improvement, I am grateful to Anni Hentschel (Würzburg/Frankfurt). 2 Text-critically θεός is to be read in 1.18 as the lectio difficilior. Moreover, an inclusio is marked in this way in the Prologue (on this, see Thyen 2005, 105–6; Theobald 2009, 136). For the translation of ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρός, see the reflections in Scholtissek 2000a, 192–93. 3 This stands first of all in agreement with the Old Testament principle of Exod 33.20. To be sure, the biblical tradition knows of a “face to face” encounter between the God of Israel and Moses (Num 12.8; Deut 34.10, though it is formulated there only from the perspective of God) and the tradition of a vision of God experienced by the Israelites (Exod 24.11, though only in the distant early period). 4 Cf. also 1 John 4.12. Going beyond this fundamental statement a more specific statement in the sense of a polemical reference to a current claim of mystics or visionaries cannot be discerned in John 1.18. 5 V. 18 expresses the “exclusivity and absoluteness of the revelation given in Jesus Christ” (thus Hofius 1996b, 24). 285

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flesh (1.14), who was “toward God” in the beginning (1.1).6 The predicate “God” (1.18; cf. 1.1c) is even due to him, as it is to God (the Father),7 and he is—so the concluding statement—the only one who, as “exegete”8 of the Father, reveals him and thus, contrary to his initial categorical invisibility, makes him “visible.”9 The narrative that follows offers the thematic filling: Jesus Christ in his earthly history, as he is presented in the Gospel of John, is the one and only true “image of God.” Correspondingly, John 14.9 says: “The one who sees me sees the Father”—or if one wants to render the Greek perfect (“The one who has seen me has seen the Father” [ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑωρακεν τὸν πατέρα]) more precisely, one could formulate: “The one who has me before his eyes has the Father before his eyes.” The one who has Jesus before one’s eyes in the way that the Johannine narrative places him before one’s eyes has seen the Father and come to know the invisible God in his nature. This is the claim of the Gospel of John: Jesus is the exclusive and true image of God the Father, of the invisible biblical God.10 With this claim the Fourth Gospel goes beyond the older Gospel tradition in multiple respects. The three other Gospels also narrate the story of Jesus of Nazareth, and in these too—already in the oldest account according to Mark—Jesus acts with divine authority. He commands the storm, and the powers of creation are obedient to him as are the demons (Mark 4.34-41; cf. 1.23-27). He pronounces salvation in divine authority—“Your sins are forgiven you” (Mark 2.1-10) or even “Today you will be with me 6

There is a correspondence between the πρὸς τὸν θεόν in 1.1 and the εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρός in 1.18. Cf. Theobald 2009, 136. At 1.18, de la Potterie 1977, 234, interprets

tourné vers l’amour du Père, vers le coeur du Père. 7 On this, see Theobald 2009, 136: “ ‘God’ as predicate of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is a pointed statement that is still rare in the New Testament.” On this topic, see sections 4.1 and 4.2 in chapter 10 of this volume (GV = Frey 2012f, 243–49). 8 On this term, see the parallels in Schnelle 2016, 63 n. 156: “Pollux, Onomasticon VIII 124: ‘interpreters (ἐξηγήται) are called those who explain the divine signs and other matters concerned with holy things’; cf. further Dio Chrysostom, Orationes 12.47: the philosopher is the most perfect ‘interpreter and proclaimer’ (ἐξηγητὴν καὶ προφήτην) of the divine.” “The concern is always with revelation or the unveiling of hidden divine truth” (Theobald 2009, 138). 9 It is presumably not by chance that ἐξηγήσατο has no object in 1.18 (even though “him,” i.e., “God,” is to be supplied according to the sense). “It is the book that narrates thereafter what the ‘only-begotten one’ reveals; the narration provides the thematic filling of the object of exēgēsato” (Theobald 2009, 138). 10 This takes place without the use of an explicit εἰκών terminology. Nevertheless, precisely through 14.7, 9, it is clear that the Johannine presentation understands the representation of the Father in the Son in an imagistic-visual manner that clearly goes beyond the mere sending-motif, and it is worth pursuing these characteristics of “visuality” (see section 3 below).

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in paradise” (Luke 23.43)—and in the Gospel of Matthew he is explicitly the “Immanu–el” or “God–with us” (Matt 1.23), the divine savior, who is and remains with his own, and to whom all power in heaven and on earth is given (Matt 28.18-20). But none of the other Gospels takes the function of Jesus as representative of the biblical God as far as John. None of them presents him in this exclusivity not only as the eschatologically authorized representative of God and divine savior of his people and the nations but as the exclusive image of the one invisible God. This unsurpassable self-claim of the Johannine Jesus must now be described on the basis of some observations on the narrative and its motifs, illuminated in its christological and theological significance, and, finally, embedded in its “bibliological” dimension. 1. Jesus as God’s Representative in the Johannine Narrative 1.1 John 1.19-51 as the Introduction to Johannine Christology The Johannine Jesus narrative begins—as Mark’s narrative—with John the Baptist and his testimony about Jesus (1.19-34). This is followed by the calling of the first disciples (1.19-34), which is configured in a distinctively different way. Multiple christological predications are introduced already in this chapter and applied to Jesus. Jesus is “the Lamb of God” (1.29), “the Messiah” (1.41), “the king of Israel” (1.49), “the Son of God” (1.49), and “the Son of Man” (1.51).11 He was—as the Baptist testifies in a riddling sentence that irritatingly bursts12 the temporal sequence of the events—already “before” John (1.30), and heaven is “opened” above him (1.51), with Jesus himself, by taking up the Jacob/Bethel motif, being predicated as the place of the presence of God, indeed as the “new temple.” Thus, John 1.19-51 appears as a small vade mecum of Johannine Christology. While the Baptist refuses all the “messianic” dignities of the Messiah, of Elijah, and of the prophet that are pressed upon him and recedes as a mere forerunner and witness, almost all the essential predications of dignity are expressed in relation to Jesus first by him and then by the first disciples already here, at the entryway of the narrative.13 Jesus is not only 11 To this one can add the aspects of the stronger one (1.26-27), the baptizer with the Spirit (1.33), and the expression ἐκλεκτὸς θεοῦ in 1.34, which should probably be preferred text-critically. 12 For this linguistic specification of the Johannine preexistence statements, see now Kunath 2016. 13 A “messianic secret” or the associated phenomenon of a command to silence addressed to those healed are unthinkable in John. Only the motif of the lack of

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what the Baptist rejects for himself, but he is also much more. He is the messianic king and Son of God who takes away the “sin of the world” (1.29); indeed, he is a figure who belongs to the divine sphere (1.51), who makes God’s presence and δόξα accessible to humans (1.14; 2.11). Only the titles “Logos” (1.1, 14), μονογενής (1.14, 18), and “God” (1.1-2, 18), which are prominent in the Prologue, are not repeated here. They are still unknown to the figures within the text and only given in advance to the readers. The narrative is configured in such a way that the readers become observers of the narrated events and at the same time already know “more” on account of the Prologue. From this reader perspective they perceive the events around Jesus. On the basis of the witness of the Baptist, disciples enter into his vicinity (1.35-39) and testify something about him (1.41, 45). Others encounter Jesus (1.38-39, 42, 47-48), hear his address, and make confessions (1.41, 45, 49). In the process the readers are successively integrated into the narrated events, and scene by scene they attain to new insights or reading “experiences.” In this way the opening chapter introduces its recipients quasi- “mystagogically”14 into the bond with Jesus and the knowledge about his true dignity. By narratively presenting to them the experiences of the disciples and their reactions, in combination with various interpretive elements from the Prologue and the narrative text, the readers themselves are meant to be brought into a reading encounter with Jesus and to an understanding of his person. 1.2 The Literarily Configured Miracles of Jesus as “Signs” The revelation of the glory of Jesus (2.11) takes place literarily above all through the narration of his deeds, especially the miracles, which are presented as “signs” in John. Here, one must take into account the fact that it is not actually the bruta facta of a past action of Jesus that deserve the predicate “sign” but precisely those literarily configured “narrated signs”15 that in their literary presentation all contain indications that point from understanding or misunderstanding of the disciples is used, though in the first place as a didactic device with regard to the readers who are intended, in turn, to understand better. 14 On this term, see A. Meyer 2005. It seems to be especially significant that the Johannine call of the disciples—in contrast to the Synoptic parallels with the charismatic call of Jesus into his following that dominates there—is configured in such a way that those who are becoming disciples are each pointed to Jesus by the witness of another (of the Baptist, of other disciples) and led to the encounter with him. This much more likely corresponds structurally to the situation of the post-Easter community and thus appears as a paradigm in which the readers themselves are shown the way upon which they came or could come to discipleship. 15 On this, see Welck 1994. Cf. also Frey 2015b.

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the narrated event to a dimension of its “significance” and ultimately to the entirety of the story of Jesus and its goal in his death and resurrection. In this literary configuration the Johannine miracle stories differ significantly from the Synoptic ones.16 In this process the narrated event is indeed upheld in its earthly reality, but the action is narratively configured with interpretive elements in such a way that in every individual episode something of the whole of the salvific event is expressed. The wine miracle of Cana (2.1-11) points ahead to the “hour of Jesus,” to the event of death and resurrection, in which Jesus’ mother will be present again. The wine already conveys something of the taste of salvation, which is grounded in that hour, and it is thus much more than a wonderfully made drink for a village wedding. The healing of the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years (5.1-16) points to the liberation from sins by the one in whom God himself works (5.17). The resurrection of Lazarus from the tomb points to the gift of life out of death, which believers will receive through the risen one (5.24; 11.25-26). The list of these pointers could be expanded. In the reading of these “narrated signs,” the Johannine readers are constantly pointed beyond the narrated story of a past action of Jesus to the whole of the way and person of Jesus, to the glory that belongs to him and that he “reveals” (2.11), to the spiritual illumination that he grants as the light of the world (9.4), to the eternal life that he gives as the one who is himself the resurrection and the life (11.25-26). In this process the earthly reality of what is narrated does not become unimportant. The bodily dimension of the healing, the tasting of the wine, the satiation through the bread, as well as the smell of decay of the dead Lazarus are indeed significant for the Johannine narrative.17 In such cases the bodily dimension is not allegorized but rather narrated in such a way that the recipients are repeatedly compelled, starting from the narrated individual event, from each “miracle,” to think further and to reflect upon this in light of the passion and Easter event. This addresses the perspective from which the Fourth Gospel programmatically considers the entire way of the earthly Jesus and all its stages—the perspective of the post-Easter community,18 which, in the Johannine view, alone permits a true understanding of the narrated words and deeds of Jesus and his fate. It is explicitly stated multiple times that, during his earthly activity, the disciples of Jesus did not understand what took place at that time and what his words meant but that they “remembered” 16

On this, see Frey 2015b. See section 3 in chapter 6 of this volume (GV = Frey 2009c, 302–8; 2013a, 717–23). 18 On this, see the foundational study of Hoegen-Rohls 1996; Frey 1998, 247–68. 17

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and grasped the meaning of his words and deeds and fate only after his glorification, after Easter (2.22; 12.16). This “remembrance” is traced back within the Johannine group to the post-Easter Spirit-Paraclete, who “reminded” the community of disciples after Easter (14.26; 16.13-15) and thereby helped it to reach a new and deepened understanding of the actions and words of Jesus. According to the self-understanding of the Fourth Gospel, it is precisely this Spirit-effected, deepened understanding of the true significance of the activity of Jesus and his fate that is intended to find expression in this work with its distinctive image of Christ. The fact that the Fourth Evangelist can present Jesus’ activity with regard to the historical details in such a completely different manner than the older gospel tradition19 and can also configure his words and deeds in such an obviously different way than the older tradition can be understood only with reference to this interpretive interest and the consciousness of the reminding and disclosing activity of the post-Easter Spirit that stands behind it. 1.3 The Divine Authority of Jesus according to the Johannine Discourses of Jesus This post-Easter understanding is also expressed in Jesus’ sayings and discourses, which sometimes interpret the narrated deeds. This is the case, first, in John 5, after the healing at the pool called Bethsaida, whose setting on the Sabbath interprets a conflict over the legitimacy of the action of Jesus. A cryptic saying of Jesus, “My Father is working until now, and I am also working” (5.17), interprets the action of Jesus on the Sabbath—which has opened up new life for the man who had been lame for thirty-eight years—as the work of God himself. In Jesus’ deeds, God works—that is the authority that stands behind his deeds. The fact that right after this John mentions attempts by Jesus’ Jewish opponents to kill him (5.18) shows that these opponents—not, of course, the “historical” opponents of Jesus but as figures in the Johannine narrative—understand very well this eminent christological claim and interpret it as presumption, as Jesus making himself God (without being God), which would be a usurpation of divinity and thus blasphemy (cf. 10.33; 19.7). The speech that follows in John 5.19-47 attempts to justify this claim and to show that it is not presumption when Jesus says that he does God’s work and acts in unity with him, since

19

For the relationship of the Gospel of John to the older (Synoptic) tradition, see Frey 2003 (= 2013a, 239–94). For a discussion of the problems of the historical source value of the Gospel of John for Jesus research, see now Frey 2017a; 2018c.

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God himself has given him the authority to give life and to carry out the judgment.20 Multiple patterns of argumentation are bundled together here. Thus, in a small “parable” it is stated first that the Son sees the works of the Father and acts accordingly (5.19-20). This is precisely not intended to say that Jesus’ action is an inferior or subordinated imitation of the action of the Father21 but rather to stress precisely the sameness and equal value of his action. Analogously, shortly thereafter there is talk of hearing the words of the Father, which determines Jesus’ own speech and his judicial action (5.30). Here it remains open where and how Jesus sees the works of the Father and hears his words. In any case, what is in view is not a “pre-incarnational” beholding22 but rather a constant union with the Father (cf. 11.42). The picture of the “imitation” of the action of the Father by the Son is followed by the theological statement about the “gift” or transfer of a specific authority: the Father has transferred the eschatological authority of judgment so that the Son now carries out this judgment in his name and in his authority (5.22, 27), and he has granted him to have life “in himself” so that he can give life in his own authority (5.26; cf. 5.21). According to Old Testament and early Jewish tradition, these two actions are entirely reserved for God.23 In John, Jesus is the bearer of this divine authority insofar as, in the encounter with him and his word, life out of death is mediated on the one hand and the judgment of condemnation is rendered on the other hand. Corresponding to this theological view, in John it is not God but Jesus who raises the dead (5.25, 28-29). He calls Lazarus from the tomb and gives the command to unbind him in order to demonstrate his power of life in this way (11.43-44). And in complete accord with the statement about Jesus’ authority to lay down his life and take it up again (10.18), the Johannine Easter narrative24 is configured not as a raising (Auferweckung) of Jesus by God but as a self-empowered rising (Auferstehung) of Jesus from the tomb. Here there is no opening of the tomb by an earthquake (Matt 28.2) or a picking up of the risen one by two 20

For this speech as a whole, see Frey 2000b, 341–491. The idea of a subordination of the Son under the Father is precisely not in view here. On the contrary, what is in view is the idea of an authorization of the Son and of the correspondence of his action to the Father’s action; on this, see Frey 2000b, 349–50. 22 Such a—not unproblematic—conception of the sent one who is authorized in advance in heaven has sometimes been conjectured on the basis of statements such as John 3.11 or 3.32. Cf., e.g., Bühner 1977. 23 On this, see Frey 2000b, 357–63. 24 On this, see Frey 2009b, 274–76; and sections 3.2 and 4.1 in chapter 6 of this volume (GV = Frey 2009c, 304–5, 309–12; 2013a, 720–21, 724–27). 21

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angels (Gos. Pet. 34–42). Rather, the risen one has left his tomb couch himself, and the burial cloths have been set aside in an orderly manner (20.6-8)—and the Johannine readers are directed through lexical references to the contrast between the risen Jesus and the raised Lazarus. As the one who has life in himself (5.26; cf. 11.25), Jesus also has the divine authority to take up his life again, i.e., to rise from the tomb. The central idea of the transfer of authority from God to Jesus is made plausible in John 5.27 through the Son of Man title: “for he is the Son of Man.”25 Within the horizon of ancient Jewish discourses that build on Daniel 7 and perhaps already know the Parables of Enoch, this seeks to make plausible the view that Jesus, the “Son of Man,” as eschatological representative of God, judges and saves in God’s authority,26 leaves in death, and gives “eternal life.” In the Gospel of John, the divine authority of Jesus is also expressed in his sayings, most pointedly in the ἐγώ εἰμι formula, which is used both “absolutely” (6.20; 8.24, 28, 58; 13.19; 18.5, 6, 8) and in connection with metaphorical predications such as bread, light, door, shepherd, and vine (6.35, 41, 48, 51; 8.12 [cf. 9.5]; 10.7, 9, 11, 14; 11.25; 14.6; 15.1, 5) as well as in related forms (4.26; 8.18, 23; 9.5; inverted in 7.34, 36; 12.26; 14.3; 17.24) and which takes up in its linguistic form the Old Testament “formula of revelation” (‫ ֲאנִ י הּוא‬or ‫)אנִ י יְ הוָ ה‬. ֲ 27 The I-am formula is to be read with reference to this background in all usages,28 even though the 25 John 5.27 ὅτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν. Here we find the anarthrous form υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου—which is attested elsewhere in the New Testament only in Heb 2.6 in a quotation of Scripture and in Rev 1.14 and 14.14—and not the articular form of the title of majesty ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, which is otherwise the usual form also in John. This is “an unambigu-

ous allusion to Daniel’s vision” (so Ashton 1993, 361). Immediately after the introduction of the “one like a son of man” (ὡς υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου), Dan 7.14 continues καὶ ἐδόθη αὐτῷ. Dan 7.22 then provides the connection to the judgment, though in Daniel 7 this is given not to the “one like a son of man” but to the “people of the holy ones of the Most High” (καὶ τὴν κρίσιν ἔδωκε τοῖς ἀγίοις τοῦ ὑψίστου). The later reception and further development of the figure of the son of man offers, to be sure, a stronger focus upon a figure of the “Son of Man,” as we find this attested in the Parables of Enoch and in 4 Ezra 13. On this, see Boyarin 2011. 26 This double possibility of the outcome is expressed in John 5.28-29 (in clear connection with Dan 12.1-2). Elsewhere it is not so accented in John, but as a corollary of the allusion to the Son of Man it is by no means unfitting. On this, see Frey 2000b, 381–91. 27 On this, see—in addition to the works of H. Thyen mentioned in the following note—H. Zimmermann 1960, 54–69, 266–76. Cf. also Williams 2000. 28 Rudolf Bultmann wrongly separated the “absolute” I-am sayings from the ones with metaphorical predications and interpreted most of the latter in the context of his hermeneutic as “recognition formulas” in which no new content is revealed but merely what was previously already hoped for is predicated as having come in Jesus. In this way the I-am formula was interpreted too one-sidedly in the context of the hermeneutical interests of Bultmann, of his understanding of revelation and faith. If one takes into account the

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metaphorical predications are drawn not only from the Old Testament but also from all kinds of extrabiblical and everyday source domains.29 It is not only here that the Johannine Jesus speaks in divine authority, but this formula represents the most concentrated linguistic expression of this phenomenon. This becomes clear when he—in the first I-am formula of the Gospel—pronounces the comforting “I am (he)” (6.20; cf. Mark 6.50) to the disciples in his epiphany upon the sea and when it says that his opponents or followers will at some point recognize “that I am (he)” (ὅτι ἐγώ εἰμι) (8.24, 28; 13.19, etc.). In all these cases the concern is not with a mere recognition but with the comforting or terrifying insight that in Jesus God himself is encountered in his saving or judging action. The christological exclusivity of the Johannine “I am” is narratively developed in diverse ways. Thus, from the beginning, other figures say “I am not (he)” (so the Baptist in 1.19-21), address Jesus in a confession-like way with “you are” (σὺ εἶ),30 or say of him “this one is” (οὗτός ἐστιν),31 and these formulations prepare the way for Jesus’ own “I am” or “play” with it. So it is certainly not by chance that (with one exception32) no one else says “I am” in the Gospel. The ἐγώ εἰμι of Jesus is a linguistic form that is exclusively used christologically and therefore not to be explained with reference to the diverse formulas of identification, recognition, or revelation in the ancient world. Rather, it must be understood precisely in its exclusivity and understood with reference to the authoritative selfrevelation of the biblical God, whom Jesus represents in his word. The phrase receives a final narrative elaboration in the scene of the arrest of Jesus. Following the repeated ἐγώ εἰμι (18.5, 6),33 which in itself is to be translated here as the self-predication “I am he,” with which Jesus identifies himself to those seeking him as the one who is sought, the armed troop—which includes a whole Roman cohort34—draws back and falls to the ground before Jesus. Entirely inconceivable historically, this is a linguistic interlinking of these statements with the absolute I-am sayings, this interpretation is obsolete (on this, see, fundamentally, Thyen 1992; 1995; see further Hinrichs 1988. S. Petersen’s attempt (Petersen 2008) to revive the Bultmannian interpretation and strictly separate the absolute and the metaphorical I-am sayings cannot convince interpretively. 29 For the Shepherd image, e.g., see, in addition to the Old Testament parallels, the parallels from the Greek Bucolic in R. Zimmermann 2004. 30 John 1.49. 31 John 4.42. 32 John 9.9 identifies the healed man with this expression as the one who was formerly blind. Here the meaning is clear: “I am the man.” 33 The ἐγώ εἰμι occurs a total of three times in the pericope: in Jesus’ sayings in 18.5, 8, and in the narrative in 18.6, which takes up the saying of 18.5. 34 The fact that a σπεῖρα, i.e., an entire Roman cohort, is mentioned already bursts through what is historically imaginable by a long shot.

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dramaturgically highly effective presentation of the divine authority of Jesus, which is expressed in the ἐγώ εἰμι. Following the metaphorical speech of Jesus as the “light of the world” in the light-saying of John 8.12, this formula is even unpacked in an almost exegetical manner: “I am not alone but I and the Father who sent me” (μόνος οὐκ εἰμι, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πέμψας με πατήρ). In Jesus’ “I am”—and specifically also in a metaphorically expanded I-am statement—Father and Son are united, i.e., Jesus speaks not only on his own accord but in divine authority. This notion is then expressed also in the pointed statement of John 10.30: “I and the Father are one (ἕν).”35 Finally, this oneness of Jesus with the divine Father comes to expression when he prays a prayer at the tomb of Lazarus, which is really not a prayer but information for those watching: Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven and says, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me; however, I have said this for the sake of the people standing around that they may believe that you have sent me” (11.41-42). Thus, the Johannine Jesus does not really need to pray; he is in such a unity with the Father that he sees him acting and hears him speaking, and, conversely, he is likewise always and unquestionably heard and answered by the Father. The oneness of will and activity could not be described more intimately. There is, however, no talk of a oneness in essence, as the later christological dogma describes it, for the Fourth Gospel does not formulate in ontological concepts. Nevertheless, that Jesus is fundamentally distinguished from all human beings and thus belongs in the most intimate manner on the side of God is clearly recognizable also without this terminology. 1.4 The Johannine Picture of Christ as a Markedly Post-Easter Perspective Here, however, one must pay attention to the perspective from which these statements are formulated, indeed to the perspective from which such a picture of Christ can be sketched in the first place. The Gospel of John is not, after all, an eye- and earwitness report in the sense that it would merely intend to provide an exact reproduction of what once happened. This is why the Johannine Jesus is also not simply the Jesus of history. Rather, it is clear—and this is explicitly acknowledged in the text of the Gospel36—that the picture of Christ portrayed here has arisen from the postEaster ‘remembrance’ and thus from the christological insight of the postEaster community. Ultimately, it is indebted—according to the Johannine 35 36

One must note that it is not “one person” (εἷς). Cf. also John 17.11, 21-23. See John 2.22 and 12.16, which were mentioned above.

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self-understanding—to the activity of the post-Easter Spirit. Only in this way can the freedom in the presentation of the events and the considerable changes vis-à-vis the older tradition be understood: this Jesus, who is one with the Father and has the authority to lay down his life and take it up again, cannot die with the cry of lament of God-forsakenness on the cross but only with the triumphal exclamation “It is finished” (19.30), with which he, as the divine sent one, declares that the commission entrusted to him has been carried out and at the same time proclaims the fulfillment of the salvific will of God given beforehand in Scripture. The Johannine Jesus, who speaks his ἐγώ εἰμι in divine authority, so that the armed troop falls to the ground, who calls the stinking and bound Lazarus from the tomb into freedom, and who speaks his triumphal τετέλεσται on the cross, is the Jesus of post-Easter “remembrance,” of the christological insight granted in the Spirit, and with the Easter perspective of the Gospel this knowledge is already brought into the narrative of his earthly way. 2. Jesus as θεός and the Titles of a “Low” and “High” Christology It is also in this perspective that we find the key to the Christology of the Gospel of John,37 whose defining characteristic can be seen in the fact that it combines—already in the first chapter—a multitude of predications: some that can be assigned to a “low” Christology (Messiah, prophet, sent one) as well as others that can be assigned to a markedly “high” Christology (Son of God, Son of Man, God). These “titles of majesty”38 have received less attention in recent scholarship since the christological discussion has concentrated more on narrative structures and linguistic images39 and, above all, since the optimism with regard to the reconstruction of a “development” of Johannine Christology from “below” to “above” has disappeared. Attempts to isolate an original sending Christology,40 prophet Christology,41 or Messiah Christology behind the Gospel of John and then to assign 37

On this, see, e.g., Schnelle 2007, 669–703 (GV = 2013b, 629–63), who programmatically states at the outset: “The basis of Johannine thinking is the unity in essential being, revelation, and work between Father and Son” (2007, 669; 2013b, 629). For the understanding of the introduction of the “glory” recognized after Easter into the presentation of the earthly way of Jesus, see also chapter 7 in this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62). 38 Cf. the fundamental study of Hahn 1995 (ET = 1969); on John, see Hahn 2011, I: 625–37. 39 Thus, e.g., R. Zimmermann 2004. 40 Thus Bühner 1977. 41 Thus Meeks 1967; Boismard 1993.

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this to an older literary stratum and the “high christological” statements to a later literary stratum have not produced convincing results.42 The reconstruction of a history of the Johannine Christology—let alone of the history of the Johannine community by means of the Christology—cannot succeed on the basis of the Johannine texts that have been handed down.43 At any rate, materially the statements of high Christology, and ultimately the θεός-predication (1.1, 18; 20.28), constitute the frame that determines the understanding of the whole,44 and the function of the other christological statements must be specified within this framework on the basis of the divinity of Jesus Christ or his oneness with the Father, which was recognized after Easter. 2.1 Messiah and Christos When the goal of the Gospel is expressed at the end of the Gospel in 20.30-31 as “in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” the Christ title takes up the tradition of early Jewish expectations regarding the Messiah45 or of the predication of Jesus as “the Messiah” (Greek: ὁ χριστός), which points back to the confession “Jesus is the Christ/ Messiah.” This presumably has its roots in the pre-Easter activity of Jesus, which was understood as messianic by his followers,46 and in his crucifixion as a messianic pretender.47 The talk of Jesus as the Χριστός is present from John the Baptist’s statement that he is “not the Χριστός” (1.20; 3.28) to the concluding confessional formula in 20.31. It is evident that the evangelist knows of the messianic implications of the term and is familiar with 42

For criticism of these source-critical strata models, see Frey 1997b, 265–97. The reconstruction of such a development was the goal of the studies of Richter 1977 and those of some of his students and grandstudents. For criticism, see Frey 1997b, 287–94. 44 To this is added in the middle of the Gospel (10.30) the statement “I and the Father are one.” 45 On this, see the overview in Schreiber 2000; J. J. Collins 1995; J. Zimmermann 1998; see further Charlesworth 1998; J. J. Collins 2000; Oegema 1998; Evans 1995. 46 On this, see the fundamental study of Hengel 2001; 1995; as well as Frey 2002a. Cf. now also Schröter 2014, 168–77. The confession of Peter handed down in Mark 8.29 (σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός) summarizes in a saying what was probably ascribed to Jesus on the basis of his activity already during his earthly ministry (cf. Mark 14.61); this can also be seen without the messiah title in the question of the Baptist in Q Luke 7.19-20 (σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἣ ἄλλον προσδοκῶμεν;), which presents, of course, an encoded Messiah-question. 47 Hengel 2001, 1–8 (cf. 1995, 1–7), shows that the very early confession (Rom 5.8; 14.9, 15; 1 Cor 8.11; 15.3; Gal 2.21) can only be explained in such a way that the death of Jesus was connected from the very beginning with his messiahship or his condemnation as a messianic pretender; see further Frey 2002a, 303–4; 2011a, 83–85. 43

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Jewish discourses regarding the Messiah,48 for example, when Andrew leads his brother Simon to Jesus with the statement “We have found the Messiah” (εὑρήκαμεν τὸν Μεσσίαν),49 and the evangelist then provides a commentary on this for his readership by adding “which translated means ‘the Christ’ ” (1.41). Nathanael, the “true Israelite,” also confesses Jesus with “messianic” terminology as the “king of Israel” (1.49). The Samaritan woman testifies (using thoroughly Jewish terminology) to her hope for the coming of the “Messiah” (4.25; cf. 4.29), and Martha of Bethany confesses Jesus as Χριστός and “Son of God” (11.27; cf. 20.31). Especially in the discussions with the Ἰουδαῖοι in John 7 there is a taking up of a series of statements from diverse Jewish discourses about the Messiah, about his origin, his “signs,” and his eternal reign (7.27, 41; cf. 12.34),50 with which the evangelist is apparently familiar. To be sure, one cannot demonstrate from this that the Gospel sought to make faith in Jesus as the Messiah accessible to Jews,51 and it is even less possible to draw out from these connections an older “stratum” of the Johannine discussion.52 Rather, the “sprinklings” from Jewish discourses about the Messiah in the speeches of characters53 in the Gospel are used to mediate to the readers themselves a positive knowledge of Christ that goes beyond the misunderstanding of the Ἰουδαῖοι. While Jesus is, of course, “the Messiah” and “the king of Israel” (1.49) for John, “Messiah” or Χριστός is no longer the decisive christological predicate. Rather, it is interpreted through the title “Son of God” with which Χριστός is connected in multiple places (11.27; 20.31) and which—although it likewise comes from the Messiah tradition54—is 48

The discussions in John 7 show this as well. On this, see Bauckham 2006 (= 2007b, 207–52). 49 Bauckham 2006, 54 (= 2007b, 226) points out that the transcription Μεσσίας points back to the Aramaic ‫ משיחא‬and therefore bears witness at least to knowledge of Aramaicspeaking Christians. 50 On this, see Bauckham 2006, 62–67 (= 2007b, 231–38). 51 The purpose statement in John 20.31 with the (textually very uncertain) aorist has sometimes been evaluated in this way, without the narrative presuppositions of John for his readers being adequately taken into account. 52 It can scarcely be contested historically that the beginnings of Christology are, in fact, connected with the term Messiah and with the riddling phrase “Son of Man,” which is found only in the mouth of Jesus in the Gospels. Even though forms of a high Christology were developed quite quickly after Easter (on this, see the fundamental study of Hurtado 2003), the explicit application of divine predicates and speech forms to Jesus as well as the explicit talk of Jesus as “God” represent a later stage of the tradition. On this, see also section 4.1 of chapter 11 in this volume (GV = Frey 2010a, 461–65; 2013a, 816–20). 53 On the speeches of characters and their function in the discourses of John 7, see Moser 2014, 210–13, 220–39. 54 On this, see the fundamental study of Hengel 1977.

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much more generally understandable, not least in the framework of the frequent talk of “sons of god” in the Hellenistic-Roman world.55 2.2 Prophet and King That the Fourth Evangelist is familiar with a great breadth of messianic discourses is shown by the use of other predications such as “Elijah”56 and “the prophet” (alongside “Christos”) already in the introductory witness of the Baptist (1.21-22). While Elijah is not taken up again during the subsequent course of the narrative, the expectation of a or “the” prophet occurs two more times. In 6.14 the crowd regards Jesus as the coming prophet due to his feeding miracle, and in 7.40 some of the people identify Jesus with “the prophet,” while others regard him as the Messiah (7.41). In making recourse to these eschatologically expected salvific figures the Fourth Gospel reflects the breadth of “messianic” conceptions in contemporary Judaism, which scholars have become aware of not least through the discoveries at Qumran.57 This multifaceted variety of hopes, which precisely do not follow a “Messiah dogma,” provide the background against which the activity of Jesus and the early development of Christology are comprehensible,58 and this background is also present in the Fourth Gospel. However, when Jesus is called “prophet”59 by the Samaritan woman (4.19) and then “the prophet” by the Galilean witnesses of the bread miracle (6.14), it is ultimately clear that this is not yet the actual knowledge of Christ. The Samaritans speak of the “savior of the world” at the end, and the group of the witnesses of the bread miracle is charged with understanding Jesus’ deed on a purely “earthly” level. The crowd has only become satiated and has seen no “sign” (6.26). In this way 55

It also corresponds to this that in the Samaritan pericope the title of Messiah (4.21) is ultimately outdone by the title “savior of the world,” which is awarded to Jesus at the end (4.42). Within the framework of the Hellenistic world, the σωτήρ-title is also known for benefactors and not least for emperors. 56 Cf. Mal 3.23-24 (LXX 3.22-23); Sir 48.10-11; 1 En. 90.31; 4Q558 1 ii 4; LAB 48.1; as well as in the New Testament Mark 9.11-12; Luke 17.10-11. The figure of the returning Elijah was simultaneously connected with hope in an eschatological high priest. On this, see Bauckham 2006, 36–38 (= 2007b, 209–11), who infers from this that John 1.19-21 takes up right at the beginning of the Gospel the three eschatological “roles” of king, (high) priest, and prophet (2006, 38; 2007b, 211). 57 Although in Jesus all these eschatological expectations are meant to be regarded as fulfilled, the figures are nevertheless distinguished from one another (see 7.40-41) and not simply fused. 58 On this, see, fundamentally, Frey 2002a. 59 At this point the predication is prompted, of course, by the statements of Jesus about the woman who knows that he “sees through” her and who therefore titles him as prophet.

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their statement is ultimately disqualified as incompetent. In John 9.17 the statement of the healed man born blind that Jesus is a prophet is also ultimately outdone by another, higher confession.60 In the relevant episodes the predication “prophet” marks at best a step on the way to understanding the true dignity of Jesus but not yet the Johannine view. An older stratum of Johannine Christology, let alone the Christology of a pre-Johannine Grundschrift, cannot be reconstructed from these predications. This also applies to the connection between the titles of prophet and king proposed by Wayne Meeks.61 The Galileans’ intention to make Jesus a “bread king” in John 6.15 is narratively evaluated as a gross misunderstanding, and, when the kingly dignity of Jesus and his βασιλεία is finally presented in great density in the account of Pilate and the passion, this occurs in connection with the Messiah title (cf. 1.49) and in a reshaping of the traditional talk of the kingdom of God (3.3, 5) in the specific Johannine perspective, according to which this dignity is realized precisely in the “entirely different” kingdom of Jesus, which is “not of this world” (18.36), i.e., in the reign of the exalted crucified one.62 This is what the Fourth Gospel—not least through the narrative configuration of its passion narrative—seeks to reveal to its readers: that this crucified one is, in fact, the exalted one, indeed the king of Israel and of the world. 2.3 The Sent One and His Authority A linguistic motif that occurs especially often is the motif of the “sending” of Jesus. Some interpreters have attempted to subsume the whole of Johannine Christology under this motif or under an overall mythological event of the sending and return of the divine sent one derived from it.63 The motif occurs in a formulaic way in the expression “the Father who sent me . . .” and yet also beyond this in a variety of statements with the verb ἀποστέλλειν.64 Jesus is the sent one of the Father, and this sending motif 60

Cf. John 9.33, 35, 38: Jesus is “from God”; he is “the Son of Man.” According to v. 22 the confession of the healed man is a confession to Jesus as “Christ.” 61 Meeks 1967. 62 On this, cf. Frey 2000b, 271–77; see also in detail Frey 2014b. See also Hengel 1991a. 63 In addition to Bühner 1977, see also Miranda 1976; Loader 1989. The interpretation of the Johannine Christology by Käsemann 1980 (ET = 1968) is also basically based on the prioritization of the motif of the sending of Jesus (3.16-17). The sending idea is also regarded as the “key motif for the understanding of the Gospel of John” in Hahn 2011, I: 605, not least because in 13.20 John takes up the sending idea in its original form and then makes it, in a much more comprehensive understanding, the basis of his Gospel (see idem, 607). 64 See the analysis in Schnackenburg 1987.

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corresponds with tradition-historical givens such as the sending of Wisdom (Sir 24) or of the Word of God (Isa 55.11). Thus, it can be connected to the statements of the Prologue, even though its terminology differs from the terminology of the subsequent narrative.65 In the Johannine context the motif of the sent one is, to be sure, precisely a motif of authorization. Here, reference is fittingly made to the culture-historically broadly attested principle that the one who is sent acts with the same authority as the one who sends him. Jesus’ “being sent” must therefore be viewed in connection with other statements about his divine authorization. He comes from above and can therefore bring true revelation. He has seen and heard and proclaims correspondingly. Whether this sending Christology in John actually represents “the oldest stratum”66 of the Johannine Christology, as Jan A. Bühner attempted to demonstrate in his interesting culture-historical analysis of the Jewish shaliaḥ institution,67 remains doubtful historically.68 In terms of subject matter the motif of the sent one in the Fourth Gospel must be understood at any rate within the framework of the statements of the Prologue and of the motif of Jesus’ oneness with the Father.69 Accordingly, the sending motif in the Fourth Gospel is precisely not an element of a “low” Christology but an explication of the statements of Jesus’ heavenly origin and divine authorization. 2.4 The Son of Man as Heavenly Figure In John the heavenly origin of Jesus is connected especially with the Son of Man title.70 In the Fourth Gospel this title designates “the earthly Jesus who has his actual home in heaven.”71 The title occurs here—as in the Synoptic tradition—only in the mouth of Jesus. However, in contrast to the Synoptic tradition, it is consistently connected with the heavenly dimension in the Fourth Gospel. This is reflected programmatically in John 1.51, where the Son of Man is predicated as the place of the presence of God on earth with the motif of the heavenly ladder. In 3.13 (cf. 6.62), the Son of 65 The relationship between the Prologue and Johannine narrative cannot be discussed in greater detail here. On this, see (with a firm thesis) Theobald 1988. 66 Thus also Schnackenburg 1987, 291. 67 Bühner 1977; on this, see already Rengstorf 1965. 68 The limit of the interesting tradition-historical reconstruction of Bühner 1977 lies precisely in the fact that his analyses are carried out with a consistent nonconsideration of the Prologue. 69 Thus, rightly, Appold 1976, 22. For the motif of oneness in John, cf. now also Byers 2017. 70 On this, see Rhea 1990; Burkett 1991; Sasse 2000; Moloney 2005b; Reynolds 2008. For the topic, see also the concise treatment in Hahn 2011, I: 630–32. 71 Thus Schnackenburg 1987, 284.

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Man is explicitly the one who has come down from heaven and thus the one who is authorized to reveal heavenly things. Other statements especially connect the “exaltation” and “glorification” of Jesus with the Son of Man title (3.14; 8.28; 12.23, 32, 34; 13.31-32), through which the earthly or crucified one’s connection with the heavenly world or—expressed from the post-Easter perspective—his exaltation to the right hand of God or to the Father is also thematized. Thus, the Son of Man title is especially connected with the motifs of sending and authorization: “As the Son of Man who has descended from heaven and has ascended back to heaven, in John’s understanding he already fulfills in the present his functions as judge (5.27) [and] giver of life (6.27, 52, 62).”72 As such he is the authorized representative of the Father in whom humans encounter God himself. Thus, the Son of Man title is clearly an expression of high Christology. 2.5 The Son and His Oneness with the Father This applies a fortiori to the talk of “the Son.”73 This predication—formally a “shortening” of the title of majesty “Son of God” (1.49; 3.18; 5.25; 10.36; 11.4, 27; 19.7; 20.31), which is closely connected with the talk of the “Messiah” in terms of tradition history74—is especially conspicuous in John because it characterizes the especially close connection of Father and Son and thus connects the earthly Jesus in an unsurpassable way with God.75 The mutual relation of Father and Son articulates itself with special density and simultaneously as an interpretation of the sending motif in the farewell prayer of John 17. Here the Son title does not always need to be used since it is contained in Jesus’ talk of the “Father” or in his address to the Father. Moreover, this address expresses Jesus’ exclusive relationship to God, which is conspicuously distinguished terminologically from that of believers as children of God (20.17).76 Finally, it is significant that his Jewish dialogue partners’ accusation that he illegitimately makes himself God (5.18; 10.33-39; 19.7) is prompted by Jesus’ use of the Son title and 72

Schnelle 2007, 691, modified (GV = 2013b, 651). On this, see also Hahn 2011, I: 627–30. 74 See 2 Sam 2.7; 4QFlor I 6–7; 4 Ezra 7.28-29; 13.32, 37, 52; 14.9; 1 En. 105.2; 4Q246 II 1; on this, see Bauckham 2006, 57–58 (= 2007b, 228–30). 75 The statements about “the Son” are consistently joined with the Father linguistically or thematically. The Son is loved by the Father (3.35; 5.20; 10.17; 15.9; 17.23-24, 26), both work in oneness, and the Father must be seen in the Son (14.9), for the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (10.38; 14.11); cf. Schnackenburg 1987, 286. 76 Only after Easter, in 20.17, is there talk of God as Father of believers, and this is also expressed separately and not connected with Jesus’ relationship as Son in a common “our Father.” On this, see section 3.2 of chapter 10 in this volume (GV = Frey 2012f, 229– 30); and, in detail, Back 2012. 73

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his talk of God as his Father. This makes clear once more how the Fourth Evangelist sees the implication of this linguistic form. Here “Son of God” is much more than a traditional messianic predication. In the oneness with the Father (10.30), the “Son” of the Father is himself “God.” 2.6 The “God” Predication The fact that the Johannine Jesus ultimately belongs no longer on the side of human beings but on the side of God is already reflected in narrative texts such as the Lazarus episode and in linguistic forms such as the I-am words. This subject matter also receives titular expression in John. The Son—who is one with the Father, bears life in himself, gives the Spirit (cf. 3.34; 20.22), and acts in God’s place in judgment and the giving of life (5.22-23, 26-27)—is also explicitly designated as θεός. Thomas’ confession “My Lord and my God” (20.28) is the highest confession in the whole Gospel, climactically pronounced by Thomas at the end of the last episode on the basis of the Easter encounter with the risen one. In addition to this confession, “God” is used in the Prologue for the primordial Logos (1.1) and for the μονογενής (1.18), and there can be no doubt that the Godpredications (in 1.1, 18; and 20.28) have been deliberately placed around the whole narrative of Jesus as an inclusio and thus mark the interpretive frame in which the Johannine Christology aims to be understood. At the same time, it always remains clear that this “God” Jesus is distinguished from the Father and not only has his authorization but also his divinity as μονογενής from the Father. The Fourth Evangelist is very conscious of the offensive boldness of this linguistic form and provides himself a bold argumentation from Scripture (Ps 81.6 LXX) to justify it (10.34-36). He transgresses the boundaries set by monotheism at no point, and he remains true to his “binitarian monotheism.”77 At the same time the author is aware that his view developed only after Easter and was disclosed to the witnesses only through the “reminding” Spirit and in retrospect. The earthly Jesus, who is the protagonist of the narrative, is recognized as God from the perspective of Easter, and it follows from this—as a consequence in the retrospective viewpoint, mind you—that this can also be said for his beginning and origin, i.e., as the Logos.78 Johannine Christology, which can only be sketched in extracts here, integrates a multitude of traditions and makes recourse thereby to 77 Thus the terminology in Hurtado 2003. For the topic, see section 4.2 in chapter 10 of this volume (GV = 2012f, 245–49). See also Frey 2013e. 78 On this phenomenon of retrojection, see chapter 7 of this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62).

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very different Jewish and early Christian discourses. Here the “lower” predications—i.e., the talk of Messiah, prophet, and sent one—are clearly understood in the sense of the high Christology, as it finds expression in the titles “Son of Man,” “Son,” and “God” and in numerous other features of the Johannine narrative and of the Johannine discourses of Jesus. Narrative shaping, biblical metaphors (such as the shepherd metaphor), arguments from Scripture (such as the reception of Ps 81 LXX in John 10.34-36), specific terminological further developments (in the use of the Son of Man title and in the absolute use of the Son title), as well as the compositionally conspicuous use of the θεός title, which was applied to Jesus only very slowly and haltingly in early Christianity, are connected here to form an exceptionally dense expression of a high Christology, and it is not by chance that John served as the most important witness for the discussion of Christology and the Trinity in the early church. 3. Jesus as Image of God: The Visualization of God in the Glorified Crucified One and in His Way In the Gospel of John it is conspicuous that the dignity of Jesus as eschatological representative and authorized agent of God, as “the Son,” indeed as θεός, is expressed in a distinctive way in spatial-metaphorical (as “reciprocal immanence”) and in iconic categories. Jesus is the one and only “image” of the invisible God. With this the incarnational dimension of the Fourth Gospel comes into play, the bodily mediation, the mode of seeing, which has often been underestimated for theological reasons in comparison to the hearing of the word.79 Accordingly, it is necessary to ask more precisely how the christological knowledge and, beyond this, the presence of God in Jesus Christ is mediated in the Gospel of John—with the addressees of this mediation ultimately being not the figures of the disciples of Jesus within the text but the extratextual readers. 3.1 “The One Who Sees Me Sees the Father” “The one who sees me sees the Father” (ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα) is stated in John 14.7. But who is to be seen here, by whom, 79

For the significance of bodiliness in the Gospel of John, see chapter 6 in this volume (GV = Frey 2009c; 2013a, 699–738); and Hirsch-Luipold 2017. Alongside the dimension of seeing, tasting (of the wine: 2.9-10), smelling (of the aroma: 12.3; cf. also 11.39), and touching (of the wounds by Thomas—even if this is not reported separately: 20.27) are significant in John.

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and when? After all, this statement is not a trans-temporal, generally valid statement but must be read in its narrative context. It is situated in the framework of the Farewell Discourses in which the sorrow and anxiety of the disciples are presented in a way that is transparent for the sorrow and adversities of the post-Easter community in the time of the “absence” of Jesus, while, conversely, the words of the departing one addressed to the disciples are meant to provide comfort and orientation for the situation “thereafter.”80 This is why reference is made here to the post-Easter “seeing again” (14.19, 20; 16.16-19), to the Spirit (14.16-17, 26; 15.26; 16.711, 13-16), to love (13.34-35; 15.13, 17), and to the remaining in Jesus’ words (14.21-24; 15.4, 5, 7, 10, 17), just as, conversely, the community of disciples’ sorrow and perceived abandonment (13.33, 36-38; 14.5), their feeling of being orphaned (14.18), and their being troubled (14.1, 27) by unbelief and by the hatred of the world are thematized. The context of this statement in John 14.9 must be taken into account. After all, the first Farewell Discourse (13.31–14.31) is permeated “dialogically” by questions from disciples. After the meal and the identification of the “one who hands him over,” who goes into the night to his dark deed (13.30), Jesus is alone with the “true” disciples. To them he announces his “departure,” which initially triggers only a lack of understanding. They become sorrowful and ask where Jesus will go (13.36; 14.5). First, Peter asks, who wants to “follow” Jesus, indeed to give his life for him, and he is taught that he cannot follow Jesus “now” but will follow him later (into death) (13.36-38; cf. 21.18-19).81 The disciples are warned not to become “troubled”82 but “to believe in God and in Jesus” (14.1). Thus, the theme of the discourse is the “troubledness” and grief as well as the crisis of discipleship that unavoidably enters through Jesus’ departure, i.e., death. After Easter these phenomena are replaced by “faith.” After the eschatological saying of 14.2-3, the theme of the way and goal of Jesus is taken up again in 14.4 when Jesus provocatively says to the disciples: “Where I am going—you know the way (there)” (14.4). However, literarily this statement provides merely the occasion for another, evidently ignorant question from a disciple, now from Thomas. The disciples know neither the goal of the departure nor the way. They are (as literary figures) conspicuously 80

For an introduction to the problem of the Farewell Discourses, see, fundamentally, Frey 1998, 247–52; 2000b, 124–27. 81 On this, see Frey 2000b, 127–28. 82 Here the Gospel uses the word ταράσσεσθαι (14.1, 27), which is concurrently used in scenes in which Jesus himself experiences “troubledness” in the encounter with death (cf. 11.33; 12.27; 13.21). Thus, we find here a subtle statement of place-taking; on this, see Frey 2000b, 131f. See also section 3.3 in chapter 5 of this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 572–80, esp. 580).

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deficient in their understanding. Thus, their lack of understanding provides the foil for Jesus’ revelatory statement in 14.6. The literary structure of this verse is clear: the ignorant questions from the disciples provide a foil against which Jesus’ revelation can shine all the more brightly. The Fourth Evangelist is obviously “playing” with the motif of ignorance and revelation, with the disciples’ lack of understanding being presented so clearly literarily that one can view it only as an exhortation to the readers to activate their previous knowledge and ultimately to understand better than the disciple figures in the text. At the same time they are meant to understand that they are in a soteriologically better situation than the erstwhile disciples of the earthly Jesus (16.7) because—in contrast to those disciples—the meaning and goal of the departure of Jesus has been disclosed to them after Easter. They can understand now what was, according to the Johannine presentation, still incomprehensible for Peter, Thomas, and Philip during Jesus’ lifetime. John 14.7-9 has the same structure as 14.4-6: Jesus’ statement in v. 7 provokes another ignorant question from a disciple, now from Philip, who prepares, in turn, Jesus’ substantiation in v. 9. The request of Philip: “Show us the Father” signals again his lack of understanding. After all, this formulation does not imply the unity of Father and Son but precisely their separation. To “know” the Father is evidently something that is only disclosed after Easter and had to appear incomprehensible prior to Jesus’ departure. When Jesus says, “If you have come to know me, you will know my Father also, and from now on you know him and have seen him” (εἰ ἐγνώκατε με, καὶ τὸν πατέρα μου γνώσεσθε. καὶ ἀπ’ ἄρτι γινώσκετε αὐτὸν καὶ ἑωράκατε αὐτόν) in 14.7,83 the conspicuous “from now on” (ἀπ’ ἄρτι) already points to this threshold, which is “now,”84 i.e., in the hour of Jesus’ death. This knowledge of the Father through the knowledge of Jesus is apparently a knowledge that becomes possible only with the “hour of Jesus,” in view of the completed history of Jesus, as post-Easter knowledge, just as in the Gospel it is only with the day of Easter that there is talk of God as the Father of the disciples (20.17). Here, the use of the perfect ἑωράκατε is indeed significant: 83

For the text-critical problem, see Barrett 1978, 458–59. The irrealis reading

ἐγνώκειτε (in Vaticanus) is probably an adjustment conjectured from vv. 8-9. V. 7b favors

a realis in the sense of a form of the conditional sentence that is to be understood as a promise. 84 Attention must be given to the especially emphatic marking of the “now” in the context of the proclamation of the hour of Jesus (12.23, 27) and in the opening saying of the Farewell Discourses (13.31-32). On this, see Frey 1998, 213–14.

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The ἑωράκατε (as well as the thematically related statement in v. 9: ὁ ἑωρακὼς ἐμὲ ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα) expresses . . . in the most succinct . . . manner the theological basic structure of the earthly history of Jesus: The history of Jesus is “now,” i.e., in the context of the passion but also from the perspective of the post-Easter community, at its end and completed, and, nevertheless, it is an event that is determinative for all further time and that continues . . . in its effects.85

Philip’s answer with the request “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us” makes it only abundantly clear that he has understood nothing. This is clarified in John 14.9 with an explicit reproach by Jesus: “Have I been with you so long and you still have not come to know me Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say: ‘Show us the Father!’?” The misunderstanding of the disciples of the earthly Jesus could not be emphasized more clearly! As an explanation or justification, there follows one of the Johannine statements of the “reciprocal immanence” of the Father and Son: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (14.9-10). So, who is seen here—and when? The literary configuration shows that what is meant here is not simply the perception of the earthly Jesus and his deeds, although this is initially suggested by the reproach of Philip. The disciples should have known him on the basis of the fellowship with Jesus, as Jesus’ contemporaries also should have believed in him on the basis of the signs (12.34-43). However, according to the Johannine account, both have not come to pass to the expected extent. The motif of the disciples’ lack of understanding, which is sprinkled in here as in v. 5, has a literary and didactic function. It motivates Jesus’ deepened revelation, and it implicitly exhorts the readers of the Gospel to understand better in light of the perception of the disciples’ lack of understanding. For the concern of the evangelist cannot ultimately be to “evaluate” the disciples of the earthly Jesus as persons of the past. In the present work they are consistently literary figures, who function to advance the line of thought in their character speeches and to provoke the readers to a reaction. With the help of the narrative of the events surrounding Jesus’ death, the readers are meant to attain to an understanding that goes beyond the inadequate understanding of the disciples of the earthly Jesus. Thus, ‘knowing’ the Father or “having him before one’s eyes,” namely through “seeing” or “having seen” Jesus, is only a possibility of the post-Easter period. The disciples of the earthly Jesus did not de facto attain to this understanding. It is only possible in the perception of Jesus as the Gospel of John portrays 85

Dettwiler 1995, 169.

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him, in the literary picture of his person and his way. This is where Jesus is the “exegete” of the Father (1.18) and where the Father is disclosed: in the interpreted presentation of the earthly way of Jesus and in the perception of his person and his work via reading the Father is revealed. 3.2 “I Am in the Father and the Father Is in Me”: Reciprocal Immanence and Representation This revelation of the Father in Jesus is now elaborated and justified again through a different statement, which must be ranked among the most pointed statements of Johannine Christology—the “reciprocal immanence” of the Father and the Son: “that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”86 This statement is introduced in John 14.10 as a question addressed to Philip (“Do you not believe that . . .”) and is then repeated in the following verse as an exhortation (“Believe me that . . .”). This repetitive structure already makes clear that with this a central statement and the climax of the sequence of vv. 7ff. is reached.87 At the end of v. 10, another variation is introduced: “The Father who remains in me (ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων) performs his works.” Thus, the concern is not only with a temporary presence of the Father in the Son that is perhaps limited to the time of the earthly Jesus but with a lasting “remaining” of the Father in the Son, apparently without further temporal limitation, which therefore also has validity beyond the “hour” of Jesus in the post-Easter period. This is not the first time that the linguistic formula of “immanence”88 (εἶναι ἐν or μένειν ἐν with personal subject and object), and its reciprocal version occurs in the Gospel. It appears first in the so-called eucharistic section of the bread discourse89 in John 6.56 with a view to the relation between Jesus and his disciples and, then, related for the first time to the relationship of the Father and the Son, at the high point of the shepherd discourse in John 10.38. There Jesus’ ἐν ἐμοὶ ὁ πατὴρ κἀγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρί leads directly to an attempt by his Jewish opponents to stone him, so that the eminent christological claim in this statement (analogously to the statement of oneness in 10.30) is clear. After the resumption of the statement of reciprocal immanence in 14.10-11, the linguistic formula of immanence is related 86

For this linguistic form, see in detail Scholtissek 2000a; see also section 4.3 in chapter 10 of this volume (GV = Frey, 2012f, 250–51). 87 The imperative πιστεύετε simultaneously forms with the doubled imperative πιστεύετε in 14.1 a small inclusio around the section 14.1-11. 88 For analysis of the findings, see Scholtissek 2000a, 141–74. 89 I cannot discuss here the question of whether or to what extent the section must be interpreted eucharistically. See, recently, Heilmann 2014, who advocates a noneucharistic interpretation.

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again to the relationship of the believers to Jesus in the vine discourse of John 15.1-17 before in the Farewell Prayer this dimension is interwoven again with the relationship between Father and Son, and the statement of the reciprocal immanence of the Father and Son (17.22) is closely interwoven with statements of the oneness of Father and Son (17.11), the oneness of the disciples among one another (17.11, 21), and the immanence of Jesus in the disciples (17.23). John 17.21 even announces the reciprocal immanence between disciples, Jesus, and God the Father. The christological statement of the reciprocal immanence of the Father and Son in John 10.38 is—like that of 14.11-12—connected with the works of Jesus and is thus situated in the context of the christological authority and dignity of Jesus, which is to be recognized through his works (10.38) or believed on the basis of his works (14.11). Thus, it stands at the same time in close connection with the statements of the authority of the sent one, and yet it surpasses these statements in the sense that the concern here is not only with a functional representation but with an even closer bond and in the sense that—above all—the structure of reciprocity of the “being-in” is not intended in the model of the authorized sent one.90 The reciprocal immanence also goes beyond the statements of the authorization of the Son who sees the works of the Father or hears his words (5.19-20, 30), for the authorization is also one-sided there. The opposite direction finds expression only in 11.42, in the “prayer” of Jesus, which declares itself to be superfluous because the Father “always hears” the Son. The Father does what the Son—without having to express it—asks him. In this way the Father and Son’s oneness of activity is also expressed reciprocally. Therefore, in the reciprocal immanence of Father and Son the oneness of Father and Son and thus the divine dignity of the Son is expressed in an unsurpassable way. By using not only the philosophically more strongly connoted term “one” (ἕν) but alongside and beyond it the spatial-metaphorical statement of the mutual being-in, the Fourth Gospel safeguards precisely the distinction between Father and Son while simultaneously affirming the most intimate connectedness in activity, will, and nature. At the same time, through this linguistic form it is made plausible that “in” Jesus the Father is to be seen, who makes himself present wholly and exclusively in the Son. “Jesus does not represent the Father, he presents him.”91 In this way the invisible God becomes manifest in him. This takes place concretely in Jesus’ “works,” which are done in close connection with the Father according to John 5.17 and even by the Father 90 91

On this, see Scholtissek 2000a, 255. Scholtissek 2000a, 256.

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himself, who is present in Jesus according to 14.10. What is in view here is precisely not only the miracles or “signs” of the earthly Jesus but— included in the term ἔργα—also the works that Jesus does, according to John 5.22-23, 26, on the basis of the authorization by the Father, i.e., his eschatological activity in the mediation of (eternal) life and in the carrying out of the judgment. These works of Jesus—or of the Father through Jesus—are not restricted to the time of his earthly activity but reach beyond it into the time of the community in which Jesus (and the Father through him) is active in the same way through the word of his witnesses and subsequent disciples. This is ultimately taken up in John 14.12, in the talk of the “greater works,” which most likely mean the subsequent activity of proclamation in the time of the community of disciples and through the disciples who have been authorized through the gift of his Spirit (20.22).92 Through the notion of reciprocal immanence, the other statements of high Christology in the Gospel of John also obtain their plausibility. Because God himself is present in Jesus, Jesus also speaks in the linguistic formula of the divine “I am,” gives the Spirit in divine authority (3.34), and acts in the authority of the one who has life in himself (5.26) and in whom the definitive decision over death and life is encountered. At the same time, the Gospel of John refrains from concretizing further the way in which God is encountered in Jesus. Neither the motif of the image of God from Genesis 1.26 nor philosophical εἰκών-theories are drawn upon here, so that the principle of the biblical God’s invisibility and nonrepresentability in images is indeed safeguarded and God is to be “seen” only “in” the incarnate one, in Jesus Christ. 3.3 Seeing the Glorified Crucified One Means Seeing God as Love But how is the invisible God, the Father, to be “seen” now by believers? How does the Gospel of John place him—in Jesus and his way—before one’s eyes? Besides the narrative staging as a whole, in my view one must pay attention to the focusing of the Gospel on the hour of Jesus’ death, 92

According to the Gospel’s open image of the disciples, the authorization of the disciples in John 20.22-23 applies not only to the Easter witnesses that were present “then” but also to the whole future community of disciples, whose witness and proclamation is, according to John 20.23, authorized in such a way that in it the same thing is effected as in the word of Jesus himself. The “greater works” of the disciples (14.12; cf. 5.20) are ultimately nothing other than the works of Jesus, which likewise take place in the post-Easter period through Jesus or in the authority of the Spirit but now in universal extension. On this, see Frey 2000b, 156–57 and 352–54.

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which is announced in advance at multiple points, then proclaimed in John 12.23 and expanded to seven chapters of the Gospel by the Farewell Discourses.93 What especially matters to the evangelist is apparently that his readers correctly understand precisely this event. The trial before Pilate and the crucifixion account are configured in such a way that in the crucifixion of Jesus, his exaltation or the enthronement of a king can paradoxically become recognizable.94 It is narratively mediated to the readers that a deep truth lies behind the event that is before their eyes: the crucified one is the true king; his cross is his throne, whence he rules through his word over those who hear his voice (18.36-37). Where unbelief sees only what is before one’s eyes, faith is meant to grasp the true meaning of this event with the inner eye. The specific configuration of the Johannine narrative is intended to contribute to this. Thus, the concern is indeed with (rightly) seeing Jesus in faith. This visual element has often been overlooked in exegetical research. Scholarship could not accept that John actually paints Jesus before the eyes of his readers.95 But the early proleptic pointer to the cross in John 3.14, the typological reference to the biblical episode of the serpent set up by Moses (Num 21.4-9), already points to this visual element. Just as, according to Numbers 21, those who “see” the serpent that is lifted up are to remain alive, so, according to John 3.15, everyone who “believes” in this exalted Son of Man is to have “eternal” life.96 While it is true that there is no verb of seeing in the Johannine text, it nevertheless places before one’s eyes a theological picture from Scripture with which the event of crucifixion is compared in essential points and interpreted in advance, namely as exaltation, which here can be read with the double meaning of the exaltation onto the cross and to the Father. A visual element is then encountered again after the crucifixion scene and the lance thrust, when the dark saying from Zechariah is quoted in the double quotation: “They will look on the one whom they have pierced” (19.37; Zech 12.10). This quotation is not interpreted further in the context of John 19.97 What is important, however, is the reference to the “seeing” precisely in the scene in which the crucified one has died. When the Johannine witness certifies here that blood and water flowed from the body of Jesus (with which the promise of the “streams of living waters” from John 93

On this, see Frey 2002c, 191–221 (= 2013a, 508–16). On this, see Frey 2000b, 271–77; 2014b. 95 Cf. Gal 3.1 in the Luther translation, which is especially graphic here. 96 On this, see in detail Frey 1994b (= 2013a, 89–145). 97 The quotation is closer to the Hebrew text than to the text of the LXX, which is completely different here. Materially, one must also ask whether the context of repentance and salvation that resonates in Zechariah is taken up here. See also Wilckens 1998, 301. 94

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7.37-38 receive a peculiar fulfillment), it is clear that salvation proceeds from the crucified one and that this is meant precisely to be “seen.” The image of Jesus in whom the Father is to be “seen” is apparently especially the exalted crucified one, from whom salvation proceeds. This salvific “visibility” of the cross is also not simply overcome and made obsolete by the Easter events, as the Easter encounters with the disciples and Thomas in John 20 show, in which joy and faith arise precisely from the seeing of the wounds of the crucifixion. Thus, seeing Jesus after Easter continues to mean seeing the glorified crucified one: Jesus’ whole history, which includes his earthly way with his words and deeds all the way to the events of his death and resurrection. According to the Johannine view, God’s nature is disclosed in this Jesus—who contains all the “stages” of his way.98 In the Johannine narrative of his activity and death—interpreted as an act of love (3.16; 15.13)— this nature is placed before one’s eyes. This means, conversely, that God’s nature is disclosed in a history—the history of Jesus of Nazareth, which took place in a concrete space and time. First John expresses this in a summarizing manner with regard to the predication of God as “love”: “In this appeared the love of God among us, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him” (1 John 4.9; cf. 4.10). In the history of this Son of God who was sent into the world, crucified, and exalted, God’s nature and thus the invisible God himself became ‘visible.’ Thus, according to John, seeing this Jesus in his interpreted history means seeing “the Father” and having him before one’s eyes. 4. Revelation Mediated through Reading To be sure, this seeing is only a mediated one. Indeed, a direct seeing of God remains excluded according to John 1.18. The history of Jesus is a history that is past, and the eyewitnesses, including the Easter witnesses, are also dead. How can their witness be mediated in a later time? How can the presence of Christ be mediated and with it the seeing of the Father? What is decisive here is the fact that in John the concern is not simply with the more or less credible mediation of historical facts but with the mediation of a specific christological revelation characterized by an unsurpassable truth claim. The concern is with no less than the revelation of who God is and what “life” is based on (cf. John 17.3). In the Gospel of 98

The Catholic New Testament scholar Joseph Blank—who died too early— introduced here the terminology of the “personal implication” of the Johannine presentation of Jesus. See Blank 1964.

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John this revelation is traced back literarily to the witness of the “disciple whom Jesus loved,” who literarily reclines, according to 13.23, “on the chest” (or “on the bosom”) of Jesus, just as Jesus, according to 1.18, “is in the bosom of the Father.” This revelation is configured as a witness of the intimate friend of the one who is one with the Father and can alone validly interpret the nature and will of God. The medium of the mediation of this revelation is now the book. The two book conclusions (20.30-31 and 21.24-25) emphasize the book character of the present work. Thus, for the addressees of the Gospel the revelation takes place emphatically in the process of reading. In the reading of the book, of the interpreted history of Jesus, the Johannine texts create the reading-mediated presence of Christ. It places the image of Christ before the eyes of the recipients, lets them understand the person and way of Christ through this, and lets them, thus, “see the Father.” What was not granted to the disciples of the earthly Jesus or at least could not be understood by them—this is now bestowed upon the readers. The reading-mediated presence can be conceived as a pneumatologically mediated presence. After all, it is the Spirit who legitimizes the Johannine proclamation of the gospel insofar as through his reminding and teaching he has mediated in the first place the post-Easter knowledge of Christ that is present here. At the same time, it is said of the Spirit in John 16.13-15 that he does not act of his own accord but draws from what belongs to Christ and was given to him by the Father. Moreover, according to the Johannine view, the Spirit is the entity that will guide the community of disciples “into all truth” (15.26). Thus, the mediation of the presence of Christ in the reading of the Gospel is ultimately made possible and accompanied by the continuum of the Spirit who has been promised and given to the disciples. In him the life-creating word of Christ and its salvific history are made present. And, in the Johannine view, the nature of God is revealed thereby. What this nature consists in is not summarized under one specific term in the Gospel. This takes place only in 1 John, which, with recourse to the sending of Jesus and his salvific death, specifies this nature as “love” and thus goes beyond the Gospel terminologically, while agreeing with it in substance (John 3.16 and elsewhere). According to John, “God is love” is the quintessence of the sending and history of Jesus. This is conveyed, however, not as a dogmatic statement but only in the contemplation of the way and fate of Jesus in the Easter perspective of the Gospel.

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1. Introduction The question of the biblical and Christian picture of God has been increasingly taken up again in the theological discussion. In the background stands the observable shift of interest in modern times from Christology and soteriology to the question of God, particularly, the discussion of the Israelite-biblical monotheism and its societal consequences1 and, most recently, especially questions of interreligious dialogue—most notably with Islam but also with Eastern religions—as well as questions involving the problem of religion and violence. While in society these discussions are usually conducted with an impetus that is critical of religion and theology, and Christian faith in God often finds itself in the dock in multiple respects, Christian theology must view its task as the working out of what actually constitutes Christian talk of God and how this differs from the frequently unspecific traditional philosophical and religious conceptions of God that are prevalent in society. This task is presented not least to biblical exegesis since Christian speech about God relates back in an elementary way to the Bible of the New and of the Old Testament and can find its standard and proprium only here.2 What is decisive in this regard is a hermeneutically considered recourse to the whole Scripture, if one does not wish to fall victim to a Marcionite tendency, i.e., to a historically untenable and theologically problematic opposition between the Old Testament God and a ‘God of Jesus Christ,’ 1

This discussion was stimulated in an impactful way by the Egyptologist Jan Assmann. Cf. Assmann 2001; 2003 (ET = 2010); 2015. 2 Cf., recently, Feldmeier/Spieckermann 2011a (ET = 2011b), which is pathbreaking in its biblical-theological conception. Cf. Erlemann 2008; Berger 2004, which are written in a popular style. 313

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who is, in that view, allegedly completely new in character.3 To be sure, such a tendency is close at hand for some varieties of modern theological thought—from Schleiermacher via Harnack4 to popular conceptions in the present.5 Thus, the talk of God is a touchstone for a ‘whole-Bible’ theology, irrespective of whether or not one regards this terminology as useful for conceptualizing a presentation of New Testament theology.6 In this horizon it must then be asked how through the New Testament a ‘specifically Christian’ talk of God is configured and, concretely, what contribution the Johannine tradition, i.e., the Gospel of John and the closely associated Johannine letters, makes to this.7 In pursuing this task we start with the observation that Johannine theology is not simply a theology among many within the New Testament; rather, in many respects it appears to take up fundamental meaning-formations8 of older early Christian tradition and to develop them into a new form of theological thought, 3

It would be an inappropriate truncation if one were to specify what is ‘Christian’ from the isolated New Testament, perhaps even in opposition to Old Testament conceptions and traditions. This frequently encountered pattern of thought in which the Father of Jesus Christ or the New Testament ‘God of love’ is opposed to a supposedly entirely different Old Testament God of war or vengeance is opposed by the simple fact that the Scriptures of (what is now called) the Old Testament were the Scriptures of the primitive church. It was thus a consistent and materially appropriate decision of the church of the second century to reject the Marcionite temptation and not to reject the Scriptures of Israel. On Marcion, cf. Frey 2005c; as well as, fundamentally, Aland 1992; Moll 2010. For the canon-historical decision of the early church against Marcion, cf. also Markschies 2015, 317–31 (GV = 2007, 245–61). Cf. now also Vinzent 2014; Klinghardt 2015; Roth 2015; Lieu 2015. 4 Cf. the (in)famous quotation from Harnack 1990, 134 (GV = 1996, 217): “The rejection of the Old Testament in the second century was a mistake which the great church rightly avoided; to maintain it in the sixteenth century was a fate from which the Reformation was not yet able to escape; but still to preserve it in Protestantism as a canonical document since the nineteenth century is the consequence of a religious and ecclesiastical crippling.” 5 A conception that shows a Marcionite tendency can also be found, e.g., in the depthpsychological exegesis of Eugen Drewermann. On this, cf. Frey 1995, 110–11. 6 It is noteworthy, e.g., that while Hahn’s conception of the theology of the New Testament (Hahn 2011) does not take up the talk of a ‘whole-Bible theology,’ it does begin with the New Testament references to the Scriptures of Israel (cf. idem, 38–142). For the biblical-theological discussion, cf. Janowski 1998; as well as Feldmeier/Spieckermann 2011a (ET = 2011b), which inaugurates a Mohr Siebeck series with the title “Topoi Biblischer Theologie.” 7 Revelation, which is theologically very distinctive in character, must remain unconsidered here, even though the question of its historical and theological connection with the rest of the writings of the Corpus Johanneum continues to remain open. On this, see Frey 1993; 2015a. 8 Thus the term that Schnelle 2007, 54ff. (GV = 2013b, 42ff.) adopted to describe the New Testament theology. Cf. Schnelle 2004, 65–75.

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which then in turn became a foundation and standard for later theological reflection.9 Thus, the concern is not simply to place some specifically Johannine aspects of the picture of God alongside other biblical or early Jewish features in an additive manner. Rather, we must ask which features of the Johannine presentation express significant insights in such a way that these features could then also be regarded as theologically significant and fundamental. Thus, I am intentionally raising the hermeneutical question of theological truth—and in doing so, I am presupposing that the New Testament texts themselves intend to be read as theological texts. New Testament exegesis as a discipline of theology must deal with this question. Where it moves only in historical and history-of-religion reconstructions, i.e., in the description of matters of the past, it becomes theologically irrelevant and loses its fundamental significance for Christian theology.10 2. On the State of Research The reflection on the New Testament understanding of God is still a somewhat neglected area of research.11 This also applies to studies on Johannine theology. In comparison to the fields of Christology, soteriology, and eschatology, which have been predominant here, the talk of God has been treated rather succinctly and inadequately. There are basically only two monographs on the topic, namely the 2001 book of the American New Testament scholar Marianne Meye Thompson12 and the 1997 dissertation of the Indian theologian Daniel Rathnakara Sadananda, which was not published until 2004.13 To this one can add some articles,14 the more or less detailed discussions of the topic in New Testament Theologies,15 and studies on special aspects, such as the divinity of Jesus (and thus ‘high’ 9

On this, cf., programmatically, chapter 11 in this volume, especially section 2 (GV = Frey 2010a, 454; 2013a, 809). 10 On this, cf. Frey 2010b; Schröter 2010; Theobald 2010. 11 Thus, provocatively, Dahl 1975 (= 1991). The quotation was taken up in an affirming way by Thompson 2001. For the talk of God in the New Testament, cf. now Hurtado 2010; Feldmeier/Spieckermann 2011a (ET = 2011b); Jantsch 2016. 12 Thompson 2001. 13 Sadananda 2004. In contrast to its more promising title, Larsson 2001 is entirely focused on the history of interpretation. 14 Thompson 1993; 1997; Tolmie 1998; Zumstein 2006. 15 Cf. Hahn 2011, I: 600–611; Schnelle 2007, 660–69 (GV = 2013b, 620–28). See also the concise discussion in Dormeyer 2010, 130–37. The topic is almost completely missing in Wilckens 2005 (only pp. 234–36: “Jesus and God”). The topic receives an extremely brief treatment in Smith 1995, 75–76.

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Christology), the talk of God as ‘Father,’16 the special question of a subordinationism in the Gospel of John,17 the problem of monotheism and Christology,18 the predication of God as ‘love,’19 and the beginnings of a Trinitarian form of thinking in John.20 With the intention of breaking open theology’s ‘captivity’ in Christology,21 Thompson and, even more forcefully, Sadananda stress the ‘theocentric character’ of the Fourth Gospel.22 This has a certain validity, even though the frequently established alternative between ‘christocentricity’ and ‘theocentricity’23 is problematic precisely with regard to Johannine thought.24 However, despite the christological concentration of this thinking and the fact that the discussion with ‘the Jews’ especially turns on the divine claim of Jesus, the question of the true revelation of God, indeed of God’s actual nature, appears to be the ultimately determining factor in Johannine thinking.25 Finally, the Corpus Johanneum contributes three prominent nominal predicates to the Christian talk of God: “God is spirit” (4.24), “God is light” (1 John 1.5), and, above all, “God is love” (1 John 4.8, 16). In these the contribution of Johannine theology to the Christian doctrine of God on the level of substance can be grasped.26 However, reaching far beyond the nominal predicates, the contribution of Johannine theology to the Christian doctrine of God must also be seen in its narrative presentation of the way of the incarnate Logos and his death on the cross, because God 16 Thus, in the form of a monograph, Zingg 2006. Cf. also, with a view to a special question, Back 2012. Cf. further Lee 1995; P. Meyer 1996. See also Thompson 1999; and the other essays in Reinhartz 1999. 17 Thus Barrett 1982; Olson 1999. 18 Thus, e.g., North 2004; Hayward 2004. 19 Söding 1996; Frey 2008b (= 2016a, 619–43). 20 On this, cf. Theobald 1992; Wilckens 2001; Claussen 2010; Thompson 2014. 21 Thus, the formulation in Sadananda 2004, 4: “Theology in Christological Captivity.” 22 Thus in Thompson 1993, 7: “Only if Christology remains the servant of theology— not vice versa—does it provide a hook sufficient to bear the weight of the Gospel”; idem, 14: “The present study hopes to show that ‘Christocentric’ is a misleading term for the Gospel of John”; idem, 239: “The Theocentric Character of John.” Cf. Sadananda 2004, 280: “John’s Theo-centric Christology,” though the aspects of ‘high’ Christology are taken up only in reduced form here. The claim that the I-am sayings do not intend to express divine authority but must be understood only in the framework of a sending Christology is not accurate. I cannot enter into a more detailed discussion with this not very convincing monograph here. 23 Cf. Barrett 1976. 24 Thus Barrett 1976, 363: “There could hardly be a more Christocentric writer than John, yet his very Christocentricity is theocentric.” 25 Thus Smith 1995, 75: “The fundamental question of the Fourth Gospel is the question of God, not whether a god exists but who God is and how God reveals himself.” 26 On this, cf. also Olsson 1999.

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himself—the biblical God—joins himself in a unique way with a human history and with a death that is ultimately inhuman. Therefore, after an overview of the individual titles, predications, and aspects, we must ask how the different elements are connected with one another and where the Johannine way of speaking of God receives its normative power. 3. The Talk of God in the Gospel of John and in the Johannine Letters: An Overview of the Titles and Predications We will start with a rough overview. What terms and names are used to speak of God? What connections appear here? Which ones are traditional, and what important elements are absent in comparison to the biblical and primitive Christian tradition? What narrative and metaphorical aspects determine the picture? Within the given framework, all this can be presented only succinctly and selectively. 3.1 “God” in the Horizon of the Scriptures θεός occurs eighty-three times in the Gospel of John27 and sixty-seven

times in the much shorter text of the Johannine letters, with sixty-two occurrences in 1 John. The talk of “God” also occurs with the greatest density in 1 John, sometimes with weighty statements about God as light (1 John 1.5) and “love” (1 John 4.8, 16), as “faithful and just” (1 John 1.9), and as “greater” (1 John 3.20; 4.4), etc.28 The conclusion of 1 John with its talk of the Son of God as the “true God” (1 John 5.20) is also noteworthy. It documents that in the Johannine linguistic tradition, it is scarcely possible to speak of God without the Son being simultaneously in view and, conversely, that the talk of the Son of God, indeed the history of Jesus, shapes the talk of God.29 However, before we can discuss further this christological theo-logy, which is at the same time a theological (i.e., very ‘high’) Christo-logy, it is advisable to examine the ‘pure’ statements about God, with it being natural to start with the Gospel. Here, we must first note that from the very beginning the Fourth Gospel uses the definite ὁ θεός entirely as a matter of course. This means that the concern—as in the whole of early Christianity—is with the one God, as he is attested in the Scriptures of 27 Only a small portion of these attestations refer to the Logos or to Jesus (1.1c, 18; 10.33, 34; 20.28). 28 On this, cf. Olsson 1999, 144. 29 Thus Olsson 1999, 151.

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Israel. To designate this God requires no “explanatory addition.”30 The gods of the nations are not explicitly reflected on in this writing. At best they come into view from a distance in the εἴδωλα, against which the readers are warned at the end of the first letter (1 John 5.21). Thus, they are indeed present in the environment of the Johannine addressees, but for them the biblical God is the one true God (17.3). The first verse of the Prologue already begins with the biblical way of speaking when it says that in the beginning the Logos ‘was’ πρὸς τὸν θεόν (1.1, 2), “with” God and turned to him, i.e. (just as Wisdom in Prov 8), in the most intimate fellowship with the creator God, who in the beginning called light and life into being,31 whose glory ‘tented’ in Israel32 but who is nevertheless not at our disposal and cannot be seen by any human being (1.18). It is the God who, as expressed in 10.34-35, let his word go forth to Israel, the God of the fathers, from among whom Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph are mentioned in the Gospel—i.e., entirely unambiguously and as a matter of course the biblical God, who can be referred to without further specification. It is the revelation of this one invisible biblical God that the readers of the Gospel have to expect according to John 1.18. To be sure, it is a revelation that is presented in narrative form, in the narrated story of Jesus, the ‘only-begotten one’ (μονογενής), who himself ‘is God,’ as is made clear by the θεός that is appositionally related to μονογενής. At the same time, the true humanity of Jesus is never in doubt at any point and is clear from the σὰρξ ἐγένετο in John 1.14 through to the “behold, the man!” (19.5) with reference to the flogged one and to the signa crucifixi of the risen one (20.20, 27).33 However, precisely in light of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, the predication of both the incarnate one and the risen one as “God”— which is already introduced in the Prologue (1.1, 18) and reinforced at the end in 20.28—is all the more astonishing. The relation between the biblical God and the divine Logos or the Son determines from this standpoint the Johannine story of Jesus and at the same time places the talk of the biblical God in a new, christological light. The taking up of the talk of the biblical God is especially clear in the places where John speaks of the ‘one God’ (5.44: παρὰ τοῦ μόνου θεοῦ) 30

Hahn 2011, I: 601. The Prologue points to the biblical creation account and its later interpretations not only in the expression ἐν ἀρχῇ (1.1-2) but also in the talk of Logos, light, and life. On this, cf., comprehensively, Endo 2002; for the further history-of-religion background of the Prologue, cf. Evans 1993. 32 For the reference of John 1.14 to the biblical shekinah tradition, cf. chapter 8 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c); cf. also Frey 2013c. 33 Cf. further chapter 6 in this volume (GV = Frey 2009c; 2013a, 699–738). 31

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or—even more clearly—of the ‘one true God’ (17.3: τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεόν) or of the “living Father” (6.57), which refers back to the biblical talk of the living God.34 These expressions also confirm that the foundation of the Johannine talk of God is the tradition of the one God in the Scriptures of Israel. The God of Jesus, also of the Johannine Jesus,35 is none other than the God of Israel. In this point the Corpus Johanneum does not differ from the Synoptics or from the Pauline letters. To be sure, the talk of the one (5.44; 17.3) and true (17.3) God points—at least implicitly—to the fact that the identity of the biblical God and the knowledge of him is contested in the context of the religions and gods of the surrounding world and presumably also in the environment of the emergence of the Fourth Gospel. The talk of the “living and true God” also occurs, for example, in 1 Thessalonians 1.9 in a formulaic expression that was probably already used in the framework of diaspora Judaism prior to Christianity and that thematizes the conversion of non-Jews from the ‘idols’ to the one and true God. Since the Johannine addressees probably lived in the context of the Jewish diaspora of Asia Minor,36 it is not surprising that the Fourth Gospel makes recourse to originally Jewish linguistic traditions that highlight within the context of the pagan world the singularity and truth of the biblical God over against the gods and cults of the nations.37 Of the eighty-three attestations of θεός, a considerable portion occurs in genitive constructions, some of which are related to Jesus, such as “Son of God,” “Lamb of God,” “Holy One of God” (6.69), and thus express Jesus’ relatedness to the biblical God.38 Other connections mark diverse aspects that are mostly traditional, such as when “the angel of God” (1.51), “the wrath of God” (3.36), “the words of God” (3.34), “the love of God” (or, alternatively, ‘for God’: 5.42), “the works of God” (6.28-29), “the kingdom of God” (3.3, 5), “the bread of God” (6.33), or “the honor/ glory of God” (11.4, 40)39 are thematized or when the identity of those who believe is expressed with the family metaphorical term “children of 34 This is connected here with the Johannine preference for the talk of Father. Cf. C. Zimmermann 2007, 419; cf. also Thompson 1999. 35 This somewhat daring formulation has at least a basis in John 20.17, where the Johannine Jesus speaks of ‘my God.’ 36 On this, cf. Frey 2011d. 37 It is scarcely by chance that there occurs a riddling warning against the ‘idols’ (εἴδωλα) at the end of 1 John (5.21). 38 This shows the dominance of Christology but “without thereby minimizing the fundamental importance of theology in the proper sense” (thus, rightly, Schnelle 2007, 660; 2013b, 620). 39 To this can be added the talk of the glory from the side of God (5.44) or from God (12.43).

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God” (1.22 and elsewhere) because they are born, for their part, “of the Spirit” (3.8) or “of water and Spirit” (3.5) and thus “of God” (1.13 and elsewhere). The majority of these constructions take up traditional biblical themes and thus likewise demonstrate the grounding of the Johannine talk of God in the biblical and primitive Christian tradition. However, we find conspicuously stressed special developments when the “love of God” becomes a central term in the Johannine circle (thus, above all, 1 John 4.9-10; with the verb in John 3.16)40 and when believers can be designated children of God (τέκνα θεοῦ) (see John 1.12; 1 John 3.1; and elsewhere) and—emphatically on the basis of the Christ event, i.e., mediated through Jesus, the ‘Son’—receive God as their “Father” (20.17).41 The statements that make use of verbs to talk about God’s activity in the past and present are also significant. Even though the Fourth Gospel primarily recounts the story of Jesus, these references to God and his action also have a share in the narrative basic structure. Thus, there are usually only concise references to that activity of God that is narrated in the Scriptures: God has spoken especially to Moses (9.29) and let his word go forth to Israel (10.34-35); to the fathers in the wilderness “he gave bread from heaven to eat” in the manna episode (6.31), which is also not negated materially by the critical response of Jesus in John 6.32. However, much more emphasis is placed on the activity and presence of this biblical God in the narrated story of Jesus. John (the ‘Baptist’) was sent from God (1.6). In Jesus’ activity God presently works his works (9.3; cf. 5.17). He gives gifts (4.10; cf. 6.33) and teaches (now or in the future through the Spirit; cf. 6.45). Here too the reference to Jesus and to God’s action toward and in him predominates. He has sent Jesus, the ‘Son,’ into the world (3.17) and given (3.16) him (into death), namely—as is conspicuously stressed here—out of love for the world. Thus, God has “loved” (3.16), indeed he “loves” (cf. 3.35, using the terms “Father” and “Son”), and a special accent is placed on this ‘activity’ of God, his ‘salvific initiative’ and his saving activity. This means, however, that, despite the aforementioned nominal predications of God as spirit, light, and love, also in the Gospel of John, God is understood not in terms of static ‘attributes’ but dynamically as one who works (cf. 5.17) and acts in history. Theology proper also has a share in the basic narrative structure of this Gospel.42

40

On this, cf. Frey 2008b (= 2016a, 619–43). On this, cf. in detail Back 2012. 42 Statements such as 1 John 4.9-10 show that this is also presupposed in the Johannine letters. 41

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3.2 God as “Father”—of the “Son” and of the “Children of God”

The only designation to occur more frequently than “God” is the designation “the Father” (ὁ πατήρ). It occurs 120 times in the Gospel of John,43 and there are eighteen more attestations in the Johannine letters. The distribution is conspicuous: while “God” and “Father” occur with relatively equal weight in the first part of the Gospel, “Father” is very much predominant in the second part of the Gospel and especially in the Farewell Discourses.44 However, in John 1–12 the term also appears primarily in the discourses of Jesus. It is the dominant designation for God in the mouth of Jesus, which expresses the unique relationship of Jesus as the ‘Son’ to the ‘Father.’ By contrast, it is rarely used in narrative passages, in the comments of the Johannine author, and in the speech of other figures. Correspondingly, the term also recedes numerically in the Johannine letters,45 even though it is clear there that the two terms were sometimes interchangeable in the language of the Johannine community, so that, for example, there can equally be talk of the “love of the Father” and of the “love of God” (1 John 2.15; 3.17). In fact, “the Father” is the first designation of God in 1 John (1 John 1.2), and, apart from θεός, it is “the only one . . . that First John uses at all.”46 In the Gospel it is conspicuous that the explicit talk of God as Father of believers does not occur until John 20.17, i.e., in the context of Easter. With its expansion of the talk of the Father to apply also to believers— which is prepared for in texts of the Farewell Discourses47—John 20.17 forms the high point and goal of the Johannine talk of God as Father.48 The theological reason for this conspicuous textual configuration is probably that in the Johannine view the believers’ status as children of God only becomes possible through the event of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, and it is and remains fundamentally distinguished from the unique 43

Zingg 2006 counts 120 attestations of the reference to God(-Father), and the lexeme is used sixteen times with reference to other fathers. 44 Zingg 2006, 25, provides a nuanced statistic. In 1.19–12.50, πατήρ occurs sixty-one times and θεός forty-two times. In 13.1–20.31, πατήρ occurs fifty-seven times and θεός only twelve times. 45 πατήρ occurs fourteen times in 1 John and four times in 2 John. By contrast, θεός appears sixty-two times in 1 John, twice in 2 John, and three times in 3 John. 46 C. Zimmermann 2007, 125. 47 On this, cf. Back 2012. 48 On this, cf. also Zingg 2006, 49; and Stibbe 2006, 183–84: “In a Gospel in which Jesus never taught his disciples to say ‘our father’ . . . , these words to Mary Magdalene carry momentous significance. With no references to the Father in chapter 21, John 20.17 forms the fitting and moving conclusion to the Father’s story.”

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‘sonship’ of Jesus.49 An “our Father” that would encompass Jesus and the disciples (cf. Matt 6.9) does not exist in Johannine thought. The fundamental difference between God’s fatherhood with respect to the Son, on the one hand, and with respect to believers, on the other hand, can also be seen in the fact that the believers’ status as children of God is usually expressed with the phrase τέκνα θεοῦ50 and thus linguistically distinguished from the sonship of the ‘only-begotten’ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ or of “the υἱός.” Thus, the use of the God-designation “the Father” is indeed embedded in an overarching ‘family metaphoricism,’ and it is indeed legitimate to understand the christological title “the Son” as well within this broader family metaphorical framework51 and to expose the content of these metaphorical titles in narrative mode. Thus, the statements about the fellowship of activity between Father and Son in John 5.1-20 still allow the image of a son who learns his craft from his father and ‘imitates’ his action to shine through. However, beyond all these contents of the image, the christological relation between the Father and the Son is moved away from this other ‘fatherhood’ and also from the ‘fatherhood’ of God with respect to the children of God, and the Gospel of John also makes an effort to mark this difference linguistically. This becomes evident in the fact that in John—in comparison with the Synoptics or with Paul, for example—the absolute use of ὁ πατήρ (“the father”—corresponding with “the Son”) is much more predominant, whereas the pronominal expressions “my Father” and “your father” recede greatly.52 Just as Jesus in the Gospel of John is no longer only “the Son of God” but is absolutely “the Son,” in the most intimate relation to the “Father,” so, conversely, God as “Father” is this in the first place in relation to the “Son.” The connection between “the Father” and “the Son,” which is attested only in a single passage of the Sayings Source (Matt 11.25-27; Luke 10.21-22), becomes a common linguistic form in John.53 The widespread view that the addressing of God as Father first arose through Jesus is certainly inaccurate, and the view that this address, at 49

On this, see, fundamentally, Back 2012. On this, cf., fundamentally, John 1.12; see further 11.52; 1 John 3.1-2. 51 R. Zimmermann 2004 especially prompted the narrative-metaphorical ‘illustration’ of the christological designations that had become established ‘titles.’ For the comprehensive description of the Johannine family metaphoricism, cf. especially van der Watt 2000. 52 C. Zimmermann 2007, 115, counts eighty-seven occurrences of the absolute ὁ πατήρ, twenty-six uses of “my father,” and two occurrences of “your father.” 53 Thus C. Zimmermann 2007, 115. However, when Zimmermann goes on to hypothesize that “Jesus’s addressing of God as Father is understood as the foundation of the believers’ relationship to God as Father” (idem, 116), then the difference that is upheld in John 20.17 is inadequately taken into account. 50

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least in the Aramaic form abba, has its material basis in the earthly Jesus’ special consciousness of sonship also cannot be demonstrated.54 In any case, the designation and also the address of God as Father in the sayings of Jesus are not completely new but already attested (even though relatively rarely) in other ancient Jewish texts,55 and the background in the language of children postulated by Jeremias cannot be verified philologically.56 At the same time, one should not doubt the fact that the early Christian talk of God as Father is connected with the proclamation of Jesus and his prayer practice. Historically, or with regard to the history of the terminology, the talk of God as ‘the Father’ probably goes back primarily to the proclamation or specifically to the address in prayer of the earthly Jesus. From there it then increasingly spread to the prayer language and then also to the proclamation of early Christianity. In Mark 14.36 the Aramaic abba is placed in the mouth of Jesus. One must also assume it in the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11.2),57 where it is translated into Greek, and, in general, “ ‘Father’ is used by Jesus to address God in all the prayer texts in the Gospels” with the exception of the quotation from Psalm 22(21) in Mark 15.34.58 The Aramaic address used in prayer had apparently penetrated so far into the Greek-speaking communities that Paul could cite it in his letters en passant as a ‘foreign word’ and presuppose that it was known (Gal 4.6; Rom 8.15).59 In the subsequent Christian development, the Father title is then used with increasing frequency,60 which was probably also facilitated by the fact that it was relatively easily accessible for people in the Hellenistic-Roman cultural sphere. When, for example, the talk of Zeus as father and king of all humans was known there, this could also contribute to the spread of the talk of God as Father.61 To be sure, it is conspicuous that the New Testament writings as a whole—and precisely also the Johannine writings—do not apply the Father predicate generally to all humans. God is the Father of 54

Contra Jeremias 1979, 73. The linguistic parallels were comprehensively reassessed by Schelbert 1981; 1993; 1994; 2011. Cf. also Schattner-Rieser 2015. 55 On this, cf. Strotmann 1991; C. Zimmermann 2007, 42–64. 56 On this, cf. Schelbert 2011, 63–64, 69–70. 57 On this, see now Frey 2016f. 58 C. Zimmermann 2007, 77. 59 On this, cf. also Hengel 2004 (= 2006, 496–534, here: 498–507). 60 Cf. also Feldmeier/Spieckermann 2011b, 53 (GV = 2011a, 53), according to whom there are four attestations for God as Father in Mark, 17 in Luke, 45 in Matthew, and 115 in John. This development “reflects . . . an increasingly more consistent Christological definition of the understanding of God within the writings of the New Testament” (2011b, 53; 2011a, 54). 61 On this, cf. C. Zimmermann 2007, 69–70. Cf. also Feldmeier 2014.

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those who believe—and this ‘Fatherhood’ is grounded in the Christ event. And he is in the first place and in a unique way the Father of Jesus. Materially the talk of the Father in the mouth of the Johannine Jesus expresses the intimate relatedness of Jesus as ‘the Son’ to the ‘Father’ who sent him, with a narrative element being unmistakably visible in the use of the verbs. The Father loves the Son (3.35), and out of love he has authorized him (3.35) and sent him into the world (3.16-17). He has given him the power to have life in himself (5.36) and to have authority over all flesh (17.2). He works the works that the Son does (5.17) or ‘shows’ him his works (5.19-20), so that the Son acts only in correspondence to the Father. He authenticates the works of the Son (5.43) and bears witness about the Son (5.37; 10.25). He glorifies him (8.54; 12.28; 13.31-32; 17.1, 4) and is, likewise, glorified by him (17.4). The Son and ‘the Father who sent him’ form a unity insofar as the Son does not act alone in what he does but always in the most intimate fellowship with the Father (cf. 8.16). This finds expression in specific statements about the oneness of Father and Son (10.30; 17.11, 22) and their mutual (reciprocal) ‘immanence’ (10.38; 14.10-11; 17.21),62 and it likewise stands behind the statements about the mutual loving,63 knowing,64 and glorifying. Even more than in the case of the “God” predication, the “Father” predication is linked with the narrated story of Jesus. Thus, ‘the Father’ himself appears to be incorporated into the narrated story of the activity and suffering of Jesus. He appears as the authorizing, sending, and acting one, as the loving one and—if one may draw this conclusion—also as the co-suffering one. He is ‘glorified’65 in the activity and—ultimately also—in the death of the Son. Thus, God’s own ‘history’ and his own nature find expression in the narrative of the sending and activity of Jesus (1.18).66 This is incredibly significant theologically. In the history of Jesus, in the incarnation of the Logos, in the death of Jesus and in his exaltation to the Father, the biblical God involves himself with a human history, indeed the history of humanity—thus, all images of God that assume a principled unworldliness and unhistoricality of God are fundamentally burst open.

62 On the statements of immanence, see in detail Scholtissek 2000a. See also section 3.2 in chapter 9 of this volume (GV = Frey 2016g, 202–5). 63 John 3.35; 5.20; 10.17; 15.9-10; 17.23-26; as well as, conversely, 14.31. 64 John 10.15; 17.25; as well as 7.29 and 8.55. 65 Cf. John 13.31-32; as well as 17.1, 4. See further chapter 7 in this volume (GV = Frey 2008a; 2013a, 639–62). 66 Cf. especially 1 John 4.9-10.

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In order to draw out the profile of the Johannine talk of God somewhat more precisely, we must briefly shed light on the forms of the talk of God that recede or that are entirely absent in the Johannine language. Only a few especially important titles and motifs can be discussed here. (a) Although the Johannine Prologue explicitly makes recourse to the creation account in Genesis and takes up elements of its early Jewish interpretation,67 (explicit) predications of God as creator (κτίσης or τεχνίτης) of the world are completely lacking in the whole of the Johannine writings. On the one hand, this may be explainable through the fact that “the talk of God as ‘creator’ ” is “not as clearly defined” as other designations for God.68 On the other hand, this observation is indeed significant theologically. When the creation is thematized, Johannine theology highlights the creative power of the Logos (1.3, 10), though this must be envisaged as a most intimate sharing in God’s work of creation and not, for example, as being in competition with it. Thus, the idea of the Logos’ or Christ’s mediation of creation presupposes that God ‘the Father’ is regarded as being the creator. To be sure, in Johannine thought the accents are set differently. The creation is thematized in order to express the protological anchoring of redemption. In the subsequent course of the narrative, the talk of the ‘world,’ the κόσμος, is emptied of almost all ‘cosmological’ implications and almost always designates the human world as the goal of the sending of Jesus and then especially in its opposition to God and Christ. The idea of new creation, which advances to the pronounced expression of the saving event in Paul (2 Cor 5.17), is also attested in John only in a changed form, in the sense of a ‘new birth’ or as being begotten or born ‘from above’ or ‘of water and Spirit’ (3.3, 5). Apart from the Prologue, the original creation is mentioned only once, so to speak at the margins, when there is talk of Christ’s glory ‘before the foundation of the world’ (17.24). Thus, the narrative assumes a beginning that is indeed to be understood in a temporal manner. However, God scarcely comes into view theologically as creator and preserver of the created world. (b) In addition, the talk of God as king, which has great significance (not least liturgically) in ancient Judaism and prominently comes to the fore in some early Christian texts, is also absent from John.69 To be sure, this designation is used only at the margins in the Gospel tradition (Matt 5.35)—very much in contrast to the central role of the talk of God’s ‘kingdom.’ This theologoumenon, which is typical of Jesus’ proclamation, is 67

On this, cf. in detail Endo 2002. Thus C. Zimmermann 2007, 25. 69 Cf., e.g., Rev 15.3; 1 Tim 1.17; 6.15. See also 1 Clem. 61.2–3; Did. 14.3. 68

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subjected to a characteristic transformation in the Gospel of John.70 In the Gospel the syntagma βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, which is central in the older Jesus tradition, is used only twice (3.3, 5) in a saying that is probably taken over from the community tradition and that is no longer used in the subsequent course of the work. By contrast, the title of king is applied to Jesus himself from John 1.49 via John 6.15 and 12.13, 15, and then especially in the conversation with Pilate (18.28–19.16) and in the following account of the crucifixion. He is as the ‘king of Israel’ (1.49) and especially as the crucified one the ‘true’ king (18.37), but his βασιλεία is not of this world (18.36) and thus stands in a fundamental opposition to the reign of the emperor and to the power of his representatives. Thus, the talk of the kingdom of God recedes because this is realized for John in the reign of Jesus, the crucified one. Accordingly, the talk of God as king is also replaced by the talk of Jesus as the true king. (c) Correspondingly, the divine predicate ὁ κύρος, which has central importance in the LXX as the translation of the Tetragrammaton, completely recedes in the Fourth Gospel.71 It occurs only in biblical quotations (1.23; 12.13, 38), where it referred originally to God, but is related to Jesus in the Johannine reception. He is the ‘Lord,’ for whom the Baptist prepares the way (1.23) and who is praised as the messianic king of Israel (12.13). And the christological referent is also strong in the double quotation of John 12.38,72 when reference is ultimately made to the fact that Isaiah beheld the glory of Christ. A reference to God may still shine through in the image of the κύριος and servant in John 15.15, but here too the disciples’ relationship to Christ is primarily in view, which is now emphatically described not in the categories of slavery but rather in those of friendship.73 Besides, κύριος in John consistently occurs with reference to Jesus, especially as an address.74 The disciples speak of him as “the Lord” (21.7), and the climactic confession of Thomas predicates him as “my Lord and my 70

On this, cf. Frey 2000b, 271–83; Hengel 2007, 408–29 (= 1991a). In the Johannine letters the term is, however, completely lacking, both for God and for Jesus. 72 On this, see C. Zimmermann 2007, 224. 73 It corresponds to this that in John 8.31-47, taking up the metaphor of the ancient house, a distinction is made between ‘slave’ and ‘son,’ and thus the disciples—mediated through the Son—are also ‘children’ of God. However, it is significant that alongside the primary self-predication of the disciples as ‘children of God,’ the designation ‘friends’— which is known more from ancient associations—plays an important role. 74 Thus in John 4.11, 15, 19, 49; 5.7; 6.34, 68; 8.11; 9.36, 38; 11.3, 12, 21, 27, 32, 34, 39; 12.21; 13.6, 9, 25, 36, 37; 14.5, 8, 22; 20.15, 18, 28; 21.15, 16, 17, 20-21. In John 13.4, Jesus is explicitly designated as ὁ κύριος and ὁ διδάσκαλος. The attestations in John 20.2, 13, and 21.7, 12, show that, using a traditional form of language, Jesus was spoken of as ‘the Lord’ (despite the friendship metaphor in John 15.15-16). 71

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God.” These findings reveal an advanced terminological development and at the same time a specific christological accentuation. (d) The findings with respect to κύριος can be supplemented by the observation that ruler predications that appear in early Christianity, such as παντοκράτωρ and δεσπότης, are absent from the Gospel of John and the Johannine letters (in contrast to Revelation). 3.4 God as Spirit, Light, and Love: The Three Nominal Predicates Finally, within the framework of this overview, we must discuss the three nominal characterizations that come closest to a doctrine of God’s ‘attributes.’ However, for each of the three statements it is necessary to attend to the specific context of justification and to how it is embedded in the argument. Moreover, one must consider which terminological spheres of association the predicates pick up and the extent to which the statement is grounded in Johannine thought and in the Johannine narrative itself. (a) With the sentence “God is spirit” (4.24: πνεῦμα ὁ θεός), which Jesus pronounces in the scene with the Samaritan woman in John 4, the Gospel of John picks up the talk of “spirit,” which is extremely widespread in classical antiquity and in the biblical tradition. The statement also stands in an oddly unconnected way alongside the statements about ‘the Spirit’ (1.32-33; 3.34) or the ‘Holy Spirit’ (14.26; 20.22) or ‘Paraclete’ (14.16, 26), and it should more likely be understood from the standpoint of the opposition between ‘spirit’ and ‘flesh,’ which was already thematized in John 3.6-8. The sentence can be read almost as a “pointed statement of Hellenistic history of religion.”75 To be sure, the concern is ultimately not with taking over aspects of the pagan-ancient understanding of the spirit for the Johannine talk of God. Rather, the predication occurs in a precise argumentative context. In itself, the predication could, of course, suggest that God as πνεῦμα “penetrates all things and encompasses everything in himself.”76 For the Stoics in particular the notion of a material substance that is active through the cosmos would thus be implied—a notion that is far removed from the biblical and also the Johannine conception of God.77 Hellenistic Judaism 75

Thus Schnelle 2016, 126; cf. the texts in Schnelle/Labahn/Lang 2001, 226–34. Thus Celsus (in Origen, Contra Celsum 6.71), who shows how the sentence could be heard by a philosophically educated Greek person. For further attestations from the Stoic environment, see Theobald 2009, 327; Schnelle 2016, 103; Schnelle/Labahn/Lang 2001, 226–34. 77 Contrast Buch-Hansen 2010, who interprets the Johannine understanding of πνεύμα as a whole from the Stoic understanding. For the related discussion of these issues in 76

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can also speak of God in this way, when, for example, Philo speaks of God as the “spirit of the whole world” (De opificio mundi 8), admittedly in the interest of distinguishing the creator from the created world.78 In Johannine usage, the talk of God as “spirit” also stresses his ‘unworldliness,’ or his difference from the created world, picking up the ‘dualistic’ opposition of ‘spirit’ and ‘flesh,’ which had highlighted this contradistinction in John 3.6, especially in an epistemological respect.79 Thus, “spirit” already stood in opposition to “flesh” as the dimension of what was created in John 3.6. In the argumentative context of John 4, this means that God as “spirit” can be worshipped in an appropriate way only in the Spirit or through the Spirit, so that the restriction to a specific cultic place—Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem—is rendered unnecessary.80 In the Johannine view, this worship “in spirit and truth,” which is appropriate to God and sought by him, takes place, of course, in faith in Christ, who is “the truth” (14.6) and who, as the bearer and giver of the Spirit (3.34), has ‘bequeathed’ the Spirit to his disciples, in whom worship can take place universally—without being bound to a specific earthly cultic place and in the crossing over of ethnic and religious boundaries. (b) The second nominal predication “God is light” (1 John 1.5) occurs in the opening section of 1 John. There it is immediately expanded and reinforced through the negation of its opposite “and in him there is no darkness at all.” This predication also takes up a rich biblical and also pagan linguistic tradition. Light is already a symbol for salvation in the Old Testament, and the eschatological event is connected with light and appearances of light. Not least God himself can also be connected with light predications (Isa 10.17; Ps 27.1; 104.2). To be sure, the connection of God and light is largely configured in a nondualistic way in the Old Testament. In a sovereign way the creator stands over all oppositions of light and darkness according to Isaiah 45.7. By contrast, here it is stressed with an ethical focus that God has no fellowship with darkness. Pauline studies, see Rabens 2014, v–vi. 78 The whole train of thought of De opificio mundi 7–12 leads to this point, precisely in dispute with Stoic thought. 79 In contrast to what we find in some Pauline passages (on this, cf. Frey 1999 = 2016a, 265–300), the opposition of spirit and flesh in John does not designate an opposition of powers or strivings. Here, ‘flesh’ also does not have any connotations of the entity that sins. Rather, in John 3.6-7 and 6.63 what is meant is the creaturely, frail, and mortal world, whereas ‘spirit’ designates the dimension of the divine. 80 This rejection of a geographically fixed cultic place also has parallels in Hellenistic philosophy of religion. On this, cf. Schnelle 2016, 126–27; who refers to Philo, Quod deterius potiori insidari soleat 21; Seneca, Epistulae morales 42.1–2; and Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 11.

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Almost in the same way as 1 John, Philo can also speak of God as light (De somnis 1.75: ὁ θεὸς φῶς ἐστι; with reference to Ps 27.1). Moreover, light (often in dualistic opposition to darkness) is also a central religious term in the pagan religiosity of the Hermetica and later especially in Gnosticism. Not least we find the dualistic opposition of light and darkness as a feature of numerous texts from Qumran, even though no direct line of dependency can be drawn from the Qumran dualism to the Johannine use of light–darkness metaphoricism.81 What is crucial for the understanding of the present passage is above all the use of light metaphoricism in the Gospel of John, which determines the opposition of light and darkness from the beginning onward (1.3-5). However, while the light motif is christologically focused in the Gospel (8.12; 9.4) and the ‘dualistic’ opposition aims at the movement from the darkness to the light or from death to life,82 the letter relates the motif of light to God and formulates an opposition that is primarily ethically relevant in 1 John 1.5. If God is pure light, those who belong to him ought also to live in the light and avoid the darkness (1 John 1.6-7) or, as it is then further specified, to live on the basis of the forgiveness of sins (1 John 1.7-10) and vice versa: whoever does not avail himself of the forgiveness of sins and does not practice love for his siblings has documented thereby that he does not, in fact, live in the correct fellowship with God. The ‘thesis’ of God’s “nature as light,” which is formulated at the beginning of the letter, aims at an ethical distinction, which is explicated in the subsequent course of the letter. It is conspicuous that the ‘knowledge about God’ proclaimed here is explicitly derived from Christ (1 John 1.5a: “the message that we have heard from him”). The christological derivation of this sentence “presents at the same time its specifically Christian feature, which distinguishes it from the plethora of similarly formulated statements in the environment.”83 At the same time, it corresponds to how in the Gospel the Father is also ‘exegeted’ by Jesus (1.18) and becomes visible through him (14.7, 9). Thus, God’s light-filled nature can also be inferred from the predication of Christ as “the light of the world” (8.12; 9.4). While this insight is not really a Christian novum, in Johannine thought it is nevertheless a christologically mediated insight about God. The christological mediation was probably also significant in the rhetorical situation of the letter. The 81

On this, cf. Frey 2004b (= 2013a, 147–247); 2009e. See also chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b; 2013a, 409–82). 82 On this, cf. section 3.1 of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 31–42; 2013a, 438–50). 83 Klauck 1991a, 83.

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opponents combatted by the author, who had turned away from the fellowship, probably also advocated the view that God is ‘light’—though without the ethical consequences emphasized in the letter and most likely with a bracketing out of the concrete reference to the incarnate Jesus. Thus, for the author, who stresses the incarnational reality of Jesus (1 John 4.2-3), the back-reference to Christ and the revelation of God mediated in his proclamation and—even more—in his way is decisive. If in the Johannine tradition one can no longer speak of God without reference to the incarnate one and the true knowledge of the invisible God is mediated only in him (cf. 1.18), then this also applies to the predication that God is ‘light.’ This back-reference to Jesus’ sending receives an even more central role in the case of the third nominal predication of God. (c) This predication “God is love” (ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν), which in 1 John is initially introduced in a subordinate clause (1 John 4.8) and is then thetically stressed again in the repetition (1 John 4.16), is likewise placed in an ethical framework (1 John 4.7, 11, 20-21), but it is grounded twice with reference to the Christ event (1 John 4.9-10). It probably offers the most far-reaching statement with regard to God’s ‘actual’ nature. At the same time, it contains an even stronger reference to the narrated story of Jesus than is the case for the two other nominal predicates. The motif of love—which is also developed in the Gospel of John in the various relations of love (between Father and Son, Jesus and his own, the disciples among one another, the disciples to Jesus and God, etc.)84— occurs with special density in 1 John, concentrated in the “great song of the love of God” (1 John 4.7-21).85 The statements that were previously introduced in 1 John 2.7-11 and 3.11-17 are taken up again here and compressed in a concentrated way in the pointed statement “God is love” (ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν) (1 John 4.8, 16). Unlike with the spirit-predication and light-predication, the lovepredication is precisely not prepared for in the Greco-Roman world. Rather, it points back to a specific biblical line of tradition,86 in which the election of Israel is understood as an act of God’s love (Dan 7.7; Jer 31.3) and in which Israel’s relation to God is reflected in various ways in the images of human relationships of love. Wisdom of Solomon 11.24 can even speak of God’s love for his whole creation. That God’s loving care takes place independently of ethical or religious qualities or prior 84

On this, cf. Frey 2009d (= 2013a, 739–65). This phrasing (Hohelied der Liebe Gottes) is used by Klauck 1991a, 244; cf. also Popkes 2005a, 78–79. The substantive ἀγάπη occurs twelve times in this passage, the verb ἀγαπάω fifteen times, and the address ἀγαπητοί twice. 86 On this, cf. Frey 2008b, 222–26 (= 2016a, 638–42); Spieckermann 2001b; 2001a; Feldmeier/Spieckermann 2011b, 125–46 (GV = 2011a, 126–48). 85

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achievements is already expressed, of course, in the message of Jesus, for example, in the parables of the lost (Luke 15). This unconditional “love of God” is explicitly connected with the Christ event in Paul, who programmatically states in Romans 5:8 that “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Here, God’s love is perhaps connected with Jesus’ death “for us” for the first time in primitive Christianity. The ground of his salvation-creating death “for us” is explicitly localized in God’s love and in God himself—neither in human acts of evil and happenstances, nor in the voluntary self-giving of Jesus, but ultimately in God’s will and nature.87 The Johannine tradition takes up this line in a distinctive way, insofar as here the entire salvific event is anchored in God’s primordial plan (1.1-2). Concretely this happens on the basis of sending formulas. These are already attested in the (pre-)Pauline tradition (Gal 4.4-5; Rom 8.3, 32), and their message and structure are now taken up in the Johannine circle and linked with the motif of God’s love for believers (1 John 4.9, 10) or for the world (3.16). The parallelism of these three sentences suggests that in the Gospel and in 1 John a scheme that is familiar to the Johannine community is taken up and developed differently in each case.88 In the Gospel, John 3.16 programmatically speaks of the (active) love of God for the κόσμος, characterizes the Son who has been sent as μονογενής, and speaks, in a marked transformation of the (pre-)Pauline sending formula, of God giving him (over) (ἔδωκεν).89 The two-membered trailing clause then states as the goal the “eternal life” of all those who believe in him. In 1 John 4.9 the love of God occurs as a noun phrase, and with the verb ἐφανερώθη it is designated as a love that has appeared, 87 In Paul this love is also already connected with the idea of the election of believers. In a context in which there is talk of the love of God or the love of Christ in a climactic way at the end (Rom 8.35, 37, 39), Rom 8.33 speaks of God’s “elect,” which means precisely those who are elected, called, justified, and destined for eschatological glory through Christ’s saving death (Rom 8.30). This linking of the motif of love and election is then accentuated even more strongly in the deutero-Pauline tradition (Eph 1.4; 2.4). 88 This is especially supported by the fact that in 1 John 4.9-10, two parallel sentences that sound very similar are placed next to each other. The further development of the (pre-) Pauline sending statement and its expansion through specifically Johannine elements such as the talk of the Son as μονογενής (John 3.16 = 1 John 4.9) and then especially with the motif of the love of God presumably already took place in the Johannine community tradition. 89 This reformulation of the verbal statement is very likely meant to indicate that the concern here is not with the mere sending of the Son into the world (thus John 3.17) but at the same time with giving him over unto death. This is supported in the context by the fact that the motif of the death of Jesus was already sounded in John 3.14-15 in the motif of the ‘exaltation.’ On this, cf. Frey 2000b, 277–80.

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indeed that has been historically revealed. Here too the Son is designated as μονογενής. As in John 3.17 the goal of the sending is the world, and, as in John 3.16, a soteriological trailing clause follows—though it is simpler here. In 1 John 4.10 there is talk only of love, with the reference to the love of God being more clearly defined through the alternative (oὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήκαμεν τὸν θεὸν ἀλλ’ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς). What is meant is God’s love for believers, and the conspicuous repetition of the idea that was expressed already in 1 John 4.9 is precisely meant to highlight the fact that this love is grounded entirely in God’s own initiative. Moreover, the soteriological purpose of the sending is now designated in varying ways as “atonement for our sins” (cf. 1 John 2.2). The double sentence of 1 John 4.9-10, which immediately follows the sentence “God is love” and unpacks it in a quasi-‘historical’ way with recourse to the Christ event, is then applied in the sense of an imitatio Dei in 4:11: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Thus, the command to love the disciples, which is what is crucial for the author, has its ultimate ground in the loving action of God himself, as it became manifest in the sending of the Son as atonement. “Let us love, for he first loved us” (1 John 4.19). Thus, the angle of view turns from love paraenesis to the fundamental event of love, which is consistently thematized in 1 John theologically as the love of God and thus grounds an imitatio Dei, whereas the Gospel speaks alongside this of the love of Christ and calls for an imitatio Christi: “that you love one another as I have loved you” (13.34). In both cases, however, the lived love is a sign of true discipleship (1 John 4.13). “The one who remains in love remains in God and God in him” (1 John 4.16b). The basis for knowing this fundamental love of God is, however, emphatically expressed as having the character of an event in 1 John 4.910. It is the sending of the Son into the world “in order that we may live through him” (1 John 4.9), the sending of the Son into death “as atonement,” i.e., for the removal of sins and for the opening up of new life (1 John 4.10). In this God’s love has “appeared” (ἐφανερώθη), and it is in this event of revelation that the knowledge that God loves “us” (1 John 4.17), indeed that he is in his essence love (1 John 4.16), is grounded. Thus, the statement about God’s nature ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν points back fundamentally to the event of revelation, the sending of the Son and his way to the cross, which are interpreted in a Johannine manner as the definitive act of the love of God and which manifest precisely this love. At the same time it points back to a ‘network’ of relationships of love between God, Christ, and believers, as it is unpacked in the Fourth Gospel.

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Thus, while “God is love” is not really a ‘definitional’ sentence,90 it is nevertheless the most far-reaching statement regarding the Johannine view of God’s innermost nature, as it is known through the event of salvation in Christ and as it forms at the same time the ultimate foundation of this event. 4. Theological Christology and Christologized Theology 4.1 The Divinity of the Son and the New Picture of the Father From the observations presented above, it becomes clear, first, how intimately Christology and theology are joined with each other in Johannine thought. Predications of God are programmatically applied to Jesus and, specifically, not only to the glorified, post-Easter Jesus but in a distinctive retrojection of the Easter glory also already onto the incarnate and earthly Jesus, whose picture is sketched in a manner that is reshaped by divine features or divine glory. This can be seen in the christological predications, climaxing in the address to the risen one as “My Lord and my God,” in the confession of Thomas, and in the characteristic I-am sayings, in which the Old Testament formula of revelation is either used absolutely (6.20; 8.28; 13.19; 18.5, 6, 8) or in connection with metaphors, which are likewise biblically shaped, to express the dignity of Jesus’ person and his soteriological significance, so that the earthly Jesus is presented with divine features. However, with this application of the divine predications to Jesus, the picture of God ‘the Father’ is also significantly reconstituted and structurally changed. God—that is, emphatically, the biblical God—is now defined by his exclusive relation to the ‘Son,’ who makes him known (1.18) and ‘images’ him, so that the one who ‘sees’ Jesus, ‘sees’ the Father (14.7, 9). Thus, the invisible God, who cannot be represented by any image, has in Christ—and ever since the history of Christ—an ‘image,’ by which alone his nature can be known. In the Johannine view, this ‘image’ is the true picture of the biblical God. Before the coming of Christ, before his ‘incarnation’ and his way to the cross, there was no such access to him as the Father. “No one has ever seen God” (1.18). God becomes manifest in his actual nature only in what was made known in the sending of the eternal Logos, in his becoming 90 From a dogmatic perspective this is also pointed out by Karl Barth. Cf. K. Barth 2010, 275 (GV = 1946, 309): it is said to involve “a forced exegesis to cite this sentence apart from its context and without the interpretation that is placed on it by its context, and to use it as the basis for a definition.”

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flesh (not only in his preaching but in his activity and fate), indeed only in what became knowable in the post-Easter perspective, which shapes the presentation of the Fourth Gospel. Thus, this ‘image’ of the biblical God, whose way the Gospel describes, is a historical picture, the picture of a God who has involved himself with a concrete human history and in this history has come into contact even with death. This is implied from the beginning onward in the statement about the ‘becoming flesh’ of the Word (1.14). Thus, the divine Logos becomes ‘flesh’ when he involves himself with a human history and ultimately a human—indeed even an inhuman—death and thereby bursts both the classical Greek and the Old Testament–early Jewish categories of what can be called “God” (1.1c). Moreover, since the incarnate one himself is the picture of the Father and, conversely, the Father does not remain untouched by the death of the ‘only-begotten’ Son, this entrance into the frailty of historical existence could not be only an element of the way of the Son, which would leave the Father untouched, but it is also an element that affects the Father himself. Thus, the picture of God himself is incorporated into the historicality of the Logos-Son. The categories of what is divine are burst in the history of Jesus Christ also with a view to God himself. A God who enters into the changeability of history, who not only appears in an ‘epiphany’ but becomes a real human being, who is mortal and who dies, cannot be a god according to the usual categories of the Hellenistic-Roman world. And if he is a god, then he cannot really appear on the earth and in earthly form but can do so only ‘in pretense’ or as an ‘episode.’ However, this is precisely not what is meant in the Johannine talk of the Word becoming flesh and in the presentation of the Son of God’s way to the cross. Conversely, from a conventional Jewish perspective, an earthly human being, Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth, whose father and mother are known (6.42), and, much more, who is a crucified one, cannot, according to the biblical-Jewish commandment of the oneness and singularity of God, be brought into connection with the eternal God. Accordingly, where this occurs in the Gospel of John (and according to the Johannine presentation it is claimed by Jesus himself), the Jewish objection understandably finds expression that he “makes himself equal to God” by saying that God is “his Father” (5.18) or, even more clearly, that he “makes himself God” (10.33) as well as, in conclusion at the trial before Pilate as the grounds for the sentence of death, that “he has made himself God’s Son” (19.7). In the presentation of the Gospel, in which this claim of divinity is placed in Jesus’ own mouth, this criticism is then reflected in the accusation of ‘the Jews’ against Jesus himself that he lays claim to a ‘usurped’ divine dignity, which does not belong to him but is

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ultimately an offense against the one God that is blasphemous and thus worthy of death. This shows that the Johannine proclamation of Christ could be understood—and was understood—by contemporary Jews as an offense against the monotheistic commandment. 4.2 The ‘Binitarian Monotheism’ of the Johannine Proclamation In the view of the Johannine proclamation, this accusation is, nonetheless, inaccurate, and in the dispute with Jewish objections, which were probably still present for many community members even after the separation from the local synagogue, the Gospel of John endeavors to invalidate the accusation of violating monotheism and to justify its own high Christology, indeed even the “God” predicate for Jesus, with recourse to Scripture and to defend it against the accusation of a self-asserted divinity. In this context the bold argumentation in John 10.34-36 is especially significant. Here, the Johannine Jesus, in dispute with his Jewish contemporaries, uses the Old Testament address of God to the “Elohim-beings” in Psalm 82.6 (81.6 LXX: ἐγὼ εἶπα θεοί ἐστε) as a justification for the view that such an address cannot be a priori blasphemous and that this accusation therefore also cannot apply to (the Johannine) Jesus when he designates himself as ‘God’s Son.’ In John 5.19-47 the close bond of the Son with the Father, his dependence on the giving, showing, and speaking of the Father, is stressed in particular against the accusation of a selfasserted usurpation of divine dignity, and this argumentation is also aimed at the refutation of corresponding accusations. To be sure, the resolution of the argument does not occur in a subordinationist sense, i.e., through the disclosure that Jesus is not really equal to God but is, in fact, subordinate to him. Rather, Johannine theology really does insist on the divine dignity of Jesus and sees the decisive justification precisely in the fact that this dignity was ‘given’ to him by the Father, so that to the Son the same honor is due as is due to the Father (5.23). It is for precisely this reason that faith in God can now make itself concrete in faith in Jesus (14.1), and the reign of God can assert itself in the βασιλεία of Jesus, the glorified crucified one. At the same time, nothing supports the assumption that the evangelist has somehow abandoned the confession of the one and only God of Israel and thus made concessions to a pagan viewpoint. The God of the Bible and the Father of Jesus Christ is programmatically spoken of as the one and true God. While the predication εἷς θεός, which is widespread in the ancient world also in the pagan sphere,91 is lacking in the Fourth Gospel, it could 91

On this, cf. now Peterson/Markschies 2012.

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be in the background when the Johannine Jesus says in a pointed statement, ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν (10.30). With this phrasing, which is conspicuously configured with the neuter ἕν, the coordination of the Son to the Father, of the “only-begotten one, who is God” (1.18), to the “one God” (17.3) is made in a carefully considered manner. On the one hand, it excludes the talk of two gods who stand alongside each other, and thus the mode of thinking of a ditheism or polytheism. On the other hand, a simple identification of Jesus with the one God is also excluded (otherwise it could read εἷς ἐσμέν). However, the Son and the Father remain distinct ‘persons’—as is also clear, after all, in the pictorial statements about the ‘seeing,’ ‘hearing,’ ‘showing,’ etc. At the same time, they are most intimately related to each other through the ‘oneness’ terminology. The same constellation finds expression in a more strongly mythological picture in the statement of the Prologue that the only-begotten one ‘is in the bosom of the Father’ (1.18). In the survey of these statements, it is ultimately clear that one must speak not only of a oneness of action or even a oneness of will between the Father and the Son but also of a oneness that is grounded in the shared participation in the divine nature, even though the later dogmatic concept of the oneness in essence cannot yet be presupposed in this way for the time of the New Testament writings. Undoubtedly there consistently remains a ‘slope’ between Father and Son; the relation is irreversible, and the two are not ‘the same.’ Nevertheless, through his authority, which has been given to him from the Father, and—even more—through his power of life, which exists in the oneness with him, the Son is distinguished from all earthly beings. He belongs on the side of the creator and not of the creatures. This also finds linguistic expression in a series of Johannine formulations, for example, in Jesus’ authoritative ἐγώ εἰμι, which is explicated in John 8.16 as “I and the Father,” in the statements about his preexistence, such as in John 1.1-3, where it is said of the Logos that he “was” (ἦν) before the world became (ἐγένετο) or in John 8.58, where it says that Jesus as the preexistent one is (present) before Abraham became.92 His timeoverarching presence encompasses the past of the patriarchs as well as the future of the believers (14.3; 17.24).93 Apparently, Jesus’ mode of being is meant to be categorically distinguished from every human existence also linguistically. Only as the one who has “life” in himself (5.26) can he give life in divine authority.94 92

For the topic of preexistence in John, see now Kunath 2016. Cf. further chapter 3 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013d). 94 This ‘high Christology’ determines Johannine thought and forms at the same time the framework of interpretation in which one must interpret the ‘lower’ statements about Jesus as the sent one of the Father, as prophet, as Messiah, etc., which cannot call into 93

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For the understanding of these ‘steep’ christological statements, I can note only briefly here that the Johannine proclamation is probably aware that its perspective is a post-Easter perspective that was only opened up to the witnesses through the ‘reminding’ Spirit and with recourse to Scripture and that the presentation of the story of Jesus that has been configured on the basis of this insight does not simply correspond to what was recognizable for the eyewitnesses at the time of the earthly Jesus.95 Thus, it is openly acknowledged in the Gospel that at first the disciples of the earthly Jesus did not understand his words, his true identity, and his fate and that it was only after his ‘glorification,’ i.e., after Easter, that they could obtain this insight in retrospect (2.21-22; 12.16). The high Christology, the perception of the true divinity of Jesus and his oneness with the Father, is also developed from this retrospective insight, which was granted by the reminding of the Spirit (14.26-27; 16.13-15). To be sure, this does not mean that the Johannine witnesses did not regard their view of things to be the true view, precisely in the sense of a revealed truth, which sees more deeply than what stands before one’s eyes. The question of whether this bold talk of the divine Logos or Son and of the oneness of Father and Son can still be understood as ‘monotheism’ was and is answered in the negative by some of course. In the post-Johannine time, for example, notions of ‘two powers in heaven’ were rejected as heretical in rabbinic theology, which probably could have had in view both Christian conceptions and Jewish(-mystical) notions, for example, with regard to a chief angel named ‘Metatron.’96 On the other hand, we are helped along here by a research paradigm—which was developed by Larry Hurtado and a number of other, especially British, exegetes—that explains the early emergence of ‘high Christology’ within the framework of a Jewish thinking with reference to conceptions of exaltation, angels, and mediators.97 The fact that a form of veneration and worship was given to the exalted Christ very quickly and still within the framework of the early (Aramaic-speaking) primitive community (e.g., in the ‘maranatha’), which elsewhere was not even given to angelic beings, compels one to reflect on how ‘far’ Jewish monotheism could be interpreted. Larry Hurtado has called this worship already in the early period of question the validity of the statements about his participation in the divine nature. On this, cf. Frey 2000b, 349–51; and chapter 9 in this volume (GV = Frey 2016g). 95 On this hermeneutic of remembrance, cf. sections 4.3 and 4.4 of chapter 11 in this volume (GV = Frey 2010a, 472–76; 2013a, 826–33). 96 On the problem, cf. Segal 2012 [1977]. 97 Hurtado 2003; previously Hurtado 2015 [1998]; 1999. For this direction of scholarship, cf. also the lucid survey of research by Chester 2011; as well as Frey 2013e; and the other relevant essays in Breytenbach/Frey 2013.

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the Jesus movement ‘binitarian monotheism,’ and one could also use this term tentatively for the Fourth Gospel. While this does not yet adequately explain the subject matter, it nevertheless affirms that in the controversy over the Johannine high Christology and monotheism there were indeed various options, which for a relatively long time did not necessarily burst the framework of Jewish thought. In the Gospel of John and in the Johannine letters—where Christ is even designated the ‘true God’—this monotheistic framework is still emphatically upheld, as precisely the efforts to connect the Son as closely as possible with the Father attest. 4.3 The Reciprocal Immanence of God and Christ The most intensive linguistic connection occurs in the formulaic talk of the reciprocal being-in of the Father and the Son, the ‘reciprocal immanence.’98 The oneness of working and willing is expressed through a spatial-metaphorical speech form, which seeks to express precisely this most intimate relatedness to each other, even the oneness of Father and Son, in the talk of a mutual being-in, indeed an ‘interpenetration.’ Thus, following the bold argumentation with Psalm 82 in John 10.38, with reference to the testimony of the works of Jesus, in which, in the Johannine view, God himself is at work (cf. 5.17), it says: “that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Similarly, in the first Farewell Discourse in John 14.10, we read: “that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” The Gospel of John has a tendency to use such formulations, including when it speaks of the relationship between Jesus and believers. In that case, however, it is more inclined to speak of “remaining in” (μένειν ἐν),99 likewise in a conspicuously reciprocal way (cf. 15.5). Thus, the Gospel of John takes up linguistic forms that were used in early Judaism, e.g., with regard to the immanence of the Word of God, of Wisdom, of the Logos, of the Spirit, or also of God in the human being, while, conversely, the being, let alone the remaining, of humans in the Logos, in Wisdom, or in God is much more rarely expressed.100 In John these statements are developed further into a much clearer reciprocity and, in terms of content, “the reciprocal Father-Son-immanence is specified as the archetype of the reciprocal Son-Christian-immanence.”101 At the same time, the Johannine model differs clearly from the notion of a “naturally 98

On this, cf. fundamentally and in detail, Scholtissek 2000a. See also section 3.2 in chapter 9 of this volume (GV = Frey 2016g, 202–5). 99 Scholtissek 2000a, 365–66. 100 Scholtissek 2000a, 369. 101 Scholtissek 2000a, 369.

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given presence of the divine in humans,”102 which is widespread in the framework of Greco-Roman philosophy. Rather, the Johannine presence of God among humans is characterized as a free movement that goes back to God’s initiative, as the sending of the Son into the world (3.16-17) and the dwelling of the Logos in the flesh, the incarnation (1.14), which took place out of love. The oneness, indeed the ‘interpenetration,’ of Father and Son determines not only Christology but in the same way also theology proper, the talk about God: for in this most intimate bond with the Father Jesus is at the same time the image of the Father, who makes the Father visible, so that the one who sees him sees the Father (14.7, 9), and, on the other hand, the true image of the Father is manifest exclusively in the ‘only-begotten one,’ the Son. It is not without reason that the Prologue of the Gospel runs toward the statement (1.18) that the μονογενής, who is God,103 has ‘exegeted’ (ἐξηγήσατο) the invisible God, i.e., has made him visible and revealed him in his true nature. 5. The Theological Payoff The exclusivity of this theology of revelation is—especially in the context of a modern, pluralistic theology—offensive to many. It causes a disturbance in the dialogue of religions and especially in the dialogue with Judaism. Not a few exegetes feel the temptation to cut out the pointed statements of this theology of revelation or to reduce them in their weight. However, precisely this thinking that is perceived as irritating is located on the slope of the Johannine Christology. One comes to the Father ‘only’ through the Son (14.6) and to the flock ‘only’ through the door (10.7). The human being comes to life only through ‘the Son’ (1 John 5.12) and through faith in him (John 3.36), and true knowledge of God is possible only on the basis of this revelation through the Son. There is no true and fully valid knowledge of God that bypasses the revelation in Jesus Christ. This does not mean that the God of the Old Testament, who had spoken to the fathers and to Israel (10.34-35), is regarded as a different God from the God of Jesus Christ. No negative judgment is spoken over the fathers of Israel. They are simply consistently related to Christ: Moses wrote about him (5.46), and Isaiah saw his glory (12.41). Nevertheless, the knowledge of God that is claimed by those who continue to appeal to their being bodily children of Abraham is no longer valid. In the Johannine view, the 102

Scholtissek 2000a, 369. The variant reading υἱός is clearly an attempt to make the text easier; the lectio difficilior, which is to be preferred, is θεός. 103

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contemporary synagogue that rejects the christological interpretation of the Scripture can no longer claim a true and sufficient knowledge of God, whom “no one has ever seen” (1.18). Rather, this God is recognizable in his true nature only in the revelation through the Son. What is the theological payoff of this pattern of thought? Here, one must—at least in a thesis-like manner—enter into conversation with the subsequent history of theology and with systematic theology. 5.1 God Is No Longer ‘Hidden’ A first point concerns theological speculations about a ‘hidden God’ or a ‘hidden side of God,’ which played a great role especially in the Reformation theology of a Lutheran character.104 This pattern of thought’s concern to do justice to the darkness and ambiguity of nature and history is indeed to be appreciated. However, with the Johannine Christology an antithesis is set against this human experience of darkness and impenetrability of what happens in the world. One can no longer conceive of and fear a side of God that is ‘hidden’ behind the revelation of the will and nature of God in Christ and that differs from the nature revealed there and may even be ‘entirely different.’ If the saving will and the loving nature of the biblical God are validly revealed in the history of Jesus and in his way to the cross, then this revelation is eschatologically valid and incontrovertible and not to be circumvented by the recourse to an impenetrable working of God in human history.105 Thus, John is a crown witness of a theology of revelation of a Barthian character rather than of the talk of the ‘hidden God’ in a theology of history determined in a Lutheran way. Nevertheless, one must add by way of qualification that in its christological concentration the Fourth Gospel devotes only very little attention to the spheres of nature and history, indeed to the cosmos as created world in general—here one must take into account the limited scope of the thinking documented in the Corpus Johanneum. Still, the claim of the (eschatological) validity of the will and nature of God revealed in the history of Christ has far-reaching significance—and this claim ultimately tolerates no restrictions. 5.2 God Has Entered into History If the nature of the biblical God is revealed in the sending of the Son, which culminates in his death on the cross, this entails that the eternal God 104

Cf. e.g., B. Lohse 1999, 165–66, 215–218; Bayer 2008, 198–206. While the traditional talk of Deus absconditus may arise out of human experience, it does not correspond to the revelation of God in Christ formulated in the Gospel of John. 105

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himself has involved himself with a history—with the spatially and temporally concrete history of the earthly Jesus of Nazareth, a human being, whose father and mother are known (6.42), indeed who was not even active in a world center of that time but came from the insignificant village of Nazareth (1.46) and was crucified in Jerusalem, which was likewise located at the relative margins of the world of that time. It is not ‘world history,’ the history of the empire and the influential, but rather a ‘corner history’ with which the eternal God and creator of the world has involved himself by identifying himself in the closest possible way with the Son, who walked his earthly path and suffered death. If, however, this event, the history of the earthly Jesus of Nazareth, must be regarded theologically as the decisive event of revelation, then this means that the eschatological revelation of God, in which not only salvation but also God’s innermost nature comes to light, thus takes place, according to the Gospel of John, in an earthly history that ultimately leads to death106 or, more pointedly, in the historical event of the ‘hour’ of Jesus which is his death (and which for John is never to be viewed in detachment from the Easter dimension). Conversely, the eschatological salvation of the world is grounded in this historical event of his death. Here the Prologue’s talk of the incarnation, of the tenting of the Logos,107 reaches its goal: God’s presence in the world is manifest in the history of Christ, and even after Jesus’ departure no end of this presence is envisaged, for this history itself remains present through the Spirit and through the proclamation. 5.3 The Enduring Significance of the Cross According to John, it is clear that the event of the cross is not simply ‘revised’ by Easter.108 Rather, the cross has an enduring theological significance also after Easter. It is placed before the eyes of the readers of the Gospel as a ‘theological picture’ (in correspondence to the serpent of Num 21),109 and at the end a Scripture is cited that humans “will look on him whom they have pierced.” In the Easter recognition scenes, the disciples 106

The Johannine presentation makes clear that Jesus’ entire activity leads to his death through numerous interpretive anticipations (e.g., references to the ‘hour’: John 2.4; 7.30; 8.20), through the dramaturgy of the conflict with Jesus’ contemporaries, through the detailed Farewell Discourses, and, not least, through the justification of the decision that he must die with Jesus’ central christological claim (11.45-54). On this, cf. Frey 2002c (= 2013a, 485–554); and chapter 5 in this volume (GV = Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). 107 On this, see chapter 8 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c). 108 Sections 5.3–5.5 in this chapter reproduce material from section 4.2 of chapter 11 in this volume with modifications. 109 On this, cf. Frey 1994b (= 2013a, 89–145).

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recognize the appearing one through his embodied address “Peace be with you” and through the wounds of the cross, and only in this way do they move from fear to Easter joy (20.19-20, 24-29).110 Thus, the risen one is recognized by the signs of his earthly history. He has precisely not cast off the traces of his suffering and death but rather continues to bear the signa crucifixi on himself. In this way he overcomes the disbelief of Thomas and elicits from him the highest confession of the entire Gospel: “My Lord and my God!” (20.28). As the definitive place of the revelation of God, Christ is enduringly the crucified one, and as such he is the eschatological revelation of God. This means no less than that post Christum glorificatum God himself is no longer to be thought without reference to the cross of Christ and thus to a historical event. In the incarnation of the Son of God and—ultimately—in his crucifixion, the condescension of the God who encounters us salvifically, indeed his enduring bond to humanity and human history, definitively manifests itself. Just as the salvation created by him, God himself is no longer to be thought of without reference to the world and to history, to human suffering and human death.111 In this way the Gospel of John expresses the historicality of the revelation of the biblical God in a provocative and unsurpassable manner. One can no longer speak of God in a true and Christian way without taking this reality into account. 5.4 God as ‘Love’—Which Has Proven Itself Historically The interpretation of the death of Jesus as a voluntary death that has been entered into out of love for his friends (11.5; 13.1; 15.13) has the implication that God’s own will must ultimately be specified as love (3.16; 1 John 4.8, 16). This motif, which is attested long before John (cf. Rom 5.8; 8.33), is connected with the sending or handing over of the Son into the world and into death in the Gospel of John. This multifaceted ‘network’ of statements regarding love in the Gospel of John112 has its center and foundation in the statements about the love of the Father for the Son (3.35; 17.24) and the love of God for the world (3.16), which is, in turn, the foundation for the sending and giving of the Son. First John 4.9-10 formulates even more programmatically: “In this the love of God has appeared among us, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live 110

On this, cf. Frey 2009b; and chapter 6 in the present volume (GV = 2009c; 2013a, 699–738). 111 On this, see Frey 2009a, 509–10 (= 2013a, 636–37). 112 These statements affect almost all the relationships—the disciples among one another, the disciples to Jesus, Jesus to the disciples, the disciples to God, the Father to the disciples. On this, see Frey 2009d (= 2013a, 739–65).

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through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atonement for our sins.” In this way Johannine theology—in a pointed statement that is without analogy—can describe God’s nature as love (1 John 4.8, 16), with the basis for knowing this love being located in a historical event. It is the sending of the Son into the world for the removal of sins and for the opening up of the new life (1 John 4.10) in which the love of God has “appeared.” The knowledge and faith that God loves “us” (1 John 4.17), indeed that he is in fact—unambiguously and in a completely undualistic manner—love (1 John 4.16), is grounded in this.113 While the Gospel materially takes up a line of thought that was provided in the biblical tradition, it nevertheless brings it to bear in a new way that surpasses everything that has come before and that ultimately no longer tolerates any restrictions. 5.5 The Universality of the Worship of God ‘in the Spirit’ In the Johannine writings the talk of God’s love stands alongside two other predicates through which Johannine theology has become a central source of the later Christian talk of the ‘attributes’ of God. “God is light” (1 John 1.5) takes up the ‘dualistic’ light–darkness terminology but maintains the insight that God himself is exempted from that ambiguity and thus that the light—at least at the end—will also overcome the darkness, as it now, ever since Easter, already “shines in the darkness” (1.5).114 The second predication is even more significant: “God is spirit” (πνεῦμα ὁ θεός: John 4.24), and he wants to be worshipped in spirit and truth—thus it is formulated in the context of the Samaritan pericope and in the horizon of the question about the right place (and right manner) of the cult. There Jesus reveals himself to be the Messiah, who can provide valid information with regard to such questions (4.26) and who simultaneously overcomes every determination of concrete places of revelation and worship. It is not in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim that God is to be worshipped but ‘in spirit and truth.’ This, in turn, ultimately implies: in faith in Christ, who (in the post-Easter period) is to be found neither here nor there but has acceded, as the exalted one, to his universal reign115 and who will draw all people 113

For the relation between the Johannine love statements and the ‘dualistic’ linguistic elements in the Gospel and letters, see the clarifications in Popkes 2005a. 114 John 1.5 should already be understood as a reflex of the Easter viewpoint that the darkness was not able to overcome and extinguish the light of the world. On this, see section 3.1 of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 31–33; 2013a, 438–41). 115 In this way he is presented as the true king in the Pilate pericope (18.28–19.16) and proclaimed as ‘King of the Jews’ in three world languages on the cross. Cf. now also Frey 2014b.

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to him from there (12.32). His worship is—at least after his ‘departure’ or after Easter—no longer restricted to Israel or to a specific place; rather, ‘in spirit and truth’ it is possible in a universal breadth. 5.6 A Proto-Trinitarian Form of Thought There was already talk of ‘binitarian monotheism’ in the statements about the most intimate bond between God and Christ. The statements in which there is additionally talk of the Spirit—who, according to the Johannine Paraclete sayings, is to come from the Father to the disciples after Jesus’ departure at his petition (14.16-17), or even at his commission (15.26; 16.7-11)—allow one to go even a step further. Here a ‘personal’ activity in the most intimate bond and yet also with enduring distinction is expressed. A ‘fusion’ of Father, Son, and Spirit is out of the question. The Spirit is also not simply a mere mode of appearance of the Son but rather indeed a distinct agent who is presumably significant for the experience of the Johannine community. More than any other New Testament texts, the Gospel of John reflects on the connection, the inner relationship, indeed the ‘oneness’ not only of Father and Son but also of Spirit, Son, and Father, both in the Paraclete sayings (14.16, 26; 15.26; 16.14-15) and in other statements such as John 1.33 and 7.39. Thus, “of all the New Testament writings,” the Johannine writings are “the ones in which Trinitarian thinking occurs in its highest density.”116 The personality of the Spirit and the precise coordination of Spirit, Son, and Father are expressed here in a way that is unsurpassed in the New Testament and in a way that provided the foundations for the subsequent formation of creeds.117 With this structural development of the talk of Father, Son, and Spirit, which became formative for later reflections, as well as the theological talk of the (historically manifested) love of God, a talk that made a claim to ultimate validity, Johannine theology has decisively advanced Christian thinking about God and established crucial foundations for all later Christian talk about God.

116

Wilckens 2001, 56. At least according to the conviction of the Johannine author, the framework of the monotheistic confession continues to be preserved—as for the relationship between Father and Son, so also with the independent reflection on the Spirit who is now bestowed by the Son. 117

PART 5 John and New Testament Theology

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Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology

New Testament scholarship1 makes a justified claim to be the foundational discipline of every theology that wishes to call itself ‘evangelical.’2 It has something to say about the whole of theology and of Christian existence. The fact that it is at the same time a historical-philological discipline is self-evident in today’s discursive context. As such it lives from the precise reference to texts and sources, their careful historical analysis, and their judicious placement in their ancient contexts. It advances less through ever new methods and fashions and more through new discoveries that open up new perspectives on texts and subject matters that are usually already known.3 As a theological discipline, New Testament scholarship simultaneously takes aim—beyond the discussion of the history-of-religion and tradition-historical connections, of the origin, semantics, and rhetoric of the texts—at the question of the material validity of what the texts it is faced with have to say about God and humanity. From a Protestant standpoint, New Testament scholarship cannot restrict itself to mere preliminaries 1

This chapter originated as a farewell lecture to the theological faculty of the University of Munich on February 4, 2010. I want to thank all my colleagues and coworkers from my Munich period for enriching my life and work at this time and dedicate the English version of this essay to the memory of Ferdinand Hahn (1926–2015), a teacher and colleague who especially became a friend to me. 2 Here I am using the term “evangelical” in the sense of an orientation or reorientation toward the gospel (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον) and not with reference to a party within Protestantism. 3 In my inaugural lecture in Munich in the summer of 2000, I took up this aspect and interpreted what was then a new document, namely the “Unknown Berlin Gospel Fragment” P. Berol. 22220 in relation to the Gethsemane tradition (Frey 2002b). The progress of scholarship can be seen in the fact that this text, which was regarded at that time as a sensation (as also, more recently, the Gospel of Judas in Codex Tchacos) and dated very early by its ‘discoverers,’ has been interpreted in a much more sober manner in the meantime and dated even later than I myself could see at that time. See Hagen 2010; and Suciu 2017. 347

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from which others would then formulate the properly theological statements. As advocate of the texts—of their foreignness and their claim—it confronts the other theological disciplines with the foundations of the biblical tradition. If it contented itself with less, it would not be theology. Conversely, if theology as a whole does not want to abandon its identity, it is dependent upon the reference back to the tradition of the beginning. If a Protestant theology were to think that it could ignore the biblical tradition, it would lose its legitimacy and relevance. The consistent focus of my research in recent years has been the Johannine writings, the lengthy preparation for the production of a commentary on John.4 In that regard my interest has increasingly moved from history-of-religion and source-critical questions to the question of the theological distinctiveness of the Fourth Gospel and the theology that is discernible in the Johannine writings. Indeed, I think that Johannine thought goes beyond the other conceptions in the New Testament in many respects and that—despite many problems—it was not without reason that it became formative for many later discourses. In what follows I will discuss this thesis both in general and with reference to specific examples. To what extent can Johannine theology be regarded as the peak or climax of New Testament theology? 1. The Traditional High Esteem for the Gospel of John and the Problematization of the Gospel A special high esteem for the Gospel of John has existed in almost all epochs—from the ancient church to the present. The first commentary on a New Testament writing, by the Valentinian Heracleon, was on this Gospel, and Irenaeus too draws extensively from it in his anti-gnostic argumentation.5 Tatian made it the basis of his harmony of the Gospels, the Diatessaron. Clement (in Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6.14.7) regarded it as the ‘spiritual’ Gospel as distinct from the Synoptics, which were said to be concentrated more on the bodily things. And for Origen (Commentarii in evangelium Joannis 1.4.23) the Johannine writings were the highest-ranking Scriptures in the whole Bible. John Chrysostom and Augustine wrote famous expositions of the Gospel of John. Thomas Aquinas also commented on it, and Meister Eckhart commented at least on the Prologue. Luther prized John as “the one, fine, true, and chief gospel,” 4

The most important contributions have been reprinted in Frey 2013a, many of which have been translated in this volume. 5 On this, see Mutschler 2006.

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which “is far, far to be preferred over the other three.”6 Herder regarded it as “the echo of the older Gospels in a higher tone.”7 The philosophers of German Idealism were predominantly inclined to Johannism,8 and for Ferdinand Christian Baur the Gospel of John stood “over all others.”9 The comprehensive New Testament theologies by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann and Rudolf Bultmann maintained that the Gospel of John—or at least its decisive stratum—constitutes the high point of New Testament theology.10 Their basic models differ considerably with regard to their views of the history of theology and of hermeneutics, but it is consistently the ‘eagle’ evangelist who is awarded the rank of the highest flying or most profound, of the most ‘refined’ or ‘most modern’ theologian. To be sure, in more recent discussion the theological legitimacy of the Fourth Gospel has been increasingly contested for various reasons. For Ernst Käsemann, John’s alleged ‘naïve docetism’11 and the concomitant loss of reality placed John in a crypto-heretical corner. Other interpreters, who want to locate the criterion of theological appropriateness primarily in the historical Jesus, point to the disconcertingly free handling of the traditioned story and the massively altered—i.e., vis-à-vis the reconstructed message of the earthly Jesus—form of the self-proclamation of the Johannine Christ. In the context of postmodern pluralism the christological exclusiveness of the Gospel of John is found to be especially disturbing. Moreover, its anti-Jewish polemic is aggravating for Jewish–Christian dialogue, with the result that the question of the extent to which this antiJudaism is the unavoidable ‘shadow’ of the christological splendor has been raised.12 Nevertheless, despite all this criticism, recent scholarship has also recognized that the Fourth Gospel differs from other conceptions not only in the ‘height’ of its christological statements but also in the ‘depth’ of its spirituality (which is often called ‘mystical’) and in the density of its metaphoricism and that it exerts its special fascination through this.13

6

LW 35, 362. Herder 1880, 424. 8 So, e.g., the interpretation of Fichte 1945; cf. Schulze 1964. 9 Baur 1847, 386. 10 Holtzmann 1897; Bultmann 1984; 2007. 11 Käsemann 1968, 26; 1980, 62. 12 Von der Osten-Sacken 1976. On this topic, see chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2004a, 39ff.; 2013a, 353ff.). 13 The letters of John usually come off less favorably. They are often accused of a dogmatic hardening and a polemic against opponents that is inappropriate for our present understanding. 7

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In view of the criticism sketched above, is it (still) possible to say that Johannine thought forms the high point of the theological thought of the New Testament? Can one speak at all of a ‘climax’ of New Testament theology anyway? Are we dealing with a ‘ladder’ here, a development that leads from ‘lower’ to ‘higher’ stages of religious consciousness or theological penetration? And can the peak of this development really be located in the Johannine thought—of the Gospel or with the inclusion of the letters?14 I will briefly specify some presuppositions and problems of this— admittedly bold—thesis, both with regard to the underlying interpretation of John and, first, with regard to the question of New Testament theology. 2. Does New Testament Theology Possess a ‘Climax’— and How Can This Be Grasped? This line of questioning belongs to the fundamental problems of the discipline ‘Theology of the New Testament.’ Its task resembles a squaring of the circle insofar as it, as a historical discipline, draws out the theological substance of New Testament texts and poses the question of their material ‘claim’—or even their ‘their truth claim.’15 Thus, history and theology, reconstruction and interpretation, are indissolubly connected with one another. In that process it can scarcely be avoided that the organizing principles not only arise from the material but also come from outside as models—which must then prove themselves in relation to the material. This applied and applies equally to the old method of theological loci and doctrinal-concepts, as well as to the Hegelian theory of history in Baur, the existential principle of interpretation of Bultmann, and the traditionhistorical continuity model of the biblical theology of Peter Stuhlmacher. Even scholars who programmatically conceptualize ‘New Testament theology’ in the sense of a ‘history of primitive Christian religion’ do actually depend on external patterns of coherence.16 It is not possible to escape the hermeneutical circle, not even through the renunciation of a theological perspective of interpretation. In my view, the issue is thought through in the most nuanced manner in the double perspective of historical and thematic 14 Cf., e.g., the considerations in Schlier 1975, 336–37. Johannine theology appears as the conclusion of the tour through the New Testament in, e.g., Goppelt 1981a (ET = 1981b); Stuhlmacher 2012 (ET = 2018); and also Schnelle 2007, 659–750; 2013b, 619– 711 (though the discussion of Revelation follows); but not in Bultmann 1984; 2007; or in the first volume of the theology of Hahn 2011. 15 On this, see Frey 2007d (= 2016a, 829–79); and the other essays in Breytenbach/ Frey 2007. See further Sellin 2004; Schröter 2013, 317–49 (GV = 2007, 343–77). 16 Thus with recourse to William Wrede in Räisänen 2000a; 2000b; Theissen 1999; 2000.

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presentation in Ferdinand Hahn’s Theologie des Neuen Testaments.17 In his second volume, Hahn inquires after the theological substance and the unity of New Testament theology without abandoning a nuanced understanding of the depth dimension of history and without surrendering the knowledge of the variety and the enduring contradictions within the New Testament.18 It is, however, still controversial whether it is possible to show a coherence among the New Testament ‘theologies’ (and other early Christian conceptions), let alone a ‘unity.’ Many recent conceptions reject this line of questioning with reference to the fundamental historical diversity of the theologies in the New Testament,19 but one can scarcely contest the fact that the historically nuanced and multifaceted phenomenon of early Christianity displays a certain commonality in its reference back to the Christ event and that early Christian believers and authors mutually recognized one another—amid all differences and points of controversy—as part of this community.20 To this extent, one cannot reject the question about lines of development and coherences with regard to subject matter as a task of New Testament theology—although literary references and processes of reception between the individual conceptions can only be shown to a limited extent. The talk of a ‘climax’ implies the notion of a development. This too must be made more precise. Of course there were developments in early Christianity with regard to linguistic forms and conceptual contents as well as in the geographical spread and in the formation of institutional structures, etc. However, since there are many gaps in the data, these processes cannot always be reconstructed, and we must assume that they developed differently and not at the same time in different circles or regions. When scholars in the past thought of such processes as linear or governed by certain principles of development, a unity could be reconstructed from the diversity of the witnesses,21 but in this process concretions of the diversity were all too often flattened out according to the given scheme.

17

See Hahn 2011. Cf. Hahn 2011. 19 So, e.g., Schnelle 2007, 52–53 (GV = 2013b, 40–41). 20 On this topic, cf. now also Markschies 2015, 301–45, esp. 335–45 (GV = 2007, 337–83, esp. 373–83). 21 It is significant that the collapse of the Bauerian assumption of such a development governed by set principles and the insight into the constructive character of this assumption in William Wrede’s writings led to the rejection of the quest for a unity of the New Testament theology and thus of the historical legitimacy of this discipline. On this, see Frey 2007d (= 2016a, 829–79). 18

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The notion of a religious or theological higher development is also problematic. If the ethereal heights, to which the eagle evangelist John soars, stand at the end, then one will have to ask where one should locate the ‘nether regions’ from which such a development took off. Scarcely with the earthly Jesus himself—he is often ‘bypassed’ in such reflections—but more likely in the conceptions of early Christianity that one regarded as ‘still’ strongly shaped in a Jewish Christian or apocalyptic manner, so that precisely the removal of the ‘Jewish husk’ was not infrequently appraised as a ‘further’ or even a ‘higher’ development. The problematic character of such criteria is much more evident to us today than to earlier generations of scholarship. We must bear in mind that it can never be the case that we are dealing with a unilinear ‘development to a higher level,’ but in such historical processes insights and experiences can also be submerged and lost. For example, the egalitarian dynamic of the early Pauline communities with the ‘equal’ participation of Gentiles, slaves, and women (Gal 3.28), which strongly contributed to the attractiveness of the young community22 and was later rolled back in favor of a stronger adjustment to societal norms, such as when subordination is called for in the household codes or when the active participation of women in the actions of the worship service was rejected in the Pastoral Epistles. In such a development essential elements were lost, so that one cannot speak of a higher development in this case. I am aware of these difficulties when I speak in what follows of a climax or a high point of reflection in Johannine thought. In many cases the developments that must be presupposed can no longer be reconstructed in detail. For this reason, in the present framework my concern is with discourses and issues worked out in the Gospel or letters of John that are unsurpassed in the New Testament and that establish fundamental standards for subsequent reflection. Of course, writings that originated even later (so, in my view, the Pastoral Epistles, 2 Peter, and possibly Jude and Revelation) can fall short of the Johannine reflection, and, conversely, themes that are developed to more advanced insights in other writings can appear underdeveloped in the Johannine circle (such as the differentiation of community structures and offices). Finally, problematic impulses can be found in other thematic fields, such as especially in the statements about ‘the Jews,’ which hermeneutically fall short of the perspective developed by Paul in Romans 9–11, and also, in my view, in the treatment of the ‘secessionists’

22

On this, cf. Ebel 2004, 219.

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(i.e., with the people who separated from the Johannine community) in 1 John (2.18ff.) and the predestinarian interpretation of them.23 3. Comments on Some Basic Questions of Johannine Interpretation Before I speak further about where Johannine thought is especially developed in my view and where I think that it takes us forward, I want to concisely specify the presuppositions of my reading of John. More extensive justifications, which I have provided elsewhere,24 need not be repeated here. (a) Historically the Gospel of John is located not ‘in the beginning’ but—in agreement with the witness of the ancient church—at the relative end of New Testament Gospel writing. To be sure, the church fathers who attest this—Irenaeus (Adversus haereses 3.1.1) and Clement (Hypotyposes 6, according to Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6.14.7)—did not formulate this view as a result of historical-critical research. Rather, they followed early traditions of Asia Minor, and not all of the information within these traditions merit affirmation historically. Nevertheless, for the Fourth Gospel the most plausible assumption is, in fact, that it emerged around or even shortly after 100 CE,25 i.e., clearly later than Mark and Luke and probably also somewhat later than Matthew. This does not rule out the presence of older pieces of tradition—even though they can often no longer be isolated. In my view, the strong reference to Jewish (Messianic) discourses (e.g., in John 1.19-23) likewise cannot form the basis for an earlier dating, for example, prior to 70.26 We do not have many historical anchor points. Still, the Gospel of John does know of the death of Peter (21.18; cf. 13.36-38), and in its presentation of Caiaphas’ proposal it clearly alludes to the Jewish war, to the disempowering of the Jewish leaders by the Romans, and to the loss of the temple (11.48). And even though the explanation of the ἀποσυνάγωγοςstatements through the assumption of an exclusion of the Johannine (Jewish-)Christians on the basis of the resolutions of the so-called synod of Jamnia/Yavneh, which was popular for a certain period of time, has been completely destroyed in scholarship by now, the Johannine image of ‘the Jews’ does display a clear simplification and reflects a greater distance and further development vis-à-vis the still nuanced image of the relations 23

On this topic, see section 3.2 of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 450–67, especially 461–65 with note 253). 24 See Frey 2008c; 1997b; 1998; 2000b; and the essays in Frey 2013a, many of which have been translated in this volume (see especially chapter 1). 25 Thus Schnelle 2013c, 557 (ET = 1998, 476–77); and Hengel 1993, 15–18. 26 Thus the controversial proposal of Berger 1997.

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in the Gospel of Mark or even in the Gospel of Luke.27 Further aspects can be added to these observations. The questions of circumcision and Torah observance—which were highly controversial at the time of the Pauline mission—appear to be no longer an issue. The image of the community composed of Jews and Gentiles as one flock under one shepherd has its closest parallels in Ephesians.28 Moreover, the shape of John’s high Christology, which is expressed with titles such as θεός (1.1, 18; 20.28) and σωτήρ (4.42) and with a developed and thickly networked metaphoricism,29 likewise points to the late period of the New Testament. Finally, this is also confirmed by the critical reception of elements of the older Gospel tradition such as the reception of the Gethsemane scene in John 12.27-28 and 18.11, where the image of Jesus praying to be spared from death is explicitly rejected.30 (b) With this the question of sources comes into play. In the past decades scholarship has become much more cautious in that regard. All the elements of the classic source theory of Bultmann have fallen into the crossfire of criticism. With only a few exceptions31 interpreters today are more skeptical vis-à-vis the reconstruction of continuous sources behind the work of the evangelist. This applies to every form of an original ‘Grundschrift’ and to the ‘semeia source’32— which has been kept alive by some—as well as to the assumption of an independent passion narrative.33 Even the assumption of a pre-Johannine Logos hymn is fraught with great uncertainty in light of the opposing attempts to reconstruct it, and in my view it is indeed questionable whether one can assume the existence of such a hymn.34 To be sure, the thesis of complete literary unity35 is equally implausible, for it is based on a prior text-theoretical decision that brackets out the historical dimension. By contrast, we must assume that older individual 27

On this, see section 1.3 of chapter 1 and chapter 2 in this volume (GV = Frey 2013a, 12–17, 339–77). 28 On this, see U. Heckel 2004. 29 See fundamentally van der Watt 2000; R. Zimmermann 2004. 30 On this, see Frey 2003, 93 (= 2013a, 265–71). 31 Thus, on the one hand, the conception of Theobald 2009, which cautiously continues source criticism, and, on the other hand, the idiosyncratic nexus of hypotheses in Siegert 2008. See also the source-critical commentary of von Wahlde 2010. 32 Cf. the criticism in van Belle 1994; see also Schnelle 2016, 17–18. 33 In my view Lang 1999 has convincingly shown that the Johannine passion narrative can be explained entirely against the background of Mark (and Luke). For a different view, see—with the assumption of John’s independence from the Synoptics—Schleritt 2007. 34 Thus Thyen 2005; 2007, 368–407. 35 Advocated by Thyen 2005; for criticism see Frey 2008c.

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traditions have been reworked in the Johannine narratives and discourses,36 even though it is often not possible to isolate or reconstruct these traditions with certainty. Furthermore, I think that John 21 is not the goal where all the narrative lines necessarily meet. Rather, there is a break after the closure in 20:30-31, and in 21:1 the narrative opens afresh and in a new direction.37 This suggests the assumption of an addition in which the editors of the work—not in opposition to the evangelist but in continuation of his text—take the floor. By contrast, all other exclusions from the text of John 1–20 cannot be compellingly justified, especially since this does not result in a ‘smoother’ text and the logic of the old and new source critics all too often corresponds only with the interpreters’ own interpretive agendas.38 And since Johannine source criticism cannot be supported through textual parallels, it remains open whether their assumptions describe real processes of ancient text production or whether they are only an ingenious glass bead game. Since it is the case that the reconstruction of extra-Synoptic written sources no longer works, the model of a knowledge of the Synoptic tradition presses more strongly into the center again. Here, scholarship has undergone a change in the past twenty-five years, and the long-dominant model of a line of tradition that was independent or even isolated from the rest of primitive Christianity, has lost its plausibility for many. A knowledge of Synoptic material cannot be disputed, and it would be an unnecessarily complicated hypothesis if one were to assign such knowledge only to the level of the tradition or redaction and did not also let it apply to the evangelist.39 Therefore, I assume that John knew Mark and that he takes it up at some points, to be sure in an entirely different way than Luke and Matthew do—that is, in a much more eclectic and critical way. For example, the Markan Gethsemane pericope resonates at three different points (12.27-28; 14.31; 18.10-11). The Markan narrative is broken and at the same time materially rejected: “Should I say, ‘Save me from this hour?’ No! For this reason I have come to this hour” (12.27-28); “Should I not drink the cup that my Father has given me?” (18.11).40 Further, the Johannine account of the Baptist in John 1.19-34 features three sayings of the Baptist (vv. 23, 26-27, 33) in the exact same sequence in which the corresponding textual elements occur in Mark 1.3, 7, 8, though with significant 36 For the discourses, see Theobald 2002; Frey 2000b, 30–42; for the miracle stories, see Labahn 1999. Cf. Schnelle 2016, 19–20. 37 See Moloney 1998a, 182–92. 38 On this, see, with reference to the history of scholarship, Frey 1997b, passim, and, summarizing, 428–45. 39 On this, see Frey 2003 (= 2013a, 239–94). 40 On this, see Frey 2003, 86–93 (= 2013a, 265–71).

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modification and expansion (especially vv. 29, 34).41 Moreover, knowledge of the Gospel of Luke or of specifically Lukan materials must be considered, whereas a reception of the Gospel of Matthew cannot, in my view, be shown.42 Thus, the theological profile of the Gospel of John discloses itself to a considerable extent in the juxtaposition to the Synoptics. Much more difficult is the problem of the relationship to other streams of tradition in primitive Christianity—for example, to the Pauline tradition. The old thesis that John stands “on the shoulders of Paul”43 can scarcely be verified through concrete textual references. Nevertheless, there is a series of material and structural agreements between Pauline and Johannine thought, and the fact that the Jewish law in terms of concrete observance no longer plays a role in the Johannine circle presupposes the very same development that took place within the spheres of the Pauline mission. If the Johannine circle is to be sought in Ephesus, then one must assume such knowledge anyway as well as the juxtaposition of Johannine and (deutero-)Pauline circles.44 Thus, the more one regards the evangelist as a theologian who configures his work eclectically (20.30-31), the more one must assume his knowledge and critical adoption of diverse early Christian traditions. Moreover, the traces of Jewish language and tradition—for example, the much discussed parallels with certain statements attested at Qumran—do not attest a direct ‘borrowing’ either; rather, they are mediated primarily through the primitive Christian tradition.45 (c) Still, in my view, it is appropriate to speak of a Johannine ‘school.’46 To be sure, this term has recently been problematized because the analogies to philosophical schools are shaky47 and because there are no direct references to actual school activities or to a corresponding organization. Nevertheless, to me this model seems to be more than simply an apologetic construction.48 John 21.24-25 attests an ‘updating and revision’ of the work of the evangelist, and in the letters of John it is clear that there 41

On this, see Frey 2003, 93–100 (= 2013a, 271–77). On this, see Frey 2003, 113–14 (= 2013a, 289–90). For Luke, cf. now also Wolter 2017, 441–44. 43 Jülicher 1909, 96. 44 On this topic, see the instructive treatment of Trebilco 2004, who reckons with a peaceful juxtaposition of circles of different characters—of a Pauline/deutero-Pauline circle, a Johannine circle (for which he only evaluates the letters), and an apocalyptic circle. 45 On this, see Frey 2004b (= 2013a, 147–237). See also chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 3–7; 2013a, 409–13). 46 On this, see Schnelle 2013c, 513–15 (ET = 1998, 434–36); 2004, 1–3; see also the foundational study of Culpepper 1975. 47 See the criticism in Cebulj 2001. 48 Schmithals 1992, 208–14, regards the ‘school’ as an invention of apologists who desired to continue to hold fast to the influence of the son of Zebedee. 42

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was a circle that felt obliged to the author in loyalty and also that specific instructions were handed down in this circle (1 John 2.18). The linguistic form of some pieces of the Gospel49 and additional elements in the letters point to internal school discourses, and the designation of the addressees as friends (3 John 15; cf. John 15.13) may also be an indication for the specific shape of this group. One can distinguish only ideal-typically between this ‘school’ and the wider ‘Johannine community,’ insofar as the subjects who do theology are assigned to the ‘school’ and distinguished from the Christians associated with this tradition in general.50 However, one should not regard the Fourth Gospel as being designed for a narrow, possibly even isolated, ‘sectarian’ circle. The fact that it takes up the older gospel tradition and begins with the outbidding reference back to the beginning of Genesis (John 1.1-3) programmatically signal a more far-reaching, tendentially ‘biblical’ claim that goes far beyond the perspective of only a specific group or situation. The connection to specific situations is clearer in the three letters, whose relationship to the Gospel is of course controversial. Do they already reflect the impact of the Gospel, i.e., a ‘deutero-Johannine’ development, as the majority has long believed? Or were they composed prior to its conclusion or dissemination?51 Whatever one decides with regard to this question, it should be clear that the three Johannine letters belong closely to the Gospel on the basis of commonalities of language and subject matter and are indispensable for its interpretation. In this vein one can then speak also of ‘Johannine theology’ on the basis of the Gospel and letters. The convergences outnumber the divergences, and the latter can be ascribed largely to differences in their genres and modes of expression. The letters directly address a situation of conflict, while the Gospel communicates in the medium of narration and a connection to the addressees is recognizable only indirectly—probably most clearly in the Farewell Discourses in John 13–17. Still, the work narrates the past story of the earthly Jesus in a way that is ‘enriched’ by the developments in language and subject matter in the post-Easter period and, thus, by the standpoint of the Johannine community. By being narrated in this way the story of Jesus can simultaneously become transparent for and relevant to the situation and problems 49

John 16.13-15 points, e.g., to discussions about the legitimacy of the Johannine proclamation. 50 Cf. Schnelle 2016, 3: “All Johannine Christians belong to the community, whereas only those who were active participants in the Johannine development of theology belong to the school.” 51 This appears more plausible to me, also in view of the fact that a distinction between the author or authors of the letters and the evangelist cannot be justified linguistically (see Frey 1997b, 451–54; 2000b, 53–61).

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of its first readers—and, more generally, of the post-Easter period. Thus, the text presents a viewing together of different levels of time and subject matter, which encompasses the activity of the earthly Jesus as well as developments and conflicts of the early church and the Johannine communities up to the composition of the work. How clearly the situation of the first or intended readers can still be drawn out from this ‘sandwich’ is open to question, because all the concrete references are overlaid by a layer of greater ‘generality.’ The concern is not only with the unbelief of ‘the Jews’—neither those who appear as Jesus’ dialogue partners nor those who stood or stand over against the Johannine community—but simultaneously with the hatred of ‘the world’—which appears to be understood already in a more general and broader manner and to include both Jews and Gentiles.52 (d) Thus, the Gospel of John is an ‘anamnetic’ presentation of the way of the pre-Easter Jesus, which is programmatically configured from the post-Easter retrospective.53 It aims to lead its readers not only to a deepened christological-soteriological understanding (cf. 20.30-31) but probably also to a clarification of their own situation in the light of the fate of the incarnate Word of God. The dualistic linguistic elements as well as the many explanatory and commenting components in the text serve this pragmatic function.54 Accordingly, this work calls for a reading that is sensitive to the literary subtleties and the metaphorical depth of the text. At the same time, however, the work calls for a theological reading that takes the statements seriously with regard to their material claim. The Gospel of John is a book that—from the Prologue with the opening “in the beginning” (1.1) to its hyperbolic conclusion in John 21.25—claims to make fundamental and valid statements about Christ, God, faith, and ‘(eternal) life.’ 4. Johannine Theology as the High Point of Primitive Christian Thought and the Standard for Further Theological Reflection What thematic spheres and aspects can now be adduced in which Johannine theology leads beyond older early Christian approaches and at the same time becomes formative for subsequent theological reflection?

52

Frey 1994a (= 2013a, 297–338). On this, see Schnelle 2016, 29–35. See in detail Hoegen-Rohls 1996. 54 On this, see chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b; 2013a, 409–82); see also the fundamental study of Onuki 1984. 53

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4.1 The Synthetic ‘High’ Christology and Its Remaining Dialectic First, we should mention a sphere where the attribute ‘high’ appears appropriate—John’s Christology. If one presupposes the distinction between a ‘low’ Christology, which stresses Jesus’ humanity, and a ‘high’ Christology, which articulates his divinity, the Johannine writings are clearly representatives of a high Christology.55 (a) A ‘high’ Christology is by no means new at the time of the Gospel of John. If one understands the category in such a way that (in the framework of the fundamental monotheism that characterized Judaism and primitive Christianity) only a ‘divine’ being could receive ‘cultic’ veneration, worship, and invocation, such a view of the exalted one can already be identified in the early pre-Pauline communities.56 The Philippian hymn sings of his divine ‘form’ (Phil 2.6) and universal worship (2.10-11), and 1 Corinthians 8.6 can designate the κύριος, on a level with God, as the preexistent mediator of creation.57 However, in Paul the predicate θεός—perhaps with one doxological exception (Rom 9.5)—is not yet directly applied to Christ. In Mark too the ‘Son of God’ clearly stands on the side of God when he authoritatively pronounces the forgiveness of sins to humans (Mark 2.7), but the predicate θεός is also not (yet) applied to him there, and the features of Jesus’ humanity, e.g., his fear in the face of death (Mark 14.32-43), are also very prominent. According to Colossians 1.15, Christ is the “image of the invisible God” (Col 1.15; cf. Heb 1.3), and Hebrews too dares to apply the term θεός to Jesus only in bold scriptural quotations (Heb 1.8). He is not called θεός in unveiled form until the late writings of the New Testament, i.e., in connection with the talk of the σωτήρ in Titus 2.13 and formulaically in 2 Peter (1.1 and elsewhere) as well as—somewhat earlier—in the letters of Ignatius (Smyrn. 1.1; Eph. 18.2) and in the account of the governor Pliny the Younger (Epistula 10.96.7), who reports the statement that Christians in Northern Asia Minor sing to Christ “as to a god” (quasi Deo). Alongside Revelation, which in pictorial form portrays the lamb upon the throne of God (Rev 5.6) and has the 55

2012f). 56

On this topic, see chapters 8 through 10 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c; 2016g;

Thus especially Hurtado 2003, whose criterion of ‘devotion’ makes it possible to distinguish within Jewish monotheism the worship bestowed upon the exalted one from the way that other heavenly figures and ‘agents’ are thematized. 57 Both stand paratactially alongside each other; both are assigned the predicate of ‘oneness.’ This is probably a Christian development of Deut 6.4 LXX. Thus, rightly, Hofius 2002; Waaler 2008.

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exalted one speak God’s words (1.17; cf. 1.8; 22.13; cf. 21.6),58 it is the Johannine letters that programmatically speak of Christ as the ‘true’ God (1 John 5.20) as the final summit of New Testament Christology. For this reason John is regarded by the ancient Church as ὁ θεολόγος (“the theologian”) insofar as he most clearly expresses the divinity of Christ.59 In this way John became especially formative and important for the formation of creeds in the early church. At the same time the predicate θεός appears to be used in a more considered manner than, for example, in Titus or 2 Peter, insofar as the relationship between the “God” Jesus Christ (cf. John 1.17-18) and his Father is formulated more carefully and the boldness and the controversial nature of this high Christology is reflected upon. Space is given to the accusation that Jesus makes himself God (5.18) as well as to a subtle scriptural argument for the legitimacy of this claim (10.34-36). When it already says “the Logos ‘was’ θεός” (1.1c) at the beginning, this must precisely not be understood in the merely attributive sense of ‘divine,’ for at the end Thomas confesses precisely the crucified one—who appears to him and whom he could see and perhaps even touch—without qualification as “my Lord and my God” (20.28). Here, tensions in the subject matter are already present: the invisible God (1.18) is recognizable in and allows himself to be seen in the Son so that the one who sees him (with his entire history) sees the Father (14.7, 9). That this expresses neither the simple identity of Jesus with the Father nor a flat ditheism60 becomes clear in the Johannine talk of God as ‘Father’ and Jesus as ‘the’ Son. This relation is irreversible. The Father loves, authorizes, and sends the Son, shows him his works, and glorifies him, while, conversely, the Son does what he sees and hears the Father do and say, fulfills his work, and thus glorifies the Father. In this respect the Father is always ‘greater’ (14.28), without this being adequately described with the term ‘subordination.’61 The uniqueness of the relationship comes to expression in the statement of oneness in John 10.30. Jesus and the Father are one (neuter ἕν, not εἷς), and this oneness refers not simply to the work and will but rather goes—in John’s view—beyond this and should indeed be understood also ontically in the sense of a participation in the divine nature.62 This point becomes clear linguistically when Jesus’ authoritative ἐγώ εἰμι from John 8.12 is explicated as “I and the 58

On this, see Hengel 1996b; Hofius 1996d. On the divinity of Christ according to John, see Reim 1984; Neyrey 1989. 60 This also applies to John 1.1; see Schnelle 2016, 45–46; Theobald 2009, 110–11. 61 Conspicuous in this vein is also John 20.17 where the Johannine Jesus says, “I ascend to my Father and to your Father, to my God (!) and to your God.” 62 The terminological differentiations of the later doctrine of the Trinity are not, of course, to be presupposed here. 59

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Father” in John 8.16 and when it says of the Logos in the beginning that he “was” (1.1-2: ἦν) before the world was called into being (1.3: ἐγένετο), just as Jesus, as the preexistent one, is before Abraham became (8.58). His time-overarching presence encompasses the past of the patriarchs and the future of believers (14.3; 17.24). One can only infer from these statements that Jesus’ nature is categorically different from every human one and that he stands wholly on the side of God. As the one who has ‘life’ in himself (5.26), indeed who can himself ‘take up’ his life again (10.17-18),63 he can give life in divine authority, as the Lazarus narrative of John 11 shows symbolically and prefigurationally. This predication transcends what other christological titles of majesty express. As much as John intensively takes up Jewish messianic discourses,64 his presentation, nevertheless, goes beyond what would still be intra-Jewishly acceptable, let alone inoffensive. The objection of his contemporaries—“He makes himself God” (5.18; cf. 10.33; 19.7)—merits, of course, in the Johannine understanding only the answer ‘That’s what he actually is!’65 According to the justification provided in John 5.19ff., this dignity is ‘given’ to the Son by the Father himself so that the Son is ultimately due—coming from God himself—equal honor as what is due to the Father (5.23). This high Christology is ultimately the framework of understanding for all christological statements in the Fourth Gospel. The diverse christological predicates of the older tradition are taken up, but surpassed or reshaped by this horizon. The first chapter is already a Panopticon of Christology. A broad palette of titles are taken up, reaching from Messiah and the Prophet (1.20-21, 41) via the Chosen One of God (1.34 variant reading) and the Son of God and King of Israel (1.49) through to the Son of Man (1.51).66 At the end of this series, this Son of Man, in bold metaphorical language and resumption of a Jacob typology, stands in the place of the biblical Bethel, where heaven is open and the angels ascend and descend (1.51). He is in this respect the new place of the encounter with God, the new temple, indeed the body (2.20), in which God ‘dwells’ and becomes visible 63

To this corresponds the presentation of the resurrection of Jesus in John 20.6-7, according to which he left his tomb in order and therein demonstrates his power of life. 64 Thus already in the questions to the Baptist in John 1.19-23 and then in the reported discussions about whence the Messiah would come and which signs he would do (7.31, 40-43, 52, and elsewhere). 65 The christological speech of John 5.19-30 substantiates precisely this claim— through the reference to the transfer of the exclusively divine authority to give life and hold judgment to the Son or Son of Man (5.22-23, 26-27); on this, see Frey 2000b, 354–69. 66 Prior to this, in the Prologue we already encounter Logos (1.1, 14), only-begotten (1.14, 18), God (1.1c, 18), and the name Jesus Christ (1.17).

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on earth. This metaphoricity of the new temple runs through the whole Gospel down to the death scene in which water and blood (or may one say: “streams of living water” [7.38]) flow from the body of the crucified one, who thus appears again as the place of the salvific presence of God. This is matched by the activity and speech of Jesus in the Johannine presentation. In the ‘miracle stories,’ which are subtly developed literarily as ‘signs,’ Jesus acts in such a way that he manifests his ‘glory’ (2.11). This means that in their literary and symbolic configuration the narrated earthly deeds of Jesus are already presented in the light of the ‘glorification’ that took place in his ‘hour.’67 In his discourses he presents himself, e.g., through the use of the Old Testament revelation formula ἐγώ εἰμι, in divine authority, and, at the same time, by taking up broader Old Testament strands of tradition, as the true bread of life, the good shepherd, true vine, indeed as light and life in person. Even in his death he proceeds as the one who has authority to voluntarily lay down his life and to take it up again to himself in sovereign power of life (10.18). First John, which takes up many of these metaphorical predicates (1 John 1.1-3 and elsewhere), states at the end and almost as a summary: “This one is the ἀληθινὸς θεός and eternal life” (1 John 5.20). What could serve—certainly also in the context of diaspora Judaism—as a designation for the one God among the gods (17.3; cf. 1 Thess 1.9) has now become a predicate of the Son who has a share in the nature of the true God, and even though the later Trinitarian differentiations are not yet present in Johannine theology, a recognizable path nevertheless leads from the terminology found here to the subsequent formation of creeds. When the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed designates Christ as “Light from Light, True God from True God,” then both statements are probably “inspired by the Johannine writings.”68 (b) However, it was not only the ‘height’ of the christological predicates that became formative for subsequent theological reflection but also the fact that Johannine thought—presumably throughout all sorts of battles—does not cross an essential boundary by calling into question the real humanity of the earthly Jesus. This has usually been overlooked by the spiritualizing and idealistic tradition of interpretation.69 By contrast, unlike in the later apocryphal traditions, Jesus’ resurrection is no mere ‘appearance.’ Rather, his steps leave real footprints on the earth, and his

67

On this two-level structure of the Johannine sign narratives, see Welck 1994. Klauck 1991a, 340. Cf. 1 John 1.5 and 5.20. 69 On this aspect, see chapter 6 in this volume (GV = Frey 2009c; 2013a, 699–738); for the aspect of sensory perception, see now Hirsch-Luipold 2017. 68

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body can be grasped corporally.70 In particular, his crucifixion and the reality of his death cannot be contested. Rather than yielding to the docetic way of thinking, according to which one who is God precisely cannot be a human being and above all cannot suffer and die, Johannine thought puts a stop to this conception—most clearly in the Johannine letters. There the statement “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4.2; cf. 2 John 7) even becomes the litmus for the ‘correct’ Christology. The term σάρξ—which designated the earthly-human dimension of the coming and activity of Jesus already in the older tradition (Rom 1.3 etc.)—also obtains a prominent position in the ‘reading guide’ to the Gospel of John, i.e., in the Prologue. And even though the notion of the Logos becoming flesh, the ἐγένετο in John 1.14, cannot be precisely clarified semantically,71 the next statement—namely, that the Logos took up residence among us (ἐσκήνωσεν)—clearly indicates that something other than the temporary ‘epiphany’ of a deity is meant to be expressed here.72 The divine Logos experiences a real “change” and becomes “what he was not before: true and real human being.”73 Such a notion had to remain unacceptable to docetic thought. As much as the Johannine story of Jesus is narrated in the light of the insight of Easter and the δόξα of Jesus, it must nevertheless be read from the start as a story about the incarnate one, who was not, to be sure, a ‘sheer’ human being74 but was indeed a real human being, whose earthly way took place in concrete, namable places and ended in the precisely recorded ‘hour’ of his death. Despite the Easter light within the Johannine presentation, traces of the humanity of Jesus are unmistakable—his fatigue (4.6), his thirst (4.7), his weeping (11.35), and not least his death by means of the especially stressed manner of death (12.33), i.e., crucifixion, prior to which he is presented as the mocked and beaten one and as “the man” (ἰδοῦ ὁ ἄνθρωπος: John 19.5). Jesus died (19.30), and the Roman soldiers can only confirm his death (19.33)—in the view of the Gospel there can be no doubt regarding this completely undivine reality, even though John stresses the aspect of suffering less and teaches his readers to view Jesus’ death in a manner that appears euphemistic at first sight but that actually characterizes it as ‘exaltation’ and ‘glorification’ in light 70 Cf. Acts of John 93 on the footprints; according to the position reported in Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrations on 1 John 1.1 (in Stählin/Früchtel/Treu 1970, III: 210.12– 15), John reaches through the body of Jesus. 71 See the discussion in Theobald 2009, 126. 72 On this, see chapter 8 in this volume (GV = Frey 2014c); cf. also Frey 2013c. 73 Thus, rightly, Schnelle 2016, 57. 74 Thus Bultmann 1986, 40: in purer Menschlichkeit; 1971, 63: “in his sheer humanity.”

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of Scripture.75 Thus, notwithstanding the talk of Jesus’ divinity, the real humanity of Jesus is not abandoned. Rather, the Fourth Gospel holds the two together in a characteristic dialectic that has been offensive to many but decisive for the subsequent formation of creeds. At the same time, in the understanding of the Gospel of John—though this could appear otherwise to Jewish contemporaries—the uniqueness of the biblical God is not infringed upon, not even in the predication of Jesus as God. Rather, what is expressed through this is the unsurpassably intimate fellowship of the Son with the Father and the participation in his divine nature, with them simultaneously remaining distinct ‘persons.’ In the Johannine view, this unity in love, the mutual immanence, precisely does not transgress the boundaries of the first commandment nor the prohibition of images.76 In this respect too Johannine theology remains formative for subsequent christological and Trinitarian reflection. 4.2 The Contribution to the Doctrine of God: The Historical Determinedness of God and the Predication of His Essence as ‘Love’ With this we come to a second sphere in which Johannine theology leads beyond the older tradition and takes New Testament theology to a ‘peak’— the christological and simultaneously historical determinedness of the notion of God and its determinedness through the nominal predicates spirit (John 4.24), light (1 John 1.5), and love (1 John 4.8, 16).77 At first the Johannine talk of God proceeds along traditional paths. There is talk of the biblical God, who spoke to Moses and Israel, the one and true God of Israel (3.33; 17.3), and—with special frequency—‘the Father.’ This talk of God as Father is also not new. It is not unknown in the Old Testament and early Judaism,78 but, probably through Jesus’ prayer 75

On this, see chapter 5 in this volume (= Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). On this, see Söding 2002, 196–99. 77 On this somewhat neglected topic, see Thompson 2001; Zingg 2006; Frey 2008b (= 2016a, 619–43); and chapter 10 in this volume (GV = Frey 2012f). See also Hahn 2011, I: 606–11; Schnelle 2007, 660–69 (GV = 2013b, 620–28). 78 “Father” is still attested relatively rarely in the Old Testament, but more frequently in early Judaism as an address to God; see, e.g., Deut 32.6; Isa 63.16; 64.7; Jer 3.4; Sir 23.1, 4; 51.10; Wis 14.3; Tob 13.4 (LXX); 3 Macc 6.2-15; as well as in the Eighteen Benedictions (benedictions 5 and 6), even as an address to God by an individual person in prayer, e.g., in 4Q372 1,16 and 4Q460 5 i 5. On this, see Schnelle 2007, 83–84 (GV = 2013b, 68); C. Zimmermann 2007, 42–64. However, the widespread view that the address of God as Father only arose with Jesus and must be connected, at least in the Aramaic form abba, with his special consciousness as Son (so Jeremias 1979, 73) cannot be upheld; cf., e.g., Schelbert 1993; 1981. 76

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practice and proclamation in the circles of his disciples, it established itself in such a way that abba—despite being an Aramaic foreign word—was known even in the Pauline communities (Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6). That the talk of God as Father increasingly establishes itself in early Christian theology may be related to the fact that this way of speaking was easily accessible to people in the Hellenistic-Roman cultural context.79 This also applies to the surroundings of the Gospel of John, in which the talk of the Father primarily occurs, of course, in juxtaposition to the Son. God is designated as the Father of believers, the ‘children of God,’ for the first time on Easter day,80 and when Jesus says, “I go to my Father and to your Father . . .” in John 20.17, this stresses that his own relation of sonship remains categorically distinct from that of the children of God. An ‘Our Father’ prayed jointly by Jesus and his disciples would be inconceivable for Johannine thought. The oneness, indeed the ‘interpenetration’ of Father and Son (10.38; 14.10),81 determines Johannine Christology, but it also simultaneously determines the talk of God, i.e., theology proper. Precisely in the fact that he is united with the Father in the most intimate way, indeed is one with him, Jesus is the exclusive and true revealer of the character of the biblical God. It is not without reason that the Prologue ends with the statement (1.18) that the μονογενής, who is God,82 ‘has exegeted’ (ἐξηγήσατο) the invisible God, i.e., has made him visible (cf. 14.7, 9) and revealed him in his true character and nature. This is connected with the exclusivity of the Johannine writings’ theology of revelation —which is offensive to many. One comes to the Father ‘only’ through the Son (cf. John 14.6) and not past him. One comes to the flock only through the gate (John 10.7) and not by another way. A person can come to life only through ‘the Son’ (1 John 5.12). In truth there cannot be a completely different side of God, ‘hidden’ behind this revelation, if the salvific will and nature of the biblical God is validly revealed in the history of Jesus.83 The theological consequences of this must be developed in two respects.

79

One should think here, e.g., of the widespread talk of Zeus as ‘Father’ of the gods and human beings (cf. e.g., Feldmeier 2014). For the New Testament usage see C. Zimmermann 2007, 64–166. 80 On this, see Back 2012. 81 On these statements of immanence, see in detail Scholtissek 2000a. See also section 3.2 in chapter 9 of this volume (GV = Frey 2016g, 202–5). 82 The reading υἱός is clearly the easier reading; the lectio difficilior, which is to be given priority, is θεός. 83 To be sure, the traditional talk of the ‘Deus absconditus’ may have its source in human experience, but it does not correspond to the revelation of God in Christ as formulated here.

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(a) If the nature of the biblical God is revealed in the sending of the Son that culminates in his death on the cross, this can only be interpreted to mean that the eternal God himself has involved himself in a history—in the spatially and temporally concrete history of the earthly Jesus. Thus, according to the Gospel of John, the eschatological revelation of God (in which not only salvation but also God’s most inner character comes to light) takes place in the earthly history of Jesus that ultimately ends in his death84 or, more pointedly, in the historical event of Jesus’ ‘hour,’ i.e., his death—which is, however, never to be viewed in detachment from Easter according to John. Conversely, the eschatological salvation for the world is grounded in this historical event of his death. The Easter encounter scenes in John 20 make clear that according to John the cross of Jesus has enduring theological significance also after Easter.85 Through his address “Peace be with you” and through the wounds from the cross the disciples recognize the one who appears as the one whom they know, as the crucified one—and only in this way do they move from fear to Easter joy (20.19-20). The Thomas episode (20.24-29) also proceeds according to this scheme. Thus, the risen one is recognized by the signs of his earthly history. He has precisely not cast off the traces of his suffering and death but rather continues to bear the signa crucifixi on himself. In this way he overcomes the unbelief of Thomas and elicits from him the highest confession of the entire Gospel: “My Lord and my God!” (20.28). As the definitive place of the revelation of God, Christ is enduringly the crucified one, and as such he is the eschatological revelation of God. This means no less than that post Christum glorificatum God himself is no longer to be thought of without reference to the cross of Christ and thus to a historical event. In the incarnation of the Son of God and—ultimately—in his crucifixion the condescension of the God who encounters us salvifically, indeed his enduring bond to humanity and human history, definitively manifests itself. Just as the salvation created by him, God himself is no longer to be thought of without reference to the world and to history, to human suffering and human death.86 In this way the Gospel of John expresses the historicality of the revelation of the biblical God in a provocative and unsurpassable 84 The Johannine presentation makes clear that Jesus’ entire activity leads to his death through numerous interpretive pointers to what lies ahead (e.g., to the ‘hour’ in John 2.4; 7.30; 8.20), through the dramaturgy of the conflict with Jesus’ contemporaries, through the extended Farewell Discourses, and not least through the justification of the resolution to bring about Jesus’ death with reference to Jesus’ central christological claim (11.45-54). On this, see Frey 2002c (= 2013a, 485–554); and chapter 5 in this volume (= Frey 2007b; 2013a, 555–84). 85 On this, see Frey 2009b. 86 On this, see Frey 2009a, 509–10 (= 2013a, 636–37).

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manner. One can no longer speak of God in a true and Christian way without taking this reality into account. (b) A second aspect is connected with this. The interpretation of the death of Jesus as a voluntary death that has been entered into out of love for his friends has the implication that God’s own will must ultimately be specified as love. The talk of love is also attested long before John, for example, in Paul (cf. Rom 5.8; 8.33). Nevertheless, this motif is connected with the sending or handing over of the Son into the world and into death for the first time in the Johannine writings. This multifaceted ‘network’ of statements regarding love in the Gospel of John87 has its center and foundation in the statements about the love of the Father for the Son (3.35; 17.24) and the love of God for the world (3.16), which is, in turn, the foundation for the sending and giving of the Son. First John 4.9-10 formulates even more programmatically: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atonement for our sins.” In this way Johannine theology—in a striking statement that is without analogy—can describe God’s nature as love (1 John 4.8, 16), with the basis for knowing this love being located in a historical event. It is the sending of the Son into the world for the removal of sins and for the opening up of the new life (1 John 4.10) in which the love of God has “appeared.” The knowledge and faith that God loves “us” (1 John 4.17), indeed that he is in fact— unambiguously and in a completely undualistic manner—love (1 John 4.16), is grounded in this.88 In this way, too, Johannine theology set standards for subsequent theological reflection and defined the ultimate predicate of a Christian doctrine of God. (c) In the Johannine writings the talk of God’s love stands alongside two other predicates through which Johannine theology has become a central source of Christian talk of the ‘attributes’ of God. “God is light” (1 John 1.5) takes up the ‘dualistic’ light–darkness terminology but maintains the insight that God himself is exempted from that ambiguity and thus that the light—at least at the end—will also overcome the darkness, as it now, ever since Easter, already “shines in the darkness” (1.5).89 The second predication is even 87

These statements affect almost all the relationships—the disciples among one another, the disciples to Jesus, Jesus to the disciples, the disciples to God, the Father to the disciples. On this, see Frey 2009d (= 2013a, 739–65). 88 For the relation between the Johannine love statements and the ‘dualistic’ linguistic elements in the Gospel and letters, see the clarifications in Popkes 2005a. 89 John 1.5 should already be understood as a reflex of the Easter viewpoint that the darkness was not able to overcome and extinguish the light of the world. On this, see section 3.1 of chapter 4 in this volume (GV = Frey 2006b, 31–33; 2013a, 438–41).

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more significant: “God is spirit” (πνεῦμα ὁ θεός: 4.24), and he wants to be worshipped in spirit and truth—thus it is formulated in the context of the Samaritan pericope and of the question about the right place (and right manner) of the cult. There Jesus reveals himself to be the Messiah, who can provide valid information with regard to such questions (4.26) and who simultaneously overcomes every determination of concrete places of revelation and worship. It is not in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim that God is to be worshipped but ‘in spirit and truth.’ This, in turn, ultimately implies: in faith in Christ, who (in the post-Easter period) is to be found neither here nor there but has acceded, as the exalted one, to his universal reign90 and who will draw all people to himself from there (12.32). His worship is—at least after his ‘departure’ or after Easter—no longer restricted to Israel nor to a specific place; rather, ‘in spirit and truth’ it is possible in a universal breadth. To this corresponds the fact that God is πνεῦμα. These statements became formative later, when one wanted to see the step from a ‘Jewish sect’ to a universal ‘world religion’ precisely in John. Of course, there were preliminary stages of this ‘universality’ of faith in Christ: it was essentially gained not least through Paul and in his mission—but John explicates it most clearly. 4.3 The Spirit as Personal Entity and the Beginnings of a Proto-Trinitarian Pattern of Thought A third sphere in which Johannine theology sets standards for subsequent theological reflection is pneumatology. John presents—after Paul and Luke—the third great pneumatological conception in the New Testament, with very distinctive accents. What is especially conspicuous is the talk of the ‘Spirit-Paraclete’ (παράκλητος), which characterizes the statements in the Farewell Discourses (and only there) and which has a counterpart in the talk of the exalted Christ as παράκλητος in 1 John 2.1. The Paraclete sayings (14.16-17, 26; 16.7-11, 13-15) give a distinct character to the Johannine talk of the Holy Spirit (14.26; cf. 1.33; 20.22) or of the ‘Spirit of truth’ (14.17; 15.26; 16.13), even though John does not speak of the παράκλητος outside the Farewell Discourses but only of the (Holy) Spirit, of whom Jesus is the bearer in fullness (1.32-33; cf. 3.34) and who is not imparted to the disciples until Easter day—the ‘Johannine Pentecost’—through Jesus’ breathing on them (20.22-23). The Spirit who is active in the community is the Easter gift of Christ. His activity and the authorization of the disciples is based on the event of Jesus’ death and 90

In this way he is presented as the true king in the Pilate pericope (18.28–19.16) and proclaimed as ‘King of the Jews’ in three world languages on the cross.

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resurrection (7.39), and as such the Spirit—and the community through him—continues Jesus’ work after Easter.91 Despite the formal and terminological differences between the Paraclete sayings and the other Spirit statements, Johannine pneumatology as a whole is distinguished in several respects by a unified and distinctive character. Phenomena that are characteristic of the talk of the Spirit in primitive Christianity, such as ecstatic phenomena or ‘charismatic’ miracles, are not spoken of here. Rather, the function of the Spirit is completely restricted to the ‘verbal’ dimension. He shall teach and bring to remembrance all the things that Jesus said (14.26). He shall “bear witness” concerning Jesus (15.26) and “proclaim” (16.13-15), and “guide into all truth” (16.13). He shall carry out the universal fight for the truth of the faith as advocate of the community of disciples, and he shall, above all, be and remain with the disciples in place of the departed Jesus (14.16-17). The specific character of the Paraclete sayings emerge less from a specific history-of-religion background92 and more from their position in the framework of the Farewell Discourses and from the forensic dimension that is possible for παράκλητος semantically93 and that is also stressed explicitly in some of the Paraclete sayings. In the framework of the Farewell Discourses—‘on the border’ between the activity of the earthly and the post-Easter period, as it were—the questions of the later community are most clearly explicated.94 The fact that the Spirit subsequently ‘replaces’ Jesus’ presence among the disciples and thus ‘compensates’ for his departure or absence is reflected here. His presence reassures the disciples in several ways. He not only reassures the disciples that they are not orphaned (cf. 14.18) but also leads them beyond this (probably in the medium of the proclamation) to deepened understanding by opening their eyes to the true meaning of his words, deeds, and fate by ‘reminding’ them of the history of Jesus (14.26; cf. 2.22; 12.16). Thus, in the presence of the Spirit, the community of disciples is ultimately in 91

Corresponding to the ecclesiology—which is relatively less developed in the Johannine circle—there is no attempt here to connect the activity of the Spirit to ecclesiastical offices. The Johannine image of the disciples is open and transparent for all subsequent disciples. Thus, also the Easter gift of the Spirit in John 20.22-23 describes the authorization of all those in the post-Easter period who believe, proclaim, and therein continue Jesus’ work in a universal breadth. This marks a difference from Matthew, where the key saying is addressed to Peter (Matt 16.16-18), though flanked by the tradition of a collective binding and loosing (18.18). 92 On this, see the critical survey of Pastorelli 2006, 4–39. 93 For the semantics, see Pastorelli 2006, 40–104, according to which an intercessory sense is to be assumed, not a specifically forensic context. This is then clarified in some of the Johannine sayings. 94 On the problems, see Frey 2000b, 104–9, 124–33.

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a better situation than the disciples of the earthly Jesus (16.7). The Spirit is therefore not only a replacement but also the intensified, concentrated presence of Christ, whose salvific work is now mediated to the disciples and made understandable in its deeper dimensions. The ‘forensic’ dimension, which is especially recognizable in 15.26 and 16.8-11, may point to one of the roots of the Johannine understanding of the Spirit, the tradition of the assistance of the Spirit before earthly interrogations and courts (cf. Mark 13.11). To be sure, the ‘trial’ that the Spirit conducts for the benefit of the disciples is understood much more broadly in John. According to John 16.8, he will “convict the world with respect to sin and righteousness and judgment.” Here we should think neither of concrete trials nor of public proclamations in a missionary context. Where ‘the world’ is meant to see and acknowledge its wrong is not specified here. Rather, this prosecution of the case most likely takes place in the proclamation of the community and before the ‘inner court’ of believers, where the universal battle for the truth is constantly fought out anew. Thus, the Spirit steps in as an advocate for the disciples when their faith is put under trial or called into question due to the situation of the community in the world, i.e., the situation that results from the apparent ‘absence’ of Jesus and the fact that the truth of faith cannot be demonstrated ad oculos. Thus it is the Spirit who reassures the disciples that the unbelief of the world is in the wrong, that Jesus has, in truth, not failed but rather gone to the Father, and that the adversary, the ‘ruler of this world,’ has already been judged and ultimately will play himself out (16.9-11). In this way the Spirit enables the disciples to believe and remain in the faith, i.e., he makes it possible that the trial by the unbelief and mocking of the ‘world’ does not cause them to fall. This is the case because he himself enables one to understand the true meaning of the death of Jesus and the truth of faith, which does not lie ‘in plain view’ but discloses itself only to ‘spiritual’ eyes in the interpretive remembrance of the history of Jesus and in the deepened understanding of Scripture. (a) In the figure of the Paraclete, the advocate of believers, the Holy Spirit appears in Johannine thought in an unsurpassable way as a person. There is basically no longer talk of the dynamistic characteristics of the activity of the Spirit that are still very prominent in older primitive Christianity as is the case, for example, in Luke–Acts.95 Instead, the functions related to the communication, to the understanding, and to the proclamation dominate—and in particular the aspect of the personal presence of the 95

The moment of prophecy is only faintly heard in the ἐρχόμενα of John 16.13, and in John 15.26 the element of inspiration of the words given by the Spirit in Mark 13.11 before earthly courts is heard.

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Spirit in the place of the ‘absent’ Jesus. The ‘personal’ characteristics of the Spirit are formulated here largely by analogy to the person of Jesus. The Spirit is the “other advocate” (14.16), since the exalted Christ already functions as ‘intercessor’ for his own with the Father (1 John 2.1), and the Spirit is the teacher of the words of Jesus in the reminding continuation of the teaching of Jesus himself (14.26). He does not act independently at all but in dependence on and in connection with Jesus’ activity (16.13-15). And when the disciples, who are authorized by the Spirit, proclaim, they continue Jesus’ own work (20.22-23). This ‘personalization’ of the Spirit in John is not entirely new. Paul can already carry out such a ‘personalization’ of the Spirit in nuce—for example, in the conspicuous sentence “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3.17) or by putting into close parallels statements about Christ and statements about the Spirit. In Paul the Spirit already appears as a subject who can encounter the human spirit (Rom 8.16), who bears witness, and who enables prayer to the Father. In Luke too the Spirit sometimes appears in the specific role of an acting subject when he guides the mission of the first witnesses. Nevertheless, the ‘dynamistic’ traits and effects of the Spirit can still be perceived much more clearly there, while John makes an unprecedented focalization upon personal and communicative functions. If the other modes of action of the primitive Christian Spirit were no longer present, this could indeed be viewed as a loss. Be this as it may, with regard to the theological penetration of the role of the Spirit and his significance for the making present and understanding of the event of salvation and not least the person of the exalted one in the community, the Johannine presentation undoubtedly set standards. (b) Another step is bound up with this. The Spirit is no longer—as in the older tradition—the authorizing and inspiring power and gift of God but the gift of the risen one (20.22) or the exalted one (cf. 15.26; 16.7). Jesus himself is the source of the divine Spirit. He is the one who “baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (1.33) and gives the Spirit without measure (3.34b), i.e., in abundance. From his body “rivers” of living water flow (7.37-38). With this it simultaneously becomes clear that the Spirit does not simply ‘replace’ Jesus. He is neither a mere ‘place holder’ or ‘representative’ nor simply another mode of the coming or presence of Jesus. Rather, the distinction with respect to their ‘persons’ between the Spirit and Jesus is maintained in a precise manner both in the Paraclete sayings and in the other Spirit passages. The Spirit who is active in the postEaster community is related in a specific way to the exalted one (and to the Father), as John 16.13-15 especially shows: “He will not speak from himself, but, what he will hear, he will speak. . . . That one will glorify me, for he will take from mine and announce to you. All that my Father

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has is mine. Therefore, I have said to you: ‘He will take from mine and announce to you.’ ” Here, the Spirit-Paraclete, the exalted Christ, and the Father are clearly both distinguished from each other and coordinated to one another, so that one cannot avoid speaking of a proto-Trinitarian pattern of thought. To prevent any misunderstanding, let me state with all due clarity that the Johannine statements are clearly still far from the subsequent doctrine of the Trinity as developed in the third and fourth century on the basis of Greek, ontologically oriented terms. They are not yet determined by the implications of the terms οὐσία and ὑπόστασις, and the famous Comma Johanneum, which formulates the oneness of God, Logos, and Spirit, is, of course, an interpretation that made its way into the text of 1 John 5.7 after the fact. Nevertheless, the Johannine statements form the biblical basis for the fact that one could subsequently speak of the Holy Spirit as a divine person in specific distinction from and coordination to the Son and the Father. Triadic series and formulas are already attested in older primitive Christianity—from 1 Corinthians 12.4-6 and 2 Corinthians 13.13 to the baptismal formula in Matthew 28.19. However, going beyond the mere stringing together of three entities, Johannine thought reflects their connection, inner relationship, and even ‘oneness.’ This applies to the relationship between God and the Logos or the Son (cf. 1.1-2, 18; 10.30; 14.9; and elsewhere) as well as to the relationship between Spirit, Jesus, and God. This can be seen not only in the carefully differentiating Paraclete sayings in John 14.16, 26; 15.26; 16.14-15 but also already at the beginning of the Gospel in the statement of the Baptist in John 1.33 and in John 7.39. “Just as one cannot speak of God in the Johannine sense without speaking of his Son . . . , so one also cannot speak of the Spirit without looking at the one who ‘breathed’ him onto his disciples in the gesture of new creation.”96 Hence, the Johannine writings are “of all the New Testament writings . . . the ones in which Trinitarian thinking occurs in its highest density.” 97 Here the personality of the Spirit and the precise coordination of Spirit, Son, and Father are expressed in a way that remains unsurpassed in the New Testament and that provided the foundations for the subsequent formation of creeds.98

96

Theobald 1992, 64. Wilckens 2001, 56. 98 At least according to the conviction of the Johannine author, the framework of the monotheistic confession continues to be preserved—as for the understanding of Father and Son, so also in the independent reflection on the Spirit given by the Son. 97

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4.4 The Hermeneutic of ‘Remembrance’: The Understanding of the History of Jesus in Retrospect Finally, the Johannine reflection is pioneering especially in a hermeneutical perspective. The Johannine proclamation, the picture of Christ, and the interpretation of the death of Jesus owe themselves, according to the Paraclete sayings, to the reminding and teaching of the Spirit, who granted the disciples in the post-Easter period deepened insight into Scripture, the meaning of the words of Jesus, and his fate (14.26; cf. 2.22; 12.16). As such the whole Gospel is a post-Easter ‘anamnesis’ of the activity and words of Jesus. Here the bearers of the Johannine tradition must have been aware of the fact that this was not a simple word-for-word reproduction but rather a more profound transformation of the older tradition, both with respect to the language and style of the words of Jesus and with respect to the presentation of his story. John’s concern was precisely not to preserve and keep everything that Jesus commanded his disciples (thus Matt 28.20) but rather to understand retrospectively the true, deeper meaning and significance of the entire way of Christ. The whole literary shape of the Fourth Gospel with its numerous explanations and deeper interpretations is oriented to this. This implies, however, that the criterion of the legitimacy of a theological statement lies emphatically not in the word-for-word or historical agreement with what ‘really’ happened or was said at the time of the earthly Jesus. Rather, the fact of a thoroughgoing reinterpretation is acknowledged here and explicitly legitimated through a reference to the ‘reminding’ Spirit. Traces of a discussion about this might still be recognizable in John 16.13-15. The notion that the Spirit could speak ‘from himself,’ i.e., on his own authority, may reflect the objection of individual members (of the Johannine school) that the transformation of the words of Jesus and the modification in the Johannine depiction of Christ were too bold and far reaching and deviated too much from the traditioned (and probably known) form (for instance of the Markan tradition). What is preserved is only the apology and criteriology of the Johannine theology. The Spirit does not speak ‘on his own authority’ but takes from what belongs to Jesus and glorifies him (16.14). That is, the activity and speech of the Spirit is legitimate insofar as it is related to Jesus—and one must say: to the earthly, historical Jesus and his way, which ends with him giving himself into death. This is why the explicative Johannine Farewell Discourses are situated in the framework of the hour of his death and are not presented as explanatory discourses of the heavenly Christ after his death, as it is the case in later gnostic texts.

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Theologically and hermeneutically this too is an interpretive move that became formative for subsequent reception. It is not only the words of Jesus—and certainly not the reconstructions of the ‘historical Jesus’— that possesses authority. Rather, the further course of theological insights, of the ‘remembering’ interpretation of the early primitive community through to the closing of the New Testament canon (or even beyond this), can be regarded as theologically legitimate: not only the Palestinian way of believing and thinking of the primitive community but also the further interpretation in the Hellenistic diaspora, not only the Gospels but also the theology of Paul and other witnesses. The criterion formulated here—a first ‘criterion of canonicity,’ as it were, is the retrospect, the enduring anchoring in the historical Jesus, the incarnate, earthly, crucified, and exalted one. This anchoring is indispensable because it is in the coming of Jesus that the eschatological and thus enduringly valid revelation of the biblical God has taken place. Upon this hermeneutical foundation John can, in fact, retrospectively narrate the story of Jesus in a different way from how it was given to him in the Synoptic tradition and probably also in his own community tradition. For the hermeneutical significance of the interval of time is understood positively here. The goal is not a return to the origins, which are de facto no longer reachable. It is not the repristination of ‘primitive Christian’ conditions but only the progressive interpretation that takes place in the dynamic reference back to the ‘primitive evangelical story,’ the theological creativity in the enduring attachment to the origin, i.e., to Jesus’ deeds and words. We do not know whether this criterion was able to prove itself in the Johannine circles and their conflicts. To be sure, in the framework of the later New Testament canon it offers a potential for understanding and provides a guide for reflecting upon the situation of the community of Christ in the post-Easter period and up to the present day. In this respect, Johannine theology is indeed a ‘modern’ theology. To be sure, it is highly mythological in its Christology and it neither maintains a critical distance from the narrated miracles nor abandons the eschatological hope. However, it offers hermeneutical starting points that became guiding and formative in the later reception and that challenge theological thinking into the present. In its high, dialectical Christology; in its talk of the God who is truly recognizable only in Christ and, more precisely, in the cross; in the specification of his nature as ‘love’; in its talk of the Spirit, which is concentrated on communicative functions and understood in an entirely personal manner; in its proto-Trinitarian ways of thinking; and in its fundamental tying of theology back to the history of the earthly, crucified, and risen Jesus, it leads the New Testament thought to high points that became guiding

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and formative for later theological reflection up until the present. In this respect, John really is (for different reasons than Clement of Alexandria or Martin Luther thought) the most profound and subtle ‘pneumatic’ Gospel, the main Gospel, and its thought is—amid all open problems—the high point and ‘climax’ of New Testament theology.

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Finding a Work in the Bibliography In this volume, most literature has been referenced by author-date, e.g., Frey 1998. If necessary, works from the same year have been distinguished through the addition of a letter, e.g., Frey 2017a and 2017b. While the bibliography sometimes includes earlier publication dates in square brackets—e.g., Schnelle, R. 2016 [1998]—this information is usually not included in the body of the translation, e.g., Schnelle 2016. (1) Abbreviations The abbreviations used in this work are primarily based on the list of abbreviations in the second edition of the Theologische Realenzyklopädie, compiled by S. M. Schwertner (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1994). For the English version, we have also consulted the IATG3—Internationales Abkürzungsverzeichnis für Theologie und Grenzgebiete, compiled by S. M. Schwertner (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014) and the second edition of the SBL Handbook of Style (Atlanta: SBL, 2014). For the main text and bibliography, special note should be made of the following abbreviations: ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972ff. CIJ Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum. Edited by Jean Baptiste Frey. 2 vols. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1936–1952. DNP Der neue Pauly. Edited by H. Cancik, H. Schneider, and M. Landfester. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1996ff. ERE Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. Edited by James Hastings. 13 vols. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1908–1927. 377

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Wiedenroth, U. 2011. Krypsis und Kenosis. Studien zu Thema und Genese der Tübinger Christologie im 17. Jahrhundert. BHTh 162. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Wilckens, U. 1998. Das Evangelium nach Johannes. 17th ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ———. 2000. “Die Gegner im 1. Johannesbrief.” Pages 477–500 in Religionsgeschichte des Neuen Testaments. Festschrift K. Berger. Edited by A. v. Dobbeler, K. Erlemann, and R. Heiligenthal. Tübingen: Francke. ———. 2001. “Gott, der Drei-Eine. Zur Trinitätstheologie der johanneischen Schriften.” Pages 55–70 in Weg und Weite. FS Karl Lehmann. Edited by A. Raffelt. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. ———. 2003. “Die Gegner im 1. und 2. Johannesbrief, ‘die Juden’ im Johannesevangelium und die Gegner in den Ignatiusbriefen und den Sendschreiben der Apokalypse.” Pages 89–125 in Der Sohn Gottes und seine Gemeinde. Studien zur Theologie der Johanneischen Schriften. FRLANT 200. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ———. 2005. Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Band I. Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie. Teilband 4: Die Evangelien, die Apostelgeschichte, die Johannesbriefe, die Offenbarung und die Entstehung des Kanons. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener. Williams, C. H. 2000. I Am He: The Interpretation of ‘Anî Hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature. WUNT 2/113. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 2005. “Isaiah in John’s Gospel.” Pages 101–16 in Isaiah in the New Testament. Edited by S. Moyise and M. J. J. Menken. London: T&T Clark. ———. 2006. “Isaiah and Johannine Christology.” Pages 107–24 in “As Those Who Are Taught”: The Reception of Isaiah from the LXX to the SBL. Edited by P. K. Tull and C. M. McGinnis. Atlanta: SBL Press. ———. 2010. “Seeing the Glory: The Reception of Isaiah’s Call-Vision in John 12:41.” Pages 253–80 in Judaism, Jewish Identities and the Gospel Tradition. Edited by J. G. Crossley. London: Equinox. Witherington, B. III. 1995. John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Wolter, M. 2017. The Gospel according to Luke: Volume II (9:51–24). Translated by W. Coppins and C. Heilig. Edited by W. Coppins and S. Gathercole. BMSEC 5. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press. Wucherpfennig, A. 2002. Heracleon Philologus. Gnostische Johannesexegese im zweiten Jahrhundert. WUNT 142. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Yarbro Collins, A. 1976. The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation. HDR 9. Missoula: Scholars Press. ———. 1986. “Vilification and Self-Definition in the Book of Revelation.” HThR 79: 308–20. ———. 1994. “From Noble Death to Crucified Messiah.” NTS 40: 481–503. Zahn, T. v. 1983. Das Evangelium des Johannes. Reprint of the 5th/6th edition (Erlangen 1921). Wuppertal: Brockhaus. Zeller, D. 1988. “Die Menschwerdung des Sohnes Gottes im Neuen Testament und die antike Religionsgeschichte.” Pages 141–76 in Die Menschwerdung

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Gottes—Vergöttlichung von Menschen. Edited by D. Zeller. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (= Zeller 2006, 61–81). ———. 2006. Neues Testament und hellenistische Umwelt. BBB 150. Hamburg: Philo. Zimmermann, C. 2007. Die Namen des Vaters. Studien zu ausgewählten neutestamentlichen Gottesbezeichnungen vor ihrem frühjüdischen und paganen Sprachhorizont. AJEC 69. Leiden: Brill. Zimmermann, H. 1960. “Das absolute Ego eimi als die neutestamentliche Offenbarungsformel.” BZ 4: 54– 69, 266–76. Zimmermann, J. 1998. Messianische Texte aus Qumran. WUNT 2/104. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zimmermann, R. 2004. Christologie der Bilder im Johannesevangelium. Die Christopoetik des vierten Evangeliums unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Joh 10. WUNT 171. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 2006. “Imagery in John: Opening up Paths into the Tangled Thicket of John’s Figurative World.” Pages 1– 43 in Imagery in the Gospel of John. Edited by J. Frey and J. G. v. d. Watt. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———. 2008. Learning with Lazarus How to Understand Death, Life, and Resurrection. WUNT 222. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Zingg, E. 2006. Das Reden von Gott als ‘Vater’ im Johannesevangelium. HBS 48. Freiburg im Breslau: Herder. Zumstein, J. 2004. Kreative Erinnerung. Relecture und Auslegung im Johannesevangelium. 2nd ed. AThANT 84. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag. ———. 2006. “Das Gottesbild bei Jesus, Paulus und Johannes.” ThZ 62: 158–73. ———. 2007. L’Évangile de Saint Jean (1–12). CNT 4a. Geneva: Labor et Fides. ———. 2016a. L’Évangile de Saint Jean (13–21). CNT 4b. Geneva: Labor et Fides. ———. 2016b. Das Johannesevangelium. Translated by K. Vollmer-Mateus. KEK. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Zuntz, G. 1984. “Ein Heide las das Markusevangelium.” Pages 205–22 in Markus-Philologie. Historische, literargeschichtliche und stilistische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evangelium. Edited by H. Cancik. WUNT 33. Tübingen: Mohr.

Original Publication Information

The German versions of chapters 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11 of this book can be found in Jörg Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den Johanneischen Schriften I, ed. J. Schlegel, WUNT 307 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). The original publication information for the German version of the chapters of this book are as follows: “My Journey with John: An Introduction to the Present Collection” First published in the present volume.

1 “Approaches to the Interpretation of John”

German original = “Wege und Perspektiven der Interpretation des Johannesevangeliums. Überlegungen auf dem Weg zu einem Kommentar.“ Pages 3– 41 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten.

2 “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John and the ‘Parting of the Ways’”

German version = “‘Die Juden’ im Johannesevangelium und die Frage nach der ‘Trennung der Wege‘ zwischen der johanneischen Gemeinde und der Synagoge.“ Pages 339–77 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. German original = “Das Bild ‘der Juden’ im Johannesevangelium und die Geschichte der johanneischen Gemeinde.” Pages 33–53 in Israel und seine Heilstraditionen im Johannesevangelium. Festschrift J. Beutler. Edited by M. Labahn, K. Scholtissek and A. Strothmann. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2004.

3 “The Fusion of Temporal Horizons in the Gospel of John”

German original = “Die Gegenwart von Vergangenheit und Zukunft Christi. Zur ‘Verschmelzung’ der Zeithorizonte im Johannesevangelium.” JBTh 28 (2013): 129-57.

425

426

Original Publication Information

4 “Johannine Dualism: Reflections on Its Background and Function”

German version = “Zu Hintergrund und Funktion des johanneischen Dualismus.” Pages 409– 82 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. German original = “Zu Hintergrund und Funktion des johanneischen Dualismus.” Pages 3–73 in Paulus und Johannes. Edited by D. Sänger and U. Mell. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.

5 “The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John”

German version = “Edler Tod—wirksamer Tod—stellvertretender Tod— heilschaffender Tod. Zur narrativen und theologischen Deutung des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium.“ Pages 555– 84 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten.

German original = “Edler Tod—wirksamer Tod—stellvertretender Tod—heilvoller Tod. Zur narrativen und theologischen Deutung des Todes Jesu im Johannesevangelium.” Pages 65–94 in The Death of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Edited by G. v. Belle. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007.

6 “Bodiliness and Resurrection in the Gospel of John”

German version = “Leiblichkeit und Auferstehung im Johannesevangelium.” Pages 699–738 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. German original = “Leiblichkeit und Auferstehung im Johannesevangelium.” Pages 285–323 in The Human Body in Death and Resurrection. Edited by T. Nicklas, F. V. Reiterer and J. Verheyden. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. Yearbook 2009. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

7 “The Glory of the Crucified One”

German version = “’. . . daß sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen’ (Joh 17,24). Zu Hintergrund, Sinn und Funktion der johanneischen Rede von der δόξα Jesu.” Pages 639– 62 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. German original = “’. . . daß sie meine Herrlichkeit schauen’ (Joh 17,24). Zu Hintergrund, Sinn und Funktion der johanneischen Rede von der δόξα Jesu.” NTS 54 (2008): 375–97.

8 “The Incarnation of the Logos and the Dwelling of God in Jesus Christ”

German original = “Joh 1,14, die Fleischwerdung des Logos und die Einwohnung Gottes in Jesus Christus. Zur Bedeutung der ‘Schechina-Theologie’ für die johanneische Christologie “ Pages 231–56 in Das Geheimnis der Gegenwart Gottes. Zur Schechina-Vorstellung in Judentum und Christentum. Edited by B. Janowski, E. E. Popkes, S. C. Hertel, and C. Wiest. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.

9 “Jesus as the Image of God in the Gospel of John”

German original =“‘Wer mich sieht, der sieht den Vater’: Jesus als Bild Gottes in Johannesevangelium. Pages 179–208 in Vermittelte Gegenwart. Konzeptionen der Gottespräsenz von der Zeit des Zweiten Tempels bis Anfang des 2. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. Edited by A. Taschl-Erber and I. Fischer. WUNT 367. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.

Original Publication Information

427

10 “God in the Gospel of John”

German original = “Was trägt die johanneische Tradition zum christlichen Bild von Gott bei?” Pages 217–57 in Narrativität und Theologie im Johannesevangelium. Edited by J. Frey and U. Poplutz. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2012.

11 “Johannine Theology as the Climax of New Testament Theology”

German version = Die johanneische Theologie als Klimax der neutestamentlichen Theologie.” Pages 803–33 in Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten. German original = “Die johanneische Theologie als Klimax der neutestamentlichen Theologie.” ZThK 107 (2010): 448–78.

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Index of Ancient Sources

1. Scripture

1.1 Hebrew Canon/Old Testament

Genesis 1–2 1.1 1.2-5 2.7 47.29 Exodus 3.14 24.11 25.8 29.45-46 33.20 33–34 40.34 Numbers 12.8 21 21.4-9 Deuteronomy 4.2 6.4 7.6-8 7.7 13.1 30.11-14 32.6 34.10 2 Samuel 2.7 1 Kings 6.12-13

275 80, 204 123 228 113 132 285 277 277 285 275 283 285 310, 341 248, 310 35 359 145 xxix 35 275 364 285 301 277 429

17.17-24 2 Kings 4.8-37 Isaiah 1.3 2.3 2.4 2.5 4.2 5.16 6 6.1 6.2 6.9-10 6.10 9.1 9.1-2 10.15 10.17 14.12 26.10 26.19 29.18 33.10 35.4-5 40–66 40.6 40.6-7 42.6 42.6-7 42.16 43.11 45.7 49.6

218 218 117 123 117 123 246 246 245–246 246 200 149–150 245 123 123 246 328 117–118 113 219 134 246 134 245 264 281 133 123, 134 134 132 328 123, 133–134

430

Index of Ancient Sources

51.4 123 52.13 210, 246–247 52.13-15 249 52.13–53.12 246 52.14 246 53 183, 188, 245 53.1 245 53.2 246 53.4 190 55.11 300 60.1ff. 123 61 246 63.16 364 64.7 364 Jeremiah 3.4 364 17.5 281 31.3 xxix, 145, 330 Ezekiel 1.1 200 1.11 200 2.1 200 4.1 200 37.27 283 43.7 277 43.9 277 Hosea 4.1 113 Joel 4[ET 3].17 277, 283 4[ET 3].21 277 4.6 62 Zechariah 2.14 283 2.14-15 277 8.3 277 12.10 215, 248, 258, 310 Malachi 3.23-24(LXX 3.22-23) 298 Psalms 22(LXX 21) 323 27.1 328–329 36.10 132 43.3 132 69(LXX 68) 80, 209, 211 82(LXX 81) 6, 70, 302–303, 335, 338 104.2 328

110.1 119.105 146.8 Job 28 33.30 Proverbs 1.20-32 6.23 8 Daniel 7 7.7 7.14 7.22 12.2-3 12.3 2 Chronicles 31.20

70 123, 132 134 275 133 275 123, 133 318 120 292 330 292 292 122, 292 121 113

1.2 Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical Works

Wisdom of Solomon 7.26 132 7.27-28 271, 275 11.22 145 11.24-25 xxix, 145 14.3 364 18.3-4 132 18.4 123 Tobit 124 4.6 113 13.4 (LXX) 364 13.6 113 Sirach 14.17-18 281 23.1 264 23.4 264 24 xxviii, 275–277, 283, 300 24.4 272, 276 24.8 267, 276 24.9 276 51.10 264 1 Maccabees 6.44 182 2 Maccabees 6.18-31 182

Index of Ancient Sources

6.28 7.1-42 7.9 7.11 7.18 7.32 7.37 8.21 9.17 14.37-46 3 Maccabees 6.2-15 4 Maccabees 15.3 Psalms of Solomon 3.10-12 13.11 Matthew 1.23 10.39 11.25-27 13.38 16.16-18 16.26 18.18 19.16 28.9 28.18-20 28.19 Mark

1.3 1.7 1.8 1.16 1.23-27 2.1-10 2.7 4.34-41 6.50 8.29

1.3 New Testament

182 182 122, 182 182 182 182 182 182 44 182 364 121 121 121

9, 48, 82, 96, 200, 209, 287, 323, 353, 355–356, 369 287 141 322 119 369 187 369 121 213, 226 96 372 8, 42, 48, 51, 71, 82, 85, 96, 175, 178–179, 188, 199-200, 207, 209, 211, 244, 248–249, 254, 286–287, 323, 353–355, 359, 373 355 355 355 xxii, 74 286 286 70, 359 286 131, 293 296

8.35 8.37 9.11-12 10.17 10.30 10.45 13.11 13.26 14.24 14.32-33 14.32-42 14.35 14.35-36 14.36 14.41 14.61 14.64 15.21 15.25 15.34 15.34-37 15.46 16.1 16.5 16.7 16.8 16.25 Luke 1.1 3.1 6.35 7.19-20 9.24 10.15 10.18 10.21-22 10.25 11.2 15 16.8 16.18 17.10-11 17.33 18.18 18.30 22.19-20 23.43 24.1

431

141 187 298 121 121 188 370 75 183 249 355, 359 87 178–179, 244, 249 323 87, 205 296 70 179, 254 205 323 173 222 221 225 222 227 141 48, 178, 188, 200, 207, 228–229, 234–235, 323, 353–356, 368, 370–371 207 84, 207 119 296 141 117 117–118 322 121 249, 323 331 122 119 298 141 121 121 188 287 221

432

Index of Ancient Sources

24.2 24.4 24.10 24.12 24.34 24.36-43(-53) 24.39-40 24.39-43 24.41 24.44-48 24.47 24.49 24.50 John 1 1–2 1–4 1–12 1–20 1.1

222 225 221 222–224 222 228 229, 271 234 229 229 228 228 229

160, 271 86 138 126 355 20-21, 70, 78, 80, 85, 180–181, 202, 204, 206, 263, 270, 273– 274, 276, 278–279, 282, 286, 288, 296, 302, 317–318, 334, 354, 358, 360-361 1.1-2 80, 149, 204, 279–280, 288, 318, 331, 361, 372 1.1-3 336, 357, 361 1.1-5 126 1.1-18 (Prologue) xiii, xviii, 21, 32, 35, 48, 50, 57, 69, 80–81, 85, 92, 102, 108, 111, 113, 115, 123, 126– 130, 135, 138-140, 149, 152, 154, 159, 180–181, 202, 204, 206–207, 238, 253, 256, 261, 264, 269– 270, 273–279, 282, 284–285, 288, 300, 302, 318, 325, 336, 339, 342, 348, 358, 361, 363, 365 1.1–20.31 203 1.2 318 1.3 80, 204, 230, 270, 276, 325, 361 1.3-5 329 1.4 112, 126, 133

1.4-5 1.4-9 1.5

1.6 1.6-8 1.7-8 1.8 1.9 1.9-10 1.9-13 1.9-23 1.9-34 1.10 1.10-11 1.10-12 1.11 1.12 1.12-13 1.13 1.14

1.14-18 1.14ff. 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.17-18 1.18

1.19 1.19-21 1.19-23 1.19-34

102, 111, 126, 129, 275 129 xxv, 69, 85, 92, 102, 112, 126–127, 129, 135–136, 152, 161, 172, 206, 274, 367 207, 274, 343 129 102, 111 131 111, 113, 126, 128– 129, 136, 140 102, 140 275 353 287 138, 140, 325 278 69 50, 102, 138, 140 102, 118, 278, 320, 322 69, 114, 135, 206, 274, 278 114, 119, 270, 278, 280, 320 xxviii, 5, 128, 180, 202, 206-207, 210, 211, 238, 241–242, 251, 253, 256, 258, 261284, 285–286, 288, 318, 334, 339, 361, 363 129, 256, 275 81, 85 80 128, 206, 274 270, 273–274, 280, 285, 361 128, 360 xxviii, xxx, xxxi, 43, 70, 98, 181, 202, 262, 274, 285–286, 288, 296, 302, 307, 311– 312, 317–318, 324, 329–330, 333, 336, 339–340, 354, 360– 361, 365, 372 48, 138 293, 298 361 355

Index of Ancient Sources

1.19-51 1.19–2.11 1.19–4.54 1.19–12.36 1.19–12.50 1.20 1.20-21 1.21-22 1.22 1.23 1.25-31 1.26-27 128 1.29 1.29-34 1.30 1.31 1.32-33 1.33 1.33-34 1.34 1.35 1.35-39 1.35-40 1.35-51 1.36 1.37 1.37-39 1.38 1.38-39 1.39 1.40 1.41 1.41-42 1.42 1.43 1.45 1.46 1.47 1.47-48 1.49 1.49-50 1.51 2–12 2.1

287–288 86 50 139 245, 320 296 361 297 320 326, 355 191 287, 355 207 86, 140, 158, 190–191, 195–196, 205, 287– 288, 356 191 80–81, 131, 287 49–50 327, 368 344, 355, 368, 371–372 131 287, 356, 361 86, 190 288 xxii 82 86 214 232 82, 207, 212 288 82, 86, 207, 212 79 287, 297, 361 212, 232 288 82, 86, 212 208, 232, 288 341 49-50, 67 212, 232, 288 49, 68, 131, 208, 287, 293, 297, 299, 301, 325, 361 69, 297 82, 107, 120, 195, 287– 288, 300, 319, 361 xxii, 51 86, 95

2.1-11 2.3-4 2.4 2.6 2.9 2.9-10 2.10 2.11 2.13 2.14-15 2.14-22 2.17 2.18 2.18-22 2.20 2.21 2.21-22 2.22 2.23 2.23-25 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4-15 3.5 3.5-6 3.6 3.6-7 3.6-8 3.6-9 3.8 3.10 3.11 3.11-14 3.13 3.13-21 3.14 3.14-15 3.15

433

xviii, 82, 88, 208, 255, 289 95 87–88, 247, 255, 341, 366 49, 55, 79, 95, 138, 255 215 303 95, 255 xxvii, 95, 98, 206, 237– 238, 253–254, 256, 288-289, 362 49, 55, 138 2.13–3.21 209 9 80, 155, 209 138 71 138, 361 21, 195, 257 155, 337 xvii, xxvii, 85, 87, 96, 159, 175, 229, 243, 290, 294, 369, 373 130 213, 214 121, 129 49, 138 53, 112, 129–130, 222 115, 120, 213, 299, 319, 325–326 90 48, 114, 213, 299, 319, 320, 325–326 266 114, 280, 328 328 327 114 114, 320 49–50, 130 90, 160, 222, 291 144 xxiv, 78, 90, 94, 114, 120, 130, 160, 173, 300 130 144, 301 144-145, 215, 248, 331 112, 196, 310

434

3.16

3.16-17 3.16-18 3.16ff. 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.19-21 3.19ff. 3.20 3.20-21 3.21 3.22 3.25 3.28 3.31 3.31-32 3.31-36 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35 3.36 4 4.1-26 4.4-42 4.6 4.7 4.9 4.9-10 4.10 4.11 4.15 4.18 4.19 4.21 4.22 4.23 4.24 4.25

Index of Ancient Sources

xxviii, 69, 90, 94, 112, 138, 143, 145, 151, 159–160, 165, 173, 188, 191, 195–196, 280, 311, 320, 331-332, 342, 367 299, 324, 339 130, 144 146 130, 140–141, 144– 145, 148, 320, 331-332 98, 130, 148, 161, 301 129–130, 135, 141 103, 112, 116, 124, 129–130, 134 136 124, 130 129, 148, 150 113, 129, 135 48 138 296 114 115 130 81, 291 113, 364 302, 309, 319, 327, 368, 371 81, 301, 320, 324, 324, 342, 367 76, 98, 319, 339 91, 209, 327 82 212 79, 86, 130, 209, 363 209, 363 49, 69, 138, 332 55 320, 332 326 326 232 131, 298, 326 82, 298 44, 49–50, 69, 138, 160 75, 77 xxix, 50, 316, 327, 343, 364, 368 297

4.26 4.29 4.34 4.42 4.46-54 4.48 4.49 4.50 4.51 4.53 5 5–7 5–10 5–12 5.1 5.1-16 5.1-18 5.1-20 5.3-4 5.5 5.7 5.9 5.9ff. 5.10 5.14-15 5.16 5.17 5.17-18 5.18 5.19-20 5.19-30 5.19-47 5.20 5.21 5.22 5.22-23 5.22-33 5.23 5.24 5.24-25 5.25 5.26 5.26-27 5.27 5.28 5.28-29

82, 131, 292, 343, 368 297 172, 209 69, 138, 140, 146, 214, 232, 293, 298, 354 255 214 326 255 255 255 9, 85, 138, 290 56 49, 57 42, 56–57, 68, 139-141 49, 55 289 70, 216 322 21 208 326 79 361 49–50, 138 212 138 308, 320, 338 40, 289–290 50, 70–71, 138, 290, 301, 334, 360 70, 291, 308, 324 216, 219, 361 290, 335 53, 70, 301, 324 291 81, 291 302, 309, 361 71, 98 335, 361 112, 136, 289 112, 214 77, 98, 219, 291, 301 98, 112, 179, 181, 210, 216, 218, 223, 291292, 309, 336 302, 361 98, 291–292, 301 219, 220 98, 216, 219, 291

Index of Ancient Sources

5.30 5.32 5.36 5.37 5.39 5.41 5.42 5.43 5.44 5.46 6 6.4 6.14 6.15 6.16-21 6.17 6.18 6.20 6.26 6.27 6.31 6.32 6.33 6.34 6.35 6.37 6.38 6.39 6.39-40 6.39, 40, 44, 54 6.40 6.41 6.41-42 6.42 6.44 6.45 6.47-50 6.48 6.50 6.50-51 6.51 6.51-58 6.52 6.54 6.56 6.57 6.57-58 6.58 6.59

70, 291, 308 113 324 324 68 239 319 324 68, 180, 239, 318–319 339 xii, 9, 85–86, 96, 213 49, 55, 79, 85 298 299, 326 131–132, 136 130 131 82, 131, 292–293, 333 96, 213–214, 298 301 320 320 114, 140, 319, 320 326 292 148 114 77, 81, 216, 219 78 77, 216, 219 77, 216, 219 40, 292 114 334, 341 77, 148–149, 216, 219 320 112 292 195 114 xxv, 138, 141, 146, 183, 189, 292 213 40, 301 77, 216, 219 307 319 217 114 48, 94

6.60-65 6.60-71 6.62 6.63 6.68 6.69 6.70 7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.7 7.13 7.18 7.19 7.20 7.25 7.27 7.28 7.30 7.31 7.34 7.35 7.36 7.37-38 7.38 7.38-39 7.39 7.40 7.40-41 7.40-43 7.41 7.51 7.52 7.53–8.11 8.6 8.11 8.12 8.14 8.15 8.16 8.17 8.18

435

151 58 90, 114, 160, 173, 300– 301 81, 114, 266, 328 326 319 115 48, 91, 297 50 49, 55 362 132 138 228 113, 239 50 49 48 297 113 71, 87, 159, 247–248, 341, 366 361 292 55–56, 69 292 311, 371 362 195 85, 88, 159, 238, 248, 344, 369, 372 298 298 361 297–298 55 53, 361 21 83 326 95, 112, 132–136, 138, 141, 146, 159, 292, 294, 329, 360 113 114 324, 336, 361 55 292

436

8.20 8.21-24 8.22-24 8.23 8.24 8.26 8.28 8.30-31 8.31 8.31-47 8.36 8.39 8.40 8.42 8.43 8.44 8.45-46 8.47 8.48 8.50 8.51 8.52 8.54 8.58 8.59 9 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.4-5 9.5 9.6-7 9.7 9.8-41 9.9 9.17 9.18 9.18ff. 9.22 9.23 9.24 9.29 9.33 9.35

Index of Ancient Sources

71, 87, 159, 247–248, 341, 366 195 50 115, 120, 138, 141, 292 292-293 113 248, 292–293, 301, 333 40, 43 40, 43, 49 326 195 71, 119 81 114 214 39, 49, 67, 107, 113– 114, 115, 119, 138 113 214 43, 71 239 217 217 239, 324 xxiv, 82, 292, 336, 361 50 13–14, 52–53, 93, 9596, 132–134, 160, 216 208 95 320 88, 90, 135, 146, 159– 160, 289, 329 95, 134 133, 138, 141, 292 213 95 96 293 299 40 52 12, 48, 52, 56, 59, 61, 299 40, 149 239 320 299 299

9.35-38 9.36 9.38 9.39 9.39-41 9.40 10 10.1 10.3 10.3-4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 10.10 10.11 10.14 10.15 10.16 10.17 10.17-18 10.18 10.19 10.22-39 10.25 10.27 10.29 10.30 10.31 10.33 10.33-39 10.34 10.34-35 10.34-36 10.36 10.37-38 10.38 10.39 10.40-42 10.41 11 11–12 11.1-5 11.1-44

212 326 299, 326 148 95, 141, 246 134 189 189 214, 225 225 189 68 292, 339, 365 58, 362 189, 292 58 183, 188, 292 292 183, 188 69, 189, 214 301, 324 179 xxvi, 179–181, 210, 223, 291 40 71 324 214, 225 81, 148 xxviii, xxx, xxxi, 70, 98, 181, 294, 296, 302, 307, 324, 336, 372 50 50, 70, 290, 317, 334, 361 301 55, 317 318, 320, 339 68, 302–303, 335, 360 301 148 301, 307–308, 338, 365 71 186 190 71, 86, 195, 204, 215– 221, 361 48 216 xxvi, 216

Index of Ancient Sources

11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.6-16 11.8 11.9 11.9-10 11.10 11.12 11.16 11.17 11.17-27 11.19 11.21 11.23 11.24-25 11.24-27 11.25 11.25-26 11.25-27 11.26 11.27 11.28-37 11.31 11.32 11.33 11.34 11.35 11.36 11.38 11.38-39 11.38-44 11.39 11.40 11.41 11.41-42 11.42 11.43 11.43-44 11.44 11.44-54 11.45 11.45-54 11.46-54 11.47 11.47-48 11.47-53 11.48

209, 217, 326 238, 253, 254, 301, 319 192, 209, 342 86, 217 216 50, 192 134, 141 112, 136 134 326 179, 192, 230 217, 219 216 49 217, 326 82, 245 112 212 99, 112, 145, 179, 217, 223, 292 112, 192, 216, 220, 289 322 99 297, 301, 326 216 49, 219 217, 326 209, 304 326 209, 363 209 209, 219 222 216 208, 217–218, 303, 326 215, 238, 253, 319 222 218, 294 218, 291, 308 98, 98, 219 291 192, 192, 218–219, 223 341 49 50–51, 192, 341 216 48 127 247 185, 353

11.50 11.50-52 11.51 11.51-52 11.52 11.53 11.55 12 12–19 12.1 12.1-11 12.3 12.9 12.11 12.12 12.12-19 12.13 12.15 12.16

12.16-17 12.17 12.18 12.19 12.20 12.20-21 12.20-23 12.20ff. 12.21 12.23

12.23-34 12.24 12.25 12.26 12.27 12.27-28 12.28 12.31

437

185, 190 xxv, 183, 188 186, 190 55–56, 68–69 69, 118, 149, 186, 189, 322 71 49, 55, 85 85, 111, 134, 141, 173, 196 173 128 160 212–213, 215, 303, 326 49–50, 219 49–50, 53 214 160 49, 326 326 xvii, 85, 87, 96–97, 155, 159, 175, 229, 243, 248, 249, 257, 294, 337, 369, 373 344 219 214 53, 146, 247 69, 146, 205 247 212 55–56 326 xxvii, 85, 87, 174, 179, 205, 210, 237–238, 244, 247–248, 250, 301, 305, 310 247 179, 181, 205, 247 138, 141 82, 207, 292 209, 247, 249–250, 304–305 179, 205, 210, 218, 249, 354, 355 xxvii, 83, 174, 237, 244, 249–250, 324 115, 118, 138, 141, 152, 247, 250

438

12.32

Index of Ancient Sources

146, 248, 251, 253, 301, 344, 368 12.32-33 69 12.32-34 248 12.33 253, 363 12.34 55, 297, 301 12.34-43 306 12.35 126 12.35-36 111–112, 135 12.35-50 154 12.36 118, 136, 148 12.37 50, 209, 214, 245, 257 12.37-38 149–150 12.38 245, 326 12.38-40 173, 245 12.39 245 12.40 149 12.40-43 215, 245 12.41 245, 247, 252, 339 12.42 48, 53–54, 56, 59, 228 12.42-43 130, 149–150 12.43 50, 239, 319 12.46 133, 135, 141 12.47 141, 146, 148 12.48 77 13–17 xiii, 15, 48, 50, 51, 56–58, 67, 68, 69, 79, 83–84, 88–93, 97, 112, 137–143, 150, 156– 159, 173, 175, 184, 193, 213, 217, 226, 237, 241, 243–244, 249–251, 304–305, 310, 321, 341, 357, 366, 368–369, 373 13/18–19 (the passion) xxii, 7, 16, 19, 42, 48, 49, 51, 69, 71, 80, 83, 85–86, 89, 91–92, 95, 112–113, 127, 142, 174–175, 179–180, 190, 195, 204–205, 207, 210, 216, 221–222, 242, 248, 252–254, 284, 289, 299, 306, 354 13.1 89, 143, 159, 179, 181, 209–210, 342 13.1-2 205 13.1-20 160 13.1–20.31 321

13.2 13.3 13.4 13.4-5 13.6 13.7 13.9 13.10-11 13.19 13.20 13.21 13.23 13.25 13.26-27 13.27 13.30 13.31 13.31-32

115 174, 179 326 213 326 88 326 195 292–293, 333 299 209, 304 7, 222, 312 326 179, 210 115, 213 58, 88, 111, 130, 304 xxiv, 82–83, 249 xxiv, xxvii, 89, 175, 237–238, 240, 244, 249–250, 264, 301, 305, 324 13.31–14.31 154, 156, 175, 185, 304 13.31–17.26 (Farewell Discourses): see 13–17 13.32 250 13.33 48, 50, 138, 141, 175, 184, 304 13.34 89, 160 13.34-35 151, 184, 209, 304 13.35 143 13.36 184, 304, 326 13.36-38 304, 353 13.37 326 13.37-38 183–184 13.38 184 14.1 70, 91, 148, 156, 175, 184, 209, 304, 307, 335 14.1-11 307 14.2-3 75, 185, 304 14.3 82, 99, 207, 292, 336, 361 14.4 304 14.4-6 305 14.5 230, 304, 306, 326 14.6 41, 112–113, 179, 292, 305, 328, 339, 365 14.7 xxviii, xxx, 303, 305, 329, 333, 339, 360, 365 14.7ff. 307 14.7-9 305

Index of Ancient Sources

14.8 14.8-9 14.9 14.9-10 14.10 14.10-11 14.11 14.11-12 14.12 14.13 14.16 14.16-17 14.17 14.18 14.19 14.20 14.21-24 14.22 14.23 14.24 14.25 14.25-26 14.26

14.26-27 14.27 14.28 14.30 14.31 14.32-33 14.46 15–17 15.1 15.1-17 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.7 15.8 15.8-19 15.9 15.9-10 15.9-12 15.10

326 305 xxviii, xxx, 70, 286, 304–306, 329, 333, 339, 360, 365, 372 306 xxx, 309, 338, 365 307, 324 148, 301, 308 308 53, 70, 230, 309 238, 244, 251 327, 344, 371–372 160, 229, 304, 368–369 113, 138, 368 156, 175, 304, 369 88, 141, 304 304 304 12, 61, 141, 326 151 214 81 xvii, 243 155, 160-161, 175, 197, 229, 229, 304, 327, 344, 368–369, 371–373 337 91, 156, 158, 175, 209, 229, 304 360 115, 138, 141, 180 9, 16, 142, 158, 324, 355 249 161 9–10, 16, 154 113, 292 308 81 304 292, 338 304 238, 251 138 160, 301 324 184 304

15.11 15.12 15.13 15.15 15.15-16 15.17 15.18 15.18ff. 15.18-25 15.19 15.20 15.25 15.26 15.37-38 16.1 16.2 16.2-3 16.4 16.4-6 16.4-33 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.7-11 16.8 16.8-9 16.8-11 16.9-11 16.10 16.11 16.13 16.13-15 16.13-16 16.14 16.14-15 16.16 16.16-19 16.17 16.19-20 16.20

439

81, 229 160 179, 183–184, 188, 209–210, 304, 311, 342, 357 326 326 184, 304 xxv, 92, 141 59, 67, 69, 136, 141, 160, 162 103 141–142 138, 160 55 113, 157, 160, 227, 229, 304, 312, 344, 368–372 189 81 12, 67, 141, 156 48, 50, 52–53, 56, 59, 61, 68, 71, 138 81, 83, 160, 238 91 156, 175 175 81, 142, 175 xxxi, 113, 156, 226, 305, 370–371 304, 344, 368 138, 370 142 150, 157, 160, 229, 370 370 157, 174–175, 232 83, 94, 115, 128, 138, 141, 160, 162, 175 113, 368, 370 xvii, 97, 155, 160, 175, 229, 243, 312, 337, 357, 368–369, 371, 373 304 251, 258, 373 344, 372 88 75, 88, 304 232 156 138, 142, 156, 175

440

16.20-22 16.21 16.22 16.23 16.24 16.33

17 17.1 17.1-5 17.3 17.4 17.5 17.9 17.10 17.11 17.11-12 17.12 17.14 17.15 17.16 17.18 17.19 17.20ff. 17.21 17.21-22 17.21-23 17.21-26 17.22 17.23 17.23-24 17.23-26 17.24

17.24-26 17.26 18–20

Index of Ancient Sources

91, 229 156, 175 156, 175 91 229 xxiv, 69, 81, 89, 94, 128, 138, 142, 150, 152, 156, 158, 160, 162, 174–175, 229 16, 81, 89, 103, 143, 202, 218, 253, 301 xxvii, 83, 89, 174, 181, 205, 237–238, 244, 249–250, 264, 324 244 311, 318–319, 336, 364 89, 172, 237–238, 249250, 324 98, 149, 174, 203, 234, 237–238, 244, 249– 251, 256, 276 138, 142, 189 238, 250 xxiv, 83, 138, 142, 294, 308, 324 160 83, 142 138, 142 113, 115, 138, 142, 158 142 89, 142, 158 183, 188, 195 93 58, 138, 142-143, 152, 165, 308, 324 68 294 xxv 70, 237, 250, 308, 324 138, 142–143, 152, 158, 165, 308 301 324 99, 149, 207, 237, 244, 250-251, 256, 258, 276, 292, 325, 336, 342, 367 151 83, 301 50

18.1 18.4-6 18.5 18.6 18.8 18.8-11 18.10 18.10-11 18.11 18.14 18.19-21 18.20 18.22 18.23 18.28 18.28–19.16 18.31 18.32 18.34 18.35 18.36 18.36-37 18.37 18.38 18.38-40 19 19.1 19.1-3 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 19.6 19.7 19.9 19.10 19.11 19.12 19.13-14 19.15 19.17 19.18 19.20 19.21-32 19.23 19.23-24 19.25-27 19.28 19.28-29

221, 254 254 82, 292–293, 333 98, 292–293, 333 179, 192, 210, 292– 293, 333 254 185 355 81, 179, 210, 354–355 183, 186 179, 254 48–49, 51, 81 179–180 179, 254 173, 205, 254 205, 326, 343, 368 55, 69 253 179, 254 49 114, 138, 299, 326 175, 179, 253–254, 310 113, 214, 326 49, 179 192 196, 310 179–180, 210 253 148, 211 180, 211 173, 179, 205, 254 69, 211, 253, 318, 363 148, 179, 253–254 55, 70, 301, 334, 361 148, 254 179 98, 179–180, 254 69 253 69, 253 179, 191, 210, 254 211 49, 253 253 180 211 179, 192, 22 175, 211 179

Index of Ancient Sources

19.28-30 19.30 19.31 19.32 19.33 19.34 19.35 19.36 19.36-37 19.37 19.38 19.38-42 19.39 19.40 19.41 19.42 20 20.1 20.1-2 20.1-10 20.2 20.2-10 20.3-10 20.5 20.6-7 20.6-8 20.8 20.9 20.10 20.11 20.11-18 20.13 20.15 20.16 20.17 20.18 20.19 20.19-20 20.19-23 20.19-29 20.20 20.21

xxv, 172, 174, 196, 253 158, 175, 179, 192, 209, 210, 221, 254, 282, 295, 363 174, 174 205 221, 363 195, 212, 230 xxii, 93, 113, 214, 237 190, 205 173 xx, 215, 245, 248, 258, 310 49, 228 175, 212, 221 112, 130 49 205 49 xxvi, 22, 112, 154, 172, 174, 204, 212, 216, 221–235, 291, 311, 366 112, 221, 225 225 221 221, 223, 225, 326 221–224 221 222–223 xxvi, 223–224, 361 292 213, 223, 233–234 88, 224 224 221, 224, 225 172, 221 225, 326 225, 326 xxvi, 233 xxix, 90, 213, 226–227, 301, 305, 320, 322, 360, 365 234, 326 82, 227–228 342, 366 154, 213, 221, 226, 227–230 xxvi, 229, 272 214, 228, 233–234, 318 81

20.21-22 20.21-23 20.22 20.22-23 20.23 20.24 20.24-29 20.25 20.25-29 20.27 20.27-28 20.28

20.29 20.30-31 20.31 21 21.1 21.3 21.4-9 21.7 21.12 21.14 21.15 21.16 21.17 21.18 21.18-19 21.19 21.20-21 21.22-23 21.23 21.24 21.24-25 21.25 Acts 2.1ff. 2.33 3.13 5.31

441

158 70, 158, 172, 227 82, 86, 98, 302, 309, 327, 368 xxv, 88, 93, 197, 309, 368, 371 158, 228, 309 228 221, 226–227, 230, 342, 366 233 xxvi 213, 232–233, 303, 318 213, 215 xxx, xxxi, 70, 98, 172, 174, 181, 233, 256, 296, 302, 318, 326, 342, 354, 366 82, 214, 230, 232, 241, 258 20–21, 93, 136, 255, 296, 312, 355-358 21, 237, 256, 296–297, 301 xxi, 19, 22–23, 48, 54, 56, 125, 174, 185, 203, 224, 320, 355 174, 355 112 215 224, 326 326 174 326 326 326 185, 353 304 82, 238, 244, 253 326 75, 89 217 7–8, 113, 230 xxii, 312, 356 20–21, 35, 358 228 248 252 248

442

13.1 18–19 21.3 26.18 Romans 1.3 2.7 3.25 4.25 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.21 6.4 6.22-23 8.3 8.3ff. 8.5-8 8.14 8.15 8.16 8.30 8.32 8.32-34 8.33 8.35 8.37 8.39 9–11 9.5 9.26 13.1 13.12-14 1 Corinthians 1.23 2.6 2.8 7.39 8.6 8.11 12.4-6 15.3 15.3ff. 15.21-22 15.29 2 Corinthians 3.17 4.4

Index of Ancient Sources

119 53 277 123 281, 363 121 188 183, 188, 190, 192 183 xxx, 144, 296, 331, 342, 367 188 121 188 121 281, 331 114 264 119 323, 365 119, 371 331 144, 331 188 187, 331, 342, 367 331 331 331 352 359 119 75 123 178, 210, 284 117 117, 252 75 70, 359 296 372 183 222 74 187 371 117

4.6 5.14-15 5.14-21 5.17 5.21 6.15 13.13 Galatians 2.21 3.1 3.13 3.26 3.28 4.4-5 4.6 5.16 5.17 6.8 6.14 Ephesians 1.4 2.2 2.2-3 2.4 2.11-18 5.8 Philippians 2.6 2.6-7 2.9 2.10-11 Colossians 1.12-13 1.15 1 Thessalonians 1.9 4.16-17 5.4-8 5.5 1 Timothy 1.17 2.6 3.16 6.15 Titus 2.13 Hebrews 1.3

123, 252 188 188 325 188, 190, 192 117 372 296 310 188, 190, 192 119 352 321 323, 365 114 264 121 252 149, 331 117 119 331 68 118, 122–123 70, 359 270 248 359 123 359 319, 362 75 123 118, 122 325 187 281 325 359 359

Index of Ancient Sources

1.8 2.6 12.13 1 Peter 1.11 1.21 2.9 3.1 3.18 2 Peter 1.1 1 John

1.1 1.2 1.1-3 1.5 1.6 1.6-7 1.7 1.7-10 1.9 2.1 2.2 2.7-11 2.13-14 2.15 2.18 2.18-22 2.18ff. 2.19 2.28 3.1-2 3.2 3.11-17 3.8 3.10 3.12 3.14 3.16 3.17 3.20 4.2

359 292 178, 210 252 252 123 281 281 vii, xiv, 74, 352, 359–360 359 xxv, 57–58, 112, 119, 139, 143, 145, 159, 183, 188, 194, 235, 271, 312, 317, 321, 328, 330–331, 353 363 321 215, 362 xxix, 316–317, 328– 329, 343, 362, 364, 367 113 329 183 329 317 187, 368, 371 183, 188, 190–191, 194, 332 330 115 321 115, 151, 357 xvi 14, 57–58, 92, 165, 353 151 75 118, 320, 322 75 330 115 115, 118-119 115 112 144, 183, 188 321 317 271, 363

4.2-3 4.3 4.4 4.7 4.7-21 4.8 4.9 4.9-10 4.9-11 4.10 4.11 4.12 413 4.14 4.16 4.17 4.19 4.20-21 5.1 5.2 5.4 5.6-8 5.7 5.12 5.18 5.18-19 5.20 5.21 2 John 1 7 3 John 7 15 Revelation 1.4 2.9 2.10 3.9 3.10 4.7 5.6 12 12.7

443

57–58, 330 115 317 330 330 xxviii–xxix, 316–317, 330, 342–343, 364, 367 144–145, 311, 331-332 xxx, 144–145, 280, 320, 324, 330–332, 342 191 144, 183, 188, 194, 311, 331, 332, 343, 367 330 285 332 145 xxix, 316–317, 330, 332, 342–343, 364, 367 332, 343, 367 332 330 119 118 119 183 372 339, 365 119 115, 142 317, 360, 362 68, 318–319 271, 321 xxii 115, 271, 363 xxii, 321 66 357 29, 35, 61–62, 67, 106– 107, 327, 350, 352, 359 292 67 67 67 67 200 359 118 107, 117–118

444

Index of Ancient Sources

12.7-10 12.13 14.14 15.3 21 21.1-5 21.3 22.18-19

117–118 118 292 325 xvii xxviii 283 35

2. Early Jewish Authors and Texts 2.1 Philo of Alexandria

De opificio mundi 29-35 De somnis 1.75 In Flaccum 36-40 75 Legatio ad Gaium 245 Quod deterius potiori insidari soleat 21

123 329 211 211 62 328

2.2 Flavius Josephus

Antiquitates Judaicae 12.119 12.145–153 14.259–261 14.262–264 15.395 16.160–178 16.186–267 Contra Apionem 1.176–182 De Bello Judaico 5.210 7.218 2 Baruch 17.4 18.2 48.36 55.8 59.2 88.3 4 Ezra 5.9–10

62 62 63 62 9 62 62 62 9 64

2.3 Pseudepigrapha 123 123 275 124 123 124 275

6.40 123 7.28–29 301 13 292 13.32 301 13.37 301 13.52 301 14.9 301 14.20 123 1 Enoch 10.10 121 15.4 121 15.6 121 22.14 252 25.3 252 25.7 252 27.3 252 27.5 252 36.4 252 37–71 292 37.4 121 40.9 121 42.1–3 275 42.2 272 48.4 133 58.3 121, 133 63.2 252 75.3 252 83.6 252 84.3 275 90.31 298 105.2 301 2 Enoch 24.4 123 Apocalypse of Elijah 19.11 252 Joseph and Aseneth 8.9 121, 123 Jubilees 1.17 277 10.8 117 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) 11.1 123 19.4 123 23.13 121 28-29 123 33.3 123 48.1 298 60.2 123

445

Index of Ancient Sources

Lives of the Prophets (Liv. Pro.) 4.6, 21B, 22 117 17.2, 2B 117 Mart. Ascen. Isa. 1.3 117 2.4 117 10.29 117 Oracula Sibyllina (Sib. Or.) 3.63 117 3.73 117 Prophet Targum to Hosea 4.1 113 Testament of Abraham (T. Ab.) 14.14 121 20.15 121 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs Testament of Reuben (T. Reu.) 2.2 117 4.7 117 4.11 117 6.3 117 6.9 113 Testament of Simeon (T. Sim.) 5.3 117 Testament of Levi (T. Levi) 3.3 117 18.12 117 19.1 117, 123 25.3 117 Testament of Isaachar (T. Iss.) 6.1 117 7.7 117 Testament of Zebulun (T. Zeb.) 9.8 117 Testament of Dan (T. Dan) 1.7 117 4.7 117 5.1 117 5.10–11 117 Testament of Asher (T. Asher) 1.8 117 3.2 117 Testament of Joseph (T. Jos.) 7.4 117 20.2 117 Testament of Benjamin (T. Benj.) 3.3–4 117 3.8 117

6.1 6.7 7.1–2 10.3

117 117 117 113

2.4 Writings from Qumran

1QS (Community Rule) I 3–4, 9–10 I5 I 9–10 I9 II 16 III 7 III 13–IV 26 III 13 24–25 V3 VIII 2 1QM (War Scroll) I 1–3, 9–10, 13, 16 IV 9 1QHa X 24 [= II 22 Sukenik] 4Q177 10–11, 7 12–13i5 12–13i7.11 4Q181 1 ii 3–6 4Q228 1i9 4Q246 II 1 4Q257 V7 4Q266 6 i 12 4Q272 1i7 1 ii 1 4Q372 1, 16 4Q280 2, 1 4Q392 1, 4–7 4Q460 5i5 4Q548 1 ii–2, 10–11.15–16

145 113, 124 118 122 118, 122 133 110 118, 122 113, 124 113, 124 110 118 67 67 122 122 122 121 121 301 121 121 121 121 364 122 123 364 122

446

Index of Ancient Sources

1 ii, 8–9 4Q558 1 ii 4 4QFlor I 6–7 6Q19 2, 2 11QMelch 2 i 8.14 11QTa 29,7–8 CD III 20

122 298 301 121 119 277 121

2.5 Rabbinic Writings

Eighteen Benedictions Mishnah Middot 3.8 Babylonian Talmud Avodah Zarah 18b Berakhot 28b Megilla 18b Tosefta Hullin 2.22, 24

13, 52, 60, 364 9 63 60 64 60

3. Greco-Roman Pagan Authors and Works

Aristotle Physica 4.219b Cassius Dio 65.7.2 Celsus Alethes Logos 5.2 Cicero De natura deorum 1.18.49 Corpus Hermeticum I 9, 12, 17, 21, 32 XI 13, 14 XII 15

74 64 269 268 121 121 121

XIII 9, 12, 18-19 Dio Chrysostom Orationes 12.47 Epictetus Dissertationes 1.29.19 2.2.15 3.23.21 4.1.165 Enchiridion 53.4, 38 Euripides Alcestis 155 Bacchae 4 Iphigenia in Aulis 1395–1399 Kore Kosmou Lucian Dialogi deorum 5.2 16.2 20.14 Philopseudes 14 Maximus of Tyre Dialexeis 6.1 Ovid Metamorphoses 7.616ff. Plato Apologia 130cd Pliny the Younger Epistulae 10.96–97 Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 1 11 De tranquillitate animi Moralia II 351d/e 475de

121 286 178 178 178 178 178 182 263 182 263 269 269 269 269 121 263 178 66, 359 121 328 178 121 178

Index of Ancient Sources

Pollux Onomasticon VIII 24 Seneca Epistulae morales 42.1–2 Phaedra 299–308 Sallustius De diis et mundo 4.9 Suetonius Domitianus 12.2 Tacitus Annales 15.60, 64 16.34–35 Historiae

286 328 263 204 65 178 178

5.5

9

4. Early Christian Authors and Works

1 Clement 9.5 59.2 61.2–3 2 Clement 9.5 Acts of John 5 87 93 Acts of Paul 21 Acts of Thomas 48 Augustine Confessiones 11 De consensu evangelistarum 2.67 De Trinitate 2.11.6 Barnabas 18.2 6.14

261 123 325 281 4, 200 263 268, 363 263 231 263 73 8, 200 10 281 117 281

447

Clement of Alexandria Adumbrationes on John 1.1 363 Hypotyposes 6 5, 353 Quis dives salvetur 42 199 John Chrysostom 5, 280, 348 Homiliae 11.2 280 Didache 14.3 325 Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 3.36.11–12 229 3.39.4 xxii 3.39.15 199 6.14.7 5, 348, 353 6.14.15 199 Praeparatio evangelica 11.19 269 13.12.9–11 123 Gregory the Great Homiliarum in Ezechielem 2.1 200 4.1 200 Gospel of Peter 34–42 292 39–40 263 Gospel of Thomas 128, 231 77 132 77.1 133 Ignatius 74, 117, 229, 261, 359 To the Ephesians 17.1 117 18.2 359 19.1 117 To the Magnesians 1.3 117 To the Philadelphians 6.2 117 To Polycarp 3.2 74, 261 To the Romans 7.1 117 To the Smyrnaeans 1.1 359 3.1–2 229

448

Index of Ancient Sources

4.2 261 To the Trallians 4.2 117 Irenaeus Adversus haereses 3.1.1 353 3.11.8 200 3.11.17 200 Jerome Commentariorum in Ezechielem 1.1 200 Commentariorum in Isaiam libri XVIII Prologue 65 229 De viris illustribus 16 229 Justin Martyr 60, 178, 210 Apologia 1.13.4 178, 210 1.32.10 261 Dialogus cum Tryphone 16.93, 95 60 108 60 123 60 133 60 Lactantius 178, 210 Divinarum institutionum libri VII 4.26 178, 210 Epitome divinarum institutionum 50–51 178 Martyrdom of Polycarp 8.2 66 Melito of Sardis Peri Pascha 70, 104, 261 Nag Hammadi Corpus I 1.7 121 II 44 121 II 20.19 121 II 23.23 121 II 24.15 121 II 104.28 121 II107.4 121 II 113.12 121 II 115.12, 32 121 II 121.27 121 III 53.8 121 III 87.5 121 III 95.5, 18–19, 32 121 III 111.8 121

VII 91.8–9 121 VII 106.25 121 VII 107.13 121 VII 112.10 121 VII 113.15 121 XI 24 121 XI 29.30, 32 121 XI 30.31 121 XI 31.29 121 XI 49.31, 35 121 Odes of Solomon 3.9 121 6.18 121 8.2 121 9.4 121 10.2 121 11.6, 16 121 15.10 121 22.10 121 24.8 121 28.6–7 121 31.7 121 38.3 121 40.6 121 41.3, 16 121 Origen De principiis 1 229 Commentarii in evangelium Joannis Fragment 1 4, 200 1.4.23 348 10.2 8 Contra Celsum 4.10 178 6.10 210 6.71 327 Protevangelium of James 19–20 233 Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude(s) 6.1 263 7.1 263 12.8 263 Testament of Solomon 2.9 117 3.5–6 117 6.1 117 Theodore of Mopsuestia 8

Index of Authors

Ådna, J., 9 Adriaen, M., 229 Aland, B., 314 Allendorf, J. L., K. 261 Ameling, W., 62 Amelius, 269 Anderson, P. N., 8, 9, 11, 39, 51, 257 Applebaum, S., 62–63 Appold, M. L., 300 Apuleius, 262 Aquinas, T., 5, 348 Aristotle, 62, 74 Ashton, J., 44, 292 Assmann, J., 313 Attridge, H. W., 216 Augenstein, J., 58 Augustine, 5, 8, 10, 73, 149, 200, 281, 348 Aune, D. E., 67, 115, 117, 123 Avemarie, F., 177–178, 182 Bachmann, H., 48 Back, F., 226, 301, 316, 320–322, 365 Backhaus, K., 188 Baltzer, K., 246 Barclay, J., 53, 57, 62–63 Barr, J., 78 Barrett, C. K., 26–28, 119, 249, 272, 305, 316 Barth, K., 6, 146, 333, 340 Barth, M., 45 Barton, S. C., 55–56 Basilides, 108 Bauckham, R., xvi, 8, 51, 70, 117, 122– 123, 147, 179, 190, 199, 239, 297–298, 301

Bauer, W., 26, 44, 49, 263, 267, 272, 351 Baumeister, T., 178 Baur, F. C., xiv, xxvii, 5, 15, 29, 76, 107, 201–202, 242, 264–265, 267–268, 349– 351 Bayer, O., 340 Beasley-Murray, G. R., 10, 27 Becker, A. H., 46, Becker, J., xxiv, 17, 27, 30–31, 49, 101– 105, 109–110, 113, 116, 124–126, 129, 132, 137, 172, 202, 208, 213–214, 231, 268 Bekken, P., 176 Belle, G. van, 79, 93, 242, 354 Berger, K., 8, 28, 45, 53, 183, 194, 202, 242, 269, 313, 353 Bergler, S., 18 Bergmeier, R., 109, 114–115, 119, 124, 138, 146, 172 Bernard, J. H., 26–27 Bernoulli, C. A., 229 Beutler, J., xxii, 39, 48–49, 52, 56–58 Bianchi, U., 105 Bieringer, R., 39, 42, 50, 191 Billerbeck, P., 32, 59 Blank, J., 97–98, 113, 146–147, 249, 311 Blomberg, C. L., 9–10, 51 Böcher, O., 102 Bock, D. L., 70 Boismard, M. É., 295 Boman, T., 78 Bonnet, M., 4, 200 Borchert, G. L., 9, 28 Bornhäuser, K., 44 449

450

Index of Authors

Bornkamm, G., xvii, 242–243 Böttrich, C., 188 Bousset, W., 76, 107–108, 202 Boyarin, D., 292 Breytenbach, C., 183, 194, 337, 350 Brodie, T. L., 27 Brown, R. E., xxii, 12–14, 18–20, 27, 45, 51, 54–57, 69, 110, 139, 281 Brox, N., 271 Brumlik, M., 39, 46 Buch-Hansen, G., 327 Bühner, J.-A., 172, 291, 295, 299–300 Bultmann, R., xii–xiv, xvi–xvii, xxvii, 5–7, 16, 19, 23, 26–27, 30–31, 49, 51, 61, 76, 87–88, 98, 102, 106, 108–111, 113, 121, 123, 126, 139, 147–148, 201–203, 206–208, 211–214, 220, 231, 241–243, 265–268, 271–272, 275, 277, 279, 292– 293, 349–350, 354, 363 Burkett, D., 300 Busch, P., 118 Busse, U., 19–20 Caird, G. B., 239 Calvin, J., 5, 147, 149 Carson, D. A., 9, 27–28 Cassem, N. A., 138 Cebulj, C., 356 Celsus, 178, 210, 268, 269, 327 Charlesworth, J. H., 41, 46, 110, 123, 296 Chester, A., 337 Chibici-Revneanu, 239–240, 244–245, 249, 252, 264 Chrysostom, J., 5, 280, 348 Cicero, M. T., 268 Claussen, C., 62, 316 Clearchus of Soli, 62 Clement of Alexandria, 5, 353, 363, 199– 201, 348, 353, 363, 375 Collins, J. J., 67, 118, 177, 296 Collins, M. S., 240 Colpe, C., 108 Conzelmann, H., 111 Cook, J. G., 178, 211, 269 Coppins, W., vii–x, xx Crossley, J., 44 Culpepper, R. A., 20, 28, 39, 49, 51, 56, 79, 84, 93, 160, 173, 356 Dahl, N. A., 315

Danker, F. W., 44 Delling, G., 73–74 Dettwiler, A., 156, 306 Dietzfelbinger, C., 28, 194, 228, 239 Dobschütz, E. V., 120 Dodd, C. H., 51, 239 Döring, K., 178 Dormeyer, D., 315 Droge, A. J., 177 Duchesne-Guillemin, J., 105 Dunderberg, I., 231 Dunn, J. D. G., 46 Dupont-Sommer, A., 110 Ebel, E., 352 Eckhart, Meister 348 Eckstein, H.-J., 74 Edwards, M., 25 Egger, W., 33 Ehrman, B. D., 57 Elbogen, I., 60 Elowsky, J. C., 25 Eltester, E., 275 Endo, M., 123, 126, 129, 275, 318, 325 Erlemann, K., 58, 73, 75, 313 Eschner, C., 182 Eucken, R., 105 Eusebius of Caesarea, xxii, 5, 123, 199, 229, 269, 348, 353 Evans, C. A., 246, 275, 283, 296, 318 Fanning, B. M., 78 Feldman, L. H., 63 Feldmeier, R., 313–315, 323, 330, 365 Festugière, A.-J., 263 Fichte, J. G., 201, 349 Finnern, S., 20, 33, 84 Fitzmyer, J. A., 118 Flasch, K., 73 Fortna, R. T., 18, 40 Foster, P., 263 Früchtel, L., 363 Gadamer, H.-G., xxiv–xxv, 77, 90–91, 155 Garský, Z., 33 Gathercole, S., vii–x, 182 Gese, H., xii, 195, 274–276 Gestrich, C., 186 Gifford, E. H., 269 Goodman, M., 63 Goppelt, L., 350

Index of Authors

Görgemanns, H., 229 Grässer, E., 50–51, 69, 130 Gregory the Great, 200 Grelot, P., 59 Grillmeier, A., 5, 261 Grotius, H., 12 Güting, E., 40, 44 Güttgemanns, E., 84 Haacker, K., 49 Haenchen, E., 27, 49, 127, 148, 212, 275 Hagen, J., 347 Hahn, F., xvii, 49, 54, 77, 155, 214, 231, 242, 295, 299, 300–301, 314–315, 318, 347, 350–351, 364 Hakola, R., 39 Haldimann, K., 244 Halton, C., 44 Hanson, J. A., 262 Harnack, A. von, 314 Hasitschka, M., 190 Hayward, C. T. R., 316 Heckel, U., 200, 354 Heemstra, M., 13 Hegermann, H., 148 Heilig, C., vii, ix Heilmann, J., 307 Heitmüller, W., 76, 108, 202, 242, 271 Helm, R., 262 Hengel, M., 48–49, 51, 55, 58–59, 61–62, 64, 172–173, 176, 178, 193, 196, 199– 200, 210–211, 245, 261, 296–297, 299, 323, 326, 353, 360 Henten, J. W. van, 177–178, 182 Herder, J. G., xiv, 106–107, 201, 349 Hergenröder, C., 214 Hill, C. E., 261 Hinrichs, B., 131, 293 Hirsch, E., 49, 265 Hirschberg, P., 62–67, 69 Hirsch–Luipold, R., xxvi, 214, 267, 303, 362 Hobein, H., 121 Hoegen-Rohls, C., xvii, 54, 74, 88, 127, 160, 173, 242, 255, 289, 358 Hofius, O., 126, 130, 137, 143–144, 147, 192, 246, 285, 359–360 Hofrichter, P. L., 8 Holtzmann, H. J., 76, 349

451

Horbury, W., 13, 59–60 Horn, F. W., 114 Hurtado, L. W., xxx, 70, 239, 297, 302, 315, 337, 359 Hüttenberger, T., 186 Hyde, T., 105 Ibuki, Y., 239–240 Ignatius, 74, 117, 229, 261, 359 Irenaeus, xii, 200, 261, 268, 271, 348, 353 Janowski, B., 189, 195, 275, 277, 314 Jantsch, T., 315 Jenks, G. C., 118 Jeremias, J., 323, 364 Jerome, 200, 229 Johns, L. L., 190 Johnson, L. T., 67 Jonge, H. J., de 43 Judge, E. A., 63 Julian the Apostate, 210 Jülicher, A., 5, 202, 356 Just, F., 9, 11, 51, 257 Kaestli, J.-D., 263 Kalms, J. U., 117–118 Kammler, H.-C., 70 Karpp, H., 230 Käsemann, E., xvii, xxvii, 7, 98, 113, 137, 143, 187, 202–203, 206, 238, 242–244, 251, 265, 267–268, 279, 299, 349 Katz, S. T., 13, 59–60 Keefer, K., 5 Keener, C. S., 9, 27, 29, 32, 209 Kertelge, K., 188 Kieffer, R., 27, 204 Kierspel, L., 39, 41–43, 51, 138 Kimelman, R., 13, 59–60 Kittel, H., 239 Klauck, H.-J., 57, 113, 329–330, 362 Klawans, J., 44 Klein, G., 88 Klinghardt, M., 314 Knöppler, T., 173, 176, 183, 187–188, 190, 192, 194–195, 239, 241 Koch, K., 73 Koester, C. R., 161, 283 Kohler, H., 231–232, 235, 241 Köstenberger, A., 9, 27–29 Kremer, J., 216–217 Kreyenbühl, J., 108, 202

452

Index of Authors

Kriener, T., 46, 71 Kruse, C. G., 28 Kügler, J., 57 Kuhn, K. G., 59–60, 102, 109–110, 123 Küschheim, R., 111, 154, 162 Kümmel, W. G., 8 Kunath, F., 82, 204, 287, 336 Kysar, R. A., xi, 28, 52 Labahn, M., 32, 48, 216, 327, 355 Lactantius, 178, 210 Lagrange, M.,-J. 27 Lalleman, P. J., 263 Lambrecht, J., 67 Lampe, G. W. H., 4 Lampe, P., 64–65 Lanczkowski, G., 105 Landmesser, C., 113 Lang, A., 123 Lang, M., 192, 228, 354 Lapsley, J. E., 25 Larsson, T., 315 Lattke, M., 21, 143 Lausberg, H., 128 Law, T. M., 44 Lee, D. A., 316 Leistner, R., 39 Léon-Dufour, X., 27 Leonhardt-Balzer, J., 101, 117 Lessing, G. E., 201 Lichtenberger, H., 123 Lietaert Peerbolte, L. J., 118 Lieu, J. M., 246, 314 Lincoln, A. T., 27, 176, 216–217 Lipsius, R. A., 4, 200 Loader, W. R. G., 239, 299 Lohse, B., 340 Lohse, E., 67 Loisy, A., 27, 202 Long, A. A., 178 Lorein, G. W., 118 Lowe, M., 44, 45 Lozada, P. J., 3 Lütgert, W., 42 Luther, M., xii, 5, 43, 147, 149, 200, 310, 340, 348, 375 Maier, J., 60 Malina, B. J., 28 Manns, F., 59

Markschies, C., 200, 314, 335, 351 Marshall, I. H., 118 Martyn, J. L., xxii–xxiii, 12–13, 45, 52–55, 59–61, 69, 93, 139 Mason, S., 44 Mateos, J., 78 Mattingly, H., 66 McHugh, J., 27, 272, 278, 280–282 Meeks, W. A., 154–155, 295, 299 Menander, 108 Menke, K.-H., 186 Menken, M. J. J., 246 Mercier, R., 27–29 Merkel, H., 8, 199–200 Meyer, A., 288 Meyer, P., 316 Michaels, R., 27 Millar, F., 62 Miranda, J. P., 299 Mittmann-Richert, U., 189 Moll, S., 314 Moloney, F. J., 18, 20, 27, 33, 51, 54, 173, 241, 300, 355 Moore, D., 3, 20 Morgan, M., 194 Morris, L., 9–10, 28–29 Moser, M., 93, 297 Moss, C., xxvi Most, G. W., 231 Motyer, S., 42 Müller, U. B., 193, 266, 268–269 Mutschler, B., 200, 211, 261, 268, 348 Nagel, T., 261 Newsom, C., 25 Neyrey, J. H., 28, 177, 360 Nicklas, T., 39, 42 Nielsen, H. K., 27 Nilgren, U., 200 Nock, A. D., 263 North, W. E. S., 216–217, 316 Obermann, A., 246 O’Day, G. R., 20, 25 Oegema, G., 296 Olsson, B., xviii, 316–317 O’Neil, J. C., 283 Onuki, T., xvii, xxv, 54, 69, 77, 90, 93, 111, 127, 139–140, 153–157, 159, 161, 193, 241–243, 358

Index of Authors

Origen, 4–5, 8, 178, 200, 210, 229, 327, 348 Osten-Sacken, P. von der, 39, 349 Ott, H., 201 Oulton, J. E. L., 199 Painter, P., 57 Pamment, M., 240, 249 Pannenberg, W., 262 Parsenios, G. L., 176 Pastorelli, D., 369 Percy, E., 109 Perron, A. du, 107 Petersen, S., 293 Peterson, E., 271, 335 Philonenko, M., 110 Piper, R. A., 240 Pollefeyt, D., 39, 42, 50 Popkes, E. E., 28, 90, 100, 105, 111, 113– 115, 118–120, 124, 126–127, 132–133, 137–138, 142, 144, 146, 151–152, 188, 191, 330, 343, 367 Porphyry, 210 Porsch, F., 28 Potterie, I. de la, 286 Pratscher, W., 46 Preuschen, E., 4, 200 Pucci Ben Zeev, M., 63 Rabens, V., 328 Rahner, K., 195 Räisänen, H., 350 Ratzinger, J., 238, 257 Rebell, W., 129, 144 Reed, A. Y., 44, 46 Reim, G., 360 Reinhartz, A., 44, 316 Reitzenstein, R., 106, 108, 110 Rengstorf, K.-H., 300 Reynolds, B. E., 300 Reynolds, J., 63 Rhea, R., 300 Richter, G., 17, 31, 57, 202, 296 Ricoeur, P., 73 Ridderbos, H., 27 Riesner, R., 45, 55 Ringe, S. H., 25 Rissi, M., 43, 56 Ritschl, A., 76 Robinson, J. A. T., 8–9, 29

453

Rohrbaugh, R., 28 Röhser, G., 148, 187 Roth, D. T., 314 Rowe, C. K., 178 Rüggemeier, J., 33 Rusam, D., 191 Ruschmann, S., 222 Ruyter, B. W. J., 43 Sadananda, D. R., 315–316 Sasse, M., 300 Schaede, S., 186–187 Schaeder, H. H., 108 Schäfer, P., 13, 59–60 Schäferdiek, K., 268 Schattner-Rieser, U., 323 Schelbert, G., 323, 364 Schenke, G., 21 Schenke, L., 20, 28, 205 Schlatter, A., 61 Schleiermacher, F. D. E., 8, 201, 212, 314 Schleritt, F., 354 Schlier, H., 350 Schliesser, B., 230, 232–233 Schlund, C., 190 Schmid, H., 57–58 Schmid, L., 108 Schmithals, W., 23, 31, 356 Schnackenburg, R., 5, 26, 29, 52, 121, 130, 147–149, 299–301 Schneemelcher, W., 268 Schneider, J., 239 Schneiders, S. M., 216, 239 Schnelle, U., xvii, 27–28, 32, 47–51, 55, 58–59, 61–62, 68, 138, 144, 146–147, 150–151, 207–209, 211, 214, 218, 221– 222, 224, 226, 272, 286, 295, 301, 314– 315, 319, 327–328, 350–351, 353–358, 360, 363–364 Scholtissek, K., 47, 183–184, 187, 285, 307–308, 324, 338–339, 365 Schottroff, L., 102, 123 Schrage, W., 59, 61, 252 Schram, T. L., 39 Schreiber, S., 296 Schröter, J., 181–183, 186, 191, 193–194, 296, 315, 350 Schulze, W. A., 201, 349 Schürer, E., 62

454

Index of Authors

Schwank, B., 28–29 Schwankl, O., 111, 125–136 Schwartz, D., 44 Schwartz, E., 16, 31 Schweitzer, A., 76, 238 Schweizer, E., 114 Schwemer, A. M., 172 Schwindt, R., 237–241, 244–246, 248, 252, 257, 264 Seeley, D., 177 Segal, A. F., 71, 337 Segovia, F. F., 3, 19 Sellin, G., 350 Semler, J. S., 12 Sheridan, R., 44 Siegert, F., 18, 25–27, 30–31, 40–41, 52, 208, 225, 268–270, 272, 280, 354 Simoens, Y., 27 Slaby, W. A., 48 Smallwood, M., 63–65 Smith, D. M., 4–5, 12, 28, 52, 315–316 Söding, T., 71, 188, 316, 364 Sperling, S. D., 117 Spieckermann, H., 187, 313–315, 323, 330 Stählin, G., 5, 199 Stählin, O., 363 Stare, M., 112, 120 Stegemann, E., 58, 65, 72 Stegemann, H., 122 Stegemann, W., 65 Stemberger, G., 13, 59–60 Sterling, G., 177–179 Steudel, A., 117 Stibbe, M. W. G., 28, 321 Stimpfle, A., 149, 217, 220, 250 Strack, H. L., 59 Strauss, D. F., 5, 8, 15 Strecker, G., 119 Strotmann, A., 323 Stroumsa, G., 105 Stuhlmacher, P., xii, 188, 350 Suciu, A., 347 Tabor, J. D., 177 Talbert, C. H., 28 Tannenbaum, R., 63 Taschl–Erber, A., 222 Taylor, J., 44 Teppler, Y. Y., 59–60

Tertullian, 21 Thatcher, T., 3, 9, 11, 20, 51, 257 Theissen, G., 350 Theobald, M., 18, 25, 27, 48, 70–71, 126, 129, 132–133, 190, 206, 269, 271, 273– 275, 279, 281, 285–286, 300, 315–316, 327, 354–355, 360, 363, 372 Theodore of Mopsuestia, 8 Thomas, J. C., 25 Thompson, M. M., 27, 44, 209, 315–316, 319, 364 Thüsing, W., 239–240 Thyen, H., 7, 14, 17, 19–23, 27, 33, 49, 55–56, 58, 109, 125–126, 130–132, 134, 137, 202–203, 209, 213, 216–218, 220, 222, 224–226, 229, 245, 271, 273, 285, 292–293, 354 Tilborg, S. van, 28, 69 Timm, H., 201 Tolmie, F. D., 315 Trebilco, P., 62–64, 356 Treu, U., 363 Trilling, W., 72, 139 Trumbower, J. A., 149 Uebele, W., 57 Uhrig, C., 5, 261, 281 Vandercasteele-Vanneuville, F., 39, 42, 50 Vellanickal, M., 114 Vermes, G., 62 Versnel, H. S., 177–178, 181–183 Vetter, D., 47 Vielhauer, P., 51, 57 Vinzent, M., 314 Vollenweider, S., 263 Voorwinde, S., 209 Vouga, F., 67 Waaler, W., 359 Wahlde, U. C. von, 18, 27, 30–31, 39–40, 42, 44, 52, 354 Walde, C., 263 Wander, B., 63 Watson, F., 8, 200 Watt, J. G. van der, 34, 73, 114, 322, 354 Weder, H., xiii, 111, 135, 144 Weigandt, P., 269, 271 Weihs, A., 188 Welck, C., 54, 94, 160, 191, 208, 216, 255, 288, 362

Index of Authors

Wellhausen, J., xiv, 15–16, 18, 31, 49, 137, 213, 216, Wendt, H.-H., 213 Wengst, K., xxii, 12–13, 25, 27, 32, 45, 47, 50, 54–55, 59–62, 139, 156, 272–273 Westcott, B. F., 9 Westermann, H., 73 Wetter, G., 265 Wettstein, J. J., 12 Wick, P., 33 Wiedenroth, U., 262 Wilckens, U., 14, 28, 58, 310, 315–316, 344, 372 Williams, C. H., 70, 245, 292 Witherington, B., 10, 28 Wolter, M., 222, 356

455

Wrede, W., 350–351 Wucherpfennig, A., 200 Yarbro Collins, A., 67, 118, 177 Zahn, T. von, 9, 26 Zeller, D., 263, 270 Zimmermann, C., 319, 321–323, 325–326, 364–365 Zimmermann, H., 132, 292 Zimmermann, J., 296 Zimmermann, R., 34, 114, 119, 128, 161, 189, 215–216, 273, 293, 295, 322, 354 Zingg, E., 316, 321, 364 Zumstein, J., 20, 27, 190, 224, 228, 233, 315 Zuntz, G., 178