The Death of Jesus: Some Reflections on Jesus-Traditions and Paul 3161521145, 9783161521140, 9783161522819

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Friedrich Avemarie † (Marburg) Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford) James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL) Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg)

299

Alexander J. M. Wedderburn

The Death of Jesus Some Reflections on Jesus-Traditions and Paul

Mohr Siebeck

Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, born 1942; Graduate of Oxford University (BA, MA), Edin­ burgh University (BD) and Cambridge University (PhD); 1972–89 Tutorial Assistant, then Lecturer University of St Andrews; 1990–94 Lecturer, then Senior Lecturer Durham University; 1994–2006 Professor of New Testament, Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät, Ludwig-Maximi­ lians-Universität München; since 2006 retired.

e-ISBN PDF 978-3-16-152281-9 ISBN 978-3-16-152114-0 ISSN 0512-1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2013  by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen using Minion typeface, printed by GuldeDruck in Tübingen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

For Brigitte

Foreword Both the questions of how far Jesus anticipated his death and how he then interpreted it, as well as the question how his followers and above all the apostle Paul then interpreted it afterwards have been amply studied. Although the present work will inevitably have to touch on these subjects, the motivation for this study lies elsewhere: how can we today make sense of what happened, and do the New Testament accounts offer us any resources for a better understanding of what to make of this event? In saying that, I am aware that I am stepping over the boundary that separates purely exegetical and historical work into the realm of questions of philosophy and systematic theology. For some, it is true, the historical and exegetical answers are at the same time the philosophical and theological answers, and our role today is simply to repeat what the New Testament texts say (if one can assume that in the last analysis they all say the same thing). For others, myself included, the two sets of questions and answers need to be brought into some sort of relationship, although it is to be feared that this happens less often than it should. I can recall a volume of collected essays on the death of Jesus, mostly exegetical, but a couple supplied by systematic theologians, and the regret expressed by a reviewer, himself an exegete, that the systematic theologians had not made more efforts to enter into dialogue with the exegetical contributions. That is hardly an isolated or exceptional case, for many systematic theologians seem happier to take the church’s creeds and confessions and the formulations of later theologians as their starting-point rather than the diverse and often seemingly discordant statements of the Christian scriptures. As a result one tends to find that systematic theologians will handle this subject within the framework of the traditional discourse of their discipline, whereas there must surely be some attempt to relate this discourse to our experience of the world outside of this discourse. And in the case of a historically based faith such as Christianity that will involve grappling with the traces of the past that we have and asking how well the claims of that discourse measure up to those traces.1 On the other hand, one could doubtless cite countless examples where exegetes have contented themselves with exegesis without thought for the theological and philosophical questions that their exegesis raises. 1 On the ‘traces’ of the past and the methods and assumptions involved in handling them cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, esp. ch. 4.

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It is true that a historical approach will seldom be in a position to show the statements of systematic theology to be false, but nevertheless it may well open up the way to alternative assessments that can claim as great a plausibility or perhaps an even greater one. Of course, one may well end up with an account that leaves far more open and contains far too many loose ends for the tastes of a systematic theologian, but, on the other hand, a too neat and tidy account is surely suspect. Indeed one could often think that one can detect something of hubris in such accounts. Has enough scope been left in such cases for the mystery and inscrutability of God? At any rate, a certain untidiness and a bunch of loose ends may be a small and indeed appropriate price to pay for a greater sense of reality and a responsible handling of the data of history and of our experience. For systematic theologians often seem to me to run the risk of reading far more into the New Testament accounts than the latter really warrant, and do so without, as far as I can see, substantially increasing the intelligibility of those accounts. Often I have the impression of something alien being superimposed on the New Testament accounts that in some cases sits very awkwardly upon them. There are, on the other hand, it is true, also many who bravely attempt to step outside the traditional systematic framework and to plough a fresh furrow, but in many cases the death of Jesus does not seem to find a sufficiently salient position within their work. And as an exegete I must admit to feeling often a sense of sceptical and bewildered amazement and of unreality when confronted with the contributions of dogmatic or philosophical theologians. Few have succeeded in bringing these two theological worlds together, although there have been notable exceptions, like Rudolf Bultmann and some of his pupils such as Ernst Käsemann; their attempts have been, however, more than a little controversial and explosive, and that may explain why so many have been content to stay in their own world, the exegete in the exegetical, the dogmatic or philosophical theologian in the world of systematics and philosophy. Or there is the danger that, in venturing out of the one world into the other, one exposes oneself as ignorant or foolish and, despite what Paul said about the folly of the preaching of the cross (1 Cor 1.18–25), that may be too much of a loss of intellectual respectability. And yet one is left with a feeling of incompleteness if one has only described what various New Testament writers have said about this theme, in all its seeming strangeness and unfamiliarity, without asking the question ‘What, if anything, does this all mean for me and my contemporaries?’, as opposed to what the New Testament authors meant when they spoke of Jesus’ death. This question of the meaning and the interpretation of Jesus’ death today is, at any rate, a question that has exercised me for a long time and that still awaits an answer. For it was my dissatisfaction with the christological and soteriological answers offered by my dogmatics teacher in my undergraduate days that first led me on to doctoral work on the then fashionable gnostic explanation of Paul’s corporate christology and then later to the study of the mysteries as the postu-

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lated background to Paul’s talk of dying and rising with Christ. In both instances my conclusions were negative: Paul’s thought differed in important ways from those of later gnostic mythology and from the beliefs reflected in the rituals of the mysteries, and Jewish analogies lay nearer to hand. Yet those analogies were and are in many respects equally mysterious and foreign to our ways of thinking, and only if one were content simply to appropriate and endorse the ways of thought of first-century hellenistic Jews would this analysis of the rationale of Paul’s thought provide any satisfaction. Thus I concluded that, if one felt oneself unable to make these ways of thought one’s own, then Paul’s thinking would remain an enigma; thus ‘it is the task of the Christian interpreter to try to make him less enigmatic to her or his contemporaries, to try to bridge the gap of centuries, and to awaken an understanding of what he was trying to express’.2 A later study of the traditions concerning the resurrection of Jesus then brought me face to face with the question of the nature of the God who is held to have raised Jesus from the dead. For, quite apart from the exegetical, historical and philosophical problems of the resurrection accounts, the claims made by these accounts often contained a triumphalistic way of thinking with which I could not feel comfortable. In them surfaces the idea of an all-powerful God who raises Jesus and will raise his followers from the dead in a mighty act comparable to that of creation, and that all too human way of thinking and speaking of God that draws upon the human analogy of human potentates and upon the logic of what we think that a supreme being should be and do is one that I find questionable. For had not Jesus seemingly contrasted the way that he and his followers should tread with the behaviour of worldly rulers (Mark 10.42–4 parr.)? And I argued then that ‘the God who is known through Jesus, the God who seems to be reflected in the life of Jesus, seems rather to refuse to exercise power, to be prepared to suffer instead and to be thwarted’.3 It is true that Jesus apparently did not extend this to God’s behaviour, but I suggested that we should not be afraid to go further than Jesus did, conditioned as he still was by so many of the conventions and traditional ways of thought of his day.4 If the ways of earthly rulers are no fitting model for the ways of Jesus and his followers, is it right that they should guide us in our thinking about God’s ways? Now it is true that in Jesus’ death, if we isolate it from the belief in his resurrection, there is little scope for triumphalist ways of speaking, yet there too, in the attempts of Christians then and now to explain what was happening in that death and its bearing upon ourselves in relation to God, human analogies of judges and rulers again lie near at hand and risk distorting our view. For time and again we can see that traditional accounts of the rationale of this event introduce ideas and categories Baptism, 396. Beyond Resurrection, 208. 4 Cf. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 178. 2 Wedderburn, 3 Wedderburn,

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which are not only foreign to us, but in many cases repugnant. Notions of blood sacrifice or the appeasing of a wrathful God surface constantly in the history of the interpretation of this event, but many will find them hardly satisfactory, let alone appropriate, in this day and age. And in dealing with the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection we are confronted, not only with discrepancies in the accounts, but also with problems in their later interpretation. For I argued that philosophical difficulties arose there with regard to the identity of the human person and also, for instance, in the logic of Paul’s exposition of the nature of resurrection. In the latter case I argued that some aspects of the apostle’s exposition must be discarded as flawed, but that other aspects of his and the Fourth Gospel’s theology offered, on the other hand, pointers in a more helpful and fruitful direction. And similar questions to those that arose with regard to resurrection, especially with regard to the nature of God and also with regard to the human predicament, are raised even more acutely by Christian theology’s attempts to explain the purpose and rationale of the death of Jesus. What, for instance, is the nature of this human predicament that it can supposedly be dealt with by the death of one individual? And what is the nature of the God who requires that it be dealt with in this way (if God does in fact require it)? Finally, my study of Jesus and the Historians concluded with a chapter on the claims of Jesus for himself and his work and the self-understanding implicit in these. I was struck with the strand of thought that has been labelled a ‘messianic collective’ (Gerd Theissen) or the ‘democratization’ of messianic ideas and figures in the Old Testament (Theissen and Christopher Tuckett).5 Such a strand of thought is, I argued, likely to represent an authentic part of Jesus’ teaching, in that it runs counter to the tendency of Jesus’ followers subsequently to stress his unique relationship to his God, a tendency that finds its climax in the New Testament in the Fourth Gospel, but forms the basis of later christological formulations. I concluded that ‘this strand of Jesus’ teaching seems to suggest that Jesus himself might well have been horrified had he known what his followers would make of him and would have repudiated the very suggestion of talking of him as God incarnate, a unique being’,6 always allowing for the possibility that his followers might have rightly discerned something that remained hidden from Jesus himself and alien to his thinking. And yet many theories and explanations of the significance of Jesus’ death rest, as we shall see, on the assumption that he was indeed such a unique God-man and even that in his death we see the ‘crucified God’ (Jürgen Moltmann).7 What would an account of the meaning of that death look like without that undergirding? 5 Theissen, Followers; ‘Gruppenmessianismus’; Jesusbewegung; Tuckett, ‘Son of Man’ (2001 and 2003). 6 Wedderburn, Jesus, 320. 7 Moltmann, God.

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Unfortunately, the eye-problems that had dogged the proof-reading of Jesus and the Historians, having eased for a time, returned in far greater severity, so that further reading became practically impossible. Added to that, increasing immobility made even getting to, let alone using, libraries difficult. As a consequence, the cross-checking and cross-referencing to which I had hitherto become accustomed had largely to cease, and what I could still write, greatly enlarged on the screen, had largely to suffice (where works are cited that do not appear in the bibliography, I have here had to take on trust the works of colleagues that are referred to as having cited or quoted these sources). As a result this work inevitably shows a regrettable unevenness and incompleteness, but I nevertheless hope that the soundings and suggestions that it contains may yet be of some value, and perhaps may even serve to set a somewhat unorthodox cat loose among some theological pigeons. It is indeed a ragged and rather incomplete ‘swansong’, but those familiar with what counts in reality as ‘song’ amongst the swans will not expect anything aesthetically particularly pleasing from this old bird. I am, once again, very much in my debt to my former colleague, Jörg Frey, and to the very helpful and highly competent staff of Mohr Siebeck for their readiness to accept such a work and one in such a state for the WUNT series. Especial thanks are also due to my former student, Dr Manuél Ceglarek, who undertook the tasks of proof-reading and indexing that I could no longer perform. Finally, I have once before dedicated a work to my wife, Brigitte, but now, after more than forty years of loving companionship, and especially in the light of the added pains and strains that she too has had to bear in the last months, it seemed more than fitting once more thus to acknowledge with deep gratitude the part she has played in my life and work. München, April 2012

A. J. M. Wedderburn

Table of Contents Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XV 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 A ‘Crucified God’ or a Suffering God? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 A Question of the Nature of God? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 A Cosmic Event? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Alternative Hermeneutical Strategies? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 The Strategy of This Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



1 5 9 25 30 40

2. A Deepening Shadow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 The Fate of a Prophet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Predictions of the Passion? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Suffering to Bring Salvation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



47 51 54 60

3. Jesus’ Last Meal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 A Variety of Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 What Did Jesus Originally Say? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 What Did Jesus Mean? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .



67 68 73 79

4. Forsaken by God? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Gethsemane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Jesus’ Cry of Dereliction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 An Interim Stocktaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89 89 96 105

5. Between Jesus and Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.1 The Impact of the Easter Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5.2 Traditions in Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 6. The Folly of the Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 6.1 The Cross – a Polemical Theme? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 6.2 Theological Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

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7. Participation in Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 2 Corinthians 5.14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 The Representative Human Being? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Being in Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Dying with Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Hermeneutical Reflections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149 151 153 156 159 161

8. ‘Righteousness’ and ‘Justification’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 A Future Judgement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Romans 1.16–17: God’s Righteousness as Dynamic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 God’s Righteousness: When? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Justification and Resurrection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 The Nature of Righteousness and Justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

167 168 169 172 176 178

9. Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Appendix: The Shorter Text in Luke 22.15–19a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Bibliography of Works Consulted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Primary sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Reference Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Other works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

195 195 196 196

Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Index of Primary Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Abbreviations Monographs and articles are mostly identified in the text and notes with an abbreviated title, commentaries with the name of the biblical work in question; full details will be found below. For the most part abbreviations listed by the Anchor Bible Dictionary, the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.) or Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (4th ed.) have been used, and for Philo’s works those of The Philo Index (ed. P. Borgen et al.; Grand ­Rapids MI/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company/Leiden, etc.: Brill, 2000). The following have also been used in addition to those mentioned in the Bibliography under § 2 ‘Reference Works’ below: ET FS Ger. JSHJ LNTS REB SCBO UTB

English translation Festschrift German version/translation Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Library of New Testament Studies Revised English Bible Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis Uni-Taschenbücher

1. Introduction From the very first Jesus’ death was a puzzle for his followers, and to this day it has remained a puzzle. That is perhaps hardly surprising. For, despite the predictions of his coming fate, often outlined in considerable detail, set on Jesus’ lips by the evangelists, the course of events in Jerusalem during that fateful Passover visit seems in fact to have taken his disciples fully by surprise.1 As events unfold in Gethsemane they run away (Mark 14.50 par.) – a flight that Jörg Frey describes as ‘an event that is historically hardly open to question’ –,2 then deny him (Mark 14.66–72 parr.). It is one from outside the number of the disciples closest to him, and perhaps in reality not even a disciple at all,3 who must take on the responsibility for his burial (Mark 15.43). In their fear of the Jewish authorities those disciples meet behind closed doors (John 20.19). They react with sceptical incredulity to the first reports of resurrection appearances (Luke 24.11; John 20.25). And, despite the experiences described in John 20, in the following chapter some of the disciples take up their previous work as fishermen (John 21.3); it is as if they were trying to forget about Jesus as a painful, but now past episode in their lives or as if nothing had happened, and as if they had never received the gift of the Spirit or been commissioned by Jesus (John 20.21–3). Some of this may be a literary device to heighten the drama of the miraculous, but there is little in the gospel accounts to suggest a more positive response to Jesus’ death.4 Now this has implications for the disciples’ understanding of Jesus’ death as well as for the question whether they were then predisposed to claim that he had been raised from the dead. For this reaction hardly suggests that they had been taught that this death was part of God’s plan and would be for their salvation. And, as Ingolf Dalferth remarks, ‘the cross is soteriologically dumb’,5 so that the event itself could have offered no enlightenment if they had not been instructed beforehand. Had they expected that, one might surely have expected a very different response, despite the danger to themselves, such as they reportedly 1 That is denied by some (cf. Berger, Auferstehung; Pesch, ‘Entstehung’ [1973], but contrast Pesch, ‘Entstehung’ [1983]); cf. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 39–41. 2 Frey, ‘Probleme’, 44. 3 Cf. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 62 and 262 n. 153. 4 Cf. Moltmann, God, 132: the flight of the disciples is to be regarded as historical ‘because it conflicts with any kind of veneration for a hero and forbear’. 5 Dalferth, Der auferweckte Gekreuzigte, 44.

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manifested after their experiences of the risen Jesus.6 More plausible, then, is Wolgang Schrage’s verdict, that ‘Jesus’ crucifixion must have from the very first shattered the traditional expectations and concepts of believers and challenged them to decide whether one wanted to measure God’s eschatological salvation by the criterion of religious tradition or was ready to recognize God’s free and entirely different action’.7 The subsequent experiences that Jesus’ followers then interpreted as God’s raising him from the dead did not in themselves solve the problem of why Jesus had to suffer this fate, even if they suggested that the problem must in principle be soluble: Jesus’ death was not just simply a human failure and tragedy, but in his life and in his end God must somehow have been at work and have had some purpose in this turn of events. We shall see some of the various attempts to explain what this purpose was, over and above the simple assertion that it was necessary (δεῖ/ἔδει) that God’s messiah should die (e. g. Mark 8.31 parr.; Luke 17.25;24.7, 26; John 3.14; 12.34; Acts 17.3), when we come to Paul’s letters and the various traditions of which he made use in speaking of Jesus’ death. However, Rudolf Bultmann found all such traditional interpretations and explanations of the purpose of Christ’s death unintelligible. Death we cannot understand as a punishment for sin, for even before incurring guilt we were already exposed to death. ‘Nor can we understand that in consequence of the guilt of our ancestors we should be condemned to the death of a natural being, because we know of guilt only as a responsible act and therefore regard original sin, in the sense of a quasi-natural hereditary illness, as a submoral and impossible concept.’ That makes the doctrine of Christ’s death as substitutionary atonement unintelligible. Could the death of someone guiltless atone for my guilt? He asks what ‘primitive concepts of guilt and righteousness’ and of God lie behind such a notion. And if this death is to be understood in terms of sacrifice what sort of ‘primitive mythology’ is this in which a divine being that has become human atones with his blood for humanity’s sin? Or if legal categories are invoked, and ‘in the transactions between God and human beings God’s demands are satisfied by the death of Christ’, then sin is seen only as outward transgression of a divine command and ethical standards are ignored. And if Christ were God’s Son and a preexistent divine being, what would dying mean for him – particularly if he knew he was due shortly to be raised again?8 6 Cf.,

e. g., Acts 4.13–20. ‘Verständnis’, 58–9. 8 Bultmann, ‘New Testament’, 6–7; cf. 33–4 (tr. Ogden). More recently traditional interpretations of the rationale for Christ’s death have also come under heavy and sustained attack from feminist theologians, who, for instance, see in it a case of ‘divine child abuse’ (a somewhat tendentious expression, since Jesus at the time of his death would not normally be described as a ‘child’) or ‘sadism’. A survey of this criticism can be found in the articles on ‘Kreuz’ in the two editions of the Wörterbuch der feministischen Theologie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1991, 2nd ed. 2002), in the first L. Schottroff, ‘Feminis7 Schrage,

1. Introduction

3

The Catholic theologian Otto Knoch has also contributed a brief and succinct statement of the difficulties that the traditional doctrine of the atonement presents today.9 After outlining our experience of the world today and our resultant world-view, he details aspects of this doctrine that are to regarded as unsuitable and incompatible with the nature and dignity of God on the one hand and with the nature and dignity of human beings on the other. God does not require a just punishment for us nor an appropriate atonement for the desolate condition of the world. Nor does God need a divine-human mediator to fulfil the divine will in the world and to rescue humanity from the power of Satan and sin. Nor is it fitting that Jesus’ coming, dying and rising unfolded according to a divine plan that reduces Jesus and his contemporaries to the role of spectators. Nor is it appropriate that human beings should be fitted according to this plan into a pre-ordained setting which dooms us to be in the wrong and makes our freedom illusory. Nor should everyone need another person to come and die if their lives are to succeed. Nor should it be only the death of Christ that gives any meaning and worth to human values and achievements. Nor is it fitting that we cannot order our lives and our world freely and responsibly and work for the improvement of both, as if we and the world were subject to the power of evil and perdition but for Christ’s death. One need not accept all Knoch’s strictures, of course. Several decades later, for instance, his optimism with regard to our ability to mould ourselves and our world for the better seems to be wearing a bit thin, as we struggle in the face of a rising crescendo of ecological and economic. Nonetheless, enough of his objections still have sufficient weight to make us pause and consider whether our views on ‘atonement’ do not need a fairly drastic revision. If these two sets of criticisms came from exegetes, John Hick has also subjected traditional views of the atonement to scrutiny from the perspective of a philosopher of religion.10 Distinguishing ‘atonement’ in the narrower sense of ‘making up’ for human sin and in the broader sense of salvation or ‘entering into a right relationship with God’, he finds that the latter has been more prevalent in Eastern, Greek Christianity, the former in Western, Latin Christian traditions. The former, one might think, in the forms of ‘Anselm’s doctrine of a satisfaction to cancel the insult to God’s majesty caused by creaturely disobedience, or the tische Kritik an Kreuzestheologie’, 226–31, in the latter R. Strobel, ‘Feministisch-theologische Kritik’, 347–50. Strobel’s analysis divides theologies of the cross into those seeing Jesus’ crucifixion as according to God’s will and those treating it as expressing God’s solidarity with the tortured, and argues that even the latter approach encourages the acceptance of violence (349). Cf. also, e. g., Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, ch. 4 (the accusation of ‘divine child abuse’ comes from Brown and Parker in J. Carlson Brown, Parker and Bohn, Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse). More restrained is her own argument, e. g. in In Memory of Her, 135, that ‘the Sophia-God of Jesus does not need atonement or sacrifice. Jesus’ death is not willed by God but is the result of his all-inclusive praxis as Sophia’s prophet.’   9 In Schnackenburg, ‘Gedanke’, 211–14. 10 Hick, Metaphor, esp. 112–27.

4

1. Introduction

penal-substitutionary idea of an imputed justification won by Christ’s taking upon himself the punishment due for human sin’, ‘had largely died out among thoughtful Christians’, although he notes a revival of such ideas among ‘some Christian philosophers who, unlike most contemporary theologians, tend to see church doctrine as a set of immutable truths’.11 Before such views as those of Anselm or of penal substitution were introduced, however, ‘the earliest attempt to conceptualize the Christian experience of liberation and new life fastened upon the Markan saying of Jesus, that “the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom (lutron) for many” (Mark 10.45)’ (114). Yet, as soon as one sought to develop this striking image, one came up against the question of the recipient of the payment of this ransom and it was assumed that it was the devil who was tricked by God into accepting this payment. ‘Such imagery is only embarrassing today.’ And the traditional doctrine of original sin that undergirds such imagery is also to be set aside, ‘except as a mythological way of referring to the fact of universal human imperfection’ (115). Similarly, it is today ‘virtually impossible to share Anselm’s medieval sense of wrongdoing as a slight upon God’s honour which requires a satisfaction to assuage the divine dignity before even the truly penitent can receive forgiveness’ (118). And when, later, the Reformers focussed upon the Pauline doctrine of justification, they reflected the view of law current in their day, just as Anselm had reflected that of his time; whereas law had been an expression of the ruler’s will, now both ruler and ruled were subject to an objective justice whose demands could not be set aside even by the ruler.12 Yet the idea that guilt can be removed from a wrongdoer by someone else being punished instead is morally grotesque. And if we put it in what might at first sight seem a more favourable light by suggesting that God punished Godself, in the person of God the Son, in order to be able justly to forgive sinners, we are still dealing with the religious absurdity of a moral law which God can and must satisfy by punishing the innocent in place of the guilty (119). 11 Hick, Metaphor, 113. The second part of Hick’s ch. 11 contains a detailed critique of Richard Swinburne’s argument, an attempt to ‘retrieve a transactional conception’ of the atonement, in Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Inter alia Swinburne grants that ‘God could have chosen to accept one supererogatory act of an ordinary man as adequate for the sins of the world. Or he could have chosen to accept some angel’s act for this purpose’ (160). Rightly Hick calls this ‘a deeply damaging admission, rendering it truly extraordinary that God should require the agonizing death of God’s Son’; it would mean that ‘there was no necessity for the cross, such as was provided in their own way by the satisfaction and penal-substitutionary theories’ (Hick, Metaphor, 123). And, if Swinburne can grant that the value of Jesus’ death need not have been commensurate with the evil of human sin (154), then, Hick askes (125), ‘if a merciful God can properly “let men off the rest” without a full punishment having been inflicted or a full satisfaction exacted, why may not God freely forgive sinners who come in genuine penitence and a radically changed mind?’ 12 Cf. Den Heyer, Jesus, 132: ‘In the classical doctrine of the atonement God seems to be his own prisoner.’

1.1 A ‘Crucified God’ or a Suffering God?

5

Hick also raises the question of Jesus’ own view of his death, contrasting the opinions on this point of Sanders and Jeremias, whose standpoint amounts, according to Sanders, to the belief that Jesus ‘conceived in advance the doctrine of atonement’.13 Hick notes that ‘even conservative New Testament scholarship today does not suggest that Jesus thought of himself as God, or God the Son, second person of a divine Trinity, incarnate’, and we should not attribute to him a view of his death which presupposes that. He considers it likelier, ‘as a maximal possibility that Jesus saw himself as the final prophet precipitating the coming of God’s rule on earth, than that he saw it in anything like the terms developed by the church’s later atonement theories’ (125). Even more modern theories that focus on human remorse at humanity’s killing God’s Son, leading to repentance and thus forgiveness, depend on the belief that it was the second person of the trinity that was thus put to death.14 Yet, when systematic theologians today turn to the subject of soteriology, one finds that inter-trinitarian relationships play a very great part in their exposition of their theme. If that was not part of Jesus’ thinking and probably not found, either, in the embryonic reflections on the reason for Jesus’ death found in the New Testament, with what justification can this or should this framework of thought be invoked to explain what was happening in this event?

1.1 A ‘Crucified God’ or a Suffering God? Although the doctrine of the impassibility of God long seemed to rule out any talk of God’s suffering, let alone God’s death or even crucifixion, and for some still does exclude any such language,15 many systematic theologians are now prepared to talk in these terms. There was, indeed, a brief period in the twentieth century when the ‘death of God’ was very much in vogue, with its precursors in the writings of Hegel and Nietzsche. Whereas speaking of God’s suffering with humanity or with an individual human being may be saying essentially no more than when we speak of one person sharing in the suffering of another person, especially a much loved person, to speak of God’s dying in any literal sense, let alone being crucified, in the death of another seems to imply a far more farreaching identification of God with the one dying or being crucified. The phrase ‘the crucified God’ that Moltmann took as the title of one of his books, taking it over from Luther, with all its drastic claims of precisely such an identification with the crucified Jesus, is one that Moltmann himself describes 13 Sanders,

Jesus, 332.

14 Hick, Metaphor, 129, taking as an example of this approach Auguste Sabatier, The

of the Atonement (London: Williams & Norgate, 1904). 15 Cf. Sölle, Leiden, 56–61.

Doctrine

6

1. Introduction

as ‘monstrous’.16 And well he might, for the notion that God might be such a being as could be crucified is truly mind-boggling and seems to contradict and to do violence to any notions of the divine nature that we may have. Yet it is by no means clear that Moltmann is prepared to hold fast to this monstrosity in all its provocative offensiveness, for he often gives the impression that he wishes to water down this stark claim.17 For, although at times Moltmann picks up the language of God’s being crucified or dying and although his stress on the helplessness of God (195, Ohnmacht) makes a welcome and refreshing change to a theologia gloriae,18 he opposes talk of the ‘death of God’ understood in ‘theopaschite terms’ (243). Nor is Jesus’ death to be understood ‘“as the death of God”, but only as death in God’.19 Yet Moltmann also speaks of death coming upon the Father in the death of the Son (192). Nor is Moltmann content to say that God suffered and to leave it at that.20 God for him does not suffer as the Son did: ‘The suffering and dying of the Son, forsaken by the Father, is a different kind of suffering from the suffering of the Father in the death of the Son’ (243; cf. 203). As Fiddes points out, Moltmann here distinguishes between ‘death’ (Tod) and ‘dying’ (Sterben); Jesus suffers the

16 Moltmann, God, 47, quoting Luther, WA 1, 614, 17. Jüngel, Gott, 85–6 n. 26, points out that the phrase is found as early as Tertullian (Marc. 2.27); cf. also Athanasius, Ep. Epict. 10 (MPG 26, 1065). 17 It is with some misgiving, then, that one reads Weder’s acceptance as a basic premise that ‘Christian faith originated in the claim that God became identical with the crucified Jesus’ (Kreuz, 32). Does one not need to define more exactly what one means by ‘identical’ and above all to make clear that one who identifies himself or herself with another is not thereby ‘identical’ with that other? 18 Earlier Moltmann had mentioned (God, 47) Kazoh Kitamori’s Theology of the Pain of God as well as Bonhoeffer’s talk of the weak and powerless suffering God (Letters, 360–1). 19 Moltmann, God, 207, his italics. (The use of the preposition ‘in’ may reflect his espousal of a ‘panentheistic’ way of thought: 277.) This formulation at any rate seems to distance him from Luther’s contention that the divine person suffers and dies in the suffering and death of Christ (WA 39 II 93ff: Iste homo creavit mundum et Deus iste est passus, mortuus, sepultus …), as he goes on to cite the ‘critical counter-question of the Reformed tradition … whether a third being, a monster with fleshly Godhead and divinized flesh, has not taken the place of God and man and their personal unity in Christ’ (233). 20 Fiddes, Suffering, 4, 6, interprets Moltmann as saying that God’s suffering begins with the cross of Christ, but that is perhaps to read too much, perhaps under the influence of the ET, into the ‘wird’ in one sentence in Moltmann, Gott, 255 (Ger. 241): ‘Das trinitarische Gottesgeschehen am Kreuz wird für den eschatologischen Glauben zur zukunftsoffenen und zukunftseröffnenden Gottesgeschichte, …’; the ‘becoming’ involved here could well be that of faith’s discovery and perception of this ‘history of God’, i. e. an epistemological ‘beginning’. Fiddes’ interpretation is perhaps on surer ground when he picks up Moltmann’s talk (244) of God’s ‘constituting the divine existence ‘in the event of his love’. Fiddes’ temporal reading would then mean, as he himself notes (7), that Moltmann rejected Heschel’s account of the Old Testament prophets’ sympatheia with the pathos of God (see below), for that suffering would not yet have begun, and, as he adds, would conflict with Moltmann’s later tracing back the suffering of God to the act of creation.

1.1 A ‘Crucified God’ or a Suffering God?

7

latter, his Father the former.21 What Moltmann here seems to be thinking of is the ‘active suffering … of love’ (230), the suffering of grief: The Son suffers in his love being forsaken by the Father as he dies. The Father suffers in his love the grief of the death of the Son (245).

Again, the (self‑)surrender of the Father is not the same as that of the Son: ‘In the surrender of the Son the Father also surrenders himself, though not in the same way.’22 Yet, despite all this stress on God’s suffering, a stress that sees it as weakened by the ‘theological system’ in which it must find its place, Dorothee Sölle deplores Moltmann’s fascination with the brutality of his God as he speaks of the first person of the trinity rejecting and destroying the second person.23 We have just seen how Moltmann distances himself from at least one way of talking of the ‘death of God’, the ‘theopaschite’ way, but it is important to recognize, as Paul Fiddes notes,24 in how many different ways philosophers and theologians have in fact spoken of the ‘death of God’; they ‘meant a variety of things’ by this phrase (177).25 Very often it is a matter of the ‘“thinkability” of God and the world as belonging together’;26 as a result of this, ‘The “death of God” theologians … concluded that since God is not necessary to make sense of the world as it is, there is no point in thinking of God’s relationship to the world at all’ (175–6). Or the phrase could merely mean that ‘a certain concept of God was now dead’, even if those usually designated as representatives of the ‘death of God’ movement went further and maintained that all concepts of God were dead, ‘or at least all concepts of God as having objective existence over against mankind’ (177). Friedrich Nietzsche is for Fiddes an example of this latter possibility when he replaces belief in God ‘with belief in the human value of the will to power’ (178),27 and so, too, is Alistair Kee when he ‘escalates’ the reality represented by God to the ‘“infinite qualitative difference” from mankind, but ceases to refer this any longer 21 Fiddes, Suffering, 195. This is a distinction that he then goes on to criticize (195–8): if ‘God’ means for Moltmann ‘the whole event in which a Father gives up a son and the son is given up (or forsaken)’ then ‘God’ must be in the son’s dying just as much as in the Father’s experience of death (as bereavement). 22 Moltmann, God, 243; cf. Way, 173. 23 Sölle, Leiden, 37–8. Yet what she has just quoted is in fact almost entirely a quotation by Moltmann (God, 241), though with no note of dissent, from Wiard Popkes, Christus, 286–7, with its reference to the first person of the trinity casting out and annihilating the second. Cf. also Johnson, Quest, 62–3. 24 Fiddes, Suffering, 174–206, esp. 174–93. 25 Cf. Altizer/Hamilton, Theology, 14–15, who briefly list ten possible meanings of the phrase. 26 Fiddes, Suffering, 175, taking over Jüngel’s term ‘Denkbarkeit’ (Gott, esp. 138–306). 27 Cf. Jüngel, Gott, 199, 202–3. But cf. Kee’s perceptive chapter on Nietzsche’s ‘holy, noble God’, ‘beyond the categories of good and evil’: Nietzsche, 160–75. Yet if Nietzsche approved in principle of this God as opposed to the moral values attributed to that God by Christians, would we really wish to follow him? (And Kee is not persuaded that Nietzsche did not believe in the existence of this God either: 169–70.)

8

1. Introduction

to a personal God’ (179).28 Paul van Buren is presumably to be taken as typifying the first of these possibilities, the critique of all concepts of God, when he claims that the very word ‘God’ is dead, in that ‘he did not know how the word “God” was being used’.29 Neither of these approaches comes to terms adequately with the ‘image of a suffering God’ in Fiddes’s eyes, ‘while at the same time actually opening the way to it with their critique of a monarchian God as the destroyer of human freedom’ (180).30 It is another matter with certain theologians who referred with the phrase ‘the death of God’ to the absence of God, meaning that ‘no experience of God was possible at the moment, and that no concepts were at present available to talk about him’ (185). For such theologians often speak of this ‘absence’ in terms of God’s suffering. So for Dorothee Sölle God suffers because God has withdrawn, leaving human beings as representatives,31 and for Thomas Altizer God ‘has completely immersed himself into the world to liberate mankind from an alien deity’ and ‘annihilates himself as an objective deity’ (188).32 Yet Fiddes retorts that ‘Suffering is a mode of God’s presence, and cannot be used as a symbol for his absence’ (191). Fiddes also reminds us, however, that no lesser than G. W. F. Hegel had paved the way in speaking of the ‘death of God’ in that God as ‘Absolute Spirit’ ‘becomes truly himself by going out of himself, exposing himself to the nothingness of death by entering into a situation which is completely opposite to him, finite nature’ (188). God had ‘died’ metaphorically ‘in that people have lost awareness of him’; yet ‘God is the kind of God who actually opens himself to the assault of death, and it is precisely this that makes him the living God’ (189). In the light of both the ambiguity of the phrase ‘the death of God’ and of the way in which Moltmann seems to qualify the talk of God’s being crucified or even suffering as Jesus suffered, one can see the wisdom of Fiddes’s focus upon the idea of the suffering of God rather than God’s death or crucifixion.33 This is, for a start, an idea that is also found in Jewish theology. For Moltmann writes appreciatively of the Jewish prophets’ ‘pathetic theology’ as described by Abraham Heschel. In this ‘God is affected by events and human actions and suffering  Cf. Kee, Way, e. g. 225, 229, 231–2. Buren, Meaning, 103. (Cf. also the discussion in Kee, Way, 174–85.) 30 Nietzsche, Fiddes notes (Suffering, 181), rejected the story of the cross because such a ‘story of the weakness of God in the cross challenges the human value of the will to power’. He finds in Don Cupitt’s Taking Leave of God a similar inability to find a worthy symbol in a suffering God, for ‘only the traditional image of an impassible God can symbolize the aspects of the religious requirement which judge our natural lives and summon us to victory over them’ (183). 31 Cf. Sölle, Stellvertretung, e. g. 160, 171, 180. 32 Fiddes, Suffering, 188, quoting Altizer’s earlier The Gospel of Christian Atheism (London: Collins, 1967); Kee, Way, 81–99, compares the views found in this work with those in Altizer/ Hamilton, Theology. 33 When Lampe, God, 21, speaks of God always being ‘incarnate’ in human beings and therefore always being ‘crucified’, it is hard to understand this ‘crucifixion’ as other than a metaphor for all kinds of suffering, a suffering that he sees as being inherent in the creativity of God. 28

29 Cf.

1.2 A Question of the Nature of God?

9

in history’, affected ‘because he is interested in his creation, his people, and his right’ (270). Being thus affected was the ‘pathos’ of God and was the changeable form of God’s relationship to others. The prophets had ‘insight into the present pathos of God, his suffering caused by Israel’s disobedience and his passion for his right and his honour in the world’ (271).34 Here Moltmann finds a ‘dipolar theology’ involving the pathos of God and the sympatheia of human beings (272).

1.2 A Question of the Nature of God? Moltmann claims that to take up the theology of the cross today is to go beyond the limits of the doctrine of salvation and to inquire into the revolution needed in the concept of God. Who is God in the cross of the Christ who is abandoned by God?35

Talk of a revolution here implies that this avenue of enquiry involves a drastic challenge to traditional concepts of God. And some of the ways in which Moltmann goes on to speak of God appear revolutionary indeed, so revolutionary as to seem to involve impossible ways of speaking of God and even mistakes of categories. Not that that of itself excludes the propriety of these ways of speaking, if indeed not only the ways of God (cf. 1 Cor 1.20–5) but also God’s very nature too are folly to the philosophical mind. For Moltmann goes so far as to speak of ‘stasis’ in God (152, 193) or a ‘rebellion’ in God (227),36 a change in God (193, Umkehr), in which God ‘also forsakes himself’ (243) as well as suffering ‘the pains of abandonment’ (192). ‘The cross of the Son divides God from God to the utmost degree of enmity and distinction (Differenz)’ (152).37 In contrast to the view that God is immutable Moltmann is prepared to speak of God as changeable but ‘not changeable as creatures are’ (229).38 There is a ‘concrete “history of God”’ that takes place as Jesus dies on the cross, a ‘history’ in which ‘all the depths and abysses of human history’ are contained (246). Going yet further, Moltmann then speaks of God as an ‘event’ 34 Moltmann, Way, 167, speaks more generally of God’s sharing the sufferings of Israel, not just because of Israel’s disobedience. 35 Moltmann, God, 4. 36 I.e. stasis, not in the English sense of ‘(a state of) stagnation’, but in one of its Greek senses, found also in the New Testament, of ‘revolt, rebellion, strife, discord’ (BDAG s.v. §§ 2 and 3). 37 Fiddes, Suffering, 202, notes that some theologians have found Moltmann’s ‘notion of a cleft within the inner being of God’ impossibly problematic; he cites here Barth and some of his ‘strict followers’ (he mentions Klappert). 38 In contrast, Moltmann’s Tübingen colleague Eberhard Jüngel regards the cross as revealing God as God has always been, revealing God’s eternal being, yet goes on to speak of God’s oneness with the man Jesus meaning that God is distinguished from God, yet without ceasing to be the one God in this Selbstunterschiedenheit (Gott, 299–300; cf. also 498). It seems to me doubtful whether this is any more intelligible than Moltmann’s stasis and rebellion in God.

10

1. Introduction

(Geschehen): ‘“God” is not another nature or a heavenly person or a moral authority, but in fact an “event”’;39 yet Moltmann recognizes that one cannot pray ‘to’ an event, so that one must rather pray ‘in’ this event (247). And ‘the death of the Son is not the “death of God”, but the beginning of that God event in which the life-giving spirit of love emerges from the death of the Son and the grief of the Father’ (252). And correspondingly the trinity, too, is an event, an event of love, a ‘dialectical event, … the event of the cross and then as eschatologically open history’ (255): If one conceives of the Trinity as an event of love in the suffering and death of Jesus – and that is something which faith must do – then the Trinity is no self-contained group in heaven, but an eschatological process open for men on earth, which stems from the cross of Christ (249).

Again, one can perhaps glimpse something of the provocative and revolutionary nature of Moltmann’s theology in his claim that ‘Only a Christian can be a good atheist’ (195) and his reference to ‘Christian atheism’ (251). It is true that this may not be quite as radical as it first sounds, in that what is involved is a rejection of certain views of God and a siding with the atheistic rejection of the God of theism. It may be true that the cross of Jesus may be the better hermeneutical starting point, but the question is whether what Moltmann elicits from this starting point is the only possibility and whether his conclusions are coherent and intelligible.40 At the beginning of The Crucified God, Moltmann includes a very brief epistemological section (25–8), in which he deals with two ‘principles of knowledge’, an ‘analogical’ and a ‘dialectic’ or (better?) ‘dialectical’. The first of these means that ‘like is known by like’, the second that (quoting Schelling) ‘Every being can be revealed only in its opposite’. In the case of the analogical principle, if ‘likeness is taken in the strict sense, knowing is a matter of an anamnesis within a closed circle’; this strict application would mean that God could only be known by God. If, on the other hand, it also encompasses ‘similarities in what differs, the process of knowing can become an open circle of learning, in which new apprehensions are made and progress is possible’ (26). The analogical principle is, he argues, one-sided unless supplemented by the dialectical. Then ‘God is only revealed as 39 This usage is a striking one and certainly seems to set God within another category than that which talk of God has traditionally used. Yet, whatever the inverted commas may concede to the strangeness of the usage, is it not perhaps a mistake to seek to categorize God at all? Jüngel, too, comes near to this usage when he speaks of God ‘happening’ in Jesus’ death as love (Gott, 301; cf. also 497, 507). 40 Leonardo Boff, Passion, 111, is, at any rate, scathing in his criticism of Moltmann’s theology here, accusing him of betraying ‘a profound lack of theological rigor’ (his italics). This is no ‘theo-logical discourse’ and shows no ‘awareness of the ambiguity and ana-logical nature of our discourse upon God’. And, he adds, ‘All the most celebrated theologians of the moment are guilty of this naïve error.’ See. too, Rossé, Cry, 90 (cf. also 136, 138), quoting Xavier LeonDufour, Face à la mort: Jésus et Paul (Paris: Édition du Seuil, 1979) 151.

1.2 A Question of the Nature of God?

11

“God” in his opposite: godlessness and abandonment by God’, ‘revealed in the cross of Christ who was abandoned by God’, God’s grace ‘revealed in sinners’, God’s righteousness in the unrighteous. On this basis he argues that ‘One must become godless oneself and abandon every kind of self-deification or likeness to God, in order to recognize the God who reveals himself in the crucified Christ.’ Yet this latter principle does not replace the former, ‘but alone makes it possible’. For in so far as God is revealed in his opposite, he can be known by the godless and those who are abandoned by God, and it is this knowledge which brings them into correspondence with God and, as 1 John 3.2 says, enables them to have the hope of being like God (27–8).

This dialectic is, he maintains, the ‘basis and starting point of analogy’, for ‘It is the dialectical knowledge of God in his opposite which first brings heaven down to the earth of those who are abandoned by God, and opens heaven to the godless’ (28). This is elaborated on at a later stage (68–9), in that Moltmann argues no ‘indirect, analogical knowledge of God’ is to be found in the ‘crucified Christ, abandoned by God and cursed’, but rather the contrary. Christ is sentenced as a blasphemer by the law that reveals God’s will. In contrast to the ‘so-called gods’ of ‘the political theology of political religions’ Jesus dies ‘a political death as a rebel’. And in contrast to the God revealed in creation and in history Jesus dies abandoned by God. Thus ‘Christian theology cannot be a pure theory of God, but must become a critical theory of God ’ (his italics), ‘polemical, dialectical, antithetical and critical theory’ (69). So knowledge of God ‘is achieved not by the guiding thread of analogies from earth to heaven, but on the contrary, through contradiction, sorrow and suffering’ (212). Yet could one not equally well argue that it is the ‘principle of analogy’ that makes the dialectical possible? At any rate, Moltmann is more even-handed in his recognition that historical knowledge can perceive differences only in the framework of common factors, and common factors only amongst differences. Discontinuity is recognizable in history only within continuity … (117).

Could one not formulate it thus with regard to the God who may be discerned in the historical life of Jesus by saying that God is like us (in some respects) but at the same time other than us, and vice versa? For how could one know God at all if one were really totally godless and lived in a world of total godlessness? Is it not necessary that there should be something of God in us if we are to be able to detect that there is something other than the surrounding godlessness?41 Yet, by his rejection of any ‘kind of self-deification or likeness to God’ Moltmann seems to exclude this possibility. At this point it is to be remembered that it is not only 41 Cf. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 200 and 291–2 n. 441 with the cross-reference to George Fox’s ‘that of God’ in every human being.

12

1. Introduction

Plato who spoke of knowing like by like, but Paul too wrote of our knowledge of God’s gifts through the divine spirit given to us and of the spiritual person’s discernment (1 Cor 2.12, 15). Whereas Moltmann seems to merge knowledge of God in the godless and by the godless, it is surely necessary to distinguish the two, the one who knows and the means and context of knowledge, at least to some degree. That one can also see in the crucified Jesus. For, even if in the moment of death Jesus cried out as one abandoned by God, he was nevertheless one who previously was characterized by his closeness to God, as Moltmann himself later briefly describes.42 A large measure of the shock and horror we feel when we hear the cry of Mark 15.34 and Matt 27.46 lies in the fact that these two evangelists have previously portrayed a Jesus confidently aware of God’s presence and boldly speaking in God’s name.43 And rightly Moltmann argues that it was not just Jesus’ death that was now threateningly near, but the death of Jesus’s cause, the snuffing out of the message of his God that he had proclaimed during his ministry. For ‘the cause for which [Jesus] lived and worked was so closely linked with his own person and life that his death was bound to mean the death of his cause’ (149). And, had he hitherto had no experience of God’s nearness and presence, how could the dying Jesus now (apparently for the first time) notice God’s absence? It is necessary to register a considerable degree of disquiet at the principle that ‘theology as speaking about God is possible only on the basis of what God himself says’, ‘in the word of God which has been and which is uttered’ (66–7, Moltmann’s italics). Moltmann himself seems to consider this inadequate, in that ‘it comes very close to the distinction made by the early church between theology as the doctrine of God and economy as the doctrine of salvation, and can therefore lose contact with the reality of unredeemed humanity’ (67). Yet must one not say more than that? Is it, for instance, so immediately clear what God in fact says? For a start, to speak of God ‘saying’ anything is surely a metaphor, however biblical it may be and however popular a ‘word of God’ theology may be in some Protestant circles; God does not ‘say’ things as we say them, and how we recognize a divine communication that may be described as God ‘saying’ something involves a complex hermeneutical argument on the basis of religious experience. Certainly it is not enough simply to quote the Christian scriptures as if their words were God’s words. Rightly the Finnish exegete Heikki Räisänen, at the close of his study on Paul and the Law (266), argued that for non42 Moltmann, God, 147–8. But, when Moltmann then goes on to argue (148) that this previous closeness to God means that Jesus must have experienced this death as rejection by this God, he seems to ignore the question whether this interpretation would follow if Jesus had regarded his death, in common with many martyrs, as God’s will for him. And his prayer in Gethsemane (Mark 14.36 parr.) surely suggests that this was indeed his view. It is true that Moltmann goes on to contrast this cry with the Lukan depiction of the dying Jesus, which he regards as typical of the martyrological tradition, but can we be so sure that Jesus was convinced that death was not God’s will for him, particularly if we have no knowledge quite what Jesus expected to come of his journey to Jerusalem with all its dangers? 43 On the horror of this cry cf. Fiddes, Event, 57. Cf. Jüngel, Gott, 495: ‘The cry of the dying [Jesus] that Mark interprets by means of Ps 22.2 can only express the God-forsakenness which is here so explicit, because it occurs in the context of a relationship to God (weil Gottbezogenheit deren Bedingung ist).’

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fundamentalists the Jewish Torah was not to be regarded as ‘a direct divine revelation to Moses’, but ‘consists of a long series of human attempts to respond appropriately to what God was believed to have done’, attempts that are ‘therefore historically conditioned’. Must one not in the light of that qualify what Moltmann says about ‘the same Jesus who was crucified and rose from the dead’ as the ‘starting point of Christian faith’ (112, his italics), at least with regard to the resurrection: the starting point is Jesus who was crucified and whom his disciples then believed had been raised from the dead?44

Nonetheless, even if it is difficult to speak of God at all unless there is some point of contact in our human experience, it is necessary to recognize the dangers and difficulties of this starting point. At this point Moltmann’s more approving reference to a use of analogical argument that is based on ‘similarities in what differs’ rather than likeness alone points us in a more helpful direction. The reference to ‘differences’ suggests that a dialogue between the analogical and dialectical approaches is called for, with neither approach being seen as epistemologically prior or superior to the other, and the dialectic involving otherness as well as outright opposition. It is difficult for Christians, or anyone for that matter, to talk of God without using metaphors drawn from human persons and their experiences or without resort to analogies from human life, and in this respect the Christian scriptures and Jesus’ teaching such as his instruction to his disciples to address God as ‘Abba, Father’ encourage them to do so. It has been no different in the history of Christian thought about Jesus’ death from its first beginnings on, as soon as language such as that of reconciliation and forgiveness was used to speak of this death and its meaning. Yet can one speak of God as a person without running the risk of thinking of God too much on the analogy of human persons such as ourselves? For Paul Tillich insists that the phrase ‘Personal God’ does not mean that God is a person. It means that God is the ground of everything personal and that he carries within himself the ontological power of personality. He is not a person, but he is not less than personal. … ‘Personal God’ is a confusing symbol.45

Quite apart from the anything but lucid expression ‘the ontological power of personality’ there is much to be said for Tillich’s position. Or there is the tentative verdict of Hugh Montefiore, denying that God himself is a person, at any rate in the sense in which we speak of human personality; for the very concept of personality involves limitation. If we were to speak of the nature of God, it would be preferable to adopt C. C. J. Webb’s suggestion that there is personality in God. But we cannot go so far even as that. We must content ourselves with saying that God works in a personal way.46 Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, e. g. 39–47; History, 17. Theology 1, 245 (his italics). 46 Montefiore, ‘Christology’, 166, referring to C. C. J. Webb, God and Personality (Gifford Lectures, 1918–19, Aberdeen University Studies 79; Aberdeen: University, 1919). 44 Cf.

45 Tillich,

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Here it would have desirable, however, to spell out more precisely what is involved in this working ‘in a personal way’; does it, for instance, mean that we feel ourselves confronted by ‘working’ that is analogous to the way in which human persons work? (Is then the ‘personal’ in this a matter solely of our perception?) Or that this way of working treats us as persons rather than as, say, puppets? Nevertheless, as I argued in Beyond Resurrection,47 while it is not impossible to pray to an entity that is not a person, it is hardly credible to think of God as subpersonal and far more plausible to think of a God who surpasses all that pertains to persons as we know them.48 And yet I also felt myself constrained to recognize that possibly we must reckon with two ways of viewing that reality that we call ‘God’, just as there seem to be two ways of viewing our own experience of being human persons: on the one hand our lives seem to be determined and governed by factors and forces outside our control and yet, on the other, we feel that we do have the power, a certain self-transcendence as it were, to make certain choices and decisions that affect the course of our lives and those of others.49 This may all be very mysterious, but nonetheless very true and real in human experience, and conceivably also in the world in general and in God at work in it, even if Gordon Kaufman may be right in describing this work as ‘serendipitous’, as opposed to the model of God’s creativity as that of a self-conscious, all-powerful and wholly free agent.50 And yet in this perhaps inevitable anthropomorphism lurk very real dangers of distortion. So, to take an example very much at random (for it is far from the case that this theologian is a particularly egregious example of this problem), Paul Fiddes seems to endorse Moltmann’s speaking of ‘God as personal without reducing him to a person’ as well as ‘Barth’s talk of God as a self-related “event” or “happening”’.51 And yet a great deal of Fiddes’ argument rests on analogies with the experiences of human beings like ourselves, as when he argues that ‘There can be no suffering love unless there is an element of the unknown which calls for trust’.52 Yet desire and certainty belong together in God, … because while there is an unknown in the future for God, it is not unknown in the way that it is for us. … God, unlike us, knows all possibilities that can be known; at the same time he knows the power of his love to perWedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 191–207 (esp. 205). Johnson, Quest, 19: ‘God is not less than personal but is superpersonal, personal in a way that wonderfully transcends the human way of being a person.’ 49 Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, esp. 211–13. 50 Kaufman, Mystery, esp. 268–74. His model is based rather on the course of human history as human beings purpose and act, often with unintended consequences. And Rom 8.22 and 26 could be seen to recognize the existence of frustrated intentions and thwarted creativity on God’s part. 51 Fiddes, Suffering, 84 (his italics). 52 Fiddes is also aware that ‘all human language about God is analogy, corresponding to the truth and yet falling short of it’ (Event, 167). 47 Cf. 48 Cf.

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suade and influence his creation. So he has the certainty of perfect hope, where ours can only be partial, … (103).

Yet, if this ‘power … to persuade’ is not infallible, not guaranteed to succeed, how can God have this ‘perfect certainty’ without reducing us to puppets? It is hard to avoid the conclusion that such ‘like, but yet unlike’ arguments lead both to confusion and to a certain bewildering incoherence. Can it be that Fiddes has lost sight of his earlier recognition that ‘Theology … has rightly recognized severe problems of language in trying to talk about God who is by definition unique and unclassifiable’ (84)? Yet, for all the seeming radicality of Moltmann’s ‘critical theory of God’ focused on the event of Jesus’ crucifixion, his view of God remains resolutely trinitarian. Indeed he seems to regard a doctrine of the trinity as more or less forced upon us by the event of the crucifixion, if we are even to begin to understand it. As we go on, however, to examine Jesus’ own teaching and experiences in relation to his eventual suffering and death, as far as that is possible, there will be points where we shall have to ask whether a trinitarian framework of thought is helpful in understanding what the New Testament describes as happening, or whether this doctrinal presupposition is in fact less than helpful and conflicts with what the New Testament texts seem to saying. As an exegete I am all too aware of the New Testament foundations of trinitarian belief, for its writings speak clearly of three entities (if we may call them that) that are somehow to be brought into relation with one another. For the earthly Jesus claims to act in the name of God, the God of his people Israel, whom he addresses as ‘Father’ (and in the Lord’s Prayer invites us to do so too). And then there is that spirit that in the Fourth Gospel is sent both by the Father (John 14.16, 26) and the Son (15.26) and that is described as another ‘Paraclete’, taking up the role of the earthly Jesus after his departure (14.16); the risen Jesus bestows it upon his disciples ‘to empower them to continue his own mission with its double-edged effect: forgiveness or condemnation, according as it is accepted or rejected’.53 It is true that the relationship of this spirit to Father and Son is less precisely described in the rest of the New Testament: for instance, Paul speaks at one moment of the spirit of God, at the next of the spirit of Christ, and then of the spirit of the one that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 8.9–11). Despite that, the spirit that is meant here seems to be identified fully neither with God nor Christ. And, moreover, New Testament writers can use language that seems to endorse the later trinitarian doctrine (e. g. Matt 28.19; 2 Cor 13.13). And yet Eberhard Jüngel admits that ‘the “biblical material” as such provides us only with the possibility, but not the necessity, of formulating a doctrine of the trinity’.54 God, 9, with reference to John 20.23. Gott, 481. However, he goes on immediately to quote Bernhard Steffen’s verdict that ‘it is not the few trinitarian formulae in the New Testament, but … the continual testimony 53 Lampe, 54 Jüngel,

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1. Introduction

Upon such foundations, however, a considerable superstructure has been erected, with the help of categories that lay ready to hand in the thought-world of the time. The talk of ‘persons’ is readily understandable in the case of Jesus or the Christ, and it is true that Jesus addresses his Father in personal terms. (And yet could one realistically expect him to do otherwise in the thought-world of first-century Palestinian Judaism?) In the case of the third ‘person’, the spirit, it is more difficult, although Ferdinand Hahn suggests that the spirit takes on personal traits (scarcely recognizable elsewhere in the New Testament writings) through the parallels between the activities of the Johannine Paraclete and those of Jesus.55 When Paul Fiddes claims that ‘all talk of God as Trinity, as a divine society characterized by relationships, only arises from our experience of God in the world’,56 this either seems to go considerably further than both our experience of God in the world and that experience of God reflected in the New Testament, whether in the life of Jesus or in that of his followers, or else it is left wide open what ‘trinitarian’ might mean, beyond the recognition of the three entities, Jesus, the God that he addressed as ‘Father’, and the spirit. Such an openness in the meaning of the term ‘trinitarian’ is evident in Elizabeth A. Johnson’s handling of trinitarian theology, where she detects ‘a great ferment … brewing in trinitarian theology’.57 She is sternly critical of much traditional trinitarian theology and particularly with regard to Roman Catholic neo-scholastic theology, which she describes as engaging ‘in luxuriant technical description of God’s inner self-differentiation, and comments that ‘this school of thought’s laborious explanation of various fine points in the trinitarian construct elicits a host of criticisms’ (207). (It may be doubted whether Roman Catholic neo-scholastics are alone in this fault.) She deplores such an approach’s loss of contact with the historical story of redemption and with Christian life. The resultant theology ‘presented its findings as if they were a literal description of a self-contained Trinity of three divine persons knowing and loving each other’, whereas ‘no such literal description’ is possible (208). That is in keeping with her earlier endorsement of Augustine’s dictum, ‘If you have understood it is not God’,58 and with her exposition of the thought of Karl Rahner and the development there of the idea of the apprehension of God as infinite holy mystery (25–48). It is Rahner’s redefinition of the otherwise potentially misleaading talk of three ‘persons’ as three ‘manners of subsistence’ that she herself adopts and speaks of ‘three distinct manners of self-subsistence’ (212–13). It is also in keepof the cross is the scriptural basis for Christian faith in the triune God, and the most concise expression for the trinity is the divine act of the cross’ (Das Dogma vom Kreuz: Beitrag zu einer staurozentrischen Theologie [Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1920], 152). 55 Hahn, Theologie 1, 670 (cf. 2, 272). 56 Fiddes, Suffering, 122. 57 Johnson, Quest, 209. 58 Johnson, Quest, 13, quoting Aug., Serm. 117.5.

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ing with her chapter on feminist theology (90–112) and the protest mentioned there against a trinitarian doctrine tainted by a ‘patriarchal and imperialist culture’ (208) that she insists, following Catherine LaCugna, that the redemptive reign of God excludes every kind of subordination among persons. Either trinitarian theology sets up love and communion among persons equally, or its interpretation has gone off the tracks.59

At the start of her work, Johnson had traced the origins of trinitarian belief in an encounter with Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and risen presence in the Spirit made tangible God’s gracious mercy poured out in the midst of sin and suffering. Speaking about God in this threefold way arose historically to express this experience, to codify it and pass it on. Salvation is the experience without which there would be no talk of Trinity at all.

It is the early Christians’ attempt to express the experience of the ‘saving God … as beyond them, with them, and within them’ (204), and this concern to relate such threefold ways of speaking of God to the experience of salvation is central to her evaluation of modern trinitarian language. For she gives a whole list of examples of the ‘multiple rich images of the Trinity in our day’, which ‘sing in triple notes of the one God in many different ways’, sometimes in nonpersonal imagery, sometimes personal, sometimes a combination of both. In all it is a matter of ‘the ineffable mystery of love glimpsed in the experience of salvation’. And at the end of this list appears an example using the biblical imagery of ‘Wisdom-Sophia who creates, redeems, and makes holy the world’, an imagery which leads Johnson to suggest a threesome of ‘Spirit Sophia, Jesus Sophia, and Mother Sophia, the one God who is Holy Wisdom herself: unoriginate source of all, Wisdom incarnate amid the suffering of history, and mobile, gracious pesence throughout the world’ (219–21). Moltmann, at any rate, without venturing anything quite so venturous or unconventional,60 asserts boldly and repeatedly that the event of the cross must be understood in trinitarian terms and complains that ‘The modern surrender of the doctrine of the Trinity or its reduction to an empty, orthodox formula is a sign of the assimilation of Christianity to the religions felt to be needed in modern society’ (215).61 Yet is such an assimilation the only reason for calling this 59 Johnson, Quest, 209. The reference is presumably to C. LaCugna, ‘God in Communion with Us’, in eadem (ed.), Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) 83–114. 60 Johnson, Quest, 221, sums up the view of Moltmann and Boff as follows: ‘Using a social model, both … speak of a motherly Father or fatherly Mother, a Jesus who is in solidarity with the poor and marginalized, and a Spirit akin to the feminine symbols of Wisdom and Shekinah. These form a community of mutual and equal relations which models the goal for human and cosmic community.’ 61 On the other hand, Dalferth complains that ‘Moltmann emphasizes the plurality and personal activity of Father, Son and Spirit to such a degree that it becomes difficult to understand how far one speak of them as together one and the same God’ (Der auferweckte Gekreuzigte, 192).

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doctrine in question? Does not an insistence on it raise the questions whether that is intelligible and whether it is necessary? To take the second question first: as we have just seen, Moltmann takes up the theme of the Jewish prophets’ ‘pathetic theology’ as described by Heschel. Over against the pathos of God and the sympatheia of human beings depicted in this, Moltmann sets a Christian ‘trinitarian’ theology, because a ‘dipolar theology of the reciprocal relationship between the God who calls and the man who answers’ is inadequate, for ‘only in and through Christ is that dialogical relationship with God opened up’ (275). And, although what happens on the cross seems to involve but two entities, Jesus and his heavenly Father, Moltmann claims that to understand what happened between Jesus and his God and Father on the cross, it is necessary to talk in trinitarian terms (243; cf. 275).

Yet is Christ not also a human being, indeed for the New Testament writers the eschatological human being, the Adam of the end-time and a striking example of the ‘man of the spirit’, a term used by Heschel to describe the prophets? In that case it is harder to see what advantage is gained by introducing a third element as if Jesus were not part of that humanity that God has called, harder to see why it is necessary ‘to talk in trinitarian terms’. And anyway, the three entities involved at this point in Moltmann’s argument seem to be the Father, the Son and humanity; it is only when Moltmann comes to speak (rather awkwardly?) of ‘the Spirit’ or ‘a’ or ‘the spirit’ proceeding from the event of the cross that something recognizable as the traditional trinity comes into view.62 Leonardo Boff, on the other hand, does not emphasize the trinitarian basis of his theology but rather the orthodoxy of his christology, ‘keeping rigidly within the bounds of christological dogma set by our Chalcedonian fathers before us’. On the other hand, his stress on the perspective found in ‘the Franciscan school – the synoptic, Antiochene, and Scotist tradition’, with its emphasis on Jesus’ ‘total, complete humanity’,63 is such that one may wonder what is added or improved by claiming at the same time that Jesus was divine. God may have been ‘in’ that man Jesus, but we also say, for instance, that God is ‘in’ the world, without thereby claiming that the world is divine. 62 It is perhaps significant that the English translation of Moltmann’s The Crucified God speaks of the ‘Spirit’ proceeding from the event of the cross that involves the Father and the Son, only to speak on the next page of ‘the spirit of the surrender of the Father and the Son, … the spirit which creates love for forsaken men, … the spirit which brings the dead alive’ (244–5). At first the capital S seems to point unmistakably to the third person of the trinity, but what of the instances here and often in the following pages of the lower cases? Fiddes’ formulation is equally problematic when he writes (Suffering, 123) that ‘There is a son [with the indefinite article and in lower case] crying out to a Father [with a capital] whom he has lost … and so there is implied a Father who suffers the loss of a son, with a Spirit of abandonment between them.’ With what justification is ‘Spirit’ here written with a capital S, but ‘a son’ in lower case and with the indefinite article? Cf. 141: ‘like a father relating to a son in a spirit of suffering and hope’. 63 Boff, Passion, xii.

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The experience of the suffering endured by the Jews typified by the name Auschwitz has also shaped Jewish theology in a dramatic and drastic fashion. Moltmann refers to Eli Wiesel’s account of the long drawn out death-throes of a young Jew hanged by the Nazis which prompted the onlookers to ask where God was, a question that in turn led Wiesel to say to himself that God was there, hanging on the gallows.64 That is a claim that comes very near to the bold and provocative language of a ‘crucified God’, even if the mode of execution is different, and raises the question how Jesus’ death and, correspondingly, God’s involvement in it and relationship to it differed from the death of the young Jew at Auschwitz. It is true that Jesus was identified with God’s cause in a way and to a degree that was probably not true of the young Jew, and to this extent it may be true that, as Moltmann claims, Jesus’ ‘cross of absolute abandonment by God’ may have been ‘exclusively his cross alone, … endured in the cross of those who share in his sufferings only in a watered-down form’ (55). (And the absence of such an identification with God’s cause on the part of the young Jew precludes any attempt to claim that trinitarian language or an ascription of divinity to him would be appropriate here.) But can one go so far as to make this a qualitative difference as opposed to one of degree? Should we not recognize rather that it stands at one end of a spectrum which also embraces women and men who have suffered and been martyred for the sake of God’s cause? And Dorothee Sölle goes further and questions whether one should argue that Jesus suffered more than other martyrs and in a different way; this she finds macabre, commenting that it is not in Jesus’ interest to have suffered most. Rather, ‘the truth of the symbol lies precisely in the fact that it can recur’.65 Leonardo Boff, in rejecting Moltmann’s view and also to a large extent that of Hans Urs von Balthasar, which seem in his eyes to involve God in causing the death of Jesus on the cross, accuses them of ‘the most radical dogmatism’ and suggests an alternative: ‘when faith, in the reverence of mystical silence, has said “Jesus is God”, it has said all there is to say.’66 But need one go as far as that along the path of christological orthodoxy? Would it not suffice to say that ‘God was with Jesus’? With him unperceived, perhaps, if we take Jesus’ cry of dereliction at face value, but with him nonetheless. In view of such conceptual difficulties presented by the christological and trinitarian theological formulations hammered out by later theologians one can see the attraction of the proposals such as that of the exegete and patristic scholar, Geoffrey Lampe, when the title of his study, God as Spirit, suggests that the three 64 Moltmann,

God, 273–4, quoting Wiesel, Night (London : MacGibbon & Kee, 1960), 75–6.

65 Sölle, Leiden, 103–4, over against Moltmann and quoting in support the Dane Kim Malthe-

Bruun who died at the hands of the Gestapo. 66 Boff, Passion, 112–13. Cf. the discussion of Boff ’s criticism of Moltmann in Fiddes, Event, 192–4.

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entities could and should be reduced to two.67 In fact Lampe’s critique goes far further than this, for his criticism of trinitarian orthodoxy seems to leave little room for traditional views of this or for projecting the relationship between Jesus and his God onto relationships within God’s being in the manner espoused by some of the systematic theologians whose views we have already considered:68 We have no need to introduce the distinctively human response of Jesus (distinctively human because divinely inspired) into a supposed relationship within the being of God, which could subsist only if God the Son were, for all his self-identification with the Father’s will, essentially other than the Father (138).

For if … it is God’s Spirit, his own real presence, which is active in and through the reciprocal love and trust of human beings, then there is no need to project human personality on to Trinitarian ‘persons’. … The distinctions between the three Persons of the Trinity rest ultimately on a reading back, as it were, of the historical Jesus and of the Spirit (conceived of, not as God himself but as a second divine mediator) into the being of the Godhead (139–40).69

At any rate, Lampe, in addition to a sharp critique of the presuppositions and implications of the attempted formulations of theologians in the early church, points out the extent to which both Paul and the Fourth Evangelist both identified God’s spirit with Jesus ‘and also in some degree distinguished [it] from him’. A potentially more far-reaching departure from traditional theology and at the same time a programmatic statement for Lampe’s work follows hard on this observation: ‘the Spirit of God’ is to be understood, not as referring to a divine hypostasis distinct from God the Father and God the Son or Word, but as indicating God himself as active towards and in his human creation. We are speaking of God disclosed and experienced as Spirit: that is, in his personal outreach. … God indwelt and motivated the human spirit of Jesus in such a way that in him, uniquely the relationship for which man is intended by his Crea67 ‘To conceive of God’s Spirit as a distinct hypostasis was, and remains, much more difficult [than conceiving the Son as wisdom or logos in such terms], … for the attempt to refer the analogical term “Spirit” to a “Third Person”, and to recognize a distinctive role or function of the Holy Spirit, has never been really convincing’ (Lampe, God, 43). 68 And that Lampe’s argument leads him to distance himself from traditional trinitarian doctrine is clear not only from his fifth chapter on ‘“To Earth from Heaven”: The Pre-Existent Christ’ (God, 120–44) but also from his conclusion to this series of lectures where, after quoting Karl Rahner’s advice that we should avoid ‘wild and empty conceptual acrobatics’, he is less optimistic than Rahner that it well help to go ‘back to the elements of Christian experience’, for he has come to the conclusion ‘that the Trinitarian model is in the end less satisfactory for the articulation of our basic Christian experience than the unifying concept of God as Spirit’ (228). 69 Lampe is critical, too, of the claims made for ‘God the Son’ for, if this concept is to be given ‘any actual content’ and ‘if the distinction between Father and Son is to be more than an unreal distinction of abstract relations’, this can only result from a transposition of the relationship of the historical Jesus to his God from the gospels’ story ‘into the quite different context of the Trinity as a theological construct’ (God, 140–1).

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tor was fully realized; … through Jesus God acted decisively to cause men to share in his relationship to God, and … the same God, the Spirit who was in Jesus, brings believers into that relationship of ‘sonship’ towards himself and forms them into a human community in which, albeit partially and imperfectly, the Christlike character which is the fruit of that relationship is re-presented (11).

He then argues that it is a mistake to set ‘incarnation’ and ‘inspiration’ over against one another. The former ‘must involve far more than a physical embodiment of one who is substantially and personally God’ if it is to do justice to what the Christian faith says about Jesus. That involves ‘a union of will and a union of mind, a union in which the characteristic qualities of divine activity, above all self-sacrificing, compassionate, love find expression in a human personality without derogating from its human freedom’. Yet, when Lampe goes on to invoke ‘the analogy of personal union between human beings at the deepest level of thought and feeling and will’, questions arise. For does this analogy in fact encourage us to speak of ‘a perfected form of inspiration’ as Lampe does (12)? For it may be doubted whether one would in such a case speak of ‘inspiration’ nor, for that matter, of ‘incarnation’.70 Lampe then asks whether we should see ‘salvation’ as brought about by ‘a divine irruption into a fallen world’ or rather as ‘a process … continuous with, and, indeed, but one aspect of, the process of creation itself’ (15–16)? He rejects the ‘myths of redemption’ entailed by the first possibility, but that in turn raises the question how the cross of Jesus can find a fitting place within the framework of the second. That is all the more so when he argues that ‘events’ (he gives the exodus as an example) cannot lead to ‘salvation’, only their interpretation (17). Now Lampe had earlier spoken of Jesus’ death ‘as the climactic outworking of his attitude to God and to his fellow men’ (13) and then, later, goes on to speak of the cross being ‘at the very heart of the creation of free human persons’ (21) and also as ‘paradoxically’ revealing most clearly the character of God’s kingdom (32–3). The cross is also ‘climactic’ in Lampe’s eyes in the tragic story of human resistance to God’s creative love as well as disclosing the ‘invincibility’ of that love (although, if we can still reject and resist it, perhaps ‘invincibility’ is the wrong word to use) and ‘the perfect integration of human will with the will of God’. The last point may be true of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane, but seems harder to recognize 70 At any rate, Lampe is one of those theologians who speak of ‘incarnation’ in a very inclusive sense: ‘God has always been incarnate in his human creatures, forming their spirits from within and revealing himself in and through them’ (God, 23). An ‘incarnation of the Second Person of the Godhead … is not required by belief in a saving work of God, centred and focused in Jesus Christ, which has done for man that which he could not do for himself’; that is ‘necessitated by the traditional understanding of the creation and fall of man as events which occurred at particular moments in history’ (22; cf. also 33). Yet Lampe also wants to say that in Jesus for the first time a ‘perfect’ relationship with God was realized; however, the cry of dereliction seems to raise acutely the question how far and in what sense that relationship was in fact ‘perfect’.

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in Jesus’ cry of desolation on the cross. It may be true that ‘Jesus pursued the way of dedication to the creative love of God to the point of death, overcoming the supreme temptation to save his life and lose it’ (101), but it is also true that after his arrest Jesus’ chances of saving himself become progressively less and less. It is arguable that he might have taken another line in his defence at the proceedings before the Jewish and the Roman authorities, although in the circumstances it is questionable how far he could realistically have expected to save his skin. At any rate, by the time that he utters his reproachful cry on the cross all his options, apart from a miraculous intervention by God, had effectively evaporated. More to the point is perhaps Lampe’s argument apropos of Paul’s talk of our putting to death our old humanity: inasmuch as Paul held Jesus to be sinless (2 Cor 5.21), Jesus’ ‘death was not a putting off or putting to death of an actual “old man”, but it was the last act in a lifelong victory over a potential “old man”, the final repudiation of the constant human selfish and self-centred resistance to the love of God’ (87). In that case, the cross has its place as demonstrating the lengths to which Jesus was prepared to go in his acceptance of his God-given mission and much, if not all, that Lampe sees disclosed in it was actually already visible in the earlier life and ministry of Jesus, viewed in retrospect as a via crucis. It is even more striking, however, when a systematic theologian feels himself compelled to modify or, as he puts it, restructure the traditional doctrine of the trinity as Peter Hodgson does, ‘revisioning’ or ‘refiguring’ it ‘in a fairly radical way’ (111). Quoting with approval Raimundo Panikkar’s talk of a ‘theanthropocosmic vision … of reality’,71 he nevertheless prefers to speak of a ‘theo-cosmopneumatic’ ‘version of the Trinity’ (47). Whether this ‘triune figuration’ of God with its ‘“economic” or worldly Trinity’ including ‘as its first moment the “immanent” or preworldly Trinity’ (151) is, however, on closer examination any more intelligible or plausible than traditional views of the trinity seems to be a moot point, and the implications of the substitution of the world or cosmos for the second person of the usual trinity presents, as we shall see, considerable difficulties. One needs to ask whether the seeming respectability of clinging on to a trinity of some sort has not been bought at too high a price. Despite the fact that Lampe is highly critical of the trinitarian model while Hodgson seems keen to avoid dismissing it simply on account of its ‘archaic and patriarchal language’,72 there are points where the latter’s account seems to have a certain amount in common with Lampe’s: for him ‘the figure “Spirit”’ is to be ‘rethought as the true and consummate name of God’ (153), and ‘God as Spirit is engaged in, embodied by, the world’ for Hodgson (49),

71 Hodgson, Winds, 45 (his italics), quoting Panikkar, ‘The Jordan, the Tiber, and the Ganges’, in The Myth of Christian Uniqueness: Towards a Pluralistic Theology of Religions (ed. J. Hick, P. F. Knitter; Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1987) 109–10. 72 Cf. esp. Hodgson, Winds, 151–72, on ‘The Triune Figuration of God: The One Who Loves in Freedom’.

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although Lampe concentrates more on God as spirit in relation to human beings.73 Hodgson indeed seems to go yet further when he asserts that ‘Spirit encompasses the whole, God and world together’, and that ‘God becomes truly and fully God, God as Spirit, only through the world’: 155–6).74 A further development along the same lines may be seen in the assertion that ‘God becomes Spirit in and through relationship with the world. The appropriate trinitarian formula is God-World-Spirit, or God as World-Spirit, or God-inthe-World-as-Spirit’ (283, his italics).

Furthermore there are points of contact with Moltmann’s thought, for instance when Hodgson speaks of Jesus’ crucifixion symbolizing ‘the uttermost negation of God: God is dead, God has died on the cross. Here God is at the farthest reach from godself.’75 And yet the similarity seems to end abruptly when he goes on to assert that ‘This not a sole pinnacle of negation: history is replete with many comparable and worse deaths; here one death stands for many’ (48; cf. 263). For him, ‘Christ’, ‘as the shape of divine love-in-freedom, … is not contained within a single historical individual’. The ‘particular historical figure’ of Jesus of Nazareth ‘does not die out but becomes a powerfully transformative factor in human history. The Christ gestalt fans and flames out from Jesus to the ecclesial community and thence to the world as a whole’ (49).76 And it is, further, difficult to see, in view of the nature of the second entity in Hodgson’s ‘reconstructed’ ‘trinity’, the world, of which humanity in general is part and Jesus but a representative of it,77 how the crucifixion of Jesus could even remotely approach Moltmann’s stasis in the very being of God, despite the seemingly similarly drastic language just quoted at the beginning of this paragraph. What would be more easily comprehensible is that Hodgson’s God also dies with each of the ‘many comparable 73 On Hodgson’s more comprehensive understanding of ‘world’ cf. Winds, 166 and 175–230. He also claims that ‘the whole world is animated by Spirit and that Spirit proceeds from the whole world as God’s body’ (285, his italics). 74  Cf. also Hodgson, Winds, xii, 109, 157, 172: ‘at the end of the story it appears that Spirit is the most adequate and encompassing of the symbols for God, the climax of a trinitarian vision of the whole God, which includes God and world together’; ‘the religions of the world remain distinct, perhaps even to some degree incommensurable, but they do meet in and are metamorphized by a transcendent and ultimately mysterious universal reality than can best be named “Spirit”’; ‘“Spirit” is the most adequate name for the truly infinite and whole God’; ‘Spirit is the richest, most encompassing, and unrestricted of the trinitarian symbols’. Jüngel also suggests describing God as ‘überströmendes Sein’ (Gott, 302), but without reference to God as spirit, however near to hand that might seem to be. 75 Cf. also Hodgson, Winds, 165, 252, 263. 76 Cf. Hodgson, Winds, 253 (his italics): ‘Jesus was a bearer, not the sole and exclusive bearer, of the Christ-gestalt’, just as ‘Christian faith believes that a saving incarnation of God’s love has in fact occurred, and that it is definitively, not exclusively, associated with a specific human being’ (231; cf. also 249). 77 Cf. Hodgson, Winds, 167: ‘one of the challenges of postmodernism to Christian theology is to give up its christocentrism, its potentially idolatrous fixation on Jesus Christ, the onlybegotten Son of God, the incarnate Logos, the God-man.’ (He goes on to claim that ‘Barth’s christocentrism finally overwhelms and subverts an authentic trinitarianism’: 170.)

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1. Introduction

and worse deaths’,78 just as a Jewish theologian could speak of God sharing the death of the Jewish youth at Auschwitz mentioned above. Nonetheless Hodgson, confronted with the question of the significance of Jesus’ death for us, notes its primary significance for God but adds that it also means for us ‘that all our historical projects of liberation will fail’, just as ‘Jesus’ project of announcing the inbreaking kingdom of God failed’ (263). This failure ‘reminds us that God suffers silently alongside us, so silently that we may not know that God is there’, an assertion that recalls God’s invisible presence with the young Jew at Auschwitz. But Hodgson goes on to echo Hegel and assert that Jesus’ death is not simply an end but a beginning, … it has the possibility of transforming human life and culture into new forms that open up new possibilities for consciousness and praxis that did not exist before – this is the profoundest meaning of the cross, which was not only the death of Jesus but the death of God by which God undergoes, incorporates, and transforms death. The meaning of the cross is the victory of life over death, the resurrection from the dead (264).

Yet does that not leave open the question how that transformation, that opening up of new possibilities actually occurs? Is it simply a matter of contemplating and following the example of Jesus or is it more than that? For Hodgson, at any rate, ‘Resurrection takes place when basileia community forms under the conditions of the cross’, those ‘conditions’ being presumably ‘the transformation of the world wrought by suffering love’ that he has just mentioned. He criticizes Mark K. Taylor for failing to distinguish the ‘reconcilatory emancipation’ manifested in the historical Jesus and in the Christian community. For the Christ-gestalt that came to speech in Jesus’ proclamation and mission now ‘comes to stand’ in the world as the productive paradigm of worldly praxis. It takes on the modality of ‘standing in the world’ (anastasis), which is what ‘resurrection’ means. Jesus, whose identity was first established by the gestalt that formed in and around his person, now assumes a new communal identity as the risen Christ, the body of all those who share in and contribute to the transformation of the world wrought by suffering love.79

Yet, when one asks how this communal identity arises, there is no mention at this point, as one might expect from Hodgson’s earlier stress on the spirit, of something like Lampe’s creatio continua of God as spirit as the divine spirit interacts with and transforms the human spirit. Yet Hodgson had earlier spoken of God’s redemptive presence in the world in ‘shaping’ ‘a multifaceted transformative praxis … by giving, disclosing, engendering, in some sense being, the normative shape, the paradigm of such a praxis’ (251–2, his italics). And yet he speaks in the first instance of this ‘shaping’ as the activity of God’s wisdom, not God’s spirit 78 Cf. Hodgson, Winds, 217: ‘God really is damaged by the damage we suffer since God is at risk in the world, wounded by the terrible wounds humans inflict on each other.’ 79 Hodgson, Winds, 268, referring to Mark K. Taylor, Remembering Esperanza: A CulturalPolitical Theology for North American Praxis (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1990) 175–93.

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(252; cf. 255–8).80 It is only later that we learn, as Hodgson comes to the last section of his work entitled ‘Spirit: Freedom’, that, while ‘“Christ” is no longer incarnate in the individual body of Jesus’, this ‘“Christ” is infused into the world by the Spirit, which shapes corporate bodies of redemptive praxis’ (288).

1.3 A Cosmic Event? At times the New Testament writers speak of the death of Christ as in every sense a cosmic event. Nowhere is this clearer than in the hymnic passage in Col 1.15–20, which ends with the affirmation that God has made peace through the blood of the cross and has reconciled all things whether on earth or in heaven.81 It is true that the interests of the author of this letter may ‘focus upon the reconciliation of human beings accomplished in Christ’, yet the wider dimension of the author’s thought emerges yet again in 3.11 where we read that ‘Christ is all (things) and in all’ (ἐν πᾶσιν – one would expect this to be another neuter).82 Even if one does not go so far as to speak of Jesus’ death as ‘cosmic’ in the sense of involving the whole of the cosmos, including all that is not human, let alone as being accompanied by such physical manifestations as the gospels describe, Christian theology has nevertheless traditionally spoken of this death as far more than merely the tragic fate of one individual. It is seen as ‘doing’ something that affects at least other human beings and their relation to God, something that even in some way affects God, altering God’s relationship at least to humanity if not also to inanimate creation.83 It is true that Moltmann sees this dimension of Christian soteriology as having been trimmed down in Christian theology since the time of ‘the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the rise of modern technology’: Salvation no longer envisages the whole world, tormented by its transitory nature. Salvation loses its cosmological breadth and ontological depth and is sought in the context of 80 Yet note Hodgson, Winds, 258 (his italics): ‘The Sophia-presence of God is a spiritual presence, … Spirit indwells, empowers, instructs human spirit but does not displace it.’ 81 The subject of the infinitive ‘to reconcile’ is πᾶν τὸ πλήρωµα (1.19), which I take to be a circumlocution for God: cf. Wedderburn, ‘Theology’, 32. 82 Wedderburn, ‘Theology’, 40. 83 Something of this larger dimension is already to be seen in the cosmic or other events that the gospels describe as accompanying Jesus’ death: an eerie darkness from noon till 3 p.m. (Mark 15.33 parr.), covering the whole earth (cf., e. g., Luz, Matthäus 4, 332; Marcus, Mark, 1053), the rending of the veil of the temple (Mark 15.38 parr.), an earthquake and the raising of deceased holy ones (Matt 27.51–3). Houlden, Backward, 31, comments of Matthew’s depiction of Jesus’ death and resurrection that ‘we have to recognize that something stupendous is taking place [there], comparable only to the divine consummation of the world’s history, and indeed a foretaste of it.’ Similarly Rossé, Cry, 16, sees in Mark 15.33 ‘prophetic and apocalyptic language’ in which the evangelist ‘wishes to express the universal and eschatological meaning of the death of Christ which inaugurates the judgment of the world’ (his italics).

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1. Introduction

man’s existential problem, in the form of a quiet conscience, an inner experience of identity or as pure personality.84

In the history of Christian theology, at any rate, the death of Christ has often been seen as some sort of transaction with cosmic dimensions, affecting not only humanity, but God as well, if not the inanimate creation too. Here, however, it is necessary to make a distinction between accounts that focus on God’s suffering with Jesus as with other human beings and perhaps also with inanimate creation as well, and more specifically Christian accounts which speak of an event within the life of the trinity. In both cases one can speak of an event that is ‘cosmic’ in the sense that it affects or even changes the God of the cosmos and that God’s relations to the cosmos. It is true that such an impact on God was long excluded by the doctrine of divine impassibility and this is still held by some, usually under the influence of a philosophical view of God that holds impassibility to belong to the definition of what it means to be ‘God’. A theology such as that of Moltmann also involves an ‘event’ affecting the whole human world, if not the inanimate creation. As we saw, Moltmann speaks of a ‘concrete “history of God”’ that takes place as Jesus dies on the cross, a ‘history’ in which ‘all the depths and abysses of human history’ are contained, a history that can be understood as ‘the history of history’. For ‘All human history, however much it may be determined by guilt and death, is taken up (aufgehoben) into this “history of God”, i. e. into the Trinity, and integrated into the future of the “history of God”.’85 ‘There is no suffering which in this history has not been God’s suffering; no death which has not been God’s death in the history on Golgotha’. For ‘salvation’ is only possible ‘if all disaster, forsakenness by God, absolute death, the infinite curse of damnation and sinking into nothingness is in God himself’; only then ‘is community with this God eternal salvation, infinite joy, indestructible election and divine life’ (246). Then ‘forsaken men are already taken up (hineingenommen) by Christ’s forsakenness into the divine history’ and ‘we “live in God”, because we participate (teilbekommen) in the eschatological life of God by virtue of the death of Christ. … We participate (teilnehmen) in the trinitarian process of God’s history’ (255). ‘The godforsaken and rejected man can accept himself’, for he ‘is taken up (hineingenommen), without limitations and conditions, into the life and suffering, the death and resurrection of God, and in faith participates (nimmt … leibhaftig … teil) corporeally in the fullness God, 92–3. God, 246; I wondered whether this was actually what Moltmann meant, for I would then expect ‘aufgehoben in’, not with the dative but with the accusative (as with the following ‘integriert in’ and with ‘hineingenommen’ on ET 255, 277 = Ger. 242, 265). However, a German-speaking friend argued that ‘taken up into’ would fit Moltmann’s christology better. Yet I still wonder about this (bearing in mind that aufheben can mean not only ‘take up’, but also ‘abolish, do away with’ or ‘keep’) in view of the fact that it is not hineinnehmen in with the acc. that is used. 84 Moltmann, 85 Moltmann,

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of God’ (277). It is clear that this ‘panentheistic’ way of speaking recalls Paul’s language of union with Christ. Yet, as we shall see when we come to the apostle’s language of ‘with’ and ‘in’ Christ, this language presents considerable difficulties of interpretation and understanding, and it is doubtful whether Moltmann escapes these problems; indeed, he perhaps exacerbates them when he invokes the trinity and speaks of our union in and with God’s death and resurrection. For Fiddes, too, the cross of Jesus is a event of cosmic dimensions and to be interpreted in trinitarian terms. That is despite the fact that he earlier recognized that if God was involved with the person and career of Jesus, he was implicated in the experience of the crucified Christ. To say thus much does not in itself demand a particular model of Christology, beyond belief in a deep participation of God in the human life of Jesus.86

Nonetheless he opts, as Moltmann does, to interpret this ‘participation’ in terms of a largely traditional trinitarian orthodoxy, although it is by no means clear how or why this interpretation is preferable to other alternatives. However, in Fiddes’ view the way in which the cross of Jesus impinges on our lives is depicted in a more indirect manner than Moltmann’s proposal that our history is taken up into God’s history in the cross of Jesus. In the first place he appeals to the power of a story, in this case the story of the cross disclosing ‘the love and the wrath of God in a new way’, and (the story of) ‘the death of Jesus, in the context of his life and resurrection, enhances our human capacity to respond to God, and such response is the very stuff of which true existence is made’.87 But there is more to it than that, for Fiddes here picks up the insight of process thought ‘that an event contributes to the life of future events in such an organic way that it is really present in them’. Applied to the Christian church this means that it can be seen ‘as the community whose members have chosen to go on being constituted by the effect of the life and death of Jesus Christ’ (164–5). If this is comparable to seeing Jesus’ influence as a ‘field of force’ as Fiddes suggests, picking up an image used by John Cobb and David Griffin, then it is nevertheless apparent in his formulation that this is a ‘force’ that Jesus’ followers have voluntarily taken to themselves as constitutive of their communal being; in that respect physical analogies break down. At any rate, ‘the particular suffering of Jesus (which is inseparable from its impact upon God) goes on being present to us in a more actual mode than mere historic remembrance’, being ‘a present experience which we can share’, thus enabling our response. Or, better, part of our response is a will to make this experience constitutive for our existence. Suffering, 26. Suffering, 164, referring back to the section on ‘The Story and Situation of a Suffering God’ (146–51). 86 Fiddes, 87 Fiddes,

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To this insight of process thought Fiddes adds another: in addition to direct causation upon other creatures, an event also influences the future ‘indirectly through being taken into the consequent nature of God’. Applied to ‘the particular event of Jesus Christ’ this means that ‘it creates a new situation for us because it creates a new situation for God’. This insight is, however, one that Fiddes wants to modify by using ‘a more thoroughgoing personal model’, using the experience of forgiveness.88 ‘A suffering God who was and is always willing to forgive gains through the cross a new experience of the human condition that gives him access into our resistant hearts.’89 In contrast to Moltmann’s stress on human lostness and following rather Whitehead’s thought Fiddes regards all human beings as incarnating to some extent ‘the aims of God for humanity’, but sees in this system of thought ‘room … for one person to embody them to a unique degree’. God could therefore have chosen to offer ‘one particular person the possibility of being the perfect expression of [God’s] purpose for human life’ (167). The cross of Jesus thus contained ‘a unique experience of the human condition, because of the unique response of the one involved’. ‘Here God as drawn uniquely into human flesh because of the quality of the human response involved.’ God may always have been ‘entering the human experience of death and alienation’ and so this is not God’s first experience of death. ‘But a God who journeys like this can enter a new depth of the human predicament when the one so intimately bound up with him, as a Son, himself suffers desolation and makes response from the abyss’ (168).90 With this second strand of process thought, however, Fiddes seems to have turned away from the pro nobis aspect of the crucifixion and to focus more upon the meaning of this event for God. Its meaning for us emerges more clearly in his first point, the impact of the story of the cross upon us, and in the second, the impact of the event and its continuing influence upon the Christian community. Yet, again, it seems that this influences the members of the community only if they are willing to be influenced and to let this event shape their existence. In his less technical study of Past Event and Present Salvation Fiddes for the most part leaves unmentioned the insights of process thought, but suggests what seems at first sight to be another way of viewing the relation between Jesus’ death and our salvation, between what he terms the ‘objective’ aspect of salvation and 88 Cf.

Fiddes’ previous section on ‘The Creative Journey of Forgiveness’ (157–63). here (Suffering, 167) sees the validity of ‘objective’ models of the atonement that see God being changed as well as the sinner, although he regards it as a mistake to think of a change of attitude on God’s part. However, I fail to see the advantage in his suggested alternative, a ‘“change of approach”, gained through new experience’. 90 It is not clear to me why this sonship has to be that of a person of the trinity; would the plight of one who had made God’s cause so much his own (one can perhaps leave aside the question whether he had done so perfectly or uniquely) not have affected God just as profoundly? 89 Fiddes

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the ‘subjective’. Jesus ‘offers the perfect confession of penitence to the Father, which humankind has otherwise failed to offer’ and it is ‘the penitence of people down the ages as they share in the penitence of Christ’ that is the answer to the demands of God’s justice (105–6). He seems to be speaking here of Jesus’ death, but if the cry of Mark 15.34 par. is anything to go by then this does not sound very penitent, but rather a despairing protest. To find an example of penitence one could, however, look further back in Jesus’ life to his baptism, as he submits, in company with other followers of the Baptist, to John’s baptism administered for the forgiveness of sins. Or, if it is matter of Jesus’ confessing ‘the rightness of the Father’s viewpoint’, then the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane (Mark 14.36 parr.) is an apter point of contact than the agonized cry from the cross, even though, it is true, it is not there a matter of God’s ‘viewpoint upon spoiled human existence’ as such (109), but seemingly rather upon Jesus’ own personal fate. Such a confession, whenever it was uttered, should at any rate, in Fiddes’s eyes move us to a similar confession. At any rate, in this slightly later study Fiddes plainly shows his appreciation of the approach of Peter Abelard (140–68), as long as it is clear that it does not involve merely an imitation of Christ, but also maintains an ‘objective’ element in that God’s act of love creates or generates an answering love in human beings. It is true that Abelard’s holding to the view of divine impassibility prevented him from showing how the death of Jesus was an act of God’s love, but if that premiss is abandoned then it is easier to see how it could indeed reveal that and create an answering love in us. For ‘the effect of revelation is much deeper than a mere moving of emotions’ (150). In Abelard, too, Fiddes detects an insight into the power of a story and argues that ‘While all modern theories of atonement that find the cross to be an enabling event have a family-likeness to Abelard’s thought …, those that stand closest to it are those that use psychological insights to explore the profound change which the story of the cross can effect in the diseased ego.’91 Nonetheless these, as well as Abelard’s account, run the risk of being too individualistic. This approach clearly has important points of contact in those New Testament texts where Paul speaks of Christ’s (but in this case not specifically God’s) love constraining us (2 Cor 5.14, συνέχει) or God’s love being poured out in our hearts through the divine spirit given to us (Rom 5.5).92 Event, 147, citing as examples Reinhold Niebuhr and R. S. Lee. Käsemann rightly rejects Augustine’s identification of the genitive θεοῦ as objective and describes this love as ‘a divine power that lays hold of us’ (Römer, 126). Fiddes, Event, 154, notes the key role this verse played in Abelard’s thought, but criticizes the way in which the outpouring of the divine spirit was limited to the predestined and the way in which the manner of the outpouring could be seen to stem from a past event. He also comments on Abelard’s inability to link this outpouring with the cross; that is the more surprising in that the context of this verse is not only the sufferings of believers (5.3–4) but also the death of Christ for ungodly sinners (5.6, 8–10). 91 Fiddes, 92 Ernst

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1.4 Alternative Hermeneutical Strategies? In the previous sections of this chapter we have seen various attempts to interpret the meaning of the death of Jesus for us, at least as far as it is clear what the intended meaning is, in terms of something that happens in the being of God and thus is at least relevant to our perception and understanding of God’s nature, or in terms of a manifestation of the nature or ‘shape’ of that divine spirit that is subsequently at work in the world or at least in the Christian community. Others, however, have been far more hesitant in seeking or endorsing an interpretation of this death as ‘cosmic’. Moltmann criticizes an interpretative strategy that he finds in Rudolf Bultmann’s highly influential essay ‘New Testament and Mythology’, an interpretation that in his eyes deprives the cross of Christ of any significance of its own; it is only significant in the existential process of being crucified with Christ.93 For Bultmann states that to believe in the cross of Christ does not mean to look to some mythical process that has taken place outside of us or at an objectively visible event that God has somehow reckoned to our credit; rather, to believe in the cross of Christ means to accept the cross as one’s own and to allow oneself to be crucified with Christ. … it is not an event of the past to which one looks back, but it is the eschatological event in time and beyond time insofar as it is constantly present wherever it is understood in its significance, that is, for faith (34–5).94 93  Moltmann, God, 61. Leslie Houlden, writing about the ‘achievement’ of Jesus, suggests that behind the various ways in which early Christians spoke of the changes that Jesus’ being in the world had brought about ‘lay inner experience, seen as resulting in some way from Jesus, of a fresh standing with God, fresh community life, and fresh sense of one’s inner status and prospects’; ‘as a result of Jesus’ death, one knew oneself no more estranged from God, no more like fallen Adam with all “glory” gone, but, by sheer faith, accepted by God’ (Jesus, 421). Yet that leaves it open how the early Christians knew that on the basis of Jesus’ death; even if one included their belief in Jesus’ resurrection, would that necessarily have such implications for themselves, any more than belief in God’s vindication in a particular martyr was thought to have such impications for others? (In the case of Paul, Houlden is prepared to find the answer in the apostle’s viewing Jesus’ death as sacrificial: Patterns, 66–7. Yet not all would be prepared to grant such centrality to this image or model in Paul’s thought.) In another article (on Jesus’ death) he also writes critically of theories that presuppose that God ‘“changed” in disposition or attitude as a result of Jesus’ death’ and asks ‘how could God do that?’ (429). Yet we have seen that, if we are at all prepared to speak of God’s suffering, as opposed to the doctrine of divine impassibility, we will have to allow that God was indeed affected by Jesus’ sufferings and from there it is a short step to a change of some sort, even if not a change in attitude or disposition. 94 I have largely followed the more recent translation of Schubert Ogden here. It should be noted, too, that Paul Fiddes also speaks of the cross as ‘a contemporary event as well as past history’ because only a present event ‘saves’ as opposed to ‘saved’ (Event, 15); that can, however, only be the case if, as Bultmann puts it, it is ‘the eschatological event in time and beyond time’ or, as Bultmann presumably might also have put it, it is more precisely the contemporary proclamation of the cross in word or action (the Lord’s Supper) that is meant. (In the light of that possibility it may be unwise simply to equate ‘objective’ interpretations of the cross

1.4 Alternative Hermeneutical Strategies?

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In some tension with this stand Bultmann’s remarks shortly afterwards, which Moltmann also quotes and which seem to emphasize the cross as a historical event of the past: As the salvation occurrence, then, the cross of Christ is not a mythical event but a historical occurrence (Geschehen) that has its origin in the historical event (Ereignis) of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. In its historical significance this … is the judgment of the world, the liberating judgment of us ourselves as human beings. … the proclamation of the cross as the salvation event asks its hearers whether they are willing to appropriate this meaning, whether they are willing to be crucified with Christ (35–6).95

Bultmann then goes on to point out that for those who had first proclaimed this message the cross had been an event in their own lives that confronted them with a question and disclosed its meaning to them. This can, however, no longer be the case for us. For we know about it as a past event only through historical reports. Yet ‘historical reports’ are not the way in which the crucified Christ is proclaimed in the New Testament, disclosing the point of the cross by means of Jesus’ historical life. On the contrary, he is proclaimed as the crucified one who is at the same time the risen one. Cross and resurrection belong together as a unity (36).

Over against these views of Bultmann’s Moltmann insists that the significance of the cross of Christ does not derive from the crucifixion of the believer with him. The reverse is true; the crucifixion of the believer with Christ takes its meaning from Christ’s death on the cross for the godless. … Not until Christ has taken on our cross as his own is it meaningful to take up our cross in order to follow him. … Bultmann is in danger of being able to understand the cross of Christ only as an example for the conformitas of Christian existential life by following him (61–2).

Such thinking, Moltmann argues, runs the risk of only being able to see Jesus as the Christ inasmuch as the historical and eschatological event of liberating judgement had its historical origin in Jesus’ crucifixion and he is the one with whom ‘the ever present cross of eternity’ had its beginning in time (62). And yet, to be fair to Bultmann, it is apparently the cross of Christ that is spoken of as a ‘salvation event’ (Heilsgeschehen) and not our being crucified with him nor the proclamation of his death, although it is an occurrence (Geschehen) that is not identical with the event (Ereignis) of Jesus’ crucifixion, but rather has its origin there. On the other hand, as noted above, there seems to be some tension here with his insistence that faith does not mean looking to some mythical procwith a past event and ‘subjective’ ones with the present as Fiddes does [26], for the proclamation is present, yet also comes from ‘outside’ the hearer.) 95 Ogden’s translation here actually has ‘In its historical significance this event is the judgment of the world’; ‘Dieses’ could, however, refer either to ‘Geschehen’ or to ‘Ereignis’, whereas in opting for ‘event’ rather than ‘occurrence’ Ogden might seem to have decided on the latter. (Fuller’s translation in Kerygma and Myth, 37, is looser: ‘The abiding significance of the cross is …’.)

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ess outside ourselves or some objectively visible event. Yet Moltmann registers his approval here: Bultmann is right to resist ‘the mythical objectivization of the cross of Christ, and the historicizing of the cross of Jesus until it is completely meaningless’ (61). However, Bultmann’s contention that the death of Jesus is not an event of the past to which one looks back but the ‘eschatological event in time and beyond time’ is more problematic. Not only is it not clear whether an ‘eschatological event’ should not also be described as ‘cosmic’ in some sense, but, if it is indeed constantly present, then it is presumably to the eye of the believing beholder as the event and its meaning is proclaimed, but to deny that one should look back to it goes too far; although Jesus’ first followers had experienced Jesus’ death, it is time and again clear that they looked back, questioning as well as in turn being questioned. It was and is still today a focus of faith and a point of orientation and understanding, but nevertheless remains a past event, a past event, as Bultmann puts it, that judges us and frees us as it is proclaimed with its question and challenge whether we are willing to appropriate its meaning for ourselves. And yet what is its meaning? Does it only lie for Bultmann, as Moltmann claims, in ‘the existential process of being crucified with Christ’, whatever that means? And is the only alternative then to interpret what happened in terms of an event in the life of the trinity that takes up our history into the ‘history of God’? That, at any rate, was hardly a meaning and interpretation that was disclosed to Jesus’ first followers. Still less, surely, was Bultmann’s interpretation of the cross something that was disclosed to the first disciples. And yet does that matter if we are concerned rather with the meaning of the event for us today? Nonetheless, it needs seriously to be asked whether it is any more meaningful for us in the terms in which Bultmann expounds it. At least for the early Christians it was not an event that was present, but rather a person, the crucified Jesus whom they believed God had raised from the dead. And, whatever one thinks of the nature of the resurrection, that scenario is conceptually far easier to swallow. Moltmann had earlier devoted an entire section (45–53) to ‘The Mysticism of the Cross’, in which ‘the crucified Christ was seen less as the sacrifice which God creates to reconcile the world to himself, and more as the exemplary path trodden by a righteous man suffering unjustly, leading to salvation’.96 And, we may add, he was accordingly not primarily seen as divine or as the second person of the trinity, although Moltmann goes on to add that the poor find in him the brother who put off his divine form and took on the form of a slave (Phil. 2) to be with them and to love them. They find in him a God who does not torture them, as their masters do, but becomes their brother and companion (49). 96 Moltmann, God, 45. The last phrase is not quite clear; it could refer to the salvation of that ‘righteous man’, but presumably refers ultimately to the path leading to salvation for all who through conformitas crucis receive assurance of salvation and glorification. Ulrich Luz sums up the understanding of Jesus’ cry in Mark 15.34 par. in the Middle Ages as ‘suffering with the Crucified’ (Matthew 4, 337).

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Yet this appeal to Philippians 2 is presumably more Moltmann’s commentary on the attitude of the poor, seen from his own perspective rather than giving voice to their own understanding. At any rate, this path that the righteous Jesus had trod was of relevance to others in that ‘by meditation and adoration’ people drew nearer to Christ’s sufferings, ‘participated in them and felt them as their own sufferings’. This ‘passion mysticism’ played a major role in lay piety within Christianity, the suffering Christ being the ‘God’ of the poor and oppressed as opposed to the Pantocrator dear to emperors and kings. This form of piety, so prominent in periods such as the late Middle Ages, has found its echo in more recent writers like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Kazoh Kitamori as well as amongst black slaves and their descendants in the southern USA.97 For the latter ‘Jesus was their identity with God in a world which had taken all hope from them and destroyed their human identity until it was unrecognizable’ (48). Their ‘mysticism of the cross’ is ‘the expression of human dignity and self-respect in the experience that their God counts them worthy and the belief that Christ loves them’. And yet this all goes beyond a mere conformitas crucis, Moltmann insists. The crucified Christ shows the poor ‘their misery in someone who is different from them’ and therefore in ‘basically … a different misery and a different suffering’ (50). For Moltmann here stresses that Jesus’ sufferings were the outcome of his actions on behalf of God’s kingdom of grace, in his freedom from the Jewish law and in his table-fellowship with sinners. His was a suffering that he actively took upon himself. The more the ‘mysticism of the cross’ recognizes this, ‘the less it can accept Jesus as an example of patience and submission to fate’ (51). Accordingly, imitation of Jesus’ sufferings involves acceptance of his mission and active following of his way. By implication, however, this presumably means that one is called then to seek to lessen the ‘difference’ between one’s own misery and suffering and those of Jesus by attempting to follow through in one’s own circumstances Jesus’ service of the kingdom; one should also actively take this suffering upon oneself. Moltmann, it may be noted, is more generous in his appreciation of this strand of Christian tradition than he is towards Bultmann’s interpretation of the cross, but it is nevertheless clear that what he is speaking about latterly is not a ‘mysticism of the cross’ as it has always been, but rather as it has come to be in some circles or should become, in the service of justice and liberation. One can see here a foreshadowing of, and preparation for, Moltmann’s final chapter entitled ‘Ways towards the Political Liberation of Mankind’ (317–40). At any rate, such an approach to finding meaning in the cross of Jesus concentrates on the man Jesus as God’s faithful emissary and agent and finds its expression in social and political action.

97 Citing Bonhoeffer, Letters, 360–1; Kitamori, The Theology of the Pain of God (London: SCM Press, 1965).

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At this point it is instructive to compare a brief passage in Dorothee Sölle’s work on suffering, a passage that indicates certain points that she shares with Moltmann as well as the very considerable disagreements between these two theologians.98 Having quoted from a selection of letters written by members of the resistance awaiting death at the hands of the Nazis she compares these with Jesus’ farewell discourses in the Fourth Gospel: in both, those about to die acknowledge that their deaths are brought about by their own actions and express their concern for those that they leave behind as well as their pride in their own just role and the task that will be continued. In the passion narratives we can see the possibilities for our behaviour towards the afflicted and for ourselves in suffering. Quoting the old prayer, ‘Passio Christi, conforta me’, she argues that this does not just occur in reminding ourselves of Christ’s sufferings, for that was only meaningful in an age in which Christ’s divinity was self-evident and Jesus’ sufferings could give expression to God’s participation in our suffering. That is no longer true for us. We see how the man Jesus suffered, not the Son of God, and that strengthens us in showing us what is possible for human beings and giving us the hope of introducing some humanity into our sufferings. Simply as a matter of history Jesus’ story has no meaning beyond itself. We understand it and make it our own when we grasp how it goes on. For Jesus continues to die before our eyes, and his death is no finished business. For wherever human beings are in agony he suffers. If we only considered Jesus’ death historically, without taking his ongoing cause into account, then this memory would just be a liturgy that contained no truth, and if we forget Jesus’ present, continued dying we deny his passion itself. The words ‘Do this in memory of me’ overcome this forgetfulness and form the basis of a memory of Jesus that only finds its fulfilment when it is discerned in the continued dying of the victims. Our theological task is therefore to hear Jesus’ claim in the farewell letters of the martyrs and to recognize his voice anew in their voices. And even if their words at times echo Jesus’ cry of dereliction they remain convinced of their oneness with God as Jesus expressed it in John 10.30, ‘I and the Father are one’ (although Sölle has also included at least one letter from a communist whose belief in God should not be presupposed).99 It is a matter of the certainty that their task has been the realization of righteousness and that with the continuation of this task they too are ‘glorified’. Here the difference to Moltmann’s uncompromising trinitarian approach is clear and welcome. In its place is the man Jesus in all his human weakness and vulnerability. On the other hand, the seemingly uncritical adaptation of Johannine christology raises questions when one has already cast doubts on the appropriateness of an appeal to the divinity of Christ in favour of the human Jesus, 98 Sölle,

Leiden, 171–2.

99 Sölle, Leiden, 169–70. There she acknowledges that the writer’s ‘I die and I shall live’ did not

presuppose any form of life after death, but rather his participation in something greater than the individuals involved. Oneness with God would surely have sounded incongruous on his lips.

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and the transposition of this language to that of twentieth century martyrs seems at times forced. There may be some parallels to the farewell discourses of the Johannine Jesus, but surely only very partial parallels. And Sölle’s use of John 10.30 that we have just noted is both striking and at the same time problematic. Its inclusiveness can be seen positively in the light of the Jesus who taught his disciples to share his ‘Our Father’ (Luke 11.2 par.), but it is doubtful whether that is quite what John meant, particularly if one consider the christology implied by an assertion like John 17.5. And even if John 10.30 were to mean no more than Jesus’ sense that his cause was also God’s and that God was working through him (cf., e. g., Luke 11.20 par.), when we come to the passion of Jesus the sense of oneness has to be struggled for in Gethsemane and to have evaporated completely when it comes to Jesus’ cry on the cross. At any rate, Sölle’s argument seems to presuppose the continued existence and suffering of Jesus, yet without spelling out what form this existence takes; she evidently presupposes some sort of resurrection or life after death but of what sort?100 Or would it be sufficient to speak here of the continued suffering of God, suffering with humanity down the ages, so that God’s suffering with Jesus stands for the divine participation in all human suffering? It is true that when Sölle then turns from the fate of martyrs who have taken their fate upon them with open eyes, so to speak, to the fate of those who suffer unwillingly through no fault of their own, she recognizes that the question, ‘Where is God?’, inevitably arises and she turns to the same incident narrated by Wiesel, mentioned above, to which Moltmann appealed, and speaks of the Jewish theological tradition of the God who suffers with and in God’s people (178–9). She goes further, however, when she later speaks of Jesus combining in himself three voices from this story, that of the person behind the narrator who asked ‘Where is God?’, that of the young man who was hanged, and that of the narrator who hears that God is the one hanged. (That God is there on the gallows does not just mean that God is also hanged, but rather that God is the one hanged and the one hanged is God. Sölle compares here the centurion’s confession that the crucified Jesus is God’s son, for all of the six million, i. e. the Jews murdered under the Nazis, were God’s sons – or daughters, one should add.) The essence of the story of the passion, she argues, is the statement that the one who is deserted by God himself becomes God and his cry is the cry of one who comes of age.101 Yet need it follow that the one deserted by God himself becomes God? Does the language of representation that was the theme of a later book not rather suggest a more modest claim, that the one that died now represents, stands for God, a God who is, in Sölle’s eyes, absent and

100 She speaks, somewhat enigmatically, of a ‘history of resurrections’ in the plural, which is ‘representative’ in that each resurrection offers hope for all (Sölle, Leiden, 184; cf. also 212). 101 Sölle, Leiden, 180–2.

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powerless?102 At any rate, there is considerable justice in Paul Fiddes’ complaint that ‘If we allow the story [of Jesus’ passion] to make its effect upon the hearer, we surely cannot make a lament for being forsaken by a Father into a triumphant manifesto of growing up and doing without a Father’.103 Nonetheless this may be a moment when it is realized that, rather than wilfully deserting Jesus, his Father is indeed powerless to intervene; the Father is just not that sort of God. And that realization has in turn implications for how we view ourselves and the world and our role in it, if we too must learn to live without an interventionist God. Whether that is a cause for triumph is more than doubtful, for how many children leave home to fend for themselves with a feeling of triumph? Whatever feelings of excitement they may have are surely very often mingled with a measure of apprehension and uncertainty. Finally, a basically very different approach to that of traditional theology and of many systematic theologians is taken by Alistair Kee in his From Bad Faith to Good News, and by another philosopher of religion, John Hick, in his The Metaphor of God Incarnate. In the first of these works, the recurrent theme and refrain of what was originally a Good Friday meditation is ‘The mystery is in the events, not in a theological interpretation of them’ (e. g. p. x, his italics).104 It is clear that Kee is aware of the difficulties presented by the doctrine of the trinity, when he observes that the doctrine of the resurrection is a problem for Christians in the modern world second only to those presented by the trinity (87), but he is chiefly concerned with theories of the atonement with their concomitant assumptions about the nature of God.105 For he accuses theologians of not dealing with the actual death of Jesus but with ‘its metaphysical significance in some cosmic plan’. Here it is assumed that God, already known, uses the death of Jesus in some way: as a sacrifice which atones for sin, as a payment which cancels debt. Thus the pre-Christian view of God persists. Nothing is allowed to emerge from the life and death of Jesus. No new revelation of God is allowed to break through (65).

And, whereas others, as we have seen, are prepared to speak of a change in God’s very nature taking place in Jesus’ death, it seems to me that Kee prudently contents himself with saying that our perception of God must change as a result of it: ‘Either the cross of Christ transforms our understanding of God, or the cross was a mistake’ (65). This failure to perceive the new revelation of God, which 102 Already, in the earlier work, this idea is hinted at in the rather glib assertion that God has no other hands than ours (Sölle, Leiden, 183). 103 Fiddes, Suffering, 149. 104 A variant form is ‘The revelation is in the events’ (Kee, Faith, 124, his italics). 105 In Way, 212, Kee refers to the various solutions offered to the problem of the atonement as even more ‘abject failures’ than in the case of the doctrine of the incarnation. In the same work he also suggests that ‘the Spirit may be the only element of the Trinity compatible with a radical theology’ (22).

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Kee even describes as ‘the first heresy, the first, most persistent and still present heresy’ (141), goes back a long way, for he sees it emerging originally as the result of the early church’s interpreting Jesus’ death in the light of Isaiah’s suffering servant. (Not for Kee the view that this figure played a dominant role in Jesus’ own thinking and understanding of his role.) This gave Jesus’ suffering and death a different meaning, thus replacing ‘the historical meaning and significance of the suffering and death of Jesus with a theological or metaphysical meaning’ (30). We should no longer speak of redemption as ‘metaphysical balance between the sins of the world and the sufferings of Jesus, a trade off which is required before God forgives’. For that would mean a reversion to a pre-Christian view of God (31–2). This criticism, involving as it does early Christian interpretations of Jesus’ death, inevitably has important implications for any attempts to make sense of the meaning ascribed to Jesus’ death by such as Paul, who, as we shall see, took over and adapted a whole range of different early Christian images and interpretations of Jesus’ death in the service of his own proclamation of the crucified Jesus. For Kee, too, as we have just seen, ‘the historical meaning and significance of the suffering and death of Jesus’ are the focus of his attention and for Jesus this meant enduring an agony simply because he believed it to be God’s will, ‘although he himself could not see why it had to be so’. And his despairing, reproachful cry on the cross meant that, ‘although he had kept faith with God, God apparently had not kept faith with him’ (58). As a realistic assessment of the evidence of the New Testament this has much to be said for it. It is noteworthy that Kee repeatedly refers to a ‘mystery’.106 He eschews any descriptions of what has happened in the being, in the life, in the ‘history’ of God and perhaps in his talk of ‘mystery’ one could see an implicit criticism of those who can glibly talk of the experiences of the persons of the trinity. At any rate, his talk of ‘mystery’ is perhaps the more readily intelligible in the light of his earlier work, The Way of Transcendence, subtitled Christian Faith without Belief in God. Indeed, it is perhaps more surprising that he also speaks of God as often as he does in From Bad Faith to Good News. Is that simply occasioned by the different audience? For the Good Friday meditation was delivered in a church context, whereas The Way of Transcendence was written with a missionary orientation for the benefit of those who do not and cannot believe in God, in the hope that the unacceptable demand that they believe in God might not also prevent them them from believing in Christ. (Or, in the light of From Bad Faith to Good News, does he or should he rather mean Jesus?)107 For ‘mystery’ is a term that he used earlier at the close of The Way of Transcendence, when taking up and at the same time 106 Boff, Passion, 51, also speaks of Jesus, in his despairing cry on the cross, abandoning himself to ‘Mystery’ (capitalized, at least in the ET; cf. also 63: Jesus following ‘the Mystery’, as well as 128 [lower case], 131, 134 [also lower case]). 107 However, in Way, 194, Kee stresses that we should not simply concentrate on the historical Jesus. In Faith, on the other hand, he argues that ‘messiah’ must be understood, not in terms of

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qualifying Tillich’s talk of an ‘ultimate concern’: the position advocated in this work ‘leads towards a mystery beyond our ultimate concerns, beyond precisely because it is raised by our having an ultimate concern’ (232, his italics).108 And a ‘mystery’ is an appropriate word for what, in Kee’s account, remains ill-defined apart from its not being ‘immanent’ in the sense of being limited to the realm and level of nature and the natural. For presumably Kee does not mean by ‘the mystery is in the events’ simply that the events are mysterious. Some of them are not: Jesus’ death by crucifixion was appalling, but this fate was shared by thousands under Rome’s rule, and that the Roman govern should hear the case against a trouble-maker in his province was a normal procedure. Other events are not so clearly intelligible or certain, but that lies in the state of the evidence for events that lie so so far in the past, particularly when the testimony of the sources so often contains perspectives acquired at a later point of time. We do not know, for instance, why Judas betrayed Jesus and are uncertain as to the the status of Jesus’ hearing before the Jewish authorities or the charges against him on that occasion or the precise verdict or decision of those authorities. And, after all, Kee does not say that the events are mysterious, but that ‘the mystery’ is in those events, and by that he presumably means that there is a deeper, hidden meaning in those events than simply that course of events which is depicted in the gospels. John Hick, too, whose criticisms of traditional soteriological doctrine were mentioned earlier, finds ‘the alternative development within Eastern Christianity of the idea of a gradual transformation of the human by the divine Spirit, called by the Orthodox theologians deification (theosis)’.109 Criticizing Richard Swinburne for failing to consider ‘the radical alternative’ soteriology which Eastern Christianity offers, he argues that if one sees salvation/liberation as the transformation of human existence from self-centredness to a new orientation centred in the divine Reality, the transaction theories of salvation then appear as implausible answers to a mistaken question (121).

Accordingly, his following chapter (127–33) is devoted to the theme of ‘Salvation as Human Transformation’, and begins with the provocative assertion that traditional theories of the atonement in western Christianity ‘have no room for divine forgiveness’ (127), despite its central role both in Judaism and in the teaching of Jesus. The world’s theistic faiths share a sense of divine mercy, ‘with our Latin previous expectations regarding this figure, but in the light of what was ‘achieved and revealed’ in the events of Jesus’ life (123; cf. also Way, 210). 108 It needs to be recognized that Kee throughout his earlier work sets rigorous criteria that must be satisfied if one still wants to talk of ‘God’: there must be a demonstrable continuity with the God of traditional belief and of theism, above all with regard to personality (cf., e. g., the critique of Ogden in Way, 40, 42). 109 Hick, Metaphor, 113. Again one notes here important similarities to the approaches of Lampe and Hodgson.

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belief in the need for an atoning human death standing out as exceptional’ (128). Instead, rather briefly, it must be admitted, Hick argues that this transformation comes about as a response to ‘the life and words of a great exemplar’ (130). It was not the shedding of his blood that gave Jesus’ death meaning, but the ‘fact that he gave himself utterly to God in faith and trust’. So ‘Let the voluntary sacrifice of a holy life continue to challenge and inspire us in a way that transcends words’ (132).110 Of these ‘alternative hermeneutical strategies’ I must admit that I feel most at ease with those of Kee or Hick, who approach the question from the viewpoint of religious studies, even though Kee expressly locates himself within the Christian tradition, e. g. in his case within the doctrinally and liturgically seemingly fairly traditional Iona Community (at least with regard to the theological content of its liturgy, if not its form).111 Perhaps my sympathy is not surprising in that I come from within an academic tradition in which theology and religious studies often exist side by side and view each other as partners and as complementary, as opposed to the tension between Theologie (usually specifically Christian theology of some sort or other, as if no other religions engaged in theological thought) and Religionswissenschaft that often seems to characterize the German academic scene; moreover, what might be termed ‘comparative religion’ or the like plays an important role within that complex of approaches and disciplines that are all part of the study of the New Testament. At any rate the openness that such an approach engenders is to be commended, in contrast to the burden of Christian doctrine that may well distort or hinder the exegetical and hermeneutical tasks involved in such an enquiry as the present one. It is an approach that lets Jesus remain a human being and a mystery remain mysterious. Of the other strategies mentioned, I remain unconvinced by some of Moltmann’s criticisms of Bultmann and yet there are aspects of the latter’s theology that I also find questionable; nonetheless his stance is, on the whole, more congenial and fruitful for the exegete than the trinitarian readings of the story of the passion favoured by more traditional systematic theologians. Similarly with the thought-provoking studies by Dorothee Sölle; much in them may be congenial, but other aspects seem more than a little questionable.

110 C. J. Den Heyer, too, concludes his little study of Jesus and the Doctrine of the Atonement with a brief chapter on Jesus’ ‘exemplary’ life, arguing that Jesus’ ‘exemplary’ faith in his God still ‘inspires people, sometimes hesitantly and sometimes enthusiastically, to take the way of reconciliation’ (135). 111 To be noted is also the dissatisfaction with dogmatic approaches evinced by C. J. Den Heyer at the end of his exegetical study of the New Testament: he finds himself among ‘those who can no longer find themselves in the words of old confessions and dogmas’ (Jesus, 132).

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1.5 The Strategy of This Study As indicated in the Foreword, my hope is that the exegetical and (re‑)interpretative work of this study may throw some light on how the death of Jesus might be meaningful today. I have limited this study to two areas, to the gospels, above all the Synoptics, in particular the question of how Jesus may have understood his death as opposed to the evangelists’ interpretation of it, and to the letters of Paul. Now it is true, as Jürgen Moltmann argues,112 that the question how Jesus understood his own death is no more than the historical side of the enquiry. The question what his death means for us is the theological side. We have to distinguish between the two, because the way Jesus himself may have interpreted his way to death is an understanding formed before Easter; and it is only because of Easter and since Easter that his death has a salvific meaning for us. Taken by itself, Jesus’ own interpretation of what he was is not a theological source, and not a criterion for christological statements.

For, just as Jesus could, at least theoretically, have been unaware that he was God’s messiah, i.e unaware of the theological significance of his own person,113 so too he could have been unaware of any theological significance of his death. Frey is, therefore, right to argue that ‘a soteriological interpretation of Jesus’ death could also be theologically appropriate and valid when it was not enunciated by the earthly Jesus before or during his passion’. However indispensable it may be for our understanding of the earliest Christian interpretations of Jesus’ death to ask what Jesus thought about it, it is not decisive for our evaluation of the theological appropriateness of later interpretative categories.114 For Scot McKnight, however, in his study of Jesus and His Death, the possibility of this distinction between Jesus’ view of his death and its significance for his followers and ourselves will not do: If Jesus scholars settle into a studied consensus that Jesus never thought about his death in saving terms, if those scholars conclude that the early Christian atonement theology was fictive and symbolic rather than grounded in something Jesus said or thought, then it would shake the faith of many today who see the essence of Christianity in the death of Jesus as an atoning death, even if Jesus ‘suffered the extreme penalty’ (Tacitus, Ann., 15.44). … If Jesus did not think in such categories, … then I believe the history of Christianity ought to be given a reappraisal.115

There is here, however, the considerable risk that this desire and demand for Jesus’ own authorization of an interpretation of his death as atoning or salvific Way, 160. Wedderburn, Jesus, 282 and n. 28, 284–5. 114 Frey, ‘Probleme’, 27–8. 115 McKnight, Jesus, 47–9. (Would such a reappraisal be so undesirable?) McKnight later puts this point in more picturesque terms (but not wholly appropriate ones?) when he speaks of a ‘dance of atonement with Jesus’ and asks ‘If Jesus does not take the lead step in the dance, is there a dance at all?’ (105). Cf. also 243, 257, 335. 112 Moltmann, 113 Cf.

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may come to dictate and distort the results of the historian’s enquiry into the question what Jesus himself may have believed. As McKnight himself observes, ‘Desires … don’t always make for good history’ (presumably in the sense of good historical research).116 For this reason the openness with regard to this question implicit in Moltmann’s position is greatly to be preferred. Moreover, McKnight is so fixed on the requirement that Jesus saw and foresaw his death as atoning that other, alternative or complementary, ways in which he may have seen it are hardly considered and, in the last analysis, do not really interest him. However, if it was left to his followers to work out the meaning for them and potentially for us of that death, must one not still ask how valid or appropriate that interpretative reflection was? Nor is the appeal to Easter wholly satisfactory. For one thing, that God’s messiah should die and need to be raised from the dead was unparalleled in Jewish thought; that this death was salvific lay even less ready to hand as an interpretation of Jesus’ death. More serious is the uncertainty what actually happened at Easter and what was the basis of his followers’ belief in his resurrection. Were it, for instance, only a matter of the disciples’ belief that Jesus had been raised (and it is very hard for historical criticism to assert any more than that), would that alone be a sufficient warrant for all that Jesus’ followers asserted on the basis of that belief or justify us in accepting their word for it? It may be salutary to rid ourselves of the assumption that Jesus must have known what his death would mean, as Moltmann evidently has, but it is even more salutary to ask how he then understood it so that we may better evaluate what his followers subsequently made of this event. As I have already suggested, the reaction of Jesus’ disciples to the course taken by events is most readily understood if Jesus himself had said relatively little to prepare them for what happened to him or to interpret it. At the same time, what did take place, both at the trials and execution of Jesus and in the events following his death, left the disciples with a problem of interpretation, particularly if Jesus had left them with no clear guidance. It is clear that they did subsequently, eventually find various ways of making sense of what had happened, but that in turn gives us grounds for suspecting that much in the Jesus-traditions that seems to offer an interpretation of the theological reasons for his death may in fact have been read back into the traditions by his disciples.117 At any rate, I find it appropriate to approach those traditions with considerable caution, making allowance for the likelihood that later reflections may have been superimposed on them. In the light of this basic caution it may come as no surprise that my conclusions turn out to be fairly minimalist, in contrast to others who have studied the gospel traditions and come to far more positive results. 116 McKnight,

Jesus, 159.

117 Cf. Moltmann, God, 127, who finds little evidence of Jesus’ own interpretation of his death

and ‘at best in the tentative form of passion prophecies, if they are themselves historical’. And that is quite a considerable ‘if’, at least in most cases.

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Nonetheless, one can often detect traditions that on the one hand anticipate Jesus’ death but on the other seem to show little sign of later christological and soteriological reflection. Sorting these out from later traditions and assessing their implications is the task of the following chapter (‘A Deepening Shadow’). Central, however, to any discussion of Jesus’ understanding of his death are the various accounts of the words spoken by Jesus over bread and wine as he met with his disciples just before his arrest and a further chapter is devoted to these accounts (‘Jesus’ Last Meal’). A third chapter (‘Forsaken by God?’) looks at two features of Jesus’ passion, his agonized prayer in Gethsemane and his ‘cry of dereliction’ on the cross. One may question the historicity of both of these and yet, if they have been added later, it is almost as significant and striking that they have been added later as it would be if Jesus had actually addressed his God in these terms. There is a considerable gap in time, though it is nevertheless a relatively short one in comparison to the centuries of further Christian history and thought, between Jesus’ death and our earliest witnesses to early Christian reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ death, namely the letters of the apostle Paul. If Martin Hengel could describe the developments in christological reflection in those few years (‘about eighteen years’) as ‘amazing’, in that ‘more happened in christology within these few years than in the whole subsequent seven hundred years of church history’, then the same is true in large measure of the development of soteriological thinking over the same period.118 The development of soteriology during this period can be approached from both ends, by asking what influence, if any, the resurrection experiences may have had on thinking about Jesus’ death, and by examining the traditions of interpretation of that event upon which Paul could draw, and these two aspects are dealt with in the chapter ‘Between Jesus and Paul’. It is then a further step to ask what use Paul made of these traditions. Yet, one might ask, why deal only with Paul’s interpretation of the death of Jesus or, as he mostly puts it, the death of Christ or the Christ? Why not tackle the whole breadth of early Christian soteriology? One answer is that this limitation of the topic is justified by the length of the monograph that would otherwise result from such a widening of its scope and, in the case of the present one, even more so by the circumstances of the author alluded to in the Foreword.119 A more satisfactory answer, however, may be found in the very nature of Paul’s treatment of the theme: one cannot speak of a single, sustained exposition of the meaning of Christ’s death in his case, but one sees instead throughout his writings repeated references in all sorts of contexts to that event and its significance, either quoting inherited formulae or put in his own words. Moreover, he makes use of a wealth 118 Hengel,

‘Christology’, 31, 39–40. have touched on the problems of Hebrews’ treatment of the death of Jesus in ‘Sawing Off the Branches’, a treatment, however, that is perhaps more than usually alien to our thoughtworld. 119 I

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of different images to express the meaning of Christ’s death and does so in such a way that these images are interwoven with one another and complement and balance one another. That is in itself a most healthy corrective to set against those who, as we shall see, have elevated one single image, such as atoning sacrifice, into the position of a dominant image to which all others are subordinated. Instead, Paul’s almost cataphatic use of a plurality of images signals that no one image is in itself adequate and that, even if Paul himself would hardly have realized it, no images can really ever adequately express what that event means or how it is to be understood.120 That is true of the nature of religious language in general, but particularly of language used to speak of this particular event. Paul’s language here remains and, from the nature of what he is speaking about, must remain allusive and evocative, lacking in precision and systematic rigour. Nonetheless it is instructive how the various images balance, complement and correct each other. It is, therefore, certainly worth spending time trying to analyse and come to terms with at least some of Paul’s ways of speaking of Christ’s death, but, if none of his images are in the last analysis satisfactory or adequate, does that mean that we shall be left with a great vacuum, with no means or hope of understanding what this event meant and means and means for us today? That would, I believe, be the wrong conclusion, and a most regrettable one, to draw from this aporia, and it is my hope that in the course of looking at some of these images and motifs invoked by Paul we shall see how they can often be fruitfully exploited, perhaps in a sense different to that intended by Paul, so that they can be made theologically fruitful today. What is perhaps more difficult to understand is the choice of those aspects of Paul’s handling of the death of Jesus and his soteriology. Again, limitations of time and space, as well as the existence already of so many studies of the theme as a whole, mean that only some aspects have been broached. I have begun, in chapter 6, with what Paul says about the ‘word of the cross’, particularly in 1 Cor 1.18–25, because, in view of the to my mind thoroughly speculative theorizing of many systematic theologians about what was happening as Jesus died, it seemed appropriate to register a word of caution in the light of the apostle’s treatment of 120 Just how varied those images are was well illustrated by Gerd Theissen (‘Symbolik’), even though he surprisingly gave no separate place to the sacrificial language that Paul does, at least occasionally, use. Theissen divides the rest of Paul’s soteriological images into ‘Soziomorphe Interaktionssymbolik’ (symbols of liberation, justification and reconciliation) and ‘Physiomorphe Verwandlungssymbolik’ (symbols involving the transformation of one’s form [Gestalt], death and life, and [comm]union). Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 30–1, offers a somewhat shorter list of five ‘semantic fields’, but only drawn from what Theissen calls ‘Soziomorphe Interaktionssymbolik’ (reconcilation, liberation, representation, sacrifice and justification). And Paul’s ways of speaking of the cross are but one selection among several options that the New Testament presents, as Rudolf Schnackenburg argues (‘Gedanke’) when he sets alongside Paul’s view of the representative death of Christ, the Lukan ‘way’ as we follow the path blazed by our precursor and the Johannine ‘revelation’ soteriology in which the cross of Jesus, like all that he has done on earth, reveals his love (223–4).

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this theme here and in other passages. (Indeed, I had toyed with the possibility of setting the theme of this chapter earlier in this work as a warning for those that seek a neat, logical solution to the theological problem of Jesus’ death, but have instead opted to set it at the beginning of the chapters on Paul’s treatment of that death. It should then remind us that we should expect no neat, logical treatment of this theme in Paul’s writings either, and that the many images and different ways of speaking of the meaning of this event that he uses should not be pressed into yielding any such neat and logical scheme.) Following this salutary warning two aspects of Paul’s soteriology have been considered, ‘Participation in Christ’ (ch. 7) and ‘“Righteousness” and “Justification”’ (ch. 8). My reasoning here was that these two aspects were so fundamental to the apostle’s thought that, if they had no possible meaning for us today, then Paul’s soteriology as a whole was in danger of becoming completely irrelevant for us. However, handling these themes is no easy matter and hermeneutically involves at least three stages. In the first place one needs to ask what Paul is actually saying, and often that does not lie on the surface of his text. Rather, if it is to be at all intelligible, one needs to detect assumptions that lie beneath its surface, an underlying logic, so to speak. Then a second step is to identify those features of what he is saying that still make no sense for us today or are for other reasons unacceptable today, e. g. because they assume a view of God that is for us (or at least for me) untenable, or because they are incredible. (It is true that some people seem to be able to believe anything, but that is no justification for an ‘anything goes’ approach.) Then, finally, one is in a position to try to say what the apostle’s writings can still mean for us today. It needs to be recognized, however, how much the judgements involved in the second and third steps are a highly subjective matter. What I find unacceptable or incredible may cause others not even to bat an eyelid, and I am aware how often in the past I myself used to hold beliefs that I would today be embarrassed to admit having once held. And what I myself find meaningful today may strike others as incomprehensible or irrelevant. On the other hand, there is always the hope that what is suggested here may ring bells for others too, and may enable them to find meaning in what had hitherto made little or no sense to them. I have adopted an approach that is, if I may use the expression, deliberately ‘Jesucentric’, although I am aware that some colleagues speak very disparagingly and disapprovingly of the inadequacies of a ‘Jesuology’. Yet the caution and questioning inherent in a historical discipline does not let me easily follow more dogmatic and more conservative colleagues down a path beset with quagmires of speculative argument, however benumbingly impressive the footwork of the practitioners of this sort of discourse may be. To be lured onto that path I would need to see far more clearly the necessity or at least the advantage of such a route. And, moreover, it became clear to me in the course of this study that a ‘Jesucentric’ approach, while a worthwhile start and foundation, could not be

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the final answer. For, however distinctive and creative Jesus may have been in his handling of Jewish traditions and their beliefs about God and God’s nature, he remained constrained by many aspects of his contemporaries’ world-view and assumptions, assumptions which, as we shall see, may well have led him to hold expectations and convictions that we cannot and should not share today. This parting of the ways became increasingly clear to me in reading Paul Fiddes’ work, Past Event and Present Salvation, a work aimed at a more nonspecialist readership than was the case with his slightly earlier The Creative Suffering of God and accordingly possessed of an admirable lucidity and clarity. For Fiddes at first offers us in a chapter on ‘Faith and History’ (35–58) a summary of various aspects of the life of Jesus which can be seen as forming the background to to his trial and death, and in this he judiciously outlines a great many features with which a large number of Jesus scholars would be in broad agreement, and that on the basis of critical historical research into the life of Jesus.121 With a section entitled ‘The true Son of God’, however, problems begin to arise, though not immediately. For Fiddes rightly recognizes the limitations of historical research here. One could make out a case for Jesus’ functional ‘oneness’ with God on the basis of what Jesus seems to claim for himself by word and deed: expressing it slightly more guardedly than Fiddes does, one could say that Jesus was a man through whom God’s will was revealed, through whom God acted and in whom others encountered, if not God, at least God’s agent. Yet, rightly, Fiddes acknowledges that ‘No historian could make the judgement, strictly as a historian, that Jesus actually was open to God or acting for him’ (53, his italics). Whether Jesus was right in his self-understanding is a matter of interpretation. It is a still further step of faith to follow the early Christian church to a more far-reaching conclusion it gradually reached – that the sonship of Jesus has eternal significance for the nature of God (54).

121 But not always. One could question, for instance, how one knows of the ‘regularity’ with which Jesus addressed God as ‘Abba’ (Fiddes, Event, 54) when the word only occurs in the gospels in Mark 14.36 (and may lie behind the πάτερ of the Lukan version of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11.2). One would rather have to argue more indirectly from the striking occurrence of the Aramaic word in Rom 8.15 and Gal 4.6 that this was a feature of Jesus’ relationship with his God sufficiently striking to be communicated to, and impress itself on, early Greek-speaking Christians. Or there is later the assumption (84–5) that Jesus was charged with blasphemy and rightly so. Yet it may well be that the whole scenario of a formal Jewish trial arose later; at any rate, the legal basis for a charge of blasphemy in the Jewish law of the time remains questionable (cf., e. g., E. Lohse in TDNT 7, 869–70); only if a broader, looser definition of blasphemy is assumed than that presupposed by the later Mishnah can a case be made out for the plausibility of this charge. (Cf., e. g., Theissen/Merz, Jesus, 206, but also Bock, Blasphemy, who argues for such a broad definition of ‘blasphemy’ and sees the basis of the charge in the juxtaposition of Ps 110.1 and Dan 7.13 in Mark 14.62. Yet this places considerable trust in the historicity of the whole scene and the literal accuracy of Jesus’ reply and in the intelligibility of this reference to the ‘son of man’.)

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For Fiddes then goes on to argue, not only for a functional ‘oneness’ between Jesus and his God, but also for ‘oneness’ of being, so that ‘there must always be something “son-like” in the being of God himself’, and to claim that ‘the cross must mean that the alienation and brokenness of the world enters right into the relationships that form the being of God’ (57). Such further steps raise awkward questions, for it is here that we see how how early Christians made use of various conceptual and intellectual resources that lay to hand, not only the often highly imaginative speculations of the Jewish wisdom traditions which Fiddes mentions, but also, for instance, the ideas and thought-world of Stoicism and Middle Platonism and, later, Neoplatonism. And here we must ask how apposite this conceptual apparatus would have been as a means of understanding who Jesus was and what his relationship to his God was.

2. A Deepening Shadow Already in Luke 2 the old prophet Simeon speaks of the child Jesus as a sign that will be spoken against and warns Mary that a sword will pierce her soul too (2.35). That should be treated as a literary device to prepare the reader for the suffering and rejection that is to come, like Mark’s mention of the plotting of the Jewish authorities already in 3.6, but it would be over-critical to try to eliminate all traces of the sense of foreboding that permeates the accounts of Jesus’ way to Jerusalem later in these and the other canonical gospels.1 Such a foreboding and awareness of impending danger is all too intelligible after the execution of John the Baptist by Herod Antipas, for Jesus (and perhaps some of his disciples as well according to John 1.35–42) had been caught up in the Baptist’s movement. It is true that in going up to Jerusalem they were moving outside the area where Herod Antipas held sway, but if there is anything in the reports of tension between Jesus and Pharisees then the influence of this movement in first-century Judaism would be far stronger in Jerusalem than in Galilee. Despite this it is striking how little evidence there is of Pharisaic opposition to Jesus once he arrives in Jerusalem; the threat to him there comes from a different source, from the priestly aristocracy. Nonetheless, if it is correct to interpret the role of the Pharisees or at least some Pharisees as adherents or allies of the Jerusalem authorities, then it would be legitimate to infer from their opposition to Jesus’ movement in Galilee that the attitude of the authorities in Jerusalem would be no more favourable.2 1 Perhaps surprisingly, perhaps nowhere is this clearer than in the Fourth Gospel (admittedly the foreboding is felt there by the disciples rather than the sovereign Johannine Jesus): John 11.7–16. Scot McKnight expends a considerable effort in arguing for Jesus’ expectation of a ‘premature’ death (esp. Jesus, 121–38), but it might have been better to focus on his sense that it was, or might well be, imminent (and violent). The ‘might be’ should be stressed, for Kümmel, having rightly found evidence that Jesus reckoned with an unhappy end to his activity, moves too quickly to the conclusion that Jesus knew that he was going to his death in Jerusalem (Theologie, 77). 2 Some doubt whether the Pharisees would have been as much in evidence in Galilee as the gospels would lead us to expect. Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten, 270 speaks of the Pharisees as ‘rooted in the urban middle class [although it is questionable how far one should speak of a ‘middle class’ in Palestinian society then] and therefore strongly represented in Jerusalem as well’. Theissen and Merz, however, suggest that shortly before Jesus’ time the Pharisaic movement had begun to exert its influence anew in Galilee and that Jesus may have spoken up on behalf of the opposition there to their programme (Jesus, 211). Horsley is perhaps yet further

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At any rate, opposition was to be expected in Jerusalem and a considerable risk. That is rightly underlined by Ulrich Luz when he poses the question why Jesus went up to that city; the situation in the province of Judea was ‘considerably trickier’ with regard to the maintenance of public order, and Jesus, as a prophetic figure with a considerable popular following and therefore a threat to public order, would have to have been ‘blind’ not to have recognized this and to have taken it into consideration.3 He criticizes the reasons given by a number of scholars as too vague: Bornkamm spoke of Jesus seeking there the ‘final decision’ without saying what that decision was;4 for Roloff Jesus would have been aware of the risk that he was running, but nonetheless did not go there to die;5 and Becker speaks of the ample provocation that Jesus had given to various groups, but ignores the question of Jesus’ purpose.6 This question needs to be asked, Luz rightly maintains, and comes to the conclusion that even a text such as Luke 12.49–50 provides no clear answers, and ‘The only passage that may help us here, are the words of institution of the last supper’.7 However diffidently, he argues that Jesus discloses there that he viewed his death as atoning, but we shall see reason to doubt that verdict. Rudolf Bultmann reveals a very different assessment of the evidence when he comes to the sombre and much quoted conclusion that we can know very little about how Jesus may have viewed his death.8 It is one of the main problems confronting any attempt to portray Jesus’ character that ‘we cannot tell how Jesus understood his end, his death’. That judgement was made on the basis of an disposed to believe the gospels’ accounts of Pharisaic emissaries in Galilee, suggesting that they would be suspect in the eyes of the people there und unpopular because of their strict observance of tithing (Sociology, 75). In his later work on Galilee he sees reliable historical material in Luke 11.37–52 and Mark 7.1–13 and 10.2–9 that reflects criticism of the Pharisees because of the social and economic consequences of their religious activity; he regards them, not as settled in Galilee, but as sent there on the orders of the Jerusalem authorities. He finds a possible indirect confirmation of this scenario in the fact that later, on the outbreak of revolt in 66 CE, the Jerusalem authorities reacted swiftly by sending Pharisees or Pharisaic sympathisers like Josephus or the delegation that came from Jerusalem to replace him (Galilee, 70, 150–1, 234). Casey, Jesus, 346–7, sees the ‘scribes’ as the informants of the Jerusalem authorities and argues, plausibly enough, that, in the light of the information that they had supplied, ‘chief priests, scribes and elders were seriously opposed to Jesus long before his final visit to Jerusalem’. 3 Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, esp. 412–14. His criticisms of Bornkamm, Roloff and Becker are to be found on p. 411. Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 24, remarks that it is generally recognized that Jesus’ violent death would have come as no surprise to him and that he would have been quite unrealistic if it had. 4 Bornkamm, Jesus, 142–3 (ET 154–5). 5 Roloff, Jesus, 105–6. 6 Cf. Becker, Jesus, 401–11. 7 Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 425. 8 Cf. also Schrage, ‘Verständnis’, 51: ‘an interpretation of the meaning of his crucifixion by Jesus himself has not been preserved. … the saving significance of this event was neither proclaimed nor predicted or even hinted at by Jesus.’

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exegete’s critical sifting of the seeming evidence in the gospels for such an anticipation of his death on Jesus’ part, leading to the negative conclusion that such evidence stemmed rather from the reflections of Jesus’ followers; such sayings as there are were vaticinia ex eventu.9 Even the inference that Jesus expected an end like the Baptist’s is ‘a psychological construction, which is not particularly probable, inasmuch as Jesus had apparently conceived of the impression that he made as different from that given by the Baptist, from whom he distinguished himself (Matt 11.16–19)’. If Bornkamm and Conzelmann are correct in supposing that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to confront those in that city with the need for a decision in the light of his message of God’s reign,10 then he ‘hardly reckoned with his execution at the hands of the Romans, but rather that God’s kingdom would now come’.11 His death is not so much the consequence of his ministry as the result of a misunderstanding of that ministry as a political one, a pointless fate. ‘We cannot tell whether or how [Jesus] made sense of it. We cannot shut our eyes to the possibility that he broke down.’12 That may be true, but it would be unwise to dismiss out of hand the possibility that he did see sufficient parallels between his ministry and that of the Baptist to warrant a certain foreboding as to his own end, whether at the hands of the Romans or at the hands of his fellow Jews. For, unless the gospels have got it completely wrong, he too experienced sufficient criticism and opposition even in Galilee to be aware that, when he got to Jerusalem, his reception there, at least in some quarters, might be none too friendly. For even Matt 11.16–19 not only highlights the difference between his lifestyle and that of the Baptist, but also comments drily on the fact people found fault with both of them. Strikingly, Leonardo Boff seems to go even further than Bultmann when he confidently asserts that ‘there is no textual evidence for a consciousness or knowledge on the part of the historical Jesus of his approaching death’, while Bultmann recognized the textual evidence but discounted it as later and secondary. Jesus first realized this, Boff claims, only on the cross. What he had already anticipated was rather the apocalyptic idea of the time of trial before the end, with the attendant danger of falling, of not being equal to the trial. In keeping with this Boff has denied that Mark 12.1–12 parr. refers to Jesus’ death, but this interpretation is somewhat weakened by the argument that the parable was meant to warn ‘the religious authorities … to abandon their plot to liquidate also Bultmann, Theology 1, 29. reference is to Bornkamm cited above, and Conzelmann, Jesus, 84 (Ger. in RGG3 3, col. 647). 11 Anton Vögtle raises a further possibility: Jesus might have reckoned with the possibility that he would return to Galilee again after this Passover festival (‘Todesankündigung’, 72). 12 Bultmann, ‘Verhältnis’, 11–12 (452–3, his italics). But cf. Schürmann, ‘Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und verstanden?’, 331, 337–8 = 24, 33–4. Gut, Schrei, 25–6, makes the valid point that Bultmann seems here to have moderated his earlier view that Mark 15.34 is an elaboration of 15.37 with the help of Psalm 22.   9 Cf.

10 The

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Jesus’.13 Yet one who knows of such a plot against himself must reckon with the possibility that the warning will not be heeded, and Boff recognizes that Jesus, aware of the opposition to himself, his message and his praxis, ‘realized that he could come to a traumatic end’ (60). Despite this, Boff then goes on to say that Jesus went up to Jerusalem in the expectation of seeing there ‘the complete irruption of the reign of God and the victory of his cause’ and even on leaving Gethsemane still ‘trusts that God will deliver him’ (61). Yet historical probability suggests that Jesus must have been aware that he was risking his life in going to Jerusalem and the texts do not clearly repudiate that. Indeed, Boff goes on to say that already in Galilee ‘Jesus came to realize that he was engaged in a dramatic, life-and-death struggle’, yet this apparent contradiction is resolved for Boff by postulating that Jesus’ apocalyptic world-view meant that ‘he expected to be delivered by God from any really life-threatening situation’ (64). Yet Matthew has Jesus saying to those that had come to arrest him that he could ask God for help and that he would then be rescued by twelve legions of angels (Matt 26.53). By implication, then, he had not asked for this and the angels had, accordingly, not been sent. That, of course, could very plausibly have been put on Jesus’ lips later by his followers, knowing that no such intervention had taken place.14 Here, however, it is necessary to ask how much evidence there is in the texts of such an expectation of deliverance ‘from any really life-threatening situation’. There are, of course, the predictions of suffering, death and resurrection attributed to Jesus, but if ‘resurrection’ is predicted ‘on the third day’ (Matt 16.21 par.; 17.23; 20.19 par.) or ‘after three days’ (Mark 8.31; 9.31; 10.34), as opposed to in a general resurrection at some unspecified point in the future,15 is it not likely that at least this part of the prediction is a vaticinium ex eventu? And yet we shall see that perhaps some such (mistaken) expectation of divine intervention at the end may offer the likeliest explanation of the sense of betrayal that resounds in Jesus’ cry on the cross. Nonetheless, before we accept Boff ’s not altogether consistent reading, we need to recall the implications of that other salient episode on the passion narrative, Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane; there is there little sign of a confident expectation of divine intervention, but rather dread, apprehension and foreboding. And to dismiss one or other of these two episodes as competely unhistorical and thus remove the tension between the two might well be premature.

13 Boff,

Passion, 49,54.

14 In contrast Boff (Passion, 63) happily quotes John 10.18 as if it reflected Jesus’ own attitude,

although it is in all probability even more heavily indebted to later christological reflection. 15 But if ‘after three days’ simply means ‘soon’ and if Jesus also predicted or at least expected that his disciples would share his resurrection (e. g. Barrett, Jesus, 78), then perhaps this would be conceivable on Jesus’ lips, but is this formulation not nevertheless rather an odd way of putting it?

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2.1 The Fate of a Prophet At any rate, once Jesus had learnt of the Baptist’s fate it is thoroughly intelligible that he would have reflected on the implications of this for someone like himself whose preaching shared so much in common with that of the Baptist.16 It is likely that he thought of himself as filling a prophetic role even though he was conscious that something yet greater was taking place in his ministry than what had occurred in the preaching of the prophet Jonah.17 It is also plausible that Jesus was aware how often prophets before the Baptist had also had to suffer, even if God had at the end rescued Elijah despite the earlier threats to his life (1 Kings 19.2, 10; 2 Kings 2.11). Many prophets were not so lucky as the collection The Lives of the Prophets attests, some indeed suffering in Jerusalem,18 and there are signs in the gospel traditions that the sufferings of the prophets was a well-known theme. For the servants that are sent to the tenants in the vineyard in Mark 12.2–5 parr. and the servants killed by invited guests in Matthew’s version of the Parable of the Great Feast (Matt 22.6) reflect this tradition of Israel’s violent treatment of God’s emissaries, as does the lament over Jerusalem’s treatment of the prophets and God’s emissaries in Luke 13.34 par.19 Luke 11.49–51 probably contains an earlier form of the denunciation of the treatment meted out to the prophets in the past; for it is there wisdom that has spoken in the past about sending prophets and apostles who will be killed and persecuted, whereas in Matthew 23.34–6 Jesus speaks in the present and speaks of a fate that includes crucifixion,20 flogging in synagogues and pursuit from city to city. That reflects rather the subsequent fate of Jesus’ followers, but, apart from the reference to ‘apostles’, Luke’s version could just as well apply to earlier prophets and emissaries.21 It is, then, potentially all the more significant that Jesus is made, in Luke 13.33, to explain his journey to Jerusalem by means of the principle that that was where 16 Often quoted is Dodd’s argument (Parables, 45–6) that, in the light of (a) the prophetic and apocalyptic tradition that anticipated tribulations for Israel before a final triumph, (b) the tradition of prophets having to suffer, and (c) the reinforcing of this in the fate of the Baptist, ‘it needed, not supernatural prescience, but the ordinary insight of an intelligent person, to see whither things were tending, at least during the later stages of the ministry’. 17 Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 291. 18 Cf. Charlesworth, OT Pseudepigrapha 2, 385–99. (Many exceptions to the violent fates of prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah and Amos are mentioned in this work.) Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 416, names a number of prophets killed in Jerusalem: Uriah (Jer 26.20–3), Zechariah son of Jehoiada (2 Chron 24.20–2; Lives of the Prophets 23.1), and Isaiah (Mart. Is. 5.1–14; cf. Lives of the Prophets 1.1). 19 Cf. also Luke 6.23 par.; 11.49–51 par. 20 Yet Luz, Matthäus 3, 371, points out that Jews would not have crucified Christians, and Gnilka, Matthäusevangelium 2, 300, proposes that they could at the most have instigated the carrying out of this sentence (as in the case of Jesus and perhaps, as Gnilka asks, that of Peter in Rome). 21 The Critical Edition of Q, 284, replaces Luke’s ἀποστόλους with Matthew’s σοφούς.

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a prophet must die.22 However, there is much to be said for Michael Wolter’s verdict that we have here a specifically Lukan perspective: ‘Jerusalem’ does not stand for Israel as a whole, but rather in his double work it is the Jerusalem Jews who are made responsible for Jesus’ death.23 Nor, for that matter, is it quite true that all prophets who met a violent end did so in Jerusalem.24 And it is also characteristic of Luke that Jesus’ role as a prophet and the perception of him a a prophetic figure are stressed in his gospel as well as in Acts (cf. Luke 4.24; 7.16; 24.19; Acts 3.22; 7.37).25 Firm evidence that Jesus himself reflected on his likely fate in this prophetic tradition is therefore hard to find, however plausible and probable the recent fate of the Baptist may make this suggestion.26 And yet, at the risk of being a little speculative, one might ask if two otherwise more than a little controversial passages might not, at least indirectly, have a bearing on this question, Mark 9.12–13 par. and Luke 16.16 par. The first of the passages brings together the coming of Elijah, ‘to whom they did all that they wanted, as it is written of him’, and the suffering and rejection of the ‘son of man’. At least Matt 11.14 states explicitly that the Baptist was this coming Elijah – if Jesus’ disciples are willing to accept it.27 Now it may well be that Mark has, as Gnilka suggests,28 reshaped a dispute in the later Christian community as a historical scene from the life of Jesus. Nonetheless the juxtaposition of the saying about Elijah with that concerning the suffering and rejected ‘son of man’ (which after Easter would undoubtedly be understood as a statement about Jesus) reflects clearly the awareness of the similarity of the fate that overtook this most recent of the prophets and that which Jesus suffered. Luke 16.16 par. is more than a little obscure and contentious, and yet its very obscurity perhaps speaks for its having been, at least in its original form, a dominical saying.

22 Bovon sees the choice of ἐνδέχεται here as an alternative to the δεῖ of 13.33a (Lukas 2, 453).

Lukasevangelium, 497; also Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 24–6. In contrast, Bornkamm, Jesus, 154, regards 13.31–3 as certainly containing ‘as their kernel an authentic saying’. Casey, Jesus, 342–3, traces 13.31–3 back to an Aramaic source and infers from it that ‘Galilee was no longer a safe place for Jesus to be’ and that Jesus was by then aware ‘that the political opposition to him would be fatal’. 24 Fitzmyer, Luke 2, 1032, notes that Amos died in Bethel. For the tradition of other exceptions cf. also Lives of the Prophets 2.1; 3.1–2. 25 Cf. also the denial of his prophetic status in Luke 7.39. Common to all the Synoptics is the mocking demand that Jesus prophesy after the hearing before the Jewish authorities (Mark 14.65 parr.). 26 Nonetheless, Goppelt, Theologie, 239, asserts that ‘Jesus must have expected the fate that his Jewish environment regarded as customary’. 27 Cf. also Matt 11.10//Luke 7.27 where Mal 3.1 is quoted, identifying the Baptist with the ‘messenger’ prophesied there; it is, however, only later in Mal 4.5 that the coming of Elijah is expressly foretold. 28 Gnilka, Markus 2, 41. 23 Wolter,

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Matt 11.12–14 // Luke 16.16 Matt 11.12 From the time of John the Bap- Luke 16.16b Since then is the good news tist till today is violence inflicted on God’s of God’s kingdom proclaimed and all force their way into it (βιάζεται). kingdom (βιάζεται) and violent persons (βιασταί) plunder it. 13 For until John all prophets and the law 16a Until John one had the law and the prophesied. prophets. 14 And, if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah, who is due to come again.

A first striking feature of this is the way in which Matthew and Luke have their roughly parallel material in a different order: while Luke 16.16 begins with a partial parallel to Matt 11.13, Luke 16.16b corresponds to a part of Matt 11.12. On the whole, Matthew’s order seems to be the more logical. Another feature is the accumulation of words suggesting violence, particularly in Matthew’s version (βιάζεται, βιασταί, ἁρπάζουσιν).30 By contrast the first part of Luke 16.16b says nothing of violence suffered by God’s kingdom, but speaks of the proclamation of the good news of God’s kingdom or reign. This variant is perhaps best understood as secondary, an attempt to mitigate the difficulty of the saying. A plausible original form might be: The law and the prophets until John; from then on God’s kingdom suffers violence and violent people plunder it.31

Such a saying would be most readily intelligible once the violent fate of the Baptist was known. Now John apparently stood in Jesus’s eyes on the threshold between two ages, that of the law and the prophets and that of the inbreaking reign of God (cf. also Matt 11.11 par.). It would then be no surprise if the violence 29 In Luke middle, in Matthew either passive or middle (cf. BDAG s.v. § 2: ‘God’s kingdom/ kingly reign makes its way with triumphant force’). 30 Gnilka, Jesus, 151, opts for the translation ‘resolute’ (‘fest Entschlossene’), but then the word-play βιάζεται – βιασταί seems to be obscured. In Matthäusevangelium 1, 417, he preferred an interpretation in malam partem, as does Meier, Marginal Jew 2, 158–9. Allison, End, 121–2, also argues cogently for a passive sense in malam partem (cf. G. Schrenk in TDNT 1, 611): it is a matter of ‘hostile action against the kingdom’. With the reference to βιασταί he compares the use of µyxyr[ in 1QH 10.11, 21 (‘violent men … vicious men’ in the tr. of Martínez and Tigchelaar). 31 I.e. something like Ὁ νόµος καὶ οἱ προφῆται µέχρι Ἰωάννου· ἀπὸ τότε ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ βιάζεται, καὶ βιασταὶ ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτήν. Similarly The Critical Edition of Q, 464; Meier, Marginal Jew 2, 160. However, Becker, Jesus, 140, suggests as an original form: The law and the prophets until John. From then on God’s kingdom/reign makes its way forcefully, and violent persons plunder it . The conjunction of the power or violence of the progress of the βασιλεία (βιάζεται mid.) and the violence to which it is exposed (βιασταὶ ἁρπάζουσιν αὐτήν) is awkward.

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meted out to John continued on into the following period, with Jesus’ message of the presence of God’s reign provoking a violent reaction yet further.32 If this saying originated with Jesus, would it not then reflect his awareness that all true messengers of God’s reign would provoke the same sort of reaction against themselves? That would also apply, of course, to Jesus himself, and such an interpretation of the saying would have considerable implications for his own expectations of the outcome of his ministry.

2.2 Predictions of the Passion? The Synoptic Gospels contain a threefold prediction by Jesus of his coming fate (Mark 8.31; 9.31 and 10.33–4 and their respective parallels) and yet the very specificity of most of these have led many scholars to regard these as vaticinia ex eventu.33 And yet, if Jesus were aware of the possibility or indeed the likelihood that he might suffer a similar fate to the Baptist, then it is by no means impossible that he might have sought to warn his disciples of this. Plausible candidates for such a warning are sayings that betray little of the specific details that have made scholars suspect other predictions. One such text is Luke 9.44b, ‘For the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.’ For one thing this sentence contains the word-play ‘son of man-men’, for another it contains the verb παραδίδοσθαι that plays such a prominent part in the passion traditions. That is also true of the first part of the longer predictions found in Matthew 17.22–3 and Mark 9.31 (Matthew: µέλλει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοσθαι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων, Mark: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοται εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων). Above all, this half-verse in Luke is both concise and non-specific in comparison to the lengthier and more detailed predictions in Matthew and Mark. One could, of course, suggest that Luke has simply shortened the text that is found in Matthew or Mark, but that raises the question of the evangelist’s motivation for this abbreviation. It is true that any repetition of the first prediction in Luke 9.22 is thus avoided,34 but that does not deter the evangelist in the third prediction in 18.32–3, which is admittedly separated from the first two predictions by most of Luke’s account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem.35 Or there is Bovon’s further Allison, Jesus, 146, citing Perrin, Jesus, 46 (cf. also 83 n. 51). e. g., Jeremias, Theology, 277, with regard to the most explicit form in Mark 10.33–4 parr.: ‘This corresponds so exactly with the course of the passion narrative and the Easter story, even down to details, that there can be no doubt that this passion prediction is a summary of the passion formulated after the event.’ Bultmann had dismissed all the predictions, not just those in Mark 8.31; 9.31 and 10.33–4 but also 10.45 and 14.21, 41, as indubitably vaticinia ex eventu (Theology 1, 29). Cf. also Kessler, Bedeutung, 234, 252. 34 Cf. Bovon, Lukas 1, 516. 35 Scholars are undecided quite where this section of Luke ends, e. g. 19.27, 28 or 44 (cf. Schnelle, Einleitung, 264 n. 357. 32 Cf.

33 See,

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suggestion that so cryptic a prediction provides the foil for the disciples’ lack of understanding mentioned in the following verse.36 In view of the uncertainty, therefore, whether Luke is a witness to so brief a prediction, there is much to be said for Joachim Jeremias’s suggestion that Mark 9.31 has expanded what was originally a self-contained logion attested also in a slightly different form later in Mark 14.41 (παραδίδοται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τῶν ἁµαρτωλῶν). He points to the change in tense between the present of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου παραδίδοται εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων (where both Matthew and Luke insert µέλλει) and the future of the following καὶ ἀποκτενοῦσιν αὐτόν, καὶ ἀποκτανθεὶς µετὰ τρεῖς ἡµέρας ἀναστήσεται, arguing that Mark’s παραδίδοται goes back to an Aramaic participle similar to that found in a number of Syriac versions at this point. To these points Gnilka adds that the change in subject between the ‘son of man’ and the ‘they’ of ἀποκτενοῦσιν jars.37 Jeremias thus argues for ‘a primitive form of the passion predictions’, ‘the ancient nucleus which underlies the passion predictions’, with the wording mitmesar bar ’ enāšā līdē benē ’ enāšā. ‘This is a māšāl, a riddle, simply because bar ’ enāšā can be understood either as a title or generically.’ Generically it could refer to ‘the eschatological time of distress, in which the individual would be surrendered up to the mass’; used as a title it would refer to the ‘son of man’ being delivered up.38 36 Bovon, Lukas 1, 519. That is at least more plausible than Wolter’s suggestion that the shorter prediction serves to explain the temporally limited presence of Jesus in 9.41b–c (Lukasevangelium, 359); the inclusion of his being killed would do this even better. 37 Gnilka, Markus 2, 53. However, he is unconvinced by the arguments for an Aramaic origin: the word-play would work equally well in Greek (cf. Vögtle, ‘Todesankündigungen’, 62–3). Consequently he locates the origins of the saying in Greek-speaking Jewish Christianity. On the other hand, would Jesus’ followers not have preferred to be more specific about the fate of Jesus or were they so set on the word-play? 38 Jeremias, Theology, 281–2. Similarly Pesch, Markusevangelium 2, 99–100; see also Schweizer, Mark, 190. However it is surprising how few scholars, particularly in the English-speaking world, seem to have reckoned with the possibility that this prediction is a composite one, containing an earlier core and later elaborations; instead the prediction has been treated as a whole, whether one then regards it as early or authentic or regards it as a later formulation. This attempt to find an original logion that has subsequently been expanded I find more convincing than Maurice Casey’s attempt to make out a case for such a nucleus in a slightly shortened version of Mark 8.31 (most recently Jesus, esp. 377–81). Above all, the presence of ‘after three days’ instead of the chronologically more appropriate ‘on the third day’ seems to me insufficient evidence that Jesus made a prediction in these terms, even if it meant nothing more precise than ‘after a short interval’ (did that apply more generally than just to Jesus’ fate, a criterion in Casey’s eyes for authentic ‘son of man’ sayings?) or even ‘when I am certainly dead’ (472; cf. also Landes, ‘“Three Days”’, 446–7); fulfilment of the Old Testament, either the story of Jonah (Matt 12.40) or the old tradition that Israel journeyed three days from Egypt to the Red Sea (Philo, Vit. Mos. 1.163), is another possibility; cf. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 50–1, 259 n. 117. Yet quite how ‘after a short interval’ or ‘when I am certainly dead’ is compatible with Casey’s holding that Jesus predicted a ‘lengthy delay in the coming of the kingdom’ (484) is not clear. And for Casey an important argument is also that Jesus must have said something like this to provoke Peter’s protest, followed by Jesus’ rebuke (Mark 8.32–3), but is Peter so likely to have protested thus if Jesus had also predicted his subsequent vindication?

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It is to be noted, however, that McKnight grants that none of these passion predictions indicates an atoning or redemptive function for Jesus’ death. There is no trace that his death will atone or accomplish salvation. In fact, it breathes the air of the martyrdom of a prophet or Jewish leader.39

That is true, although, as we shall see, there are texts which seem to ascribe a salvific role to Jewish martyrs’ deaths, at least in the sense of averting further woes. Yet we shall also see that Jesus seems to have seen his impending suffering, not as averting woes, but as inaugurating them. And it is also to be noted that if the vindication which McKnight sees as an integral part of the passion predictions is a collective one, as he also maintains, then it has to follow that the predicted suffering and rejection are also collective, and that is plausible, particularly with regard to his immediate circle of followers. Yet, rightly, Jeremias also warns against concentrating exclusively on the three passion predictions in Mark 8, 9 and 10 and their parallels. He lists a series of further material that is relevant:40 (a) ‘Threats against the murderers of God’s messengers’ and the builders of the prophets’ tombs ‘who themselves are in process of murdering the prophet’ and against the traitor (Mark 14.21 parr.). (b) ‘Accusations against Jerusalem, that murders the prophets’ as well as the warning against murdering the heir (Mark 12.8 parr.). (c) M ešālîm ‘at the centre of which stands Jesus’ own fate’ (he here lists Matt 8.20 par.; Mark 9.13 par.; 14.7–8 par., 22–4 parr., 36 parr.; Luke 13.33; John 16.16),41 as well as ‘the māšāl underlying the passion predictions and kindred mešālîm’ just mentioned: the ‘son of man’ ‘goes, goes forth, is delivered up, must suffer many things’. McKnight, too, lays emphasis on the ‘after three days’ (Jesus, 233–5), but the influence of Dan 7.25 (‘a time, two times, and half a time’) which he finds here is harder to discern; it is far easier in the case of the ἡµέρας τρεῖς καὶ ἥµισυ in Rev 11.9 (cf. also 11, µετὰ τὰς τρεῖς ἡµέρας καὶ ἥµισυ). 39 McKnight, Jesus, 230; cf. 238: ‘in none of these instances [of further passion predictions] does Jesus see his death in terms of atonement. Jesus sees his death as a representative death, as the death of one who embodies the fate of his followers. He, with his followers, is the Son of man who suffers and is vindicated.’ Some of McKnight’s arguments connecting Jesus’ predictions with Daniel 7 may be questionable, particularly if one questions whether ‘son of man’ was originally a reference to that chapter, but it is also to be noted that he rejects any clear proof of the influence of Deutero-Isaiah’s servant. (I am still puzzled by the assertion, with reference to Daniel 7[?], that ‘in that text the Son of man suffers with a view to atoning for sins (9:24)’ – cf. JTS 58 [2007] 259; nowhere else does McKnight refer to this verse, which is primarily an allusion to Jer 22.11–12; 29.10 rather than to Daniel 7, as Dan 9.2 makes clear.) 40 Jeremias, Theology, 282–3. 41 Also listed is ‘the return from the dead, Luke 11.29 par.’, but that only seems to be applicable to Matthew’s rather different, and probably secondary, version and interpretation of the reference to the ‘sign of Jonah’. It is more likely that the reference is to Jonah’s prophetic preaching of the need for repentance.

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(d) M ešālîm ‘which put the fate of Jesus in the context of other events of the end time’ (listed are Mark 2.20 parr.; 10.38–9; 10.45 par.; 12.10 parr.; 14.27 par.; Luke 12.49–50; 22.35–8). (e) ‘Announcements of the suffering of the disciples’, on the assumption that they would not have been prepared by Jesus for suffering had he not also expected to suffer.42 Jeremias then argues that ‘The very fullness of the announcements of suffering listed under (a) to (e) above, and even more the mysteriousness and indefiniteness of many of them, to say nothing of the many images in which they are expressed and the variety of forms and genres, show that we have a broad stratum of tradition with much early material in it.’ Further evidence of early tradition is to be found in the way in which a number of these announcements ‘are anchored in their context’ (his italics). Moreover, they often contain a number of features that were not fulfilled, such as the suggestion that Jesus might die by stoning (Matt 23.37//Luke 13.34) or a number of texts that perhaps give the impression ‘that his suffering would be the prelude to collective suffering’ (284).43 A point that Jeremias does not mention and which is surely salient is the fact that in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12.1–12 parr.) Mark 12.8 not only warns against murdering the heir, but that this murder is the culmination of a lengthy mishandling of the various emissaries sent to the tenants in the vineyard. Now it is true that some have wished to excise the reference to the son as a later, christologically motivated addition, but, on the other hand, the story seems to lack its climax and point if the ill-treatment of the various envoys is not

42 Cf. Allison, End, 116–17: this would follow if one accepted any of the following as authenti – Mark 8.34–5; 9.1; 13.9–13; 10.38–9; Matt 10.28 par.; 10.34–6 par.; 10.37–9 par. To these Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 417–18, adds Matt 10.28, 32–3, 38–9//Luke 12.4–5, 8–9; 14.27; 17.33, but discounts Matt 5.11//Luke 6.22; (Mark 13.11//)Matt 10.19–20//Luke 12.11–12; Matt 23.34–6//Luke 11.49–51; Matt 10.34–6//Luke 12.51–3; and Mark 13.9, 11–12, as formulations of the early church reflecting circumstances after Easter. He points out (418) that in Luke 14.27 par. bearing one’s cross (if it is taken literally of being taken to one’s crucifixion) does not fit later Christianity ‘where the crucifixion of [Jesus’] disciples was a rare exception’, and the other passages presuppose that the disciples could die a martyr’s death. Cf. also the briefer list given by Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 24. 43 Mentioned here are Mark 10.35–40; 14.27; Luke 22.35–8; 23.31. Less convincing is perhaps Jeremias’ argument from the recurring phrase ‘after three days’, where he argues that it simply ‘denotes an indefinite but not particularly long period of time’ (Theology, 285), although he is correct in noting that in some cases the three days are not derived from the period from Good Friday to Easter, but in the case of Luke 13.32–3 refer to the time of Jesus’ ministry. The rebuilding of the temple in three days (Mark 14.58; 15.29) is less certain, for John 2.19, 21 does interpret this as a reference to Jesus’ resurrection. Bauer’s article ‘Drei Tage’ is often cited in support of the thesis that this simply means ‘soon’, and this is how Bauer applies it to predictions of the resurrection, but it is to be noted that he also mentions that the ‘three days’ can just as well refer to a period of time that is experienced as being a long one (357–8).

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followed by this yet more drastic response.44 It is not only the sending that the son shares with the previous envoys, but also the violent rejection by the tenants. However, unless one is prepared to see the following quotation of Psalm 118.22–3 in 12.10–11 as part of the original story, it should be noted that no good follows upon the death of the son and heir.45 No one benefits from his death except perhaps the wicked tenants if their hopes of having the vineyard to themselves are realized.46 And that seems to be ruled out by Mark 12.9. Some see the answer to the question what the owner of the vineyard would do as secondary,47 but the hearers would hardly have answered it for themselves in a way more favourable for the tenants. And it seems likely that the following Old Testament quotation is a secondary addition. The Gospel of Thomas has an equivalent to it, although it is not quoted as an Old Testament quotation,48 but as a separate logion of Jesus introduced with ‘Jesus said’ (§ 66). Yet admittedly it follows immediately after the parable in § 65. Luke too breaks off the quotation after the reference to the cornerstone, as do Acts 4.11 and 1 Pet 2.7. Moreover, the imagery of the quotation does not fit that of the parable particularly well.49 And it is equally true that many of the other possibly authentic sayings in which Jesus speaks of his impending fate are no more positive, in the sense that they do not indicate that his fate will bring benefit or salvation to others.50 That is true of Mark 10.38–9, where Jesus asks the sons of Zebedee whether they can drink the cup that he drinks or share the baptism with which he is baptized. They answer in the affirmative and Jesus endorses their answer. That is surely significant, for, had Jesus understood his fate to be salvific, would that not have meant that the fates of the sons of Zebedee would be similarly salvific? We are 44 Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 290, noting that even the version in the Gospel of Thomas so favoured by some includes the sending of the son (§ 65) and citing, e. g., Luz, Matthäus 3, 219–20 (the ‘qualitative leap’ from the servants to the son ‘can only be satisfactorily accounted for if one assumes that Jesus spoke indirectly here of his own mission, which surpassed that of the prophets’; yet it does not necessarily follow that he identified himself directly with the son); Weder, Gleichnisse, 154. But contrast, e. g., Conzelmann, Outline, 127 (cf. Ger 101) who sees here the work of the early Christian community (cf. Bultmann, Geschichte, 191; Kümmel. Promise, 83, followed, tentatively, by Fuller, Foundations, 114, 194, who treat the whole parable as a later Christian allegory; it is then all the more surprising that Crossan, Jesus, xv, includes it in his inventory of words actually going back to the historical Jesus and that the Jesus Seminar thought that a version of the parable, ‘without allegorical overtones, could be traced to Jesus’; this original version included ‘getting rid of the only heir’: Funk, Gospels, 101). 45 It is significant that McKnight, Jesus, 153, finds no more here than the expectation of a martyr’s death like those of other prophets in Israel, both ancient and more recent. 46 Matt 21.43 first implicitly interprets the parable for us and then assures us that God’s kingdom will be given to those bearing appropriate fruits. 47 E.g. Weder, Gleichnisse, 149, 154. 48 ‘Jesus said, “Show me the stone which the builders rejected. That is the cornerstone”’ (tr. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, 144). 49 Thus the quotation is widely regarded as a secondary addition: e. g. Weder, Gleichnisse, 150. 50 So Dodd, Parables, 55–6, on the ‘eschatology of woe’ that he finds in Jesus’ predictions.

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surely very far removed from any suggestion that Jesus’s death would be unique, let alone the unique atonement for the rest of humanity.51 And when Luke has Jesus speak of the impending baptism, longing for it to be over, he places it after a saying in which Jesus speaks of casting fire upon the earth (Luke 12.49–50); that surely points to judgement rather than salvation.52 Similarly, Jesus’ words, or at least the words attributed to Jesus in Luke 23.28–9,53 addressed to the lamenting women tell them to mourn, not for him, but for themselves and their children, in view of the woes that will follow. And, finally, when Jesus speaks of the ‘son of man’ going to the fate foretold for him in scripture in Mark 14.21, he speaks of no impending blessing or benefit for others, but only of the woe that awaits the one who has handed him over. This aspect of Jesus’ message should come as no surprise. For, however much Jesus’ ministry may have differed from that of the Baptist, we should not distinguish the two as all darkness in contrast to all light, all threats in contrast to all promise, all doom in contrast to all salvation. Whatever difference there was was rather a difference of degree. However menacing John’s message may have been (Luke 3.7–9 par.), his was a message calling his hearers to a repentance that promised salvation in the impending judgement. And however much Jesus’ message centred on the joyful outworking of God’s reign that he was ushering in, he found it appropriate to warn those that rejected his message of the dire consequences that they would soon suffer. For in Jürgen Becker’s view Mark’s concentration on the christological implications of the divine revelation to Jesus at his baptism has obscured ‘the primary and historical meaning’ of that baptism, ‘namely that in his baptism Jesus registered his agreement with the essential message of the Baptist’s preaching of judgement, both in general and in particular with regard to his own person’.54 And that agreement extended to the conviction that, without repentance, Israel as a whole was lost and could no longer presume upon either the fact that it was Israel or upon its covenant status.55 51 We shall see below that Casey, Jesus, 404–5, takes this problem on board by supposing that Jesus (and his immediate circle of followers) did reckon with their dying as a group, as martyrs in the plural, and not just Jesus alone. Yet this is then weakened by the admission that ‘very little of the material includes anyone other than [Jesus], so we must conclude that his main expectation was that he would die, and this is what he repeatedly foretold’ (408). 52 Cf. McKnight, Jesus, 146. Allison, End, 124–8, couples this with the talk of Jesus’ baptism in 12.50 and points out how water and fire are coupled, not only in the baptism with fire in Matt 3.11//Luke 3.16, but also in Isa 30.27–8; 43.2 and Luke 17.26–30. 53 Cf. also Gospel of Thomas § 79. One may justifiably wonder whether these words have not been attributed to Jesus by ‘Luke’ or his source with the advantage of hindsight. Cf. Brown, Death, 920–4, 929–32; Klein, Lukasevangelium, 704 and n. 4. 54 Becker, Jesus, 60. 55 Cf. again Becker, Jesus, 91: ‘Jesus shared with the Baptist a basic conviction regarding the generation alive at their time: it had failed in relation to God to such an extent that God’s assurances to Israel concerning its election and the covenant had expired.’ Cf. Matt 8.11–12; Luke 4.25–7; 11.31–2 par.

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For most would accept that in the woes pronounced upon three cities in Luke 10.13–15//Matt 11.20–4 we have an authentic saying, in view of the fact that we nowhere else hear of activity of Jesus in Chorazin. Luke 12.49–53 also contains sayings with a strong claim to authenticity: Jesus has come to cast fire upon the earth (cf. Gospel of Thomas § 10), to bring, not peace, but division (διαµερισµός; or likelier ‘a sword’, Matt 10.34), with fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law alienated from one another (cf. Matt 10.35–6, adding the alienation of a person from members of his own household).56 In Luke, too, we find Jesus’ reference to two otherwise unknown events, Pilate’s killing of some Galileans as they offered sacrifices and the death of eighteen persons when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them, with the warning appended to both incidents that, unless the hearers repent, they will all perish as these victims did (13.1–5).57 To these may be added the warning to this generation, noted above, that they will be held responsible for the deaths of the prophets (Luke 11.49–51 par.).

2.3 Suffering to Bring Salvation? There are, however, two passages in which Jesus seems to suggest that he views his death as salvific, his words at his last meal with his disciples and the ‘ransom’saying in Mark 10.45b par.58 The first of these passages will warrant a separate treatment in the following chapter, but the possibility that the second contains an authentic saying of Jesus needs to be considered here. From the start, however, it needs to be recognized that the saying stands somewhat isolated in the corpus of the New Testament, having to wait until the relatively late deutero-Pauline 1 Tim 2.6 (ὁ δοὺς ἑαυτὸν ἀντίλυτρον ὑπὲρ πάντων) for a close parallel, even if the imagery of λυτρόοµαι/λύτρωσις/λυτρωτής and ἀπολύτρωσις is more widely found. The ‘ransom’-saying in Mark 10.45b par. has been widely regarded as a later addition to an original saying about the ‘son of man’ having come to serve.59 56 Allison, End, 119–20, aptly compares m.Sotah 9.15, also drawing on Micah 7.6: ‘With the footprints of the Messiah: presumption increases, and dearth increases. … Children will shame elders, and elders will stand up before children. “For the son dishonors the father and the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house”’ (tr. Neusner). 57 In view of Casey’s criteria for the admissibility or otherwise of ‘son of man’ sayings as authentic (e. g. Jesus, 386–7) one should probably not accept the reliability of the passage in Luke concerning the ‘day’ of the ‘son of man’ (17.22–37), at least in its present form. 58 Curiously Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 422, recognizes only two possibilities, Mark 14.22–5 and Luke 12.49–50, but does not mention Mark 10.45. In Luke 12.49–50, however, he sees no clear reference to the messianic woes or to an atoning death (425). 59 Bultmann, Geschichte, 159, seems to regard the whole of v. 45 as a secondary expansion of 10.43–4,

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Luke has a parallel of a sort to Mark 10.41–5, inserted in ch. 22 after Jesus’ last meal with his disciples (22.24–7), but a parallel which lacks any equivalent to the ideas of Mark 10.45b. Mark 10 41 And when the (other) ten heard (this) they began to be angry with James and John. 42And Jesus called them to him and said to them, ‘You know that those regarded as rulers of the gentiles lord it (κατα‑κυριεύουσιν) over them and their great men wield authority (κατεξουσιάζουσιν) over them. 43It shall not be so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to be great among you shall be your servant (διάκονος), 44and whoever among you wants to be first shall be slave of all. 45For the son of man did not come to to be served (διακονηθῆναι) but to serve (διακονῆσαι) and to give his life as a ransomfor many.’

Luke 22 a dispute arose among them as to who was to be regarded as greatest. 25But [Jesus] said to them, ‘The kings of the gentiles lord it (κυριεύουσιν) over them and those in authority (ἐξουσιάζοντες) over them are called benefactors. 24And

26But you are not so. On the contrary, the one who is greater among you shall become as he who is younger, and the leader as one who serves (ὁ διακονῶν). 27For who is greater, he who reclines (at table) or he who serves (ὁ διακονῶν)? Is it not the one reclining (at table)? But I am in your midst as one who serves (ὁ διακονῶν).

There are obviously many differences between these passages. For a start there is the context, in that Luke sets his passage, not after the equivalent to Mark’s third passion prediction, but after Jesus’ last meal, in a manner perhaps reminiscent of the Johannine scene of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet (John 13.1–20). Moreover, Luke’s version is more generalized and not expressly provoked by the request of James and John: it is simply a dispute among the disciples as to the greatest among them, without singling out the sons of Zebedee as the cause. Luke, too, shows more signs of Hellenistic colouring, particularly in the reference to ‘benefactors’. Yet the similarity of the theme in each case is undeniable, and there is even a certain verbal similarity in the way that Jesus introduces his rebuke to the disciples: Mark 10.43 οὐχ οὕτως δέ ἐστιν ἐν ὑµῖν· ἀλλ’ … and the briefer Luke 22.26, ὑµεῖς δὲ οὐχ οὕτως· ἀλλ’ …. Rather than seeing Luke as dependent on either Mark or Matthew, it is perhaps better to see here a separate tradition, perhaps even as part of a passion tradition known to him (in view of John 13.1–20). At any rate, it may then be significant that Luke does not include any parallel to Mark 10.45b. He would have known a version of the tradition that lacked this point. Arguably, too, the passage in Luke does not suffer from the absence of the ‘ransom’-saying, for, while one could stretch a point and say that giving one’s life for another was a supreme form of service, indeed an extreme one, then to speak of this giving as a ‘ransom’ seems to introduce a motif of a very different sort. Certainly Luke’s talk of serving seems to have serving at table in mind, as well it might just after the account of Jesus’ meal with his disciples, and in that context

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neither giving one’s life nor, still less, providing a ransom is at all in place.60 Mark (and Matthew) avoid that particular difficulty in that they set the passage in a different context which does not suggest serving at table, but service in a more general, less specific sense. Nonetheless, Joachim Gnilka finds the switch from paraenesis to soteriology awkward: ‘The son of man who serves can be set before the eyes of the disciples as an example, but the atoning death for many cannot be imitated.’61 However, Maurice Casey has defended the originality of the second part of the verse.62 The idea of the redemptive nature of the death of the (or a) ‘son of man’ he finds foreshadowed in Dan 11.35, 2 Macc 7.37–8, and 4 Macc 17.20–2, and he views this saying as including other members of the group of the Twelve, even if it refers ‘primarily to the speaker, whose leadership in the whole incident [sic] was decisive’ (407). In the light of this he is prepared to speak of Jesus having intended and expected not only to die in Jerusalem, but also to die an atoning death.63 Now it may be right that, in the light of Mark 10.38–9, at the time when James and John asked about sitting at his right and his left hand in his glory (Mark 10.37), Jesus and the sons of Zebedee ‘contemplated other members of the inner group dying with him’ (405), but it is not expressly said that the death of the others would also be an atoning one. And, anyway, what would one mean by ‘atoning’ here? In his earlier Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel Casey noted that sins are not mentioned in Mark 10.35– 45; that is because the death or deaths of Jesus and any of his disciples would not atone for the sins of individuals, but rather would enable God to redeem Israel.64 He distinguishes this view from ideas of atonement found in later Christian tradition and rightly so. For, of the Jewish texts that he compares, Dan 11.35 seems to speak of suffering purifying the souls of the wise,65 and 2 Macc 7.37–8, and possibly 4 Macc 17.20–2 as well, seems to envisage the suffering of the martyrs inducing God to end the suffering of the rest of Israel. Frey notes that 2 Macc 7.32 expressly says that the martyrs suffer for their own sins and 7.38 seems to speak of God’s wrath being averted by their intercession; yet it could be that their fate also acts as a kind of acted intercession or lends added weight to their verbal interces-

60 Yet for Roloff, ‘Anfänge’, 51–2, the context of a meal is an important clue that explains how, in the context of celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, Mark 10.45b came to be added to 10.45a. 61 Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 43. Nevertheless, he regards Mark 10.45b as an old, but independent saying, influenced by Isa 53.10–12. 62 Casey, Solution, 131–4; Jesus, esp. 405–7. For his Aramaic reconstruction of this half-verse see his Sources, 194 and 211–18 (˜yaygc πlj ˜qrwp hvpn ˜tnmlw). 63 Cf., e. g., Casey, Solution, 200; Jesus, 198, 352, 380, 382, 399, 408, 432, 447. 64 Casey, Sources, 212. 65 Casey, Sources, 214, comments that their deaths will evidently have a ‘beneficial effect’, but adds ‘Exactly how this works could not be spelt out in detail, because this is the first positive evaluation of their deaths which sees them within the purposes of God.’

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sion.66 It is as if God, seeing the deaths of these righteous sufferers, would say that this was enough and would cause the suffering of Israel to cease. Not that this should be regarded as a Jewish peculiarity, for Martin Hengel, criticizing Klaus Wengst on this point, rightly reminds us that ‘The theme of expiation in the sense of “purifying the land” from evil and disaster or of “assuaging” the wrath of the gods was part of the lingua franca of the religions of late antiquity’.67 Yet there is a problem about using such ideas to illustrate the background of Jesus’ thought. For, as we have just seen, particularly in Luke 23.28–9, Jesus seems to envisage his death as ushering in widespread suffering for Israel. Scot McKnight’s interpretation of Jesus’ thinking in terms of the coming of the impending ‘final ordeal’ seems thoroughly appropriate at this point.68 However, when he then goes on to speak of a ‘short step’ from the idea of martyrs’ deaths being atoning in the sense of ‘exhausting God’s wrath against disobedience’, and then to speak of ‘another short step to connect Jesus to such ideas’,69 we must bear in mind that a passage like Luke 23.28–9 suggests that Jesus’ death, so far from exhausting God’s wrath, would in fact cause it to overflow in all its horror. The problem, then, is how one can appropriately talk of ‘atonement’ here, either in its later Christian form, or as envisaged in Jewish martyrology, for Jesus’ suffering does not seem to avert suffering for others but rather to inaugurate it.70 Now, even if an Aramaic original of this part of the saying can be convincingly reconstructed, we should be clear that, however much this may be evidence of an early tradition, it by no means entails that Jesus himself said this.71 A considerable group of Jesus’ followers continued to speak, to worship and to reason and 66  Frey, ‘Probleme’, 35; 2 Macc 7.32, διὰ τὰς ἑαυτῶν ἁµαρτίας; it is 7.37 that expresses the idea of intercession most clearly (ἐπικαλούµενος τὸν θεὸν ἵλεως …). So is Roloff correct in seeing the idea of representation here (‘Anfänge’, 47)? 67 Hengel, Atonement, 19 (for examples cf. 19–28), referring to Wengst, Formeln, 64. 68  McKnight, Jesus, esp. ch. 4. But less plausible, however, is McKnight’s strange suggestion on p. 166 that Jesus’ death was a ‘ransom’ in that he died and his disciples escaped with their lives, as if Jesus already knew that his disciples would run away and escape, and spoke of his giving himself to ‘ransom’ them (the ‘many’). The imagery of Zech 13.7 quoted in Mark 14.27 seems far more appropriate as a way of speaking of the respective fates of Jesus and his disciples. On Jesus’ thinking in terms of the ‘great tribulation’ cf. also Allison, End, esp. ch. 11. 69 McKnight, Jesus, 179. 70 In discussing Mark 10.45b, Casey, Sources, 216, speaks of an ‘atoning’ death, but in interpreting Jesus’ last meal with his disciples describes it as ‘redemptive’ (e. g. 242–3); these are not the same (the former referring to one’s relation to God, the other to an act liberating one from hostile forces?), but is it in fact the case that Jesus saw his death as either of these? McKnight speaks of Jesus’ death as ‘representative’, in the sense that ‘his death would inaugurate the death of others’; yet he also regards it as ‘highly likely that he thought his death benefited his disciples’, in that it ‘would protect his followers from the coming judgment of God against Jerusalem and its corrupt leadership’ (Jesus, 323). Quite how these two aspects fit together is not clear. 71 This point is well made by McKnight, Jesus, 160, over against Stuhlmacher and Janowski: ‘establishing something as Jewish is not the same as establishing it as from Jesus’.

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to express their theological reflections in Aramaic after his death,72 and a natural part of these reflections would involve their coming to terms with the reason for his death. For Casey himself rightly sees that detecting an Aramaic original behind the Greek of the New Testament documents is not sufficient in itself, for ‘the mere fact that a Gospel saying can be translated into Aramaic does not show that it was a saying of Jesus, or even that there was an Aramaic version before it was translated into Syriac’ (119). Rather the argument from ‘the Aramaic criterion’ (120) must be subsumed under the use of a criterion of ‘historical plausibility’, as part of the application of that criterion. ‘We must always look’, he asserts, ‘for the historical plausibility of the narratives in which Aramaic words are embedded’ (109). Equally, ‘historical plausibility’ is to be expected of sayings of Jesus if they are to be treated as (probably) authentic. I have elsewhere expressed a preference for the application of a ‘principle of coherence’ rather than a ‘criterion of historical plausibility’ as an apt description of an appropriate and implicitly widely accepted historiographical method,73 and this applies also to Jesus research. However, the ‘coherence’ to be sought involves in this case not only the question how this Jesus material fits into what we know of the Jewish world in which Jesus lived and worked, and as the root from which the development of the movement that he initiated grew, but also the picture of Jesus’ life and teaching that emerges from our research. Now, if it is questionable whether an atoning significance is to be read into the death that members of the Twelve might have to share with Jesus, then Mark 10.45b par. stands rather isolated in the Jesus traditions (apart, that is, from similar ideas perhaps to be found in Jesus’ words at his last meal). Moreover, we have already seen how Jesus, as his end approached, stressed, not the salvation and deliverance that his death should bring about, but the doom and the woes that would come upon his people as well as upon the one who delivered him up to his enemies. Furthermore, the point has often been made that the introduction of the notion of an atoning death stands in an uneasy tension with Jesus’ call to repent and to respond to God’s inbreaking kingly rule.74 72 This still seems to me the most obvious interpretation of the group of the ‘Hebrews’ in the Jerusalem church (Acts 6.1); cf. further Wedderburn, History, 42–4, 57–8. 73 Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 173–82, distinguishing this ‘principle’ from the far more limited (and methodologically suspect) ‘criterion of coherence’ argued for by the likes of Norman Perrin. Cf. also Schürmann, ‘Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und verstanden?’, 331 = 25. 74 Cf. Vögtle, ‘Todesankündigung’, 57, 75: ‘Over against Jesus’ call for the people of Israel to turn in repentance to God and let themselves be granted forgiveness of their sins, the idea of atonement through the atoning death of God’s eschatological messenger would be such a different and novel conception that I can hardly believe that Jesus expressed such a view, even if only as a possibility mentioned to the disciples’; for ‘forgiveness through the individual sinner’s penitent turning to God and forgiveness through a representative atoning death are and always will be … structurally different ways of forgiving sins that are not interchangeable.’ (Pp. 67–80 contain a careful and painstaking analysis of different possibilities.) Peter Fiedler’s comments are perhaps even sharper (‘Sünde’, 569–71): over against those who see this theme of an atoning death as something that Jesus first introduced at his last meal with his disciples he asks ‘why

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The idea of Jesus’ death as a ‘ransom’ should not, however, be written off as ‘Hellenistic’. It is true that there are many parallels in the Graeco-Roman world for the idea of one or more persons dying for others or for their people or their country, but the imagery of this death being a ‘ransom’ is less easy to find there. There can be little doubt that Jesus’ message, following on from the preaching of the Baptist, concentrated on the need for repentance in the face of that kingly rule, even if he stressed more than the Baptist the benefits of that rule that could already be experienced in his ministry, rather than just the threat and danger of continued disobedience. In that case the reference to an atoning death or atoning deaths appears more as a ‘foreign body’ within the Jesus material, however much it may be paralleled by (presumably likewise retrospective) interpretations of the deaths of Jewish martyrs, and as an interpretation of Jesus’ death that is readily explicable as the fruit of Jesus’ followers’ reflection on the reason for his death. If Luz was certainly justified in raising yet again the question why Jesus took the risk of going up to Jerusalem, it must be asked whether his answer to this question is equally cogent. For does it not suffice to say that for Jesus his message must be heard in that city, the religious and spiritual centre of Israel and its hopes, if it was indeed a message for Israel and not just for the people of Galilee and its immediate neighbours? In that case it is not inappropriate to speak, as Bornkamm does, of Jesus seeking in that city a ‘final decision’ (Bornkamm also speaks of a call to decision ‘at the last hour’),75 yet being aware of the danger of that attempt and of the possible or even likely cost to himself and his disciples. Nonetheless, Anton Vögtle is right to stress the distinction between Jesus’ Todesbereitschaft and his Todesgewissheit, his readiness to die (if necessary) and his certainty that he would in fact die (a violent death).76 As long as we entertain the possibility that Jesus may have reckoned with divine intervention the latter, the certainty of a violent death, is excluded. More recently, Marcus Borg comes to a rather similar assessment to Bornkamm’s of Jesus’ purpose in coming to Jerusalem: God’s forgiveness that Jesus offered and practiced could now no longer be offered without Jesus’ atoning work’. After all, Jesus had proclaimed a God who was unconditionally ready to forgive. Was this God now not so generous or sovereign in his grace, that atonement must be insisted upon?’ Jesus could have held together his preaching of the kingdom and his atoning death, as Schürmann suggests (‘Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und verstanden?’, 345 = 45; it is, hoever, then difficult when Schürmann goes on to concede, with Marxsen, that, had Jesus publicly spoken of his death as saving, this would have been hard to reconcile with the rest of the Jesus tradition: 352 = 54–5), ‘yet it is precisely the message that he preached that makes it extremely unlikely that Jesus had read such a meaning into his death.’ Yet Pesch, ‘Abendmahl’, 184–5, and Abendmahl, 107–9, argues that this was the way in which Jesus resolved the conflict between his mission as a messenger of God’s offer of salvation and Israel’s rejection of his message: taking up the thought of Isaiah 53 Jesus saw his death as atoning and inaugurating a new covenant. 75 Bornkamm, Jesus, 155 (Ger. 142–3). 76 Vögtle, ‘Todesankündigungen’, 58.

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Though many of the texts are filled with a foreboding that the likely result of his sojourn in Jerusalem would be death, the outcome was not the purpose of the journey. … he went there to make a final appeal to his people at the center of their national and religious life.

He also adds in a further note that ‘even without the passion predictions, there is reason to believe that Jesus anticipated that the likely result of his final appeal would be death, and that he went to Jerusalem in full awareness of that likelihood’, and refers to Luke 13.31–3.77 That holds good whatever we think of the authenticity of Luke 13.31–3, for undoubtedly Jesus did go to Jerusalem at the end of his ministry. Like Bornkamm we may leave it open whether Jesus had visited Jerusalem before during his ministry. Yet the much-quoted Matt 23.37 tells us that Jesus had in fact made previous attempts to gather the ‘children’ of that city ‘as a bird gathers its chicks under its wings’; that in itself could simply mean that Jesus had long desired to preach his message there,78 but the concluding words, ‘and you were unwilling (to let yourselves be so gathered)’, do certainly imply that Jesus had already attempted this, but unsuccessfully.79 This may be a last attempt, and an even more dangerous one, but there is no reason to suppose that Jesus’ goal in going to Jerusalem now would be any different from that of his previous visits, namely to win the inhabitants of the city for his message of the kingdom.

77 Borg, Jesus, 172 and 186 n. 3; cf. also Vollenweider, ‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, 90–1, who also rejects the suggestion that Jesus might have gone to his death in the sure knowledge that he would be exalted by God, let alone that he would thereby redeem Israel and the world; rather ‘he exposed himself in a truly radical sense to the approaching night of God’. 78 Cf. Manson, Sayings, 127. If one could assume that Matt 23.34–6 and 37 originally belonged together (Luke separates them) and that Luke’s parallel (Luke 11.49) is correct in speaking of wisdom’s sending of emissaries, then the repeated appeals to Jerusalem could be those of wisdom, not of Jesus himself. 79 Cf. also Matt 26.55.

3. Jesus’ Last Meal If any passage could claim to offer Jesus’ interpretation of his coming death it would surely be the words that he spoke on the the occasion of his last meal with his disciples immediately before his arrest, trial and death, and many who are critical of the trustworthiness of other statements concerning his death yet seek to find a reliable tradition at this point. And yet the accounts of what he said vary and so do, correspondingly, the interpretations offered, both ancient and modern: even in the New Testament the one tradition, for instance, seems to allude to Exod 24.8 as a background (Mark 14.24//Matt 26.28), another to Jer 31.31 (Luke 22.20; 1 Cor 11.25).1 Moreover, the traditions often contain motifs that are hardly characteristic of the rest of the Jesus-traditions that we know, such as the motif of the covenant.2 The first consideration raises the problem which, if any, of the sayings in these various traditions go back to Jesus himself; the second alerts us to the possibility that we may well be confronted here with interpretative elements added later by followers of Jesus. Nor would that be surprising in the transmission of a tradition relating to the founding of a rite that demonstrably played a very important role in the life of early Christian communities from earliest times. At any rate, something seems, at first sight, to be asserted in Jesus’ words over the bread and cup that is without parallel in the rest of his recorded teaching. Yet is it really to be expected that Jesus would have introduced now, in his last hours, insights and perspectives for which he had offered his disciples no preparation beforehand? It is true that some see somewhat earlier in his ministry a watershed, be it a single event or the cumulative effect of a series of events, that so drastically altered his expectations and his understanding of his mission that from this point of time on his message and his strategy were quite different. Thus for Albert Schweitzer it was the non-fulfilment of the prophecy of Matt 10.23 that the variety of traditions cf., e. g., Theissen/Merz, Jesus, 369–70; Kollmann, Ursprung. Becker, Jesus, 159–60 (’We cannot attribute the element of covenantal theology in the tradition of this meal to Jesus. For why should Jesus have expounded a covenantal theology when according to the sources he manifestly did not do so earlier and could hardly have done so in view of what he had inherited from the Baptist?’ The last point is perhaps not conclusive, at least if it is a matter of a new covenant, for a new one could mean a rejection of the old one that had seemingly been undermined by the Baptist – Luke 3.8 par. – and must now be replaced by a new one.); McKnight, Jesus, 293–321, who finally decides that talk of a ‘covenant’ is a later development in early Christian theology; Schlosser, Jésus, 289–90; ‘Der Gott Jesu’, 62; Schröter, Abendmahl, 132–3. 1 On 2 Cf.

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led Jesus to adopt a quite different strategy: the disciples had returned from their mission and yet neither the ‘son of man’ nor God’s kingly rule had materialized. Jesus then decided, by going up to Jerusalem, to take upon himself the messianic woes that should be harbingers of the end and thus to precipitate the coming of the end. It is thus conceivable that at some point in the course of his ministry Jesus became aware of a new understanding of his mission and his destiny. Yet Schweitzer does not connect this scenario with Jesus’ words at his last meal, and it is difficult to see quite how he could do so. Moreover, the journey up to Jerusalem might have offered at least some opportunity, a brief period of time, to explain his new understanding to his disciples, but of that there is little trace. Consequently it seems to me preferable, if possible, to seek an understanding of his words at that last meal that does not presuppose the sudden introduction of new ideas such as those of the covenant or an atoning death, if these had hitherto played no part in his teaching. It would be an advantage if we could explain this meal and Jesus’ words at it without recourse to such novel ideas and thus treat it and them as being of one piece with the rest of Jesus’ ministry and teaching.

3.1 A Variety of Traditions The tradition of Jesus’ words spoken at his last meal with his disciples is found in a number of different forms, the main divisions within the New Testament being between Mark and Matthew on the one hand and 1 Corinthians and the longer text of Luke on the other, with John offering in 13.1–20 no comparable ‘words of institution’ at all or any commentary on what was eaten and drunk, where he focuses instead on Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples, but placing a commentary on the eating of the flesh of the son of man in 6.(51c–52)53–8.3 Further variations are found in the shorter version of Luke’s text and in the Di3 It seems likely that these verses are a later addition to ch. 6: the preference for the word τρώγω is striking; earlier in the chapter Jesus himself, not his flesh and blood, was the bread of life; in v. 32 the Father gives this bread, in 51c the Son will give it in the future; eating the bread was previously symbolic or metaphorical, but now seems to be meant literally; whereas the stress was on Jesus’ heavenly origin, Udo Schnelle argues (Johannes, 131) that is now on his bodily humanity; in vv. 54 and 56 emphasis is laid on human actions, and there is a tension between this passage and v. 63, in that the Spirit there gives life, not the flesh, although in v. 55 it is Jesus’ flesh that is the true food (the same is true of v. 51c, which Becker regards as part of the later insertion: Johannes, 263–9; cf. Schnackenburg, John 2, 56–69). It is hard to avoid the impression that one is dealing here with two different layers, the one emphasizing Jesus’ words and teaching, the other more ‘sacramental’. The latter seems at variance with the otherwise typical stance of the Fourth Gospel if Jürgen Becker is right in seeing here the gift of life linked to the partaking of the flesh and blood of the son of man rather than to the relationship of faith, ‘with the result that these substances are life-giving and life is conceived of in substantial terms’ (264–5). In its stress on the blood of Jesus (of 6 reff. in John 4 occur in this passage) it may be nearer to 1 John (1.7).

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dache (chs. 9–10).4 The Johannine account and the Didache’s lead Theissen to ask whether the connection of this meal to Jesus’ death and its interpretation only occurred after Easter5. Further, he adds, the motif of the ‘new covenant’ found in Paul’s version is not associated with sacrifices in Jeremiah’s account. The differences, even between the various Synoptic Gospels, let alone when one takes the Fourth Gospel and the Didache into account, are therefore considerable. Luke 22 15And he said to them: ‘I have very much desired to eat this Passover meal with you before I have to suffer. 16For I tell you that I will not eat it again until the meal finds its fulfilment in God’s kingdom.’ 17And taking the cup and giving thanks, he said: ‘Take this, and share it amongst one another. 18 Mark 14 cf. v. 25 Matt 26 cf. v. 29 For I tell you, from 26 22 And as they were And as they were now on I will drink no more from the fruit of eating, Jesus took eating, he took the vine until God’s bread, offered a bread, offered a kingdom comes.’ 19 And blessing, broke it blessing, broke and gave it to his it and gave it to he took bread, gave disciples and said: them and said: thanks and broke it and gave it to them, saying: 1 Cor 11 ‘Take (it), this is ‘Take (it), eat; this ‘This is my body, [which 24… This is my is my body.’ 27And my body.’ 23And is given for you. Do body for you. Do this in memory of me.’ this in memory taking a cup he gave taking a cup he of me.’ thanks and gave gave thanks and it to them, saying gave it to them, ‘All of you drink and they all drank 20 from it; from it. 24And he And likewise the cup said to them: after the meal, saying:

4 The Didache’s reference to the last meal is unusual in that it does not connect its version of the tradition with Jesus’ death nor even locate its origin in the context of the passion of Jesus. In this account God has given the church spiritual food and drink and this rite is primarily a thanksgiving for these and other spiritual gifts.There may well be connections between this document and the traditions in John 6: Didache 9.4 refers to the broken bread scattered on the mountains, which may tie in with the setting of the miraculous feeding on a mountain (John 6.3). 5 Theissen, Theory, 130.

70 28this

is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins.’

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‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many.’

25… ‘This cup is ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, the new covenant which is shed for you.’]6 in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in memory of me.’

A number of puzzling features are immediately obvious: (1) Luke 22 has, for a start, two cup sayings, in vv. 17 and 20, the second after the meal. Furthermore, Luke places the saying about not drinking wine until God’s kingdom comes immediately after Jesus has taken the first cup, whereas Mark and Matthew place it after their version of Luke’s second cup saying (Mark 14.25//Matt 26.29). It should also perhaps be recalled that 1 Cor 10.16 has puzzled many by mentioning the ‘cup of blessing’ before the broken bread, as does Did 9.2–3. There are undoubtedly other possible explanations, but it is to be noted that Luke 22.17 expressly mentions Jesus offering thanks before the first cup, and before the breaking of bread in v. 19, whereas the offering of thanks is at best only implicit in v. 20.7 (2) Mark and Matthew say that the ‘blood of the covenant’ is shed ‘for many’ (Mark 14.24//Matt 26.28), whereas in Luke 22.20 it is ‘for you’. (3) Luke 22.20 and 1 Cor 11.25 state that the cup is the ‘new covenant’ in Jesus’ blood, but Mark 14.24 and Matt 26.28 have ‘This is my blood of the covenant’. As we have already noted, the background of Luke and Paul’s version is primarily Jer 31.31, but that of Mark and Matthew Exod 24.8. (4) Peculiar to 1 Cor 11.24–6 are (a) the command to eat and drink ‘in memory of me’, and (b) the reference to the eating and drinking being a proclamation of the Lord’s death ‘until he comes’, although this last reference is in all probability to be understood as Paul’s commentary rather than a dominical saying. At any rate, whereas ‘Do this in memory of me’ indicates by the first person singular that this is meant to be part of what Jesus said on that occasion, ‘until he comes’ is in the third person and would make little sense on Jesus’ lips. (5) Mark 14.22, on the other hand, prefaces the account of the meal with ‘as they were eating’ and the most natural inference from this is that both the following word about the bread and that about the cup were spoken in the course of the meal. 1 Cor 11.25, on the other hand, with its ‘after they had eaten’ implies that the saying about the cup followed the meal. Ferdinand Hahn plausibly sees here two different ways of celebrating the meal in the early church;8 or otherwise 6 The words in square brackets belong to the longer version in Luke 22; on the shorter version cf. the Appendix. 7 Whereas Matthew and Mark speak of a blessing (εὐλογεῖν) spoken over the bread and thanks (εὐχαριστεῖν) over the cup, Luke and Paul only use εὐχαριστεῖν for bread and cup(s), despite the reference to the cup of blessing (τὸ ποτήριον τῆς εὐλογίας) in 1 Cor 10.16. 8 Hahn, Theologie 2, 537–8, and in RGG4 1, 11.

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one could at least say that the practice reflected in 1 Corinthians 11 differed from what took place at the meal held by Jesus and his disciples. Now Maurice Casey has argued for the historical reliability and priority of Mark’s version of the story of this last meal over against other versions, dismissing the version in 1 Cor 11 as a rewriting of the tradition governed by the situation in the Corinthian church to which Paul is writing.9 Yet the point made above apropos of Mark 10.45b holds good here too: the reconstruction of an Aramaic original lying behind the Greek text of Mark such as Casey offers does not necessarily take us back to authentic Jesus-tradition, but may reflect the traditions current in an early Aramaic-speaking Christian community and its theological reflections on the circumstances of Jesus’ death. Jeremias, too, holds that ‘the primitive Semitic tradition’ for which he has argued ‘is traceable back into the first decade after the death of Jesus with the assistance of exact philological observation’, even though he then seeks to minimize the significance of this gap in time between Jesus’ death and the existence of this tradition by saying that in this tiime only individual additions would have been possible and not the free creation of a ritual or a free fabrication of an aetiological cult legend.10 And not all divergences in Paul’s account can so easily be explained away as his rewriting of the tradition reflected in Mark: even if one accepts that he avoided references to the Passover setting lest it be thought that the Lord’s Supper should also be celebrated only once a year,11 it is harder to explain convincingly why   9 Casey, Sources, 219–52; Jesus, 436–7. He can more easily treat Mark’s version as the oldest available in that he follows James Crossley in dating Mark to ca. 40 CE; and, of course, if Mark is here translating an Aramaic source, as Casey argues, then the latter must be dated even earlier. An early date for the pre-Markan passion narrative is postulated by Pesch on the grounds that 1 Cor 11.23–5 presupposes this narrative and that Caiaphas is not named as the high priest in question, which is most easily explicable if he was still in office; therefore, he argues, this was formed before 37 CE (Markusevangelium 2, 21). (Yet it is to be noted that H. D. Betz argues that Paul received this tradition ‘soon after his call to be an apostle to the gentiles’ and, accordingly, that it goes back to the first disciples, who had themselves been witnesses of Jesus’ last meal’: ‘Gemeinschaft’, 405.) McKnight, too, largely endorsing the views of Rudolf Pesch (‘Abendmahl’, esp. 152–63, and Abendmahl, 34–51), holds the Markan tradition to be ‘prior’, and favours Pesch’s ‘argument for Paul’s text betraying all the signs of a founding story that embodies the origins and liturgical directions for Christian eucharistic practice’ (Jesus, 262–4). (Others see early Christian liturgical practice as having shaped both these strands of the tradition; cf., e. g., Hahn, Theologie 2, 537.) Luz, in contrast to those favouring the priority of the Markan version, regards the asymmetrical version of 1 Cor 11 as older (‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 425; cf. also Kessler, Bedeutung, 278). Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 93 n. 24, offers a short list of those that hold Mark’s version to be older (Feld, Patsch, Pesch, Scholtissek, Söding, Stuhlmacher), those favouring Paul’s (Schenke, Schürmann, Theissen/ Merz, Zager), and those favouring an ‘eclectic reconstruction’ (Backhaus, G. Barth, Gnilka, Klauck, Kollmann, Merklein, Schrage). 10 Jeremias, Words, 196. Daly, ‘Eucharist’, 21, seems to go slightly further in holding the time for ‘community formation’ to be thus eliminated ‘for all practical purposes’. 11 So Casey, Jesus, 436.

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his version of the word concerning the cup should reflect Jer 31.31 rather than Exod 24.8.12 And it is perhaps significant that Casey must admit that attempts to reconstruct the Markan saying about the cup have generally been unsuccessful: suggestions such as amyqd ymd will not do as Aramaic.13 Yet it must be recognized that this proposal is only necessary if one has first decided that Mark’s account is in its entirety a translation from an Aramaic source; once one admits of the possibility that later hands might at some point or another have freely adapted whatever source was used, then it is also possible that the wording that we have in Greek, τὸ αἷµά µου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ ἐκχυννόµενον ὑπὲρ πολλῶν, originated in Greek, without any Aramaic predecessor. Moreover, there are surely limits on the extent to which one can explain differences in Paul’s account as his rewriting of the Markan tradition. For, if there is any truth in 1 Cor 11.23, then Paul had already in the past informed the Corinthians of the tradition that he now repeats (παρέδωκα), and that suggests a time before the problems and abuses with which he is now confronted had emerged. For it would not do to pass on one tradition earlier and then to modify it; the Corinthians would spot such a change and that would damage Paul’s argument.14 In contrast, Otfried Hofius has seemingly attempted to foreclose any discussion of the different forms of the words of institution and their relative age and worth by appealing to that ‘tradition’ that is given to the church in a binding (verbindlich), yet fourfold form, although his argument then seems to be that we cannot be sure of the ‘original’ form (Urgestalt), so that we must leave it open whether Paul or Mark, the two main contenders, have preserved the ‘original’ wording or whether the ‘original’ version (Urfassung) has in both already undergone some revision.15 He had, however, already rejected any attempt to penetrate behind those ‘binding’ versions of the tradition in order to find out how Jesus ‘originally’ understood this meal (317). We must, rather, obediently listen to the New Testament tradition of this meal (319), even though, despite Hofius’ stress 12 Quite why ‘the identification of Jesus’ blood with the red wine’ should be more ‘unpleasant’ for the Corinthian Christians than it would be for an Aramaic-speaking community is not clear nor why ‘the comfortable ”This cup is the new covenant in my blood”’ is ‘just what Paul needed Gentile Christians to have’ (Casey, Jesus, 436–7; cf. Sources, 248–9). 13 Casey, Sources, 220, 241. Instead he suggests ˜yaygc l[ dvatm ,awh amyqd ,hnd ymd, literally ‘This (is/was) my blood, it (is) of the covenant, shed for many’. 14 Contrast Casey, Jesus, 437: ‘There should therefore be no doubt that Paul’s version of this meal has been rewritten to meet the situation with which he was faced in Corinth’ (cf. Sources, 249). But when he passed on this tradition did he have any idea of the situation that had arisen by the time of his present letter? 15 O. Hofius, ‘“Für euch gegeben zur Vergebung der Sünden”’. It is striking that Hofius assumes that it was Jesus’ purpose to institute this ‘holy’ meal and that his words over bread and cup had given this meal a sacramental character. More circumspect is Schürmann’s tracing of our accounts back to an ‘Urbericht’, which as a ‘Bericht’ can incorporate the reflection of early Christians on these words and actions of Jesus (e. g. Einsetzungsbericht, 151).

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on all that the four accounts have in common, we may well be distracted by their divergent features.16 Yet, as long as there is no agreement that one particular version is alone historically accurate, and as long as there are such differences, it seems more prudent to examine the merits of the various versions, aware that none of them may have a monopoly on authenticity.

3.2 What Did Jesus Originally Say? Often cited is an article by Eldon J. Epp on the ‘multivalence’ of the term ‘original text’ in New Testament textual criticism.17 And yet that article ran the risk of confusing, on the one hand, the problems of recovering an ‘original’ text in the light of the gap in time between the writing of the New Testament documents and the earliest manuscript evidence or in the light of the various influences that had led to a corruption of that ‘original’ text with, on the other hand, the difficulties of what one means by an ‘original text’. And those difficulties surely arise from a rather different factor than the vicissitudes of the transmission of the text between its composition and its earliest witnesses. They rather arise once one assumes, at a yet earlier point of time, either a series of stages in the literary composition of a text or that the written texts are based on a series of oral performances and represent one or more points in the transmission of that oral material. The first can be compared with the practice of various Graeco-Roman authors who would read or have read aloud a draft of their text to a circle of friends before then emending it in the light of their suggestions.18 It should be noted at this point that W. A. Strange sought to explain the variation in the text of Acts, above all the ‘Western’ textual tradition, by a rather similar compositional scenario, in which ‘Luke’ left behind a heavily annotated draft of his text which was then edited posthumously by two editors.19 Even if the Gospel of Luke was published earlier than Acts, as Strange suggests, the former’s process of composition may well have taken a comparable form. Yet, in addition to later editors, there is also the possibility that ‘Luke’ may have revised his text himself.

The second difficulty can be found in the increasingly frequent demand that one should change the ‘default setting’ and, instead of working with a purely liter16 Parker, Text, 153. Although Schröter, Abendmahl, regards the shorter text as ‘secondary’ (50), he later (125) writes that ‘With the so-called “shorter text” of the words of institution in Luke’s Gospel in Codex Bezae we find a further version [of these words], which … represents a further independent starting-point’ (sc. for study of these words). 17 Epp, ‘Multivalence’. 18 Cf., e. g., Kloppenborg, ‘Variation’. 19 Strange, Problem. It might also be asked whether some such solution might also explain other problems of the text of Acts posed by such passages as 10.36–8 as well as those represented by ‘Western’ readings.

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ary model, make more allowance for the influence of oral tradition, particularly upon the gospel materials.20 Both scenarios, both the literary and the oral, have in common that they allow for the possibility that the author may have been responsible for more than one version of the text, and that then raises the question which would count as the ‘original’ – an earlier draft or earlier oral performance, or the later, improved or at least different one? Should one wish to ignore both possibilities, those of a written or of an oral process of composition with more than one stage, then it would still be possible to speak of the ‘original text’ at least as the goal or the ideal of text-critical work, even if the earliest recoverable text remained the actual outcome of one’s study. If, on the other hand, variations arose from the later redactional activity of another person, then it is dubious whether this could legitimately or meaningfully be described as the ‘original’ text, although, of course, we may be blissfully unaware that these were variations on an earlier text. But as soon as the possibility is raised that a later hand has been at work, then it would be better to speak solely of the ‘earliest recoverable’ text, for its claim to be ‘original’ is now in question (as is the appropriateness of the designation ‘original’ in many of the examples that Epp gives).21 Quite apart from the text-critical problem, however, another difficulty with the question of the ‘original’ version of Jesus material, particularly with sayings of Jesus, is the possibility that he may have said much the same thing on more than one occasion, but with some variations, and that different gospels have then preserved different ‘performances’ of what is basically the same material.22 That 20 Cf. Dunn, ‘Altering’; Jesus Remembered, ch. 8. The number of those pressing the claims of oral tradition with greater or lesser insistence, both before and after Dunn’s contributions, is considerable and growing; for some Dunn has not gone far enough, and it is true that a mixture of oral and written tradition such as he postulates for the ‘Q’-material is somewhat hard to explain or envisage; Armin D. Baum, for instance, argues that the Synoptic data are more satisfactorily explained on the basis of oral tradition alone: Faktor, esp. 396–7, 412. See further Wedderburn, Jesus, ch. 7. 21 One could take as an example the number of texts that some have identified as later glosses in the Pauline letters, texts which, until someone suggested that they were glosses, had been assumed to be what Paul (originally) wrote; a corollary of this identification must surely be that one no longer regards them as belonging to the ‘original’ text that Paul wrote or dictated, rather than saying that new ‘originals’ were thereby created, even if a text still containing these glosses is the earliest that is text-critically recoverable. For the grounds for the suggestion that one is dealing with a gloss are often exegetical or theological rather than text-critical. (Sometimes some text-critical evidence may also be cited as corroboration; cf., e. g., Payne, ‘Fuldensis’.) 22 Cf., e. g., Bauckham, Jesus, 286; Horsley/Draper, Whoever Hears You, 183; W. H. Kelber, ‘Jesus’, 146; Wright, Jesus, 170. On the other hand, B. F. Meyer speaks of the ‘naive biblicist’ who readily believes ‘that literary doublets regularly reflect repeated historical actions’ (Critical Realism, 131). It should also be noted that to explain in this way variations in sayings material normally assigned to ‘Q’ would entail a bifurcation of the ‘Q’ tradition from the very beginning, a separate and fully independent existence of parts of the double tradition as found in Matthew and Luke. To explain the variations in this way would mean not only that Jesus had used sayings material on at least two different occasions and with two different purposes, in two different

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position, however, is more difficult to maintain with regard to something said at Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, if it really was the last and this was only said on that occasion. (Theoretically one must, I suppose, also allow for the possibility that what he said on that occasion was in fact a repetition of something that he had also said at earlier meals with them, and that some versions of Jesus’ words on that occasion reflect those earlier ‘performances’. Yet, to my knowledge, such a predating of the utterances over bread and a cup is not a solution that has hitherto found favour and I would not wish to recommend it!) If it is the case, then, that Jesus said whatever he said on this occasion rather than repeatedly, is there any hope of discovering among the various versions what that was? It must be admitted from the start that probably none of the versions as they now exist preserve the original form of Jesus’ words; as Ferdinand Hahn recognizes, all contain both earlier and later elements; he even doubts whether it would be possible to reconstruct the original form.23 And his Munich colleague, Joachim Gnilka, speaks of a widespread consensus that none of the extant forms of the tradition can be regarded as the oldest or original, while older elements may be recognized here and there.24 At any rate, the Synoptic Gospels and 1 Corinthians yield us, as already noted, two basic forms of the tradition, one in which Matthew and Mark are basically similar, and one where the longer text of Luke shows a marked similarity to the tradition that Paul presupposes in the Corinthian church. Yet a few witnesses to the text of Luke’s Gospel seem to attest a shorter form that differs from the Pauline tradition, and despite the overwhelming manuscript support for the longer text and the equally overwhelming endorsement of its reliability by the majority of exegetes, there seem to be good reasons to ask whether the shorter text might not be the older one.25 In trying to sort out the other variants, the use of two principles has a certain plausibility: the first is that the tradition would be enlarged and expanded rather than shortened, unless there were material offensive to early Christians, and the second is that the words relating to the bread and the cup would tend to be formulated in a parallel form rather than departing from an original parallelism. With regard to the saying about the bread, that would mean that the extremely short version in Matthew and Mark, ‘Take (and eat); this is my body’, is to be preferred to the Pauline version with the added ‘for you’.26 Or is the Markan ‘performances’, which in itself is by no means impossible, but also that one strand of tradition had picked up and perpetuated the one ‘performance’ and the other the other, and that both strands had existed separately from one another. And that would surely present difficulties for the ‘Q’ hypothesis. Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 150–2. 23 Cf. Hahn, ‘Zum Stand’, 558; also Theologie 2, 542. 24 Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 31. 25 See Appendix. McKnight, Jesus, 260, regards the shorter text as ‘most likely Luke’s original text’; cf. also Haenchen, Weg, 481. 26 Cf. Hahn in RGG4 1, 11; cf. Theologie 2, 536; Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 96.

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version shortened because ‘for you’ has been transferred to the saying about the cup? That seems less likely, and in that case the Pauline addition is more probably secondary. On the other hand, Helmut Merklein argues that Mark’s short form would hardly have been intelligible, particularly if a whole meal lay between the uttering of this saying and that over the cup.27 Accordingly he proposes that the original saying about the bread was ‘This is my body which is given for many’. However, the motivation for deleting ‘which is given for many’ remains unclear.28 The addition in 1 Corinthians, ‘Do this in memory of me’, is probably also secondary, even though it is found in the oldest surviving version of these words, in the tradition recalled by Paul. The problem of the word concerning the cup is more complicated. Did it originally begin like the saying about the bread and parallel to it, as in Matthew and Mark, ‘This is my blood …’,29 or rather in an asymmetrical fashion, ‘This cup is …’, as in 1 Corinthians and Luke?30 Helmut Merklein speaks for many when he argues that the Markan form is a secondary assimilation to the form of the word over the bread.31 Or was it that the command to drink Jesus’ blood was too offensive and led to a different formulation?32 Merklein, again, maintains that Mark’s version of the word over the cup is ‘hardly conceivable’ in a Jewish context,33 yet the variant that we have in Luke and 1 Corinthians is less obviously produced in a Jewish context, particularly if Mark’s account were to go back to an Aramaic original, as a number of scholars have argued.34 Yet would a saying about eating Jesus’ body not have been equally offensive? Nevertheless this form of the saying about the bread remained unchanged. Does that not then support ‘This cup is …’? Or was there another version of a saying about the cup, whose form had even less in common with that concerning the bread? Such a saying appears after the first cup saying in Luke and also after the only cup-saying in Matthew and Mark, a saying that is often regarded as one of the best established elements in the tradition of this meal and sometimes, too, as the original saying regarding the cup in the tradition of this meal:35 27 Merklein,

‘Erwägungen’, 97–8. Haenchen, Weg, 479. 29 An even closer parallelism is found in Justin, Apol. 1.66.3: τοῦτ’ ἐστι τὸ σῶµά µου … Τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ αἷµά µου. 30 Hahn, Theologie 2, 549–50, and in RGG4 1, 12, suggests that 1 Cor 10.16 shows that Paul also knew the ‘This is my body … This is my blood …’ version, but that may be to read to much into the parallelism of this verse. 31 Merklein, ‘Erwägungen’, 95; cf. also, e. g., Haenchen, Weg, 480. 32 Cf. Theissen/Merz, Jesus, 372. 33 Merklein, ‘Erwägungen’, 96. 34 See esp. the references to the views of Jeremias and Casey mentioned below. 35 So Hahn in RGG4 1, 11; cf. Theologie 2, 536; Merklein, ‘Erwägungen’, 237; Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 105. However, Eduard Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 309, following Klaus Berger, argues that Mark 14.25b is secondary. 28 Cf.

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From now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until God’s kingdom comes (Luke 22.18). From now on I will drink of the fruit of the vine no more until that day when I drink it anew in God’s kingdom (Mark 14.25; Matt 26.29 adds a ‘with you’ and reads ‘in the kingdom of my father’).36

One could perhaps combine this with Luke 22.17 (‘And taking the cup he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it amongst yourselves”’). If some such saying were the original form of the saying concerning the cup then it would have lacked any reference to Jesus’ death as salvific, and this might be considered an argument in its favour;37 we then do not have to postulate the sudden intrusion of such an idea or that of the covenant into Jesus’ teaching shortly before the end of his earthly ministry. Is it, however, correct to say that Jesus’ death is not seen as salvific here? Schürmann argues that to promise God’s salvation despite such circumstances is tantamount to giving oneself proexistent, as if Jesus were saying, ‘Despite the complete disaster that engulfs my ministry and my proclamation I promise you and hold out to you the salvation of the end-time’.38 Yet do these sayings attribute that promise to Jesus’ death or suggest that that death is necessary for the realization of that promised salvation? What saves is the coming of the kingdom, but nothing is said about Jesus’ death contributing to its coming. Jesus’ death may be imminent and may preclude any further participation in the Passover or the drinking of wine in this life, but that does not mean that his death contributes to, or furthers, the coming of the kingdom.39 Did the earliest version of Jesus’ words then have something like the following form, corresponding essentially to that of the shorter text of Luke, at least in content? And he said to them: ‘I have very much desired to eat this Passover meal with you before I must suffer. I will not eat it again till the meal finds its fulfilment in God’s kingdom.’ And he took the cup, gave thanks and said: ‘Take this and distribute it amongst yourselves. For I tell you: From now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until God’s kingdom comes.’ And he took bread, gave thanks and distributed it to them with the words: ‘This is my body.’ 36 Casey, Sources, 242–3; Jesus, 221, 435, prefers to follow the ‘Western’ reading, above all of Θ, which alone has the plural οὐκέτι οὐ µὴ προσθῶµεν πιεῖν (D, 565, ita, d, f arm have the sing. προσθῶ): ‘we will not drink again’. Behind this Casey sees an Aramaic πswn. 37 Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 34, argues for the antiquity of this saying and notes that it does not have the form of a cult-aetiology. 38 Schürmann, ‘Weiterleben’, 88. 39 Indeed, Marinus de Jonge regards the saying as ‘remarkable’ in that it not only presupposes Jesus’ vindication after his death ‘and his participation in the joy of the future kingdom without mentioning his parousia or assigning to him a central role in the final breakthrough of God’s sovereign rule’ (Envoy, 68), let alone claiming that his death was necessary for this breakthrough.

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It is true that these sayings about the cup and before that about the meal as a whole, but not specifically about the bread, have their own parallelism, but this does not lie in their formulation or sentence-structure, but rather in the content of the sayings, which are in both cases orientated towards the coming kingdom. It is also to be recognized that Rudolf Pesch identifies a considerable number of terms which he reads as typically Lukan,40 but, rather than taking this as evidence of Lukan redaction of the Markan version as he does, one could equally well regard these as evidence of Luke’s editing of an independent tradition. For, if Luke could thus impose his style on a Markan original, he could also impose them on a separate tradition, a tradition without an equivalent to Mark 14.24 unless Luke simply dropped it in favour of an equivalent to the version in 1 Cor 11.25. And a great many of those examples of Lukan usage that Pesch cites are contained in Luke 22.15 and 16 and could be seen as an argument for Luke’s having fashioned these verses to correspond to the tradition contained in his verse 18.41 That would then suggest an even shorter version of the tradition used by Luke: He took the cup, gave thanks and said: ‘Take this and distribute it amongst yourselves. For I tell you: From now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until God’s kingdom comes.’ And he took bread, gave thanks and distributed it to them with the words: ‘This is my body.’

Such a proposal would mean that after Easter Jesus’ followers took the brief saying about the bread and expanded it, with an interpretative phrase to give expression to the ‘for you’, but above all with a more or less parallel saying about the cup in which ideas of atonement or the (new) covenant played an important role. However, it is to be noted, as we have already seen, that the reference to the blood of the covenant in Matthew and Mark probably reflects Exod 24.8, where Moses sprinkles the people with blood, saying, ‘See, this is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you’, while the reference to the new covenant in the longer text of Luke and 1 Corinthians takes up the idea found in Jer 31.31, where God will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah. The tradition of this (second) saying over a or the cup is thus divided into two strands, each reflecting a different Old Testament background. These various ideas are, however, lacking in the tradition found in Luke 22.15–19a. 40 Pesch, Abendmahl, 28–30 (he identifies as Lukan ‘Vorzugswendungen’, ‘Vorzugsvokabeln’ or characteristics καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, ἐπιθυµέω, παθεῖν used absolutely for Jesus’ passion, λέγω γὰρ ὑµῖν, ἕως ὅτου, πληρωθῇ, ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν, ἕως οὗ). 41 So McKnight, Jesus, 329, following Meier, Marginal Jew 2, 304, points out that there would then be two such avowals in Luke’s account and argues that 22.16 is more likely an early Christian formulation modelled on the saying in v. 18. It is also noted by Meier that the addition of vv. 15–16 gives Luke the ‘opportunity to label this meal a Passover meal, a designation that is notably lacking in every other narrative of the Last Supper proper’.

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3.3 What Did Jesus Mean? In attempting to discover what Jesus may have meant by these words on this occasion an important preliminary question is whether this meal was a Passover meal, for such a context would provide an interpretative framework for his words and his actions. Joachim Jeremias argued at length that the meal was indeed a Passover meal and this coloured his entire interpretation of the account,42 and more recently Maurice Casey has asserted more briefly, but quite forcefully, that this meal was a Passover meal.43 Yet the gospels’ accounts are by no means unanimous or unambiguous on this point, although it is true that Mark clearly sets these events within the context of a Passover meal (14.12, 14, 16 parr.), even if this may at first sight seem hard to reconcile with Mark 14.1–2.44 Luke 22.15, too, could be interpreted as support for this, although some regard it rather as the expression of an unfulfilled wish.45 Paul, on the other hand, tells us that the meal took place on the night in which Jesus was delivered up (1 Cor 11.23), but says nothing of its being the Passover night; however, an argument from silence could be dangerous here.46 Jeremias finds in the accounts further implicit evidence of a Passover meal, such as the fact that the meal had to be held in Jerusalem, that it was held at night rather than late in the afternoon, and that Jesus did not leave the city boundaries afterwards.47 Some such as Joachim Gnilka are cautious about such evidence of a Passover meal, arguing that it is possible that such features have been added once Jesus was likened to the Passover lamb.48 42 It is perhaps over-hasty to dismiss Jeremias’s arguments with the statement that he has only shown that the Synoptic evangelists regarded the meal as a passover supper (so Haenchen, Weg, 485). 43 Jeremias, Words; Casey, Jesus, esp. 428–40; cf. also Pesch, ‘Abendmahl’, 165–72, and Abendmahl, e. g. 65, 67, 71, 76, 80–3, 85, 90. 44 Cf. Betz, ‘Gemeinschaft’, 406; Lührmann, Markusevangelium, 229. 45  E.g. McKnight, Jesus, 278, but also, perhaps more surprisingly in view of his identification of the meal with a Passover supper, Jeremias, Words, 207–8, who takes this verse with the following one and sees it as an ‘avowal of abstinence’ (for Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’, 34, it is, however, no vow or avowal of abstinence, but is evidence that Jesus was sure of his impending death; yet at the same time he held out to his disciples the prospect of the consummation in the eschatological meal; similarly, Pesch ‘Abendmahl’, 167, and Abendmahl, 79, states that this is no ‘Entsagungsgelübde’ but rather a ‘Todesprophetie’; cf. also de Jonge, Envoy,62; Schürmann, ‘Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und Verstanden?’, 344 = 43). On the other hand, Sanders mentions the further possibility that Jesus reckoned with God’s intervention to usher in the kingdom before his death (Jesus, 332). The saying in Mark 14.25 parr. would then mean either that he expected this intervention very soon or that it was indeed a declaration of abstinence: he would not taste wine again until God had intervened. 46 This is stressed by Casey, Jesus, 436–7, givings reasons why Paul should omit the Passover context of the original meal. 47 According to Theissen/Merz, Jesus, 374, these are the weightiest of Jeremias’ arguments. Jeremias lists many others: that Jesus celebrated the meal with a small circle of disciples, that they reclined rather than sitting, that they drank wine, and so forth. 48 Gnilka, ‘Wie urteilte Jesus über seinen Tod?’. 32.

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On the other hand, there is a series of counter-arguments, in part based on the accounts of the meal, in part on historical, above all chronological, considerations.49 The words of interpretation are spoken during the meal and not before it, as was the practice at a Passover meal, and they do not take the form usually employed at the Passover meal, in which the question would be posed as to the meaning of distinctive elements of that meal such as the unleavened bread or the bitter herbs, and the father of the household would then provide an interpretation based on the founding events of the feast on the eve of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. We cannot be certain that the bread that Jesus broke and interpreted differed from normal bread. And, even if the drinking of wine was uncommon, it is striking that there is no reference to the Passover lamb that was eaten on this occasion.50 It seems that a single, shared cup was used, not the individual cups associated with Passover. And, whereas the Passover meal was traditionally a family affair, there is no mention of the presence of any relatives, despite the tradition that some of them were in Jerusalem and witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion,51 although admittedly it could not be expected of an itinerant band that they could easily gather the families that they had left in order to follow Jesus.52 Yet it is perhaps the historical and chronological difficulties that arise when it is assumed that this was a Passover meal that weigh more heavily. By this I do not 49 Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 87, notes that the majority of scholars prefer the Johannine chronology. Cf. also, e. g. Betz, ‘Gemeinschaft’, 408. 50 It is true that Paul speaks of Christ as a Passover lamb (1 Cor 5.7), but not in the context of the tradition of Jesus’ last meal (cf., e. g., Gese, ‘Herkunft’ 114). And it is bread and wine (or just the bread if this form of the cup-saying is a later addition as suggested above) with which Jesus seems to identify himself, not the flesh of the lamb. 51 Above all Jesus’ mother, but also other women such as Mary the mother of Clopas and Mary of Magdala (John 19.25; cf. Mark 16.1), Mary the mother of Joses (Mark 15.47) and Mary the mother of James and Salome (Mark 16.1); cf. also Luke 23.49. The Gospel according to the Hebrews also presupposes the presence of Jesus’ brother James at the meal (ed. Schneemelcher § 7 = ed. Elliott § 4), and Casey supposes that considerably more than Jesus and the Twelve were present (Sources, 226–8; Jesus, 430); he distinguishes between the ‘disciples’ (mentioned in Mark 14.12–13, 16) and the Twelve. (Yet Jos., BJ 6.423–4, seems to presuppose a number ranging from 10 to 20 as normal for a Passover meal, which would not allow much scope for many more than Jesus and the Twelve.) However, if what is described were not the Passover meal itself, the absence of a larger circle would be less incongruous. 52 Yet Casey, Jesus, 428, 432, assumes that this meal was a Passover meal and followed the normal course of one (as does McKnight, Jesus, 253–8, at least hypothetically, since he finally comes to the conclusion that ‘Jesus turned a Passover week meal into a kind of Pesah’ – 272), and that Mark’s (Aramaic) source could simply assume its readers’ familiarity with these features and leave them unmentioned (cf. his Sources, 237). That is perhaps just as dangerous an argument as that from Paul’s silence about the Passover setting (cf. Jesus, 436). Hahn rightly notes that Passover elements could have been added to the tradition in view of the timing of Jesus’ death (and Betz, ‘Gemeinschaft’. 409, argues, plausibly, that the Jerusalem church would have continue to share in the Passover celebrations until the destruction of the temple) or they could have been removed in consideration of the regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the church after Easter (Theologie 2, 535).

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primarily mean Theissen and Merz’s first objection that, had the last meal been a Passover meal, then the rite of the Lord’s supper would have been celebrated only yearly. For some, like James Dunn, argue that this was originally the case.53 More significant is the point that Theissen and Merz make, that in the Fourth Gospel Jesus dies on 14 Nisan before the time of the Passover meal; he dies at about the time of the slaughter of the Passover lambs in the Jerusalem temple. Yet this timing could have symbolic significance as 1 Cor 5.7 shows, and could have been chosen by this evangelist for this purpose. More important is the fact that this chronology means that Jesus died before the beginning of the festival and that this removes a number of the difficulties in accepting the gospels’ accounts of the trials of Jesus and their legality. At any rate, Jewish judicial measures taken against Jesus before the feast would be a less glaring offence against Jewish custom and legal practice than would have been the case once the feast had begun. On the other hand, the argument of Theissen and Merz that the Passover amnesty mentioned in the gospels would be likelier before the feast had begun, allowing the person pardoned then to take part in the meal, is weakened by the doubts over the historical credibility of such a practice in the first place; close parallels are hard to find, particularly when the prisoner in question was accused of a capital offence such as insurrection or treason. The most that one can say is that the gospels may imply a trial before the beginning of the feast, and the same would be true of a further point, that Simon of Cyrene was coming in from the fields as Jesus was led out to be crucified (Mark 15.21).54 Yet, even if Jesus did not celebrate the Passover meal itself, it is hardly to be doubted that it took place during the Passover season, in the period immediately before the feast itself, and that therefore the significance of the feast would be very much in the minds of Jesus and his disciples, even if the meal described in the New Testament accounts contained the characteristic features of festive Jewish meals in general.55 It was a time of lively expectations, above all of messianic expectations in the broadest sense, as the people recalled God’s rescue and deliverance of Israel in the past and would be encouraged to hope for another act of God to rescue them from their present subjection to foreign rule. For again and again we read that this feast was the occasion for demonstrations and rebellious acts,56 and that the Roman governor therefore felt obliged to take up residence in Jerusalem at this time, together with military reinforcements for the garrison there. Alone the massive crowds of pilgrims would have made that prudent, regardless of the religious associations of the festival. Both the Jewish Unity, 163. Marginal Jew 1, 396, accordingly prefers John’s chronology, holding that Jeremias’ dating of the meal labours under an ‘immense weight of historical improbability’. Cf. also Hahn, Theologie 2, 535. 55 Cf., e. g., Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 88. 56 Cf., e. g., Maier, Zwischen den Testamenten, 230–1. 53 Dunn, 54 Meier,

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and the Roman authorities had therefore good cause to be apprehensive when faced with the expectations that many of the people harboured with respect to Jesus’ person and role. Yet how far did the expectations and the symbolism of this feast affect the form and the nature of Jesus’ last meal? For we have seen the silence of the accounts about the central elements of this meal such as the lamb or distinctive elements like the bitter herbs, and it is not easy to find allusions to the Passover feast in the words attributed to Jesus. As we have seen, for instance, those words lack the question and answer form typical of interpretative commentary on the elements of the meal.57 At any rate, whether it was a Passover meal or not, it was not the distinctive elements of a Passover meal that Jesus apparently found it appropriate to interpret. Above all, there is not the slightest hint that he identified himself in any way with the Passover lamb or any lamb at all in the manner either of 1 Cor 5.7 or of the Fourth Gospel.58 And Scot McKnight, who in the last analysis, comes to the conclusion that this meal was not the Passover meal itself, reminds us too that, even if it were the Passover meal, ‘then Jesus has redefined Pesah, and that means that he has told a new story’.59 So, if we may set aside allusions specifically to the Passover rites apart from the hopes and expectations of redemption from bondage that were in the air at that time, what could these words of Jesus mean? And if we also remain sceptical about possible allusions to ideas of atonement or the covenant, what further light could or do Jesus’ words throw on his understanding of his work and his fate? At first sight what is left of this traditional material might seem to offer little insight into Jesus’ understanding either of the meal or of what lay before him, apart from the fact that it was perhaps the last that he would share with his disciples. Hovever, if indeed Jesus said something like ‘This is my body’ as he broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, what could that mean? It is important to avoid over-interpreting this phrase here. Most assume that behind the word ‘body’ lies the Aramaic word gûphâ, which can also mean ‘self’.60 In that case, what Jesus said could mean ‘This is me, this is my person’. But what could that mean 57 Although Casey argues that, had there been children present at this meal, one of them would have posed the traditional questions about the distinctive features of the Passover meal, to be answered by Jesus: Sources, 228; Jesus, 430. And if there were no children present? 58 In the light of John 1.29 and 19.36 it is hard to resist the conclusion that the chronology of the Johannine passion also reflects this symbolism, even if that does not rule out the possibility that this dating of Jesus’ death is the correct one and one which avoids, at least to some extent, the considerable difficulties presented by his arrest and trial on the first day of the feast. 59 McKnight, Jesus, 257. 60 So, e. g., Hahn in RGG4 1, 11, but in Theologie 2, 541, he opts for (a)rcb, on the grounds that (a)pwg would above all refer to a lifeless body and appeals to John 6.51c. However, one would then expect the Greek to be σάρξ, not σῶµα. But Casey, Sources, 220, 237, prefers µvg: ymvg awh hnd. He cannot quite rule πWg out, but, like argp, it does not occur ‘in quite the right sense until texts of a later date’. McKnight approvingly compares Dan 3.27–8 (Jesus, 280).

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in such a context? Or did its significance lie in the act of breaking itself, so that one could see here a symbolic anticipation of Jesus’ death? Yet the breaking was surely rather the prerequisite for the distribution of the bread. Was it then more the distribution and shared eating of the bread that were significant? WernerGeorg Kümmel makes the suggestion that the disciples, by eating together the bread that had been given them, stayed in fellowship with Jesus;61 then the act of distributing and the shared eating can be seen as an action that means fellowship, friendship and solidarity and would have been seen as such in the society of that time. So Christoph Niemand notes that in Jewish meals then ‘breaking, distributing and eating the bread, over which praise had been offered to God, make the participants into a table-fellowship in God’s sight’.62 It would have posed to them, in the form of a symbolic action, a question similar to that asked of James and John in Mark 10.38 par., namely whether they were ready to share Jesus’ baptism and cup. (If Christians later introduced covenantal ideas, then this line of interpretation could be seen as quite appropriate, a legitimate elaboration on this aspect of Jesus’ action.) Such an action on Jesus’ part would have been thoroughly intelligible at this point of time. For Jesus would have been aware that it was possible, perhaps even probable or highly probable, that he would soon be taken away from his disciples and that they would see him no more. Moreover, a test and a trial loomed before him in which their support would be needed as never before. What he was offering his disciples was a fellowship with himself, a fellowship that involved not just consolation in the event of his impending death, but before that death an obligation to stand by him in his hour of need, perhaps even to share his fate (as indeed some of them later did). Does that not mean that his disciples, through their eating what he had given them, had committed themselves to share his fearful fate with him, so that he would not stand alone at this moment of deepest need? C. H. Dodd argues that the sharing in the cup by the disciples was a demonstration of their solidarity with their Master, both as beneficiaries of his sacrifice, and as being themselves committed to a like self-devotion for others, for this belongs to the character of the true people of God.63

Yet two things need to be said here: the first is that, as we have seen, one should not speak too quickly of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice that would benefit others if he saw it as inaugurating the eschatological woes; the other is that the ‘self-devotion for others’ included a ‘for Jesus’ if they were to stand with him in his time of trial. Even if one does not follow McKnight in arguing that this bread, even at a 61 Kümmel, Theologie, 83. Schröter, too, argues that the ‘this is …’ refers to the actions of breaking and distributing the bread and it is these actions, not the bread or the wine, that are interpreted (Abendmahl, 128, 130). 62 Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 89. 63 Dodd, Founder, 118.

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meal that was not the Passover meal itself, but rather a more informal one held in Passover week, i. e. before Passover, his reference to the unleavened bread being the ‘bread of affliction’ (Deut 16.3) may also be appropriate.64 At any rate the memory of the events of the exodus might in themselves suggest the danger and risk inherent in that past event and in the situation in which Jesus and his disciples now found themselves. Then his giving the bread to them would have been an appeal to them to remain true to him and support him and follow him when he most needed that support. Whether or not the scene of his agonized prayer in Gethesemane is historically reliable or not, it nonetheless reflects that all too human weakness and failure on the part of the disciples to support Jesus if only through their prayers, let alone to go with him through the fearful events that followed. Instead one of them would even precipitate those events through his betrayal and the others would desert him in flight. Now it is true that the question whether Jesus himself first ate a piece of bread or drank from the cup before passing the bread and the cup on to his disciples is perhaps more importat for the symbolism of this meal than is sometimes realized. Had Jesus refrained from eating and drinking, then one can more plausibly argue, as Christoph Niemand does, that Jesus ‘dedicated himself in what he did for the sake of his followers and gave himself to them as bread of blessing’. If, on the other hand, Jesus had himself first partaken of the bread and the wine, then it becomes more plausible to see here a reciprocal self-giving symbolized, in which the disciples by accepting what is given to them dedicate and commit themselves as well (and Niemand also grants that something was demanded of Jesus’ hearers who would unavoidably be placed in a ‘decisive relationship’ to Jesus’ person).65 The accounts are unfortunately far from clear on this point. Only if Mark 14.25 parr. were to be interpreted as a vow of abstinence, would one have evidence that Jesus refrained from this part of the meal at least, but that is by no means certain. The import of Jesus’ saying could well be that, having just drunk from the cup, he would no longer drink, or be in the position to drink, wine again until he could drink it again in God’s kingdom. In that case the saying would above all express the conviction that his death (or the coming of the kingdom through God’s intervention if one thought that Jesus expected that, despite Matt 26.53) was now very near, so near that there would be no further opportunity to drink wine again in this life, as well as the confidence that the kingdom would indeed come.66 It would also be tempting to link the significance of the drinking from 64 McKnight, Jesus, 280–1. What seems less clear is his subsequent reference to Jesus’ action ‘offering them the protection of a sacrificial death or participation in that death’; ‘protection’ may have been offered to the Israelites by the slaughter of the lambs and the sprinkling with their blood, but ‘protection’ was not something that Jesus could offer his followers, but rather exposure to the risk that he himself faced. 65 Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 99–100. 66 Cf. Niemand, ‘Jesu Abendmahl’, 107–9.

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this cup with that from which Jesus and his followers must drink according to Mark 10.38 par., but it may be that the cup at this meal has no more significance, and was not intended to have any more, than that it was part of the meal. If there is, however, a link with the thought expressed in Mark 10.38 par. then it would imply that Jesus presumably drank of it himself and in offering it to his disciples intended that they should see in their drinking from it a pledge of their readiness to suffer with him.67 Is it necessary or desirable, however, to go further and to see the idea of atonement at least implicit in Jesus’ word over the bread. Is there here the idea of offering his person for others, that is a ‘for you’, even if those originally were lacking? And anyway, must that ‘for you’ involve atonement? When members of a fellowship commit themselves in solidarity with one another to live together in that solidarity and fellowship, then they commit themselves to live for the other members, but that has surely very little to do with atonement. It is true that Ulrich Luz, for instance, has argued strongly, but briefly, that Jesus here understood his death as atoning. To Schürmann’s argument from the novelty of a single cup as a feature that begged to be interpreted,68 he adds three arguments.69 The first, that this meal was everywhere celebrated in a similar form, will not do in view of the variations that already mentioned, including the ones hinted at in the varying accounts of Jesus’ last meal. That the meal was celebrated in some way or another may hold good and I would not want to deny that these various forms of the celebration stand in some relationship to this meal of Jesus with his disciples. Luz’s second argument concerns the practice of baptism in(to) Jesus’ name, but does it follow that it is probable that this carried with it the connotation of the interpretation of Jesus’ death as atoning? Could it not originally have referred to a belonging to Jesus, being under his lordship and a member of his people?70 Then, finally, Luz appeals to the criterion of Wirkungsplausibilität: the idea of the atoning efficacy of Jesus’ death was so widespread in early Christianity that it is simplest to assume that the idea goes back to Jesus. Jesus may have spoken of forgiveness of sins, it is true, but seems to have followed the Baptist in attributing this forgiveness to God’s grace towards penitent sinners. The idea that Jesus’ death was a sin-offering was, as we shall 67 Gese, ‘Herkunft’, 115, seems to wish to distinguish in the Markan account a Passover meal, in which Jesus partook of food and drink, and a following Lord’s Supper (Herrenmahl) where he abstained. It is true that the twofold reference to their eating (Mark 14.18, 22) is strange, but it seems contrived to split the consumption of food into two distinct meals. When one hears, however, that the Herrenmahl is the Toda or thank-offering (after rescue from a threat to life) of the resurrected Jesus (122), one can hardly rescue Mark’s account from the charge of anachronism by claiming that the identification of the one who betrayed meant Jesus’ entry already into the sphere of death; he was not so quickly rescued that evening from that sphere. 68 Cf. Schürmann, ‘Weiterleben’, 76. 69 Luz, ‘Warum zog Jesus nach Jerusalem?’, 426. 70 Cf. Wedderburn, Baptism, 54–60.

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see, one that occurred early on to his followers, even if it was by no means the only way in which they spoke of the significance of his death. Yet it needs to be asked whether it was not so natural an interpretation of the meaning of his death that it could have occurred to his followers without his having initiated and propagated this understanding himself. Theissen and Merz seek to link this meal with Jesus’ sayings about the temple and his action in the temple, and to see in the act of eating a substitute for the temple-cult.71 If, however, the action in the temple was not directed against the temple itself or the templecult, but was a protest directed at the temple aristocracy,72 then such an interpretation of Jesus’ last meal is far less plausible. Bruce Chilton suggests another possibility: Jesus at this point of time made his tablefellowship into an alternative to the sacrificial cult, and it was this development that so provoked Judas that he disclosed it to the high-priestly authorities; this was, according to Chilton, the reason that Jesus was accused by Caiaphas of blasphemy.73 Yet the accounts of Jesus’ trial completely fail to mention this basis of the charge.

Two aspects of the accounts of this last meal are, I suggest, historically highly probable: in the first place, in this threatening and dangerous situation Jesus awaited the eschatological banquet in God’s kingdom and even expected this hope to be realized in the near future. And, secondly, he celebrated this meal as a special sign of the fellowship between himself and his disciples. Yet after a short time this fellowship fell apart and Jesus had to face his fate alone. One needs to be cautious about reading a soteriological significance into this particular meal and Jesus’ actions performed and words spoken on this occasion. It is true that there would have been a soteriological significance in many, if not all, of the meals that Jesus celebrated, particularly in the company of ‘sinners’ and social outcasts, if his table-fellowship symbolized that they were accepted into his fellowship and could expect to continue to enjoy that fellowship in God’s kingdom.74 Yet this meal was in this respect different, in that, as far as we know, most of those present, if not all, were members of Jesus’ closest circle of followers. And if one of them sinned by betraying, his participation in the meal was no pledge of salvation, but rather occasioned the dire warning of Mark 14.21 parr. Nor was Jesus, 382. Wedderburn, ‘Jesus’ Action’. 73 E.g. Chilton, Pure Kingdom, 125; Rabbi Jesus, esp. 255. McKnight, Jesus, 325 n. 6, remarks that ‘Chilton’s view ultimately signifies no one understood the last supper, or at least Jesus’ meals and, even more, everyone misunderstood these occasions as they came to terms with his death.’ (He correctly notes that ‘there is strong evidence that many early Christian Jews lingered around the temple and made Jerusalem central to their perception of God’s work in Jesus’ – 327, citing [e. g.] Acts 2.42–7; 15; Gal 1–2; Jas.) 74 Cf. Luke 19.5–9. It is also significant how often Jesus in his teaching and parables picks up the image of the eschatological meal, and this dimension sheds light on his practice of tablefellowship, particularly inview of his message that God’s reign was already breaking into this world. 71 Theissen/Merz, 72 Cf.

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the meal characterized by joy and celebration, but by foreboding and a sense of impending tragedy.75 To that extent this meal was less ‘soteriological’ or ‘salvific’ than previous ones during the earlier part of Jesus’ ministry.

75 Schürmann, ‘Wie hat Jesus seinen Tod bestanden und verstanden?’, 354 = 57, makes much of Jesus’ actions in giving his disciples the bread and the cup (his Gebegesten) as offering salvation, but, if the reading offered above is correct, at least the word over the bread offered primarily a share in Jesus’ suffering.

4. Forsaken by God? The gospels describe in particular two incidents in Jesus’ last hours that are potentially highly informative about Jesus’ attitude to his death. The first is the way in which Jesus prayed to his God in Gethsemane before his arrest (Mark 14.32–42 parr.), the other is the agonized cry that Jesus uttered on the cross just before his death (Mark 15.34 par.). Yet at first sight these two scenes seem to reflect a very different attitude to that death, the one an attitude of submission to God’s will despite the horror of the impending fate, the other a despairing and accusing reproach directed to the God who is seemingly of no help at all in this terrible situation. It may well be that neither scene is fully historically reliable but, if this is rather how early Christians have later decided to portray Jesus at these two moments, it may nevertheless be highly significant that they thought it appropriate to attribute these two, seemingly very different, attitudes to him.

4.1 Gethsemane It is hardly possible simply to take this scene at its face value as an eyewitness account, although Reinhard Feldmeier argues that, even if the account is not a faithful account of what actually happened, it may still give a somewhat stylized impression of the essence (Wesen) of this episode.1 For one thing, how did the sleeping disciples know how and what Jesus had prayed, for he would seemingly have had little opportunity afterwards before his arrest to inform them what had happened?2 Yet here Feldmeier questions whether all the disciples really fell asleep simultaneously as Jesus began to pray so that they heard nothing of his prayer; what may have been consecutive stages have, in a somewhat contrived manner, been described as simultaneous. (Yet this line of argument seems to come rather near to the ‘rearguard action’ of Holtzmann whom he mentions as

1 Feldmeier,

Krisis, 133–9.

2 It would be a needlessly speculative hypothesis to assert that the risen Jesus had later briefed

them on what had taken place, although Feldmeier, Krisis, 137 n. 88, mentions Theodore of Mopsuestia and Luther as proposing this solution of the problem. Cf. also Schmithals, Markus 2, 633.

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proposing that before the disciples fell asleep they heard Jesus’ cry of ‘Abba’;3 however, if the content of the prayer has been at all reliably represented, they would have had to have heard a little bit more than just this one word.) Nonetheless these verses offer us a theologically pregnant description of Jesus’ struggle to come to terms with his impending fate as well as underlining once again the motif of the disciples’ failure, and that despite the meal that they had just eaten with Jesus, with all its symbolism, features that Feldmeier reckons among the arguments for the substantial reliability of this account.4 Rightly he emphasizes, too, that the disciples were not meant to pray just for themselves, but to join Jesus in his prayer, taking part ‘in Jesus’ messianic suffering, struggling with him in the hour of decision, expectantly waiting for the Father even in the darkness of a hidden God and triumphant evil’.5 Left alone, however, Jesus submits, very reluctantly, to the will of his Father.6 Indeed, as Alistair Kee remarks, ‘Perhaps for the first time there is his will, and God’s will and the two are not the same’.7 Yet in all this there is no hint that he does so because he knows that his death will bring redemption or atonement or even that it will somehow benefit others.8 This scene is found in all three Synoptics, with Mark and Matthew in broad agreement,9 but Luke presenting an account that differs in many respects, leading some to suppose that he is here, as elsewhere in his account of the passion, fol3 Feldmeier, Krisis, 137, quoting H. J. Holtzmann, Die Synoptiker (HC 1; Tübingen/Leipzig: 3rd ed. 1901) 175. 4 Feldmeier, Krisis, 138–9. 5 Feldmeier, Krisis, 240–1. 6 Feldmeier, Krisis, 243, argues that the negative οὐ in Mark (and also in Matthew) as opposed to the µή in Luke means that Jesus is stating a fact rather than expressing a wish. (This is a distinction that most English translations can avoid by leaving the verb unexpressed, as Mark does, and some German ones too; but cf. the Einheitsübersetzung: ‘Aber nicht, was ich will, sondern was du willst [soll geschehen]’, i. e. the interpretation that Feldmeier rejects.) Nonetheless the prayer that the cup might pass from him makes it clear that this fact is not one that he can easily accept. 7 Kee, Faith, 55. 8 Pace Feldmeier, Krisis, 244, who has to interpret this scene in the light of other passages such as Mark 10.45 or 14.24, as well as Exod 32.32 and Rom 9.3, in order to read this into the Gethsemane episode. 9 Some minor differences are recognizable: e. g. Mark 14.33, ἐκθαµβεῖσθαι, is replaced by the weaker λυπεῖσθαι in Matt 26.37; Matt 26.38 adds µετ’ ἐµοῦ (see also 26.40) and in 26.40 πρὸς τοὺς µαθητὰς; Mark 14.35 has ἔπιπτεν, Matt 26.39 ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ; Mark 14.36 has Αββα ὁ πατήρ, πάντα δυνατά σοι· παρένεγκε, Matt 26.39 Πάτερ µου, εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν, παρελθάτω (but cf. Mark 14.35), etc. More substantial is Matthew’s omission of ἵνα εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν παρέλθῃ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ἡ ὥρα from Mark 14.35 and ἀπέχει from Mark 14.41; the first of these could have been felt to be superfluous, the latter enigmatic. And, although the question in Matt 26.40 and Mark 14.37 is apparently addressed only to Peter, Matt has οὐκ ἰσχύσατε and Mark Σίµων, καθεύδεις; οὐκ ἴσχυσας (although v. 38 has, like Matthew, the plural γρηγορεῖτε καὶ προσεύχεσθε). Whereas Mark will not repeat the content of Jesus’ prayer the second time but merely has τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον (14.39), as Matthew does in the case of the third time (Matt 26.44), Matthew has in 26.42 Πάτερ µου, εἰ οὐ δύναται τοῦτο παρελθεῖν ἐὰν µὴ αὐτὸ πίω, γενηθήτω τὸ θέληµά σου.

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lowing a different source.10 Yet, as Feldmeier points out, whereas Mark has Jesus praying throughout that the cup might pass from him and receiving no answer, Matthew depicts Jesus as gradually acquiescing and actively endorsing God’s will; in this way ‘there comes about in Matthew an inner certainty on Jesus’ part, that the Father would rescue him if he wanted to (26.53), an “I can” that as such is not found in the Markan passion story’.11 The Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, has at first sight no recognizable equivalent to Jesus’ agonized prayer, but only to the following arrest. Nonetheless, there are a number of indications that John knew of a similar account of Jesus’ prayer:12 above all John 12.27–8 has Jesus say now my soul is troubled. And what am I to say? Father, rescue me from this hour? But it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.13

And Jesus receives an answer as a voice from heaven tells him that ‘I have glorified it and will glorify it again’.14 It is true that John places this exchange before the account of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples in ch. 13, and only mentions their going to the garden at the start of ch. 18, after the farewell discourses (18.1). However, it is not to be expected that the sovereign Jesus, who had announced that he, as the ‘good shepherd’, would lay down his life, rather than having it taken from him, and, just as he was authorized to lay down his life, so he was authorized to take it up again (John 10.18), would have to wrestle and agonize in prayer as the Synoptic Jesus does. Rightly Feldmeier speaks more than once of ‘implicit corrections’ of the scene as attested in the Synoptics (40–1), and if John 17 appears at roughly the same point in the sequence of events as the agonized prayer in Gethsemane the contrast could hardly be greater. 10 Cf., e. g., Bovon, Lukas 4, 295; Marshall, Luke, 832 (‘with very considerable hesitation’). On the other hand, Feldmeier, Krisis, 17, 38, argues that Luke 22.43–4 were added very early from an apocryphal tradition, and disputes whether any special source is at work here. 11 Feldmeier, Krisis, 10. Correspondingly he detects in Matthew that Jesus is increasingly abandoned by the disciples even as he is reunited with the Father through prayer; the overall effect is to soften the theological hardness of the Markan account (11). 12 So, e. g., Barrett, John, 350; Becker, Johannes, 452–3; Bultmann, Johannes, 327 n. 7; Schnackenburg, John 2, 386–7; Schnelle, Johannes, 204; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 561. See also the discussion in Feldmeier, Krisis, 39–49, who also asks whether John 12.23 is the Johannine equivalent of Mark 14.41 and whether the coming of the ruler of this world (John 14.30) corresponds to the coming of Judas, into whom Satan has entered (13.27). The sudden appearance of the metaphor of the cup in John 18.11 may also reflect this scene as portrayed in the Synoptics. However, he leaves it open whether the Fourth Evangelist knew one or more of the Synoptics or was using an independent tradition, but inclines to the latter option (43). 13 Whereas Mark’s περίλυπός ἐστιν ἡ ψυχή µου (14.34) recalls Ps 41.6 and 42.5 LXX John’s νῦν ἡ ψυχή µου τετάρακται echoes 41.7 ἡ ψυχή µου ἐταράχθη (cf. 42.5, συνταράσσεις). 14 It should be noted that the Markan Jesus asks too for deliverance from ‘the hour’ (Mark 14.35) and that just before, in John 12.23, Jesus announces that ‘the hour has come when the son of man is to be glorified’ which can be compared, and contrasted, with Mark 14.41, ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα, ἰδοὺ παραδίδοται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου εἰς τὰς χεῖρας τῶν ἁµαρτωλῶν.

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Heb 5.7–8 has also frequently been taken as a reference to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane:15 ‘He (Christ) offered up in the days of his flesh with loud crying and with tears prayers and supplications to the one who could rescue him from death, and he was heard because of his godly fear, and thus, although he was (God’s) son, he learnt obedience through what he suffered.’ It is true that part of the problem of these verses lies in the fact Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane was not heard and this has led to the suggestion that it is the fear of death that is here meant. Nonetheless, it is likelier that it is a matter of a physical death that is imminent or has already occurred. For the preposition used here, ἐκ, is more appropriate if the death has already occurred and the deliverance in question would then be God’s raising Jesus from (also ἐκ) the dead.16 However, Erich Grässer is amongst those who have questioned whether the scene in Gethsemane is meant here, but adds the interesting suggestion that these verses might be a more general reference to Jesus’ prayers during his passion, presumably including his ‘loud cry’ on the cross (Mark 15.34 par.).17

Although the theological problems presented by this passage may not seem so acute as those inherent in Jesus’ cry on the cross, they are nevertheless to be found, as the history of the interpretation of it shows.18 Jesus’ conduct was condemned as unfitting by both Celsus and the emperor Julian.19 For a start, any that believed that divinity must entail freedom from suffering had difficulty with the sorrow and distress of Jesus at this point in time, and Dorothee Sölle traces this tendency back to Luke, in that he toned down the signs of Jesus’ suffering and left out his admission to the disciples of the dread that he felt, just as a later hand, according to Epiphanius, left out his weeping in Luke 19.41 and 22.43–4.20 15 E.g. Kuss, Hebräer, 73; Montefiore, Hebrews, 97; Schunack, Hebräerbrief, 71–2; H.-F. Weiss, Hebräer, 312. Luz, Matthäus 4, 132, sees here a tradition that is independent of the Synoptics. But cf. Attridge, Hebrews, 148; Koester, Hebrews, 107; Lane, Hebrews 1, 120; also Grässer cited below. See also Feldmeier, Krisis, 50–63. 16 So, e. g., Braun, Hebräer, 142. If Ps 114 LXX has influenced this verse (cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 50–1, following A. Strobel, ‘Die Psalmengrundlage der Getsemane-Parallele Hbr 7,5 ff.’, ZNW 45 [1954] 252–66), then 114.8 (116.8) is relevant here: ἐξείλατο τὴν ψυχήν µου ἐκ θανάτου – earlier the psalm had spoken of death’s snares encompassing the psalmist and the pangs of Sheol laying hold on him (v. 3). An additional difficulty is the assumption that stylistically ‘although he was (God’s) son’ must be taken with what precedes it rather than with what follows, and this has led in turn to the drastic solution of inserting a negative: the son was not heard, despite his sonship (so Bultmann in TDNT 2, 753, following Adolf von Harnack; see also Feldmeier, Krisis, 51 and n. 8). It is better to take this concessive clause with what follows: despite being God’s son, he had to suffer and only thus be perfected. 17 Grässer, Hebräer 1, 297; cf. also Feldmeier, Krisis, 61–2; Laub, Hebräerbrief, 71. Certainly the reference to κραυγὴ ἰσχυρά would be appropriate if Jesus’ cry on the cross was also in mind (but see Michel, Hebräer, 220). On the other hand, Bovon, Lukas 4, 299–300, suggests that Heb 5.7–8 is a further witness to the version of this scene in Gethsemane that Luke (as well as the author of the Gospel of the Nazarenes) found in his special source. 18 Cf. the brief surveys of the Wirkungsgeschichte in Bovon, Lukas 4, 310–22; Gnilka, Markus 2, 265–6; Luz, Matthäus 4, 139–51. 19 Cf. Bovon, Lukas 4, 312, 314; Feldmeier, Krisis, 145. 20 Sölle, Leiden, 101. Luke has no equivalent to Mark 14.33–4 par., but it could be argued that Luke 22.43–4, if part of the original text, compensates for this omission. On the evaluation of Epiphanius’ testimony cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 14.

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In turn this was countered by separating the human and the divine natures of Jesus: it was the human nature of Jesus that suffered thus.21 However, there was also the further problem that Jesus seemed to want something different to what God wanted (Mark 14.36 parr.), a problem solved by assigning to Jesus two wills corresponding to his two natures, although this suggestion was naturally resisted by the Monothelites.22 Although Luz can point to many exegetes among the Fathers who saw in this scene evidence of Jesus’ true humanity, if the divine will was really his too, then this seems to distinguish him from the rest of humanity. Despite this, Luz draws attention to the tendency in the late Middle Ages to identify oneself with the experience of Christ in Gethsemane and quotes the somewhat quaint observation of the Meditationes vitae Christi that Jesus ‘seems to have forgotten that he is God, and prays like a human being’.23 That perspective shifted with the Reformation in that the stress was placed less on identification with the suffering Christ, but more on the message that he had suffered and died for us. (It should again be emphasized that this ‘for us’ has been read into the text; there is not the slightest indication that Jesus was aware of praying for anyone but himself; indeed he wanted his disciples to pray with him and for him.) Over against the romantic tendency to picture Jesus as a hero suffering for us, in the twentieth century Luz detects a return to the view of Jesus as human, suffering and praying, but now receiving no answer from God and left deserted by disciples and God alike; in this emphasis, then, Jesus’ cry on the cross is foreshadowed.24 Sölle, too, links this scene in Gethsemane closely with Jesus’ cry on the cross, but also makes two further important observations: she distinguishes between the agony of waiting and the perhaps momentary anguish of pain itself 21 Cf., e. g., Bovon’s quotation of Ambrose of Milan (Exp. Luc. X 59) at this point: Lukas 4, 314. Yet Ambrose also stressed Jesus’ identification with the experiences of humanity (X 56) Bovon also notes (Lukas 4, 320) how this patristic interpretation of the scene in terms of Jesus’ two natures is echoed in the nineteenth century by Ernest Renan: ‘Human nature asserte itself for a time. … his Divine nature soon regained the supremacy’ (Life, 192). 22 Cf., e. g. A. M. Ritter, ‘Monotheletismus’, in RGG4 5, 1467–9, and his citation of Philoxenus of Mabbug in his Alte Kirche, § 93(i). 23 Luz, Matthäus 4, 142, quoting this work attributed to Bonaventura (75 = 600) 24 Karl Barth comments: ‘It is only with reservations that we can call the prayer in Gethsemane a “conversation” with God. In the texts there is no mention of any answer corresponding to and accepting the address of Jesus.’ (Cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 187, who goes on to argue that the puzzling ἀπέχει in Mark 14.41 means that God is far way: 209–14.) A possible exception is the angel that appears in some versions of Luke’s account (22.43), but Barth refers to the ‘sign of Jonah’ and states that in the case of Jesus ‘the only sign will be the actual event of his death. … The answer which Jesus receives is in itself this and no other, this answer which was no answer, to which His prayer itself alluded’ (Church Dogmatics IV.1, 268). Moltmann, Way, 166, comments that ‘God does not hear [Jesus’] prayer that the cup of suffering might pass him by. Elsewhere we hear: “I and the Father are one”. Here Jesus’ fellowship with God seems to be shattered.’ At any rate, the angel does not remove the cup, but strengthens Jesus in order to drink it. Yet even that is suspect: Sölle rightly observes that such miraculous features always risk separating Jesus from us by bestowing on him privileges and a status that we do not enjoy (Leiden, 100).

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and she observes that in all extreme suffering one experiences being forsaken by God. Yet death by crucifixion or the experience of being tortured to which she refers are no momentary experiences, and it is doubtful whether every extreme suffering is experienced as desertion by God.25 The prayer, for instance, that is attributed to Polycarp, admittedly before the pyre is actually set alight, breathes a very different spirit.26 And the camp doctor at Flossenbürg records that he saw Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the day of his execution kneeling in prayer, ‘so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer’, and praying again as he climbed the steps to the gallows; he goes on to say that ‘I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God’.27 And when Sölle later cites a series of passages from members of the resistance awaiting death one sees no trace of this sense of being abandoned.28 At any rate, comparing the various interpretations offered, Luz comes to the conclusion that the paraenetic interpretations are closest to Matthew’s text,29 but the question must surely be posed differently if one is interested primarily in the experience of Jesus that lies behind the different Synoptic accounts. And although some, influenced by newer fashions in historiography, have seemed to argue that one should not do so, I have maintained that such an enquiry is integral to what most practising historians think that they are doing and actually are doing.30 It is also true that for most of the period covered by a Wirkungsgeschichte such as Luz offers the exegetes and theologians surveyed thought that they were doing both things at the same time, expounding both the New Testament text and the experience of Jesus. And, precisely because they believed that their exposition of the text laid bare the experience of Jesus, they were confronted with questions as to Jesus’ nature and his relationship to his God. It is only the rise of historical-critical methods and approaches that force upon us the distinction between what the text says and the reality to which the text bears witness. Yet, even if the reality is only approachable by means of the witness, the distinction still holds good. Scot McKnight plausibly connects Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane with the petition in the Lord’s prayer for deliverance from πειρασµός (Luke 11.4 par.) and sees in this πειρασµός a reference to the eschatological tribulation that was expected to come upon God’s people in the last days.31 Just as in the Lord’s Prayer Jesus’ followers are to pray to be spared this tribulation and testing of their faith to the uttermost, so Jesus’ prayer is that he personally might be spared his share of this; he wants his heavenly Father to reshape the course of history so that this time of Leiden, 106–9. Pol. 14. 27 Quoted by Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 830–1. 28 Sölle, Leiden, 166–70; cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 11. 29 Luz, Matthäus 4, 153. For Luke’s paraenetic use of this scene cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 17–18. 30 Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, e. g. 96–7. 31 McKnight, Jesus, 106–19; cf. Feldmeier, Krisis, 201. 25 Sölle,

26 Mart.

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trial might be avoided. This is all the more plausible in view of other links that can be detected between Jesus’ prayer here and the Lord’s Prayer: most significant is perhaps the petition that is found in Matt 6.10b, γενηθήτω τὸ θέληµά σου, although this request is absent from the Lukan version, and it is precisely the Lukan version of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane as well as the prayer of Jesus as he prays for the second time in Matthew that are nearest to this: µὴ τὸ θέληµά µου ἀλλὰ τὸ σὸν γινέσθω (Luke 22.42) and γενηθήτω τὸ θέληµά σου (Matt 26.42),32 instead of Mark’s οὐ τί ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλὰ τί σύ (cf. Matt 26.39: πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλ’ ὡς σύ). In addition, God is addressed as ‘Father’, in the one form or another, on both occasions (Matt 6.9, πάτερ ἡµῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς; Luke 11.2, πάτερ; Mark 14.38, ἀββὰ ὁ πατήρ; Matt 26.39, πάτερ µου; Luke 22.42, πάτερ) Yet, plausible as this interpretation may be, it has serious implications for Jesus’ understanding of his coming suffering as well as for McKnight’s desire to see Jesus as envisaging a salvific role for his death. For, had Jesus seen this suffering as being necessary either to usher in the blessings of God’s kingdom or to bring salvation to God’s people, how could he have wanted to forego this suffering? It is true that is portrayed as eventually acquiescing reluctantly in God’s will, but there is nevertheless not the faintest glimmering of the idea that this is the price that must be paid to gain a far greater good, and Theissen rightly comments that ‘It is improbable that the historical Jesus deliberately sought his death as a sacrificial death’.33 Alistair Kee traces Jesus’ agony in the garden to the fear of the unknown,34 but if there is anything to be said for Jesus’ awareness of the possibility or even likelihood of a violent death then one may ask how far the cup that he feared was something unknown. It is true that the outcome may have been to some degree uncertain, but if he had indeed just previously foreseen and foretold his betrayal then some inkling of what was to come must have occurred to him. And the accounts indicate that he took no steps to escape and did not take flight as his disciples were soon to do. But Kee grants that Jesus knew all this; the unknown that he means is what lay and lies after death; the fear is that ‘death might not be the end, and that life thereafter might not be human’ (52). However, one may ask both whether it is necessary to read all this into Jesus’ prayer and whether this is indeed a dread that afflicts all confronted by death, as Kee seems to suggest. However, that Jesus regarded the suffering that lay before him as God’s will does not entail that we must do so too, and it has already been mentioned that a number of theologians, e. g. feminist ones, have expressly rejected this interpretation of the crucifixion. This issue raises, however, a yet more fundamental question, namely what we mean when we speak of God’s will. On the one hand, this way of speaking runs the risk of anthropomorphism and, on the other, 32 Feldmeier, Krisis, 24, notes that the form γενηθήτω is only found in Matthew amongst the Synoptics, and there 5 times. 33 Theissen, Theory, 142. 34 Kee, Faith, 50.

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confronts us with the problem whether this ‘will’ is regarded in a stronger sense as something inevitable and ineluctable, i. e. the question of the omnipotence of God, who decrees what will and must come to pass. Or is ‘will’ to be taken in the weaker sense of what God wants without necessarily being able to bring it to pass? (Again there is the danger of anthropomorphism, but perhaps that is hardly to be avoided here if one is to talk at all of God’s relationship to this course of events.) As Jesus is made to formulate his prayer it is probable that the stronger sense of ‘will’ is intended and indeed, in the light of the ways of thinking and speaking of God that prevailed in his day, it is hardly surprising if he thought and spoke in such a way. Again, however, that opens up the question whether Jesus’ way of thinking and speaking is binding and normative for us, on this matter any more than on his views on the coming of the end and its timing or his picture of the final judgement and its consequences. At any rate, a number of possible scenarios present themselves, some of them, however, morally and/or theologically objectionable. Taking ‘will’ in the stronger sense, one could, for instance, say that God willed Jesus’ death and so Jesus had to die. Yet, if one sees God rather as one who suffers and grieves with his suffering people, are we really to believe that he willed the suffering and death of this man? One could seek to defend this position by saying that only so would God’s righteousness and justice be upheld vis-à-vis human sin, but would run the risk of making God subject to a higher necessity. Or, taking ‘will’ in its weaker sense, one could say that God wanted Jesus to die and again say that God wanted this in order to achieve some good, to save human beings, although again one would run the risk of giving the impression that God was at the mercy of some higher necessity. Or one could say that Jesus supposed that it was God’s will to let events take their course, as human evil responded to the challenge and the provocation of his message and actions, but that in fact God, like Jesus himself, was powerless in the face of human resistance to the divine approach. Although such a view may challenge us to rethink our view of God’s nature, theological challenges are to be preferred to what is morally or theologically objectionable. At any rate, the further question must be raised, regardless of whatever sense Jesus gave to God’s ‘will’, whether he had rightly discerned that ‘will’ and the nature of the God who so willed, or whether he was here still subject to the constraints of the religious world-view of his Jewish contemporaries and their beliefs about the nature of their God.

4.2 Jesus’ Cry of Dereliction In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew the dying Jesus utters a cry that, at first sight and perhaps, too, upon closer inspection, threatens to tear apart traditional views of God’s trinitarian nature: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

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(Mark 15.34; Matt 27.46).35 Geoffrey Lampe also sees in it something that ‘makes nonsense’ of the picture of Jesus as a ‘superman’ descended from heaven that dominates so much traditional piety.36 In the light of the potential christological and theological offensiveness of this cry it is scarcely surprising that Luke and John have chosen to place more edifying words on Jesus’ lips.37 Moltmann plausibly argues that the loud cry referred to in Mark 15.37 par., the content of which is not mentioned,38 may well approximate to the historical reality: Because, as the Christian tradition developed, this terrible cry of the dying Jesus was gradually weakened in the passion narratives and replaced by words of comfort and triumph, we can probably rely upon it as a kernel of historical truth. … The history of the tradition being as it is, it can be accepted that the difficult reading of Mark is as close as may be to historical reality.39

The same could also be said in large measure of the cry of Mark 15.34 par. and, although Moltmann sees in this cry an interpretation by the early church, like Bultmann before him,40 he is yet prepared to accept this interpretation ‘as the most accurate’ or the most appropriate (149, die zutreffendste).41 In his later work, The Way of Jesus Christ, even such reservations seem to have all but disappeared: The idea that Jesus’ last words to the God whom he had called upon as Abba, dear Father, could have been ‘You have abandoned me’, could surely never have taken root in Christian belief unless these terrible words had really been uttered, or unless they had at least been heard in Jesus’ death cry.42

And yet Moltmann also points out how central this agonized question is: ‘All Christian theology and all Christian life is basically an answer to the question 35 Both gospels quote the original language of Jesus’ cry in transliterated Greek, but in slightly different forms (Matthew: Ηλι ηλι λεµα σαβαχθανι ; Mark: Ελωι ελωι λεµα σαβαχθανι ;). Luz argues that Matthew’s version is a correctly transcribed rendering of Aramaic (Matthäus 4, 332). 36 Lampe, God, 137. 37 Cf., e. g., Luz, Matthäus 4, 331. Jesus’ last word in Luke is (even if it may not be entirely appropriate to the sense of this word that it is also uttered in a loud cry) ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ (23.46, echoing Ps 31.5), in John ‘It is accomplished’ (19.30). Furthermore, Jesus affirms in John 16.32 that, even if he will be deserted by the disciples, ‘I am not alone, for the Father is with me’. 38 The ET describes this cry as ‘incoherent’, but the German unartikuliert, ‘inarticulate’, is perhaps better. 39 Moltmann, God, 146–7. 40 Bultmann, Geschichte, 295, 342, views Mark 15.34 as a secondary interpretation of the cry of 15.37 (Gut, Schrei, 21–2, notes that this view had been anticipated by Johannes Weiss, ‘Das Markus-Evangelium’, in idem [ed.], Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1906] 206). But why place it before the mention of the cry in v. 37 and why give that cry this content? 41 Cf. Fiddes, Event, 57. 42 Moltmann, Way, 166, with a reference to Heb 2.9. Goppelt, Theologie, 240, shows even less doubt in the authenticity of this cry.

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which Jesus asked as he died.’43 Leonardo Boff, however, makes a rather different claim for the centrality of this cry: it ‘is crucial for an understanding of Jesus’ awareness of himself and his mission … the key to Jesus’ historical life’.44 And yet the agonized reproach of this cry seems thoroughly out of tune with the tone of Jesus’ utterances earlier in his life. Later Christian writers have struggled to make sense of the first two evangelists’ version, as Gérard Rossé shows in a brief and informative survey. Before surveying modern writers he offers a historical survey from the patristic period on.45 Amongst the Fathers he notes a number of different traditions of interpretation that sometimes merge together: in the first place there was a tendency to interpret Jesus’ cry as the cry of humanity in general or of his body, the church;46 this was encouraged by the reflection that the second part of Ps 22.1 (LXX 21.2) in Greek and Latin referred to the speaker’s sins. This could also take the form of a stress on Christ’s solidarity with humanity and his representation of it.47 Or, taking Phil 2.8 as their cue, others saw this as the role of Jesus as servant or slave. And, thirdly, others saw here a cry of the body of the dying Jesus directed at the divine Word as it left him and therefore evidence of a separation of the human and the divine in Jesus’ nature (a view strongly reminiscent of docetic thought or, perhaps better, of what Hans-Josef Klauck calls a ‘Trennungschristologie’ such as he finds in Irenaeus’s account of Cerinthus’ beliefs).48 Over against this view, Theodoret saw here no such separation, but the Father refraining from intervening in a situation for which human beings were responsible. Luz emphasizes, however, that the Fathers were united in shunning the interpretation of this cry as an expression of utter hopelessness and seeing it instead in the light of the victory to which the cross led. A post-Easter perspective prevailed, thus indicating that Jesus’ divinity was more important than his humanity.49 Elements of these views are echoed in Scholasticism, although Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane received more attention here than his cry on the cross. While 43 Moltmann, God, 4; cf. 153: ‘every theology which claims to be Christian must come to terms with Jesus’ cry on the cross’; Way, 166: ‘Jesus’ death cry on the cross is “the open wound” of every Christian theology, for consciously or unconsciously every Christian theology is a reply to the “Why?” with which Jesus dies, a reply that attempts to give theological meaning to his death.’ 44 Boff, Passion, 42; cf. also 52. 45 See, too, the survey of views from the Enlightenment on in Gut, Schrei. A brief survey is also to be found in Luz, Matthäus 4, 335–42. 46 So Sölle, Leiden, 103, quotes Augustine’s refusal to have Jesus cry out thus; rather it was Adam. 47 Cf. also Luz, Matthäus 4, 336. 48 Klauck, Johannesbriefe, 135–8, quoting Iren., Haer. 1.26.1 (ed. Harvey 1.21): ‘at the end Christ separated again from Jesus, and Jesus suffered and was raised again, but Christ remained impassible, since he was pneumatic’ (tr. Foerster, Gnosis 1, 36). Luz notes (Matthäus 4, 336) how even so orthodox a theologian as Ambrose could here express himself in a questionably orthodox way: clamavit homo divinitatis separatione moriturus (10.127). 49 Luz, Matthäus 4, 336.

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Aquinas analysed the sense of ‘abandon’ as meaning that God did not protect Jesus from the passion, one also finds amongst these theologians a view that echoes that of the division in Jesus’ being found in patristic thought, only modified inasmuch as the division is found within the soul of Jesus.50 As Rossé puts it, suffering touches the incarnate Word in his body and in his soul, but only in the soul insofar as it is connected with the senses of the body. Insofar as it is in contact with the beatific vision, the soul of Jesus cannot suffer. One can speak of an inferior and a superior part of the soul of Christ provided that one does not divide an essentially simple reality into two: it is always the same soul whether it applies itself to earthly or heavenly realities.51

Problematic as such divisions are something similar is found in the fourteenthcentury mystics to whom Rossé then turns. So, when he quotes Johannes Tauler of Strasbourg as speaking of Jesus abandoned by God, but also by his divinity, this picks up that particular strand of patristic thought already noted.52 Distinctive for this mystical tradition, however, is its treating Jesus as a prototype of that purificatory ‘winter’ or ‘dark night’ that the mystic must endure on the way to God, and must endure it because God inflicts it on her or his soul. Here Rossé first quotes the criticism of Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr, to the effect that it is not a matter of a ‘mystical trial’ imposed by God, but ‘“the distress of the just man, delivered to the persecutions of his enemies, whom God apparently no longer remembers since he does not protect him”’,53 only to note Urs von Balthasar’s criticism of the ‘unpardonable superficiality’ of this assessment. It is with apparent approval, then, that he notes that the mystics did not reduce this abandonment to a mere non-intervention and holds that they deserve greater attention, without, however, specifying more clearly what that attention will yield in the way of valid insights. Turning his attention to the Reformers, Rossé notes the continuity between them and their predecessors and particularly in their development of ideas of solidarity and representation. In drawing on texts such as 2 Cor 5.21 and Gal 3.13 they introduced a new dimension, that of ‘a juridical view of the redemption that places the penal character of the passion and thus of the abandonment in relief’, with the result that ‘the abandonment is seen as a punishment that 50 One could compare here Philo’s distinction of a higher (the λογικὴ ψυχή) and a lower soul: cf., e. g., Congr. 26. Cf. also, e. g., A. Dihle in TDNT 9, 635; Dillon, Middle Platonists, 174–6. 51 Rossé, Cry, 78. Yet there seems to be very little of a ‘beatific vision’ discernible in the account of Jesus’ crucifixion. Just as bizarre is the tendency Luz notes in a number of works to reduce this cry of Jesus to a momentary and passing feeling, after which ‘Jesus dies serenely, cheerfully, inwardly on top of things and sovereign as true sage and righteous one’ (Matthäus 4, 339–40, quoting the librettos of works by Graun snd Spohr). 52 In the passage that Rossé quotes (Cry, 81) from John of the Cross he finds again the ‘inferior part of the soul’ that played such a role in Scholasticism, now left by the Father ‘in an inner aridity’. 53 Rossé, Cry, 82, quoting B. Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr, L’abandon du Christ en croix (Problèmes actuels de Christologie; ed. M. Bouësse, J.-J. Latour; Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1965) 305.

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Jesus undergoes in our place’ (83). Jesus is placed ‘directly under the anger and vindictive justice of God’ (84), although Rossé goes on to quote Calvin’s insistent denial that ‘God was ever against or angry with his Christ’.54 And later he notes that Luther and Calvin are nearer to the mystics in their transference of the experience of hell from the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday to God’s abandonment of Jesus on the cross, but nevertheless show their originality in this move.55 What Rossé does not note, but Luz in his brief survey stresses,56 is the way in which the Reformers refused to play off one side of the two natures of Christ against one another or to limit his suffering to his human nature, even at the price of a certain whiff of ‘Theopaschitismus’. As a last stopping point before he moves on to more recent authors, Rossé mentions the seventeenth-century French school, which he characterizes as more ‘sentimental’ (85). Here again we find a division within Jesus’ soul with Jacques Bénigne Bossuet speaking of God withdrawing into one part of Jesus’ soul and leaving the rest of it to ‘the blows of divine vengeance’ or Louis Chardon talking of only the inferior part of Jesus’ soul suffering this inner torment while the ‘superior part remains in an “excess of joy” as befits the Son of God by nature’. Rossé also notes Duquoc’s verdict that all thought of Jesus’ innocence is lost sight of in the concentration on Jesus’ identification with sinners.57 Then, jumping from the seventeeth century to more modern exegesis, Rossé divides interpretations under the two headings of ‘A Cry of Despair? and ‘A Cry of Trust?’ before proceeding to outline ‘The Proper Meaning of the Cry of Abandonment’ (101–14). The interpretation of the cry as one of despair is briefly dismissed. It is true that the cry may be classed as a prayer, the prayer of a righteous man in a situation of extreme necessity,58 but one could have wished for some treatment of the aspect of reproach that emerges in a number of Psalms, either individual or collective.59 Yet it is true that the dimension of trust does not disappear from these psalms taken in their entirety, however, does one not have to ask whether Jesus’ cry does not reflect an abyss deeper than that experienced by the authors of these Psalms, an abyss that lets him go no further than this question ‘Why?’. In fact Rossé seems to take a step in that direction when he underlines 54 Calvin, Institution, 2.16.11: ‘nous ne voulons inférer que Dieu ait iamais esté ou adversaire ou courroncé à son Christ.’ 55 Rossé, Cry, 89. He goes on to outline Moltmann’s development of this legacy, but also to note ‘a certain reluctance among modern exegetes and theologians to arribute the meaning of an experience of hell to the cry of abandonment of the Crucified’ (92). 56 Luz, Matthäus 4, 337–8. 57 The reference is to C. Duquoc, Christologie: Essai dogmatique (Paris: Cerf, 1972) 51–2. The reff. to Bossuet and Chardon apparently draw on the same work. 58 Rossé seems to merge this righteous man with the suffering servant, i. e. does not restrict the latter designation to Deutero-Isaiah. 59 For instance the frequent posing of the questions ‘why?’ (e. g. Ps 44.24–5; 74.1; 79.10; 115.2) or ‘how long?’ (e. g. Ps 6.3; 13.2; 80.4).

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the difference between Jesus’ situation and that of the author of Psalm 22: Jesus does not pray for God’s intervention, for liberation from his enemies or for the demonstration of his innocence to his executioners. For, ‘In obedience to the Father, Jesus had already accepted drinking the chalice to the dregs’ (111). Following Ethelbert Stauffer Rossé sees here a cry neither for help nor for vengeance, but for God himself.60 Over against those who see here an expression of despair, however, are those who see it as expressing trust. Rossé points out that the evangelist sees further references and allusions to the rest of Psalm 22 in his account of the crucifixion (22.18 quoted in Mark 15.24, and 22.7 echoed in 15.29), but, even so, that the evangelist saw this does not mean that Jesus did so too. Rossé, noting the popularity of such an approach that saw the whole psalm invoked by Jesus’ quotation of its beginning,61 quotes the commentary of S. Del Paramos who argues that Jesus, after crying aloud to emphasize the similarity between his situation and that of the psalmist, recited in a low voice the rest of the psalm and then cried out again in the words of Ps 31.5 (Luke 23.46).62 Yet Rossé himself is critical of this approach, for ‘the reader can discern nothing other in the sole articulate cry of the Crucified than the culminating point of his loneliness: the passion leads Jesus to abandonment even on the part of God’ (104). He also argues that the reference to the loudness of the cry focuses attention on the words quoted rather than on the whole psalm. The evangelist quotes it in Aramaic as an utterance of Jesus rather than an Old Testament quotation.63 The evangelist meant us ‘to take as seriously as possible the state of abandonment that is expressed by the content Stauffer, ‘βοάω’, TDNT 1, 625–8, here 627. that such an approach is limited to Catholic exegetes. Cf. Gese, ‘Psalm 22’, 1, who regards it as ‘inherently probable that the quotation of the beginning of the psalm means the whole psalm’; it is not the wording of first verse, but ‘the inbreaking of God’s kingdom that is linked in this psalm with rescuing from death’ (114). (Gut, Schrei, 39, finds it unintelligible how Gese can assert that Jesus proclaimed his death as this inbreaking.) Similarly Den Heyer, Jesus, 19, 21 (the latter reference is more non-committal: ‘something more than simply despair and desperation’). Luz, Matthäus 4, 339, notes that Schleiermacher had found this cry awkward for his view of the constant strength of Jesus’ God-consciousness and so followed H. E. G. Paulus and J J. Hess in claiming that Jesus had the whole psalm in mind (cf. also Gut, Schrei, 35). Already Strauss, Jesus, 688, poured scorn on such suggestions: had Jesus wanted to assure the bystanders of his coming triumph, ‘he would have chosen the means least adapted to his purpose, if he had uttered precisely those words of the Psalm which express the deepest misery’. 62 Rossé, Cry, 103, quoting S. Del Paramos, Vangelo secondo Matteo (Nuovo Testamento; Rome: Città Nuova, 1970) 413. Rossé himself dismisses the authenticity of the other sayings attributed to Jesus on the cross apart from Mark 15.34 par. (32, 56 and often). Rossé also mentions the argument from the practice of giving hymns and psalms their first words as titles (like the Magnificat and others today), but it is scarcely to be supposed that Jesus would start quoting a psalm title under such circumstances, 63 Rossé (Cry, 105) feels that the omission of a word like γέγραπται such as we find at Mark 14.27 supports this, but what of 15.24? G. Barth, Tod, 130, argues that Hebrew would have been used had this been meant as a quotation of the psalm and Jesus’ cry in Mark differs from the Septuagint and so would not have been regarded as a quotation. 60 Cf.

61 Not

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of the cry of the Crucified’ (106).64 Ulrich Luz also forcefuly rejects a similar reading of the account in Matthew, arguing that the readers of that gospel would recognize a clear crescendo in the narrative as Jesus is first deserted by the disciples (26.56), then by Peter (26.69–75), and finally by God as he finds himself alone in the midst of his enemies (27.46).65 In that case, then, the progression to this crescendo is equally clear in Mark’s account (14.50, 66–72; 15.34). It should not be forgotten, however, that Rossé in no way wishes to question trinitarian theology and that he seems to view the resurrection as, if not the ‘happy end’, at least the final divine word on the sufferings of Jesus. Already in his Preface he asks his readers not to ‘forget the resurrection as the Father’s response’, for ‘It confirms everything’ (x). More modest is the claim of Gut that the resurrection of Jesus is the ‘turning-point’,66 but the problem is a similar one. Whatever the disciples experienced on that Sunday may indeed have been a ‘turning-point’ for them, but that does not allow us to claim that for Jesus, for his relationship to his God or for his nature. And, once one has wrestled with the problems that the New Testament accounts of the resurrection present, both exegetically and historically and philosophically, Rossé’s verdict seems more than a little glib. Nonetheless, it is the abandonment of Jesus on the cross that Rossé later describes as God’s response to ‘the scandal of man’s suffering, of the death of the innocent, of anxiety, and of all the “why’s” that have no answer’ (115). Yet, in itself and without the advantage of a post-Easter hindsight that Jesus evidently did not enjoy, the cross is no response and Jesus’ cry highlights that. Again, it may be true that ‘It is fidelity to the Father and not rebellion that carries Christ far from God’, but it does not follow that ‘the extreme abandonment manifests the extreme communion of of the Son with the Father’.67 The one side is clear enough: it is his dedication to doing what he believes to be God’s will that has brought Jesus into this situation, but his cry can be regarded as precisely a complaint that the ‘communion’ that one might expect is not forthcoming: God seems to have reneged on God’s side of the relationship.68 It is very ‘paradoxically’ indeed that this abandonment ‘expresses his perfect unity with God’ (116; cf. 67, 129). Yet at this point we have to beware of introducing talk of ‘paradox’; 64 Contrast the view of Rawlinson, Mark, 236, that, whatever Jesus may have originally meant by this cry, the evangelsit could not have understood it as expressing despair or he would not have included it (cf. Gut, Schrei, 31). 65 Luz, Matthäus 4, 343. 66 Gut, Schrei, 75. However, Gut’s further, and all too brief, reflections on this ‘turning-point’ consist largely of questions. Inasmuch as the disciples’ experience was for them a ‘turning-point’ as they switched from disillusionment to confident proclamation. Gut’s title for this short section can stand, but how far it helps to resolve the problems raised by Jesus’ death is another matter. 67 Cf, also Rossé, Cry, ix–x. 68 It appears that Rossé handles this ‘communion’ and this ‘unity’ of Father and Son very one-sidedly when he speaks of this ‘unity – lived as obedience’ (Cry, 129), for it is clear that the ‘obedience’ meant is Jesus’, not the Father’s.

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that could simply be a way of avoiding the challenge to rethink our previously held ideas and to face up to the fact that we are dealing with evidence that those ideas were mistaken or inadequate.69 Many, including Martin Luther,70 have, however, seen in the fact that Jesus can address God as ‘My God’ evidence that the relationship has not been broken and that this word of Jesus is indeed one of trust. Theodor Gut protests at this point that this does not follow: One sometimes hears a parent calling out ‘My child, my child’ when in an Unrechtsstaat a denunciation by their son has brought about the death of his father or mother. Is trust still to be found there amidst all the despair? It is true that Jesus has not given God up. He does not deny that God exists. But this God has deserted him. And whoever cries out (in protest at such) an abandonment, an abandonment that leads to death, is no longer sustained by trust.71

Or, if the distorted family relationships under a totalitarian state seems an unsuitable parallel to draw, what of the lament of David on hearing of the death of Absalom (2 Sam 18.33)? Doubtless there is an enormous grief expressed in ‘O my son Absalom’, but surely also a sense of deepest disappointment and of having been betrayed by one whom the king particularly loved. As we have already seen, Moltmann is prepared to speak at this point of stasis in God, for, as he puts it (152), the ‘cross of the Son divides God from God to the utmost degree of enmity and distinction’.72 However, this cry is not to be interpreted in the sense intended in Psalm 22, but ‘in the sense of the situation of Jesus’; rather it is a call, a legal plea (Rechtsklage) to God to reveal the divine righteousness for God’s sake, a call that is equivalent to ‘Why have you forsaken yourself?’ (150–1).73 On the other hand, Moltmann can later speak of Father and 69 After all, J. Etchemendy can define a ‘paradox’ in his art. in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (ed. R. Audi; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 2nd ed. 1999) 643, as ‘a seemingly sound piece of reasoning based on seemingly true assumptions that leads to a contradiction (or other obviously false conclusion)’ and goes on to say that ‘A paradox reveals that either the principles of reasoning or the assumptions on which it is based are faulty.’ Presumably, though, the sense of ‘paradox’ intended here is nearer to that of rhetorical usage, that which shocks the audience’s sense of values and truth (cf. Lausberg, Handbuch, § 64.3). 70 Luther, Sämtliche Schriften XIIIb 1232 or 1237, quoted by Gut, Schrei, 32. 71 Gut, Schrei, 33. 72 Cf. Strauss, Jesus, 687, who was acutely aware of the problems that this presents for christology. 73 An interpretation endorsed by Fiddes, Event, 94. Cf. also the view of J. Moingt quoted by Rossé, Cry, 131–2, that ‘When Jesus complains of being abandoned, the Father also abandons himself through his silence (i. e., he exposes himself to misunderstanding)’ (in ‘Montre-nous le Père’, RSR 2 (1977) 325). It is true that we can speak of someone ‘forgetting himself’ or ‘letting himself go’, but this seems to be something far more drastic, although the exposure to misunderstanding mentioned does not seem to be drastic enough. However, Moingt goes on to say that God’s refusal to intervene ‘exposes [him] to our misunderstanding, and destroys the advantageous representations we had of him. … In the entire measure that being known pertains to the being of God, the Father withdraws from our knowledge’ (333). If Rossé is correct in summing

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Son as being ‘so much at one’ on the cross ‘that they present a single surrendering movement’.74 Here the stasis within God, the division of Father from Son seems to have been lost from sight again, despite Moltmann’s recognition that at this moment Jesus can no longer address his God as ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’75. And yet one must ask whether this interpretation is really necessary or whether it is not forced upon Rossé and Moltmann by the doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity rather than being a natural reading of the evidence of the New Testament text.76 Is Jesus’ cry not more easily taken as pointing to the conclusion that Jesus was, despite his resolve in Gethsemane to do God’s will whatever the cost, in the agony of his execution forced to ask, as any human being might well do, whether this could really be God’s will for him? Was God in fact still with him at this moment and, if so, what was his God doing for him or going to do for him at a moment of such excruciating pain? Rather than seeing here a cleft within the nature of God should we not see here a cleft opening up between the man of God and his God as the former indeed feels himself left alone with a burden that turns out to be greater than he can bear? If that creates problems for the traditional Christian doctrines of the incarnation and the trinity, then should one not rather call the appropriateness of those doctrines in question rather than trying to force an awkward datum into the framework that they demand? At any rate, Luz sees Reimarus as here preparing the way, as in so many other respects, for twentieth-century interpretations of this cry, at least in his stressing here Jesus’ failure: whereas Jesus had not intended to suffer and die, ‘but to build up a worldly kingdom, and to deliver the Israelites from bondage’, his cry ‘can hardly be otherwise interpreted than that God had not helped him to carry out his intention and attain his object as he had hoped he would have done’.77 Reimarus may have overestimated the worldliness of Jesus’ intentions and underestimated the extent to which he reckoned with the possibility of a violent end, but this up as ‘God discards every purely human mode of knowing God and recognizes as valid only that which passes through the abandoned Jesus’ (Cry, 132), then one needs to ask how much of the traditional views of God, including the trinitarian, will in fact pass this test. 74 Moltmann, Way, 174. 75 Cf. Moltmann, Way, 167; also Kee, Faith, 57. Felmeier, Krisis, 242, remarks that the fact that Jesus addressed God in this way in Gethsemane has its parallels, even if the Aramaic word expresses an even greater sense of intimacy and urgency, in the anguished prayers of those in the Old Testament who called upon ‘my God’, ‘my rock’, ‘God of my life’, ‘my saviour’ and the like, thus testifying to the sense of God’s nearness despite the experience of God’s hiddenness. Yet he goes on to contrast these Old Testament prayers with that of Jesus, in that the former are directed solely against the present experience of the psalmist; ‘Where there is no reply, there only remains darkness and death (Psalm 88).’ It may be even harder to hear any comparable sense of God’s nearness in ‘my God, my God’ when it is followed by ‘why have you deserted me?’, without risking the charge of wishful thinking. 76 Also to the point is Theodor Gut’s dry comment on Karl Barth’s interpretation of this cry: Barth’s speaks for God, whereas it is rather Jesus’ view that interests us; at any rate, Barth knows what God wants and what Jesus wants and that Jesus knows what God wants (Schrei, 45–6). 77 Reimarus, Fragments (ed. Talbert), 150 (II § 8).

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the sense of being let down by his God seems clearly recognizable here. However, when Luz turns to the interpretation of Jesus’ cry in the twentieth century he focuses first of all on the way in which this cry is seen as showing Jesus’ humanity, how his cry displays an all too human experience with which we can identify. Somewhat different, surely, is Hans Blumenberg’s view when he sees here God’s failure as the divine omnipotence shatters in the world and God is abandoned by God.78 Yet as an event in the life of God that interpretation is less convincing than as a disclosure of how God always has been. More persuasive, then, is the view of Dorothee Sölle that he goes on to quote, when she asserts, appealing to Bonhoeffer’s last letters, that God is absent and powerless.79

4.3 An Interim Stocktaking Having adopted a minimalist approach to the question of Jesus’ own interpretation of his death, I came to the conclusion that, even if he were clear-sighted enough to see the dangers that were facing him, his purpose in taking his message to Jerusalem was precisely that, to take his message to Jerusalem. And that message was a call to his people to repent and return to their God and to do the will of that God, to welcome the coming of God’s reign among them. Any suggestion of his own death as atoning hardly fits into that pattern of thought. Nor, as we saw, does it fit easily together with Jesus’ reluctance expressed in in his prayer in Gethsemane to drink the cup of suffering that awaited him. Or at least there is no hint that the drinking of this cup was made any less bitter by the thought that others would be saved thereby. Jesus reckoned with the prospect of suffering and had done so in all probability for some time or at least ever since he had set out on this last journey to Jerusalem, knowing how little the authorities there, both Jewish and Roman, were likely to welcome his message or his presence, particularly at so sensitive a time as a Passover festival. Whether he thought that he would be handed over to the Romans to die a Roman form of death is another matter. Possibly he reckoned with the Jewish authorities, who would be most directly challenged by his message, dealing with him themselves in some way or another. At any rate he had to reckon with the possibility or even probability of suffering, if not necessarily of death, but went up to Jerusalem nonetheless. For, if his message was directed to the Jewish people as a whole it was hardly thinkable that it should not be proclaimed in Judea and above all in Jerusalem, and when better than at a time when it would have the largest possible audience, at the Jewish Passover festival? 78 Luz, Matthäus 4, 340, quoting H. Blumenberg, Matthäuspassion (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhr­ kamp, 1988) 15. But was God ever omnipotent? 79 Sölle, Stellvertretung, 171–2, quoting Bonhoeffer, Letters, 360–1.

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I have argued that, facing this prospect of suffering, Jesus sought once again, through the symbolism of his last meal with his disciples, both to prepare them mentally and spiritually for this time of trial and at the same time to bind them to himself, enlisting their support and seeking their sharing in the coming ordeal together with himself. I have argued that it is unlikely that another, very different understanding of the meaning of his death was first disclosed at that last meal. The interpretations that we know from the various accounts of Jesus’ sayings at that meal are almost entirely the product of later reflection on the meaning of his death as his disciples sought to come to terms with what had happened. Yet even the limited goal that Jesus sought to achieve by his words and actions at this meal was frustrated by the failure of his disciples at his moment of greatest need, and he was left alone to wrestle with his fate. Yet what use is the story of his eventual death to us? If one looks at the course of his life up to and including his prayer in Gethsemane, then one could see here an exemplary, single-minded devotion to what Jesus saw, rightly or wrongly, as God’s will for him, a will to which Jesus eventually submitted, however reluctantly. Yet is this exemplary role for us to follow not shattered or at least severely disrupted by the reproachful cry on the cross? Where is there that trust, that surrender, that acceptance of God’s will at whatever cost to himself? At this point both the hymn of Phil 2.6–11 and Heb 5.7–8 as well as a whole succession of later interpreters of the death of Jesus seem to gloss over the implications of that cry of protest. Yet, if this jars with Jesus’ role as a model for us in one sense, perhaps it qualifies him as a model for, and a representative of, humanity in another, in that he speaks here for all those who feel themselves deserted, even betrayed, by God, if indeed there is a God, and who express in bitter words their sense of loss and betrayal.

5. Between Jesus and Paul By the time that Paul came to write his first extant letters, Jesus’ followers had had nearly two decades to reflect upon Jesus’ fate. In Paul’s letters we can detect passages that seem to echo early Christians’ interpretative reflections upon, and formulations of, the meaning of that event, and these traditions may often be a number of years older than the Pauline letters that quote or allude to them, as old as the founding of the Christian community addressed or perhaps even older.1 Whether or not the apostle is actually quoting such material may in many instances be hotly discussed,2 but in some cases at least (above all 1 Cor 11.23–6; 15.1–7), he seems clearly to acknowledge explicitly that he is making use of such traditions, and an understanding of the use that Paul makes of these traditions is important for our evaluation of the point of what he is saying as well as providing invaluable hints as to the developments in thought about Jesus’ death that had taken place during those otherwise largely hidden years.

5.1 The Impact of the Easter Events I have already suggested that, if Jesus’ death could initially have been seen by the disciples as the end of Jesus’ work and of Jesus himself and a sign of his failure, the rise of belief in his resurrection was bound to alter their perspective drastically: 1 So Becker, Paulus, 108, raises the question whether these traditions were not in essence known to Paul from his time in the Christian community in Antioch. 2 Often, where Paul does not expressly say that he is quoting traditional material, the arguments for the use of traditional material may have to be cumulative ones, employing a number of criteria, none of them conclusive in themselves, as pointers to the existence of tradition: there are various stylistic features such as parallelismus membrorum or the occurrence of a passage that seems to enjoy a certain independence from its context (e. g. Rom 1.3–4, where τοῦ γενοµένου ἐκ σπέρµατος Δαυὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, τοῦ ὁρισθέντος υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάµει κατὰ πνεῦµα ἁγιωσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν could be detached from the preceding περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ and the following Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡµῶν without disrupting the syntax of the passage), but perhaps more important (since stylistic features may simply reflect Paul’s style at this point) are the language and ideas that are used if they are uncharacteristic of Paul (that applies to Rom 1.3–4 but also to a passage like 3.25), or the introduction of elements that are superfluous to the argument at a particular point (e. g. in Phil 2.5–11, it is the humiliation of Christ that is relevant to Paul’s appeal, not his exaltation). See the discussions in, e. g., Deichgräber, Gotteshymnus; ‘Formeln’; von Lips, ‘Paulus’; Wengst, Formeln; ‘Apostel’; ‘Glaubensbekenntnisse’.

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God had raised Jesus from the dead, they believed, and yet the question remained why Jesus had first had to die such an excruciating and humiliating death in the first place. Indeed, Jörg Frey goes so far as to suggest that the conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead made the problem all the more acute: the one who had been crucified was God’s anointed, not some criminal, but the one in whom ‘messianic’ expectations were invested died as a messianic claimant.3 Nor can whatever conclusions they had come to regarding Jesus’ identity before his death have been of much help to them here. Had they believed him to be God’s messiah (and there is much to suggest that they and others had earlier entertained this notion)4 then it is widely thought that it was not expected that God’s messiah would die, let alone by a form of death such as crucifixion. Even less would it then be expected that he would rise, or that his death would be regarded as salvific. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether what they remembered of Jesus’ teaching was of very much help here either. It is again Frey who argues that the disciples’ flight from Jerusalem and the return of some of them to Galilee show that no sufficient explanation of Jesus’ death was apparently to be gained from his ministry, his proclamation or his instruction of his disciples. That warns us to be cautious about deriving post-Easter interpretations [of that death] too directly from the traditions concerning the words and deeds of the earthly [Jesus].5

Now it is true that Rudolf Pesch has argued that further developments in the early church would be hard to understand had Jesus himself not introduced the idea of his violent death as an atoning one;6 only this, he argues, enables us to understand why the mission to Israel continued and then widened out to become a universal offer of salvation, only this explains why baptism in Jesus’ name for the forgiveness of sins arose. Yet, as Pesch himself recognizes (113), Mark 12.9 suggests that Israel has squandered its last chance of salvation. That then means that, if this parable goes back to Jesus, as the culmination of a series of threatening sayings, then in whatever period of time lay between its utterance and Jesus’ last meal, Jesus had come to a striking new idea: his death would be an atoning one. And we have seen that it would be historically more satisfactory not to have to presuppose such a switch in Jesus’ thinking and to try to understand his actions and words at his last meal in ways that are more in accord with the rest of his message. Mark, 3 Frey,

‘Probleme’, 46. Wedderburn, Jesus, 275–321, esp. 296–7. 5 Frey, ‘Probleme’, 45; cf. also Vollenweider, ‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, 91: Jesus could at best have only offered hints as to the meaning of his death, ‘for otherwise his disciples would have from the very beginning an appropriate key to help them understand his death’. (And, one might add, an authoritative one that would have left little scope for that multiplicity of different interpretations found in the New Testament to which Vollenweider devotes the following section of his article [92–4].) 6 Pesch, Abendmahl, 112–25. 4 Cf.

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at any rate, sets the parable of the tenants in the vineyard (12.1–9) in the time after Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, which would mean that the time for such a change in thinking would be very short indeed. I have argued elsewhere that it may be preferable to explain the early Christians’ administration of baptism in Jesus’ name for the forgiveness of sins otherwise.7 It is true that the Synoptics are silent about any baptizing activity on the part of Jesus and his disciples. Yet, once Jesus had let himself be baptized by John and had thus implicitly acknowledged the validity of his rite, the absence of any further baptizing within the Jesus movement would be more surprising than its presence. Indeed, one wonders whether there was no such sign of repentance offered to those who responded to Jesus’ message, no rite of initiation admitting people into the circle of his followers. It is the Fourth Gospel that expressly speaks of Jesus’ disciples baptizing (John 3.22, 26; 4.1); the surprise is rather the assertion that Jesus himself did not baptize, only the disciples (4.2).8 That baptism should signify forgiveness of sins should occasion little surprise, for John had administered baptism for this purpose. What is new is that baptism should now be offered in or into Jesus’ name, placing the baptized in a special relationship with the risen Jesus as they invoked his power, ‘placing themselves under his protection, consecrating themselves in his service and binding themselves to him’,9 and, one might add, assured of his intercession at God’s right hand for the forgiveness of their sins (cf. Rom 8.34). The continuation of the practice of baptism, thus adapted to a new situation after Easter, is thus intelligible without reading too much into Jesus’ last meal. It is harder to be sure, however, why his followers felt it right to turn once again to Israel and offer God’s forgiveness in Jesus’ name, despite traditions of sayings of Jesus that seemed to have shut the door. One reason for our uncertainty may be the accumulation of somewhat imponderable factors at this point, including presumably the continued interest of fellow-Jews impressed by what Jesus’ followers were now saying about their experiences of appearances of the risen Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit. If we may assume that interest, we must then ask how Jesus’ disciples were to respond to that interest. Were they really to turn round and inform those that had shown such an interest that they were too late and God’s forgiveness was no longer on offer for them? Not only would that seem to be out of keeping with Jesus’ message to the outcasts and, in the eyes of many of their fellow Jews, the lost, but one would also have to ask what message Jesus then History, 34–6. Meier, Marginal Jew 2,122, it is difficult to be convinced that this would be so embarrassing (reducing Jesus to the level of the Baptist and thus offering ammunition to the Baptist’s followers); that Jesus had earlier let himself be baptized by John was awkward, and had to be dealt with (Matt 3.14–15). Nonetheless, Meier concedes that he feels ‘more secure about affirming Jesus’ practice of baptizing during his ministry than about his staying for a while in the circle of John’s disciples’ (123). 9 Wedderburn, History, 35. 7 Wedderburn, 8 Pace

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went to Jerusalem to proclaim. Just a message of inescapable condemnation, an announcement that all was lost, or rather, and surely more plausibly, combined with this stark warning an offer of a last chance to hear his message and accept God’s kingly rule? For hitherto the combination of warning and gracious offer had characterized Jesus’ message as it had that of of the Baptist before him.

5.2 Traditions in Paul It is clear that in many passages where Paul refers to Christ’s death he may well be dependent on shared early Christian traditions and that he has therefore inherited and taken over from others ways of interpreting that death. At the same time, in doing so, he takes these formulations and interpretations over into his own arguments, thus more or less endorsing those traditions and making them his own, but also fitting them into the new context provided by those arguments. This involves interpreting the interpretative traditional formulations anew, e. g. by new emphases or simply by the fact that they are placed in new contexts. For this means combining them with other ideas than those with which, as far as we know, they were previously associated, and often using them for different purposes than those for which these formulations were originally created. Of course, not all of these quotations or allusions interpret the meaning of Jesus’ death, but a number of them do.10 Starting with the two passages mentioned above where Paul expressly says that he is quoting traditional material, 1 Cor 11.23–6 and 15.1–7, we can see they presuppose certain interpretations of Jesus’ death. In the case of 1 Cor 11.23–6 it is a quotation of one strand of the tradition regarding the words instituting the Lord’s Supper, and in the case of 15.1–7, although Paul is here primarily dealing with the question of the resurrection, he includes a reference to the interpretation of Christ’s death as being ‘for our sins’ and ‘according to the scriptures’. The version of the words of institution that we have in 1 Cor 11.23–6, particularly the word over the cup, clearly implies a particular interpretation of Jesus’ death by linking it with the prophet Jeremiah’s promise of a new covenant in Jer 31.31. That covenant is, however, not associated with the shedding of blood, but consists in God’s putting the divine law in Israel and writing it in the people’s hearts so that they all know their God (vv. 33–4). Yet this version of the words of institution says that the new covenant is in Jesus’ blood. Here we must suppose that the tradition of the sprinkling of blood on the people to mark the making of the Sinai covenant, which is more clearly reflected in Mark and Matthew’s ver10 Although even the confession that God had raised Jesus from the dead could rank as an interpretation of Jesus’ death, indeed the first Christian interpretation of it, as Jean Zumstein has argued: Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 30.

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sion of the saying over the cup (Mark 14.24//Matt 26.28), has also played a part. That is perhaps inevitable if the rite is meant to interpret Jesus’ violent death on the cross, even if crucifixion was not a particularly bloody form of death (although the preceding scourging may well have been a very gory affair). In the tradition quoted in 1 Cor 15.1–7 it is above all only 1 Cor 15.3 that concerns us here, and that is understandable when it is with the traditional testimony to Jesus’ resurrection that Paul is primarily concerned in this context and that is the focus of his argument. Nonetheless, he also mentions the tradition concerning Jesus’ death (as well as his burial), and the mention of it would in itself be a strong indication that tradition is being quoted, even if Paul had not already said that he was quoting the message with which he brought the gospel to Corinth (τίνι λόγῳ εὐηγγελισάµην ὑµῖν, v. 2).11 The tradition of Christ’s death, which may well go back to the early Christian community in Jerusalem,12 involves two interpretative elements: the death was (1) ‘for our sins’ (ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν) and (2) ‘according to the scriptures’ (κατὰ τὰς γραφάς).13 This tradition concerning the death of Jesus may well have circulated separately and have been only subsequently joined to a parallel statement concerning the resurrection. At any rate, although Paul sometimes uses formulations reminiscent of the double confession of the dead and risen Christ,14 he also uses ones that recall only the one half or the other.15 The one who so died was Χριστός, and this term may well have originally been used in a titulart sense, not as a proper name.16 The one that died was, despite his death (and the manner of it), none other than Israel’s awaited messiah. And the assertion that this expected messiah had met such a fate would have been the catalyst for the theological reflection that lies behind this all too brief statement. This reflection in all probability took place in the awareness that Jewish opponents had already invoked a text like Deut 21.23, which Paul cites in Gal 3.13, in order to argue that the one that had died such a death had in fact died under God’s curse. In order to rebut this verdict of the Old Testament upon the crucified Jesus, his followers had to argue, as Nils Dahl puts it,17 that he should rather be seen Wolff refers here to Paul’s use of ‘jüdische Traditionssprache’ (1 Korinther, 355). e. g., Lohse, ‘Bezüge’, 105. 13 This is in itself an uncharacteristic phrase for Paul, who uses rather a form of the verb in the perfect or aorist passive (e. g. 1 Cor 1.19, 31; 2.9; 3.19; 9.9–10; 10.7, 11; 14.21; 15.45, 54). How far such a phrase is compatible with a semitic original seems questionable and this may more likely go back to a Greek original. That is the more plausible if Paul first became familiar with this tradition in Damascus or Antioch. 14 E.g. Rom 14.9 (but there with ἔζησεν); 1 Thess 4.14 (but there with ἀνέστη). 15 Christ’s death with ὑπέρ: Rom 5.6, 8; 14.15; (1 Cor 8.11 with διά and accus.); 2 Cor 5.14–15 (it is ‘one’ that has so died); 1Thess 5.10 (the subject in v. 9 is Jesus Christ). The statement about the raising of Christ is not only echoed in vv. 12, 15 and 20 of 1 Corinthians 15, but is also echoed in other letters: Rom 4.24; 8.11; 10.9; 1 Cor 6.14; 2 Cor 4.14; Gal 1.1; 1 Thess 1.10 16 Cf. Lohse, ‘Bezüge’, 105; Wolff, 1 Korinther, 361. 17 Dahl, ‘Messianität’, 91. 11 Christian 12 So,

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‘as the one who fulfils the promises of the Old Testament’, for the idea of God’s anointed one, an eschatological bringer of salvation, not fulfilling the divine will as revealed in the scriptures would have been inconceivable to Jews then. Various passages may have been invoked, not necessarily ones hitherto recognized as prophecies of the coming messiah, and indeed, if a suffering and dying messiah ran counter to Jewish expectations, then the better a passage corresponded to Jesus’ ghastly fate, the less suitable it would have seemed to contemporary Jews as a reference to the coming messiah. Thus Eduard Lohse observes that none of the usual messianic texts served the early Christian proclamation of Jesus’ death.18 Of the passages that could serve this purpose Isaiah 53 springs immediately to mind, where God’s servant not only suffers but is ‘despised and rejected’ and ‘numbered with the transgressors’ (Isa 53.3, 12), even if not expressly accursed. Zech 12.10, too, might well have suggested itself, as well as the various Psalms speaking of a suffering righteous one. Such scriptural foreshadowings of Jesus’ fate also lie behind the stress on the divine necessity of such a fate. Yet did the early Christians have any particular Old Testament passage in mind here? It is hard to be sure where they found the scriptural support for Jesus’ resurrection,19 and Lohse may therefore be right to argue that the claim of the ‘according to the scriptures’ is that the scriptures as a whole bear witness to the truth of the Christian message, rather than any particular passage.20 In the scriptures they sought, however, not only the foreshadowing of the fact of Jesus’ suffering and death, but also some explanation why he had to suffer and die. His death must have been according to God’s will and that for a purpose. It was ‘for us’ or ‘for our sins’. Behind this affirmation may lie reflection on Isa 53.12, where God’s servant bears the sins of many and was given up (παρεδόθη) for their sins (but here with διά and the accusative in the Septuagint, not the construction with ὑπέρ that is so characteristic of most of these statements about Jesus’ death in Paul’s letters).21 We have noted that 1 Cor 8.11 also uses διά, and this may be due to the influence of Isa 53.12. Does that then mean that statements about Jesus’ death had previously preferred to use ὑπέρ with the genitive? And for whom had it been said that Jesus had died? ‘For all’ as in 2 Cor 5.14–15, or ‘for us’ (Rom 5.8; 1 Thess 5.10; cf. also Gal 3.13, as well as the ‘for us all’ in Rom 8.32) or, if directed at the recipients of Paul’s letter, ‘for you’ (1 Cor 1.13, implicitly; 11.24; 18 Lohse,

‘Bezüge’, 107. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, esp. 50–2; Lohse rightly draws attention to the fact that Hos 6.2 is nowhere cited by early Christians in support of the resurrection ‘on the third day’ and is never quoted in the New Testament (‘Bezüge’, 108). 20 Lohse, ‘Bezüge’, 108. 21 Kessler, Bedeutung, 274–5, notes that ‘this ὑπέρ has found no place … in the pre-Markan or in the pre-Synoptic traditions at all. It is lacking precisely where one would most expect it, in the passion predictions and the … passion narrative. The idea of atonement has no constitutive role in the Synoptics.’ 19 Cf.

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cf. also ‘for them’ in 2 Cor 5.15) or, personalized, ‘for me’ (Gal 2.20).22 Or ‘for (our) sins’ (1 Cor 15.3; Gal 1.4; cf. also Rom 4.25, διὰ τὰ παραπτώµατα ἡµῶν).23 Yet no particular soteriological theory need have been presupposed in this usage, particularly if the influence of Isa 53 is secondary. The preposition ὑπέρ need only mean ‘for us, for our sake’. It need not contain the implication that the death was that of a sin-offering, for the Septuagint mostly uses another preposition for the sin-offering, περί: the sin-offering is περὶ ἁµαρτίας.24 Yet to speak of Christ dying for our sins is somewhat unusual: in the Septuagint ὑπέρ with the genitive is relatively seldom used with reference to the sacrificial cult and, when it means ‘for the sake of’, it is predominantly used with persons, as well as occasionally with objects in the sense of ‘because of’ or ‘concerning’ or ‘above’.25 Nonetheless, it seems likelier, on the whole, that it was originally used in the formula with persons, who benefited from this death, without it necessarily being specified how they so benefited. Many have seen in Romans 3.25 and 26a Paul’s use of traditional material and this is scarcely surprising in view of the imagery and language used here.26 It is true that Ernst Käsemann, following Rudolf Bultmann, also wanted to see the use of tradition beginning in v. 24,27 but this is less convincing in the light of the characteristic Pauline terms found in that verse (δικαιοῦν, χάρις and ἐν Χριστῷ 22 Cf.

also Rom 14.15. 5.6, ὑπέρ ἀσεβῶν, is presumably formulated ad hoc (cf. 1 Pet 3.18, ὑπὲρ ἀδίκων). 24 Cf. Heb 10.6, 8 (quoting Ps 40.6), 18, 26; 13.11. However, Schrage, ‘Verständnis’, 77–8, sees Jewish sacrificial theology in the use of ὑπέρ too. 25 The picture is somewhat complicated by the frequency in the textual tradition of variations between ὑπέρ and περί. (In the New Testament one also finds Christ dying περὶ ἁµαρτιῶν and περὶ ἡµῶν: 1 Pet 3.18; 1 Thess 5.10.) A sacrificial sense for ὑπέρ is found, for instance, in 1 Esdras 7.8 (NETS: ‘twelve male goats for the sin of all Israel’) and 9.20 (NETS: ‘as expiation to offer rams for their mistake’), and in Mic 6.7 (NETS: ‘Should I give my firstborns for impious acts, the fruit of my belly for the sin of my soul?’); this usage is also found unusually frequently in Ezekiel 40–48 in relation to sacrifices for sin and sometimes also for ignorance (cf. 40.39; 43.22, 25; 44.29; 45.17, 22–3, 25; 46.20). On the other hand, in some contexts when used with words referring to sins ὑπέρ is best translated as ‘because’ and refers, e. g., to the reason for a punishment rather than to a sacrifice atoning for wrongdoing: so in 2 Kgdms 3.8 Abner complains that he is being charged with a crime concerning Rizpah (ὑπὲρ ἀδικίας γυναικός) and in 3 Kgdms 16.18–19 Zimri dies because of his sins (ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν αὐτοῦ). In Ps 38.12 (11) LXX ‘With reproofs for lawlessness (ὑπὲρ ἀνοµίας) you disciplined a person’ (NETS). 26 Talbert explains the unusual features of this passage by treating vv. 25–6 as a later interpolation (‘Fragment’). (Williams, Death, 6–10, compares, too, the view of Fitzer; for, although the latter’s general conclusion on vv. 24–5 seems, at first sight, to be that the meaning of the words and their usage ‘point to the work of Paul’s hand rather than forcing us to conclude that another has introduced non-Pauline phrases into the text of Romans that actually alter Paul’s meaning’ [‘Ort’, 166], he also follows Lietzmann in regarding the reference to forgiveness of former sins in v. 25b as non-Pauline and sees here a glossator at work [164–5].) Others (e. g. Cranfield, Romans 1, 200 n. 1; Haacker, Römer 89–90) argue that despite these features the passage stems from the apostle, perhaps drawing on Jewish Christian traditions (cf. Moo, Romans, 220). 27 Käsemann, ‘Verständnis’ and Römer, 89, following Bultmann, Theology 1, 46. See the critique in Williams, Death, 11–16. 23 Rom

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Ἰησοῦ).28 With vv. 25 and 26a it is very different and the terms and imagery used are so unusual that they present difficulties for the interpreter. Within the compass of 27 or 28 words, in addition to some which could well stem from Paul,29 one finds a whole series of New Testament or Pauline hapax legomena: ἱλαστήριον (only here in the Corpus Paulinum, otherwise only in Hebr 9.5, there with the definite article, referring to the cover of the ark of the covenant, the kapporeth), πάρεσις (only here in the New Testament), the reference to the προγεγόνοτα ἁµαρτήµατα, προέθετο (at least were it here to mean something like ‘displayed publicly’, as is widely assumed;30 otherwise this verb appears once more in Paul, and once in Ephesians, with the meaning ‘decide, plan, purpose’, as in Rom 1.13, πολλάκις προεθέµην ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑµᾶς; cf. the related substantive πρόθεσις, referring to the divine plan or purpose: Rom 8.28, τοῖς κατὰ πρόθεσιν κλητοῖς οὖσιν, and 9.11, ἡ κατ’ ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις τοῦ θεοῦ).31 In addition ἁµάρτηµα is relatively infrequent in Paul’s writings (otherwise only in 1 Cor 6.18). And finally the almost identical repetition of εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ … πρὸς τὴν ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ is perhaps an indication that Paul has here quoted something whose wording he then picks up in order to connect his own ideas and development of them with what has gone before.32 If we bear these features of the passage in mind a possible, but more than a little controversial, translation is: (25) God planned beforehand that he (Jesus) should be a means of expiation through faith(fulness) in his blood, to demonstrate the divine righteousness in view of the passing over of the sins that had been committed earlier (26) at the time when God exercised restraint, to demonstrate the divine righteousness at the present time, so that God is righteous, even when justifying the one whose claim is based on Jesus’ faith(fulness).

Controversial here are not only the decisions taken about the translation of individual words but also the overall soteriological scheme that results from them and which is, to say the least, hardly typical of Paul. For, although a translation 28 Cf.

Jewett, Romans, 270; Kraus, Tod, 16–17; Lohse, Märtyrer, 149–50 n. 4.

29 It has been suggested, e. g., that Paul has added διὰ [τῆς] πίστεως to the traditional material

quoted, but cf. Williams’criticisms of this: Death, 41–5. Interesting are his suggestions, amongst a number that he tentatively makes about these phrases, that the ἐν in ἐν τῷ αἵµατι αὐτοῦ is the equivalent of a dative of price (following the proposal of Nigel Turner in Moulton, Grammar 3, 253, who sees here a literal rendering of the beth pretii) and that the Pauline πίστις Χριστοῦ is to be treated as an example of neither a subjective nor an objective genitive, but means ‘that faith which “comes” with him’ (48), although he regards it as possible that the tradition in Rom 3.25 did indeed refer to Jesus’ faith(fulness). 30 Cf. Stuhlmacher, Römer, 55; Wilckens, Römer 1, 183, 192–3. 31 Cf. also Fitzer, ‘Ort’, 166. 32 Kessler’s verdict (Bedeutung, 267) is that, though the formulation is not semitic the ideas here are ‘gut alttestamentlich-jüdisch’. Also to be noted is the suggestion of Williams, Death, 17–19, that 3.25c is also to be attributed to the tradition that is quoted here.

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of προέθετο is adopted here that is in keeping with Paul’s use of this verb and its related substantive πρόθεσις,33 the resultant idea is an unusual one.34 Dieter Zeller rejects here a comparison with the use of προεγράφη in Gal 3.1: it is here a matter of God’s giving meaning to Christ’s death, and a temporal sense of προέθετο serves that purpose better: God had long planned to appoint Christ as ‘something atoning’ (etwas Sühnendes).35 Or Klaus Haacker points to the use of the verb in 1.13 and the substantive in 8.28 and 9.11 and argues that the idea of God’s plan in history lies near at hand: correspondingly he translated the verb as ‘determined (beforehand)’.36 The arguments for a temporal, rather than spatial, interpretation of the προ‑ in προέθετο would be reinforced if a temporal dimension is present elsewhere in the passage, and this is in fact the case. For the controversial expression διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁµαρτηµάτων ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ can be interpreted in this sense, but not if one treats πάρεσις simply as a synonym for the commoner ἄφεσις, ‘forgiveness’.37 Nor if one argues, as Wilckens does,38 that the parallelism in v. 26a and b means that ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ is not to be taken with the προγεγονότων ἁµαρτηµάτων and understood temporally, although he grants that the sense of 2.4 would suggest that. For there God’s ἀνοχή keeps the way of repentance for sinners open through holding back God’s wrath. Would that mean that now the time of God’s patience has come to an end, and that God’s righteousness is now manifested through full forgiveness and the removal of God’s wrath in Christ’s death? However, Wilckens thinks it likelier that ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ as an independent third part of v. 25b means that God has shown

33 I.e. the προ‑ in προέθετο is here interpreted temporally rather than spatially. Wilckens regards the verb as a cultic terminus technicus, but admittedly only for the public display of the consecrated loaves (cf. the use of πρόθεσις in Mark 2.26); that does not mean that it could also be used for every cultic act; and these loaves were not a means of atonement. 34 Unusual it may be, but it is hard to believe that Stanley Stowers’ proffered hypothesis corresponds to much in the text (Rereading, 213–26). For in Stowers’ view God sent Jesus in order to ‘rectify the domination of the wicked over the righteous’ and to restore the position of God’s people by the overthrow of unbelieving Jews and the Roman oppressors (214). However, Jesus decided to die rather than exercise his power, so that the majority of the Jews and the gentile world should not be destroyed; in other words he postponed the establishment of God’s kingdom. Yet it is very hard to find the slightest trace of such a scenario in this passage or elsewhere in Paul’s writings. When Paul speaks of God’s patience and the postponement of God’s judgement, it is rather in the context of God’s patient waiting for the coming of Jesus and his saving act. And Stowers seems to envisage Jesus, rather than fulfilling God’s plan as God intended, taking it upon himself to modify it. 35 Zeller, Römer, 87; also ‘Sühne’; cf. Cranfield, Romans 1, 209. 36 Haacker, Römer, 85, 91: ‘(voraus‑)bestimmt’. 37 Cf. Haacker, Römer, 92 n. 47 (although he translates the word ‘allow to pass’: 85); Käsemann, Römer, 84, 91; Kümmel, ‘Πάρεσις’; Lohse, Römer, 128;Wilckens, Römer 1, 183, 196. 38 Wilckens, Römer 1, 196–7.

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the divine righteousness in patiently forgiving past sins;39 in other words, ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ is to be linked to the forgiveness. Yet Otto Kuss’s translation of πάρεσις as ‘letting pass’ (Hingehenlassen) suggests another interpretation of the passage and perhaps a more plausible one.40 Unfortunately Kuss provides no arguments in support of his reading and even recognizes that the meaning ‘remission’ (Erlass) favoured by Lietzmann and Kümmel is better attested in secular Greek.41 Robert Jewett, on the other hand, adds yet greater precision, on the basis of the usage of παρίηµι in connection with sins in four passages, by suggesting, in support of his translation ‘passing over’, that it refers to leaving sins ‘unpunished and passed over but not pardoned’.42 Keck, too, while criticizing sharply the REB’s ‘overlooked’, sees here ‘God’s holding back the deserved punishment’.43 A translation of πάρεσις as ‘letting pass’ or the like does, however, become rather more plausible when we consider the meaning of the cognate verb, παρίηµι, which is found with the sense ‘pass unnoticed, disregard’ from Pindar and Herodotus on.44 Such a sense gives us the opportunity to do justice to ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ, even when it is not introduced by a repeated τήν: God waited patiently during earlier times, the period of the committing of the earlier sins,45 and did not intervene with the full weight of the divine wrath. That does in fact fit in with the reference to God’s patience in 2.4 (‘Or do you despise the riches of [God’s] goodness and patience and longsuffering because you fail to recognize that God’s goodness should bring you to repent?’), and this may suggest that the theologumenon invoked there stems from the same early Christian circles as Rom 3.25–26a. Yet Rom 3.25–26a goes further than what Paul says and means in 2.4, and does so in a way that has no parallel elsewhere in the apostle’s writings, and which is therefore an argument for his use of tradition here. Taken together with the temporal sense of προέθετο and with the demonstration of the divine righteousness this understanding of the passage means that God’s failure to act in the past, in the time of the divine forbearance, Römer 1, 197. Römer, 155. 41 Only in a fragment of the historian Appian (Reg Frg. 13) do we find the sense ‘Vernachlässigung’. 42 Jewett, Romans, 268, 289–90, citing Xen., Equ. mag. 7.10.39; Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 2.35.4; Jos., Ant. 15.48; Sir 23.2 (presumably this is the passage meant, not 25.2–3); cf. Michel, Römer, 153 n. 16; Moo, Romans, 238–9 n. 95. The argument from the meaning of the verb seems more successful than that from the (somewhat ambivalent) Graeco-Roman use of the substantive employed by Williams, Death, 23–5, following J. M. Creed, ‘ΠΑΡΕΣΙΣ in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and in St Paul’, JTS 41 (1940) 28–30, but cf. also BDAG s.v. πάρεσις. 43 Keck, Romans, 111; cf. Byrne, Romans, 122, and Moo, Romans, 219: ‘passing over’. 44 LSJ s.v. II.2. 45 On the sense and function in this context of ἐν τῇ ἀνοχῇ τοῦ θεου see the discussion in Williams, Death, 25–9, who links the phrase to πάρεσις in the sense of ‘passing over’ rather than ‘forgiveness’. Whether ἁµαρτήµατα should really be translated as ‘Sündenschulden’ as Käsemann proposes (Römer, 84) seems doubtful. 39 Wilckens, 40 Kuss,

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could have been interpreted as neglect, disinterest, moral weakness or, in other words, deficiency in righteousness.46 In fact, however, God had thus held back, and could thus hold back, because a costly and radical means of finally dealing with these only apparently ignored sins had already been fixed beforehand, namely Christ’s atoning death. Charles Cranfield perhaps sees this connection between πάρεσις and εἰς ἔνδειξιν κτλ. more clearly than most: Paul is saying in these two verses that God purposed (from eternity) that Christ should be ἱλαστήριον, in order that the reality of God's righteousness, that is, of His goodness and mercy, which would be called in question by His passing over sins committed up to the time of that decisive act, might be established.47

This is also an interpretration that seems to have been presupposed by the New English Bible: For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death, effective through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had overlooked the sins of the past …

Now it is true that God’s righteousness should never have been called in question, since there had previously, from the time of the giving of the law, been the whole Old Testament sacrificial cult, which seemed to show clearly how seriously God took human sins and how necessary atonement was, and which provided the means of expiating sins. Yet, as Dunn notes,48 Paul, unlike the author of Hebrews, offers us no evaluation of the sacrificial cult or its efficacy, and in fact seems to ignore it completely. It therefore seems doubtful that the temple cult was seen in a new light from the perspective of the cross and consequently rejected by early Christians. Perhaps we may see this as a logical conclusion, but that may not have been so at that time.49 At any rate, Paul is silent on this point, and it would be rash to follow Hans Hübner in arguing that Christ was for Paul not only the end of the law, but also the end of the expiatory cult based upon and enjoined by the law.50 Does Paul in fact reveal at this point the perspective of a Diaspora Jew forced, apart, that is, from the tradition of his living in Jerusalem before his conversion (cf. Acts 7.58), to live at a distance from the Jerusalem cult?

46 Williams rightly notes how, in Isa 64.10–12 (LXX 9–11), God’s inactivity was felt as a problem, something that humiliated God’s people (n.b. Isa 64.11 LXX, ἀνέσχου; cf. also 42.14; 63.15 LXX). Williams uses such texts concerning God’s refraining to intervene to punish Israel’s enemies, but rather allowing their sins to accumulate, as an argument for seeing in this tradition in Rom 3.25–26a the provision of a ἱλαστήριον for the gentiles (Death, 29–33). 47 Cranfield, Romans 1, 212. See, too, the lengthy discussion in Williams, Death, 23–34. 48 Dunn, Romans 1, 173–4. 49 But cf. Breytenbach, Versöhnung, 168. Perhaps this should be a logical consequence from Gal 2.21: the existence of other ἱλαστήρια should have made the offering of Christ as a ἱλαστήριον superfluous and unnecessary. 50 Hübner, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 93.

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Or is it, as Williams suggests,51 that this tradition is thinking of God’s provision now for the salvation of gentiles for whom no provision had been made in the Jewish cult? Whatever the reason, Paul says nothing explicitly on this point and it would be unwise to force our logic upon him. And, if the ideas in this passage in Romans 3 in fact stem from tradition, then it seems to follow that other early Christians were also deaf to these implications from the existence of the Old Testament sacrificial cult.52 For Rom 3.25 clearly seems to take up a term that has arguably some connection with the sacrificial cult: God appointed in advance that Christ should be a ἱλαστήριον to rescue humanity from the plight in which it found itself, to rescue it from its sins. Yet quite what the relation of this term is to the sacrificial cult and how specific it is remains unclear. That is already evident from the varying translations of this term that are on offer: we have already seen the NEB’s ‘the means of expiating sin’,53 but the AV had ‘propitiation’,54 whereas ‘expiation’ is now more generally preferred, or else more explanatory translations like the Good News Bible’s ‘the means by which sins are forgiven’, the NRSV’s ‘sacrifice of atonement’, or Barrett’s ‘the means of dealing with sin’.55 In German the suggestions include ‘Sühne’ or ‘Sühne zu leisten’,56 ‘Sühnmal/Sühnemal’, ‘Sühnopfer’,57 ‘das Sühnende’,58 ‘Sühneort,59 and ‘Sühnemittel’.60 Common to these German translations is at least the sense of expiation or atonement.61 Death, 33–4. relation between Rom 1.18–32 and this passage is difficult to see: in the former God acts in anger, giving sinful human beings over to their self-chosen sinfulness. And yet this handing over could perhaps be seen as stemming from patience inasmuch as these sins were not punished by the destruction of the offenders. Jewish eschatological expectations required, however, a stricter judgement and a more drastic fate, and not just the abandonment of the sinners to the existence that they had themselves chosen. And it is understandable that such moderate treatment of the godless would hardly satisfy the persecuted and oppressed righteous and their yearning for retribution and righteousness. God’s patience was perhaps something that some Jewish-Christian circles may have found difficult and led them to find a more drastic solution and explanation in Jesus’ atoning death, in the form that we find in 3.25–26a: God could refrain from a full or adequate punishment of sins because it was the divine plan to take this costly way and finally to expiate these sins. On the other hand, Ziesler argues that, rather than referring to the sins of people in past times, it may be ‘the sins formerly committed by people who are now receiving the gospel’ (Romans, 116). 53 So also Fitzmyer, Romans, 341, 349–50; Byrne, Romans, 122, has ‘means of expiation’. 54 Cf. Cranfield’s ‘propitiatory sacrifice’ (Romans 1, 201, 216). 55 The JB offers an even looser translation: ‘to sacrifice his life so as to win reconciliation’; so, too, NJB: ‘a sacrifice for reconciliation’. 56 ‘Sühne’: LB; G. Barth, Tod, 40; Käsemann, Römer, 84; Kuss, Römer, 155; Lohse, Römer, 128; ‘Sühne zu leisten’: EÜ; ‘Sühne zu schaffen’: ZB (2007). 57 Zeller, Römer, 84 (so the translation in his commentary, but he then speaks of ‘etwas Sühnendes’). 58 Friedrich, Verkündigung, 65. 59 Wilckens, Römer 1, 183, 193; Fitzer, ‘Ort’. 60 Haacker, Römer, 85. 61 An exception is the Gute Nachricht Bibel: ‘Versöhnungszeichen’. 51 Williams, 52 The

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Yet even this relative unanimity is disturbed by two variations: on the one hand, there are amongst English-speaking translators some who prefer to speak of ‘propitiation’,62 finding the idea of turning away the wrath of an angry God congenial, and, on the other, those who shift the sense from ‘expiation’ or ‘atonement’ to that of ‘reconciliation’. The first of these proposals has a long history, particularly among more conservative scholars, but introduces the surely rather strange notion of God having to act in order to turn away the divine anger or to satisfy the divine justice. For it is clear that, for a writer such as Paul it is God’s initiative that brings about salvation and that those who are affected by this action are sinful human beings whose sinfulness needs to be dealt with. And yet ideas of placating a wrathful deity were clearly current at the time, at least in non-Jewish circles and perhaps also in Jewish ones too.63 Nonetheless, in view of the stress in the New Testament on the divine love and the divine initiative in salvation, the preference for ‘expiation’ should not be dismissed as an anachronistic modernizing of the New Testament to fit in with, or pander to, modern susceptibilities. Yet it is also true that one would do well to avoid merging ‘Versöhnung’/‘reconciliation’ and ‘Sühne/Versühnung’/‘atoning, expiating’; the background and associations of these terms are different. For Otfried Hofius warns of a danger here for the interpretation of Paul that applies equally to the attempt to talk here in terms of ‘propitiation’:64 The Pauline statements about atonement and reconcilation are not infrequently interpreted in such a way as to suggest that the apostle saw in Jesus’ death on the cross an atoning sacrifice bringing satisfaction and propitiation that the sinless Son of God offered representatively for sinful humanity and for its sake before God and for God. [He here cites Adolf Jülicher as an example.] If Jesus’ death on the cross counted as an atoning sacrifice that satisfied God, then that means that Jesus in his death rendered the necessary satisfaction to a God who took offence at the sin of humanity and was thus lethally angry with the sinner. If this atoning sacrifice is also understood as propitiatory, that means that Jesus by the satisfaction rendered in his death turned God’s anger to grace and so brought about God’s reconciliatory approach to sinful humanity.

Such a view of Pauline soteriology he rejects as ultimately as ‘only a particular variant of that pagan view of sacrifice characterized by the principle of Do ut des, the principle that “I (a human being) give, so that you (God) may give’ (35), and this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what Paul said and meant. For, as he rightly emphasizes, there can be no talk of a change in God or a change of mind Moo, Romans, 218: ‘a propitiatory sacrifice’. be noted is Williams’ contention (Death, 39–40) that to be forced to choose between ‘expiation’ and ‘propitiation’ is inappropriate: for Jews the (ἐξ)ιλασκ-root might refer to the removal of sin or defilement, but that sin or defilement was at the same time the cause of God’s anger, so that its removal rendered God ‘propitious’ again. 64 Hofius, ‘Sühne’, 34. 62 Cf. 63 To

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as a result of Jesus’ crucifixion, and the reconciliation accomplished in this death can be seen neither as ending God’s wrath nor as the gift of the hitherto wrathful God (37). If that is true of the talk of reconciliation then it is surely also true of that of atonement or expiation. And yet in all this we need to remember that, just as Paul’s understanding and use of the Old Testament by no means always corresponds to what was meant by Old Testament texts, so too, if Paul is here picking up early Christian terminology and tradition, his understanding of what the words mean need not be the same as that of their original authors. Gerhard Friedrich is perhaps even more critical of the merging of ‘Ver­söh­ nung’/‘reconciliation’ and ‘Sühne/Versühnung’/‘atoning, expiating’:65 these ideas correspond to two quite different groups of words in Greek, (ἐξ)ιλασκ‑ on the one hand, (κατ)αλλασσ‑ on the other, and these in turn derive from quite different areas of life, atonement from the cultic, reconciliation from private and political life. It is, accordingly, ‘mistaken to link the idea of reconciliation with that of atonement and to seek to clarify New Testament statements concerning reconciliation by appealing to the Jewish Day of Atonement and its sacrifices and rites’.66 (It is perhaps easier to avoid this trap in English where one speaks of the ‘Day of Atonement’ rather than the German ‘Versöhnungstag’, and the former is surely a better rendering of ‘Yom Kippur’.) It may be granted that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that there is an allusion to sacrificial imagery of some sort, but translations of ἱλαστήριον such as Wilckens’ ‘Sühneort’ raise the question how much more specific the background presupposed here in fact is. Wilckens sees here a reference to the ritual of the Jewish Day of Atonement, during which the cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies was sprinkled with blood.67 This recalls the proposal of Fitzer that the reference here is neither to the atoning sacrifice nor to the means of atonement, but to the ‘place of God’s presence and grace, where in the actions of the priest in the cultic purificatory rites God’s grace became reality’. Then Jesus is ‘in some measure himself the place of God’s presence that discloses God’s grace’.68 This place, the cover of the Ark, the kapporeth, is translated as τὸ ἱλαστήριον in the Septuagint (similarly in Heb 9.5: ὑπεράνω δὲ αὐ᾽τῆς Χερουβὶν δόξης κατασκιάζοντα τὸ ἱλαστήριον); the sprinkling served to atone for, to consecrate, the sanctuary (cf. Lev 16.16, 20) and thus to atone for the high priest himself and the whole house of Israel (Lev 16.17). Wilckens is less reluctant than many to believe that such an allusion to this ritual and the cultic implements used would be 65 Cf.

also Vollenweider, ‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, 93. Verkündigung, 99; cf. Becker, ‘Rede’, 41–2; Breytenbach, Versöhnung; ‘Versöh-

66 Friedrich,

nung’. 67 Cf. also Den Heyer, Jesus, 63. Roloff, ‘Anfänge’, 49, also presupposes the ritual of the Day of Atonement as the background of this passage. 68 Fitzer, ‘Ort’, 171; cf. Campbell, Rhetoric, 109–13; Jewett, Romans, 268, 284–7; Vollenweider, ‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, 94.

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unintelligible to Paul’s Roman readers.69 (Not that such an unintelligibility would be an insurmountable problem; Paul would not be the first or the last theologian to overestimate the capacity of his readers to understand what he was saying. And, anyway, if he were quoting traditional material, he may have assumed that he could presume upon the Roman Christians’ knowledge of these traditions.) At any rate, Wilckens argues that ‘Leviticus 16 belonged to the central elements of Jewish traditions in the Diaspora as well and would naturally be familiar from the Torah to any gentile that lived in contact with the synagogue’.70 The absence of the definite article here is, he thinks, to be explained from the formulaic style used here, and one should not demand that Paul’s theology should conform to our modern logic. To his mind Lohse is guilty of this when he argues that ‘If Christ were likened to the kapporeth, then the comparison would be faulty in that Christ’s blood would have to have been sprinkled on the kapporeth, i. e. on himself.’71 Similar problems of logic according to our standards are readily apparent in Hebrews, and it would certainly be a mistake simply to assume that Paul is any more to our taste in this respect. Stuhlmacher, too, argues that Christians’ kapporeth is no longer hidden in the Holy of Holies but is there for all to see in the shape of Christ hanging on the cross.72 Yet it would then have been more intelligible had early Christians compared Christ’s cross with the kapporeth, rather than Jesus himself, and Gerhard Friedrich therefore rightly regards it as ‘hardly conceivable that the early Christian community inserted, with no explanation, into a … formula [a reference to] a special Old Testament cultic object which no longer existed and referred a piece of temple equipment to Jesus’.73 At any rate, this interpretation presupposes a quite specific background, a quite specific rite, albeit a central one, that of the Jewish Yom Kippur, although Klaus Haacker protests that there can be no question of the image of such a rite of the purification of the sanctuary, which he describes as a ‘dinglicher Ritus’, being adequate to express Paul’s interpretation of Jesus’ death. Yet he might nevertheless have taken it over and complemented and corrected it by means of the various other images that he employs.74 He rightly pays tribute to Wolfgang Kraus’s service in having shown that the sacrificial rites on this day did not deal with the sins of human beings but the removal of the impurity of the sanctuary caused by sinners, but argues that ‘the New Testament traditions concerning the sanctuary, 69 Byrne, Romans, 127, regards the presence of ‘echoes’ of this rite as ‘certainly present’, and seems to merge the Roman Christians’ knowledge of this tradition with the knowledge of its background held by those who originally formulated it. 70 Wilckens, Römer 1,191. 71 Lohse, Märtyrer, 151–2. 72 Stuhlmacher, Römer, 57; accordingly he translates προέθετο as ‘öffentlich einsetzen’ and, like Gerhard Barth and others, sees here a contrast to the hiddenness of the rites of the Day of Atonement. 73 Friedrich, Verkündigung, 64. 74 Haacker, Römer, 91.

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which Kraus compares …, are so far removed from the context of Romans 3 that they cannot be read into this passage’.75 However, two other possibilities have also been suggested, Jewish expiatory rites in general and Jewish martyr-theology (so Lohse, van Henten, Haacker).76 It is not quite clear, however, how far these should be regarded as alternatives to one another. On the one hand, the ritual of the Day of Atonement is the expiatory rite par excellence, even if human sins are there dealt with, not by a sacrifice, but by the sending out of one of two goats into the wilderness, bearing Israel’s sin (Lev 16.21–2), and one that has, as might be expected, recognizable affinities with other expiatory rites and perhaps adopted practices from other, earlier rites such as expiatory rites for persons and for the sanctuary. On the other hand, the Jews applied aspects, concepts and terms from their sacrificial cult to their martyrs, in order to express the significance of their deaths and to find meaning in them.77 The use of such language to describe the deaths of these martyrs in quasi-cultic terms is significant for the development of early Christian reflection on Jesus’ death; the early church was not alone, and perhaps not the first,78 to apply such terminology to express the significance of human deaths and above all the death of righteous sufferers. Nonetheless, since there are so many different possible backgrounds for the use of the term ἱλαστήριον, and since there is no clear evidence that the one or the other of these possibilities is intended here, a more general reference to atonement or expiation is to be preferred. It is, however, important to follow Friedrich here in stressing that this atonement or expiation does not serve to persuade God to be gracious or to appease God, but to remove human sin.79 In other words, ‘expiation’ is to be preferred to ‘propitiation’. Yet, despite Dodd’s claim that the Israelites had no concept of ‘propitiation’, of averting God’s wrath,80 others think that he has underestimated the aspect of God’s wrath and argue that the difference between ‘expiation’ and ‘propitiation’ is less than he thought. It is noteworthy that Käsemann criticizes Dodd’s suggested translation of ἱλαστήριον as ‘a means by which sin is forgiven’ 75 Haacker, Römer, 91 nn. 36 and 37, referring to Kraus, Tod, 45–70 and 194–279 (here it is above all the traditions concerning Jesus’ temple-saying in Mark and John and the theology of Hebrews that are dealt with). 76 Lohse, Märtyrer; van Henten, ‘Background’; Haacker, Römer, 90–1. 77 One sees that particularly clearly in 4 Macc 17.21–2: the martyrs became ‘as it were, a ransom for the sin of the nation. And through the blood of those pious people and the propitiatory of their death (διὰ τοῦ αἵµατος τῶν εὐσεβῶν ἐκείνων καὶ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῶν), divine Providence preserved Israel, though before it had been afflicted’ (so NETS, tr. S. Westerholm, who adds in a footnote to τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου τοῦ θανάτου αὐτῶν ‘I.e. atonement wrought by their death’). 78 4 Maccabees may go back to the 1st century CE (so H. Anderson in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2, 531), although Campbell, Rhetoric, 219–28, argues for a later date after 135 CE. 79 Friedrich, Verkündigung, e. g. 60–1. 80 Dodd, Romans, 54; also ‘ἱλάσκεσθαι’.

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as too weak.81 At any rate, whether or not God is angry because of human sins, it is God who has initiated this saving action and it is human beings and their situation that have been changed by it. One could say that God was compelled to act thus, since the divine wrath would otherwise still be directed against humanity, yet this idea is hardly in the foreground here. For instead it is stressed that God had to demonstrate the divine righteousness, and that is because, as suggested above, God’s inaction in the past might seem to cast doubt on that righteousness. Nothing suggests that the problem lies in God’s wrathful disposition. It is human ἁµαρτήµατα, not God’s disposition, that need to be dealt with, and it was suggested above that, according to this early Christian tradition, God had long ago decided how to deal with them, and how they might be expiated and the relationship between humanity and its God might be restored. It would, at any rate, be hard to deny that the imagery of the sacrificial cult lies behind the choice of words here, whether directly or indirectly, when the deaths of martyrs are spoken of in quasi-cultic terms. Some, like B. H. McLean, seek to avoid this conclusion:82 he argues that in the word ἱλαστήριον an atoning sacrifice is not explicitly mentioned and that atonement should not be limited to sacrificial rites. Nonetheless it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is indeed meant here when Paul speaks not only of a ἱλαστήριον but also of Jesus’ blood. The latter in itself need not designate Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, for one could speak of a violent death in this way; it is the conjunction of both, ἱλαστήριον and αἷµα, that makes it so hard to avoid this conclusion here. And, once one has granted that such an allusion is to be found here, it is harder to deny that similar allusions may also be found in other passages in Paul’s letters. So, when we come across the phrase ‘in his blood’ in Romans 5.9, then this may well be an allusion to a sacrificial background, particularly if, as noted above, crucifixion was not a particularly bloody form of execution. And later on in Romans we read that ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ υἱὸν πέµψας ἐν ὁµοιώµατι σαρκὸς ἁµαρτίας καὶ περὶ ἁµαρτίας κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁµαρτίαν ἐν τῇ σαρκι (Romans 8.3). Whether or not περὶ ἁµαρτίας is here used as a technical term for a sin-offering, it is plausible to see here an allusion to cultic and sacrificial language.83 It is true that the phrase περὶ ἁµαρτίας is often used in the Septuagint of sin-offerings. Nonetheless Dieter Zeller prefers here the translation ‘because of sin’ and sees here a reference to the power of sin.84 Friedrich goes further and denies that the phrase has the sense of ‘sin-offering’ except in the Letter to the Hebrews. Yet, Romans, 55; Käsemann, Römer, 90. Christ, 43–6, and ‘Absence’; cf. also Stowers, Rereading, 206–13: ‘The Inadequacy of the Sacrificial Explanation’; but cf. the discussion of Stowers’ alternative in above. 83 Vollenweider, ‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, adds the reference to Christ’s blood in Rom 5.9. See also on Rom 8.3 Byrne, Romans, 234, 243; Keck, Romans, 199, and more tentatively, Ziesler, Romans, 204–5. Others reject this interpretation decisively: e. g. Lohse, Römer, 231. 84 Zeller, Römer, 148, 153. 81 Dodd,

82 McLean,

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even if the phrase is not a technical term, it is true that in the Old Testament sin-offerings are a common way of dealing with sin and Paul’s readers may have understood the phrase in this way. On the other hand, Friedrich is fully correct to point out that the word ἁµαρτία is used three times in this verse and that it would therefore be difficult to give one of these uses a more special sense; ‘why,’ he asks, ‘should the [occurrence of the] word in the middle have a completely different sense to the preceding and following [occurrences]?’85 Would it, however, have a completely different sense if one sees here an allusion to the Old Testament cult? For the Greek phrase simply means that by means of such a sacrifice sin is removed, and the sin that is removed can naturally be the same as that intended in the other two occurrences of the word, the power of sin rather than the individual sinful acts, if Zeller is right in seeing this as implied in the use of the singular, even if the word in the Septuagint may refer rather to the individual acts and the resultant human condition. In other words, Käsemann’s verdict, that Paul never explicitly identifies Jesus’ death as a sacrifice and that accordingly the motif of sacrifice has no particular importance,86 perhaps goes too far in playing down Paul’s use of such imagery. Nonetheless, it is true that one should resist the temptation to make the concept of an atoning sacrifice the dominant and governing element in Pauline soteriology. Cilliers Breytenbach is right to point to the absence of the ἐξιλασκ‑ word group in 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon 1 and 2 Corinthians as well as in the deutero-Pauline literature and to ask whether we are justified in then exalting a term that Paul has borrowed from tradition to such a central category.87 Moreover, the references to 2 Cor 5.21 and Gal 3.13 are to two passages that figure very prominently in that recurring theme in Pauline soteriology that Morna Hooker describes as ‘interchange in Christ’. In this Jesus’ identification with sinful humanity is central, whereas sacrificial imagery stresses rather the untainted sinlessness of the victim offered (cf., e. g., Heb 7.26; 1 Pet 1.19). 85 Friedrich,

Verkündigung, 70.

86 Käsemann, ‘Bedeutung’, 78–9. He argues for this on the grounds that (a) Jesus’ death is seen

as God’s act and God cannot very well present offerings, (b) the influence of the cross on human beings is so stressed that it leaves no scope for its effects on God, and (c) other concepts are more prominent. The idea of representation alone is christologically important. Vollenweider’s verdict is more cautious: ‘The early Christian interpretation of Jesus’ death cannot be expounded solely in terms of cultic atonement.’ For, he points out, early Christians distanced themselves more and more from the sacrificial cult and this argues against Tübingen’s ‘biblical theology’ and its attempts to establish the greatest possible degree of continuity between Old and New Testaments (‘Diesseits von Golgatha’, 96–7). 87 Breytenbach, ‘Versöhnung’, 66–7. Schrage argues (‘Röm 3,21–26’, 79) that the idea of atonement is not all that Paul sees in Jesus’ death and is not his last word on the subject; rather it is associated with deliverance from the power of this age, so that atonement for sin finds its place in a more inclusive universal saving event, the introduction of the new world that Christ has inaugurated.

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With another passage, 2 Corinthians 5.21, on the other hand, it is far more difficult to be sure: τὸν µὴ γνόντα ἁµαρτίαν ὑπὲρ ἡµῶν ἁµαρτίαν ἐποίησεν, ἵνα ἡµεῖς γενώµεθα δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ. Some have again treated the second occurrence of ἁµαρτίαν here as a reference to a sin-offering, but that would mean that the word is then used in two different senses within the span of four words. Moreover the preposition περί is missing here and that makes it harder to see an allusion to the phrase used in the Septuagint for a sin-offering. Rightly, McLean quotes here the commentary of Philipp Bachmann, who argues that, when ἁµαρτία is used twice in the verse, it must surely mean the same each time; moreover the structure of thought here is similar to that of Gal 3.13, and there the negative term is ‘curse’ and that cannot refer to a sacrificial offering. In additiom, Jesus’ being made ‘sin’ is clearly contrasted with our becoming ‘God’s righteousness’ in him and to treat ‘sin’ as meaning ‘sin-offering’ seems to undermine this contrast. Romans 4.25 is widely regarded as traditional, although some doubt this.88 Already the last part of v. 24, τὸν ἐγείραντα Ἰησοῦν τὸν κύριον ἡµῶν ἐκ νεκρῶν, recalls a formula that occurs frequently in Paul’s letters.89 V. 25 is joined to this by a relative pronoun, a stylistic device often regarded as introducing a traditional formulation.90 Apart from this there are features like the parallelism, the παραδίδωµι-motif and the linking of justification with the resurrection rather than Christ’s death as in 3.24–6 and 5.9. It is true that the parallelism is, as far as the prepositional phrases διὰ τὰ παραπτώµατα ἡµῶν and διὰ τὴν δικαίωσιν ἡµῶν are concerned, formal rather then a true parallelism in meaning: the sins occasion, necessitate the offering up of Christ, whereas our justification is rather the purpose and result of his being raised.91 Some see in παρεδόθη with διά and the accusative an echo of Isa 53.12 (διὰ τὰς ἁµαρτίας αὐτῶν παρεδόθη).92 The use of παραδίδωµι may also indicate a dependence on tradition, although Paul elsewhere uses (παρα)δίδωµι ὑπέρ with the genitive: for our sins (Gal 1.4), for us all (Rom 8.32), and for Paul himself (Gal 2.20). The use with the plural ‘sins’, ἁµαρτίαι, in Gal 1.4, however, perhaps points to a use of tradition in that passage as in the quotation of tradition in 1 Cor 15.3. At any rate, παραδίδωµι appears in such a range of senses and contexts in connection with the passion of Jesus that one may infer that the term had an established place in early Christian tradition regarding Jesus’ death. It is, however, striking that justification is here linked to Christ’s resurrection, rather than to Christ’s death as elsewhere in Paul’s writ-

e. g., Wilckens, Römer 1, 279–80. Rom 8.11; 10.9; 1 Cor 6.14; 15.12, 15, 20; 2 Cor 4.14; Gal 1.1; 1 Thess 1.10. 90 Cf., e. g., Phil 2.6; Col 1.15,18b; 1 Tim 3.16; Heb 1.3. 91 So, at least, Cranfield, Romans 1, 252; Moo, Romans, 289; Wilckens, Römer 1, 278. Others deny the different sense of the preposition; e. g. Lohse, Römer, 162. 92 Cf., e. g., Cranfield, Romans 1, 251; Kessler, Bedeutung, 269; Lohse, Römer, 162. 88 Cf., 89 Cf.

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ings.93 The reasoning behind this unusual combination of ideas may be that Jesus was ‘justified’ when God raised him from the dead, and that, because he is our representative, we too share his resurrection and his justification. In that case, we would have here an interesting parallel to what Paul says in 2 Cor 5.14 with regard to our participation in Christ’s death. That would imply that, however much such ideas of our participation in Christ may be central to Paul’s soteriology and characteristic of it, as we shall see, this, too, may be something that he took over and appropriated from other early Christian theologians, even though he may also have developed his own distinctive ways of expressing this part of his Christian inheritance. Paul begins his letter to the Galatians with a reference to Christ as τοῦ δόντος ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν, ὅπως ἐξέληται ἡµᾶς ἐκ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦ ἐνεστῶτος πονηροῦ κατὰ τὸ θέληµα τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ πατρὸς ἡµῶν (Galatians 1.4). Again this is a verse that many have regarded as drawing upon traditional formulations. The formulation with a participle and the definite article is one found in other putative traditional formulae,94 and the reference to ‘sins’ in the plural is not typical of Paul (we have seen its use in the formulaic 1 Cor 15.3).95 the verb ἐξαιρεῖσθαι is also a Pauline hapax legomenon, and Betz also describes ‘according to the will of our God and Father’ as ‘unique in Paul’.96 Whether or not that is the case, Den Heyer is correct in describing this formulation as ‘formed by the thought-world of apocalyptic’,97 and this is particularly true of the reference to ‘the present evil age’. Hans Dieter Betz is one of those who regard Paul’s wording here as ‘formulaic’ and argues that ‘“Christ gave himself up for our sins” implies an old christology which understood Jesus’ death as an expiatory self-sacrifice.’98 In that case, we have here, not only a further example of the tradition that Jesus died ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁµαρτιῶν ἡµῶν, but also the further elaboration that this led to our rescue from this present evil age. Philippians 2.6–11 is most often accepted as a quotation of formulaic or hymnic material, even if the attempt is occasionally made to argue that Paul himself composed it.99 It is true that, although many see this as an early Christian hymn, there is no consensus as to the details of the metrical structure of this piece. There is at any rate a clear break between v. 8 and v. 9 and that the piece continues after v. 9 is in itself an argument for this passage being a quotation; for the concern of Paul here is to stress the selflessness of Jesus, and his exaltation described in 93 Isa 53.11 is sometimes invoked here, although it is noted that the MT is here nearer in sense than the LXX: the servant ‘shall make many righteous’ (NRSV) over against ‘to justify a righteous one who is well subject to many’ (NETS). 94 E.g. Rom 1.3–4; cf. also Heb 1.3. 95 Cf. also the plural παραπτώµατα in Rom 4.25. 96 Betz, Galatians, 42–3 and n. 61. 97 Den Heyer, Jesus, 47. Cf. Betz, Galatians, 42 n. 58. 98 Betz, Galatians, 41, 99 Cf. Brucker, ‘Christushymnen’.

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vv. 9–11 is unnecessary for this purpose.100 This, added to the large number of words and ideas that are either unusual or even without parallel in the Pauline writings, justify us in treating this as a quotation, be it from earlier or contemporary material. Otfried Hofius has drawn attention to the similarity between the christology of this hymn and that of the Letter to the Hebrews, especially 12.2,101 although in Hebrews Christ plays an active role (κεκάθικεν), whereas in Philippians it is clear that it is God who plays the active role in Christ’s exaltation. Hofius does not, however, speak for all when he assigns the reference to the cross in Phil 2.8 to the original hymn,102 yet it is clear that the first part of the passage reaches its nadir with the reference to Christ’s death, even if it were not originally specified that it was death by crucifixion.103 In this reference to his death some have seen the influence of Isaiah 53,104 although Hofius admits that the case for this does not rest on verbal allusions, but on the parallels in form and content in the the sequence of thought in both cases.105 Yet is even the sequence of thought so similar? For the first part of this passage is dominated by ideas that are most easily explained as a deliberate contrast to the Hellenistic ruler-cult and ‑ideology, in addition to that of God-like pre-existence.106 At any rate, the self-emptying of Christ leads to his death, yet it should be noted that this death is not described as salvific. The whole weight of the quoted passage is christological, expounding the nature of Christ and that with a paraenetic purpose: the community in Philippi should allow their life together to be shaped by the nature of this God-like being. However, it is Paul himself who has used the passage paraenetically and has given it this role in his letter.107 It is Paul himself who speaks of his knowing the κοινωνία [τῶν] παθηµάτων of 100 Cf. Strecker, Theologie, 76: ‘the christological statements of the hymn do not correspond to its paraenetic context’. However, that only applies to the second part of the passage. 101 Hofius, Christushymnus,15. 102 If the contention that the reference to the cross is part of the original hymn at least in part depends on accepting ‘to the glory of God the Father’ (v. 11) as a corresponding part of the original second part, then it is to be noted that this is probably a secondary addition to the close of the hymn, to avoid the impression that Christ had usurped what belonged to God alone. 103 Admittedly Strecker regards the whole of v. 8 as a Pauline addition: ‘Redaktion’, esp. 150. 104 Cf. esp. Jeremias, ‘Phil II 7’. 105 Hofius, Christushymnus, 70. At any rate, it is Isa 45.23 (LXX) that is reflected in Phil 2.10 (despite Isa 42.8); yet the two parts of the passage are so different in nature that it is hard to give this point much weight. (So, e. g., Jervell, Imago, 213, sees a gnostic theology in the first part, but a typical early Christian christology in the second. Even if this proposal is rejected, e. g. because the gnostic reading of vv. 6–8 does not carry conviction, there are formal grounds for treating the two parts as separate. For Kennel notes that, with the exception of χαρίζοµαι in v. 9, it is the first part of the passage that is characterized by unusual terminology, whereas the second part makes use of commoner terms, even if the διὸ καί in v. 9 binds the two parts together into a coherent whole: Hymnen?, esp. 202, 224.) 106 Persuasively argued by Vollenweider, ‘“Raub”’. 107 Cf. Schrage, ‘Verständnis’, 73 n. 70; cf. also 75, where he draws attention to Mark’s linking the carrying of one’s own cross to one’s following of the crucified one.

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Christ and being συµµορφιζόµενος τῷ θανάτῳ αὐτοῦ (Phil 3.10). Indeed, if the point of the quotation is to move the Philippian Christians to seek each other’s well-being rather than their own (cf. v. 4), then it is striking that this element is not mentioned in this mythological portrayal of Christ. His having the form of a slave is mentioned, but neither the element of service nor the question who is to be served is elaborated upon; the reference to his obedience in 2.8 might, if anything, suggest that it is God. These passages from Paul’s letters indicate that at least some of the many images that the apostle uses to speak of Jesus’ death and its meaning for us were not necessarily his own invention, but were probably current in other early Christian circles. The same may be true of most of the other imagery and motifs that he uses, but we cannot point to passages in which they occur as reflecting traditional material. There are also possible references to traditional material in later letters; the material that they contain may go back to a far earlier period, even before Paul wrote his letters. That is particularly true of the letter to the Colossians, which, even if it is not by Paul himself, may go have been written at a time when Paul was still alive or shortly after his death.108 That is probably less true of 1 Peter, which may well have been written in the early second century, but which may nevertheless have used earlier traditions interpreting Jesus’ death, e. g. in 2.21–25 and 3.18–22. At any rate, it needs to be emphasized again that the use of so many different traditions together, together with a plethora of other images and motifs to express the meaning of Jesus’ death not only warns us against exalting any one of these to a dominant position, at least in Paul’s thought, even if others before him or contemporary with him may have been more one-sided in their concentration on one motif or the other to expound the meaning of Jesus’death. The rich profusion of Paul’s imagery allows image to balance, correct and complement one another, so that the seeming implications of one image taken by itself must immediately be qualified by those suggested by another, as we have already seen in the difference between sacrificial imagery and the structure of ‘interchange on Christ’ and as we shall see in the chapters on participation in Christ and justification.

108 See

Wedderburn, ‘Theology’, 4 n. 3, 13, 58.

6. The Folly of the Cross A ‘theology of the cross’, a theologia crucis, is for many synonymous with Paul’s theology, but there is the danger that the phrase is used too loosely and too widely. It has been noted, for instance, that Paul often refers to Christ’s death without specifying the form of that death, and that only in a very limited number of contexts is the cross as the place and means of his death expressly mentioned. Some scholars, at least, argue that reference to a ‘theology of the cross’ should properly be limited to contexts where Paul expressly refers to the mode of Christ’s death.1 It is immediately apparent that the mode of Christ’s death is above all mentioned in highly polemical contexts, particularly in Paul’s argument with Judaizers in Galatia who sought to impose circumcision and observance of the Jewish law on his gentile converts, or in his criticism of those in Corinth who set great store by a worldly wisdom.2 And yet it would be rash to suppose, as 1 E.g. H.-W. Kuhn, ‘Jesus’, 27–8; Schröter, ‘Geschichte’, 16 n. 39. Ulrich Luz, ‘Theologia crucis’, 116, notes the range of different ways in which a ‘theology of the cross’ is spoken of, and proposes appropriate parameters for the use of the phrase: (1) The cross is understood as the basis of salvation in an exclusive sense, to which all other ‘saving events’ such as the resurrection or the return of Christ are subordinated, and which is the yardstick by which they are judged. (2) The cross is understood as the starting-point for theology in the sense that there can be no understanding of God that is independent of the theology of the cross. (3) The cross is pivotal in theology, and is the basis of the discussion of all theological treatment of themes in anthropology, philosophy of history, ecclesiology, ethics, etc. Or Kuhn, ‘Jesus’, 26, defines a ‘theology of the cross’ as to be found where ‘Jesus is specially designated as the crucified and the cross is not only mentioned, but constantly determines the theological exposition’ (so also Sänger, ‘Christus’, 162). Here it must be noted that by ‘theology’ Luz means Christian theology and leaves aside the fact that other religions also have their theologies, their reflections on the nature of God. From that it follows that the Christian claim that God is to be known through the person of Christ, if treated in full seriousness, means that God is known in the person of the Christ who was crucified. That is an important point, because Christian theologians often seem to have operated with views of God derived from other sources, above all from philosophical metaphysics, and then to have sought to accommodate the event of the cross within the framework of these other views of God. If the insight that God is to be known from the cross, and first and foremost and also definitively from the cross, holds good, then one begins to see why Jean Zumstein holds that according to that principle all our human conceptions of God are doomed to failure (‘Wort’, 33–4, 37). 2 Or, as Schrage puts it (‘Herr’, 29–30), where Paul has to deal with enthusiasts who endanger his theology from the left or with legalists from the right. Perhaps even more striking is the absence of traditional statements about Jesus’ death (and resurrection) in these contexts (cf. also Becker, Paulus, 218, arguing that the theology of the church of Antioch did not make the cross

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Zumstein argues,3 that we only find Paul’s own interpretation of Jesus’ death where Paul refers to the mode of this death. For in the first place Paul can draw corollaries from his preaching of the cross within such polemical contexts, yet without expressly mentioning the mode of execution, as he does in 1 Cor 8.11. Nor should one assume that what Paul has taken up from early Christian tradition and its interpretation of Jesus’ death is always taken up unaltered and without being shaped in any way by the apostle’s own reflection and concerns. It is more plausible when Wolfgang Schrage argues that Paul has often imparted his own cutting edge to traditional formulations. So, he argues, Christ no longer dies simply ‘for us’, but for the godless or the weak or simply all (Rom 5.6; 1 Cor 8.11; 2 Cor 5.14). It is also a more radical choice of words when Christ becomes sin or a curse for us (2 Cor 5.21; Gal 3.13). And to speak of Jesus’ death as demonstrating God’s saving righteousness (Rom 3.26) shows clearly the marks of Paul’s own interpretation. And when Christ’s death not only frees us from the guilt of sin (Gal 1.4), but also from the power of sin and the bondage of this age, we can discern the apostle’s contribution.4 A ‘theology of the cross’ is not a phrase used by Paul himself, although he does refer once to the ‘word of the cross’ (1 Cor 1.18). That is not necessarily the same as a ‘theology of the cross’, however, although some seem to treat the two as if they were identical. As a working definition of the latter the following will perhaps suffice: it is a theologizing, i. e. not so much a theological interpretation of the cross as a way of doing theology, which takes as its starting-point the crucifixion of Jesus and orients its thinking about God, humanity, the world and whatever else comes within the scope of ‘theology’ around that central point. In that case the ‘word of the cross’, as the proclamation of the event of the cross, is the announcement of that event rather than its interpretation and application. That holds good whether one interprets the genitive ‘of the cross’ as a subjective or objective genitive: in the latter case it is a word spoken about the cross, in the latter a word declared, metaphorically speaking, by the cross. In either case it remains true that this word is God’s power, in that God speaks through it. Jean Zumstein introduces at this point the idea of ‘performative speech’ to interpret what Paul means by the ‘word of the cross’.5 It is a ‘word’ that brings about that of which it speaks, and as evidence of this Zumstein points to its association with God’s power. It may be true that Paul sees this ‘word’ in some such way, and we shall see in the following chapter that there is, for instance, something to be said for introducing such a term as a ‘performative utterance’ into Paul’s talk of a theme). Beker, too, notes the absence of any element of vicarious suffering in these contexts (Paul, 204; similarly Becker, Paulus, 219–20). 3 Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 32. And instead of speaking of ‘cross’ as having a ‘metaphorical meaning’ would it not be preferable to speak of a symbolic meaning? 4 Schrage, ‘Herr’, 29. 5 Zumstein, ‘Word’, 38.

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Christ becoming a ‘curse’ rather than just ‘accursed’ in Gal 3.13. That is plausible because Paul, lived, thought and worked in a world used to speaking of powerful words, ranging from the creative speaking of God in Genesis 1 that brought our world into being to the magical utterances of popular religion that were believed to bring about that which their speakers declared. The use of the term ‘performative language’ in modern linguistic philosophy differs considerably from this, as an observation of the way in which utterances actually function in common, everyday usage. ‘I declare this couple man and wife’ and other such utterances are neither creative of the relationship cemented by marriage vows nor in practice bind the couple irrevocably together as if by some magical bond. (It may be otherwise if one takes a very high sacramental view of the rite in question, but that would presumably not apply to other typical performative utterances such as naming a ship.) To describe such an utterance as ‘performative’ distinguishes it from other utterances that are, for instance, ‘descriptive’. Moreover, to have the desired effect, a human person must utter the requisite form of words; it is not enough, for instance, simply to think them to oneself. An audible speech-act is necessary. And it is here that difficulties arise when one moves from what may have been Paul’s view of things to what we can make of this ‘word of the cross’ today. Paul speaks of the cross, but that does not cause the cross to happen; it had already happened. Yet his message about the cross does, however, cause things to happen because, the apostle believed, God’s power was at work in his message. Yet here care is needed: while the message of the human apostle caused some to believe and others to disbelieve, does it follow that it is fact God’s message, God’s ‘word’, that had that effect? For Paul it did follow, but once one recognizes, despite the ease with which we speak of God’s ‘word’ and despite the prestige in some circles of a ‘word of God’ theology, that God does not speak as we speak and that God’s speech cannot be heard in the way that we hear our fellow human beings speak, then problems mount up. For, seen from our human perspective, ‘God speaks’ or ‘God says’ is a metaphorial way of expressing something of our human experience of what we regard as divine. It gives expression to our convictions about what God is like and what God wants of us in our world. To know or to think that we know what God says is not simply a matter of pricking up our ears and listening carefully, but more likely a complex matter of bringing together reflectively inherited religious traditions and human experience in the world in such a way as to make some sort of coherent sense so that a continuity between the traditions and the experience is discernible.6 At any rate, if modern exegetes claim that Paul’s ‘word of the cross’ sets a question-mark against all theological systems as well as against the wisdom of the Greeks, as we shall see that some of them do, then they have taken a decisive step beyond Paul, though not necessarily a false one. Whether one can attribute 6 Cf.

again the reference to Räisänen, Paul, 266, in ch. 1 above.

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a theological ‘system’ to the apostle may be questionable, but it is hard to believe that the radical questioning of all received theological traditions that is here presupposed was in fact in his sights, even if it may be regarded as a logical further step to take, applying his ‘word’ or ‘theology of the cross’ to our theological constructions in general. That is implied, too, by Zumstein’s comparison of Paul’s own experience on the way to Damascus in which he he was forced to part company with his religious ideal of perfection, to dismantle his certainties and to leave behind all that had made his life exemplary and successful.7 It should also be noted here that some scholars treat the phrase ‘theology of the cross’ quite restrictively, contrasting it, for instance, with Paul’s teaching on justification, despite the fact that both the cross and justification are interwoven in the argument of the letter to the Galatians.8 In part that contrast might be justified by saying that, whereas Galatians, the Corinthian letters and Philippians are polemical, Romans, with its exposition of God’s righteousness and justification, is, for the most part, apologetic. (However, the cross is also mentioned in Philippians 2.8 in a paraenetic context, as well as in the more polemical chapter 3.) Yet the word-stem is not completely lacking in Romans (cf. 6.6, συνεσταυρώθη) and the presence of a theology oriented around the cross cannot, anyway, be judged solely on the basis of the terminology used. Yet, if no theology of the cross is indeed to be found in Romans, that has serious implications for our estimate of Paul’s theology. For one cannot have it both ways: if the theology of the cross is so central to Paul’s thought, does that then mean that Romans cannot be treated as at all representative of his thought? Or is the theology of the cross in fact still there, but in different terms? For others, a theology of the cross and justification are by no means to be set over against one another, but are instead complementary, having their common roots in Paul’s Christian existence since the time of his conversion, or having the same basic structure, the latter being an appropriate exposition of the former.9 In the light of the way in which both function together as important strands in Paul’s argument in Galatians and are both treated as belonging to Paul’s experi7 Zumstein, ‘Word’, 39. And yet, however drastic the change may have been for Paul, it remains true that he still retained a considerable number of traditions from his Jewish past. 8 In contrast Jüngel, Paulus, 31, treats the themes of God’s righteousness in Romans as parallel to that of the cross in 1 Cor 1.18–31; to that I remarked that ‘What may be nearer the truth is that the same fundamental experience underlies both [Paul’s] polemic against the Jews and Judaizers in terms of righteousness, and his polemic against the supposedly wise Corinthians in terms of the truly wise folly of the cross of Christ’ (Wedderburn, ‘Paul’, 103). 9 Cf. Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 41. It is, on the other hand, harder to understand Haldimann’s claim (Kreuz’, 10) on the basis of Rom 3.23–6 that the centre of the thinking in this letter is the cross of Jesus. The same author goes yet further, too, in the claim that the theology of the cross and the doctrine of justification are ‘ineinander transformierbar’; he treats Rom 6.6 as evidence that the doctrine of justification is an explication of the ‘word of the cross’, but a different explication to the ‘theology of the cross’. The latter is ‘paradoxal’ (could one not say the same of a text like 2 Cor 5.21?), the former has a ‘hyperbolische Struktur’ (17).

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ence and that of other Christians in that letter, that is certainly more plausible than sharply distinguishing the two themes, even if they are not so intertwined in other letters.

6.1 The Cross – a Polemical Theme? Although in both cases, as Ulrich Luz observes, Paul’s arguments are directed against other understandings of the Christian gospel and not against non-Christian world-views, even if one must immediately add that these Christian theologies are in the apostle’s view too much under the influence of, and dictated by, non-Christian perspectives, be it those of Judaism in the case of the Judaizers or those of the Graeco-Roman world in the case of the Corinthians. To those two polemical contexts must be added a third, the use of ‘cross’ language with reference to the radically new existence of believers.10 However, the impression of three distinct contexts in which Paul introduces the theme of the cross would be a misleading one. For, if Paul stresses the radical newness of believers’ existence in the context of his arguments with Judaizers and the worldly wisdom of the Corinthians, then it may be in most cases true that, as Jean Zumstein argues, ‘the semantics of the cross are always linked to polemical contexts’.11 In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, for instance, the cross is not used directly in polemic as it is in 1 Corinthians. The theme is first introduced in a self-reference of the apostle in 2.19 when he states that he has been crucified with Christ. The point is that his existence is now radically new: it is no longer he who lives, but Christ lives in him, and he lives for the Son of God who loved him and gave himself for him (2.20). And at the close of the letter he affirms that he will ‘boast’ in nothing but the cross ‘through which the world was crucified to me (as far as I am concerned) and I to the world (as far as the world is concerned)’. (In these passages ‘crucify’ is in a passive form, but, in a way that anticipates the ethical thrust of Romans 6 and its talk of ‘dying to’ sin, in 5.24 the verb is active, a vivid image of Christians’ radical break with sin: ‘But those who are Christ’s (or: belong to Christ Jesus) have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’) And to make this newness of existence all the plainer he adds that circumcision and uncircumcision exist no longer but only new creation (6.14–15).12 Here we see 10 So H.-W. Kuhn, ‘Jesus’, 29, names the three contexts, the cross of Christ and wisdom, the cross of Christ and law, the crucified and the new existence of believers (to which Zumstein adds the breaks or ruptures involved in that existence: ‘Wort’, 33); cf. also Beker, Paul, 204. 11 Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 32; cf. 34. Nonetheless the connection with such a polemical context is not always so clearly discernible. The radical break with one’s old existence is envisaged in Rom 6.6 so that one cannot and should not exclude all ‘kreuzestheologische Äußerungen’ from that letter. 12 Cf. Schrage, ‘Herr’, 31: ‘that means that it is precisely the cross that points to the God that creates out of nothing and raises the dead (Rom 4.17).’

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that the theme of the cross has indeed a relevance to the problem that dominates the letter and provokes Paul’s sharp polemic, the demand of Paul’s opponents in Galatians that his converts there should observe the Jewish law if they are to belong to the Christian community. Yet the cross and what it means is rather the undergirding and presupposition of Paul’s arguments, rather than being directly applied as a counter to the claims of Paul’s adversaries. And yet it is surely significant, nonetheless, that this undergirding, this foundational conviction emerges into the light as the very basis of Paul’s preaching is being called in question. The point that Luz makes apropos of Paul’s use of the theme in 1 Corinthians may well be just as appropriate here, if not more so: he asks whether it was really the enthusiasm [of some in Corinth] that was responsible for the birth of Paul’s theology of the cross or whether this theology did not rather already lie at hand in its basic outlines and enabled Paul to position himself over against this enthusiasm. … it is difficult simply to treat Paul’s theology of the cross as a product of his argument against enthusiasm, just as difficult as it is to understand his teaching on justification simply as an anti-Jewish polemical doctrine formulated ad hoc.13

And that latter alternative would obviously be even more likely if Galatians was in fact written before 1 Corinthians.14 And in common with 1 Corinthians is the mention of the preaching of the cross as part and parcel of Paul’s original message to both communities (1 Cor 2.2; Gal 3.1). If that is to be taken at face value, then it assumes that a stress on the mode of Jesus’ death formed an important part of Paul’s original preaching and that before the problems arose in either Corinth or Galatia. The way in which these references to the cross include two in the first person (2.19; 6.14) also tends to lend support to Luz’s suggestion that the ‘theology of the cross’ with its criticism of human wisdom and righteousness and its emphasis on divine sovereignty corresponds very closely to what Paul must have experienced himself at his conversion. For that must have involved a fundamental change in his understanding of the law. So Luz concludes that this ‘theology of the cross’ cannot be separated from the apostle’s own existence and the divine judgement that he had experienced and was still experiencing.15 The mode of that death also plays an important part in Paul’s argument later in Gal 3.13 when he quotes Deut 21.23 to show that Christ had become a curse for 13 Luz,

‘Theologia crucis’, 127–8. Wedderburn, History, 103. While putting the letter slightly earlier than some (it is often dated after 1–2 Corinthians, and Vouga even dates it after Romans: ‘Galaterbrief’, esp. 250; Galater, 4–5), I do not want to follow those who try to make it the earliest of Paul’s letters, even before 1 Thessalonians (Riesner evens seems to contemplate dating it before the meeting in Jerusalem described in Gal 2.1–10, but even the two question marks do not make this plausible: Frühzeit, 286). Others, however, place the use of this theme in the Corinthian correspondence before Galatians: e. g. Becker, Paulus, 218. 15 Luz, ‘Theologia crucis’, 128. But it would be wrong, he continues, to see this theology as a projection of his own suffering such as we find in 1 Peter. 14 Cf.

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us.16 While it is true that hanging on a ξύλον did not originally refer to a mode of execution, but to the exposure of one already executed, it is clear that Paul has reinterpreted this text, as other critics of the message of early Christianity had probably already done before him. It is true that there is a certain arbitrariness in so using this text. For it is hard to believe that the death by crucifixion of eight hundred Jews at the orders of Alexander Jannaeus led to those crucified being regarded as accursed, at least by the Pharisees.17 Yet, if one were disposed on other grounds to regard a crucified person as sinful, then this verse from Deuteronomy offered a convenient confirmation of divine condemnation, and it would be surprising if Paul was alone in applying it to Jesus. As in 1 Corinthians, again, Paul recognized the nature of Christ’s death as a σκάνδαλον (5.11; cf. 1 Cor 1.23). If a dying messiah was an idea foreign to contemporary Jews, then a crucified messiah would have seemed quite out of the question. Yet, whereas these critics, and quite possibly Paul too before his conversion, took the form of Jesus’ death as proof of his godforsakenness, and still did if Paul’s opponents in Galatia were in danger of being persecuted because of the cross if the gentile converts in Galatians did not let themselves be circumcised (6.12), the reversal of things in which Paul now believed meant that this fate was now interpreted as part of God’s saving purpose: it was the means by which Abraham’s blessing could come to the gentiles (3.14). Such a sporadic use of the theme gives the impression of subterranean forces welling up through the surface of Paul’s argument. In 1 Corinthians 1–2, in contrast, there is a sustained use of the theme in order to rebut the worldly wisdom evidently prized by some in the Corinthian church and to replace it with the foolish, but true, wisdom of God. The sheer frequency of the references to the ‘wise’ and ‘wisdom’ in these two chapters and the two following ones suggests that this theme was one that preoccupied the Corinthians or at least some of them.18 The nature of that preoccupation has long been a topic of discussion amongst exegetes. Some have treated it as a matter of form alone, taking the worldly wisdom to be merely a matter of the persuasiveness of words referred to in 1 Cor 2.4.19 Ulrich Wilckens, in contrast, originally saw behind this term something 16 However, Schrage, ‘Herr’, 30, holds this passage to be no key to Paul’s theology of the cross, for the idea of redemption here emphasizes rather the salvific change of lordship from under the ‘curse’ of the law. 17 Jos., Bell. 1.97–8, 113; Ant. 13.380–3, 410–11 (but only in this last passage are the Pharisees actually mentioned and then as seeking revenge on those responsible for the deaths of the eight hundred; cf. Hengel, Crucifixion, 84 n. 3). 18 In 1 Corinthians σοφία occurs in all 17 times, all but one of them in chapters 1–4, but only twice in the rest of those letters that are generally regarded as Pauline; σοφός is found 11 times in the letter, 10 times in these four chapters, but only 5 times in the rest of the Pauline corpus; the opposites µωρία (5 times) and µωρός (4 times) are only found in these four chapters and nowhere else in the Pauline corpus. 19 So Prümm, ‘Gnosis-Problematik’, 425–6, who therefore rejects any suspicion of a false christology held by the Corinthians (cf. 413–15).

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whose content differed from that of Paul’s gospel and was based on the gnostic redeemer myth.20 The christological beliefs of the Corinthian ‘wise’ are reflected in 1 Cor 2.6–16: the glorious Christ descends as the heavenly wisdom through the realm of the archons to rescue his own, who possessed the same spiritual nature as himself. This was, however, an interpretation that Wilckens himself was later to abandon:21 the ‘wisdom of this age’ is the ‘sum of the wisdom of its rulers and these are human potentates’ and their crucifying of Christ is to be interpreted in the light of the early Christian passion tradition.22 The failure of heavenly rulers to recognize the descending redeemer is a theme in gnostic texts, but here there is no mention of such a descent (508–9). And in most gnostic texts ‘wisdom’ does not function as a saviour, but represents the salvandi or is the gift of the redeemer as revealer (525). It was probably a mistake even to try to find a mythological background for the ‘wisdom’ of the Corinthians here. It is surely more likely that Paul is here referring by this term to the ways of thinking and standards of the Graeco-Roman world of the day that had led to so many of the abuses and problems that he castigates in this letter. And at the root of some of these at least may have lain beliefs current in the popular philosophy and religiosity of that world.23 Moreover, it may well be that Paul deliberately leaves the nature of the Corinthian ‘wisdom’ ill-defined and vague, in order that the term might cover the variety of competing positions held by members of this divided church.24 It is, furthermore, to be noted that Paul attributes the zeal for ‘wisdom’ to the Greeks as opposed to the Jews’ seeking of signs. That seems to rule out the possibility that this ‘wisdom’ 20 Wilckens, Weisheit, e. g. 25, 97–100, 205–13; cf. also idem, Art. ‘σοφία', in TDNT 7, esp. 519–22. In contrast, Schmithals, Gnosis, 130–2, denies that the Corinthians used wisdom as a christological title. 21 Wilckens, ‘Zu 1 Kor 2,1–16’, recognizing the correctness of criticism of his earlier view (524). 22 One probably need not decide either for human rulers alone or heavenly ones if one sees demonic forces manipulating the human rulers in the same sort of way in which Satan is said to have taken possession of Judas Iscariot in Luke 22.3 and John 13.2, 27. And Luke 22.53 speaks of the ‘power of darkness’ at work as Jesus is arrested, and John 14.30 of the coming of the ‘ruler of this world’ (who was due to be expelled in 12.31). Cf. also Feuillet, ‘“Chefs”’; Scroggs, ‘Paul’, 43. 23 Cf., e. g., Grant, ‘Wisdom’; Wedderburn, Baptism, 24–6. Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 35–6, seems to presuppose a rather too intellectually rigorous understanding of the Greek wisdom at this point, which does not fit in too well with the religious enthusiasm reflected in 1 Corinthians. Vollenweider’s characterization is both looser and more all-embracing (‘Weisheit’, 46–7 and n. 10): it is a matter of the ‘Zeitgeist’ and the basic standards on which that epoch concentrated, that are summed up by the term ‘wisdom’. ‘The wisdom of this world is oriented towards that which has worth and validity in “this world”, that is cultural norms.’ At the same time he recognizes in Philo a blend of orderly rationality and pneumatic ‘enthusiasm’, which might lend suppport to Zumstein’s reading of the situation, although one may doubt how many of the Corinthian Christians possessed Philo’s intellectual status. 24 Cf. Mitchell, Paul, 211: ‘The wisdom of the world is the set of values and norms which divide persons of higher and lower status into separate groups, a wisdom which prefers dissension to unity, superiority to cooperation.’

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has anything to do with the Old Testament and Jewish wisdom traditions.25 For, were that the case, then Paul’s critique would be seriously wide of the mark, with his quotation of Old Testament texts critical of (human) wisdom and attribution of the zeal for wisdom to non-Jews. For Paul had announced in 1 Cor 1.17 that his mission had been to preach the gospel, but not with verbal wisdom (οὐκ ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου) lest Christ’s cross be nullified (κενωθῇ).26 From the start, then, the ‘word of the cross’ carries with it a warning, at least for those who are perishing: they regard it as ‘folly’ (1.18). On the other hand, for those who are being saved it is God’s power. As confirmation Paul cites Isa 29.14, where God speaks of destroying the wisdom of the wise and rejecting the discernment of the discerning.27 Where is a wise person, Paul then asks, where is a scribe,28 or a debater of this age?29 Has God not made foolish the wisdom of this world?30 It was in God’s wisdom that the world was unable to know God through (its) wisdom and God thought fit to save believers through the folly of preaching.31 Jews seek signs and Greeks Davis, Wisdom, e. g. 73. ‘Kreuz’, 6–7, compares this with the use of καταργέω in Gal 5.11: whereas the latter means abolition or destruction, κενόω means that the thing in question loses its substance, its content, that which characterizes it, its relationship to the speaker, and no longer serves as a reference point for further reflection. (Weder, however, gives to κενόω the sense of ‘destroy’ as well as ‘remove its effectiveness, render invalid’: Kreuz, 127). 27 Instead of the κρύψω of the LXX, Paul has here ἀθετήσω; Schrage, 1 Korinther 1, 174, plausibly suggests that Paul avoided the thought of a hidden wisdom lest it encourage in the Corinthians any belief in an esoteric wisdom. Cf. also the use of other Old Testament criticisms of wisdom in 1 Cor 3.19–20 (Job 5.13; Ps 94.11), showing that ‘the wisdom of this world is folly in God’s eyes’. 28 Here Paul presumably directs his question at Jewish exegetes, for the term γραµµατεύς would make little comparable sense in the non-Jewish world. 29 The NT hapax legomenon συζητητής is also unparalleled in pre-Christian literature, but Paul may have sought a term to express the quarrelsome love of verbal strife among both Jews and non-Jews (Philo, Det. 1, uses συζήτησις of the quarrel between Cain and Abel, and both this word and the cognate συζητέω are found elsewhere in the NT). 30 Cf. Rom 1.22. 31 The phrase ἐν τῇ σοφίᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ has occasioned much discussion: Wilckens, Weisheit, 33–4, understood it in a spatial sense and Lang suggests translating ἐν as ‘surrounded by’ (‘umgeben von’) (Korinther, 27; cf. also Lindemann, 1. Korintherbrief, 45; Schrage, 1. Korinther 1, 180: ‘inmitten’; Vollenweider, ‘Weisheit’, 49 n. 18: ‘eingebettet in’). Or the preposition could have a causal sense, perhaps influenced by the Hebrew be, but then the relation to the following διὰ τῆς σοφίας would be problematic. Nevertheless, Kümmel regards γινώσκειν ἐν as a common construction, with the ἐν expressing the means of knowledge, and sees a reference to God’s wisdom shown in creation (Lietzmann/Kümmel, Korinther, 169; cf. also Merklein, 1. Korinther, 182; but this is far clearer in Rom 1.18–23; can one really read this into 1 Cor 1.21?). Klauck takes this further and sees here a reference to the agency of God’s wisdom in creation (1. Korintherbrief, 24). Barrett, on the other hand, sees here a reference to God’s sovereignty: ‘by God’s wise plan’ (1 Corinthians, 53), but von Lips objects that this ultimately traces the lack of this knowledge back to God’s predestination (Traditionen, 330). Yet is this an impossible idea for Paul to have held (cf. Rom 1.22, 24, 26, 28 as well as Romans 9 and 11)? Moreover, the divine decision expressed in εὐδόκησεν implies a corresponding decision that this knowledge should 25 Pace

26 Haldimann,

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wisdom,32 but ‘we’ preach Christ crucified, a scandal for Jews, folly for gentiles, but God’s wisdom and power for the elect, both Jews and Greeks.33 God’s folly is wiser than we are and God’s weakness stronger than we are. We have already seen, in relation to Gal 3.13, how the idea of a crucified messiah could well appear unthinkable and scandalous to Jews (and in 1 Cor 1.23 it makes good sense to treat Χριστός here as titular in sense, referring to the Jewish messiah, and not merely as a proper name), but now Paul adds that this could also appear offensive to non-Jews. The stigma attached to this humiliating and agonizing form of execution, inflicted particularly on slaves and rebellious subjects, has been amply documented,34 and to pagan ears it must indeed have seemed egregious to claim that one so punished was God’s son. That did not in the least match expectations of the divine current in the Graeco-Roman world. Then, after noting the sort of people God has called, at least in the main (1.26– 9), Paul affirms that for ‘us’ Christ is a wisdom that is given by God, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.35 The latter three terms seem to explain what is meant by calling Christ ‘wisdom’: in him the divine wisdom is visible in his being the means by which righteousness, sanctification and redemption are given to us.36 Then again he repeats that his preaching eschewed excellence of speech or wisdom; in proclaiming God’s mystery he focused solely on Jesus Christ who was crucified (2.1–2).37 Having preached ‘in weakness, fear and trembling and not not be achieved by another route and that could well have been expressed by the phrase ἐν τῇ σοφίᾷ τοῦ θεου. Cf. further Wedderburn, ‘ἐν τῇ σοφίᾷ τοῦ θεου’. 32 Despite the fact that it was not only Jews that sought signs (cf. Schrage, 1. Korinther 1, 183) and that some Jews too sought wisdom. (If the Corinthian ‘wise’ regarded their ‘wisdom’ as given by the Spirit, and therefore not as a purely rational matter, then it was perhaps not so far removed in its nature from Jewish speculations.) Zumstein refers at this point simply to the Jews’ search for God (‘Wort’, 35; p. 36 is, however, a bit more precise), but surely a more specific kind of search for a God who is manifested in a particular way is meant here? Here Vollenweider’s specifying of their search as one seeking manifestations of divine power (‘Weisheit’, 48) is surely preferable, for the God revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus was anything but powerful. 33 The identity of the ‘we’ is, perhaps deliberately, more than a little indefinite, but has been variously interpreted as simply a confessional style (Conzelmann, 1. Korintherbrief, 62, who nevertheless also identifies it as all the σῳζόµενοι) or as referring to Paul alone or Paul and his fellow workers or all entrusted with the preaching of the word (cf. also 15.11?). 34 Cf. esp. Hengel, Crucifixion. 35 Had the Corinthians been using ‘wisdom’ as a christological title and interpreting Jesus in gnostic terms, this verse (1 Cor 1.30) would surely have been a dangerous concession to their way of thinking and speaking, even if the placing of ‘righteousness, sanctification and redemption’ in apposition to ‘wisdom’ made that interpretation far more difficult. The statement has far more point if the Corinthians were rather at fault in not being Christ-centred enough, but had their minds set on other standards and criteria. 36 Cf. Prümm, ‘Gnosis-Problematik’, 440–1. 37 The reading µυστήριον is not uncontroversial: many MSS have µαρτύριον and a few later ones σωτήριον. The attestation for µυστήριον and µαρτύριον is fairly evenly balanced. The latter term was used in 1.6, but there with τοῦ Χριστοῦ, the former occurs again in 2.7 (and influence on 2.1 is the more plausible in that 2.13 seems to have led to some of the variant readings in 2.4). Most opt for µυστήριον here, but some dissent (e. g. Barrett, 1 Corinthians, 61–3; Conzelmann,

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with the persuasiveness of wisdom, but evidencing rather the Spirit and power, he could be sure that the Corinthians’ faith rested on God’s power, not human wisdom (2.3–5). As Schrage notes,38 the proof of the truth of the word of the cross is … not produced by means of human wisdom and its persuasive and rational means, but solely by God himself, his Spirit and his power.

Nonetheless, in an at first sight surprising change of tack, Paul goes on in 2.1–16 to speak of a wisdom that he communicates to the mature (τελείοις),39 a hidden wisdom,40 that none of the rulers of this age recognized, for otherwise they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The nature of this ‘wisdom’ is at first sight puzzling. Is it simply that Paul has taken over the term because the Corinthians used it? In that case it would be a mistake to attempt to define the meaning that Paul gave to the term.41 It would just be something other than their ‘wisdom’. Moreover, it would be prudent to distinguish here between a wisdom christology and a christological wisdom or, better, a christologically determined wisdom. Whereas a wisdom christology would be one that took up an already existing concept of wisdom in order to apply it to Christ, so that this concept then shaped, to some degree, one’s understanding of Christ’s person, a christologically determined wisdom, on the other hand, uses the language of wisdom traditions but in such a way that the person 1. Korintherbrief, 69 and n. 5; Fee, 1 Corinthians, 88 n. 1; Klauck, 1. Korintherbrief, 27; Wolff, 1. Korinther, 47–8). In that case, however, is τοῦ θεοῦ a subjective or an objective genitive? (Those preferring this reading are divided on this question.) Vollenweider, ‘Weisheit’, 52, notes the (somewhat ironic?) fact that Paul here echoes Greek philosophers’ criticism of sophists. 38 Schrage, 1. Korinther, 233 (his italics). 39 Some see in the use of the word τέλειοι a use of terminology from the mysteries, in the sense of those who have achieved perfection through initiation (e. g. Conzelmann, 1. Korinther, 78; Reitzenstein, Mysterienreligionen, esp. 338–40; Wilckens, Weisheit, 53 ff.; cf., however, the critique by G. Delling, Art. ‘τέλειος’ in TDNT 8, 69); the word seems, at any rate, to be used here of those who are πνευµατικοί. The latter term is contrasted in 1 Cor 3.1 with σάρκινος and νήπιος, and the contrast with νήπιος suggests that τέλειος should here be translated ‘mature’ (cf. also Col 1.28). For the sense of ‘mature’ cf. also, e. g., Plut., Mor. 119F; 680D; Philo, Cher. 154; Congr. 154; Flacc. 15; Sobr. 9; Spec. leg. 3.169; Vit. Mos. 1.19. For Philo, one can also be a τέλειος in the sense of ‘complete, perfect’ through perseverance in training (προκόπτειν): Agric. 160, 165; Mut. nom. 24; Sacr. 7. (As Conzelmann notes, Philo also seems to have allowed for a shortcut to perfection or completeness, namely through ecstasy, if one can link the τέλειος in Somn. 2.234 with the preceding description of ecstasy in §§ 232–3 – the ecstatic person has, after all, returned to earth, so to speak, and its human affairs at the end of § 233; the ecstatic experience is, however, also achieved through mental effort: § 232). 40 Cf. BDR 2202: the ἐν µυστηρίῳ in v. 7 is probably to be taken with the σοφίαν rather than λαλοῦµεν; the phrase designates the nature of the wisdom in question rather than the way in which it is proclaimed. 41 Cf. von Lips, Traditionen, 318: ‘If Paul’s terminology is determined by his polemic against his opponents, then it would be impossible to find in this an indication of the wisdom christology held by him.’

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of Christ controls one’s use of this language, even when other factors play a role and have influenced the choice of this language, in this case, for instance, the Corinthians’ desire to be ‘wise’. In that case, the Corinthians’ preoccupation with ‘wisdom’ has influenced Paul’s language, but without influencing what he reads into this language. That this applies to Paul’s usage here is strongly suggested by 1 Cor 1.30, for Christ has become for us wisdom and not vice versa.42 It is as if Paul were saying: ‘You seek wisdom. Well then, the wisdom that God has given us is Christ.’ And, moreover, Christ crucified.43 Only then is the logic clear in 2.6–8: ignorance of the true wisdom, God’s wisdom, was shown by the rulers of this world when they crucified Christ the Lord of glory. The ‘word of the cross’ of which Paul speaks is thus contrasted with a worldly wisdom that seems to be the goal of the aspirations of Greeks or gentiles, whereas it is ‘signs’ that are sought by Jews (1.22). Correspondingly, the message of Christ crucified which they hear is a scandal for the Jews; they stumble over it, for it is not the sort of sign that they seek. And similarly this message is folly for Greeks and gentiles, for it seems foolish to them. Only the ‘elect’ in both groups experience Christ as divine power and wisdom. The worldly wisdom referred to here seems to be primarily a characteristic of the non-Jewish Graeco-Roman world, rather than having anything to do with Jewish wisdom traditions, and that is thoroughly intelligible in a a letter written to a predominantly Greek church. Implicitly, at any rate, Paul seems to have considered that the cross of Jesus was neglected in the Corinthians’ thinking and attitudes. That is likely to be a matter of unintentional imbalance rather than a deliberate theological or christological decision, e. g. because of docetic views. This imbalance would have been visible, in Paul’s view, in the Corinthians’ attitudes and behaviour rather than in any doctrinal formulations. He is critical of σοφία λόγου, not because it is false or contains false doctrine, but because it nullifies the cross (1.17), and that is most easily intelligible if he sees such a wisdom as working against and undermining a shaping of Christians’ life by the cross.44 It is, for instance, to the ethical implications of Jesus’ death (although the mode of that death is not mentioned here) that the apostle turns when he rebukes the ‘strong’ in the Corinthian church for destroying the ‘weak’ in the interests of their vaunted ‘knowledge’: the ‘weak’ brother is one for whom Christ died (8.11). For again it seems that Paul’s intro42 For von Lips, Traditionen, 322, 1.24 is already difficult for the thesis of a wisdom christology, for the expression ‘power of God’ is a parallel description of Christ. If both are in his eyes ‘Wirkmächtigkeiten’ (332), then this activity is inseparably bound up with the cross: Christ exercises this power only as the crucified, and this is the criterion for all Christian words and deeds. 43 Cf. Vollenweider, ‘Weisheit’, 54: in essence this hidden wisdom is identical with the ‘word of the cross’. 44 Yet Wilckens originally claimed (Weisheit, 19–21) that it emptied the cross of its power by concentrating on the risen Christ and seeing salvation as automatically conferred by baptism, and that may still hold good as an explanation of the Corinthians’ attitudes and behaviour (cf. 1 Cor 10.1–13 on the dangers of an overly great trust in the rites of baptism and the Lord’s supper).

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duction of the theme of the cross is to emphasize the radical newness of Christian existence and with it the equally radical change demanded in Christian attitudes and thinking.

6.2 Theological Implications It is surely ironic that Paul should have thus criticized the wisdom of the Greeks, and yet that this wisdom should then have guided later generations of Christians in their christological and soteriological formulations. Paul had set the folly of the cross and the folly of God’s wisdom revealed therein over against that worldly Greek wisdom, but now that wisdom had come into its own as the vehicle to explain, and elaborate upon, what had happened on the cross. As Wolfgang Schrage notes, the Pauline theology of the cross had a hard time of it in subsequent Christian theology, struggling to make headway against current philosophical and religious views which sought patronizingly to blunt the scandalous polemical edge of this message.45 It adds to the irony when Dietmar Wyrwa traces back the origins of the influence of Hellenistic popular philosophy, an influence that was to play so influential a role in later theological speculations and formulations, on Christian thinking to 1 Clement.46 For the author of that document certainly knew the opening chapters of 1 Corinthians and Paul’s criticism of the Corinthian factions there (1 Clem 47.1–4) and yet, despite the strictures on worldly wisdom pronounced in the course of that criticism this author not only shows his indebtedness to Graeco-Roman rhetoric, but also borrows terms and themes from Graeco-Roman philosophy, especially the Stoa.47 And yet the same might also be said of Paul himself and other Christian writers in the first century, even if their debt was often owed to Hellenistic Jewish traditions rather than showing a direct dependence on Graeco-Roman philosophical traditions.48 Dieter Zeller illustrates the shift in perspective by an admirer of Paul when he compares the apostle’s own missionary strategy with that of the Lukan Paul of Acts in his Areopagus speech (Acts 17.16–32) with the appeal to Aratus (17.28) who had in turn been influenced by the Stoa: Christians of a slightly later period could no longer afford to eschew the achievements of pagan philosophers, particularly when it 1. Korinther 1,192–3. Wyrwa, Art. ‘Hellenismsus: 5. Christentum’, in RGG4 3, 1613. 47 Cf. Fischer, Die apostolischen Väter, 8. Examples of Stoic influence are to be found, e. g., in the ref. to the πνεῦµα ἡγεµονικόν in 1 Clem 18.12, in 19.3 (God as ἀόργητος; Fischer, 51 n. 112: ‘unmistakable Stoic influence’), or in the account of the harmony of nature in 20.1–11; elsewhere Fischer finds the influence of the Cynic-Stoic diatribe (e. g. in 5.1: Fischer, 31 n. 37). Cf. also Rebell, Apokryphen, 213; Vielhauer, Literatur, 534). 48 And Helmut Koester regards this mediation through Hellenistic Jewish traditions as also possible in the case of 1 Clement: Introduction 2, 294. 45 Schrage, 46 D.

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came to their criticisms of tradítional cults and of a mythological depiction of God.49 It is scarcely surprising, then, that amongst the group of early Christian apologetic writers even more use is made of Graeco-Roman philosophy in order to explain the Christian faith and the ways and nature of the Christian God. As von Campenhausen remarks the efforts of these apologists are ‘inconceivable without the influence of the Greek spirit, the Greek concept of reason and the tradition of Hellenistic learning’.50 That is all the more intelligible in the case of an apologist like Justin Martyr with his range of experience of various GraecoRoman philosophical schools and especially Middle Platonism.51 Jörg Ulrich emphasizes a further factor that is particularly clear in Origen’s response to Celsus’ accusations, but was already evident in the second-century Christian apologists. In the face of criticisms of the Christian message as an intellectually inferior superstitio, Christian theologians sought to show how their message was in fact rational and in large measure conformed to the cultural norms of the day, while at the same time surpassing the best that pagan philosophy could offer. In particular the philosophical criticism of polytheism was a valuable ally. Nonetheless he also notes that there were voices raised in protest against this approach and names Tertullian and Tatian as exemplifying a trend that had its roots in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2.52 The latter, Richard Norris notes, while priding himself on his Greek education in rhetoric and philosophy, ‘nevertheless repudiates and ridicules this cultural, intellectual and religious heritage and announces that he has found “barbaric writings” … to be “older and more divine”’.53 We have already seen how the interpretation of what was happening as Jesus died was long constrained by the view that God must be impassible, and this ties up with the stress on the transcendent otherness of the divine in Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism, philosophical traditions that were dominant in the Graeco-Roman world in the formative period of Christian credal orthodoxy.54 Initially the christological claims of the early Christians presented problems in that they seemed to say that one whom they considered divine had died the shameful death of a criminal on a cross. So Justin notes that Christians were regarded as mad to bestow the second rank after the immutable and eternally Christentum, 218. Campenhausen, Griechische Kirchenväter, 14. 51 In a way somewhat reminiscent of Josephus’ experience of various Jewish religious movements (Vita 10–12) Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho outlines his experience of a number of philosophical traditions (2.3–6). Clearly, too, Stoic thought and its teaching on the λόγος strongly influenced his christology as well as that of other early Christian apologists. 52 J. Ulrich in Zeller, Christentum, 239–40, 244. He quotes the view of Tertullian, Apol. 46–50 and Praescr. 7. Tatian declares, before a scathing critique of Greek philosophers and philosophy (Ad Gr. 1.3), that ‘we’ have renounced the wisdom of the Greeks (cf. also 26.2). 53 R. A. Norris, ‘Apologists’, 43. 54 Cf. also J. Ulrich in Zeller, Christentum, 245, following G. C. Stead, Art. ‘Gott V: Alte Kirche’ in TRE 13 (Berlin, etc.: Walther de Gruyter, 1984) 653–4. 49 Zeller, 50 Von

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existent God, the begetter of all, to a crucified man.55 That was problematic enough when this divine person was regarded as separate from the supreme God. However, once Christians had sought to defend their claim to be monotheists by invoking above all the concept of the divine λόγος, which already had its New Testament basis in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, the death of Jesus became potentially even more problematic, even if for a long time the full potential of this particular difficulty remained relatively unrecognized; for the attention of the various parties in the christological disputes of the following centuries was initially concentrated on the complex of issues involved in formulating a trinitarian teaching that safeguarded the Christian claim to monotheism, a safeguard incumbent upon them not only because of their Jewish heritage but also because it was philosophically respectable. Nonetheless, we have seen how the difficulty in accommodating the death of Christ within this theoretical framework in turn led to the danger of having to separate the nature of Christ into the divine and the human, with only the latter being involved in Jesus’ death on the cross. One could, moreover, say that the way in which these christological arguments were conducted and resolved, at least to the satisfaction of the dominant majority, made what sense it did because it was couched in terms that were current in the philosophy of that day. However, it may be true that even here the nature of the Christian message and faith called for some modification of this terminology if it was to find adequate expression. So, for instance, Michael Erler contends that, whereas Christians had hitherto followed the pagan philosophical usage of the term ὑπόστασις, with its application to the problem of the trinity this term received a new meaning: whereas Plotinus had used the term for the realization and emanation of a higher order of being, although this philosopher often spoke rather of φύσεις, and for Porphyry it had been used of the manifestation of each individual being, now it designated the three entities within the trinity in contrast to their οὐσία.56 Nevertheless, despite such modifications the term remained beset with difficulties, particularly when one moved from one language to another or from one age and its ways of thought to another and very different age. So Elizabeth Johnson points to the difficulties that arose when ὑπόστασις or πρόσωπον were translated as the Latin persona and this in turn became our ‘person’. That word has now shifted from the language of philosophy to that of psychology and has come to mean something ‘along the lines of an individual with a distinct center of consciousness and freedom in relation to others’.57 She 55 Justin, Apol. 13.4. Andreas Merkt notes, however, that the attempt was made to find a Platonic rationale for the crucifixion of Jesus, firstly in Plato’s description of the creation of the world-soul in Tim. 36BC (although the cross there is in the form of a chi), and secondly in the reference in Resp. 362A to the ἀνασχινδυλευθήσεται of the just man (in Zeller, Christentum, 429). 56 M. Erler, Art. ‘Hypostase’, in RGG4, 1980–1. Cf. also, e,g., Kelly, Creeds, 241–2. 57 Johnson, Quest, 211.

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goes on to quote with approval Augustine’s verdict on the search for suitable language to express the threefoldness of God and his recognition that none was to be found.58 At first sight one might think that a systematic theologian like Jurgen Moltmann treads a very different path and has cut himself loose from any debt to Greek wisdom. Yet, as we saw, his starting-point, evident from the very title of his monograph, The Crucified God, stems from Luther, rather than Paul. And behind Luther lies the whole tradition of patristic and medieval theology, and the question is this, how far the assumptions of this tradition have actually been consciously called in question by such an idea as the crucifixion of God. The apostle, at any rate, most likely never went so far as to identify God with the crucified Christ in this way, and the whole notion of a ‘crucified God’ outdoes the apostle in paradoxicality and shockingness. Indeed the degree of identification between God and Jesus involved in later christological speculations goes far beyond anything explicit in Paul’s thought. It is true that some renderings of Rom 9.5 give the impression that Paul is prepared to speak of Christ as ‘God’; so the NRSV speaks of the Christ or messiah coming from the Israelites, ‘who is over all, God blessed for ever’. Barrett, on the other hand, offers as a translation ‘from [the Israelites] (on the human side) springs the Christ himself – Blessed for ever be God, who stands over the whole process! Amen’.59 He points out that ‘Nowhere else in any epistle does Paul call Christ God’.60 Although some defenders of the view that Paul does indeed call Christ God appeal to such texts as Phil 2.6 as parallels, that passage does not speak of an actual identification, but rather of the divine status of Christ, and the same is true later in this passage when the dvine name κύριος is bestowed on Christ (2.9–11). Such praise of God as Barrett and others see in Romans 9.5 is, moreover, thoroughly appropriate in a chapter dealing so much with the sovereignty and faithfulness of God. Yet much depends here on the punctuation that later editors have inserted into a text that originally contained few such aids to reading and understanding it.61 It is true that, as Wilckens notes, that an independent doxology would more usually start with the word εὐλογητός.62 Despite such difficulties a large number of commentators part company with 58 Augustine, Trin. 7.4.7 (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/trin7.shtml: Cum ergo quaeritur quid tria uel quid tres, conferimus nos ad inueniendum aliquod speciale uel generale nomen quo complectamur haec tria, neque occurrit animo quia excedit supereminentia diuinitatis usitati eloquii facultatem. Verius enim cogitatur deus quam dicitur, et uerius est quam cogitatur). 59 Barrett, Romans, 164. Cf. also Stuhlmacher: ‘aus denen der Christus stammt, was die fleischliche Seinsweise anbelangt. Gott, der über das All herrscht, sei gepriesen in alle Ewigkeit. Amen.’ 60 Barrett, Romans, 167; similarly Lohse, Römer, 269; Stuhlmacher, Römer, 131. Cf. also Beker, Paul, 200. 61 Cf. the useful listing of the punctuation presupposed by various translations in the 3rd ed. of the UBSGNT, 553 (see esp. the choice of a full stop or a semicolon after σάρκα in RSV, NEB and Zürcherbibel, also in the 2007 ed.), a source of information that unfortunately disappeared in the 4th ed. (the 3rd and 4th edd. read ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας, ἀµήν.) 62 Cf. Wilckens, Römer 2, 189.

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the majority of translations and prefer to treat this as precisely such a doxology.63 There are, however, even more recent commentators such as Fitzmyer, Jewett and Moo who dissent and accept that Christ is here described as God, so perhaps scholarly fashion has swung back to accepting this somewhat anomalous interpretation.64 On the other hand, there are those who tend to favour the conjectural emendation ὧν ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων θεός for ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεός: ‘whose is the supreme God, (blessed for ever)’. As Barrett points out, this would only involve a switch in the order of three letters, ΩΝΟ instead of ΟΩΝ.65

We also saw that Moltmann earned himself some sharp criticism from some quarters for his talk of a stasis in the very nature of God or God being pitted against God. Again, at first sight there is very little of Greek wisdom evident in such talk, so that one might suppose that it is in fact his critics that are still in the grip of Greek thinking about God. Nonetheless, some of those critics at least seem to hold a view of God that may depart just as radically from Greek presuppositions, except when, for instance, they perhaps, in emphasizing the mystery of the divine, find themselves sharing one important strand of Neoplatonist thought. And yet the in many ways very traditional trinitarian pattern of thought within which Moltmann seeks, with considerable difficulty, to accommodate the death of Christ surely still owes a great deal to that formative period in which christological orthodoxy took shape, fashioned with the help of the ideas and vocabulary of that day. A number of exegetes, particularly a number of Swiss Protestant exegetes, have sought to emphasize the critical role which this element of Paul’s theology can and should play within contemporary theology. Ulrich Luz, whose attempts to clarify how the phrase ‘theology of the cross’ should be understood we have already noted at the start of this chapter, also identifies three aspects of Paul’s ‘word of the cross’ which are in his view central:66 (1) This word so interprets the world that the latter is judged thereby, or, as Jean Zumstein adds, it calls in question the world as it is and human beings as they live.67 Yet, Luz rightly adds, inasmuch as theology is also a human endeavour, it, too, is constantly called in question by this word. At this point one needs to ask, then, how far this question has also to be directed at theological attempts to explain what happened in Jesus’ death, both in relation to the world and in 63 So, besides Barrett and Stuhlmacher, Dunn, Romans, 535; Käsemann, Römer. 247–8; Lohse, Römer, 265, and others. 64 Jewett, Romans, 555, 567–9. 65 Cf. Barrett, Romans, 168 (he is diffident about accepting the emendation, feeling that his rendering can nevertheless stand without it); Barth, Romans, 330–1 and n. 1; Haacker, Römer, 187. Jewett, Romans, 555, traces the conjecture back to the Socinian Pole Jonasz Szlichtyng in 1665–68 (in a posthumous work, for he died in 1661; Haacker mentions that A. Tholuck attributed the suggestion to Johannes Crell, also a Socinian Pole, who had died 28 or 30 years earlier). The suggestion is the more attractive in that it makes this latter part of v. 5 take up the repeated ὧν in v. 4 and the first part of v. 5. 66 Luz, ‘Theologia crucis’, 123–5. 67 Zumstein, ‘Word’, 34.

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relation to God, particularly if the wisdom of the Greeks has been so allowed to determine the ground rules and parameters of these attempts. (2) This word so interprets the world that God is shown thereby to be completely other than the world and thereby to be God. For Luz it is legitimate to say that for Paul the theology of the cross involves nothing less than the question about God.68 The same question is more fully treated in Paul’s teaching on justification, which draws on the Old Testament motif of the legal dispute. Yet it must be noted, as we shall see, that only in one instance, and that a hardly typical one for Paul, is it a matter of God’s being taken to court, so to speak, and that is the quotation of Ps 116.11 in Rom 3.4. On the other hand, we will also see that underlying much of Paul’s use of the language of ‘righteous(ness)’ and ‘justification’, particularly in his letter to the Romans, is the question how far God can be viewed as ‘righteous’ in the light of the message which Paul proclaims and its effects. (3) Through the power of this word humanity and the world enter into a new existence. This Paul calls a ‘new creation’ and it consists in our being set free to love our fellow human beings. That can, for Paul, only happen when the Christian dies and is crucified to the world (Gal 6.14). However, Luz’s second point about God’s otherness from the world raises important questions about the relation of this assertion to the view of God as creator of the world. Is one simply to understand ‘world’ in the pejorative sense of that which has set itself over against God? What, then, of ‘world’ in the sense of that good thing which, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, God has made? Zumstein, on the other hand, while agreeing that God is God in God’s otherness, goes on to make the paradoxical sounding claim that God in God’s difference over against the world is its creator.69

It is also Luz who observes that there can be for Paul no criterion by which we may judge the truth of a theology of the cross; rather, the word of the cross decides what a person truly is, and the person does not decide on the truth of the word of the cross.70 A theology of the cross is not to be judged by its contents or coherence, but by the form which it takes in those persons who espouse it – rather in the manner of 'By its fruits you shall know it’. Similarly, a theology of the cross cannot by its very nature be encompassed within any coherent theological systems, but instead calls all systems in question. The word of the cross is ‘the permanent crisis of all one’s own theological endeavours’ (130). Yet how is one to combine this with Vollenweider’s dictum that without theology the cross is dumb, but without the cross theology is deaf?71 Is the answer not this, that the cross indeed calls for a theological exposition, but it must be an exposition that starts from the cross rather than seeking to locate this event within any theology 68 Luz,

‘Theologia crucis’, 124. ‘Word’, 37. 70 Luz, ‘Theologia crucis’, 129. 71 Vollenweider, ‘Weisheit’, 43. 69 Zumstein,

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that has its foundation elsewhere. At any rate, Vollenweider rightly insists that Paul does not endorse a largely negative, apophatic way of speaking of God, but that his God is ‘differently different’ or ‘other in another way’.72 Other systems may be ruled out and Christian reflection has to find its own way into the mystery of God, starting from the cross, even if the result is not yet another system and cannot by the nature of things be one if it is to remain a mystery, as it properly does and should.73 And yet Luz notes the precariousness and ambiguity of Paul’s use of this ‘word of the cross’, particularly in the context of his argument with the Corinthian enthusiasts: over against these allegedly Spirit-filled devotees of wisdom Paul can only set the ‘demonstration of Spirit and of power’ (1 Cor 2.4) and that is precisely that to which the Corinthians would presumably also wish to lay claim.74 Vollenweider, too, sees in 1 Cor 2.14–15 the danger of a blind alley, in that there is here the risk of a self-enclosed and self-referential spiritual world which cannot be judged from outside by any external criteria; Paul ran the risk of playing into the Corinthians’ hands at this point.75 And yet, even if Paul had strayed onto argumentatively very thin ice when pitting one spiritual endowment against another, does the same hold good of his preaching of the cross? Perhaps that may be true of the interpretation that he offers of the cross and its theological and ethical implications, but his choice of this event for his basic theological and ethical orientation is on far firmer ground. For, if one believes in a God that is somehow revealed in Jesus, then that God is revealed in one who was crucified and died a criminal’s death at the hands of the Roman authorities in Palestine. There is no other Jesus for Christians to believe in than this one. And in claiming that this assertion ran contrary to the expectations of Jews and non-Jews Paul was also correct. In that case his detecting in this message a radical break with accepted values and beliefs was also thoroughly legitimate. So far, so good. The ground starts to become less secure when he appeals to the effectiveness of his preaching of this message, for then his opponents could presumably also point to the influence and success of their version of the Christian message in winning adherents, quite apart from any seemingly supernatural spiritual gifts, such as glossolalia, to which they could also point as evidence of the powerful working of the divine Spirit in them. Nonetheless, to accept the cross as one’s starting-point, as one’s fundamental theological, christological and ethical datum, does offer some hope of escaping 72 Vollenweider,

‘Weisheit’, 49 (for ‘anders anders’, his italics). ‘Weisheit’, 58, nonetheless wishes to say that systematic theology is here called for, yet grants that its conclusions are continually called in question. 74 Luz, ‘Theologia crucis’, 131. 75 Vollenweider, ‘Weisheit’, 55 (mentioning modern ‘psycho-jargon’ and the concept of a ‘Pneuma-“Kiste”’ and also the concrete example of Boniface VIII’s misuse of the passage to show the superiority of the Pope to the Kaiser). 73 Vollenweider,

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the arbitrariness of self-enclosed and self-referential viewpoints. More than once we have seen how the gospels’ accounts of this event and the events that led up to it have placed a question-mark against some of the constructions that theologians have imposed upon this narrative, usually to bring it into line with some presupposed theological framework or other. Yet if, instead, one really starts with the account of this event, one can at least hope to be able to show how some constructions fit more easily onto this event, and seem to follow more naturally and less arbitrarily from it. In taking this course, however, one must be prepared to find that the answers that one comes up with, about Jesus and his nature, about God and the nature of God, and about Jesus’ relationship to his God, turn out to be very different to those of Christian tradition and to human expectations of the divine in general. For those expectations were not only current in the ancient world, but have survived into far more recent times, both among adherents of the Christian faith and among its critics. The former would include those whom Elizabeth Johnson characterizes and criticizes as representatives of ‘modern theism’ and its popularized ‘trivial image’ or images of God.76 The latter found expression in Friedrich Nietzsche’s complaint that deus, qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio.77 Eberhard Jüngel, in commenting on this verdict of Nietzsche’s, goes on to argue that one only understands Nietzsche’s dictum in a Pauline way when his dei negatio is viewed as a negation by means of which God’s being is first adequately described.78

Quest, 14–17. quoting Nietzsche, Antichrist § 47 (ed. Colli/Montari, VI/3, 223). Jüngel, Gott, 280, rightly comments that Nietzsche’s judgement shows how incompatible this Christian view of God was with the metaphysical idea of God (I have deliberately written ‘this Christian view of God’ since it is clear that there are other Christian views of God which would experience similar difficulties with Paul’s theological starting-point here.) . 78 Jüngel, Gott, 285. 76 Johnson, 77 Jüngel,

7. Participation in Christ For many scholars the motif of participation in Christ is central to Pauline soteriology and with good cause, indeed more central than a theme such as ‘justification’. That was argued by Albert Schweitzer in his exposition of Paul’s Christ-mysticism and more recently by, amongst others, E. P. Sanders with his identification of ‘participationist’ categories and the associated ‘transfer terminology’ in the apostle’s thought.1 And yet this insight presents us with an acute hermeneutical problem. For the language and the imagery that gives characteristic expression to this dimension of Paul’s soteriology is not easy to understand, let alone to appropriate and make one’s own today. Not only does he speak of Christ as the ἔσχατος Adam and of dying and rising with Christ, but of the collective ‘body of Christ’, in addition to his varied and frequent use of the phrases ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Lord’. Despite the difficulties of such language and such a way of thinking it is striking how prominent a role at least certain aspects of this Pauline christology and soteriology play in Geoffrey Lampe’s exposition of his theme of God as Spirit. Repeatedly he refers to the theme of Christ as the last or the ‘true’ Adam, the representative human being who includes and sums up all humanity in himself (e. g. 4–5, 19, etc.). Jesus is for him a pattern of sonship and of life in the Spirit, who not only embodied a union with God ‘which can be called “personal” in our modern sense of the word: a union of mind and will and feeling, a coming together of Spirit with spirit’, but is also ‘the source of its communication to others’, creating in them ‘a response, analogous to his own, to the Spirit of God that was in him and is in us’ (24). In him the union with God for which human spirits are created reached its perfection. God’s Spirit so fully moved and directed his human personality that in him the ‘old man’, the principle of man’s self-assertion against God, which is sin, was always and unfailingly put away. It is only occasionally in the Gospel stories that we see that his unbroken communion with God, which usually seems so completely free from disturbance by what Paul calls the ‘mind of the flesh’ as to be effortless, was not maintained without conflict: in the temptations in the desert and at Caesarea Philippi, at Gethsemane and Calvary. His death was not a 1 Cf., e. g., Schweitzer, Mysticism, 220, arguing that ‘the doctrine of the redemption, which is mentally appropriated by faith, is only a fragment from the more comprehensive mystical redemption-doctrine, which Paul has broken off and polished to give him the particular refraction which he requires’; Sanders, Paul, 434–42.

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putting off or putting to death of an actual ‘old man’, but it was the last act in a lifelong victory over a potential ‘old man’, the final repudiation of the constant human selfish and self-centred resistance to the love of God. (86–7)

Paul’s language of being ‘in Christ’ can be translated into ‘Spirit’ terminology: it refers to that corporate unity built up by the Spirit. The ‘body of Christ’, too, takes shape as the creative Spirit brings us to realize that sonship that is properly ours (178). Yet this is not true of Paul’s ‘with Christ’ language and this, when used of the present, seems to view ‘Christian conversion as an anticipation of our ultimate entry into the eschatological state of blessedness’ (169). Yet, as we shall see later, Paul seems to speak rather of a dying with Christ that looks back to the past, and sees us as somehow sharing that past death. And Lampe’s talk of Christ’s perfection seems to introduce a dogmatically motivated element into his account.2 Can we say historically that Jesus’ obedience was perfect and sinless? What criteria do we have for judging whether a person was or was not sinless? Or must we simply assert in faith that this person was sinless? Moreover, does this approach really do justice to Gethsemane and Calvary, especially the latter? If Jesus’ prayer at Gethsemane reveals a human will distinct from the Father’s, even if Jesus finally acquiesces in accepting that will, can the same really be said of his reproachful cry on the cross? In the approach adopted here Paul’s statements are approached from a different perspective that is intentionally ‘Jesucentric’, as we bear in mind the three hermeneutical steps outlined at the end of the first chapter: first what Paul says and implies and assumes must be established, then it must be asked whether what he says can simply be accepted or whether it is open to objections and criticism, before we can finally attempt to say what possible meaning his words can have today that is both intelligible and acceptable. The first four sections of this chapter will deal with the first question, the fifth with the second and third. In dealing with the first question, I have concentrated on four elements from that whole complex of motifs and themes that come under the heading of ‘participation in Christ’ and attempt to drawf out what Paul is actually saying with them; in so doing, I have at times also to say what Paul does not seem to be saing with them, in the light of the way in which, in the history of exegesis, religio-historical parallels have often been read into them in such a way as to distort their sense.

2 And yet Lampe recognizes that ‘The question for a Christian who takes an immanentist view of the divine creativity is whether he is justified in assigning this central and decisive significance to Jesus Christ’ (God, 96). He then goes on to answer this question in terms of Christians’ experience of Christ as their ‘source of inspiration’ (100). But in order to inspire us so, need he have been perfect?

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7.1 2 Corinthians 5.14 This collection of Pauline motifs is so extensive that it might seem difficult to know where to start, but one passage in particular suggests itself as a suitable starting-point. For I once asked whether 2 Cor 5.14, ‘For Christ’s love controls us, because we have concluded that (if) one died for all then all (of these) died’, provided us with a ‘key to Pauline soteriology’.3 However, the door that this text might unlock opens into Paul’s way of thinking, a way that ‘seems at first strange – not just to us, but perhaps also … within the framework of ideas current in Paul’s own time’ (282). In other words, the door that would lead from an understanding of Paul’s thought into an appropriation of that thought for our time remains closed and is not opened with this key. It requires another key or other keys. The thought expressed in this verse is curious in that one might expect that one person’s dying for all would mean the opposite, that all need not die.4 The representation involved is therefore best described as ‘inclusive’ rather than ‘exclusive’.5 The novelty of what Paul is saying here is that both for Jews and for non-Jews in the Graeco-Roman world ‘the ideas of one dying for many and of many sharing the fortunes or misfortunes of one can be paralleled, but the logic of this statement of Paul’s seems to suggest that he has put these two motifs together’ (272).6 Now, at the start of this work we saw that amongst Otto Knoch’s criticisms of traditional soteriological theories was the objection that we should not all need another person to come and die if our lives are to succeed. Yet already in the introduction of the idea of ‘success’ a term has been used that is alien to Paul’s way of speaking and indeed to most subsequent discussions of Christian soteriology. Yet 2 Cor 5.14 qualifies this formulation of traditional soteriology in another respect as well: we must all first die or rather already have died with this other person. And this formulation may also have relevance for another criticism of traditional doctrines of the atonement, namely that ‘it makes Jesus a surrogate figure, teaching that in death he suffered the punishment that sinful humanity deserved’. The idea of ‘surrogacy’, Elizabeth A. Johnson notes, is deeply suspicious to black 3 Wedderburn,

‘2 Corinthians 5.14’. rightly, Thrall, 2 Corinthians 1, 409. 5 On the distinction cf. Wedderburn, ‘2 Corinthians 5.14’, 267–8, and the literature cited in nn. 4 and 5. Bieringer, ‘Ursprung’, rightly compares the sense of ὑπέρ in vv. 15 and v. 21; in neither case is the sense ‘instead of, in place of’ appropriate. See, however, the discussion in Frey, ‘Probleme’, 21–26, drawing on S. Schaede, Stellvertretung: Begriffsgeschichtliche Studien zur Soteriologie (BHT 126; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004). Yet, even if there are passages in Paul that could be interpreted in terms of an ‘exclusive’ representation, it seems clear that in this case only an ‘inclusive’ interpretation makes any sense of what Paul says. 6 Wedderburn, ‘2 Corinthians 5.14’, 272 (for a brief survey of the similarities and dissimilarities found in the thought-world of Paul’s day cf. 272–9), comparing Kertelge, ‘Verständnis’, 68–9 (121–2), who speaks of a linking of the idea of atonement by a representative with that of ‘corporate personality’, so that atonement occurs through the union between the destiny of all and that of Christ who represents all. 4 So,

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women with their history in North America of surrogate roles in households, in working in the fields and as sexual chattels of slave-owners. She protests that redemption can have nothing to do with a bloody act of one person being killed in place of another. Such substitution is repugnant.

And she goes on to quote Delores Williams who argues that a theology of the cross today should show black women ‘“that their salvation does not depend on any form of surrogacy made sacred by human understandings of God.”’ For ‘Otherwise the repugnant slave-master image of God looms again.’7 However, if we have indeed ‘died with Christ’, then he is no surrogate but rather one who entered into the suffering of oppressed humanity and at the same time does not spare us suffering but draws us into his. And yet the question then remains: in what sense can we be said to have died with him? Have we not thereby simply replaced one problem with another or even added another to it? For Paul the death of Christ ‘for us’ indeed draws us into his suffering. For the purpose of Christ’s dying for us, he tells the Corinthians in 5.15, is that the living should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them. Something of what this may entail is spelled out in the previous chapter when Paul speaks of ‘our’ bearing in our bodies Jesus’ being put to death (νέκρωσις), in order that Jesus’ life may be revealed in our bodies. We who are living (οἱ ζῶντες, the same phrase as used in 5.15) are delivered up to death for Jesus’ sake, that Jesus’ life may be revealed in our mortal flesh (4.10–11). Then, with a switch of person, he makes it plain that the ‘we’ of whom he speaks are Christian apostles like himself, for, while death is at work in ‘us’, life is at work in ‘you’ (4.12).8 One can also compare here Gal 6.17, where Paul speaks of bearing in his body (the singular µου means that he is speaking particularly of his own suffering, not that of apostles in general) the στίγµατα of Jesus. Paul may be thinking primarily of the suffering and self-giving that is part and parcel of the apostles’ calling, but, in the light of what he says of all baptized in Romans 6, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that sharing Jesus’ death is the lot of all Christians and not just of apostles. It is true that the emphasis in that chapter is on ethics, on a death to sin, a death as far as sin and its claims upon us are concerned, but it lies near at hand to suppose that this dying to sin could well lead to Christians being exposed to suffering. Yet, as the two occurrences of the phrase οἱ ζῶντες in 2 Cor 4.10 and 5.15 surely indicate, Paul is aware that this present ‘dying’ is a figurative one, at least in most 7 Johnson, Quest, 129–30, quoting D. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993). 8 Cf. 1 Cor 4.9 (ἡµᾶς τοὺς ἀποστόλους and the following statements in the first person plural). And yet it is doubtful whether the repeated use of the first person plural in 2 Corinthians is always a genuine plural rather than primarily a reference to himself alone, although this selfreference may also often be a means of speaking representatively for others (cf. the significant addition of πάντας in 2 Cor 5.10; and in 5.18 the ‘we’ who are reconciled may be a larger number than the ‘we’ to whom the ‘word of reconciliation’ is committed).

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cases, however unpleasant the experienced suffering may often be; it is not yet a full sharing of Jesus’ fate if those who suffer are still alive. Nonetheless, he can consider it as a participation in Jesus’ dying. One could, accordingly, speak of a sort of two-way movement of identification operative in Paul’s thinking, not only the identification of apostles and believers with Jesus, but also Jesus’ identification with us and with humanity. The latter we have already seen in the probably traditional material in Philippians 2, where Christ takes on human form (2.7), but it is also found most clearly in texts such as Rom 8.3 and Gal 4.4.

7.2 The Representative Human Being? The parallels and contrasts that Paul draws between Adam and Christ in Rom 5.12–21 as well as earlier in 1 Cor 15.20–2 and 45–9 are noteworthy for a number of reasons. In the first place, although Paul doubtless thought of ‘Adam’ as the name of an individual, he also reveals that he was fully aware of the generic sense of the Hebrew word, and he also switches from the one to the other, using ‘Adam’ and ‘man’ interchangeably. Instead of speaking of Christ as the last or eschatological man he speaks of him as the ἔσχατος Adam in contrast to the πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος (1 Cor 15.45). This usage in itself suggests that neither Adam nor Christ were simply individuals; both represent a or the human race and are determinative of the destinies of those that they represent, in the one case the fate of death, in the other life and resurrection. This role of the two individuals in relation to those that they represent is for Paul expressed in the image of the offering of the firstfruits (ἀπαρχή, 1 Cor 15.20). This image has two aspects: on the one hand the firstfruits offering contains the promise of the whole subsequent harvest, and on the other the firstfruits and the subsequent harvest or the larger whole from which the offering is taken are alike in nature. The latter aspect is taken up in Rom 11.16, ‘If the offering of the firstfruits (of the dough) is holy, then so is the whole batch (of the rest of the dough).’ This former aspect comes most clearly to expression when Paul uses the same image of the offering of firstfruits to speak of the gift of the divine spirit: it is the gift of the firstfruits of that redemption that is as yet not yet fulfilled (Rom 8.23). Both aspects play a part in 1 Corinthians 15: because Christ as the firstfruits has been raised from the dead, those who belong to him can be sure that they will also be raised from the dead, and they can trust that they will have a destiny and a nature like that of Christ. For Paul speaks of them bearing in the future the image of the heavenly man (1 Cor 15.49).9 Nonetheless, free of the polemical context in which Paul finds 9 There are, however, witnesses that read here φορέσωµεν. Nevertheless the fut. indic. is perhaps better suited to Paul’s argument at this point. An exhortation could play into the hands of

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himself in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle is fully prepared to speak of a present bearing of the image of Christ, especially that of the crucified Christ. That is surely at least part of what is meant in Rom 6.5 when Paul speaks of being united, in the perfect tense, with the likeness (ὁµοίωµα) of Christ’s death and, in the future tense, of being united with the likeness of his resurrection. Here the imagery is of being united, growing together (σύµφυτοι) with the likeness of Christ’s death or resurrection, rather than of bearing Christ’s image as one might wear a garment. More important than the change of image is the ethical focus of Romans 6 as opposed to the physical transformation presupposed in 1 Corinthians 15, for in the former chapter Paul is concerned to show that union with Christ and persisting in sinning are incompatible with one another.10 Those who are Christ’s should already be transformed ethically in that they have been united with Christ who has died to sin once and for all (Rom 6.10). They participate in this death to sin, and in solidarity with the crucified Christ bear his image and should do so now. Yet a transformation into the likeness of the glorified and resurrected Christ is a thing of the future (Rom 6.5, ἐσόµεθα), as in 1 Cor 15.49. The transformation is, however, not solely future, for Paul announces in 6.4 that the purpose of our being buried with Christ is that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too should walk in newness of life. This walking is not something reserved for the future, but rather a matter of a present ethical transformation in this life. At least in this respect the image of the ‘heavenly man’ is to be worn in the present. The ‘solidarity’ just spoken of is not something given to us willy-nilly, but something to which we must ourselves must contribute. Vividly Paul speaks of putting on Christ, an act with far-reaching ethical consequences: ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh so as to listen to its desires’ (Rom 13.14). Yet however much solidarity may be something that we create and call into being, the relationship to Christ of which Paul speaks is first and foremost something given to us, given through a representative human being whom God has appointed to this representative role. As a consequence, from Paul’s point of view, this human being did not act or speak or suffer on his own account, but for us. For Paul, therefore, despite his call to put on Christ, we already had a share in his life and work. his opponents who denied the resurrection, for it would suggest that the fullness of the world to come, whose possibility Paul ironically repudiates in 4.8, could indeed be realized and appropriated in this world. Instead he is arguing that such a perfection must await its time and cannot yet be realized, as 15.50 clearly shows. 10 Here one can see a further example of that corrective complementarity mentioned in ch. 5 above, that is so characteristic of Paul’s interweaving of soteriological motifs and images. For Romans 6 deals with a fundamental misunderstanding of justification by faith (6.1, 15), and yet setting dying with Christ in baptism in this context warns us not to focus on the human performance of the rite or any automatic consequences that might otherwise be thought to flow from that performance. See further ch. 8.

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That means that, as 2 Cor 5.14 suggests, even before we could begin to put to death the deeds of the body (Rom 8.13) or to grasp that we are dead to sin but living for God in Christ Jesus (Rom 6.11), we had already died. We died because God chose to regard Christ in his death as representing us. The use of the expression ‘corporate personality’ has a certain justification here. At any rate it takes account of a number of phenomena in the Old Testament such as a switching between singular and plural (e. g. Num 21.21–2, ‘Israel sent messengers … saying, “Let me pass …; we will not turn aside …’) or the personification of a people as a single individual (e. g. Hos 11.1, ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son’) or the way in which a nation could be regarded as a unity so that successive generations shared the experiences of their predecessors (so in every generation the Israelites were reminded that God had brought them out of Egypt; cf., e. g., Amos 3.1). And yet it must be noted that in these examples it is a collective, a people, a nation, that is treated as an individual, rather than an individual being regarded as a collective entity. (And anyway, is ‘corporate personality’ something that one is, and not rather something that one or, better, many have?) At any rate, this way of thinking did not lead the Jewish people to overlook the accountability of the individual, and voices were raised in protest against the idea of collective guilt (e. g. Jer 31; Ezek 18). Nonetheless the more positive aspect of sharing in past saving events persisted and perhaps nowhere more clearly than in the celebration of Passover. If ‘corporate personality’ is a problematic term to designate this way of thinking, ‘solidarity’ may be preferable. This ‘solidarity’ would then, however, be something given and inherited and to be appropriated and made one’s own, as the Jews did at every Passover feast. And that in turn comes nearer to what Paul seems to envisage as the relationship between Christ and Christians, Christ as an inheritance into which the latter are baptized, rather than being born.

Yet to reduce this way of thinking to ‘Become who you are’, however impressive this way of putting it may seem, may appear at first sight to be a case of having one’s cake and eating it. However, Bultmann is careful to insist that this only applies ‘in a certain sense’, and certainly not in the sense of idealism, ‘according to which the “idea” of the perfect man is more and more closely realized in endless progress’. Rather, ‘“sinlessness” – i. e. freedom from the power of sin – is already realized in the “righteousness of God” …; its transcendence is that of the divine verdict, and man’s relation to it is that of “obedience of faith”.’ It is a matter of ‘the constant appropriation of grace by faith’.11 One would think that one already is something or one is not, and that one can only become that which one is not yet. Nevertheless such a paradoxical way of speaking would correspond to a tension present in the experience of the Jewish people, a tension between their inheritance as God’s elect people and the call to remain true to their God and the divine commands. For Paul, too, God’s decisions are not such that they affect us willy-nilly or bypass our will and our own decisions. Even when speaking in 2 Cor 5.14 of a dying that has already occurred Paul also speaks of Christ’s love 11 Cf.

Bultmann, Theology 1, 332 (Ger. 334, ‘Werde, der du bist!’).

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controlling us and it is not the nature of love to force an answer or obedience upon us; rather it is a matter of the call of the loving God who in Christ appeals to us and invites us to accept the divine offer, to let ourselves be reconciled with our God and experience the divine grace. It may be helpful and suggestive to view the representative actions and experiences of Christ in Paul’s thought as comparable with speech-acts or, perhaps better, as acts that communicate something and ‘speak’ in that sense. Jesus’ death is for him not just a physical death, however important and significant that may be, but it also gives expression to God’s judgement concerning those whom Jesus represents. This death is God’s condemnation of sinful humanity, a divine curse upon them (Gal 3.13). For, although many pass over this distinction, classing Paul’s usage here as a case of metonymy or the like,12 it seems to me significant that Christ is there a κατάρα, not just ἐπικατάρατος as in the following quotation of Deut 21.23 or just before in that of Deut 27.26 cited in v. 10. ‘Curse’ is active in sense, ‘accursed’ passive. Heinrich Schlier at least makes a move towards doing justice to this distinction: ‘Christ so took the curse upon himself for our sake, that he represented the curse that lay upon him’,13 and Wolfgang Schrage speaks of Jesus’ death as fulfilling God’s judgement ipon the world.14 That God ‘speaks’ in the death of Jesus as in his life may be something that does not lie on the surface of Paul’s thought, but such an assumption may help to explain the structure and the logic of the apostle’s thought and to make it just that bit more meaningful.

7.3 Being in Christ Prepositions play a very important and significant and at times rather bewildering role in Paul’s theology, and this is above all true of the word ‘in’ which appears regularly in such phrases as ‘in Christ’ or ‘in the Lord’ or variations on these two. Fritz Neugebauer rightly compared Paul’s phrase ‘in Christ’ with a whole series of other adverbial or adjectival phrases that also use the preposition ἐν,15 but in itself that does not help us greatly. For very often ἐν has a spatial sense, also in adverbial phrases, but the idea of Christ’s being a spatial entity in which we can be said to be must surely strike us as strange.16 Yet ἐν used in adverbial phrases 12 E.g. Burton, Galatians, 171 (metonymy; cf. also Haldimann, ‘Kreuz’, 11); Mussner, Galaterbrief, 233 (abstractum pro concreto). 13 Schlier, Galater, 138; cf. also Weder, Kreuz, 188. One perhaps finds an analogy to this when Paul speaks of blessing coming to Abraham’s decendants ‘in’ Abraham (Gal 3.8). 14 Schrage, ‘Herr’, 29. 15 Neugebauer, ‘Das paulinische “In Christo”’ and In Christus, esp. 35–44. 16 It is true that some have tried to treat ‘in Christ’ as shorthand for ‘in the body of Christ’ and have therefore postulated the existence behind this usage of the mythological concept of Christ’s body as a gigantic body in which all of humanity or at least their souls can be contained. Then ‘in’ can naturally have a local sense. Yet was such an idea actually current at that time?

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can have other senses, for instance a modal sense or used of accompanying circumstances, instrumental, temporal, in the sense of ‘under, in the power of’, and so on.17 Such distinctions may, however, be more apparent to the modern grammarian than they would have been to those that originally used such phrases in speech and in writing, and thus the intended sense of this preposition may have slid from the one sense into another without the speaker or writer being conscious of this happening.18 It would then be unrealistic to expect Paul always to have used ‘in Christ’ or ‘in the Lord’ with exactly the same sense and for that reason it would be unwise to speak of these phrases as formulae, if by that one means phrases that each always have the same meaning.19 The phrases ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Lord’ were ones that Paul was evidently accustomed to use, but with considerable variation in their context and their meaning. Moreover, it sometimes makes excellent sense to translate ἐν as ‘through, by means of’; for ‘in’ can be use in an instrumental sense and express the means by which something is done.20 But how could we then distinguish ‘in Christ’ from ‘through Christ’? Does the former express some further nuance that ‘through Christ’ does not convey? Is it that Christ is not just the means, the channel through whom God saves, but also the representative human being through whom salvation comes. ‘In Christ’ then would mean not just ‘through Christ’, but also that God brings about salvation through him as that representative human being with whom we are united and through whom we are saved by reason of this representation. If, however, there is in ‘in Christ’ the added element of union with Christ, then that would imply that ‘in Christ’ covers both a ‘through Christ’ and a ‘with Christ’. Now Neugebauer tries to distinguish between ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Lord’ by arguing that the former has the meaning ‘defined/determined (bestimmt) … by the eschatological event of Jesus’ cross and resurrection, drawn into this “history”’, where the ‘drawn into’ comes near to that sense of union just referred to, and the latter something like ‘defined/determined by the circumstance (UmMoreover, if Paul can use ‘in’ of Abraham as well as of Adam and Christ, then it is hardly intelligible, at least in Abraham’s case, that he was thought of as a giant body or container (cf. Wedderburn, ‘Observations’, 89). Furthermore, is the concept of the ‘body of Christ’ really so fundamental and central to Paul’s theology; after all, ‘in Christ’ is found far more often in his letters than the ‘body of Christ’ and in a much greater number of contexts and with a great many different senses. Or is the reverse rather the case, namely that the idea of the ‘body of Christ’ arises from the ideas to which Paul gives expression through his use of ‘in Christ’? For Rom 12.4–5 speaks of our being ‘one body in Christ’ as if our being ‘one body’ is first made possible ‘in Christ’, i. e. by our being united with Christ and represented by him. 17 Cf. further Wedderburn, ‘Observations’, 84–6 (also adding the sense of relation or respect). 18 Cf. Wedderburn, ‘Observations’, 86–7. 19 The same is true of Meier’s speaking of an ‘Ausrichtung auf Christus’ and a ‘Bestimmtsein’ by him; this does not allow for sufficient differentiation (Mystik, 36–9). 20 Cf. Wedderburn, ‘Observations’, 90; Bouttier, En Christ, 31–5.

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stand) that Jesus is Lord of human history and as such calls for (certain) actions’ (on our part).21 However, so sharp a distinction seems questionable. For one thing, there are passages where ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Lord’ seem to have similar roles and there is little difference to be detected between the two christological titles. For instance, there are cases where the ‘in’ in the phrases ‘in Christ’ or above all ‘in the Lord’ could be interpreted as ‘before’ or ‘in the name of, with the authority of’: e. g. Rom 9.1, ‘I speak the truth in Christ and do not lie’, where one could also say ‘before Christ’, or 14.14, ‘I know and am certain in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is in itself impure’, where one could perhaps translate ‘in’ in the ‘in’ phrase as meaning ‘before the Lord Jesus, who is my authority for this conviction’. And, secondly, one finds passages where ‘in Christ’ and ‘in the Lord’ have been merged: e. g. Rom 6.23, ‘God’s gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Yet there is a certain logic to Paul’s use of these phrases. It is, for instance, sensible to use ‘in the Lord’ when it is appropriate to appeal to Christ’s authority as Lord of the church, as in 1 Cor 15.58, ‘Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, in the knowledge that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’ That fits in well with Neugebauer’s definition in that it is clear that the Lord is here one who calls upon his church to act. On the other hand, it seems forced to explain expressions like ‘rejoice in the Lord’ or ‘hope in the Lord’ in this way. Since Christ is the Lord rejoicing and hope are nevertheless fitting in those who live with him and in his presence.

Yet, while there are passages in which the phrase ‘in Christ’ seems to mean very little more than ‘Christian, belonging to Christ’, there are many soteriologically important and pregnant passages where, for instance, ‘in Christ’ is used with verbs in the passive that describe God’s saving actions (i. e. examples of the passivum divinum) or are linked in other ways to soteriological concepts. These passages are an important indicator of the role that these ‘in’ phrases play within Pauline christology and soteriology, passages whose fundamental significance for Pauline soteriology is widely recognized.22 Such a passage is 1 Cor 15.22, ‘As in Adam all die, so will all be made alive in Christ.’ Again we see the role of Christ as representative human being in contrast to Adam who represents sinful humanity. Christ is the place, so to speak, where one can see God fulfilling the divine will to save in the person of our representative. In that case it is legitimate to speak of a figurative local sense for the ‘in’ phrase, but only a figurative one, since Christ is neither a place nor a sort of container. Such a figurative local sense is not only used of Christ. It is also used of Adam in the passage just cited, and Paul takes up the usage of the Septuagint and uses it elsewhere in connection with Abraham, the archetype and representative of those who have faith. In Gal 3.8 the apostle quotes Gen 12.3, ‘In you (Abraham) shall all gentiles/all nations be blessed’ (i. e. by God).23 Were it not for the fact 21 Most

succinctly in Neugebauer, ‘“In Christo”’, 132, 135. the listing in Wedderburn, ‘Observations’, 89, and also § 7.5 below. 23 This passage is of added interest because Paul goes on to use a ‘with’ phrase in relation to Abraham’s salvific role: 3.9, οἱ ἐκ πίστεως εὐλογοῦνται σὺν τῷ πιστῷ Ἀβραάµ. In other words, 22 See

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that Paul quotes the Septuagint, one might think that he had simply applied language that he otherwise uses of Christ in order to speak of Abraham, but that is evidently not the case here.24 It should rather be noted that one could not really describe this promise to Abraham as an ‘eschatological event’ in any intelligible sense and that the relationship of the gentiles or nations to Abraham had nothing to do with baptism or any other rite.25 Yet, if God blesses the nations ‘in’ Jesus as Abraham’s offspring or seed, then it is to be expected that they are blessed with this seed, even if this blessing at the same time involves a dying ‘with’ him. For this offspring of Abraham only attained to this blessing, for himself and us, after he had first become a curse for us, and that implies that we have not only been blessed with him, but also first accursed, with Christ being, as we have seen, the one who, as it were, utters or expresses that curse against sinful humanity.

7.4 Dying with Christ Paul’s language of our dying and rising ‘with Christ’ is both striking and characteristic, but at the same time puzzling when the dying and rising of Jesus are both past events. This is something very different to the fate of the two men who were crucified with Jesus (Mark 15.32 par.: συνεσταυρωµένοι, συσταυρωθέντες). For Paul claims to have been crucified with Christ (Gal 2.19, συνεσταύρωµαι), but he was not put to death on Golgotha, but was still alive when he wrote to the Galatians. And yet it is important to note that Paul uses this ‘with Christ’ language in different ways. It occurs, for instance, in Paul’s earliest extant letter, 1 Thessalonians, in an eschatological context: For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so God will, through Jesus, bring again with him [at his parousia] those who have died (lit.: fallen asleep). … For the Lord himself … will descend from heaven and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are (still) living … will be caught up with them … to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be always with the Lord’ (4.14–17).

This being ‘with the Lord’ is a matter of fellowship with him, just as the Old Testament and Jewish literature speak of the redeemed being ‘with’ God or the messiah.26 Eduard Schweizer regards such an idea of an eschatological fellowship the uses of ‘in’ and ‘with’ are also in the case of Abraham closely connected with one another, and in these two verses are more or less interchangeable. What God does ‘in’ Abraham or Christ is experienced ‘with’ the one or the other figure. 24 In 1 Cor 10.1–4, however, Paul seems to apply to Moses and the people that came out of Egypt with him language reflecting the Christian rites of baptism and the Lord’s supper. 25 The ἔθνη were not baptized into Abraham as the Israelites were into Moses (1 Cor 10.2). 26 Cf., e. g., Ps 140.14 (LXX 139.14); 1 Enoch 1.8–9; 62.13–14.

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with Christ as the earliest form of such language,27 and indeed the language that Paul uses later in 2 Cor 4.14, ‘he who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus’, is also comparable with this background, although, unless ‘raise us (to be) with Jesus’ is meant, the temporal difference between the past event of Jesus’ resurrection and ours here seems to be lost sight of. Yet it is rather a long way from this usage to other uses of ‘with Christ’ language in Paul’s letters. There it is no longer a matter of living with Christ in the sense of fellowship with him either now in this world or in the future after his parousia, but dying, being buried or crucified with him, sharing his fate that he suffered in the past. Schweizer seeks to link this to the idea of eschatological fellowship by regarding baptism as anticipating the eschatological life.28 Doubtless this rite had an eschatological significance and dimension, also when administered by John the Baptist, if not as an anticipation of the eschaton, at least as a preparation for the coming end. Such an explanation of Paul’s language presupposes, however, that all such references are implicitly references to the rite of baptism. That is not always clearly the case. For instance, when Paul speaks in Gal 2.19 of having been crucified with Christ, there is little to suggest that this necessarily occurred when he was baptized.29 Moreover, the reference is clearly to a past event and not to a heavenly future. Schweizer’s explanation would be more satisfactory if Paul had only spoken of life with Christ as a consequence of baptism. Then one could say that in baptism one had in anticipation entered into the eschatological life. Yet the problem is that Romans 6, although it very clearly refers to baptism, does not only look forwards into the future, but also backwards to the past. It is true that Paul stresses the rite’s implications for the present, in a walking in newness of life (Rom 6.4), which would be an anticipation in this world of what would characterize the future heavenly life. But he also draws out these implications from the past, from Christ’s death on a cross: we have died there with Christ with regard to sin, and as far as sin is concerned we exist no more. It is true that one can speak of Christ’s death as an eschatological event in the sense that it was an event of the end-time and an event with final significance in God’s plan of salvation. It was for Paul a decisive intervention on God’s part in this sinful world in order to rescue it and bring about the divine righteousness within it. This death could be seen as God’s final judgement upon the sin of this world, yet it would be wrong to regard it as an eschatological event in the same sense as Jesus’ resurrection. For it was widely thought that among the events of the end-time there would be a resurrection, either of all humanity or at least of the righteous elect. That was far from the case with the death of one believed to be messiah and God’s son. On the contrary, for only a very courageous faith could dare to assert that in this 27 Schweizer,

‘Dying’, esp. 1–3. ‘Dying’, 3–4. 29 Cf. Wedderburn, Baptism, 49 nn. 1 and 2 and the lit. cited there. 28 Schweizer,

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gruesome, shameful death the final outworking of God’s plan of salvation was to be found. If one wishes to call this an eschatological event and to designate it as one of the salvific events of the end-time or as an integral part of the one salvific event, then it would be a daring reclassification of this event. Nonetheless one could not assign this event to a yet future time and regard baptism as our anticipatory participation in it. The relation of the baptized to this event that had already occurred would be fundamentally different to their relation to any eschatological event that had still to take place. Rather than invoking the concept of an ‘eschatological event’ to explain this usage it would be better to explore the implications of the death of Jesus as the death of a representative and of what he experienced in his role as a representative; in Paul’s view these experiences occurred and we participate in them willynilly and are, as it were, drawn into them. They are events which we have not chosen to be representative of us, just as, for Paul, Jesus is not a representative that we have chosen for ourselves, but rather one that God has chosen. And because the actions and experiences of this man, our representative, are ours too, Paul can speak of all whom he represents as dying, sharing in his death (2 Cor 5.14), and of himself as sharing in that death on a cross (Gal 2.19). In that case, however, the presuppositions of our dying with Christ are quite different from those of our sharing life with him now or in the future. The ‘sharing’ involved in the former is a ‘sharing’ of a very special sort, in which a representative shares his fate with those whom he represents, and shares it in such a way that his fate is also theirs and they participate in this fate of his. For the apostle’s way of thinking, a way of thinking that Marinus de Jonge describes as ‘corporate thinking’,30 the fate of the true human being of the end-time, whom God sent into the world for our sake, is at the same time the fate of the whole of humanity.

7.5 Hermeneutical Reflections Yet, if this is the logic of Paul’s thinking, is it a way of thinking that we can share and make our own? Is the idea of God appointing a representative human being not in itself an anthropomorphic way of thinking and speaking? Does the same not apply to the imagery of God ‘speaking’ in certain events, despite the importance of the ‘word of God’ in certain theological traditions? Does one not have to adopt a different approach, from the viewpoint of people of faith seeking to understand not only their own experience but also that of past generations of Christians and particularly, in this case, of Paul and his converts? 30 De

Jonge, Envoy, 24.

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And yet it is Jesus in his suffering and death with whom we can most easily identify. The more the divinity of the God-man is stressed, the more remote from us and our experience he becomes. A man of flesh and blood who wrestles with what he believes to be God’s will and then at the end feels himself deserted by the God in whom he had trusted and whose will he had sought to do – that is one whose experience comes nearest to our own. There is, accordingly, a very real sense in which we can see ourselves in that suffering figure. However, the use of the preposition ‘in’ here should not lead us to suppose that we have in any way exhausted the possibilities of Paul’s imagery here, even if it is a step in the right direction. For we have already seen how Paul uses ‘in Christ’ or equivalent phrases to speak of what God has done for us in Christ. For instance, in him we are set free (Rom 8.2 by ‘the law of the Spirit of life’; cf. Gal 2.4) and shall be made alive (1 Cor 15.22); in him we are one body (Rom 12.5) and are one (Gal 3.28), are consecrated (ἡγιασµένοις, 1 Cor 1.2), enriched (ἐπλουτίσθητε, 1.5), justified (Gal 2.17) and receive God’s grace (1 Cor 1.4); in him God reconciles the world (2 Cor 5.19); in him God calls us (Phil 3.14), guards our hearts and thoughts (4.7), enables us to do everything (4.13) and fulfils our every need (4.19). Although one could in these cases also say ‘through Christ’, the phrase ‘in Christ’ adds to the instrumental sense the idea that Christ is this instrument as a representative of humanity. That is that much clearer when similar phrases are used of Adam and of Abraham. For in 1 Cor 15.22 it is ‘in Adam’ that all die and in Gal 3.8 ‘in’ Abraham that all the ἔθνη are blessed. Adam by his very name represents the human race and in his sin and fall is typical of the destiny of all humanity. (One has the feeling that Paul could also have said that all died ‘with’ Adam as well, but he does not; it is rather ‘with Christ’ that we have died.) God’s blessing is extended to all who share Abraham’s faith (Gal 3.9, οἱ ἐκ πίστεως; cf. Rom 4.12, τοῖς στοιχοῦσιν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν τῆς ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ πίστεως τοῦ πατρὸς ἡµῶν Ἀβραάµ; also 16, εἰς τὸ εἶναι βεβαίαν τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν παντὶ τῷ σπέρµατι, οὐ τῷ ἐκ τοῦ νόµου µόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τῷ ἐκ πίστεως Ἀβραάµ, ὅς ἐστιν πατὴρ πάντων ἡµῶν) and they are blessed because they share that faith. What seems to distinguish these two figures from Christ is that those sharing the fate of Adam and those sharing the faith of Abraham were in all probability for the most part unaware that they were doing so. (It may be that it was subsequently pointed out to gentile Christians that they shared Abraham’s faith, but it is unlikely that this was what persuaded them to put their faith in God and Christ initially.) And it is also true that if one takes 1 Cor 15.22 in a universalist sense, so that the ‘all’ who die with Adam are coextensive with the ‘all’ who will be made alive in Christ, then there will presumably be some of the latter ‘all’ who were or are unaware of Christ. In the great majority of cases, however, it is those who are Christ’s, who belong to him and are in him, to whom these blessings of God come ‘in him’. Here one can, therefore, see the point of

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Lampe’s stress on Jesus as a pattern to be followed and an inspiration and a power that enables and motivates that following (even if the talk of ‘inpiration’ suggests that he is thinking as much here of the ‘Spirit of Christ’, Rom 8.9b, indwelling the individual Christian).31 There are two sides to the idea of representation, at least for Paul and other New Testament writers: on the one hand God has sent and appointed this representative, on the other we see or are to see ourselves as represented by him. This can be seen perhaps most clearly in the Letter to the Hebrews in speaking of the high priesthood of Christ. For Heb 3.1–2, 5.1–4 and 7.28 make it clear that the Old Testament high priests were called and appointed by God to deal with the things of God amongst their fellow men; at the same time it is indicated that these high priests were themselves sinful men with a fellow-feeling for their straying and ignorant contemporaries (5.2–3; 7.28). For Paul, too, Christ has been sent by God (Gal 4.4) and also makes intercession for his people (Rom 8.34). Yet is it still fitting to speak of a divine sending and appointment? Or is that again an anthropomorphic way of speaking that is inappropriate? And how can we know that Jesus was sent unless we simply accept it in faith, because Jesus probably thought of himself as sent by God and his followers certainly regarded him as such? In other words, is it appropriate to speak of God sending or appointing Christ to a representative role? It is true that many have felt themselves to be sent and called by God for various tasks, but in many cases that conviction has led to horrendous results that call the correctness of that belief and claim in question. Some believed themselves called and appointed to convert the heathen, even if the most violent of means were used to do so. Others felt it their duty to root out heresy regardless of the resultant suffering and loss of human life. Others have felt themselves to be the sole arbitrators as to divine truth and have sought to force their views on all others. And nowadays we are confronted by those who regard it as their religious duty to destroy their fellow humans, and often themselves as well. In such cases one may well ask whether these convictions were delusions. Thus, even if Jesus felt himself to be called and sent by God, that is in itself no guarantee that he was. At the most we can say that many of his followers have concluded that he indeed was. And for Paul this role of one sent and appointed by God involved the role of the representative human being who embodied what God intended humanity to be. It may well be that the apostle was here turning into terms intelligible to his converts the traditions of Jesus as ‘son of man’. For Jesus is portrayed as referring to himself by this phrase and as speaking of his earthly ministry in such terms, as well as referring to a ‘son of man’ who would play a role at the last judgement 31 One could ask whether ‘spirit’ here is to be written with a capital S or not; the preference of English translations for the former indicates that this is seen as a reference to the divine Spirit that was at work in Christ, i. e. identical to the ‘Spirit of God’ in 8.9a. To be noted, however, is Barrett’s more precise ‘the Spirit that comes from Christ’ (Romans, 144).

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and would vindicate and endorse Jesus’ work.32 It is, at any rate, an enigmatic selfdesignation and one that seems to serve to conceal Jesus’ identity.33 But rather than seeing the representative role that might be implied in this self-designation more clearly in Paul’s corporate christology as pointing to Jesus’ ‘divinity’,34 it surely underlines Jesus’ humanity and oneness with the rest of the human race, particularly if the definite article in the phrase ‘the son of man’ is due more to the claims made later for Jesus by his followers than to Jesus himself; for he may simply have referred to himself (and to the future ‘son of man’ who plays a role at the last judgement) as ‘a son of man’.35 At any rate, whatever the relation of Paul’s Adamic christology to the teaching of Jesus, it goes very much further than could ever be read into Jesus’ own statements. Yet, in the last analysis, do the beliefs that Paul and other early Christians held about Jesus’ representative role amount to more than the conviction that this man offered and offers an insight into the nature of God which we find attractive and illuminating, as well as an outstanding example of a God-filled life that provides us with an inspiration and a pattern for living today? Again, we need to avoid insisting that these roles that Jesus possesses in Christian faith involve ‘perfection’. For it would be rash to claim that Jesus’ insight into God’s nature was ‘perfect’, and rash to claim that his example was ‘perfect’ either. His knowledge of God and God’s nature was more likely to have been so conditioned to at least some extent by the assumptions current in his day that, however revolutionary or unusual or, as some put it, as they rightly seek to avoid talk of Jesus’ uniqueness, ‘distinctive’, some of his insights may have been, and however offensive for that reason to many of his contemporaries, it would be going too far to describe his knowledge as ‘perfect’. And many of the things that Jesus said and did were probably equally conditioned by the expectations and assumptions of his time.36 That he spoke and acted thus may be thoroughly understandable; he was after all a human being of his time. Yet that does not mean that his words and actions are beyond criticism or are to be followed unquestioningly by us today. At any rate, without appealing to Jesus as a ‘perfect’ model or a ‘perfect’ source of knowledge of God, it is still possible to be challenged, inspired, provoked or moved by the way he acted and taught, and there are many that would not claim to be Christians and therefore feel no obligation to claim ‘perfection’ for him, who also feel themselves drawn to, and impressed by, this in many ways strange and enigmatic person. The appeal of this figure is thus, for many, often something based on a fairly cursory and uncritical knowledge of the narratives about Jesus. further the discussion in Wedderburn, Jesus, 297–321. Hengel/Schwemer, Jesus, 344. 34 Pace Moule, Origin, 53, 95; cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 316. 35 Cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 304. 36 See, e. g., the discussion of Jesus’ expectation of a near end of the present world in Wedderburn, ‘Matthew 10,23b’, 166–71. 32 See 33 Cf.

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Critical awareness of the traditions, on the other hand, as well as acquaintance with the first-century world in which Jesus lived alerts us to the conditioning of the nature of his life, work and teaching by that environment. For the critical reader, then, this will greatly affect the way in which this ‘representative’ human being can and should be perceived today. ‘Putting on Christ’ should not be a reversion to a first-century mode of behaviour and thinking, but will involve a sophisticated evaluation of a great many factors, ranging from the beliefs and practices of Jesus’ world in first-century Palestine, through his own perception of that world, to his own distinctive but still time-conditioned perception of the nature and will of his God. In many respects, then, we will find that Jesus does not ‘represent’ us or speak for us or to us, and we will have great difficulty in identifying with him and his perspectives. Albert Schweitzer had already recognized this otherness of Jesus: ‘this personality is alien to us and our time.’37 Faced with this problem, he wrote in an earlier edition of his work that it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world. … The abiding and eternal in Jesus is absolutely independent of historical knowledge and can only be understood by contact with His spirit who is still at work in the world.38

Without taking the otherness of Jesus as his starting-point, Peter Hodgson too, as we saw in the first chapter, prefers to speak of the influence and outworking of the ‘Christ gestalt’ in the Christian community and in the world today, although, as we noted, it is perhaps surprising that Hodgson does not follow Schweitzer at this point in speaking of the spirit of Jesus.39 Other aspects of his life and teaching may hold more promise for us, ring more bells, but will in all probability need to be projected, and in the process considerably modified, onto our world and its beliefs and problems. Among those aspects are surely to be found those that challenge us to a more active following of the way that Jesus trod as he not only preached but realized in his ministry the irruption of God’s kingly rule into the world of first-century Palestine. For, although Paul presupposes more of such an active role for Christian apostles, e. g. as ambassadors bringing God’s word of reconciliation (2 Cor 5.19–20), in the pattern set by Jesus’ life for Christian believers in general he sees more a model of self-denial for the sake of others (e. g. Rom 15.2–3; 2 Cor 8.9; Phil 2.5–8), rather than a commission to bring about in the world a state of affairs reflecting the divine will and nature. With that, however, we touch already on the theme of the next chapter. Geschichte, 516; cf. Wedderburn, Jesus, 61. Quest, 399. In Geschichte, 629, he described our relation to Jesus as ‘mystical’. 39 See above § 1. 37 Schweitzer, 38 Schweitzer,

8. ‘Righteousness’ and ‘Justification’ At the beginning of the previous chapter we noted the tendency of some scholars to play down the importance of this theme in Pauline theology, despite the central importance it possesses in the theology of the Reformers, above all in the Lutheran tradition. And yet one can very easily see the extent to which ‘mystical’ or ‘participationist’ language on the one hand and that of ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’ are interwoven and complementary to one another in Paul’s thought. Romans 6, for instance, might be thought to be thoroughly expressive of the former strand of the apostle’s thought, yet, as noted in the previous chapter, this way of thinking and speaking serves here as a corrective to a misunderstanding of Paul’s doctrine of justification, as the questions posed in Rom 6.1 and 15 show: What, then, shall we say? Are we to remain in sin, so that grace may have more scope? What then? Are we to sin, because we are not under law, but under grace?

In all likelihood these questions echo accusations actually levelled at Paul’s message of justification by faith alone, and Paul’s answer is that a person who is united with Christ may only do what is compatible with this belonging to Christ; that means sharing in his death to sin and in his life for God, the very opposite of remaining in sin. It may be granted that, as a theme that Paul developed in reaction to the criticism of his message by those who demanded that gentile Christians should submit to (at least some measure of obedience to) the Jewish law, his talk of justification could be onesided and in need of precisely such complementary correctives as Paul offers in Romans 6.1–7.6. On the other hand, Paul perceived that his talk of union with Christ and being in Christ needed the corrective of the language of justification with its reminder that God is not only our creator but our judge, and that it would be a serious mistake to treat salvation as something that can be bestowed automatically by a ritual act. That seems to have been a danger that he had to combat in 1 Cor 10.1–13, namely that some Corinthian Christians had so overvalued the Christian sacramental rites and the union with Christ that they bestowed that they believed that they could with impunity take part in pagan rites. They seem to have regarded themselves as proofed, so to speak, by their participation in the Christian rites. Even worse, they seem to have thought that their relations with their fellow Christians and the way that they treated them were of no spiritual significance, or at least they so behaved as if that were

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what they thought.1 It is true that Paul on this occasion does not counter with an appeal to justification, but with a reference to the Israelites in the wilderness, but it is nevertheless significant that his doctrine of union with Christ again needs counterbalancing with other arguments lest it too is viewed in a onesided manner. In other words, no single strand of Paul’s soteriological thinking offers us the heart or the essential content of his message, and any account of it must do justice to its variety and complexity. Nonetheless, his message of justication and righteousness, however polemical in its original context it may have been, remains an important and formative part of his total message.

8.1 A Future Judgement? Yet, while the Pauline language of ‘righteousness’ (δικαιοσύνη) and above all the cognate verb traditionally translated as ‘justify’ (δικαιόω) has played a dominant part in the exegesis of the apostle’s writings and his soteriology, the forensic connotations of this language may well encourage misleading and unhelpful views of God’s role in saving human beings, even if the criticisms that they may invite today are not necessarily the same as those that Paul had to ward off in his day. For a start, the thought of God as a judge and of a future divine judgement would have raised few eyebrows then, but may today strike many as an outdated mythology that introduces an undesirable anthropomorphism into our thinking about God. For the forensic connotations of this terminology are clear in an unusual passage where Paul, quoting Psalm 51.4, speaks of God as the one who is justified rather than the one who justifies others: So that you may be justified (δικαιωθῇς) in your words, and prevail in your judging (Rom 3.4, NRSV).2

This passage is the exception, for Paul usually speaks of God as the one who judges or declares righteous (or unrighteous) as he had in the previous chapter when he denies that those who merely hear God’s law are those who are righteous before God (Rom 2.13) or, in 3.20, that any will be declared righteous before God on the basis of works of the law. For Paul’s contemporaries, however, such a judgement was expected in the future as Paul seems to acknowledge in using the future δικαιωθήσεται in Rom 3.20. And Paul’s writings reflect in a number of other places the idea of a trial that Wedderburn, Baptism, 234–49. the word rîb is not used here, the language may recall this motif of the prophetic lawsuit, where the image is used of God’s ‘quarrel with his people’ (Mic 6.2). Here in Ps 51 it is an individual who stands over against God, but H. Ringgren observes that the whole ‘book of Job presents itself as an extended lawsuit between Job and God’ and that something similar ‘lies behind Jeremiah’s dispute with God’ (in TDOT 13, 476). 1 Cf.

2 Although

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will take place in the future. He warns his readers that they will not escape God’s judgement (Rom 2.3) and that they may be storing up wrath for themselves on the ‘day of wrath and the revelation of God’s righteous judgement (δικαιοκρισία)’ when God will deal with each person according to what each has done (vv. 5–6); that means, for those who reject the truth and follow the ways of faithlessness ‘wrath and anger’, ‘affliction and distress’ (vv. 8–9). That will take place on that day when God judges the secrets of humanity (v. 16). That scenario is still the assumption at the end of chapter 8, when Paul asks who will bring accusations against God’s elect (8.33) or condemn them (v. 34, where the future participle κατακρινῶν is almost certainly correct). Elsewhere, too, the apostle envisages a future judgement of Christian workers, when ‘the day’ will disclose the quality of their work like a refining fire and they will be rewarded accordingly; in their case, however, none will ultimately perish, even if they need to be saved ‘as through fire’ (1 Cor 3.13–17). Clearly, then, Paul uses the language of a future judgement and one might think at first sight that none will know the ultimate judgement upon their lives until that day. And yet, as we shall see in more detail in the following sections, Paul elsewhere speaks as if the verdict were already known. In that case, however, it raises the question whether we have misinterpreted or misunderstood the imagery of judgement that we have seen in the passages just mentioned and how the idea of judgement is to be understood and used, if it used at all.

8.2 Romans 1.16–17: God’s Righteousness as Dynamic One reason for the prominence of the theme of ‘righteousness’ in Pauline exegesis is its introduction at the beginning of the body of the apostle’s letter to the Christians in Rome or just before that beginning, in a passage that acts as a sort of link between the letter’s beginning and the following main body of the letter, and at the same time seems to set the scene for the argument of the letter as a whole.3 There the apostle declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel that he intends to proclaim in Rome. For it is God’s power to bring about salvation for all who believe, for the Jew first of all and the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is being revealed on the basis of faith in order to bring about faith, as it is written, ‘And the righteous shall live on the basis of faith’ (Rom 1.16b–17, quoting Hab 2.4).

Like the following verse (1.18) Paul speaks of a divine revelation (ἀποκαλύπτεται), a present tense in contrast to the perfect used in 3.21 (πεφανέρωται) and trans3 Nils Dahl comments that in this letter, as elsewhere, ‘the conclusion of one section frequently introduces the theme of the following section’ and names 1.16–18 as an example of this (‘Theology’, 79).

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lated above as a continuous present. That God’s righteousness was already being revealed would likely cause his readers some puzzlement. Talk of a future revelation of that righteousness would have raised few eyebrows, but to speak of its being revealed now, in the midst of a world that seemed to be in the grip of evil, would have seemed strange. Israel, at any rate, was not being saved, and there was no sign of the wicked being punished, which would have seemed, in the eyes of many, to be a corollary of the revelation of God’s righteousness. It would also have been additionally provocative to claim that it was being revealed in the preaching of Paul’s gospel, at least for those who viewed that message as an incentive to unrighteousness, and the possibility of such an interpretation of the apostle’s teaching lies close at hand when we consider the rhetorical questions of Rom 6.1 and 15, and indeed when we reflect on the frequency with which δικαιοσύνη and its cognates occur in Romans.4 If the claim that God’s righteousness (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ) was being revealed may have puzzled Paul’s contemporaries, more recent interpreters of Paul have also been uncertain what to make of the phrase. For a start the genitive θεοῦ is open to a number of interpretations: it could be possessive, referring to a righteousness possessed by God, or a subjective genitive, meaning that this δικαιοσύνη was a righteous activity performed by God,5 or a genitive of origin, so that δικαιοσύνη θεου was then a righteous quality or status bestowed by God, or what might be described as a genitive of quality, if what is meant is a righteous quality or status that is valid in God’s eyes. Thus the phrase could refer to what God is or has, or to what God does,6 or to something that we have, a sense that is found at least in Phil 3.9, τὴν ἐκ θεοῦ δικαιοσύνην, although it could be argued that δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ could not mean that when the ἐκ is lacking. On the other hand, the NIV opts for ‘a righteousness from God’ in Rom 1.17 and 3.21. Before deciding on any one of these meanings it is important to recognize that it is quite possible that both δικαιοσύνη alone and the phrase δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ could have different senses in different contexts, in that the word δικαιοσύνη in particular could have a spectrum of meanings. That it has is suggested by the variety of different translations of 4 Δικαιοσύνη occurs 33 times, δικαιοῦν 15 times, δίκαιος 7, δικαίωµα 5, δικαίωσις 2, and δικαιοκρισία once, as well as the opposites ἀδικία 7 times and ἄδικος once. While Galatians is admittedly a far shorter document, its contents have much in common with Romans, yet the occurrence of these terms is considerably less (δικαιοῦν 8 times, δικαιοσύνη 7, δίκαιος once). Cf. Wedderburn, Reasons, 108–23. 5 I have long been puzzled by the suggestion that θεοῦ here could be an objective genitive (cf., e. g., Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 182 [ET 169]); for, although δικαιοσύνη may refer to an action or activity and so be qualified by a subjective or objective genitive, it is far easier to see how the genitive may refer to God as the one who so acts, it is far harder to see how God could be described as the object of such an action unless one is thinking of a context like that of Rom 3.5, where God is declared or shown to be righteous. Such a context is hardly credible in a passage like Rom 1.17. 6 Cf. the translation of the NEB here: ‘God’s way of righting wrong’; however, the REB reverted to ‘the righteousness of God’.

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that term in English translations: ‘justice’, righteousness’, ‘justification’ (Gal 2.21, RSV), ‘God’s way of righting wrong’ (Rom 1.17, NEB). Moreover, the translators of each version obviously felt at liberty to translate the word differently in different contexts.

Implicit in what has just been said is that δικαιοσύνη, in common with very many words, has a considerable spectrum of possible meanings, and that these may merge into one another, whether the writer in question is conscious of it or not.7 In the case of δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ, the δικαιοσύνη in question might refer to a quality, a characteristic of God. So in Rom 3.1–8, for instance, there arises the question whether God’s actions are unrighteous or unjust, and when it is asserted that God is righteous, then the divine δικαιοσύνη is similar to, or even synonymous with the divine faithfulness (v. 3, πίστις) and truth (v. 7, ἀλήθεια). And again in Rom 3.25–6, where it is a matter of demonstrating God’s δικαιοσύνη, it makes the best sense if here, too, this quality is meant. Yet it is also the case that δικαιοσύνη is a relational word, in the sense that one is called δίκαιος in one’s relations to another or others, and that means that one must do something in order to be called just or, for that matter, unjust. ‘God’s righteousness’ would then imply God’s righteous or just activity in relation to the creation and the human race. However, this activity does not leave the creation and the human race untouched. Even when this terminology is used in a forensic sense of the activity of a judge, it is, at least in the world of the Old Testament, not just a matter of pronouncing a verdict, but also of restoring a just order of things. It is no coincidence, then, that Paul, like Deutero-Isaiah, can use δικαιοσύνη (particularly when not qualified by the genitive θεοῦ; cf. 5.17, where righteousness is described as a gift; 6.16)8 and ‘salvation’ (σωτηρία) as parallel terms.9 For both words describe the establishment of that order that corresponds to God’s good purpose. The world and the human race are brought into a relationship to God that matches this good purpose. And Rom 1.17 may well fit this sense of δικαιοσύνη: Paul is claiming that in the preaching of his message this appropriate order and relationship comes into being, in the form of faith, obedient trust. Yet at the same time neither the action of God that brings this about is lost sight of nor the character of God that prompts and is made manifest in this action. And whatever sense we we give to δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in v. 17 must bear in mind the parallel formulation in v. 18 where Paul speaks of God’s wrath (ὀργὴ θεοῦ); again it makes sense to see here the outworking of this wrath in the world that is the result of divine action (vv. 24, 26, 28, παρέδωκεν) and the expression of God’s character. If that is the case, then we find Paul in the various passages in Romans mentioned above moving from one aspect of the 7 Cf. Wedderburn, ‘Paul and Jesus: The Problem of Continuity’, 104 and n. 17, over against Jüngel, Paulus, 45, 48. 8 On the other hand, 6.18 is more difficult, for there one is enslaved to righteousness, having been set free from sin; that would suggest that both sin and righteousness are here treated as quasi-personal powers. 9 Rom 10.10; cf. Isa 45.8; 46.13; 51.5–6, 8.

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δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ to another, and this fluctuation would be born out by the varying translations of δικαιοσύνη and its cognates that we find, often within one and the same English translation.10 At any rate, the various meanings of ‘God’s righteousness’ and the various ways in which Paul uses it should warn us against treating it in such a way that only some of its aspects or, still less, only one of them is viewed as normative. Sometimes Paul may focus on God’s character, particularly when the question arises whether God is really righteous or just, but, inasmuch as this character must show itself in, and be borne out by, appropriate actions or activity, it cannot be treated in purely static terms, nor does Paul so treat it. For he speaks of it in Rom 1.17 as being manifested in the present and being manifested in the gospel; the ‘gospel’ here surely means the activity of preaching that message rather than just the message itself. For the apostle speaks of that gospel as God’s power to bring about salvation (1.16) and seems to assert that this activity is happening now.

8.3 God’s Righteousness: When? In the first section of this chapter we saw how Paul could still use the traditional imagery of God’s future judgement, and many of his hearers would have expected that his talk of the revelation of God’s righteousness (and of God’s wrath) would refer to that future ‘day’. Against that, however, there is the present tense of ἀποκαλύπτεται in Rom 1.17 and the fact that the revelation takes place ‘in it’, in (the preaching of) the gospel. Even clearer is the perfect tense used in 3.21 (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ πεφανέρωται) and his subsequent talk of ‘being justified’ in the present tense in 3.24, so that Paul begins chapter 5 with what sounds like a summary statement of what he has shown in the first four chapters: δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως (5.1).11 This is repeated in v. 9 with a clear reference to Jesus’ death as the means of this justification: δικαιωθέντες νῦν ἐν τῷ αἵµατι αὐτοῦ. A similar aorist passive is also found in 1 Cor 6.11, in a passage often thought to be taken from early Christian tradition, perhaps baptismal tradition; at any rate mention is made of a past experience of being washed and sanctified as well as being justified, and the use of the three aorists suggests that these three aspects 10 So, for instance, the NEB, having translated δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ in Rom 1.17 as ‘God’s way of righting wrong’, opts for ‘ God’s justice’ in 3.5, 21 and 25–6, but translates δικαιοσύνη in 10.10 as ‘righteousness’. The NIV, on the other hand, having chosen ‘righteousness’ in Rom 1.17 and 3.5 and 21, switches to ‘justice’ in 3.25–6 and then to ‘are justified’ in 10.10 for εἰς δικαιοσύνην (so too RJB). The JB has ‘justice’ in 1.17 and 3.21, 25–6 (NJB ‘saving justice’ or, in 3.25, ‘justness’), ‘integrity’ in 3.5, and ‘made righteous’ in 10.10. 11 Nor, for that matter, is there any suggestion that the righteousness reckoned to Abraham had to wait for an eschatological future; in his case, too, Gen 15.6 LXX uses the aorist. The same applies to Ps 32.1 (LXX 31.1) quoted in Rom 4.7.

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were part of one and the same experience (but then presumably not in the sense of a direct quotation from the rite itself, but a formulation reminding Christians later, in the aorist, of this earlier foundational event). If this verse is quoting traditional material it would mean that Paul may not have been the first to speak in this way of a justification that had already happened.12 However, it should be noted that, while Paul in Rom 5.9 seems to link this justification to the moment of Christ’s death, 1 Cor 6.11 suggests, rather, that this is experienced at the moment of our baptism. Yet in Rom 5.9 Paul still sees this already accomplished justification as saving us in the future ‘from the wrath’ (of God), although he will later speak of this salvation in the aorist, even if qualifying it with τῇ … ἐλπίδι (Rom 8.24). Already accomplished and received is also our reconciliation (vv. 10–11) as well as the ‘newness of life’ in which we are already to walk (6.4; cf. v. 11, 13). And again, as it were, seemingly summing up the argument so far, he states the negative corollary of 5.1 in 8.1: οὐδὲν ἄρα νῦν κατάκριµα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. In 8.29–30 there also appears a ἐδικαίωσεν in the aorist, amidst a whole string of aorists, including the even more surprising ἐδόξασεν. In other words, there is an unmistakable tension in Paul’s statements between, on the one hand, the more traditional language of a still future judgement at which God will make known the verdict of acquittal (δικαιόω) or condemnation and, on the other, a justification and other blessings such as life and reconciliation with God that we already enjoy in the present, thanks to a present activity of God through the apostles, the preaching of the gospel, or a past event, the death of Jesus. A similar tension is found even more clearly in the Fourth Gospel. For a passage such as John 5.28–9 seems to represent a traditional eschatology of a coming hour when the dead in their graves will hear the voice of the Son and come out, either to the ‘resurrection of life’ or to the ‘resurrection of judgement’. Immediately before this, however, we hear that the one who hears Jesus’ word and believes the one who sent him has eternal life and does not come to be judged, but has already passed from death into life. The hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the Son’s voice and those who hear will live (5.24–5). The emphasis of the latter passage seems to be more characteristic of this work, with its claim that in Jesus’ coming into the world, the judgement of the world has already taken place as its inhabitants are confronted with the light that has in Jesus come into the world; that light is shunned by evildoers, but those who do the truth come willingly to the light; thus the one who believes in him is not judged, but the one who does not has already been judged (3.18–21). Now, whether one regards a passage like John 5.28–9 as a later insertion to bring the eschatology of the Fourth Gospel into line with traditional beliefs, as 12 Cf.

Zumstein, ‘Wort’, 31 n. 13.

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Bultmann and many others do,13 or whether one resists such literary theories and treats both eschatological beliefs as stemming from the one author,14 a hermeneutical problem remains: is one of the ‘hours’ or moments of judgement not superfluous? If one has already been ‘judged’ according to one’s response to Jesus’ word, what need is there of a further judgement after death? This question is, however, to be distinguished from the historical one whether the author of this work could have held together present and future; to that some have replied in the affirmative, others in the negative. Perhaps, though, that question needs to be refined: is it likely that the author combined both in quite this way within a few verses, without seemingly being aware of the apparent tensions between the two sets of statements? The question, however, that is now being asked here is yet a further one, whether it is convincing and meaningful to try to combine both today, particularly if one regards the future scenario, with all its often extravagant and even repellent imagery, as no longer credible. Similarly, too, with the tension in Paul’s thought between justification now and acquittal or confirmation of that justification at a last judgement. Evidently he, too, saw no contradiction between an acquittel and status already enjoyed by Christians now and a confirmation of that status and that acquittal at the final judgement. Again, however, we need to ask whether Christian faith today needs to hold on to both aspects. For, although many Christians today seem able and content to accept at face value the various versions of the eschatological scenario found in the New Testament and other early Christian literature,15 we need to recall that, by its very nature, the end-time, like the accounts of the creation and the beginning, has been the focus of intensive mythopoeic activity. The resultant mythological accounts, both of the end and of the beginning, which often correspond closely to one another,16 in fact tell us more about their authors’ experience and perception of their present than they can about a beginning and an end which those authors had never experienced or seen, and self-evidently could not have done 13  Bultmann, Johannes, 196–7; cf. also, e. g., Becker, Johannes 1, 291; Schnackenburg, John 2, 114–18, who usefully lists a number of arguments for treating vv. 27b–9 as an ‘alien element’ in the text: whereas v. 20 promised astonishment, v. 28 says one should not be astonished (although it could be argued that the respective reasons for astonishment and lack of it differ); in v. 25 νεκροί is used metaphorically, but v. 28 speaks quite literally of those in tombs; v. 28 leaves out the νῦν ἐστιν of v. 25; the φωνή of v. 28 is a ‘word of power which none can escape, not as before … a summons demanding a decision’; no longer is it a question of hearing, seeing and believing, but of doing good (v. 29); resurrection is no longer solely salvific, but there is also an ἀνάστασις κρίσεως. And finally he argues that these verses show no trace of distinctively Johannine style, and the vocabulary is not clearly Johannine. 14 Cf., e. g., Frey, Eschatologie 3, esp. 398–9; Schnelle, Johannes, 109–10; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 317–18; Wilckens, Johannes, 119–21. 15 One thinks in particular of the hold that the ‘rapture’ described in 1 Thess 4.17 (cf. 4 Ezra 6.26; 14.9) has on the expectations of much North American fundamentalism. 16 Cf. Russell, Method, 282–4, drawing on Dahl, ‘Christ’.

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so. The perspective of the present situation has been projected backwards onto the primal past and forward onto the still future end. So, for instance, when Paul appeals to the account of Adam’s fall in Rom 5.12–21, it is the universal sinfulness of humanity that is above all necessary for his argument,17 an argument that is greatly helped by the fact that the supposed ancestor of the human race was given a name that simply meant ‘a human being’, thus underlining his archetypal role in contrast to the archetypal Adam of the end-time. And, in this mythological world-view, there are found at the beginning and end depictions of a world in which the perceived faults of the present world are lacking, either because the world has not yet been contaminated by human sin, or because it has not yet been restored so as to conform to its Creator’s purpose. Heikki Räisänen rightly traces Jewish hopes of ‘a great and decisive turn of history’ in the future to the ‘hopes that evolved during the exile, in the disappointing postexilic conditions, and amid the Maccabean crisis’. The Jews looked back to their ‘highly idealized’ memories of the past, as nurtured in their traditions.18 In turn, the early Christians then took over this heritage from Jewish tradition and pressed it into the service of their own end-time scenarios, naturally modifying it to allow for the central role now played by Jesus. In the talk of a coming judgement, be it of Christian workers or of humanity, the present needs and the present realiy of the Christian community are to the fore. In the case of the Christian workers (1 Cor 3.10–15) a sense of responsibility and accountability is to be engendered in them. And when it is a matter of the future judgement of all humanity, then a sense of the unrighteousness prevalent in the current state of things is given expression, particularly when the Christian community, like the Jewish people before it, was at the receiving end of persecution, but also when confronted with the seemingly untroubled enjoyment of wickedness and the prosperity and wellbeing of the wicked that the members of the Christian community could see among their unbeleiving neighbours. Yet for the Christian community itself, apart from its feeling that righteousness and justice needed to be reasserted and reaffirmed in a final divine act, there was also the need to be reassured that they would not in the end suffer and that justice 17 Arguably Paul achieves the same goal by appealing to the universality of the freely given justification in Rom 3.24, if one treats the participle δικαιούµενοι as supporting and confirming the statement rather than treating it as if it were the beginning of a fresh and unrelated statement as many do. Haacker rightly sees, however, that Paul is not concerned to introduce a discussion of the theme of justification as such at this point (Römer, 89), although one needs to go further and affirm with Schrage that ‘the radical nature of sin is first disclosed by God’s saving action’ (‘Röm 3,21–26’, 69, admittedly apropos of vv. 20–1 rather than the grammar of 23–4). This would in addition be a confirmation of Sanders’ argument that Paul inferred the human need from the divine solution and not vice versa (Paul, 442–7). 18 Räisänen, Rise, 79; cf. also 113: ‘“Eschatology” is rooted in a dialectical hermeneutical process: present experiences are interpreted in the light of traditions, traditions are reinterpreted in the light of new experiences.’

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would prevail.19 Besides that, and more positively, there was their experience of the divine presence already in their midst and in their lives, through spiritual manifestations and the presence of the divine Spirit experienced and interpreted as a ‘pledge’ (ἀρραβών, 2 Cor 1.22; 5.5) and ‘firstfruits’ (ἀπαρχή, Rom 8.23) of what was to come, and above all through their ability to echo Jesus and call on God as ‘Abba, father’ (Rom 8.15; Gal 4.6). This sense of their oneness and peace with God (Rom 5.1) came to be expressed in language that anticipated and foreshadowed a declaration of their status that they believed would take place at a still future end.20 If, then, the often bizarre and sometimes even repellent depictions of the end, which often seem to reflect a vindictive and vengeful God rather than one of love, are a projection onto the future of what is experienced in the present, is it not legitimate and even desirable to ask why one should not rather concentrate fully on the present experiences and convictions that come to expression in those mythical accounts of the end-time? Yet even there one needs to set a questionmark against the vindictive and vengeful aspects of the God reflected there, aspects that are not wanting even in the teachings of Jesus, but are found even more clearly in the apocalyptic traditions of the New Testament and other early Christian literature.

8.4 Justification and Resurrection For Paul Abraham functions as the model of justification by faith and by faith alone. The example of this patriarch served him as his main argument against his critics already in Galatians 3, but in Romans 4 he picks up the story of this Old Testament figure once again. This time, however, the story is developed in a number of ways that are different when compared with Galatians 3.21 Above all, it is in the last part of the chapter that Paul makes use of the story in a way that is highly suggestive and sheds light on the way in which Paul thought of faith and justification. For he focuses on the extreme age of Abraham and Sarah which seemed to be an insurmountable barrier to their having a child that would be the bearer and channel of God’s promise of a multitude of descendants. In this episode from their lives one sees how little faith could be described as a work nor even as obedience. There was nothing that the pair could do, in those days before there were 19 Cf. Theissen, Theory, 8, on the function of religion in providing ‘a feeling of security in the world and a trust that in the end all is well or could be well’. 20 Yet, as noted in the Epilogue, this peace and oneness with God and access to grace (Rom 5.2) seems to be something that, according to Mark and Matthew, was not available to the crucified Jesus. 21 Cf., e. g., Beker, Paul, 95–9.

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treatments for infertility and the like, but trust and hope against hope (4.18) that somehow God’s promise might nevertheless be fulfilled, for they had nothing else to offer that might contribute to this fulfilment. The God that Abraham trusts is, however, described as one who ‘makes the dead live and summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were’ (4.17 NEB).22 And to reinforce this use of the language of resurrection and creation Abraham’s body is then described in v. 19 as ‘dead’ (νενεκρωµένον)23 and reference is made to the νέκρωσις of Sarah’s womb. (In fact, according to Gen 25.1–2, Keturah would later bear six further sons of Abraham!) Again the inability of human beings to contribute to their justification is underlined by these analogies, for what can the dead do so that they may live and what can things that do not exist do so that they exist? At the end of the chapter justification, the reckoning of righteousness, is again linked to resurrection, for those so justified are those who have faith in the one who raised Jesus from the dead (4.24). And, as we have already seen, v. 25 probably quotes traditional material which, unusually, speaks of Jesus’ resurrection being ‘for our justification’. This, I suggested, may already have presupposed the representative role of Jesus, not only in his death, but also in his resurrection, so that we are included in his resurrection, a resurrection that was at the same time Jesus’ justification in that he was restored to life for and with God (cf. Rom 6.10–11); for Paul Jesus’ being raised has to be seen against the apparent discrediting involved in a criminal’s death, a form of death that seems to place him under a divine curse (Gal 3.13). We rise or will be raised just as he was, just as his death means that we all died (2 Cor 5.14 again). The linking of justification and resurrection makes it clear that the former is not just a matter of not reckoning sins as in 4.6–8, but something far more positive: it is a matter of a restored relationship with God such as Jesus enjoyed and enjoys, life in all its fullness, and that is something available now to the believer (cf. Rom 6.4, 11). We have already seen that the theme of creation also plays a certain role in this latter part of chapter 4, although it is not so prominent as resurrection. Yet Paul had already spoken of a new creation that has taken place in believers’ lives (Gal 6.15; cf. 2 Cor 5.17). Such an insight lies all the nearer to hand in the light of Paul’s treatment of the nature of the resurrection, when he juxtaposes the first Adam and the last, the creation of the first human being and that of the eschatological Adam whom God raised from the dead (1 Cor 15.45, 47). That surely suggests that this raising was a creative act comparable to the original creation of the human race. 22 Most translate this last part of the verse with something like ‘calls into existence the things that do not exist’ (NRSV). Heb 11.19 also describes Abraham’s faith in being ready to sacrifice Isaac as faith in God’s ability to raise the dead. 23 And not just ‘as good as dead’ (NRSV).

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8.5 The Nature of Righteousness and Justification The meanings of these two words are closely related to one another, so closely that English translations have sometimes rendered δικαιοσύνη as ‘justification’.24 Yet, when Paul wants to speak of God’s activity in justifying us, he more commonly uses the verb δικαιόω or, especially when arguing from the example of Abraham, takes over such Septuagintal phrases as λογίζειν … εἰς δικαιοσύνην or λογίζειν δικαιοσύνην or, negatively, οὐ (µή) λογίζειν ἁµαρτίαν. Yet, in the history of Pauline exegesis, there has long been discussion of what Paul meant when he spoke of this divine act and what it entailed.25 Did it mean the bestowal of a new status or rather the opening up of a new relationship or both? Or did it involve some sort of ethical transformation? Was it a matter of a judicial declaration that one was righteous or did it mean that one was somehow ‘made righteous’? Did it mean that one was then ‘righteous’ and, if so, in what sense? Or just that one was regarded by God as if one were ‘righteous’? That last suggestion was, at any rate, vigorously rejected by Ernst Käsemann: for Paul God’s offer was not a matter of an ‘as if’ that did not involve a righteousness that had no concrete, earthly content.26 Yet there is still the question whether Abraham’s righteousness or ours was an ethical righteousness or something else? Or is it wrong to pose these alternatives instead of treating them as complementary aspects of a single reality? For Käsemann, at any rate, there are at least three aspects of God’s saving action to be borne in mind: this gift of God is a power within us, the Giver is given with the gift, and both the Giver and the gift are creative. For the dominant meaning of God’s righteousness is that of a divine gift that we receive in the present ‘effective in us and through us’.27 It is given to us in such a manner that it lies always before us and has to be continually appropriated anew. … the divine righteousness possesses us before we grasp it, and we retain it only so long as it holds us fast. The gift itself has thus the character of power.28

And this ‘power is always seeking to realize itself in action and must indeed do so’.29 Even if the way in which Käsemann seeks to prove his point is not always 24 Cf. Gal 2.21 RSV. And in fact Paul relatively rarely uses a noun that would be the equivalent of our word ‘justification’; there is δικαίωσις, found in Rom 4.25, as we have just seen, but there in a passage that is probably traditional in its language and ideas, and also in 5.18. 25 Käsemann, ‘Glaube’, 144, refers to ‘the long and bitter strife over the question whether the apostle is proclaiming a forensic-imputative or an effective righteousness’, a strife that he considers misplaced because it depends too much on more recent misinterpretations. 26 Käsemann, ‘Glaube’, 144–5. 27 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 181–2 n. (over against the criticism of this thesis by Bultmann, ‘ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗ ΘΕΟΥ’, 183 (ET 170). 28 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 183 (ET 170), appealing to the formulation of Rom 5.6–10. 29 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 187 (ET 175).

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convincing, it is to be granted that there is a group of terms that he regards as parallel to God’s righteousness and that likewise have the character of a power: ‘energy’ (Kraft),30 love, grace,31 peace, the gospel (cf. 1 Cor 9.16, ἀνάγκη; also the ‘word of the cross’ in 1.18), God’s wrath, even Christ himself.32 The way in which Paul uses these terms suggests that he too thought of them as powers. And Käsemann points out how often God’s righteousness is spoken of in terms appropriate to a power: it speaks (Rom 10.6), it must be served (6.18–19), but has itself a διακονία (2 Cor 3.9),33 and must be submiied to (Rom 10.3). Yet what happens when this power of God’s righteousness takes hold of us and enters into us? Here it may be suggestive to link God’s righteousness with the idea of a new creation, a comparison which, as we saw, Rom 4.17 encourages. Justification is then a powerful creative act, bringing about something new and setting the world of human beings in a new relationship to its God. That idea hangs together with that of the inseparability of gift and Giver, a point on which Käsemann insists in his argument with his former teacher, Rudolf Bultmann:34 The gift which is being bestowed here is never at any time separable from its Giver. It partakes of the character of power (Macht), in so far as God himself enters the arena and remains in the arena with it. Thus personal address (Anspruch), obligation and service are indissolubly bound up with the gift.35

Thus the presence of the Giver in the gift means that this gift is not just something to be received, but one that makes demands of us and transforms us. Here one might compare the adoption of a child, an image of which Paul was aware and of whose appropriateness he was conscious (Rom 8.15). For the parents that adopt a child do not merely bestow on it a status, but give themselves and open themselves to the child as its new parents. Adoption means a new relationship, and the righteousness that justification bestows is also a new relationship of God’s self-giving and opening up the divine self to us. Yet just as an adopted child may reject the relationship offered to it and seek to live as it were a stranger to its new parents and they to it, thus frustrating and destroying the relationship offered

30 W. J. Montague’s attempt, in New Testament Questions of Today, to distinguish ‘Macht’ and ‘Kraft’. 31 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 186 (ET 173), citing the rule of grace through righteousness in Rom 5.21. 32 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 186 (ET 173), citing Gal 2.20. 33 I take τῆς δικαιοσύνης here to be a subjective gen. parallel to τοῦ πνεύµατος in the previous verse. 34 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 185–6 (ET 173) n. 4; cf. ‘Glaube’, 145. 35 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 186 (ET 174). Something like ‘claim’ or ‘demand’ might be better for ‘Anspruch’; it is not just that something is said to us, but rather that something is demanded of us.

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to it,36 so God’s gift may be refused, and so too God’s gift may be rejected or misused: Every gift of God which has ceased to be seen as the presence of the Giver and has therefore lost its character as personal address (Anspruch), is grace misused and working to our destruction.37

Or, seen in positive terms, grace, rightly understood is the gracious God in person, who is with us and at the same time challenges us. And, just as the character of ‘power’ can, as we have already seen, appropriately be applied to a number of other aspects of God’s dealing with us, self-giving, too, is a characteristic that can be found in a number of statements about God’s dealings with us, as when Paul speaks of God’s love or Spirit (e. g. Rom 5.5).38 Seen in this light, righteousness is a relationship created and bestowed upon us by God and no quality that we have in ourselves. Yet the presence in the gift of the God who gives means, nonetheless, the possibility or indeed the necessity of transformation and a new way of life, of walking ‘in newness of life’ (Rom 6.4). Thus we come, Käsemann affirms, to a position where we can resolve the tension in the relationship of ‘declare righteous’ and ‘make righteous’. If we see in the divine righteousness only a gift that is an entity in itself, it is bound to look either as if God were in principle imputing something to us which we ourselves first had to realize, or as if he were changing our existence in a naturalistic way.

Once, however, one recognizes the nature of the gift as power and that the lordship of Christ is the real content of the gift, then the situation is quite different: the power of God ‘speaks to us in love and judgement’.39 This power and this love are, Käsemann reminds us, those of our Creator, who not only created us in the past, but desires to create us anew in the present. God’s word is, as in the Old Testament and Judaism, creative power.40 To be justified, he comments in a later essay, means that the Creator remains faithful to the created as the father [in Luke 15.11–32] did to his lost son despite all guilt, straying, godlessness, transforms the fallen and lost into new creatures, and re-establishes and fulfils in the midst of this world of sin and death those promises that we have misused.41

36 Or what if the lost son in Luke 15.11–32 had in fact insisted in having the status of one of his father’s day-workers and had refused the offered reconciliation? 37 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 187 (ET 175). 38 Cf. Wedderburn, ‘Paul and Jesus: The Problem of Continuity’, 107 and n. 33. 39 Käsemann, ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 189 (ET 176). In that Käsemann speaks here of judgement, it is clear that he has not lost sight of the forensic background of the language of righteousness and justification. 40 Käsemann, ‘Glaube’, 145. 41 Käsemann, ‘Rechtfertigung’, 132–3.

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Similarly, Moltmann speaks of Paul understanding God’s righteousness as ‘God’s creative acts in and for those who are threatened by absolute death because they have come under “the power of sin”, which is contrary to God’.42 Such language can be seen as a legitimate interpretation and further development of the apostle’s thinking in the light of the way in which the themes of justification, resurrection and creation are interwoven in Romans 4, but also because it helps to make Paul’s way of thinking that much more intelligible, linking together a number of themes that otherwise appear disparate and disconnected. Yet Käsemann also warns us against interpreting God’s righteousness in too individualistic terms, for the ‘δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ is for Paul God’s sovereignty over the world revealing itself eschatologically in Jesus’.43 It is not to be limited to the individual’s inward being. And yet Dorothee Sölle’s argument would seem to suggest that this sovereignty over the world is exercised through human representatives and only through God’s representatives. And yet it is hard to be sure how far the apostle was conscious of making such connections between justification, resurrection and new creation, and how far he deliberately used the one or the other of these images to interpret and shed light on another. The strong element of the metaphorical is, however, to be recognized in all three, particularly when they are applied to the situation in the present. That we have already seen in the case of justification, when a verdict usually passed at a future point of time is anticipated already in the present. It is even clearer in the case of resurrection and new creation. In the case of resurrection, I pointed out in Beyond Resurrection (esp. 156–8, 164–7) that, while Paul does speak of life as something to be attained through and beyond death, be it the death of the individual or our death ‘with Christ’, he does also speak of a present walking in ‘newness of life’ (Rom 6.4). More significantly still, he also speaks in a highly paradoxical way, not now of ‘life through death’, but rather ‘life in death’. We have already noted that in 2 Cor 4.10–11, where Vollenweider recognizes a ‘daring claim to resurrection life already in the present’.44 Yet here the resurrection life is manifested, not in leaving death behind or escaping from it, but precisely in the bearing of it while still living in this world. The same paradoxical idea emerges in one of those depictions of the antitheses that characterize apostolic existence when Paul asserts that ‘we are dying and, look, we are alive’ (2 Cor 6.9). Such language may well in turn echo Jesus’ sayings about losing one’s life and thereby gaining it (cf. Matt 10.39; 16.25–6; Mark 8.35–6; Luke 9.24–5; 17.33; also John 12.25). For, although these sayings are usually formulated in the future tense, these futures, if not logical ones, have a temporal application to this world, not some future beyond this world: the Way, 184. ‘Gottesgerechtigkeit’, 192 (ET 180). 44 Vollenweider, ‘Grosser Tod’, 370; cf. 378; ‘Ostern’, 53: ‘media morte in vita sumus’. 42 Moltmann, 43 Käsemann,

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choice between, on the one hand, clinging on to this life and in fact losing it and, on the other, losing it and in fact gaining or finding it is one that is realized in the life of discipleship in this world, in the immediate future of Jesus’ hearers as they react to his teaching. I also noted at this point D. Z. Phillips’ appeal to the motif of ‘dying to self’ as a retort to the preoccupation with survival after death: by dying to oneself one renounces any claim on the future, and one’s own life is no longer a necessity.45 In line with such thinking and in opposition to any form of ‘enthusiasm’ or docetism I concluded that once one sees that the life which Christ offers is only offered and appropriated through taking up one’s cross in obedience to the suffering and loving son of man, and realizes that we only truly live by bearing about in our bodies the putting to death of Jesus, then a very different view of a Christian’s life emerges. So far from being placed beyond the reach of death, one is daily exposed to it and daily courts it if the call of Jesus and his God demands it. No form of existence could be more thoroughly ‘earthed’ in this world and its sufferings, no form could be further from the pseudo-humanity which Käsemann so much dreads. … The alternative to belief in another life is, however, not what Paul scathingly dismisses as ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’ (1 Cor 15.32). for we have seen that Paul’s message for this life (and also that of John too, though his language is rather different) is in fact an ethically and spiritually stringent and challenging one: we are to die to ourselves and find our life precisely in this death within this world. Here and now we will meet our God and live for our God.46

Yet, however persuasive this critical and therefore selective interpretation and reinterpretation of Paul’s thought may sound and however much the intermeshing imagery of justification, resurrection and new creation helps to understand the apostle’s utterances and the thinking that implicitly lies behind them, we need to remember that this explanation is no proof that this is all true and valid, unless, that is, what the apostle says is above all criticism. It is a further step, a hermeneutical and also philosophical step, to evaluate the plausibility of these ideas, let alone their probability or truth. Can we really speak of a self-giving God and can we really experience the divine power at work in the present? And yet does the Christian tradition really allow us to think of a God that is not self-giving, at least if the life of Jesus in any way reflects the nature of his God, or to deny the experience of some mysterious Other that shapes and enriches our lives? For, in his table-fellowship offered to outcasts and ‘sinners’, Jesus through this action held out to them God’s welcome, and in his ministry of teaching and healing opened up to his fellow human beings a renewal and reorientation of their lives in this world, through the power of the God that was at work in and through him.

Death, 52–3; cf. also Kaufman, Theology, 49. Beyond Resurrection, 166–7, 169. The reference to Käsemann is primarily to his Testament. 45 Phillips,

46 Wedderburn,

9. Epilogue We have seen how Jesus, however reluctantly, submitted himsef to what he saw as God’s will for himself, but then the next day reproached his God for forsaking him. This is the Jesus whom Matthew depicts as affirming that his God could at will send legions of angels to rescue him (Matt 26.53). For this is a God for whom all things are possible (Mark 14.36). These words attributed to Jesus are in principle thoroughly credible and in character with the beliefs of his Jewish contemporaries. The Old Testament God might have a change of mind, even ‘repent’ of something that had been foretold, promised, or threatened. What eventually came to pass, however, corresponded to the will of an almighty God. The reproach on the cross is then all the more intelligible. The almighty God could have intervened, but did not. However, what if this conviction of God’s almightiness was mistaken, an assumption held by Jews of that time, but not therefore necessarily valid? What if it is not in the divine nature and being to do everything that God wants? What if it rather lies in God’s nature to suffer with humanity and the world, with an impulse that we refer to as God’s spirit at most prodding us, cajoling us, appealing to us, but never forcing or compelling us or anyone to do anything? The rescue and intervention that Jesus at that point of time hoped for or even expected would then not be compatible with the real nature of his God, a nature that allowed Jesus’ enemies to do their worst to him, but yet a nature that meant that God suffered with Jesus on the cross, sharing the rejection, the hostility and the barbarity that Jesus’ opponents heaped upon him. By implication we have raised the question whether Jesus was right in thinking that this fate was God’s will for him. It is easier to see that God might indeed want him to declare his message of the coming of the kingdom at the heart of Judaism, in Jerusalem, thereby challenging the religious authorities there. If that message was one of grace and salvation, as it was, even though undergirded by a threat of judgement if it was not heeded, then it was right and proper that it should be heard in that city too, however painful and offensive it seemed to some. Yet was it also necessary that Jesus should let himself be captured and be left alone, deserted by his friends and followers? Did his readiness to do this stem from his conviction that God would inevitably intervene at last? At any rate, there had apparently been earlier occasions when Jesus had proclaimed his message, offending at least some of his hearers thereby, and had then passed on to deliver it

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elsewhere. However, this time he adopted a diffferent approach, with fateful and fatal consequences.1 At this point, then, we must perhaps ask whether a thoroughly ‘Jesucentric’ approach is to be followed right to the end. For, if Jesus, following the assumptions and convictions of his contemporaries, had in fact been led to a conviction concerning God’s will and nature that is questionable, does it not follow that we must deliberately and reverently diverge from the path that he trod, a path that led him to the tragic and agonizing discovery that he had lost contact with his God? Similar assunptions about the divine omnipotence were naturally held by Jesus’ followers, and that meant that there had to be a reason, a divine purpose, for Jesus’ death. It could not in their eyes just be a tragic case of a miscarriage of justice at the hands of wicked human rulers. Thus there arose that whole battery of explanations and images by which early Christians sought to make what had happened to Jesus intelligible, part of a divine plan. These explanations were based on the assumption that there had to be a divine plan, which God then realized, despite the cost to his servant Jesus. Yet the assumption of a divine plan and even more the assumption that God could and would inevitably realize it, need to questioned critically. At first sight Paul might seem to question the assumption that, if there were a divine rationale behind God’s allowing Jesus to die on the cross, then it is beyond human powers to comprehend it. Yet at that point more than human powers seem to come to the rescue, in the illumination granted by God’s spirit, and Paul, as we saw, makes use of a diverse selection of images, most of which, and perhaps all, had already been invoked by his Christian predecessors and contemporaries as they attempted to make sense of Jesus’ death as planned and used by God. However, if the idea of a divine plan that must be realized is a mistaken one, what of the supposed spiritual illumination that is supposed to have revealed it to God’s people? Does the claim to spiritual illumination have to remain unchallenged and unquestioned? Or are the answers that it purportedly came up with too much part of a framework of thought and a world-view that carried conviction then, but can do so no longer? Then it might well be true that human reason cannot explain Jesus’ death simply because there is no explanation, at least in terms of the outworking of a divine plan involving that death, but rather a combination of all too human factors that had that cruel and tragic outcome. Yet does Paul nevertheless offer us some opportunity of finding a place for this seemingly pointless death in our thinking and lives? One possible point of contact lay in Jesus Christ as a representative human being (of the inclusive sort), one with whose experiences we can identify and who, in some way or another, 1 This difference becones all the more problematic if Jesus had indeed proclaimed his message in Jerusalem on earlier occasions, provoking antipathy and indignation, as the Fourth Gospel suggests.

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acted as a model, a pattern for us. Yet Jesus can be a model for us in a number of ways, in his self-giving and self-denying for the sake of others, as Paul underlines in a number of places including his paraenetic use of the death of Jesus in the hymn of Phil 2.6–11. It is, however, perhaps understandable that Paul does not find room here for the reproachful Jesus who calls on an absent God, however much such thoughts come to expression in many Old Testament psalms, admittedly qualified there with a trust in God’s eventual intervention, a trust that is strikingly absent from Jesus’ despairing cry. The other Pauline theme that we considered was that of our present justification. It is true that Paul uses a whole range of tenses to speak of justification, past (perhaps, as we saw, drawing on an early Christian baptismal tradition echoed in 1 Cor 6.11), present and future. We saw that the dramatic future scenario becomes somewhat superfluous if justification has already been granted. Moreover, the strongly anthropomorphic character and characterization of God as judge is questionable. It is true, however, that one may speak of being ‘judged’ by other than human beings, e. g. if we feel ourselves ‘judged’ by the glaring injustices in which we live, especially if we live on the more privileged side of it. To be ‘judged’ in a negative sense does not therefore require a quasi-human figure confronting us, but may simply be an other whose nature calls us and our lives in question. Positively, however, Paul speaks of the ‘peace’ of the justified with their God (Rom 5.1), the ‘peace’ of a right relationship with God. Rightly it has repeatedly been pointed out that it was the role of the Old Testament judge not simply to declare someone innocent or guilty, but to put right that which was wrong, to bring that society into equilibrium and into a state of righteousness again. Yet, in the New Testament, what is the ‘right relationship’ that justification brings about? Does it not depend upon the nature of the God to whom we are related? Certainly, time and again the New Testament emphasizes that God’s children should manifest those qualities that it believes most characteristic of God, loving, merciful and the like. The importance of the question of God’s nature becomes clear when we compare those whose view of the nature of God leads them to kill and hurt their felllow human beings in the name of their (view of) God. Yet what does all this have to do with Jesus’ death and Jesus’ death with it? It is true that Paul at times links justification to Jesus’ death (Rom 5.9), but what is the connection? Is ‘peace’ like ‘justification’ effected by a sacrificial death as Rom 3.24–6 may suggest. If one looks at the manner of Jesus’ death on the cross, however, particularly as depicted in Matthew and Mark, there is little sign of ‘peace’ with God there. Had we only Luke’s account of Jesus’ death it would be another matter; for having assured one of those crucified with him that he would join him that day in paradise, he dies committing his spirit to God in the words of Ps 31.5 (Luke 25.42, 46). Yet we saw that it was unlikely that, had Matthew and Mark known of any such tradition, they would have chosen to depict Jesus’ death as they did; they seem rather to have known of a far less edifying version,

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which, despite its apparent offensiveness, they handed on. And if one looks for ‘justification’, in the sense of vindication, it is rather to be found, if anywhere, in the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, as Rom 4.25 suggests. Yet we have seen that Jesus’ reproach from the cross, even, as it were, raging against God, however understandable given his assumptions, may not in fact be appropriate if one’s view of God’s nature is in fact different. More appropriate would be a raging, and a grieving, with God in the face of the evil that had brought Jesus to the cross and which, then and now, ravages God’s world. At the same time one is then rid of the sometimes rather passive, docile connotations of ‘peace’ with God and even of being in a right relationship with God. For now one shares that God’s concern and anguish, one suffers with God and feels oneself something of the weight of the world’s suffering and the injustice rampant in it. In other words, just as we noted at the end of the previous chapter a restriction in the use of the model of Jesus’ life as a guide to Christian ethics, so, too, we can see an absence of a sense of the breadth and depth of the life that Jesus actually led, with its dynamic and its vicissitudes.2 For Paul’s use of the pattern of Jesus’ life is highly selective, and often in his arguments it is at best implicit that it is in fact Jesus’ life that is the basis of his arguments and appeals; it may often be that he bases himself rather on the selectivity and extrapolations from Jesus’ life and teaching used by his predecessors in the faith. At any rate, the focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection in the ‘story’ of Jesus that Paul tells leaves little place for doing justice to other parts of his earthly life, however useful they might potentially have been.3 It must be granted that this was not a way of seeing things shared by either Jesus or Paul, nor, in the light of the world-view of that time, was it to be expected that they would do so. Nor is it a way of seeing things congenial to traditional theology, and the view of God reflected in it remains indistinct and mysterious. To my mind that may well speak more in its favour than against it. If our glimpses of God in this world would remain but fragmentary, at least one is left with a God who is no ruthless monster, is not at odds with God’s self, and a God with whom we can sympathetically identify and find therein a calling and a way of life that is both immensely challenging and immensely fulfilling.

2 And yet Paul himself, with, for instance, his attitude to ‘sinners’, may well have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by traditions of Jesus’ dealings with the ‘sinners’ of his world (cf. Wedderburn, ‘Paul and Jesus: Similarity and Continuity’, 130–6). Yet a passage like Gal 2 makes no reference to Jesus’ example. 3 Cf. further the discussion in Wedderburn. ‘Paul and the Story of Jesus’.

Appendix: The Shorter Text in Luke 22.15–19a For most exegetes the much better attested longer text of Luke’s version of Jesus’ last meal seems without doubt to be preferred, and few spend much time on weighing up the text-critical merits of the two versions.1 The shorter text may be poorly attested but is, on the other hand, an important example of that much discussed textual phenomenon, a ‘Western non-interpolation’. The text-critical data are well-known and are clearly set out in tabular form in Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary.2 Over against the majority of texts a handful of witnesses have a shorter version of Luke’s text: – D and ita, d, ff2, i, l vv. 17–19a (… τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶµά µου) – itb, e and syrc vv. 19, 17 and 18 in that order (but syrc omits τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑµῶν … ἀνάµνησιν in v. 19) – syrs 19, 20a (καὶ … δειπνῆσαι), 17, 20b (in the form τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ αἷµά µου ἣ διαθήκη ἡ καινή) and 18 in that order – l 32, syrp, boms only vv. 19 and 20.3

It is questionable whether one can argue that the longer reading is the lectio difficilior?4 The repetition of sayings about the cup (vv. 17, 20) is a difficulty,5 but is it not also the case that the presence of a text that lacked a cup saying paral1 A pleasing exception is the commentary of François Bovon (Lukas 4, 241). The textual critics in question are Bard Ehrman (Corruption, 198–209, and ‘Cup’) and David Parker (Text, 151–7). Other, earlier advocates for the shorter text (Cadbury, Rese) are also mentioned by Ulrich Schmid, ‘Textkonstitution’, 579 n. 4. See also Matson, Dialogue, 180–4. A similar openness to Bovon’s can be detected in Radl, Lukas-Evangelium, 11, when he concedes that a fully satisfactory explanation of the shortened text has yet to be found. He is rightly, for instance, dissatisfied with the suggestion that vv. 19b–20 were omitted in some texts to preserve an arcane discipline (cf. Jeremias, Words, 158–9; also Metzger, Commentary, 176), asking why that then occurred in the case of Luke, but not of Matthew or Mark (10). 2 Metzger, Commentary, 175, following ‘with a few minor modifications’ F. G. Kenyon and S. C. E. Legg, in The Ministry and the Sacraments (ed. R. Dunkerley; London: SCM, 1937) 284–5. 3 Metzger, Commentary, 174, mentions two Sahidic MSS as also witnesses for this last reading. 4 Pace Bovon. Contrast Jeremias, Words, 152. Nonetheless, having argued for the shorter reading in the first ed. of his work, he changed his mind in the 2nd. 5 In itself the sequence of grasping hold of a cup (δεξάµενος ποτήριον  – anarthrous) in v. 17, followed by καὶ τὸ ποτήριον ὡσαύτως (sc. λαβὼν … εὐχαριστήσας as in v. 19, but hardly ἔκλασεν as well!) in v. 20, is awkward and problematic enough to suggest that we may have here two traditions somewhat clumsily linked together. (Are we to understand that the arthrous τὸ ποτήριον refers to the same cup as v. 17 or to another one? It is to be noted that, if we are right

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lel in form to the bread saying would also be felt to be highly problematic once the two parallel sayings, in some form or other, had become an established part of the ritual celebration of the Lord’s Supper in many parts of the early church, particularly when the one cup saying came before the saying about the bread?6 David Parker, commenting on the similarity of the longer Lukan text to 1 Corinthians, comments that ‘here … a harder shorter text may have been harmonised to a parallel passage’.7 Moreover, if the duplication of two cup-sayings was felt to be so great a problem that one of them must be deleted, then, rather than deleting the familiar and presumably by then well established saying of v. 20 and thus reversing the accustomed order of bread-cup, would it not have seemed easier to a scribe to delete v. 18, perhaps with v. 17 as well, as in syrp?8 Nevertheless, Michael Wolter argues that ‘v. 19d–e were deleted because they have no parallel in the other Synoptic versions, and … v. 20 has been left out because a second cup saying was felt to be redundant’. The lack of a parallel to 19d–e could, however, only be an objection if the scribe were unaware of 1 Cor 11.24.9 And yet Wolter immediately goes on to argue that the order cup-bread should not continue to give concern (to us or the scribe?) because the same sequence occurs in 1 Cor 10.16 and Did 9.1–4.10 However, a scribe who knew (and was re-assured by) 1 Cor 10.16 would be likely to know 1 Cor 11.24 as well, and find equal re-assurance there, even if he were unware of Did 9.1–4. Furthermore, if it is true that a text was more likely to be lengthened than shortened (lectio brevior potior) then that, too, speaks for the shorter text. For one has to consider not only the question of the ‘more difficult’ reading, but also that of which textual alteration it is ‘more difficult’ to in inferring that ὡσαύτως in v. 20 includes a blessing, then the cup was already blessed in v. 17.) Cf. Schürmann, Paschamahlbericht, 50.   6 On the other hand, Jens Schröter questions how far the words of institution were a regular part of early Christian celebrations of this meal and how unified the practice was, including the sequence of bread and cup: Abendmahl, 17; cf. 89, 134, 170; on the other hand, he argues that different interpretations of the meal do not necessarily imply different forms of the meal and seems to grant that the tradition of the words of institution was a stable element in most liturgies ‘from the earliest time – even when presumably not yet in earliest Christianity’ (23; yet cf. 69: ‘There is no evidence in the texts of the first two centuries that the words of institution were a fixed part of Christian celebrations of the meal’), while granting that these words existed from the start in different versions (125). Were the actions involving cup and bread originally separated by an entire meal, then a parallel word accompanying each of them would be less probable; cf. Schürmann, Einsetzungsbericht, 66.   7 Parker, Text, 153; cf. the principle stated on p. 155: ‘that reading is to be preferred which avoids harmonisation’.   8 Cf. Radl, Lukas-Evangelium, 10.   9 Jeremias, Words, 153–4, sees here the influence of Mark 14.22, 24 also: τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑµῶν ἐκχυννόµενον has been ‘added with great clumsiness’, and not in the dative as might be expected; in Mark 14.24 (and Matt 26.28) it is in the nominative in agreement with τὸ αἷµα (although Luke 22.20 has ὑµῶν instead of πολλῶν). 10 Wolter, Lukas-Evangelium, 699.

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envisage in the history of the transmission of the text. Here one may grant that an early Christian, confronted with a version containing two cup sayings, might find that puzzling, perhaps even a little asymmetrical. Yet it is quite a considerable step then to delete one of the sayings if there were nothing objectionable in the content of either of them. Moreover, as Ehrman, following Hort, notes,11 he would also have deleted (needlessly) part of the bread saying. On the other hand, encountering a version lacking the parallel sayings over bread and cup that were widely known, in one version or another, in the early church, and moreover one where a different cup saying came before the bread saying, an early Christian could conceivably find far less difficulty in simply adding to the text a version of the rest of the familiar words of institution.12 In all this, it should be noted that we have merely applied two standard principles of textual criticism,13 while noting that how the principle of preferring the more difficult reading is most appropriately applied may be a matter for considerable dispute. Ehrman, however, goes a step further when, appealing to ‘protoorthodox’ Christians’ invoking of the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper to counter docetic views, he argues that this was the motivation for this particular ‘corruption’ of the original, shorter text of Luke.14 That might be the motivation for some, but perhaps the widespread use of, and familiarity with, the words of institution in some form or other is a more convincing and sufficient explanation of such an overwhelming attestation of the longer text.15 In other words, it is possible to argue in favour of the shorter text without necessarily endorsing Ehrman’s additional, theological explanation for the addition of vv. 19b–20. At any rate, it is surely arguable that the shorter text lacking Luke 22.19b–20 has a claim to be earlier than the longer version, as not only the lectio brevior but also possibly the lectio difficilior, and, if the attempts above to guard against too loose an application of the phrase ‘a’ or ‘the original text’ hold any weight,16 the only claim that the longer reading might have to be ‘original’ would be if the author of this Gospel is thought to have added 22.19b–20 himself, rather than some follower of his subsequently. Or, if one thinks that both vv. 15–19a and 19b–20 stem from Lukan special material, then the same could be true of whoever was 11 Ehrman,

Corruption, 207.

12 Ferdinand Hahn argues that the shorter text reflects a liturgical practice that confined itself

to the bread saying (Theologie 2, 555), but would that not be awkward when the shorter text has already mentioned a cup? 13 Cf. Jeremias, Words, 153: ‘The two basic rules of textual criticism, “The shorter text is the older”, and “The more difficult reading is to be preferred”, unanimously commend the Short Text.’ If one confines oneself to these two principles then many of the arguments brought by Schmid, ‘Textkonstruktion’, against Ehrman’s theological argumentation do not have the same force, at least with regard to theological influences on the scribes responsible for later alterations. 14 Ehrman, Corruption, esp. 208–9. 15 And Ehrman, Corruption, 28, does allow for the influence of other motives for altering the text of the New Testament, such as the desire to harmonize one text with another. 16 See ch. 3 above.

190

Appendix: The Shorter Text in Luke 22.15–19a

responsible for the transmission of this material.17 (Hans Klein argues that the use of a tradition near to that of 1 Cor 11.24–5 is likelier if ‘Luke’ added it, since a later editor would have been more likely to have added a text nearer to Matthew and Mark – unless, of course, it occurred in a context where the Pauline version was better known, not to mention one in which Luke was the only gospel known.)18 To talk of earlier and later versions of the text might perhaps be thought preferable, however, since in most cases it would be very hard to decide whether the addition was due to the original author himself or stemmed from a follower of his, from what Epp refers to as ‘successor literary activity’ (269), and in the latter case whether the addition was sanctioned by the author or made independently of him. Yet, if Ehrman’s argument regarding ‘Luke’s’ intentions is sound, then in this particular case the postulate of a later hand becomes more plausible.19 If a version of the words of Jesus at his last meal that lacked Luke 22.19b–20 or its equivalent once existed separately, and indeed may already have had its place in a version of Luke before 19b–20 were added, then it is surely legitimate to ask how this version would have been understood by those that then heard, wrote

Lukas 4, 242, allows for both possibilities. Lukasevangelium, 664–5. 19  It is not clear to me quite what Parker is claiming when he concludes that ‘shorter Luke is to be preferred’ (Text, 155); is he thinking of it as the ‘original text’ without using that phrase, although it is a basic contention of his work that ‘There is no original text’ (4, his italics; cf. 91, 208–9)? (Ehrman at this point shows fewer inhibitions about talking of the ‘original text’.) Or what is implied by this ‘preference’? Simply that this version is earlier and existed originally without its longer continuation? But ‘Luke’ might, on second thoughts, have ‘preferred’ the longer version, and then perhaps we should share his ‘preference’. Nor is it clear to me in what direction Parker’s observations about the way in which the shorter text does not fit into ‘Luke’s’ general handling of the theme of table-fellowship point, for this is then ‘a rite more or less just handed over’ (but then surely not with anything said about doing it in memory of Jesus until one comes to the various slightly longer Syriac versions?); there is ‘virtually no liturgical elaboration, and above all no reference to the death of Jesus’ (154). (What justifies already calling it a ‘rite’? If the instruction to do this ‘in memory of me’ is omitted, is one not then left with the impression of an isolated act of somewhat indeterminate meaning?) Would that not then suggest that Luke himself might have felt the shorter version to be somewhat lacking and have added vv. 19b–20? The absence of a connection to Jesus’ (saving) death, on the other hand, is not so surprising in a work that also lacks any parallel to Mark 10.45 par. (cf. also Jeremias, Words, 154–5, who lists a number of stylistic features that are not Lukan, but adds that that is not unexpected in a quotation of a liturgical text). At this point Ehrman’s argument is perhaps more incisive than either Parker’s or Jeremias’s, in that he stresses both that vv. 19b–20 introduce soteriological ideas that ‘Luke’ seems otherwise to take pains to avoid, and also that a number of key expressions here (ὑπὲρ ὑµῶν, ἀνάµνησις, καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵµατί µου) have no parallel elsewhere in Luke-Acts; his conclusion is that only the shorter text ‘coincides with the Lukan understanding of Jesus’ death; the other attests precisely the theology that Luke has otherwise taken pains to suppress’ (cf. Parker, Text, 155–6, and Ehrman, Corruption, 202). 17 Bovon, 18 Klein,

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and read it, even if we may never know whether Jesus ‘originally’ said something of the sort (no more, no less?) at that last meal.20 ‘This is my body’, without further explanation, seems enigmatic, although it is also the version of the bread saying found in Mark 14.22//Matthew 26.26. It is true that Heinz Schürmann maintains that the participial explanation has here been transferred to the cup saying, and that such an explanation was earlier attached to the bread saying. Yet he rightly recognizes that one would have thought that it would be simpler to give both sayings a parallel explanatory participial phrase, and there are doubts about his argument that early Christians would have been readier to rephrase and rearrange sayings of Jesus than to expand them.21 What is true is his contention that one could more easily use the one saying to interpret the other when they followed hard upon one another in the accounts of the last meal, less so when they were separated from one another by the whole meal.22 Nonetheless, it may be of value to reflect on what this account would imply for the understanding of Jesus’ last meal, whether it was a version that sufficed for ‘Luke’ or whether he himself felt constrained to supplement it. For, as Parker points out, it is a version that seems to imply that Jesus passed the cup on to his disciples to drink from without drinking from it himself (or at least it could be so understood);23 v. 18 seems rather to suggest that Jesus will first drink of it when God’s kingdom comes, or at least could be interpreted in that way. The 20  It is noteworthy that Ferdinand Hahn, although he considers Luke 22.15–20 a unity, regards the Markan version of the bread saying as going back to Jesus, along with Mark 14.25 parr. as the original saying over the cup (Theologie 2, 536, 539, 544). However, he interprets the bread saying simply as a sign of Jesus’ self-giving, but perhaps one should, as I suggest below (and in ch. 3 above), also ask what the distribution of the bread and the eating of it by the disciples might symbolize, particularly if Schröter is right to stress that the neuter τοῦτο cannot refer to the masculine ἄρτος, but must refer to the breaking and distributing of the bread (and to receiving and eating it?): Abendmahl, 128; cf. 171. 21 Schürmann, Einsetzungsbericht, 122–3. 22 Schürmann, it should be noted, assumes from the start, despite the existence of the shorter text, that v. 19a is to be taken with 19b–20, and that one piece of tradition ends with v. 18 and another begins with v. 19, even if both were joined together in pre-Lukan tradition. It is true that he can point to certain stylistic differences between vv. 15 and 17 on the one hand and vv. 19 and 20 on the other: v. 17 has δεξάµενος, v. 19 λαβών; v. 17 has Λάβετε τοῦτο καὶ διαµερίσατε εἰς ἑαυτούς, while vv. 19–20 lack this; vv. 15 and 17 have εἶπεν, vv. 19–20 λέγων; v. 17, in contrast to vv. 19 and 20, lacks καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς and the article before ποτήριον. Yet is this sufficient to show that 19a belongs to 19b–20 and always has done, particularly if the addition of 19b–20 might have caused some adjustment to the wording of 19a as well? (Schürmann, Paschamahlbericht, 47.) 23 Schürmann, Paschamahlbericht, 49, notes that it is unclear whether Jesus actually drank from it himself, but later (63) argues that it would have been contrary to Jewish practice had Jesus not first drunk from it, and there is no hint that Jesus failed to follow this practice. On the other hand, Schröter, Abendmahl, 133, argues that Jesus could have refrained from drinking of the cup and have passed it to the others ‘in an unusual and therefore striking gesture’, showing his hope for the realization of God’s kingdom.

192

Appendix: The Shorter Text in Luke 22.15–19a

abrupt form of the saying over the bread is so short as to heighten the enigma of Jesus’ meaning; the (given or broken) ‘for you’, so prominent in some other versions, except that of Mark, is lacking in the shortest version (but then added in the somewhat longer Syriac versions). The cup has already been mentioned and receives no further commentary. Nor is a parallel word over the cup offered that might through its parallelism provide some interpretative clue as Mark 14.24 does for 14.22. Preference for the more difficult reading is one thing, but there can come a point where difficulty shades over into impossibility, and one might well be reluctant to have Jesus or his followers talk nonsense. However, if vv. 19b–20 are left aside, the enigmatic ‘This is my body’ is immediately followed by the saying to the effect that one of those present will betray him or hand him over, a saying that unleashes a discussion amongst his disciples as to the identity of this person who will thus betray the fellowship of the meal (22.21–3).24 That makes sense if the action of breaking and distributing the bread and the saying were meant to cement the disciples’ solidarity with Jesus and their fellowship with him and with one another in the impending crisis. The action’s effectiveness would be immediately offset by the action of one of those who were supposed to be committing themselves to supporting Jesus at this hour.25 Yet is it a matter of solidarity and pledging solidarity? Or, more accurately, is it just a matter of solidarity and pledging solidarity? Would not the sheer fact of eating together not be enough in itself? In other words, is the word over the bread then superfluous? What it does, however, add over and above the fellowship involved in eating together is that it focuses upon the person of Jesus as that which binds this fellowship together, imparting to this fellowship an identity that is bound up with participation in Jesus’ way, in much the same way as Paul could see in the shared bread and cup a κοινωνία in Jesus’ body and blood, a κοινωνία that in turn would bind the participants together in one community (1 Cor 10.16–17). And the unusual sequence of cup followed by bread, both in 24 It is followed by a number of pericopes held together by themes of unity and mutual service amongst the disciples in imitation of Jesus (22.24–7), by the role of the faithful disciples in the meal of the coming kingdom and in the judging of Israel (22.28–30), by the warning of the testing that would befall Peter and by his role in strengthening his fellows (22.31–4). If the action and the saying of v. 19b were meant to bind the disciples to Jesus and to one another, then this sequence of thought is a relatively coherent one. This would support Bovon’s contention that ‘Luke’ follows his special material throughout Luke 22.15–38 (Lukas 4, 262), over against Heinz Schürmann’s analysis, which sees here an interweaving of special material and material from Mark (Jesu Abschiedsrede). On the other hand, Schröter, Abendmahl, 49, dismisses as ‘unnecessary’ the suggestion of Luke’s use of a special source here. 25 However, in Luke’s version of the scene in Gethsemane (22.39–46) the failure of the three disciples is not nearly so prominent as in Mark and Matthew. It may be going too far to argue, as Ehrman attempts to do (Corruption, 206), that Luke 22.19a is the beginning of the next pericope (vv. 21–2) if that means separating 19a from what precedes it; the mere possibility, however, may underline how unified and continuous the passage may well be.

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Luke and in 1 Corinthians, may well be due to a similar desire to stress the fellowship symbolized by the shared bread, a shared bread which in turn symbolizes a common relationship to the person of Jesus. For Paul at least it is the saying concerning the bread that enables him to make use of the collective metaphor of σῶµα used of a group of persons (εἷς ἄρτος, ἓν σῶµα οἱ πολλοί ἐσµεν); the cup did not have the same potential as a metaphor as that of the ‘body’, which was a widespread image for a collective entity with its plurality of constituent parts.26 The doubling involved in the two cup sayings is, at any rate, awkward, and strongly suggests the merging of two traditions. It is more difficult to say whether this merging occurred at a pre-Lukan stage, in ‘Luke’s’ own composition, or at a later point in time. Yet, if Ehrman’s argument holds good when he insists that ‘either Luke constructed his narrative with blinding inconsistency or he penned the shorter form of the text’,27 then there is more to be said for the last of these three alternatives than many exegetes will grant. (Had ‘Luke’ taken over a tradition that already combined these two strands of tradition, then he would be almost as much open to a charge of ‘inconsistency’ as if he had himself merged the two, or at least of handling this traditional material with less care than in his treatment of a text like Mark 10.45.) If, then, it is unlikely that ‘Luke’ himself would have had second thoughts on this matter, then one would have to concede that it is more likely that someone else had them for him. On the other hand, if one wants to avoid charging ‘Luke’ with ‘blinding inconsistency’ or at least a lapse in theological rigour and consistency, then Parker’s fifth form of the tradition in the New Testament can take its place alongside the Didache as a witness to a tradition in which Jesus’ death was not interpreted as an atoning one at this last meal. And there is, in my opinion, good reason to doubt whether Jesus would have interpreted his death as atoning,28 and good reason to suspect that the versions of the words of institution that do so interpret it in their different ways (e. g. alluding either to Exod 24.8 or Jer 31.31) are later theologumena. In that case the traditions lacking soteriological dimensions of this sort may well go back to an earlier stage of the tradition of the last meal, if not necessarily to Jesus himself.29

26 Schröter, Abendmahl, 30, 70, sees here a similarity to Did 9.4 as well as in the order cupbread. 27 Ehrman, Corruption, 204. 28 Cf., e. g., Schröter, Abendmahl, 132. Also ch. 3 above. 29 For the shorter Lukan text and the tradition of the Didache differ sufficiently to make it unlikely, if not impossible, that both could go back to that last meal.

Bibliography of Works Consulted For the most part only works actually referred to in the text and notes of the above study are cited. Not included separately are a number of dictionary articles to which reference is also made.

1. Primary sources The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation (ed. J. K. Elliott; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung (ed. W. Schneemelcher; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 6th/5th ed. 1989–90) Die ältesten Apologeten (ed. E. J. Goodspeed; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914, repr. 1984) The Apostolic Fathers (tr. B. D. Ehrman; LCL 24–25; Cambridge MA/London: Harvard University Press, 2003) Die Apostolischen Väter (ed. J. A. Fischer; Schriften des Urchristentums 1; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966) Calvin, J., Institution de la religion Chrestienne (ed. J.-D. Benoit; Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1957–63) The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (ed. F. G. Martínez, E. J. C. Tigchelaar; Leiden etc.: Brill, 1997, 1998) Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae (tr. E. Cary; LCL; London: Heinemann/ Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1937–50) Foerster, W. (ed.), Gnosis: Selection of Gnostic Texts (ed./tr. R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, 1974; ET of Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1969, 1971) Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (ed. W. W. Harvey; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1857) Josephus, Opera (tr. H. St. J. Thackeray, R. Marcus et al.; LCL; London: Heinemann/Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1926–65) The Mishnah: A New Translation (tr./ed. J. Neusner; New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1988) New Testament: The Greek New Testament (ed. K. Aland et al.; Stuttgart: United Bible Societies/Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1966, 3rd ed. 1983, 4th ed. 1993) Novum Testamentum Graece (ed. E. and E. Nestle, B. and K. Aland et al.; Stuttgart, Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 27th ed. 1993) The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; London: DLT, 1983, 1985)

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Philo of Alexandria (tr. F. H. Colson, G. H. Whitaker, R. Marcus; LCL; London: Heinemann/Cambridge MA: Harvard University, 1929–62) Plato, Opera (ed. J. Burnet; SCBO; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900–7) Plutarch, Moralia (tr. F. C. Babbitt et al.; LCL; Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ./London: Heinemann, 1927–69) Ritter, A. M. (ed.), Alte Kirche (Kirchen‑ und Theologiegeschichte in Quellen 1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1977, 5th ed. 1991) Septuaginta (ed. A. Rahlfs; Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935, 7th ed. 1962)

2. Reference Works BDAG = A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (ed. F. W. Danker; Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 3rd ed. 2000) BDR = Blass, F., Debrunner, A., Rehkopf, F., Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 15th ed. 1979) The Critical Edition of Q (ed. J. M. Robinson; P. Hoffmann, J. S. Kloppenborg; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress/Leuven: Peeters, 2000) LSJ = H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon (rev./ed. H. S. Jones; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940) Moulton, J. H. et al., A Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; 1908–76) Neirynck, F. (ed.), Q-Synopsis: The Double Tradition Passages in Greek (Studiorum Novi Testamenti Auxilia 13; Leuven: University/Peeters, 1988, 2nd ed. 1995) NETS = New English Translation of the Septuagint (ed. A. Pietersma, B. G. Wright; Oxford/ New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/)

3. Other works Allison, D. C., The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985/Studies of the New Testament and Its World; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark,1987) – Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) Altizer, T. J. J. and Hamilton, W., Radical Theology and the Death of God (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966/Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968) Attridge, H. W., Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989) Barrett, C. K., The Epistle to the Romans (Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London: A. & C. Black, 1957, 2nd ed. 1991) – The Gospel According to St John (London: SPCK, 1962) – A Commentary on the the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Black’s New Testament Commentaries; London: A. & C. Black, 1968) Barth, G., Der Tod Jesu Christi im Verständnis des Neuen Testaments (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1992) Barth, K., The Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1933; ET of 2nd ed. 1922)

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– Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1936–77; ET of Zollikon-Zürich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1932–68) Bauckham, R., Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006) Bauer, J. B., ‘Drei Tage’, Bib 39 (1958) 354–8 Baum, A. D., Der mündliche Faktor und seine Bedeutung für die synoptische Frage: Analogien aus der antiken Literatur, der Experimentalpsychologie, der Oral Poetry-Forschung und dem rabbinischen Traditionswesen (TANZ 49; Tübingen: Francke, 2008) Becker, J., Das Evangelium nach Johannes (ÖTK 4/1–2; Gütersloh: Mohn/Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1979, 3rd ed. 1991) – Paulus: Der Apostel der Völker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989) – ‘Die neutestamentliche Rede vom Sühnetod Jesu’, in Die Heilsbedeutung des Kreuzes für Glaube und Hoffnung der Christen (ZTK.B 8; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990) 29–49 – Jesus von Nazaret (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1996) Beker, J. C., Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark/Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980) Berger, K., Die Auferstehung des Propheten und die Erhöhung des Menschensohnes: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Deutung des Geschickes Jesu in frühchristlichen Texten (SUNT 13; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) Bethge, E., Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Contemporary (London: William Collins Sons, 1970; ET of München Christian KaiserVerlag, 1967) Betz, H. D., Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979) – ‘Gemeinschaft des Glaubens und Herrenmahl: Überlegungen zu 1 Kor 11,17–34’, ZTK 98 (2001) 401–21 Bieringer, R., ‘Traditionsgeschichtlicher Ursprung und theologische Bedeutung der ΥΠΕΡ-Aussagen im Neuen Testament’, in The Four Gospels 1992 1 (FS F. Neirynck; ed. F. van Segbroek; BETL 100; Leuven: University Press/Peeters, 1992) 219–48 Bock, D. L., Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus: A Philological-Historical Study of the Key Jewish Themes Impacting Mark 14:61–64 (WUNT 2/106; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) Boff, L., Passion of Christ, Passion of the World: The Facts, Their Interpretation, and Their Meaning Yesterday and Today (Maryknoll NY: Orbis Books, 1987; ET of Rio de Janeiro: Editora Vozes Ltda., 1977) Bonhoeffer, D., Letters and Papers from Prison: The Enlarged Edition (ed. E. Bethge; London: SCM Press, 1953, 3rd ed. 1967; ET of Widerstand und Ergebung: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft [München: Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1970]) Borg, M. J., Jesus, a New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) Bornkamm, G., Jesus of Nazareth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1960; ET of Stuttgart, etc.: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1956) Bouttier, M., En Christ: Étude d’exégése et de théologie paulinniennnes (Études d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 54; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1962) Bovon, F., Das Evangelium nach Lukas (EKKNT 3/1–4; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener/ [vols. 1–3] Zürich: Benziger/[vol. 4] Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1989–2009) Braun, H., An die Hebräer (HNT 14; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984) Breytenbach, C., Versöhnung: Eine Studie zur paulinischen Soteriologie (WMANT 60; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1989)

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Sänger, D., ‘Der gekreuzigte Christus – Gottes Kraft und Weisheit (1 Kor 1,23f)’, in Paulinische Christologie: Exegetische Beiträge (FS H. Hübner; ed. U. Schnelle, T. Söding; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000) 159–77 Schillebeeckx, E., Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (London: Collins, 1979; ET of Bloemendaal: Nelissen, 1974) Schlier, H., Der Brief an die Galater (MeyerK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 5th ed. 1971) Schlosser, J., Jésus de Nazareth (1999; 2nd ed. Paris: Agnès Viénot, 2002) – ‘Der Gott Jesu und die Aufhebung der Grenzen’, in Der Gott Israels im Zeugnis des Neuen Testaments (ed. U. Busse; QD 201; Freiburg, etc.: Herder, 2003) 58–79 Schmid, U., ‘Eklektische Textkonstitution als theologische Rekonstruktion: Zur Heilsbedeutung des Todes Jesu bei Lukas (Lk 22,15–20 und Apg 20,28)’, in The Unity of LukeActs (ed. J. Verheyden; BETL 142; Leuven: University/Peeters, 1999) 577–84 Schmithals, W., Die Gnosis in Korinth: Eine Untersuchung zu den Korintherbriefen (FRLANT 66; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956, 2nd ed. 1965) – Das Evangelium nach Markus (ÖTK 2; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn/ Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1979, 2nd ed. 1986) Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel According to St John (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1990; ET of HTKNT IV.1–3; Freiburg: Herder, 1965–75) – (with O. Knoch, W. Breuning) ‘Ist der Gedanke des Sühnetodes Jesu der einzige Zugang zum Verständnis unserer Erlösung durch Jesus Christus?’, in Kertelge, Tod Jesu, 205–30 Schnelle, U., Antidoketische Christologie im Johannesevangelium: Eine Untersuchung zur Stellung des vierten Evangeliums in der johanneischen Schule (FRLANT 144; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987) – Einleitung in das Neue Testament (UTB 1830: Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994, 3rd ed. 1999) – Das Evangelium nach Johannes (THKNT 4; Leipzig: Theologische Verlagsanstalt, 1998) Schrage, W., ‘Das Verständnis des Todes Jesu Christi im Neuen Testament’, in Das Kreuz Jesu Christi als Grund des Heils (ed. F. Viering; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1967) 49–89 – ‘Röm 3,21–26 und die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu bei Paulus’, in Das Kreuz Jesu (ed. P. Rieger; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969) 65–88 – Der erste Brief an die Korinther (EKKNT 7.1–4; Zürich/Braunschweig|Düsseldorf: Benziger/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991–2001) – ‘Der gekreuzigter und auferweckter Herr: Zur theologia crucis und theologia resurrectionis bei Paulus’, ZTK 94 (1997) 25–38 Schröter, J., Das Abendmahl: Frühchristliche Deutungen und Impulse für die Gegenwart (SBS 210; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2006) – ‘Geschichte im Licht von Tod und Auferweckung Jesu Christi: Anmerkungen zur Diskussion über Erinnerung und Geschichte aus frühchristlicher Perspektive’, BTZ 23 (2006) 3–25 = Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament: Studien zur urchristlichen Theologiegeschichte und zur Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons (WUNT 204; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007) 55 ff. Schunack, G., Der Hebräerbrief (ZB.NT 14; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2002) Schürmann, H., Der Paschamahlbericht Lk 22,(7–14).15–18: I. Teil einer quellenkritischer Untersuchung des lukanischen Abendmahlsberichtes Lk 22,7–38 (NTAbh 19.5; Münster: Aschendorff, 1953)

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Index of Authors (Secondary Literature) Allison, D.  53, 54, 57, 59, 60, 63 Altizer, T./Hamilton, W.  7 Attridge, H.  92 Barrett, C. K.  50, 91, 137, 138, 144, 145, 163 Barth, G.  101, 118 Barth, K.  93, 145 Bauckham, R.  74 Bauer, J.  57 Baum, A.  74 Becker, J.  48, 53, 59, 67, 68, 91, 107, 120, 129, 130, 134, 174 Beker, J.  130, 133, 144, 176 Berger, K.  1, 76 Bethge, E.  94 Betz, H.  71, 79, 80, 82, 126 Bieringer, R.  151 Bock, D.  45 Boff, L.  10, 18, 19, 37, 50, 98 Bonhoeffer, D.  33, 105 Borg, M.  66 Bornkamm, G.  48, 49, 52, 65 Bouttier, M.  157 Bovon, F.  52, 55, 91–93, 187, 190, 192 Breytenbach, C.  117, 120, 124 Brown, R.  59 Brucker, R.  126 Bultmann, R.  2, 30, 31, 49, 58, 60, 91, 92, 97, 113, 155, 174, 178 Buren, P. van  8 Burton, E.  156 Byrne, B.  116, 118, 121, 123 Campbell, D.  120, 122 Campenhausen, H. von  142 Casey, M.  48, 52, 55, 59, 60, 62, 63, 71, 72, 77, 79, 80

Chilton, B.  86 Conzelmann, H.  49, 58, 138, 139 Cranfield, C.  113, 115, 117, 118, 125 Crossan, J.  58 Dahl, N.  111, 169, 174 Dalferth, I.  1, 17 Davis, J.  137 Deichgräber, R.  107 Den Heyer, C.  4, 39, 101, 120, 126 Dillon, J.  99 Dodd, C.  51, 58, 83, 122, 123 Dunn, J.  74, 81, 117, 145 Ehrmann, B.  187, 189, 190, 192, 193 Epp, E.  73 Fee, G.  139 Feldmeier, R.  89–92, 94, 95, 104 Feuillet, A.  136 Fiddes, P.  6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 27–29, 30, 36, 45, 46, 97, 103 Fiedler, P.  64 Fitzer, G.  113, 114, 118, 120 Fitzmyer, J.  52, 118 Frey, J.  1, 40, 63, 108, 151, 174 Friedrich, G.  118, 120–122, 124 Fuller, R.  58 Funk, R.  58 Gese, H.  80, 85, 101 Gnilka, J.  48, 51–53, 55, 57, 62, 75, 76, 79, 92 Goppelt, L.  52, 97 Grant, R.  136 Grässer, E.  92 Gut, T.  97, 98, 101–104

214

Index of Authors

Haacker, K.  113, 121, 118, 122, 145, 174 Haenchen, E.  75, 76, 79 Hahn, F.  16, 70, 71, 75, 76, 80–82, 189, 191 Haldimann, K.  132, 137, 156 Hengel, M.  42, 63, 135, 138 Hengel, M./Schwemer, A.  164 Hick, J.  3, 4, 5, 38, 39 Hodgson, P.  22–25 Hofius, O.  72, 119, 127 Horsley, R.  47, 48 Horsley, R./Draper, J.  74 Houlden, J.  25–30 Hübner, H.  117 Jeremias, J.  54–57, 71, 79, 127, 187, 188–190 Jervell, J.  127 Jewett, R.  114, 116, 120, 145 Johnson, E.  7, 14, 16, 17, 143, 148, 152 Jonge, M. de  77, 79, 161 Jüngel, E.  6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 23, 132, 148, 171 Käsemann, E.  29, 113, 115, 116, 118, 123, 124, 145, 170, 178–181 Kaufman, G.  14 Keck, L.  116, 123 Kee, A.  8, 36–38, 90, 95, 104 Kelber, W.  74 Kelly, W.  143 Kennel, G.  127 Kertelge, K.  151 Kessler, H.  54, 71, 112, 114, 125 Klauck, H.-J.  98, 137, 139 Klein, H.  59, 190 Kloppenburg, J.  73 Koester, H.  141 Kollmann, B.  67 Kraus  114, 122 Kuhn, H.-W.  129, 130 Kümmel, W.  47, 58, 81, 115, 137 Kuss, O.  92, 116, 118 Lampe, G.  8, 15, 20, 21, 97, 149, 150, 163 Landes, G.  55 Lane, W.  92 Lang, F.  137 Laub, F.  92

Lausberg, H.  103 Lietzmann, H.  113 Lindemann, A.  137 Lips, H. von  107, 137, 139, 140 Lohse, E.  45, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 121–123, 125, 144, 145 Lührmann, D.  79 Luz, U.  25, 32, 48, 51, 57, 58, 60, 71, 85, 92–94, 97–102, 105, 129, 134, 145–147 Maier, J.  47, 81 Manson, T.  66 Marcus, J.  25 Marshall, I.  91 Matson, M.  187 McKnight, S.  40, 41, 47, 56, 58, 59, 63, 67, 71, 75, 78, 80, 82, 84, 86, 94 McLean, B.  123 Meier, H.-C.  157 Meier, J.  53, 78, 81 Merklein, H.  76, 137 Metzger, B.  187 Meyer, B.  74 Michel, O.  92, 116 Mitchell, M.  136 Moltmann, J.  X, 1, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 18, 19, 26, 30–32, 40, 41, 93, 97, 98, 104, 181 Montefiore, H.  13, 92 Moo, D.  113, 116, 119, 125 Moule, C.  164 Mussner, F.  156 Neugebauer, F.  156, 158 Niemand, C.  71, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 84 Nietzsche, F.  7 Norris, R.  142 Parker, D.  73, 187, 188, 190 Payne, P.  74 Perrin, N.  54 Pesch, R.  1, 55, 65, 71, 78, 79 Popkes, W.  7 Prümm, K.  135, 138 Radl, W.  187, 188 Räïsänen, H.  131, 175 Rawlison, A.  102 Rebell, W.  141

Index of Authors

Reimarus, H.  104 Reitzenstein, R.  139 Renan, E.  93 Riesner, R.  134 Roloff, J.  48, 62, 63, 120 Rossé, G.  10, 25, 99, 100, 102, 103 Russell, D.  174 Sanders, E.  5, 79, 149, 175 Sänger, D.  129 Schillerbeeckx, E.  76 Schlier, H.  156 Schlosser, J.  67 Schmid, U.  187, 189 Schmithals, W.  89, 136 Schnackenburg, R.  3, 43, 68, 91, 174 Schnelle, U.  54, 67, 91, 174 Schrage, W.  2, 48, 113, 124, 127, 129, 130, 133, 135, 137–139, 141, 174 Schröter, J.  67, 73, 83, 129, 188, 191–192 Schunack, G.  92 Schürmann, H.  49, 63, 72, 77, 79, 85, 87, 188, 191, 192 Schüssler Fiorenza, E.  3 Schweitzer, A.  149, 165 Schweizer, E.  55, 160 Scroggs, R.  136 Sölle, D.  5, 7, 8, 19, 34, 35, 92, 94, 98, 105 Stowers, S.  115, 123 Strange, W.  73 Strauss, D.  101, 103 Strecker, G.  127 Stuhlmacher, P.  114, 121, 144

215

Talbert, C.  113 Theissen, G.  X, 43, 69, 95, 176 Theissen, G./Merz, A.  45, 47, 67, 76, 86 Thrall, M.  151 Thyen, H.  91, 174 Tillich, P.  13 Vielhauer, P.  141 Vögtle, A.  49, 55, 64, 65 Vollenweider, S.  66, 108, 123, 124, 127, 136–139, 140, 146, 147, 181 Vouga, F.  134 Wedderburn, A.  IX, X, 1, 11, 13, 14, 25, 40, 50, 55, 57, 63, 74, 75, 85, 86, 94, 108, 109, 112, 128, 132, 134, 136, 138, 151, 157, 158, 160, 164, 168, 170, 171, 186 Weder, H.  6, 58, 137, 156 Weiss, H.-F.  92, 97 Wengst, K.  63, 107 Wilckens, U.  114–116, 118, 120, 125, 136, 137, 139, 141, 144, 174 Williams, S.  113, 114, 116–119, 152 Wolff, C.  111, 139 Wolter, M.  52, 55, 188 Wright, N.  74 Zeller, D.  115, 118, 123, 142, 143 Ziesler, J.  118, 123 Zumstein, J.  43, 110, 129, 130, 132, 133, 136, 138, 145, 146, 173

Index of Primary Sources 1. Old Testament Genesis 12.3 25.1–2

158 177

Exodus 24.8 32.32

67, 70, 72, 78, 193 90

Numbers 21.21–22

155

Leviticus 16.16, 20 16.17

120 120

Deuteronomy 16.3 21.23 27.26

84 111, 134, 156 156

2 Samuel 18.33

103

1 Kings 19.2, 10

51

2 Kings 2.11

51

2 Chronicles 24.20–22

51

Job 5.13

137

Psalms 6.3

100

13.2 22 22.1 22.7 22.2 22.18 31.5 40.6 41.6 41.7 42.5 44.24–25 51.4 74.1 79.10 80.4 88 94.11 110.1 114.3 115.2 116.8 116.11 118.22–23 140.14

100 49, 103 98 101 12 101 97, 101, 185 113 91 91 91 100 168 100 100 100 104 137 45 92 100 92 146 58 159

Isaiah 9.24 24.14 30.27–28 42.8 42.14 43.2 45.8 46.13 51.5–6, 8 53.3, 12

56 137 59 127 117 59 171 171 171 112

217

Index of Primary Sources

53.10–12 53.11 53.12 64.10–12

62 126 125 117

Jeremiah 22.11–12 26.20–23 29.10 31 31.31 31.33–34

56 51 56 155 67, 70, 72, 78, 100, 193 110

Ezekiel 10 40.39 43.22, 25 44.29 45.17, 22–23, 25 46.20

155 113 113 113 113 113

Daniel 3,27–28 7 7.13 7.25

82 56 45 56

9.2 11.35

56 62

Hosea 6.2 11.1

112 155

Amos 3.1

155

Micah 6.2 6.7 7.6

168 113 60

Habakkuk 2.4

169

Zechariah 12.10 13.7

112 63

Malachi 3.1 4.5

52 52

2. Other Jewish Sources Josephus Bell. 1.97–98, 113 135 Bell. 6.423–24 80 Ant. 13,380–83,   410–11 135 Ant. 15.48 116 142 Vita 10–12

1 Enoch 1.8–9 62.13–14

159 159

1 Esdras 7.8 9.20

113 113

4 Ezra 6.26 14.4

174 174

4 Maccabees 17.20–22 17.21–22

Lives of the Prophets 51 1.1 52 2.1 52 3.1–2

62 122

Mishnah m.Sotah 9.15

Jesus Sirach 32.2

116

Philo of Alexandria Agric. 165, 168 139

60

218 Cher. 154 Congr. 154 Flacc. 15 Mut.nom. 24 Sacr. 7 Sobr. 9 Somn. 2.232–34 Spec.leg. 3.169 Vit.Mos. 1.19 Vit.Mos. 1.163

Index of Primary Sources

139 139 139 139 139 139 139 139 139 55

Qumran 1QH 10.11, 21

53

2 Maccabees 7.32 7.37 7.37–38

62, 63 63 62

3. New Testament Matthew 3.11 3.14–15 3.16 5.11 6.9 6.10b 8.11–12 8.20 10.19–20 10.23 10.28 10.32–36 10.34 10.34–36 10.35–36 10.37–39 10.39 11.10 11.11 11.12–14 11.14 11.16–19 11.20–24 12.40 16.21 16.25–26 17.22–23 17.23 20.19 21.43 22.6 23.34–36 23.37

59 109 59 57 95 95 59 56 57 67 57 57 60 57 60 57 181 52 53 53 52 49 60 55 50 181 54 50 50 58 51 51, 66 57, 66

23.34–36 25.51–53 26.26 26.26–28 26.28 26.29 26.37 26.38 26.39 26.40 26.42 26.44 26.53 26.55 26.56 26.69–75 26.88 27.46 28.19

57 25 191 69, 70 67, 70, 188 70, 77 90 90 90, 95 90 90, 95 90 50, 84, 91, 183 66 102 102 111 12, 97, 102 15

Mark 2.20 2.26 3.6 7.1–13 8.31 8.32–33 8.34–35 8.35–36 9.1 9.12–13 9.13 9.31 10.2–9

57 115 47 48 50, 54, 55 55 57 181 57 52 56 50, 54, 55 48

219

Index of Primary Sources

10.33–34 10.34 10.35–40 10.35–45 10.37 10.38 10.38–39 10.41–45 10.42–44 10.43–44 10.45 10.45b 10.93 12.1–9 12.1–12 12.2–5 12.8 12.9 12.10 12.10–11 13.9, 11–12 13.9–13 13.11 14.1–2 14.7–8 14.12 14.12–13 14.14 14.15 14.16 14.18 14.21 14.22 14.22–24 14.22–25 14.24 14.25 14.27 14.32–42 14.33 14.33–34 14.34–35 14.35 14.36 14.37 14.38

54 50 57 62 62 83, 85 57, 58, 62 61 XI 60 4, 54, 57, 60, 62, 90, 191, 193 60, 64, 71 61 109 49, 57 51 56 58, 108 57 58 57 57 57 79 56 79 80 79 1 79, 80 85 54, 59, 56, 81, 86 56, 70, 85, 189, 191, 192 69.70 60 67, 70, 76, 90, 111, 189, 192 70, 76, 77, 79, 84, 191 57, 63, 101 89 90 92 91 90 45, 56, 90, 92, 183 90 90, 95

15.36 15.37 15.38 15.43 15.47 15.56 16.1

90 54, 55, 90, 91, 93 102 57 52 45 1 101 57, 101 101, 159 25 12, 29, 32, 49, 89, 92, 97, 101, 102 29 49, 97 25 1 80 101 80

Luke 2.35 3.7–9 3.8 4.24 4.25–27 6.22 7.16 7.27 7.39 9.22 9.24–25 9.41b–c 9.44b 11.2 11.4 11.20 11.29 11.31–32 11.37–52 11.49 11.49–51 12.4–5 12.8–9 12.11–12 12.49–50, 59 12.49–53

47 59 67 52 59 57 52 52 52 54 181 55 54 95 94 35 56 59 48 66 51, 57, 60 57 57 57 48, 57, 60 60

14.39 14.41 14.50, 66–72 14.58 14.65 14.62 14.66–68 15.24 15.29 15.32 15.33 15.34

220 12.51–53 13.1–5 13.31–33 13.32–33 13.33 13.34 14.27 14.41 15.5–9 15.11–32 16.16 17.22–37 17.25 17.26–30 17.33 18.32–33 19.27, 28 19.44 22.3 22.15 22.15–19a 22.15–20 22.15–38 22.16 22.17 22.18 22.19 22.19–20 22.19b–20 22.20 22.21–23 22.24–27 22.26 22.28–30 22.35–38 22.31–34 22.39–46 22.42 22.43 22.43–44 22.53 22.43–94 23.28–29 23.31 23.46 23.49 24.11 24.19

Index of Primary Sources

57 60 52, 60 57 51, 52, 56 51, 57 57 92 86 180 52, 53 60 2 59 57, 181 54 54 54 136 78, 79 78 69, 70, 191 192 78 70, 77 77, 78, 191 70 190, 192 191 67, 70, 188 192 61, 192 61 192 57 192 192 95 93 91, 92 136 92 59, 63 57 97, 101 80 1 52

25.7 25.15–20 25.17–20 25.18–20 25.29 25.42, 46

2 189 187 188 2 185

John 1.29 1.35–42 2.19, 21 3.14 3.22 3.26 4 4.1 4.2 5.20 5.24–25 5.25 5.27b–29 5.28 5.28–29 5.29 6.3 6.32 6,51c 6.51–58 6.63 10.18 10.30 11.7–16 12.23 12.25 12.27–28 12.34 13 13.1–20 13.2, 27 13.27 14.16 14.25 14.30 15.26 16.16 16.32 17 17.5

82 47 57 2 109 109 68 109 109 174 173 174 174 174 173 174 69 68 68, 82 68 68 50, 91 34, 35 47 91 181 91 2 91 61, 68 136 91 15 80 91, 136 15 56 97 91 35

Index of Primary Sources

18.1 18.11 19.30 19.36 20.25 20.21–24 20.23 21.3

91 91 97 82 1 1 15 1

Acts 2.24–27 3.22 4.11 6.1 7.37 10.36–38 15 17.2 17.16–32 17.28

86 52 58 64 52 72 86 2 141 141

Romans 1.3–4 1.13 1.16 1.16b–17 1.17 1.18 1.18–32 1.22 1.24, 26, 28 2.3 2.4 2.5–6 2.8–9 2.13 2.16 3.1–8 3.4 3.5 3.20 3.20–21 3.21 3.23–24 3.24 3.24–26 3.25 3.25–26

107, 126 114, 115 172 169 170–172 169, 171 118, 137 137 171 169 115, 116 169 169 168 169 171 146, 168 170, 172 168 175 169, 170, 172 175 113, 172, 175 125, 185 107, 113, 114 116–118, 172

3.26 3.26a 4.6–8 4.7 4.12 4.16 4.17 4.19 4.24 4.25 5.1 5.2 5.3–4 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.6–10 5.8 5.9 5.12–21 5.17 5.18 6.1 6.1–7.6 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.10 6.10–11 6.11 6.11, 13 6.14, 15 6.15 6.16 6.18 6.18–19 6.23 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.9a 8.9b 8.9–11 8.10–11 8.11 8.13 8.15

221 130 113–115 177 172 162 162 133, 176, 179 176 111, 125, 176 112, 125, 126, 176, 178, 186 172, 173, 176, 185 176 29 125 29, 180 113, 130 29, 111, 178 112 123, 172, 173, 185 153, 175 171 178 167, 170 167 160, 173, 177, 180, 181 154 132, 133 154 177 155, 177 173 111 167, 170 171 171 179 158 173 162 123, 153 163 163 15 173 111, 125 155 45, 176, 179

222

Index of Primary Sources

8.22 8.23 8.24 8.32 8.26 8.28 8.29–30 8.32 8.33 8.34 9.1 9.3 9.5 9.11 10.3 10.6 10.9 10.10 11.16 12.4–5 12.5 13.14 14.5 14.9 14.14 15.2–3

14 153, 176 173 125 14 114, 115 173 112 169 109, 163, 169 158 90 144 114, 115 179 179 111 171, 172 153 157 162 154 113 111 158 165

1 Corinthians 1.1 1.2 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.13 1.17 1.17, 18 1.18 1.18–20 1.18–25 1.19, 32 1.20–22 1.21 1.22 1.22, 24, 26, 28 1.23 1.26–29 1.30 2.1

139 162 162 162 138 112 140 137 130, 179 VIII 43 111 9 137 140 137 135, 138 138 138, 140 138

2.1–16 2.2 2.3–5 2.4 2.6–8 2.6–16 2.7 2.12, 15 2.13 2.14–15 3.10–15 3.13–17 3.14–20 3.19 4.9 5.7 5.11 6.11 6.14 6.15, 20 6.18 8.11 9.9–10 9.16 10.1–9 10.1–13 10.2 10.7, 11 10.16 10.16–17 11.23 11.23–26 11.24 11.24–25 11.25 14.21 15.1–7 15.2 15.3 15.11 15.12, 15, 20 15.20 15.20–22 15.22 15.32 15.44 15.45, 54 15.45, 47

139 134 138 135, 147 140 136 138 12 138 147 174 169 137 111 152 80–82 135 172, 173, 185 111, 125 125 114 111, 112, 130, 140 111 179 159 140, 167 159 111 70, 76, 188 192 72, 79 107, 110 112, 188 69, 70, 190 67, 70, 78 111 107, 110, 111 111 111, 112, 125, 126 138 111 153 153 158, 162 182 154 111 177

223

Index of Primary Sources

15.45–49 15.50 15.58 2 Corinthians 1.22 3.9 4.10–11 4.12 4.14 5.5 5.10, 11 5.21 5.14 5.14–15 5.14–20 5.15 5.17 5.19 5.21 6.9 8.9 13.13 Galatians 1.1 1.4 1–2 2.1–10 2.4 2.14–20 2.17 2.19 2.20 2.21 3.1 3.8 3.9 3.10 3.13 3.14 3.28 4.4 4.6 5.11

153 154 158 176 179 152, 181 152 111, 125 176 152 22, 99, 124, 125, 132 29, 126, 151, 155, 161, 177 111, 112 165 113, 151, 152 177 162 130, 151 181 165 15 111, 125 112, 125, 126 86 134 162 133 162 134, 159–161 112, 125, 179 117, 171, 178 115 156, 158, 162 158, 162 156 99, 111, 112, 124, 125, 130, 131, 134, 138, 156, 177 135 162 163 45, 176 137

5.24 6.14 6.14–15 6.15 6.17

133 134, 135, 146 133 177 152

Philippians 2.4 2.5–8 2.5–11 2.6 2.6–11 2.7 2.8 2.9–11 3.4 3.10 3.14 4.4 4.7 4.13 4.14

144 165 107 125 106, 126, 185 153 98, 126, 128, 132 144 128, 170 128 162 153 162 162 162

Colossians 1.15, 18b 1.15–17 1.28 3.11

125 25 139 25

1 Thessalonians 1.10 4.14 4.14–17 4.17 5.9 5.10

111, 125 111 159 174 111 111–113

1 Timothy 2.6 3.16

60 125

Hebrews 1.3 2.9 3.1–2 4.5 5.1–4 5.2–3

125, 126 97 163 120 163 163

224

Index of Primary Sources

5.7–8 7.26 7.28 9.5 10.6, 8 10.18, 26 11.19 12.2 13.11

92, 106 124 163 114 113 113 177 126 113

1 Peter 1.14

124

2.7 2.21–25 3.18 3.18–22

58 128 113 128

1 John 1.7 3.2

68 11

Revelation 11.9, 11

56

4. Other Graeco-Roman Literature and Sources Appian Reg. Frg. 13

116

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom 2.35.4 116 Plato Resp. 362A Tim. 36BC

Plutarch Mor. 119F Mor. 680D

139 139

Tacitus Ann. 15.49

40

144 143

5. Other Early Christian Literature 1 Clement 18.12 19.3 20.1–11 47.1–4

141 141 141 141

Ambrose of Milan Exp. Luc. X 56 93 Exp. Luc. X 59 93 Augustine Trin. 7.4.7

144

Athanasius Ep.Epict. 16

6

Didache 9.1–4 9.2–3 9.4 9–18

188 70 69, 193 69

Gospel according to the Hebrews 80 § 7 Gospel of Thomas 60 § 10 58 § 65–66 § 79 59 Irenaeus Haer 1.26.1

98

225

Index of Primary Sources

Justin 76 Apol. 1.66.3 Apol. 13.4 143 Dialogue with   Trypho 2.3–6 142 Polycarp Mart. Pol. 14

94

Tatian Ad Gr. 1.3 Ad Gr. 26.2

142 142

Tertullian Apol. 46–50 Marc. 2.27 Praescr. 7

142 6 142

6. Later Christian Literature Calvin Institution 2.16.11  100

Luther WA 1,614, 17 6 WA 39 II 93–95 6

Index of Subjects Atonement  65, 105, 108, 118, 119–123 Augustine  144 Baptism  109, 160–161 Baptist, John the  52–53, 109 Bonhoeffer  105 Calvin  100 Christology  139–140 Corporate personality  155, 161 Cross  129.133.146–147 Death  40–41 Expiation  119, 120, 122 Hypostasis  142 Jerusalem  48 Josephus  135 Judgment  168–169, 172–176 Justin Martyr  142 Kapporeth  120–121 Last meal  106 Lord’s Supper  69–71 Luther  6, 103, 144 Middle Platonism  142

Nietzsche  148 Offering of the first fruits  153 Plato  143 Plotinus  143 Porphyry  143 Prophets  51 Propitiation  119, 120, 122 Reconciliation  119–120 Representation  161–163 Sacrificial cult  117.123 Satisfaction  3, 119 Spirit  19–20 Stoicism  141 Surrogate  152 Tatian  142 Tertullian  142 Theology of the cross  129–134 Theologia gloriae  6 Trinity  15–17 Wisdom  135–140 Word of God  131